₦airaland Forum

Hey my people, welcome back from the long sallah break and I hope you’re ready to continue the grind as you know the hustle never stops. During the break, I had time for Big Brother Naija (BBNaija) as I was following the highlights back to back (Local woman needed to unwind and some entertainment was needed). If you are a fan of the show and you were not able to follow up, here are some highlights: Tacha, Ike and Joe were issued strikes for breaking Big Brother’s rules. Also, members of Icons team are up for eviction this week as they lost to Crusetopia team during the nomination challenge. Diane (due to the fact that she has veto power) saved Sir Dee and put Joe up for eviction (I don’t want to be in Joe’s shoes right now).

On A More Serious Note
Well, from a high level perspective, I am amazed at how the show has evolved over the last three (3) seasons and how the producers have continued to deliver amazing content which keeps viewers invested in the show without realizing that they spend a lot of time and money. More importantly, I was in awe of how the housemates in previous seasons have maximized fame and climbed their way up to celebrity ranks, excelling in varied fields. I also noticed how the winners of the previous seasons have not necessarily emerged the most popular or the most successful in their different ventures. I am not saying that the winners have lost all relevance but I have observed that non-winners have been able to etch their names in the corner of our minds and hearts.

Don’t get it twisted, N60 million grand prize is a heck of money however, knowing how best to monetize the fame gotten from BBNaija to your utmost advantage is a bigger and more sustainable win. A quick look at the See Gobe season showed that Bisola Aiyeola, who emerged second place, has taken over the movie industry. In 2018, she won the AMVCA Trailblazer award and has taken up several hosting gigs thereby becoming a household name when the Big Brother Naija success story is being mentioned. Although the second season was great, the third season was a bang as the housemates of the Double Wahala season changed the face of Entertainment and Brand Influencing in Nigeria. Some say this was due to the level of competitiveness between the housemates but whatever it is, we are all here for it as they were able to push themselves and the industry forward.

Brand Influencing At Its Finest
Due to the level of fame gotten from the show, they were able to grow their fan base very rapidly which has impacted their bank account positively. Many of the housemates now have over a million following on Instagram and their posts have one of the highest engagement rates in Africa (ask Kylie Jenner what that means). Due to the changing advertising landscape, the housemates have been strategically positioned to tap into brand influencing, partnership and ambassadorship opportunities.
Top brands have queued to make these housemates ambassadors due to the housemates’ ability to convert their loyal followers/fans into loyal customers. Depending on their individual engagement and conversion rates, housemates can rake in an average of over N300,000 per social media post and about N5,000,000 for a one-year brand partnership contract (now, that’s some mullah!)
 
Taking The Fashion And Beauty Industry By The Horns
Gone are those days when fashion and beauty businesses were for petty traders that didn’t know what to do with time. Today, the industry has become a hub for savvy individuals who know how to create tech-driven products. This is why asides from brand influencing, housemates have been able to set-up businesses across the fashion and beauty industry value chain. Brands such as Bam Beauty Products, CEGAR, Nina Empire, Beautifuennada, Wig hat etc. have sprung up and have been turned into profitable ventures. A good example is Bam Beauty Product, owned by Bamike Olawunmi, which sold out a thousand (1,000) oils on the launch date (mind you, a bottle costs N5,000). This is particularly timely as the Nigerian fashion and beauty industry is worth over N1.7 trillion and N500 billion respectively. Of recent, the industries have experienced very rapid developments and have become very attractive both globally and locally.

We roll in 3, 2, 1… Action
The housemates have not shied away from acting and hosting gigs as many of them have become the producers’ favorite and have starred alongside veteran actors, in blockbuster movies and hosted various events across the country. In case you don’t have an idea of how big the Nigerian movie industry is, well let me tell you.
The entertainment industry was worth over N150 billion in the first quarter of 2019 and with an average of over 50 movies being released weekly, the industry has ranked second to Hollywood in the global scene. This shows a fast growing industry that the housemates, through their recently acquired fame (and talent, of course), can thrive in.


My conclusion…
If the current housemates can tow the paths of their predecessors, the true winner of the Big Brother Naija Pepper Dem season will not necessarily be the winner of the N60 million but will be the person that can maximize his/her fame and turn it into a billion-naira empire. The host of the show, Ebuka Obi-Uchendu validates the argument. Ebuka didn't win the first Big Brother Naija show back in 2006, in fact he placed eighth. Even the most die hard fans of BBNaija will have to think hard to remember who won that year but we all remember Ebuka. We was the real winner,
So just in case you’re contemplating applying for the next BBNaija season and you’re wondering what's in it for you if you don’t emerge winner, well, there you have it.
Also Read: Overnight Success: Could It Really Happen To You?


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Even though Bob Marley died in 1981, his music lives on. He is one of the few artists that have acquired legendary status and is recognised as one of the world's best-selling artists of all time.

His lifestyle and religion was Rastafarianism and the tenets came through in his music. His socially conscious and sometimes politically expressive lyrics resonate and are still relevant today.

Influenced by his religion, no doubt, he had strong opinions about money and its pursuit. Picked from some of his songs and from interviews, here are 10 Bob Marley quotes about money to meditate on and hopefully inspire.

''Some people are so poor, all they have is money."

"The day you stop racing, is the day you win the race."


"Money is numbers and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end."


“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.”

“Money can’t buy life."

“Better to die fighting for freedom than be a prisoner all the days of your life.”


“Don’t trust people whose feelings change with time. Trust people whose feelings remain the same, even when the time changes.”

“Live for yourself and you will live in vain; live for others, and you will live again.”



"Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you're living?"


"You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice."


For more quotes and articles on success, check out www.talkingmoney.com.ng

One of the eminent speakers of our time, Bishop T.D. Jakes has authored at least 7 published works where he shares his thoughts on self-development and achieving one’s destiny. His lively sermons are known to be full of witty anecdotes and phrases that captivate his congregation week after week.

From the many, many choices, I have collated 10 quotes taken from his written works and sermons that will inspire you to not give up and drive towards your ultimate success.


1. “If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose."

2. "Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary storm. No matter how raging the billows are today, remind yourself: "This too shall pass!"

3. "You face your greatest opposition when you’re closest to your biggest miracles."

4. "You can't be who you are going to be and who you used to be at the same time."

5. "The dream is free but the journey isn’t.”

6. "If you think down, you will go down. If you think up, you will go up. You’ll always travel in the direction of your thinking."

7. "Your words will tell others what you think. Your actions will tell them what you believe."

8. "Too many people want the appearance of winning rather than the practice and hard work that creates a true champion.” 

9. "Surround yourself with people whose definition of you is not based on your history, but your destiny."

10. "The most dangerous thing in the world is to have no purpose."

For more quotes and articles on success, check out www.talkingmoney.com.ng

A decent, low-key society wedding in Lagos last year would have cost somewhere in the region of N7 million to N10 million and I'm talking about a no frills, bog standard, it’s all over by 6 p.m. society wedding. Putting a nice round figure to it, in today's money, that's something in the region of $25,000. In, reality however, most society weddings that you attended or heard about in 2017 would have cost upwards of N14 million (38,000 good old American Dollars).
 
Of course, it’s possible to have a wedding in Nigeria and spend less than N2 million. Heck, if your budget is N500k and you want to get married, you can get married and move on with your life but the weddings I'm talking about are the Instagram hashtag weddings; the champagne flowing, Bella Naija tweeting, shut down the streets of Lagos weddings.
 
Let's put things in perspective for a minute and take an average cost of say N10 million for such a wedding. That's about $27,000. This includes the cost of the rings, dress, and reception but excludes the cost of the honeymoon. Guess how much the average wedding in America was in 2016. It was $35,000. Average wedding cost in the U.K? $36,000. Average cost of a wedding in Dubai/ U.A.E? $27,000.
 
So you might say that Nigeria is cheaper or at least at par with what obtains globally, so things are not that bad. After all, in most Nigerian cultures, there are effectively two ceremonies so it's two for the price of one. Well, read on. What's the average cost of a wedding in South Africa? $7,000. Don’t open the calculator app on your phone, that's equivalent to N2.5 million. Yes!
 
The statutory cost for a wedding in Seychelles add up to just over $500. Add the cost of a ceremony for 30 people plus photographer, cake and all the other trappings, you are still talking less than $3,000 in my estimation.
 
Africa is slowing becoming the go-to wedding destination of the world especially beach resorts. Besides South Africa and the Seychelles, you can still choose between Zanzibar, Mauritius and even Kenya.
 
Sure, you have to factor in the cost of travel and lodging but you won't be paying for all guests will you? Travel to these destinations plus 1 week lodging will cost about $2,000 per person and you are paying for two or maybe six (bride, groom and both sets of parents. That's still under N5 million and everybody gets a 5 day holiday out of it.
 
The downside is that many of your friends may not travel with you because of the cost. This might be an issue if you are 26, in your fist job and your spouse is just finishing NYSC. All your friends will likely be in a similar financial position but if you and your wife are over thirty, I would like to think that you and your crew would have gotten a good financial foundation and can afford to join you.
 
So in summary, if a society wedding that everyone talks about for months after is what you are planning for, $10,000 to $15,000 seems to be the starting point for an African destination wedding and that is still under N6 million.
 
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If anything, the exact opposite is true. There is something that I heard way back in 2004 that has stuck with me till this day. A lady who had recently lost her husband shared an all too familiar story of hardships that families go through when their breadwinner passes suddenly. Rent, school fees and other bills were piling up and she couldn’t keep up. She was fortunate that her husband’s family was supportive but their charitable spirit didn’t last long. After about a year, she was truly on her own.

She found a life insurance policy document amongst her late husband’s documents and presented it to the company the next day. Her husband had saved up close to N1 million with this company and had a life insurance cover of N5 million. She was entitled to all of it. That may not sound like a lot of money today but what the lady said, while holding back tears was, “Insurance is not for the dead, it’s for the living.”

That money didn’t change their lives but it meant that they could live in their home for at least one more year, the kids could go to school for at least one more year and most importantly, the money gave the lady a buffer period to find her feet financially. She said that was the best thing her husband ever did for his family.

Another conversation comes to mind. I was selling a child education plan to some “big men” in a recreational club and they all saw the benefit of the product. They were all in their late 40s to early 50s and the policy terms were that if they passed away during an academic year, a lump sum of N3 million would be paid directly to their child’s school and the account would be debited for all expenses until it ran out. More so, the product cost only N5,000 a term; the kind of money they spent in one night without even thinking about it. They all signed up on the spot except for one of them.


The gentleman who didn’t sign up insisted that he had no need for insurance. The property he had amassed for his wife and kids (in their names) were enough to see them through if he was no longer in the picture, he boasted. Suffice to say, I (and his friends) couldn’t convince him to take up the policy. What he was effectively saying was that his family should sell their inheritance, their birth right if he dies because he didn’t want to spend N5k.

