Many people find themselves in financial situations they don’t seem to find a way out of. They know they ought to save and invest, but are not able to figure a way out. Things are so tight for them that saving and investing on top of that seems like trying to make bricks without straw, so to speak. It does not just add up.

On the surface, it does not make much sense. It is quite a logical standpoint. However, when you have a lack mentality, what you can see is limited. Resources are finite and insufficient while needs are unlimited. The boundaries of your resources are well defined. What you can do and when you can do is limited to these resources. For most people, this finite resource is their primary source of income. For the employee, this is her salary. The almighty salary defines how much money comes in and when. It determines which neighbourhood you live, which car you drive or schools you can send your children to, what clothes you wear, where you go for vacation (if at all) and how high you can rise in life. Your life is wrapped around your job since your salary is your primary or only resource. You don’t have to really use your brain or task your ingenuity to bring in this resource. All you need to do is to show up at work every day and do just enough to avoid being fired. Many jobs are set up in such a way that it is idiot proof. You don’t have to think –just follow the procedure. Consequently, you can leave your mind at home and go through the process at work on auto pilot.

Between wealth and riches

Wealth and riches are often used interchangeably. By dictionary definition, both have something to do with having plenty money. However, there is a subtle difference, which is foundational. Wealth has to do with resourcefulness, while riches have to do with having money. When you are resourceful, you can create your circumstances rather than reacting to what life throws at you. You can use what you already have to make money, rather than wait for what you don’t have to show up. You will hardly come across a ‘get-wealthy-quick’ scheme while ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes are all over the place. You cannot get wealthy quick. Wealth or resourcefulness is an inside job.

Herein lies the main problem with working for money – you can get richer without getting wealthier. You are trying to become rich by working for a wealthy person, rather than learn how to become wealthy. You are looking for fish rather than learning how to fish. Most employees when they retire, ‘levels’ changes downwards.

A wealthy person is not rich because he has money. He is rich because he knows how to make money. If you take all his money away and banish him to Siberia, he will make his money back again, maybe more.

Necessity is the mother of invention

You cannot become rich by saving and investing from your meagre salary only. You have to be resourceful. Webster’s online dictionary defines resourceful as “able to deal well with new or difficult situations and to find solutions to problems”. You have to use what you have to get what you need, legally. I keep getting asked how one can save with a salary that is below living wage. There is no one answer fits all. It depends on many factors, the most important is resourcefulness. It is resourcefulness that will make you aware of what you do have. Most people I know understand English language, can count money, have things they are good at, and have a lot of stuff lying idle at home which can be put to use, including plots of land in the village. This is more than enough to make a lot of money from, if they are resourceful.

Ideas are free, and new ideas are coming up every day. There are so many home-based businesses. You can run a bakery or restaurant from home; make money from your idle vehicles; run a logistics company from home; lease your oversize freezer, oven, empty garage; make money from your empty plot of land, etc. The opportunities are limitless. I remember sitting with a friend in a restaurant, overlooking a massive company car park on a working day. We shook our heads as we gazed at rows upon rows of top-of-the-range automobiles gleaming in the mid-day sun. These cars were left idle from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., being washed and waxed when they could be making money, while the owners were indoors working. Many have homes left idle for weeks and months which could have been making money, if they need to, while they are away.

The challenge is, rather than think and innovate, we badmouth the rich (instead of learning from them), waste our time (lives) on social media, TV and aimless socialising and give excuses rather than take responsibility for where we are. We keep thinking at the frequency that got us into the current situation. You cannot solve your problem using the same thought pattern that created it. You need to step up.

We keep assuming that the way we are used doing something is the only way or the best way to go about it. We never stop to query our assumptions or seek a better way. We move with people who think like us and we oppose those with different ideas; so we end up with the same old inputs, thought patterns and old results.

Your low income is not an excuse to stop saving before spending. Your low income is a clarion call for you to rise up to the occasion; hold onto your dreams, put on your resourcefulness cap (including inspiration from above) and make a way out of your current situation. It is a call to generate income from other sources you hitherto overlooked. Where there is a will, there is a way. The issue is not how difficult the situation is, but how resourceful you are to figure a way out.

Hmmm..