Let’s allow our President and his economic team worry about the macroeconomics, it is really not our business. Our problem is microeconomics. We don’t have control over the price of crude oil, nor do we have control over the value of the American Dollar. We can’t control the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria nor Nigeria (yes, the Boko Haram issue is a war). It is the job of our economic team to manage our exchange rate, our price indices, unemployment rate, inflation rate and interest rate and so on. Our own business is microeconomics, that is, how we manage our personal income.

But before we have an income to manage, we must work to earn. Whether as an entrepreneur, a businessman, or an employee (who is also in her own right an entrepreneur because she is selling her skill-set to her employer), we must provide a service and/or sell a product to earn. When we earn these monies, what we do with them is our prerogative. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t spend our money conscientiously.

Money is an instrument of transaction. It has no value in itself but it derives value from what we do with it, and that is why we must spend it with scruples. I am aware of the unprecedented materialism that has taken over the world now and I am also aware of the attendant pressure it is putting on everyone – after all, we are human beings. Again, it is our sole right to spend our money the way we so want to, but we can choose to use it for useful things instead frivolous ones. However, the choice is ours. There is need for us to always differentiate between our needs and wants. A need is a necessity while a want is mostly an indulgence, literally.

Unfortunately, the problem of mismanagement of resources if not only at the individual level, our government is also a waster of resources. Our governments, at all levels, waste everything and anything; time, material and human resources. Therefore, ours is a society of wastage. But that is a discussion for another day. Let’s discuss you and me. The Nigerian Middle-Class. I am a member of this class. As such there is the likelihood that most of what I will be writing about is applicable to me; so, it is not an attack on anyone.

I am happy that since the return of democracy in Nigeria in 1999, there is this seeming renaissance of the middle class albeit very little in ratio, when their number is ratioed by our overall population. Most of which is borne out of the fact that quite a good number (not all nor most) of graduates now earn decent salaries (in my definition, and in the Nigerian context, I would say somewhere around NGN 300,000 and above). This could be linked to various economic reforms and programmes; Bank Recapitalisation and Consolidation, Nigerian Content in the Oil & Gas Sector, and the likes.

On the other hand, the seamless flow of information, or let me say globilisation, has changed our attitude towards life because the world is now some clicks away with the help of technology. As a result, we are now inundated with the news of “new trends” across the globe, whether or not they suit us, that doesn’t matter, we just jump on the bandwagon. Truly, our way is to copy, mostly, the bad things the world has gotten to offer. And if we mix these trends with our natural “Nigerian ego,” what we get is catastrophic. We are becoming unnecessarily obsessed with consumerism and superficialism. If our obsession was in science and technology, or in business and enterprise, it would be better.

People, don’t get mad at me, I am not here to “yab” us. Have we not seen people around us competing with others on frivolous things? How many people around us have plunged themselves in huge trouble all because they want to “keep up with the Joneses”? We have so much tied our worth to how much material things the next guy can see us possess.

My brother is driving a BMW X6, I must at least drive an X5 (forgetting that the guy earns more than me and that he has even put like 20 years into his career). We break the bank to get a new 62” TV because our neighbour just got one, while there is nothing wrong with our 42” TV, which we hardly put on anyway. We must buy every new gadget in town – oh, we need the new iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Samsung Galaxy Tab and so on (all together at once despite that they have the same functionalities) – which we don’t really use, at most, we watch movies and listen to music on them and that’s it.

Another new “craze” is our obsession with foreign vacation. For those that can afford it as a way of life, it is no issue. However, for we that cannot and are forcing ourselves to do it, it is a very big issue. Most of the rich folks we want to copy go on these trips, mostly for business purposes and not leisure. Even if leisure, they sure can afford it. It is good to travel abroad to see what life looks like on the other side, but we don’t have to force ourselves to do it. It should come naturally and affordably.

If we must have a vacation, who says we can’t have a decent and affordable one within Nigeria, or in Ghana or Benin Republic, at a cheaper rate? There have been Obudu Cattle Ranch, Olumo Rock in Ogun State, and Tinapa for some years now and I heard they are good destinations, and now we have Ikogosi Warm Spring Resort in Ekiti State. We can even go to our villages to enjoy and appreciate the serenity there. I am also certain Ghana and other African countries have beautiful tourists’ destinations whose cost won’t poke a hole in our pockets.

If you can afford the foreign trips, it is fine, but if you can’t you would only be hurting yourself on such vacation because for most part of it, you’d be thinking about how you would refund your creditor(s) if you had borrowed the money you spent on such trip. We travel to Kenya for vacation and return back to Naija to gist people how our “vacation to Dubai” was and how “beautiful Dubai is”, whereas, there is nothing wrong in travelling to Kenya for a deserved-vacation, if that is what one could afford. It is definitely not a crime to enjoy ourselves and slightly indulge in those little fantasies, perhaps to see what they feel like, but there must be a limit to it. Besides, we must do it with sense and only when we can truly afford them. My point is that we need to quit this fake life.

We can all get over our fantasies only if we would be pragmatic. We have to put value on our earnings and discharge them scrupulously. A proper cost-benefit analysis has to be done before dipping our hands into our wallets. Anyone who spends what he hasn’t earned is either spending a borrowed money or a stolen money, no one can give what he doesn’t have. What are the forgone alternatives of this spending? Who benefits what from the spending? Could we have gotten better value for money by deploring the money on something else? What if we delay our decision on a particular spending to give us time for proper analysis of the benefit of such spending? Because most often than not, we suffer “buyer’s remorse” because we buy what we don’t actually need or paid higher than what they are really worth for we rushed into making decision to buy.

Life will be more beautiful and healthier for us without the unnecessary financial pressure we put on ourselves.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON: https://jidezubair./2014/11/24/dont-worry-about-macroeconomics-the-real-problem-is-microeconomics/

DATE: 11/24/2014