As much as I disagreed with his philosophy, I will admit that on some level he had a point. The rich can possibly get away without buying insurance if they chose not to buy. The richest man in Africa for example has a net worth larger than the balance sheet size of the whole insurance industry put together. What he needs more of is estate planning provided by a greed of lawyers (yes, that’s how you say it), trust fund administrators, tax consultants and other professionals. If his car got stolen, he probably could buy a new one the next day, cash down and if he passed away suddenly, the assets distributed in his will could set up his family for generations without the need for insurance.

An employee of the richest man in Africa however, shouldn’t have any delusions about the need for insurance no matter how much he/she is being paid. If your salary forms a major part of your income, you need to buy insurance, period! If you are a self-employed business owner with “good” months and “bad” months, you need life insurance even more because there is an even smaller safety net for your family.

Insurance doesn’t pertain just to life and death however. If you were to lose your car due to theft or fire, can you afford to replace it? If yes, how long will it take you? 3 months, 1 year? Would you have to borrow a portion of the money? In the meantime, you would be back to hoping on buses or waiting for colleagues going your way to give you a ride home.

Even if you have already saved up enough to replace the car immediately, those savings are not being accumulated to replace a car; they are meant for something useful like furthering your education abroad or a deposit for a home of your own.

Enough Talk, Act Now

Insurance is a safety net and counter intuitively, the closer to the floor you are, the more important it is to have an insurance safety net. It can be the difference between being middle class with a positive outlook and being plunged into abject poverty.

I know a family who moved from their home in Victoria Island to a rented flat because their house got burned and they couldn’t afford to restore it. So, if anybody tells you that insurance is for the rich, tell them they are wrong and please educate them because now you know better. Remember, insurance is for the living, it’s for your family, not for you.

If you would like to know more about how you can secure your family’s future with a N1 million insurance policy for less than N1,000 a month, drop me an email at [url] mailto:insurance@talkingmoney.com.ng[/url]




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The cynics amongst you will be asking, "You couldn't possibly have read all these books?" Well, yes, I have. Some of them more than once. The next obvious question would then be, "Well, are you rich?" The answer I would give is, "Not as much as I will be".
 
If there is one sentence that I can use to sum up what I have learnt from reading these books and many others, it's that getting rich is a process and absolutely anybody can use the process to get rich. In fact, thinking deeper about the teachings of these authors, I have come to the conclusion that nobody has any business being poor. There is a guaranteed formula to getting rich and that is, "Spend less than you earn every month and invest the difference."
 
If you spend less than you earn and invest the difference consistently over your career, you will be a millionaire; guaranteed! Don't believe me, then click on this link to an online investment calculator and punch in some numbers assuming a conservative interest rate of 10% per annum.
 
By the way, a 10% interest rate is close to the lower end of returns you can get from any financial instrument in Nigeria if you decide to play it safe. There are instruments that can return over 100% (legally) in one year if your risk appetite is higher. The wise choice though is to take portions of the money you save plus the interest from time to time and invest in stable, long term assets like land or in higher yielding assets like a business.
 
 
I wrote in an earlier article that people who are "recession proof" today have developed multiple streams of income and the starting point to multiple streams of income is saving a chunk of money to invest in something. If you are not saving, you are making it very difficult for yourself to become rich!
 
There are always outliers and exceptions to the norm of course; I would be remiss to ignore the "Nigerian factor". There is also always the possibility that you will run into Aliko and Femi at a party one day and they will be competing with each other over who can spray you the most cash!
 

 
On to the books!
 
What struck me the most while compiling this list is that four of these books were written between 1910 and 1960. The writing style may be quite archaic in some cases, but somehow the words carry more weight than the modern conversational style of writing. Each book addresses the concept of wealth creation from different aspects. Where one focuses on the difference in mind-set between the rich and the poor, another gives you a step by step guide to follow for creating wealth. In no particular order, here are 10 books that recommend for you to read if you want to be rich. I have included links to Amazon and Konga online stores so you can buy copies now.
 
 
Rich Dad Poor Dad
Robert Kiyosaki (1997)
 
In the 20th anniversary edition of this classic, Robert offers an update on what we’ve seen over the past 20 years related to money, investing and the global economy. Sidebars throughout the book will take readers “fast forward” from 1997 to today as Robert assesses how the principles taught by his rich dad have stood the test of time. In many ways, the messages of rich dad poor dad, messages that were criticized and challenged two decades ago, are more meaningful, relevant and important today than they were 20 years ago. As always, readers can expect that Robert will be candid, insightful and continue to rock more than a few boats in his retrospective. Will there be a few surprises? Count on it. - Amazon
 
This is basically a story of Robert's life growing up in Hawaii and how the principles he learnt from his real dad (the poor one) and his dad's friend (the rich one) were polar opposites. He had to decide for himself if he should follow the teachings of his rich dad or his poor dad. No prizes for guessing which one he chose. It's an enjoyable, easy to read book that you will want to read again when you're finished. If you haven't read this book, it's honestly not something you should be admitting to in public. It’s like admitting you can't swim or that you can't ride a bike. This is the literary equivalent of that Kenny G album that has been played to death in Nigeria. Get a copy now and learn the principles that has made Robert a millionaire.
 

 
 
The Richest Man In Babylon
George S. Clason (1926)
 
The multi-million copy bestselling classic read by millions, this timeless book holds the key to success-in the secrets of the ancients. Based on the famous "Babylonian principles," it's been hailed as the greatest of all inspirational works on the subject of thrift and financial planning. This celebrated bestseller offers an understanding of-and a solution to-personal money problems. This is the original classic that reveals the secrets to acquiring money, keeping money, and making money earn even more money. Simply put: the original money-management favourite is back! - Amazon
I first read this book ages ago and I think it is the one book that has influenced my writing on personal finance the most. When you hear the word Babylon, what may come to mind are vague images of worldly people engaging in hedonistic acts. Ever present in those mental images however, is GOLD! Lots and lots of gold. Babylon was a bustling mega city where trade and commerce were the economic drivers. It was the wealthiest city in the ancient world and to be called the richest man in Babylon, you had to be pretty damn rich. In the parables and metaphors shared in the pages of this book, you will learn the principles of how to be mega rich.
It's written in a story format and tracks a conversations between Arkad, the rich man and Bansir, a young man who is eager to learn the secrets of wealth. The writing is however of the ear it was written. As fascinating as it is, you may have to take your time with this one. Thankfully, it’s a short book of 144 pages. If you get only one book from this list, get this one.
 
 
 
Multiple Streams of Income: How to Generate a Lifetime of Unlimited Wealth
Robert Allen (2005)
In Multiple Streams of Income, bestselling author Robert Allen presents ten revolutionary new methods for generating over $100,000 a year on a part–time basis, working from your home, using little or none of your own money. For this book, Allen researched hundreds of income–producing opportunities and narrowed them down to ten sure-fire money-makers anyone can profit from. - Amazon
 
Imagine a mountain with streams of water running down it. There are big, fat streams, small streams and even waterfalls. People come to this mountain every day with bowls, pails and buckets to collect water. Some people collect from just one stream while some collect from several. Others have wisely dammed their streams, creating reservoirs. This is the analogy that Robert uses at the start of this book to describe the mind-set you should have about money. If you are going to be financially secure, you need to create reservoirs and at the same time, plug the leaks that threaten to drain your reservoirs.
 
I won't go into what each of the streams are here, you will have to get the book. Besides, I won't be able to do justice to the book in this short paragraph. It's easy to think that some of the streams he mentions can't work in Nigeria but you would be wrong. Principles are universal and there are examples of Nigerians in Nigeria using every single one of the opportunities shared in the book to make money.
 
 
 
 
 
The Science of Getting Rich
Wallace D. Wattles (1910)
 
Wallace D. Wattles introduced the world to the power of positive thinking. In his book, Wattles stresses the power of the human mind claiming that one's way of thinking can attract or repel wealth. According to him, there are certain laws that govern the process of acquiring riches. Once these laws are obeyed by any person, he will get rich with certainty. Discover the law of attracting wealth from among the first master to propagate it. Discover the secret of how to get rich, starting from where you are, with what you have. 'The Science of Getting Rich' holds the secret to how economic and emotional security can be achieved in a practical, imaginative and non-competitive way, while maintaining a loving and harmonious relationship with all of life. 'The Science of Getting Rich' remains relevant more than 100 years after its initial publication. - Amazon
 
This is the book I am reading as I write this blog post. It's the second time I'm reading it and that's because you can't wrap your head around it in one go (I'm beginning to suspect that I might have to read it a third time). I must admit that when the author started with all the positive thinking mumbo jumbo, I was turned off. I stayed with it and discovered that it's quite a deep book. I like how each chapter builds on the previous and leads the reader step by step to the conclusion. There is a biblical slant to this book, pointing to bible verses and drawing parallels with the modern age (early 20th century modern).
 
It's a tough read but I prefer to read this version than the few adaptations by other others. Because the book is so old, it's copyright free and there must be free copies on the internet somewhere. I got a copy from Amazon for £0.49p.
 
 
 
 
All You Can Do Is All You Can Do
Art Williams (1988)
If you think dreaming is “kid’s stuff”, you’re dead wrong, and without a big dream, your career and your life will go.....nowhere. In All You Can Do is All You Can Do, Art Williams shares the winning system that he used to change his life and the lives of thousands of other people within his company. This book describes a deceptively simple six-point plan that turns ordinary people into winners. Find out how to get that “Friday night feeling”, back in your life! - Amazon
 
This book really surprised me. I picked it up at an airport just to while away the time and I couldn't put it down. In AYCDILYCD, Art Williams shares the story of his ordinary life as a poorly paid school football coach coming from a family of ordinary people and how he transformed himself into one of the wealthiest finance moguls in America. It’s almost a memoir of his life and the steps he took towards greatness.
 
He talks a lot about himself and the people he has helped become millionaires through his company and tends to go off tangent at times but if you push past that and focus on the principles, you will get something out of this book.
 
Enough Talk, Time To Act

These are just 5 books out of thousands I could have recommended. I didn’t mention the classic Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill nor the more recent Side Hustle by Chris Guillebeau (I strongly recommend that you listen to his podcast called Side Hustle School by the way).
 
These 5 books will provide a rounded body of knowledge to get you on your way to living the life of your dreams but you have to read them. As Jim Rohn said, "" The book you don't read won't help". Click on the links to buy them off Konga or if you want to read it on your tablet, the kindle versions can be found on Amazon.
 
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The overarching objective every responsible parent has for their child is for them to be successful and financially independent when they get older. A popular prayer in Yoruba land ask for our children to be more successful than we are and there must be similar versions of this prayer from other parts of the country. Despite our best intentions though, the reality is that children don’t come with an instruction manual or one of those foldout quick installation guides like the one that came with your laptop. Even when a parent discovers and adopts an approach that works for one child, it might be totally unworkable for a sibling.

