Global star Rihanna, from Barbados, known locally to her friends as Robyn (Rihanna) Fenty has just won her first Grammy® award and she’s not even 20 yet. She’s been a star for just three years and has travelled the world and won numerous awards for her music.
How long will her career last? It’s impossible to know, so how goes the girl plan her finances for the rest of her life and then after that? She can’t, of course, but she can plan stage by stage. At the moment she’s probably earning lots of money and her hits should bring her in residual payments for many years. Roy Wood has lived on his ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ 1974 hit for the past twenty years – it’s his pension. Rihanna doesn’t know if she’s going to be a star in six years let alone six months; that’s the nature of the business.
We talked previously of Freddie Garrity of Freddie and The Dreamers fame in a blog post. He left less then £250,000 (and no inheritance tax worries) in his will and he’d been in the business for over 40 years. The money wasn’t as good when Freddie was a star. Rihanna hasn’t even reached the wife/children roles yet so I don’t suppose a Will has crossed her mind, but it should. You never know when something could happen. We hope at the very least she’s got her power of attorney sorted out should she be unable to make her own decisions. She has a lot of money to look after and someone needs to do that if she can’t.
Professional footballers fall into a similar category. They earn large sums of money for a short period of time. Some are here and gone in a few years while others play professionally from 16 to 36. Still, earning for 20 years will need careful planning to stretch it out to last 80 years. Footballers from 20 years ago were happy with £400 a week. How things change.
The point being made here is you don’t know what’s around the corner. It could be great, it could be good; it could be bad. We don’t know. How we plan our lives guides how we are as people. Those in the know plan for each stage of their lives and for the future years. They then review and adjust as necessary.
Whether Rihanna will be able to linger on with just her ‘Umbrella’ sales or whether she becomes a true megastar like The Beatles or Elton John; David Beckham or George Best, only time will tell. We hope her planning is excellent, but it shouldn’t be taken for granted.
We do wish Rihanna a long a happy life.
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