At work today some group of workers were sharing rice,tin tomatoes,oil etc procured from the money contributed since january. I reflected, since i started working ive always refused to join such.I think i may join next year.Have you joined before, is it cost effective?

Though many people partake in this, it's not advisable, my reasons are

1). The risk is some how high, what if the person you contribute the money to dies or is laid off? What would happen to your contribution.

2). How about the person eloping with all your contribution ( I have seen this happen) what happens to your money?

3). Economical it's not advisable because the money you are contributing is not waged against inflation which is currently at 8% that means the value of money you contributed in January will depreciate by Dec when you will be collecting it.

4). How about limitations to your contribution, what I mean is you may be contributing 10k per month and suddenly your income increases and you would want to also increase your contribution, but you can't because the contribution is limited

5). Easy of collection, assuming you have an emergency, let's say it's a life threatening issue and you need your cash, how possible is it to get back your cash in full without issues? B4 the maturity date

Instead of doing joint contribution, why not approach financial institution most of them have exciting saving scheme, that guarantees your principal at all times and the still pay you interest, the interest the offer may be dependent on how much you wish to contribute, another exciting thing about this is that most of them have standing order instructions where by the money moves automatically every month from your account to your contribution account making it easer for you to contribute. The easy of liquidation is also another advantage because in most cases it takes less than 24hours to get your money back if it matures or you have urgent need for it.

ok, above is quite analytical. Ive also noticed some small variations in the issue, like some will save mainly to buy say a cow around that time and share it. Sometimes a friend involved will give his other friends but at the sametime nearly 'scolding' them for not joining- he he he it happened to me

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