So what many of us parents do, is to default to the methods that we were subjected to by our own parents. We make sure our kids get up early, get to school on time and do their homework when they get back home. We ask them, "How was school?" and are satisfied when we hear an offhand "Fine." in response. We review their report cards, praise or admonish as appropriate and we trust in the belief that once they are spewed out the rear end of our education system along with their classmates, they will find a decent job. In many cases, that is the extent of our participation in their financial security - provide a good education.

Every parent wants their kid to be the next Mark Zuckerberg but some of us push them in literally the opposite direction by equipping them with the tools that make them more likely to end us as Zuckerberg's employee than as the billionaire himself. We forget or probably don't know that Mark dropped out of college to start his business. So too did the richest man in the world right now, Bill Gates, so the best education does not necessarily guarantee that your little one is an Aliko Dangote in the making. You know what, let me pause and reel out names of some successful people who didn't complete their education.

Richard Branson dropped out of school age 15 after being frustrated with his learning disability, Steve Jobs also dropped out of college without the faintest idea of what he was going to do with his life. Albert Einstein of all people didn’t make it in school past age 15. The world's first billionaire, John D. Rockefeller Sr. was also a drop out. Ray Kroc who created the world's largest fast food chain, McDonald's is also on this list and in case you think it's only old men who fit this mould, Elizabeth Holmes, who is considered to be the world's youngest female billionaire at age 32, is also a drop out.

Closer to home, what about Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote? Dangote was born into a wealthy home, third generation money in fact so he had a very good start. According to his profile, he has a degree in Business Studies and Administration from the School of Economics & Business, Al Azhar University in Egypt but read what he said in an interview a few years ago: "All my business acumen and instincts I inherited from my maternal grandfather. As his first grandson, he poured his business wizardry into me. I would not have been where I am today without him; a very great man, loving and caring." Dangote may have gone through the school system but he owes a lot to the informal education and exposure he received from his grandfather.

George W. Bush, who isn't remembered as the most eloquent or brightest U.S presidents once said to a class of graduating students, "To those of you who are graduating this afternoon with high honours, awards and distinctions, I say, well done. And as I like to tell the C students, you too can be president."

That quote sums up one half of what I intend to communicate in this post. I am by no means saying that education is bad or that children shouldn’t be encouraged to get the highest grades they are capable of; but if you truly want your children to sour as high as their potential, there are skills they need that they simply won't learn in a conventional classroom. Any measure of financial success usually comes from having the right mix of a strong character, a clear vision, determination, some talent and the right connections to the right people.

If you want the laundry list, I’ll add street smart, a sense of humour, ingenuity, resourcefulness, Omolúabí (google it) and the gift of the gab. If you agree, even in part, that these are some of the traits of the billionaires we have in the today's world and time past, then ask yourself; "Where is my child learning any of these?" Another question I want to pose to you is, "Are people born with these traits or can they be cultivated?”.

Ultimately, the responsibility for creating the bedrock of your child's financial future rests with you. Don’t say his father should do it or it's her mother's job, just do it. You cannot abdicate the responsibility to the education system either because with every passing year, the schools are axing or reducing time allocated to the very activities that stand any chance of instilling these character traits in children (sports, music, drama, art etc.). Well, since it's your responsibility, where do you start? Here are four things you can start doing today to raise a billionaire!

Become Conscious of Your Own Attitude Towards Money
Your attitude towards money is shaped in part by what you observed from your parents. If you have a good savings culture, it's likely because you observed your mum save money in a jar regularly or perhaps watched her surreptitiously roll some Naira notes into different wrappers she tied across her waist and wondered to yourself how she manages to ever find them again. If you are known to be a big spender, maybe you observed your father spend impulsively on more than one occasion particularly while having drinks with friends or it could be that the same observation had the opposite effect on you because after he came home, he would have only excuses left to offer your mother.

Some families pass down unhealthy money habits from generation to generation like cherished heirlooms without even realising it. Bad money habits have kept some families at the same level of financial security (or insecurity) for centuries and will unfortunately continue to do so if someone doesn’t break the mould. Formal education, technology and urban migration may have managed to create some outliers in recent times, in fact, you may be an outlier yourself, standing apart from your siblings, cousins and other relatives but some of your unconscious words and actions can still influence your children negatively.

A lady by the name of Katharine Whitehorn once wrote, "The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any". Powerful words and I've seen those words manifest themselves in different ways in lives of some friends and acquaintances. A particular ex-colleague of mine is a "natural born hustler" who has been a gifted and ambitious sweet talker all the years I've known him. It's not hard to tell that his work ethic and attitude to money are based on a deep rooted orientation; he grew up in a family that wasn’t very well off and being the oldest of 5 kids, he has been supporting his family practically all his life, right from when he was hawking oranges after school to now that he has his hands in so many business interests from haulage to a water bottling plant.

Today, he is doing quite well financially but I worry he may be passing bad money habits to his children, which are, he takes his money too seriously, he doesn’t give freely, when he gives, it's a loan and when it's a loan you can bet that it's with interest. I've heard him on the phone talking to contractors, suppliers or even staff (who can all be generally hard to deal with in Nigeria) and his words and mannerisms can get quite heated and animated when the discussion concerns money he is owed. It's worrying for me because he doesn’t seem to be aware of this behaviour and the "anger" from the conversation stays with him for a while. I can't imagine that he would tone down that attitude when he gets home (he's not that kind of person) so he is likely exposing his children to the same behaviour and attitude.

Who knows how this will play out for his kids? It's possible it may affect each of them differently depending on their personality, age or their gender but the bottom line is that you need to be more conscious about your attitude, your spouse's and that of others who may be influencing your children.

Nurture Their Talents
A senior friend of mine complained recently that his 12 year old son is turning into a "Youtuber". He is constantly recording something or the other on his phone, filming his siblings and uploading videos of them online. I've seen some videos he has uploaded and I have to put a stop to it". What I did when I heard this was to pull out my phone and opened this webpage on BellaNaija.com. Quick summary before you open the link; basically, a 22 year old Nigerian born British rapper made $4.5 million (that’s over N2 billion in today's money) from YouTube between 2014 and 2015. My senior friend read the story and smiled. "Maybe I can encourage him a bit more", he finally said.

My dear friend, the world we live in is changing in ways that we won't understand until the change happens to us. The traditional workplace is changing and not even the doctors', engineers' or bankers' jobs are safe. So many jobs will be obsolete in 20 years from now and we are training our kids to do jobs that won't exist when they finish their education.

As the decades roll by, more and more millionaires are emerging and they are getting younger. How many millionaires have emerged from the traditional workplace within the same age brackets since 2000? Exactly, very few. You can leave your comments below if you want to argue this out.

Irrespective of age or technology or any other variable, one thing that remains true over the last three centuries at least is that those who excel in life are those who enjoy what they do. In other words, they would do their "jobs" even if they were not getting paid.

Passion is one distinguishing factor between the rich and the poor but unfortunately, you cannot purchase passion for a child. You need to identify it and nurture it because that may be the source of the financial independence and fulfilment you seek for him or her.

My eight year old nephew is crazy about football. He supports Liverpool FC like his dad (poor boy) and he plays every Saturday morning at least. He's turning into quite a decent goalkeeper and his parents are his biggest supporters.

If he carries on like this, a time will come when his parents may have to decide whether the path he will take will lead him towards professional football or something more traditional. They have some time to take that decision and the reality is that he may not even want to be a professional footballer when he gets older but if say he becomes a materials engineer for example, the spark of invention to create a revolutionary footwear or some knee guard that all footballers will wear one day can only come from years spent on a football pitch, nurturing his talent.


Teach Them About Value Not Just Money
One thing that sets the rich apart from the poor is their perception of value. I heard a story (though I've not been able to confirm it independently) of a young thirty something year old man who inherited a multi-story office complex on Victoria Island from his father and subsequently sold his stake in the building to raise capital to buy a government owned downstream oil company. A massive gamble to take after inheriting such prime real estate. The money he would have earned as rent from that property is probably more than many people can earn in a lifetime. He could have chosen not to work anymore and lived comfortably on the rental income for the rest of his life but today, he controls one of the most influential oil companies in Nigeria.

Many parents don't give much consideration to consciously teaching their children about money. Those who do, dutifully stress the importance of saving and try to encourage good money habits. That is what some of us learnt from a young age. We obediently saved in weeks one, two and three or months one, two and three but we all eventually made a fundamental mistake (at last the first time). Once we accumulated enough money to buy that toy or that game or that dress, we neatly arranged all the notes and coins and handed them over to the seller. We would have a shiny new thing in our hands but our savings went back to zero.

Granted, if my parents told the 19 year old me not to hand over my saved £100 or so to one retailer on Kilburn High Road, I would only have obeyed grudgingly (I wanted a leather jacket really badly)and I would still have bought it eventually anyway because I felt I deserved it.

What we need to do more of, is educate our children about concepts such as negotiation, opportunity cost, delayed gratification, earning assets versus non-earning assets and compound interest (in a language that they will understand obviously). If I knew about the opportunity cost of buying that jacket and instead used the money to buy a Cash ISA (a tax-free Individual Savings Account), today, I would have almost £3,000 in savings. I could buy all the jackets I ever wanted. Going back to Dangote’s quote above, these must have been the concepts his grandfather was sharing.

Teaching a ten year old to practice delayed gratification by saying for example, “If I buy you ice cream today, you can't have pizza for dinner tomorrow but if you wait till tomorrow, you can have both” can be very powerful. If the child actually waits and is rewarded with both ice cream and pizza, positive neural pathways are formed in the brain that he or she will default to later in life when faced with similar decisions.



Encourage Giving
The act of giving and general acts of kindness are enshrined in most religions. According to the Bible and the Quran, not only does the person receiving benefit but the giver himself/herself will be blessed richly and receive back in multiples. I have personal experience of this principle myself, so I give as much and as often as I can; not just money but also time (which I consider more valuable). It's good to let your children understand this principle of giving and receiving back in multiples as early as possible and when they buy into it, they will amaze you with how far they will take it. It's a practice that will stay with them all their lives. Besides the religious benefits of giving, research has shown (and you may also have experienced it) that giving selflessly is pleasurable and might even have some health benefits.

For children, helping someone less privileged can have a tremendous effect on them. Especially when they are young, they are extremely kind and eager to please those that they love. Starting a culture of giving from an early age can make your child more sympathetic to the plight of those who don’t have for instance the new toys or new clothes that he/she gets without much effort. This culture of giving can also make your child introspective and thoughtful which in turn could help develop critical reasoning skills or unlock a passion to solve a problem or fill a need experienced by someone in his/her life.

The pleasurable feeling derived from giving can boost your child's self-confidence which ensures a more-rounded development and finally, your child's attitude to money will not be clouded by a "poverty mentality" which has kept many Nigerians from having any vision larger than their next meal or their next pay check.

