How Do I Start Saving or Investing?

There are 4 critical factors to any financial decision that we often don’t take into consideration and these are:

●What you own (Savings)

●What you owe (Borrowing)

●What you earn (income /earnings)

●What you expense (spending).

In the midst of so much turmoil and uncertainties, some people will still save and make money while some of us bemoan about the economy.

Money will never be enough, so also needs would never stop but how do we balance our earnings and expenses?

Can we look at these questions?

1). How many of us have personal savings of between N250k - N1mm as a consolidated amount in different accounts?

2).If married and with kids, how much do you intentionally put in these accounts?

3). Is there an emergency account that is there to weather any unexpected twists in life?

4). Aside savings, do we have other form of investments (stock, mutual funds, earnings from rentals etc)

5). Do you have any passion that you have monetized or considered monetizing?

6). Have you ever gotten any “awoof” (13th month, profit sharing, bonus) money? What did you do with these?

Key Consideration to financial Prudence:

👉🏽Determination is key to savings.

👉🏽Setting a purpose for any financial goal is what can motivate one to go all out.

👉🏽Starting with as little as 5% of your salary is a progressive step for non-savers.

👉🏽Earnings from rent, deposit investments or dividend can be compounded and re-invested.

👉🏽Adopting an envelop method of putting all you need as cash to cover your monthly expenses after salary payments.

👉🏽Setting up account in banks far away from
your office location and not adopting internet/online banking with easy access.

👉🏽Setting up Standing Instructions or automated transfers to another account.

👉🏽Setting up Trust accounts for children’s education.

👉🏽Meet with your pension managers and increase your monthly contributions or do voluntary contributions quarterly.

👉🏽Having an accountability partner is also useful as you hold each other accountable.