₦airaland Forum

I have heard of Commodities, Trinkets, Artifacts,real estate, precious stones and many other such like places but they all have their drawbacks. Any safer places?

We certainly have not heard the last on this highly controversial N5000 note.

If you want to succeed, you must study and emulate those who have been there before you. Dangote is a locally made 100% Nigerian business success. When he talks, people listen because he made it where many others believe the situation is hopeless. He has proved otherwise. What ever pecks from government he must have garnered up along the way are okay. He has not disappointed in business expansion and employment generation. We need more people like him in these dire times instead of all these noise-making and divisive lazy people fighting over crude oil that will soon dry up anyway.

I have warehoused plenty of information on Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa and i want to market Nigeria as a brand. There is even a website running on it. Any Ideas?

Mr Branson may have had issues with doing business in Nigeria but he is certainly too-polished to make such wild allegations publicly. What he is alleging must have been well known to him before he decided to come to Nigeria in the first place. All he needed to get over the said bottlenecks are Nigerian partners who know the terrain very well. Better luck nest time.

Budget stretching is inevitably everyone’s concern these days. Saving costs therefore particularly on essential and regular expenses is a smart thing to do particularly in these hard times. You can save plenty of money on your car maintenance expenses if you take very simple car maintenance steps. That aside, it is good to think safety all the time even while lowering costs.Ensure that:
01. Your car is road-worthy.
02. You tune the car up regularly.
03. You change oil and oil filter as due.
04. You change engine air filter once a month.
05. You check hydraulic fluids regularly.
06. You use only recommended tyre size.
07. The tyres are balanced and gauged correctly.
Doing all these regularly will ensure that your maintenance costs are kept low while you motor safely and happily.

Source: http://www.sdymanagers.com/apps/blog/

One million is plenty of money for a small scale business. Consider making school chalk or ice blocks for sale. The money can buy the equipments and materials. For space, you need very little space. Any space that can accommodate a big deep freezer is enough for ice blocks machine. All the best.

The plight of Nigerian pensioners is pathetic. We invite ideas and suggestions on the way forward in the administration of pensions in Nigeria. The old system has been severely maligned. The new system is experiencing hiccups. What is the best way forward now?

A look around these days shows that poverty is rising worldwide. While many people see the situation as lacking in money and resources only, i see it as lacking in the use of our brains more productively. Money is not scarce and will never be scarce. It is only ideas that are scarce that is why people are becoming poorer. The only help people need and should get from government is not charity but assistance to put their ideas to good use. That to me is the most viable way to check poverty. We all need to think more!!!

I own a car. I guess you own a car too. Millions of people all over the world own and drive cars. Some cars are sleek, beautiful and expensive. Some are beat-up, ugly and cheap but they all take us from one place to another. Since they are utility assets and very handy to us in the performance of our daily chores, it is imperative that our cars are kept in a good state of repairs and maintenance at all times. Many of us earn limited incomes so we must stretch our budgets to the limits. For tips see, www.sdymanagers.com/apps/blog/ because there are very many little things you can do to save money on your car maintenance. Some of these things are very simple but they must be done in a routine to make them effective. At the end of the year, little savings here and there usually amount to much.

Since many of us work to earn a living, we tend to rush to work daily without sparing a thought for the dangers. Workplace accidents are real and on the increase. Injuries and even fatalities arising from such accidents exert enormous costs on individuals, their firms and even the government. Since these accidents no matter the legislation in place can not be totally eliminated, it is better to minimize them. This can be done through individual worker precautions. For tips see, www.sdymanagers.com/apps/blog/

In spirit and form, Usain Bolt currently has no rival anywhere in the world. Ask Tyson Gay, one of the very best sprinters in the USA today.

They are at it again. Professional lobbyists in tow with comically attired traditional rulers and other so-called opinion leaders are at it again lobbying the National Assembly for more states. Typically Nigerian, no one spares a thought now about the state of affairs of the states that already exist. As at last count, we were told that it is only Lagos state and Kano state that have some semblance of financial viability. These two only out of 36 states plus Federal Capital Territory. The time to speak up is now. Find listed below some of the reasons I believe many of the states are not financially viable.
1. Unbridled corruption in all the governments and their agencies.
2. Over bloated work force, both political and civil.
3. Poor internal revenue generation
4. Over dependence on oil money "sharing".
5. Poorly educated and financially unintelligent Governors.
6. Stifling economic reasons with political reasons.
7. Vision less leadership in many of the states.

I invite people to suggest other reasons I may have left out here.

"Success is a science. If you have the conditions, you get the results." Oscar Wilde