In all, imbibing a culture of giving from a young age, can set your child above his/her peers psychologically and emotionally. This one trait can give him/her a completely different perspective to issues of life and interpersonal skills with the hallmarks of a future leader. It's individuals like that who grow up to have unshakable purpose and a crystal clear vision.

Enough Talk, Act Now.
I don't recall an occasion while growing up, when either of my parents sat me down and said, "Sit down. Let me teach you about money". I do recall however watching and listening to them on the dining table talking about issues or just about their day. I developed my values, work ethic and attitude to money while having Saturday dinner and Sunday lunch with my parents. Spend time with your kids, or rather let your kids spend time with you. They will discern over time what your values and priorities are and also what your attitude to money is.

Allow them to explore their talents and interests. It's what they enjoy doing that they will do most and ultimately become masterful at. Tony Hawk (48 years old) has been a skateboarder all his life and is arguably the greatest to have ever step on a board. He may not wear a tie and jacket to work every day but I reckon his parents are happy with his $120 million net worth (yes, from skateboarding). His parents didn’t encourage his skateboarding per say, it was more like they gave up trying to stop him and he made a fortune from it.

There are many charitable organisations in Nigeria you and your children can support. If you can't pick one, you can visit www.234give.com and support any of the listed charities that you fancy. You can even make the children choose and have them tell you why they want to. What I do on some Sundays after church, on my way home is, I just drive up to someone who looks like they are having a hard time and hand them some money. Not a huge amount, but enough to put a smile on their face and make their day.

Actively grooming your children to have the mind set and qualities of a future leader and billionaire takes an investment in time, money energy and some weekends sure but remember, if you're not teaching them, someone else is. I hope for your sake, it's not people like the Kardashians.

I'm reading a book at the moment written by Art Williams. Published in 1988, "All You Can Do Is All You Can Do, But All You Can Do Is Enough" is a book with a long title and a particularly unattractive cover (the edition I'm reading anyway) but it's packed with powerful principles to help you achieve lasting greatness in your life, I highly recommend it. Just before going to bed last night, I read chapter 7: "Dream Big - But Keep It Simple" and as I've done from the beginning of the book, I was highlighting whole paragraphs and nodding to myself repeatedly in agreement with what I was reading.
 
In this chapter, Art introduced the concept of reducing the most complex of issues into their most basic form and tackling them from the beginning, one step at a time. He quoted C.W. Cerar saying, "Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple."
 
I woke up this morning and as I do while getting ready for work, I turned on the radio to listen to the news and early morning news analysis. I continued listening in the car on my way to work and from the time I started counting, I must have heard someone or the other say the word "recession" at least 20 times. It was all that was being discussed . . . how bad the economy is, how government revenue has fallen, exchange rate this, exchange rate that.
 
No doubt, the recession is a massive issue affecting all of us to varying degrees but as the learned amongst you readers will know, a recession is not something that happens in the blink of an eye. It's not like snow that falls and covers the landscape overnight while we sleep or more aptly, it's not like the harmattan winds that announce themselves on mid-December mornings when we enter the bathroom, the indicators of an economic slowdown have been glaring for over a year and no one should be surprised by it.
 
What is most disheartening to me about this whole economic situation however, is the fact that the present government (all arms and at all levels) has done nothing concrete to abate or reverse the situation. For all the talk pre-May 29th 2015, I expected that by now, there would be a policy statement or a concerted and coordinated framework of some sort which would stimulate growth across multiple sectors. What I've noticed however, are (I was going to write kneejerk reactions but that would suggest that the reactions are even timely) sporadic, disjointed, sometimes brash, sometimes timid circulars from the Central Bank, empty promises from the Presidency and Ministry of Finance, a few insightful speeches from our dear Deputy Vice President; Fash, complete absurdity from the Ministry of Labour & Productivity and absolutely nothing from everyone else.
 
 
The Moment of Decision
"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do, is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing." That’s a quote by U.S President, Theodore Roosevelt and by his quote, he might have confirmed that the government's strategy to guide us out of this recession is to bury its head in the sand and wish it away.
 
I won't agree with statements coming from some quarters that our leaders are clueless about tackling the drivers of this negative growth, but I will agree that among other challenges, they are confused by the complexity of unravelling the tangled heap of strings that is the present Nigerian economy. We are presently in a position of no growth, low government income, high importation, dwindling foreign reserves, high inflation and high unemployment. By macroeconomic theory, this is the equivalent of conceding a penalty, two own goals and a hat trick by the opponent's striker all in the first 10 minutes of a football match. It’s a near impossibility but if it does happens, it's an absolute catastrophe.
 
What adds to the complexity is that every possible action the government could take has some negative effect somewhere else. On the monetary policy side, if they lower interest rates to stimulate the economy, they risk making the already high inflation rate even higher thus making potential portfolio investors pensive about importing their much needed Forex. On the fiscal policy side, spending our way out of recession with low interest foreign loans comes with stringent policies that put more pressure on our already battered Naira.
 
What the Federal Government and the CBN need to do is to take a leaf out of Art William's book and simplify the situation to its most basic components. For all intents and purposes, Nigeria, with all its land mass, teeming population, ethnic and religious diversity, in its simplest form, is one big family. And when I think of Nigeria’s financial problems at the level of a family’s, the solutions seem very clear and straight forward. As a Personal Finance consultant, if I assumed that Nigeria were a client who has come upon some hard times financially and needs advice on a way out of his personal recession, this is the advice I would give.
 
 
A Family Scenario
Assume Nigeria were a well to do family next door (ok, maybe not next door, a family in. . . say, VGC), the picture in my mind's eye shows a middle aged man in his early 40s with his wife and 4 kids between the ages of 15 and 5 or so. The man, let's call him John has a decent, well-paying job. From his suit and tie, it looks like John works in a bank and I'll bet his wife is a lawyer as she's partial to black pant suits. The shiny, gold emblem on her hand bag narrows my assumption from lawyer to lawyer in a bank, maybe even Company Secretary. The kids go to good schools and there are cars and drivers to drop them off and pick them up. There is also something close to a 1:1 nanny to child ratio at home. The oldest child just started her A-levels in the U.K and John’s plan is for her and her siblings to complete their education over there.
 
In this simple scenario, Big J is where Nigeria was pre 2008. Living large on a fat salary or in Nigeria's case, excess revenues from crude, John has bloated his recurring expenditure. It's almost like he intentionally set out to have at least 2 of everything: 2 phones, 2 nannies, 2 drivers and 2 generators. The bills were adding up but as long as the boom days continued, John and Nigeria were all good.
 
Fast forward to present day. John has lost his job and just like in Nigeria's case, the boom days are over. The harsh reality of his previous largesse and failure to save adequately have hit him hard and he now has some tough choices to make. He has some money saved up but not as much as he ought to and living on mostly his wife's salary (private sector taxation and other revenue in Nigeria’s case), they won't starve, but belts will definitely have to be tightened.
 
What I'm doing is drawing parallels between John's family situation and Nigeria's situation. One may be a family of 6 and the other, 180 million, but they are both families nonetheless. If John came to me for advice on how to manage his finances given his present situation, this is what I would tell him and if these solutions can work for John, they can work for Nigeria too.
 
 
Act Quickly, Act Decisively
You must have heard the phrase "Time is Money". Well, it's particularly appropriate when in a financial crisis. Cast your mind back to January 2016. The official Naira exchange rate to the Dollar was N197 (for those who could access it) and the parallel market rate was inching towards a record N300/$1 meaning a differential of roughly 50%. Round tripping activities were rampant even among legitimate importers and manufacturers who could make a 30% return without facing the usual business risks. There were calls for a devaluation from every analyst and economic commentator, both foreign and domestic and the voices calling for a full float of the Naira were getting louder. Where did our external reserves stand back then? A now lofty $28 billion.
 
Analysts estimate that at the time, foreign reverses were being depleted at an average of $470 million monthly, mostly to defend the Naira at the artificial rate. Going further bank to 2015, the CBN official figures reveal that $4.7 billion was used to defend the Naira in the first quarter of that year alone (just shy of N0.8 trillion at the N169/$1 rate back then). As of today, the "independent" Central Bank has removed the official peg and the Naira's rate of exchange is being determined by market forces.
 
The key point here is, when in a financial crisis and the outlook is bleak, quick and decisive decision making can save you a lot of money. In John's case, after careful consideration of his financial position, I would advise him to withdraw his child from the U.K school and bring her back to Nigeria as quickly as prudent. Hindsight, they say is 20/20, true. No one would have figured that the exchange rate would get this bad but imagine how much John would have spent to keep his child in the U.K 9 months, only to withdraw her afterward. Yes, there are considerations such as which year she is and how close she is to finishing but ultimately, cutting his losses early would free up much needed cash for other needs ab initio.
 
If the CBN or the government had acted quickly and decisively in 2015 or even Q1 2016, the dichotomy between the official and parallel market rates would not be this wide and near N1trillion wouldn’t have been wasted defending a currency in a downward spiral.
 
In what other critical areas is our government dithering? Keeping an over bloated workforce which it is struggling to pay and will surely still be downsized eventually. Secondly, non-passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill which could release billions of dollars in investments. Thirdly, not taking concrete steps to widen the tax net to increase revenue. The approach being embarked on (the typically unimaginative approach of government) is to tax the same taxpayers more which could even slow down economic activity.
 
 
Reduce Recurring Expenditure
With his reduced income, John's recurring expenditure will crush him if he doesn’t scale them back. I would advise him to immediately tabulate his monthly expense lines and cut or trim as many as he can bear. Employing 2 drivers and 2 nannies would cost something in the region of N150,000 - N200,000 per month. There is fat to trim here. Cutting expenses on diesel too is a no brainer.
 
As painful as it is, any reasonable family or business would immediately scale back expenses when faced with a shortfall in income so the case shouldn't be different for the Federal Government especially when 70% of this year's budget is allocated toward recurring expenses and the National Assembly budget is N155 billion (48% higher than the 2015 allocation).
 
One of the reasons for Nigeria's crumbling infrastructure is that the government is involved in providing too many services to too many people and the cost is simply unsustainable. More advanced countries realized this decades ago and privatized utility companies, airports, seaports, television networks and even the post office thus freeing up much needed revenue to focus on the most vital social projects in education, health and job creation. Just as important, the freed up revenue can be used to fund initiatives that empower businesses and stimulate economic growth in all sectors.
 
The Federal Government needs to scale back on its workforce first and foremost. A difficult thing to do when you have labour unions that can bring the whole country to a standstill but they can learn a thing or two from Margaret Thatcher and her approach to curbing the powers and significance of the UK unions in the 1980s. Before her election as Prime Minister in 1979, even a grave diggers union strike could cause chaos and commotion.
 
 
Diversify Immediate Income
As John's monthly income has dropped drastically due to him losing his job, one of the steps he needs to take is to figure out how to make up the shortfall so as to be able to meet his immediate financial obligations. Even if he had no secondary source of income, there are opportunities to add value no matter his area of expertise of skill level.
 
All too often, commentators opine that the economic recession has been caused by our reliance on crude oil and not having a diversified economy but the reality is that the Nigerian economy is diversified. The oil & gas industry contributed only 6.4% of 2015 GDP.
 
Where Nigeria needs diversification is in government revenue. The Federal Government is the biggest spender in Nigeria, we know, but the government is at the mercy of international crude oil prices and they have hovered mostly around the $30 -$40 range for most of 2016. As 71% of money spent by the government in 2015 came from proceeds of activities in the oil & gas sector, record low prices and daily output shortfalls have had a severe impact.
 
 
 
Find Our "New Oil"
Depending on the outlook for John's situation, he may need to find another proverbial financial ladder leaning on another wall so as to climb back up. High paying jobs aren’t easy to come by much these days, particularly at the higher levels of organisations. John may need to start a business or some other venture for his long term financial wellbeing.
 
In Nigeria's case, we must start to face the reality that crude oil prices may never rise back to the $100 per barrel mark ever again. If this is the case, are we destined to remain in this state of regression forever? We urgently need to find our "new oil" or better still more than one "new oil".
 
 
In terms of recent usage, Agriculture so far comes second only to the word recession. The private sector has got the wheels in the sector turning again but government intervention will create a multiplier effect, not necessarily by planting crops or distributing fertilizer but by providing the infrastructure such as roads and rails which have been lacking and has kept the ratio of farming output to financial return low. Nigeria has also never exploited the opportunities literally beneath our feet. Income from the vast and diverse natural resources, as far as I can remember, have never factored in our national budget.
 
The challenge with these sectors however is that African countries who are ahead of Nigeria in exploiting Agriculture or Mining haven't for one reason or the other faired particularly well. One challenge is that extracting things from the ground and exporting without adding value to it is intensive but financially lucrative. A case in point is cocoa. Ivory Coast is the world's largest producer of the stuff, with about 2 million metric tonnes. About 1.4 million metric tonnes are exported however, after cocoa is turned into chocolate and sold to you and I as our favourite brands, what the farmers get is equivalent to only 6% of the price we pay.
 
The real money is in turning the raw materials into something closer to the finished product. You guess it, the real money is in manufacturing. This is the next frontier for Africa. With vast land, cheap labour and raw materials close by, Nigeria could be the next India or maybe even China, after all, we have a lot in common with both countries.
 
The Nigerian government should privatize public corporations (which are mostly dilapidated liabilities to everyone at the moment) and deregulate their sectors. This exercise will raise revenue from the sale of assets and also from the issuance of new licenses. The success of the telecoms sector deregulation in 2001 is a shining example of the effect this strategy can have on an economy. Imagine if we could execute something similar in just three other sectors? Nigeria would be changed country. Unfortunately, what the government has tended to do is apply these windfalls towards operating expense rather than developing infrastructure which is a huge missed opportunity.
 
Conclusion
This is by no means an exhaustive list of solutions for our recession problem but it communicates a clear path forward based on present circumstances. It's a three step strategy of stopping the haemorrhaging, aligning income and expenses to the new realities and moving forward with a clear plan. If these solutions can work for John, a family or even a business then Nigeria, as a bigger unit cannot be so complex that the solutions aren't relevant or implementable. Whether right or wrong though, it's better than doing nothing.

More articles available at www.talkingmoney.com.ng

In one of my very first blog posts about a year ago, I shared a story about an ex-colleague with whom I shared the book “The Richest Man In Babylon”. One of the key lessons from the book is to save at least 10% of your income and live on 90%. This my friend returned the book after reading and said flatly that it was not possible for him to do that. He even went as far as to say, the concept couldn’t work in Nigeria because “things are hard”.

I shook my head at him at the time but I realize now, some 15 years later, that we were in two completely different situations back then. While I was single and still living rent free, he was married with 3 children. I’ve gotten older (and hopefully wiser) and I now appreciate where he was coming from. It’s not easy to save when you have commitments and obligations month in, month out that outstrip your income. Things seem to be getting tougher and many people these days are living literally, hand-to-mouth. Back in those days, you were said to be struggling if your salary ran out in the third week of the month but now, even though you may be earning more in Naira terms, you are down to your last thousands midway through week two.

No matter how difficult things are though, there really is no excuse for not saving. While many say they cannot save because they are poor, I am of the opinion that many are poor because they don’t save. Truly, if you don’t save, you are not giving yourself a chance to pull yourself out of your financial situation. Your will only continue the cycle of lack and may even fall deeper. Because you have a good moral compass, you may not resort to stealing or fraud but you will unfortunately join the millions of poor Nigerians who are praying and waiting for God to write them a cheque that will solve all their financial problems.

[b]Why Saving Is Necessary
[/b]Here is why saving is crucial if you are ever going to be rich or at least comfortable. I will clarify, oddly enough, with a question. Do you recall sometime in your past when someone introduced you to a great investment or business opportunity that you were sure would yield extraordinary returns but you couldn’t invest in it because you didn’t have the required capital? Yup, I’m sure you’ve had at least two of those. We all do.

Simply put, if you don’t save, you can’t invest. If you can’t invest, you can’t create an additional source of income and if your income does not grow as quickly as your expenses, you guessed it! You will end up in a mess.

Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that God doesn’t operate a bank account in any bank and he won’t be writing you a cheque. Even if He performed a miracle and “used someone to bless you “, with at least 100 million people waiting in line in Nigeria alone, even if he performed one massive miracle every day till the end of time, he still may not get to you in your lifetime. The good news though, is that IT IS possible to save money even when there is always a lot of month left after your salary runs out. Here are 6 ways to save when you are poor.

First Eliminate Debt
This is the very first step to take even before you start putting money aside. You may be in a cycle of debt whereby you have borrowed from every friend and family member you know. In fact, when you run into an old friend out of the blue, it’s not up to one week before you are asking him or her to lend you money. You are not a bad debtor though, you always pay back on time but before the next month runs out, you have to go a-borrowing again to make it to the next pay day.

If this describes your situation, have you noticed that if you didn’t have a debt repayment, you could have managed to make it to payday? Debt is one of the enemies of savings. If debt repayments are over 30% of your income, you need to intervene quickly. Pay back and try hard to break the cycle of borrowing. Make this a priority so you can start saving towards your future.

[b]Save Your Small Notes Everyday
[/b]I don’t spend a lot of cash these days but I still do this every day. It’s an almost painless way to save and it will get you into the habit of saving. At the end of every day, when you get home and change into your comfortable clothes, check your wallet and remove all cash notes from a certain denomination downwards and keep in a jar. You decide whether it’s N200 and below or N50 and below but stick to it. Consistency is more important than fast progress.

Don’t dip into this jar whatever happens or else it will not grow. Every now and then, when you may be flush with cash, throw in a N500 or N1,000 note to move things along. At the end of every month or a couple of months, you will have a small amount you can stick in a savings account. It’s important to note that this bank account should not be one that has an ATM card that you carry around in your pocket, it’s the bank account that is not linked to any ATM card, preferable it’s not even with a traditional bank but rather an insurance company or an asset management firm.

You are not to touch this money under any circumstance. It belongs to the future you and not the present you. It’s all too tempting to also say that you are simply borrowing the money and you will pay it back. Don’t trust yourself.

[b]Save Part of Your Windfalls
[/b]We all get windfalls now and then. Large ones, small ones, massive ones. Make a commitment to save 50% of any windfall or of any money that comes to you outside of your regular income. These are the savings that will accelerate the growth of your savings. Examples of windfalls are money or assets given to you by a relative (living or late), bonuses, proceeds from selling a car, your 13th month allowance, money you find in your jacket etc. Whether it’s N5,000 or N500,000, any bulk money that comes outside of your regular income should be split in two and one half saved.

Yes, you have immediate needs, but the future you will have needs too. Try to do this!

The author of the Richest man in Babylon wrote, “Pay yourself First!” It’s not good to receive this extra income and begin to share it around to other people. It’s your money. Pay half to yourself first and share the rest.


[b]Have No Spend Days
[/b]There was a night I went out with a bunch of friends and towards the end of the night, I realised that I hadn’t spent a dime. Others had bought the rounds or drinks or food that night. I wasn’t being a cheap skate by avoiding the bills or anything, on other nights, I’d always chipped in, even more than my share of bills on occasion. The circumstances this particular night though were such that I didn’t buy or pay for anything.

There was another occasion while I was on a “stay-cation”. I spent an entire weekend at home (from Friday – Sunday). Come Monday morning when I was to resume back at work, I looked all over the house for my wallet. Not only had I not spent any money, I hadn’t even seen my wallet all weekend long. It felt like I had saved money. As the old saying goes “A penny saved is a penny earned”.

If I wanted to make that money count, I should have added it to my savings jar. This is another way to save when you are poor. Have days when you try not to spend any money at all. This may involve not leaving your house sometimes (you need the rest anyway) but if you do leave home, it’s still doable.

[b]Plan Ahead
[/b]In his book, “Multiple Streams of Income”, Robert Allen talked about the planning horizon. Effectively, what he was saying in his book was that what separates the rich from the poor is the length of time they plan ahead. When a man sends his child to school abroad and pays from his savings, without borrowing, would you say he is rich or is he rich because he planned that money into existence 10 years ago and saved towards it? Let that sink in for a minute.

A 10 year planning horizon is good financial planning but the concept can be applied in your short term money management also. What are the things you usually spend money on regularly? Have you noticed that if you buy two small bottles of water, the cost works out to be more expensive that the cost of one big bottle?

Abraham Lincoln said, “The best was to predict the future is to create it”. If you know where you are going to be at 4 p.m. today, you can predict to some degree the circumstances you will be in. For example, you may know that you might be hungry. If that is the case, you can plan to eat at home before you leave or drive past an amala joint you know, where you can eat a heavy meal for N500. On the other hand, if your planning horizon is so short that you don’t know where you are going to be at 4 p.m., you will end up there hungry and be left with no choice but to spend N1,500 at the nearest fast food eatery and not even be satisfied. A trivial example perhaps but I think makes the point.

I think we plan better when we are broke anyway. We try to stretch every Naira as far as possible. Apply that thinking all the time and not just when you are broke. Stretch your money as far as it can go and save the difference.
Save Something. Anything

Going back to my ex-colleague who said he was too poor to save. Ultimately, I think he was burying his head in the sand. He may have had grand plans but looking at his meagre resources, he would have lost hope and just said to himself “What’s the point.” What I would say to him now if that situation occurred again is, “Just save something. Anything.”

No matter how poor you are, just save what you can. Can you save N1,000 a month? Then save N1,000. Make sure you are consistent. That’s the most important thing.