Follow the rules; just follow the rules, that is all it takes to make money. It sounds so simple yet many people, in fact an overwhelming majority of people finds it difficult to follow the rules, that is largely why they remain poor. Anybody can make money and that includes you my friend. We all have equal rights to this commodity called money yet many of us never take conscious steps to claim our rights. There is no doubt you know that money is inert, inanimate and without conscience. It neither has friends nor enemies. It does not care whether, you are black, white, young, old, male or female. That makes it gender, race and colour-blind. Money has no eyes, ears or even sense. It does not discriminate. It gets attracted only to those who know the rules and follow them diligently. These are the ones who get to make money and become rich. These are the ones less discerning minds amongst us usually refer to as the “lucky” few because they always stand out by the way they live and generally carry on in life. My friend, if you too follow the rules, you can make money and become wealthy too. Luck has little or nothing to do with that. That is how it plays out always without fail. I always say that money is not scarce. There is enough for everyone who resolves to do those things that will attract money to him or her. It is only ideas that are scarce that is why many people remain poor. Yet these are the same people who blame any and everybody except themselves for their plight.
I hope the young man who called me from Warri the other day is reading this. He in part inspired today’s piece because he complained of making no money still is spite of having tried his hands on many trades after graduation. He should know that kidnapping which he is contemplating is outside the rules because it is criminal. The rules of wealth have no room for crime in any form, be it kidnapping, stealing, cheating, and obtaining money by false pretence a. k. a. 419. These other methods may provide money for you but as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, they will lead you to ruin. It is so and will remain so because such methods do not follow the rules. They by their very nature circumvent the rules. That is why they always willy-nilly end up in ruin. Take a trip to our police stations, court houses and jails, you will get the import of the picture I am trying to paint here. In these places, you are bound to see young and brilliant chaps pining away because they chose to use their youth and intelligence negatively. These are people who deliberately chose to circumvent the rules and they ended up paying a heavy price. What a pity!
Wealthy people tend to do those things poor people are either too lazy to do or do not like to do. In the quest for money, wealthy people do not do different things from the rest of us. They only do things differently. That is the key. They tend to understand and do those things the rest of us never get to do. Their mindsets and behavioural patterns tend to be the same and they tend to favour wealth creation always. Thus if you want to be wealthy, you should do only those things wealthy people like to do to make money and these are no secrets. We all see them at work daily striving and getting richer. You must be able to find out what people do to make money legitimately then do similar things too as much as your passion allows. Find out how they keep their money, how they save it, how they invest it, how they enjoy it, how they hang on to it, and how they give part of it away to charity. You can find out most of these things by mere observations and from reading books, journals, newspapers and magazines. Information is all out there for anyone who cares. The Internet is one gold mine of information about money making and on any subject under the sun yet many people still wonder in this age and time how people get to make money. There are no secrets in money making methods and anyone can emulate any other person and follow these rules at will. Such people will without fail reap the benefits at the end of the day. All that is required is the patience, the diligence and the discipline to follow the rules. This is what makes the difference. It may take a while, some little while, but it never fails to deliver. Just get off your butt and do something now, your own money is waiting to be invited to come in.

Taking a loan, using a loan for the purpose it was meant and repaying the loan as and when due means to a banker something different from what it means to Nigerian politicians. We will hear of probes and counter probes when this huge sum is due for repayment. Anything short of that will not be in their character.

The law regulating pensions in Nigeria is very strict and restrictive. A lot of workers were led into it in ignorance which incidentally can not be an excuse now. Many people if they bothered to read the law would have had a second thought but unfortunately many did not and they are now stuck. Take the advice of your pension managers. That is what is best for you.

"The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to make money nor to find much fun in life." Charles Schwab

Let me repeat what I have always taken time to tell anyone who cares to listen. Those who work for money rarely if ever make money but those who set out to render a service first before expecting to make money end up making money. The reason is simple. Money is earned and not just received. You receive money only as a gift. Money is what you get for what you do or have done and it is in most cases directly proportional. There is no doubt many of us work because we do need money but some people allow that to show through all their actions. That is wrong. What is wrong with that is that if other people realize that all you work for is money, that gives them power over you. The power is yours when you work as if monetary consideration is secondary in your own scheme of priorities. This way you do not only earn more respect in your chosen field, you have the power to name your price and terms at any given point in time. You can call anyone’s bluff if and when ever it comes to that. If work means fun to you, you do it without pains and you enjoy what you do. Money is made more from what you enjoy doing than what you hate to do but you do it because you need the money.
If you do not love and enjoy what you are doing for a living, work becomes a mere drudgery and your productivity in most cases is severely limited. The quality of your work is also severely limited. In some cases you could find yourself irritable, disagreeable and a general impediment to the working environment itself. This is brought on mostly by the way people start to treat you when they find out that you work only for money. Remember, the ranks of the poor are heavily populated by those who do not like work and they are always in the majority. They treat every opportunity to earn some money as if their entire lives depended on getting that money. That to my mind is desperation and desperation is not the best way to earn money. This is because when you are desperate, your options are severely limited and you settle for anything that comes your way. There is absolutely no way you can make money and get rich through desperation.
Working only for money is a poverty mind-set. Most wealthy people work because they want to work. They are completely in control of their schedules and they choose what they do, how they do it and when they do it. This is what gives them the power and the latitude to continue to make more money as they wish. They love and enjoy what they do and some even make money as if they are playing a game which they passionately enjoy. This is why many of them usually look powerful and confident. The rich see money as a means to an end whereas the poor see money as an end in itself. This difference in perception is what usually widens the gap between both groups and in many climes, that gap keeps widening by the day. Could a bit of change in this perception help somewhat in closing this gap? Only time will tell but it is worth giving a good thought to all the same.
On a final note, I will like to state clearly that those who work for money are mostly employees whereas those who make money work for them are their employers. It is these employers that control the bulk of the resources of this planet and there lies power, real economic power that is. My friend, if you want to make money, aim first to be able to sell either yourself, your time, your talents, your skills or your abilities. If you do this and do it well to the satisfaction and admiration of others, they will patronize you and money will begin to flow into your coffers as a consequence. This is the best and surest way to make money. If what you are offering is unique and unassailable, the world patronizes you on your own terms, price inclusive. Then money, real good money starts to flow into your coffers the way a magnet attracts iron filings. Anyone can make money and that includes you my friend. All you need to do is to change your perception about money then follow the rules. Everything else flows from there.

Lets not get carried away by sentiments. The crime is very serious and it should be so treated