[b]Enough Talk, Act Now
[/b]In the last 18 months or so, we have heard about millions of Dollars in looted funds being repatriated to Nigeria. The money was intended for selfish purposes but today, they feel like savings from 25 years ago. If you wish you could have that feeling today in your personal finances, you should have saved up something in the past. It’s not too late to save for your future though.

Whatever your circumstance, it doesn’t have to be permanent and no matter how old you think you are, you still have a lot of life ahead of you. Start to save now, don’t leave it till tomorrow, start where you are right now. You can carry on praying for your miracle but let God find you doing something and not waiting cap in hand.

When I saw the meme below on social media the other day, I laughed so hard, I had tears in my eyes, my sides hurt and I almost dropped my phone on the floor. I probably found it so funny because I could relate. This was typical for me in my school days. As my monthly pocket money ran out, it was Tesco's value bread with canned baked beans and sausage for breakfast, rice and ketchup with no stew or chicken for dinner. Notice I didn’t mention lunch? You'd be surprised how many hours a £0.25p loaf of bread will sustain you.
 
Wanting to share the joke, I passed my phone to the closest person to me. This fellow, (let's call him John) an acquaintance, who I had met on just a handful of occasions, read the meme and also burst into a loud bellowing roar of laughter before passing my phone to the next man sitting around our table. Before my phone had gone round everyone and a lot sooner than I expected, John's laughter started to recede, fading into a light chuckle and I almost thought for a second, I heard a faint whimper before his facial expression turned sombre and downcast. Apparently, for him, this picture was more than just a joke but a glaring autobiographical account of his present circumstances. Approaching his 40s, he was still not financially independent and often spent the latter part of each month, flat broke.
 
I asked about him from mutual friends and the story I heard back was the same each time. "That guy? I hope you didn't lend him money because you might as well kiss that money goodbye". "I don't know what he does with his money and he's always forming big boy".
 
In previous blog posts, I covered some of the habits that you need to imbibe if you want to be financially independent (Read:7 Habits That Will Get You On The Road To Financial Independence [url]/p6a1fl-3d[/url]) but in this post, we are going to look at those habits that will guarantee that you become and remain poor. If you are hell bent on falling below your potential, being a source of embarrassment and frustration for your family members or you desire to be a financial pariah that friends evade, this post is for you. Here are 5 tips that will can follow if you want to stay poor for the rest of your life.
 
 
Spend More Than You Earn
What the old folks refer to as living beyond your means. This is a sure banker, guaranteed tip that will make you poor. If you continue to spend more than you earn, you have a shortfall, right? If you continue spending, even for legitimate living expenses, you will need to cover the shortfall and most times, the easiest way is with debt. Ultimately, this four letter word will become a crushing weight that steals your peace and destroys your relationships.
 
Debt deals two blows because not only are you digging a home you will have to fill with your future income, the interest charges can make it almost impossible to climb back out again without deliberate intervention. I'm not saying that debt is bad by the way, but augmenting your lifestyle with borrowed money that’s ill advised.
 
What is unfortunate about people who go broke by spending more than they can afford is that they are handing over their destiny in the shape of money to Mr. A or Mrs. B thus helping them achieve their own destiny faster. Every time you order that botte of V.S.O.P. at the club, you are moving the club owner closer to his financial goals and moving yourself further from yours.
 
What you should be doing is living within your means and saving the different. This is old school but it works. You don't get more basic than this when it comes to financial planning. It’s not enough to save the difference under a mattress or in a bank though, when it accumulates sufficiently, you then need to invest in something that will generate a second source of income for you.
 
 Try To Keep Up With The Balogun's
I don’t know who the Mr. & Mrs. Balogun are in your life. It could be a neighbour, a colleague, sibling or an old school mate. When they buy a car, you have to buy a bigger and flashier one. They go on an exotic holiday, you travel for one week and post pictures on Facebook that make it look like you were away for a month. They move to a new house, you harass your husband to his wits' end until he rents a duplex in Lekki.
 
If you are trying to keep up in this manner, you will finish yourself. These stories always end the same way; with embarrassment or disgrace. Someone pointed out a lady to me some time ago when I was picking up my kids from school. The lady drove a luxurious jeep with vanity number plates. She was dressed like a Hollywood movie star and she walked with one heck of a chip on her shoulder. As she sauntered into the school compound, my fellow parent said to me "Na wa for some people o! This woman and her husband have not paid school fees for their children and she is acting like she owns the whole school". Apparently, practically every parent and teacher in the school knew their gist.
 
If you want to stay poor, keep buying material things to show people that you are better than they are in some way. If you don’t want to be poor though, then, act your wage. Don’t go broke trying to look rich.

 Depend On Your Salary Alone
If you want to stay poor, do not earn any money other than your monthly salary. Chances are if you are reading this post, you have some responsibilities to family members. Responsibilities which are competing for already tight resources.
 
I remember when I was a young man with two young children, while one kids had just started school and I was adjusting to accommodating tuition fees, uniforms and such in my expenses, the other was consuming baby formula and nappies faster than I could keep up. At the end of each month…what do I mean at the end of each month? Before the month barely started, I would already be broke. Nobody told me that it was unsustainable, nobody told me to get my hustle on. It was clear I needed to make some more money so I went out and did just that.
 
Ever heard of Parkinson's Law, even people earning N5 million monthly are complaining. You need to get out of your comfort zone and stretch yourself. Soon the stretch will be the new normal. Get a side hustle. It doesn’t have to be another job, it can be something that you can do without interfering with your existing job.
 
 
Don't Plan For Retirement
Is there anything sadder than seeing an old and tired person who still NEEDS to work to survive? Those who are too old or too sick to work live off stipends from their children. As you read this, some may be saying, "But that's our culture. Your parents take care of you when you are young and you take care of them when they get old. That's why it's good to have many children".
 
Well, which kind of parent would you prefer to be when you retire? One who spends his days filled with the frustration of unfulfilled desires, living off stipends and a diminishing pension or a parent who leaves instructions on how assets and businesses he has built should be sustained and grown for generations to come. Wouldn’t you prefer to be someone who changes the destiny of your descendant?
 
While you are earning a salary, you can bank on next month's pay cheque to tide you over for a few weeks. The reputation of your employer and your ID card will also help in securing another pay day loan but what happens after your very last pay cheque? Have you given it any thought? I ask again, where will your money come from after your last pay cheque? You might be saying "I'd have started my business by then." Ok, so what steps have you taken so far towards starting that business? Do you even know what that business will be?
 
I know it's not easy. There are many things competing for your finite funds today but you should also do something today that your future self will thank you for.
 
 
Blame Everyone Else For Your Situation
I know a lady who over the last 10 years or so that I've known her, has started and abandoned almost as many businesses. She started an event planning businesses, then a catering business. She tried her hands at outsourcing domestic staff and even delivered sand to construction sites at a point. The only thing more than the number of businesses she has started and closed is her number of excuses for why they failed. "It's not easy in this country." She would say. "The council boys won't let you rest. The Ibo boys have crashed the prices" and so on.
 
What perhaps no one has told her is that in every industry she has entered and pulled out from, there are companies that are thriving. The leaders in these companies have persevered through hardship and have followed their dreams to the top. If they could do it, why couldn’t this lady?
 
It's a matter of attitude. I have seen first-hand (even in myself) how a bad attitude can turn an opportunity into an unending nightmare and also how a positive, never-say-die attitude can overcome even the most dire circumstances.
 
Whoever said, "Nothing good comes easy" wasn’t smoking something when he said it. It’s the stone cold truth. No amount of blaming the government, the economy or anybody else will make your circumstances easier. Those who are living their dreams today are those who took responsibility for themselves and their actions and slayed their dragons until there were no more left. Blame everyone else for your mishaps, your disadvantages and your circumstances and chances are that you will never progress beyond them. Decide that you will not live a mediocre life, take responsibility for your life and watch yourself soar.
 

Enough Talk, Act Now
Being rich or poor starts in the mind. Someone by the name of Patrick Meagher once said, "Some people are so poor, all they have is money.” Oprah Winfrey is also noted for saying, "If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough."
 
After reading this post, which direction would you say you are heading? Richer or poorer? You may have some tough questions to ask yourself if some of the above apply to you. Find a quiet room you can spend at least 1 hour in. Take with you only a pen and a pad (leave your phone outside of the room) and think about how you are going to get your financial life back on track so you don’t end up poor. I’ll sign off with another quote by Bill Gates, “If you are born poor it’s not your mistake, but if you die poor it’s your mistake”.

Google Jumoke Orisaguna and you will get over 400,000 results with websites such as CNN and Huffington Post featuring her story. Even if you’ve been living under a bridge this last few month, you would have heard the incredible story of Jumoke, the bread hawker who literally walked her way into fame and fortune in late January of this year. If you haven’t heard her story, well, here’s a quick recap.

U.K rapper, Patrick Okogwu, otherwise known as Tinie Tempah was in Nigeria for a number of events including a photoshoot with celebrity photographer TY Bello. One of the shots was taken on your run of the mill Lagos street and as Tinie struck his pose, Jumoke walked right into the shot with her tray of Agege bread on her head. According to TY, the photo was near perfect and after some digital enhancements, the photo along with others was released in ThisDay Style magazine. The shot with Jumoke was so striking, it attracted attention from readers and after TY’s appeal on social media to track her down, Jumoke’s life changed forever. A modelling contract and a luxury flat in Lagos are just a few of the amazing outcomes of that innocuous picture and the story is just beginning.

This entire affair is nothing short of a remarkable phenomenon. The odds of her being there at that very moment, Tinie and TY choosing that street and she being there at the exact time for the right picture are astounding. If she had decided to take another route that day or she decided to sit down to rest even for 5 minutes earlier in the day, she would have missed the shoot completely.

If she was just 2 steps behind or 2 steps ahead when she turned to hawk on that street, the shot wouldn’t have happened. The light wouldn’t have been right or she wouldn’t have been making eye contact with Tinie and the image would have been deleted from TY’s camera without a second’s thought; as an annoying interruption. If it were someone else who walked past that day, even if the timing was perfect, it wouldn’t have been THE shot. If it were me for example who walked past, it’s unlikely I would have been offered a modelling contract or have received any life changing notoriety. The shot was meant for Jumoke and her alone.

It’s a fairytale story that we all wish would happen to us in our own perfect way someday. In your daydreams, it could be that you and Aliko Dangote share a lift together and by the time you doors open again, he has taken an immediate liking to you, ultimately making you his close confidant and best friend. Or maybe your own daydream is to run into a thirsty and disheveled Mike Adenuga who approaches you to buy him a N20 soft drink because his car broke down in your neighborhood and he doesn’t have any cash on him. You buy him the drink because you have heard tales of his generosity and you know that when he pays you back, it will be with at least a seven figure sum.

The Way The World Works
A thought that I’ve been pondering over Jumoke’s case is, “In this world we live in, can success really happen overnight?” Jumoke’s case makes the answer to the question an obvious yes but what are the odds of it happening again? What are the odds of it happening to me or you? Who was even the last Jumoke? Where is he or she now? As much as overnight success or fame is plausible, because it’s so rare to come by, it might as well be deemed to be impossible.

While I was in a shopping mall in Lekki over the past weekend, I was approached by a young man. He told me he was a new musical artist and then proceeded to pass me a CD with his picture on the cover to prove it. He told me that he needed my support to push his album. “No amount is too small sir.” he said. I recognized him from the last time I was in the mall and I bought a copy of his album at the time. I told him that I already bought a copy and he scurried away. “This is obviously his hustle.” I told myself. I also concluded in my mind that I could have just met a future music star if he continued to work hard at his career. Clearly many of the famous artists today started in a similar fashion. They didn’t just have the fame and success handed to them. They all went through a process before breaking out. The same applies to sports stars, film stars and even business owners.

In my pondering, I looked to the natural world and I imagined a beautiful flower. Its purpose in life is simply to attract insects with its bright colors and nectar and have them aid pollination thus ensuring the continued existence of its species. However, it doesn’t become a flower overnight, there is a process it must go through before it blooms. A seed can become a mighty tree but it can take decades to grow into one. Even a new born baby grows into an adult day by day and the changes that go on in his or her body take arguably a fifth of a lifetime. When you have a cut on your skin, the wound heals and disappears; not immediately, but over time. None of these things happen in the blink of an eye.

The lightning bolt that illuminates the sky and is gone just as suddenly as it appears is caused by a process. It just doesn’t come on and off as though there was a light switch (here’s an interesting video that offers some explanation). This is how the world works, it’s how nature works. Hardly does anything happen instantly and expecting anything different is expecting the unnatural.

Making Money Takes A Process
Why do so many people fail to go through the process of saving and investing their money for their future? They expect that someday, something will happen or someone will come into their lives and all their money problems will go away. Often times, some people placate themselves by saying, “One day, I will start my business and I will HAMMER! That is when I will start saving.”

Perhaps you have had a killer idea for a business sometime in the past. How old were you when you first had this idea? It could have been more than 10 years ago, I don’t know. How far have you gone in executing the idea? Have you even started? One of the main reasons people don’t put their ideas into action is a lack of capital. If you had saved just N20,000 every month for the last 10 years, you would have N2.4 million cash today for your business and that doesn’t include the interest you would have earned. Have you saved anything for your business in the last 10 years or are you still waiting for someone to come along and hand you the money?

What I’m saying in a nutshell is that your version of the life changing event that happened to Jumoke may never happen. The odds are just too large. You and I may continue to pray for it but we shouldn’t bank on it. The success that we crave for is more likely to come via a process and that process should start today.

Enough Talk, Act Now
Jumoke probably never wanted to be a model. Today she is one because she also happens to have the right talents and qualities. You are different from Jumoke because you can decide for yourself right now what you want to do and what you want to be. Doing it is going to take hard work, tears, sleepless nights, missed meals, stained relationships and I haven’t even talked about the challenges.

Read more interesting articles about personal finance at: www.talkingmoney.com.ng

It’s going to be a long journey, not a short one. That’s just how the world works so start now!

In this 5 part post, I'm going to tell you how to become a millionaire. Giving the unfortunate fact that N1Million converts to about $3,000, I'm not talking about being a Naira millionaire here, I'm talking about the big bucks because in reality, having N1Million in your bank account doesn’t really qualify you as a millionaire (even you won't feel like a millionaire). $1Million however (or Three Hundred Million Naira), now, that's the kind of money that buys a lifestyle and that’s what you are more likely interested in.

I am going to share 5 ways you can accumulate N300 million Naira in cash and assets over a period of time. The list below is obviously not exhaustive and it doesn’t include any nefarious or illegal means. There are no get rich quick schemes or "sure banker" football pools techniques, neither is there any mention of brokerage, arbitrage or fronting transactions which are more often than not one off or short term opportunities.

A higher percentage of people in Nigeria have become dollar millionaires via one or more of the 5 methods I will share compared with any other legal or illegal means. If you follow one of the paths shared below and apply the principles herein, you WILL be a millionaire!

Sports & Entertainment
This is quite a broad category that covers the obvious careers such as movie or TV stars, musicians and athletes. The less obvious careers in this category include authors (fiction, non-fiction), gossip bloggers, models and other professions in the associated industries such as movie directing or music production.
 
Naturally, before you can be successful enough to become a millionaire in this category you need to have some level of talent. Athletes such as Tiger Woods for example, who have made over a billion dollars are super talented. For the million dollar target that we are looking at here, it’s more important to be consistent over a period than to be the best for a short while or to be a flash in the pan. Speaking about Tiger Woods, let me share with you one of the secrets of becoming a millionaire via this method. Unbelievably, the largest source of income for millionaires in this category has nothing to do with their work or profession. In this category, endorsements are what catapults stars to the really big bucks. Tiger's career earnings from playing in golf tournaments adds up to $155 million from when he turned pro, a mere 12% of his accumulated income of $1.3 billion as at the end of 2013. Endorsements from companies such as Nike, Rolex and Accenture however have netted him 88% of his total earnings of $1.16 billion.
 
You are probably asking, "Can Nigerian companies pay such sums of money?", well, the answer is no, at least not at the moment. They do however pay good money regardless. Data about specific amounts paid to Nigerian celebrities are not as readily available as in the West but the figures are definitely in the tens of millions of Naira. Every time you see Banky W in an Etisalat or Samsung advert, it’s because those companies have paid him for the right to use his celebrity as a marketing tool. The word around the block also tells us that Linda Ikeji received a seven figure sum from Guinness to promote their new brand, Guinness Extra Smooth on her blog for a week. She recently showed off her N500 million mansion so she must be doing something right. These endorsement deals are there if you are well positioned.
 
Another Nigerian talent, Chimamanda Adichie who has authored and published 6 prominent books is generating income not only from the sale of her books but also royalties from a movie adaptation of one of her books, Half of a Yellow Sun which grossed N340 million from Nigerian cinema goers alone. She is well on the path towards becoming a millionaire because we have seen other authors from Western countries follow this path to success. John Grisham, author of bestselling books such as The Firm, The Pelican Brief and The Runaway Jury has had 11 of his books adapted for the screen. Now in his 60's, another three of his books, one of which he published in 1999, are going to fetch him more millions when they are released as movies in the next few years.
 
Unfortunately, talent alone does not guarantee success in this category, for every TuFace Idibia, there are a thousand talented young men still chasing their dreams in Festac Town. It may seem at times that Nigeria is awash with more and more celebrities each year, living celebrity lifestyles but the reality is that the number of millionaires from this category compared to all categories is possibly the smallest. I heard the comedian Chris Rock once said that "Shaq [Shaquille O'Neil] is rich, the guy who signs Shaq's cheques is wealthy". It was meant as a joke but how true that statement is. If you cannot make it to the top of your singing, acting, playing or writing career, then look towards adding value as a music producer, movie director or publicist. If you play your cards right, you will be the one writing the cheques for the celebrities.
 
[b]Enough Talk, Act Now
[/b]If you are young (and young is relative, you can still try to pursue this path. What are you good at? What is that thing that all your friends and family have told you from childhood that you are good at? With some nurturing and practice, could you rise to the top of that field?
 
Enter competitions. There are hundreds of opportunities to pit your skills against your pairs and others to gauge where you might rank and how much extra effort you need to put in. There are sports competitions, writing competitions, singing contests and others every year. Winners of these event usually get noticed and advanced to higher levels.
 
 
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Welcome to 2016! My wish for you is financial prosperity in this New Year. I want my wish to become a reality for you but there are some habits that you may have been indulging in last year that you need to shake off and leave behind in 2015 if you are going to have a real chance of making significant progress with your finances. I wish myself financial prosperity also but I must admit to being guilty of some of the points below. Let's work together and encourage each other on this year's journey.
 
Don't Buy On Impulse
If you don't record every single expense you make, you will get to the end of each month and ask yourself a series of questions such as, "What did I spend money on this month?", "Why am I so broke this month?" These questions may happen to be a recurring decimal in your life that you repeat month after month. Well, one of the reasons for this happening is that you buy on impulse. You see something….. you like it….. you buy it. There is no buffer in between the steps. The only thing that may slow you down is lack of cash but once the seller tells you that you can pay in installments, you buy two.
 

 
Unplanned spending is the enemy of prosperity and a lifestyle of immediate gratification is not compatible with a life progressing towards financial independence. A long, long time ago, I had a friend who sold clothes out of his car. He would come over to my office at about 4 p.m. and staff would crowd around his boot selecting shirts and ties. The items were good quality, the brands were all the rage back then and the prices were very reasonable. It was very tempting and I bought a few items every now and then, not because I needed them but because I succumbed to that most basic human desire to acquire.
 
I was in my late 20's with a young child who was about to start school and the rational thing to do was to plan for any clothes I would buy for myself after making adequate provisions for all other expenses concerning my family's needs. What is your example? Do you just have to buy the newest iPhone every time? Create a buffer between seeing/wanting something and making a decision on whether or not to buy. Ask yourself if you can really afford it. More importantly, have a monthly plan and a long term goal. With these at the back of your mind, you will (or should at least) develop some discipline in your spending.
 
Don’t Live Pay Cheque To Pay Cheque
In this New Year of 2016, resolve within yourself that you will not live hand to mouth anymore. Resolve that you will not be forced to borrow from friends and family or put yourself in embarrassing situations.
 
A large part of this will be achieved by reining in your expenditure. Many people with one source of income today don’t earn enough to live in the houses that they do, they shouldn’t drive the cars they drive or should even own a car at all and they certainly shouldn’t live the lifestyle that they do if they truly live within their means.
 
How much do you really earn? Convert your monthly salary to Dollars, Sterling Euros, Rands or any other currency spent in a major city. With that say, Dollar amount, imagine yourself living in a city like New York and ask yourself what kind of lifestyle you would have on that Dollar salary. Imagine someone like you, same age and similar circumstances living in New York city and ask yourself, "Would a man my age, earning the equivalent of my salary in New York be paying a $50 a month cable T.V bill?", would that be wasteful on his part or even irresponsible? That's about what most people pay in Nigeria for a standard DSTV bouquet; $50.
 
Some of you will scuff and say that the man in New York has 24/7 electricity, a good transport system and doesn’t have to worry about many things that you have to. That may be true, but he has his own problems to worry about but at the end of the day, it's up to you to decide whether you want to continue struggling with money or sacrifice one or two year to break the cycle of lack.
 
Watch Less T.V
Speaking about cable T.V bills, television is a time thief. It rubs you of precious productive hours when you could be building your next business or engaged in your side hustle. I'm not saying cancel your DSTV subscription but ask yourself what you and your family would miss if you stepped down your bouquet from Premium to Compact. First of all, you would pay less and save more; secondly, you can spend more time doing something that bears fruit.
 
According to a 2012 report, the average American watches 34 hours of T.V a week. In the U.K, the average is about 28 hours per week. As you might expect, data of this nature is hard to come by in Nigeria but widely respected Internet analyst, Mary Meeker released a report in 2014 that included Nigeria. According to her report, Nigerians spend an average of 443 minutes a day looking at a screen of some sort, be it a television, smartphone, laptop/PC or tablet. That's equivalent to over 7 hours per day. Of the 443 minutes, 131 minutes are spent watching TV, being 30% or just over 2 hours a day or close to 16 hours a week. Where do you fall compared to this average? Over or under?
 
Don’t Complain About Nigeria
For as long as there has been a country called Nigeria and during my lifetime at least, people have complained about the problems of our country in living rooms, bedrooms, churches, mosques, market squares, beer parlours and just about anywhere two or more people can gather. I've seen men recall from memory, names, dates, actions, inactions of political figures from over the last 40 years and I've watched them tell and retell the same tales about President this and coup plotter that and how some friend or relative was there in the flesh. They have become professional grumblers.
 
After 55 years of complaining or hearing others complain, can we make the decision not to waste hours complaining if we are not going to effect a positive change lest we ourselves become like those men in 20 years from now telling and retelling our own tales. The reality is that the root cause of the complaining is economic disadvantage. We are not as well off as we want to be or as well off as we can be so we grumble and complain. Well, I have a surprise for you. If Nigeria suddenly became a fantastic country and rated 10/10 on all possible rating scales, there will still be the rich, the poor, the very rich and the very poor. There is just no getting away from this. A gentleman came up with a principle that was named after him. It's not referred to as a theory or a law because those are open to interpretation or can be bent, circumvented and all together reversed. The law of gravity for example does not hold sway in every environment however principles are irrefutable; they cannot be disputed.
 
Through empirical research, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto showed conclusively in 1896 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. He also proved the principle in the context of the distribution of income among the population. The principle has also been demonstrated in natural phenomena and is no longer a topic of contention. It is a principle.
 
If we follow Pareto's Principle, then we should expect that irrespective of the circumstances, 20% of Nigerians will hold 80% of the wealth. There will never be an equitable distribution of wealth so you are faced with two choices: continue to complain and accept that you can't do anything to affect your destiny or make your focus from today to get yourself into that 20% and stay there.
 
Don’t Remain Ignorant About Macro Economics
When you pick up a newspaper, do you start reading from the back pages (i.e. the sports pages)? Does the 10 p.m. news end for you when they start talking about the stock market performance? Do your eyes glaze over or your mind wonder when you are in a conversation and you hear words like inflation or interest rate?
 
Well, my friend, this is the year that you reverse those traits. If you are serious about your money, you need to start paying attention to how countries make and lose money because the only way to make money when there is chaos all around you is to be armed with knowledge. The present revenue glut we are suffering in Nigeria is because of the sustained low oil prices and our equally low foreign reserves. Whether you are a salary earner or in business, your life will be impacted in one shape or form over 2016.
 
I recommend a daily radio show called Business Express. It airs every weekday on Smooth 98.1 FM at 6.45 a.m. It’s the only financial markets program I know of that actually attempts to educate even the most unenlightened listener on how market forces affect them. That’s a good starting point to build more knowledge.
 
Enough Talk, Act Now
The next steps for you are as follows:
 
· Grab a piece of paper and a pen
· Write down 5 sentences that will start with the words; "By the end of 2016,…….". These words are positive affirmations that will be your compass for this year's journey. For example, one of my affirmations for this year is, "By the end of 2016, I would have read 12 books". I'm not talking about novels or fiction, I mean 12 books that will help me develop the skills and knowledge I need to better myself and to keep producing quality blog posts on this website.
· Once you have written down your 5 sentences, store them somewhere on your phone. Make a habit of reading these sentences every morning and planning activities for each day that will move you one step closer towards making those statements a reality.


Read more articles about personal financial planning on www.talkingmoney.com.ng

I don’t know about you, but 2015 was a complete blur for me. The 12 months went by so quickly, that it was only one week till the end of the year that I started feeling that sense of urgency that I get when a new year beckons. One of the things I do around the middle of November is, I rate my year on a scale of 1 to 10 on a number of parameters and targets I set in the November of the previous year. Growth of my personal balance sheet or net worth is definitely a big component of this score and this year, I rate myself a 7. Honestly, this is my highest score in at least 5 years and I have a lot to be proud of. I’ve moved into my own home, increased my monthly salary and also activated an additional source of income. What’s more, I have actualized a goal I’ve nursed for some time, which is to launch this blog. What are your wins for 2015 and what would you score yourself? It’s a score that only you will know (unless you decide to share it) so be honest with yourself and work towards improving it next year.

Despite our wins, 2015 has been a challenging year on a macro level for all of us. My score of 7 could have been a strong 8 were it not for the significant challenges that we had to live through over the last year. In this my last blog post for 2015, I want to take stock of the last 12 months and share how some key events have affected our money. I will also project into the future given the trends which we see today and more importantly, I want share how we can prepare ourselves so that we can end 2016 financially stronger than we are now. The 2016 outlook will be my fist post for next year. Follow @TalkingMoneyNG on twitter to be notified once it’s posted.
Wait & See

The stagnation of the economy we all witnessed in the first quarter of this year spilled over from Q4 2014. It was largely precipitated by the uncertainty surrounding the general elections scheduled to hold during the quarter. The questions we asked, debated and argued over in our homes and offices were:

“Would APC win?”, “If they do win, what could we expect from Buhari?”, “How would the South -South groups react to a Buhari win?”, “If PDP wins, and we continued on the same economic trajectory, would that not spell doom for Nigeria?” “Would the election even hold?”.

The economic stagnation wasn’t helped by the 6 week postponement of the presidential elections from February 14th to March 28th.



Not a lot was happening during that quarter, inflation held steady during the period at under 9% and it was a difficult time for those running businesses with primary patronage from public sector MDAs and large corporates. Most corporations shortened their planning horizons to just one month while others stopped any capital expenditure all together. The predicament of state civil servants was even worse as many had not been paid salaries since Q3 2014. In a report on employee salary arrears published by the Nigerian Labour Congress, 23 of the 36 states were technically bankrupt and were unable to pay workers’ salaries. Further analysis of the accounts of the states revealed a combination of low internally generated revenue and mortgaging of future federal allocations in the form of loan repayments, irrevocable standing payment orders and other payments to financial institutions and contractors as the primary causes of the financial distress of the states. Rumors were of course rife that state funds were diverted to fund the election but no concrete evidence was presented to substantiate that.
The Buhari Effect

A fresh wave of optimism swept through the country and new highs were recorded in the financial markets following the outcome of the elections. In fairness, the economic gains witnessed were largely attributable to the peaceful transition from one party to another rather than the person of Buhari himself. In the days succeeding the presidential election, which also happen to be the start of the quarter, the NSE All Share Index witnessed an unprecedented rally, gaining over N1 trillion in market capitalization in two days of trading (the highest gain recorded by the NSE ASI in over 50 years). The Naira exchange rate with the US Dollar in the parallel market which had been in a tail spin before the election reversed its trend briefly as speculators flooded the Forex market with US Dollars.

A global issue which was fast becoming a crippling and multi-faceted national crisis for Nigeria dominated discussion following the election and this was the matter of falling crude oil prices. The National Assembly passed the 2015 budget on April 28th assuming a lower crude oil price benchmark of $53 per barrel compared with the previous year’s $77.5. Also, giving the strongest indication yet that the fuel subsidies will be removed during the year, the passed budget made no provision for subsidy payments during the year.


Possibly the biggest positive and direct impact on the personal finances of the populace was the improved power supply following the swearing in of President Buhari. Power generation, which had hovered between 3,000 and 3,500 megawatts in the first quarter topped 4,500 megawatts in July and peaked at 4,883.90 megawatts in late November. According to NOI Polls, in the month of May 2015, average daily cumulative household power supply was at 3.9 hours, which was the lowest level from April 2013.

Following the swearing in however, successive months of record power supply has been polled with 6.1, 9.0, 9.2 and 10.8 hours recorded in June, July, August and September respectively. Social media was awash with images of broken bottles in freezers and dozing generator dealers. The APC party unsurprisingly took credit for the improved power supply, adding another notch to their tally of victories over the new opposition party, however, it must be said that some groundwork by the previous federal government contributed.

Earlier in the year, in February to be exact, President Jonathan inaugurated the Olorunsogo 2 power station which added 750 megawatts to the national grid. Earlier in the year, the rehabilitation of one of the steam turbine generators at the Egbin power plant was completed after been non-operational for 8 years also contributed 220 megawatts. Most significantly however was the increased gas supply to generating companies. According to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Power, in the three months succeeding the swearing in, there was not a single reported case of pipeline vandalism, which is in sharp contrast to the previous government where vandalism was recurrent and reached a peak on May 26th when gas generated electricity was “completely grounded”.

The Buhari effect was not always positive though. Dwindling government revenues and uncertainly around the outstanding subsidy payments (amounting to close to $1 billion) owed to oil marketers culminated in what was arguably the longest and most disruptive petrol scarcity on record. Prior to this period, the last time I bought black market petrol was in 2002. The fuel affected my car’s engine badly back then and I experienced similar but less severe results this year when I had little choice but to buy petrol from a road side urchin. The NNPC directive to petrol stations to stop selling petrol in jerry cans meant that the infamous queues of yellow jerry cans at petrol stations were replaced with queues of generator tanks.
All About The Benjamins

By the start of the second half of the year, GDP growth had slowed to a quarterly rate of 2.35%. This was 40% lower than the previous quarter and 62% lower than the corresponding period in 2014. For an import dependent country such as Nigeria, access to foreign exchange is the catalyst of growth and the high demand for foreign exchange experienced vis-a-vis its short supply had driven exchange rates higher.

In what some analysts described as panicky policy measures, the CBN released a plethora of guidelines and circulars during the course to the year in a bid to stem the hemorrhaging of our reserves when in fact they did everything other than the right thing, which was to devalue the currency.

There was one “de facto” devaluation at the beginning of the year after the CBN closed its official bi-weekly Forex sale window and advised all parties seeking Forex to purchase from the Interbank market. At the time, the CBN sold its US Dollars at the rate of N168/$1 while the Interbank rate at the time was N197/$1. As one window as closing however, another was wide open.

Prior to the closure of the CBN RDAS window, Nigeria effectively operated three foreign exchange rates; the CBN rate, Interbank rate and the black market rate. The spread between the black market rate and the CBN rate, at its widest was N42 (20%) and in keeping with the exploitative nature of some Nigerians, the arbitrage window that allowed holders of Naira denominated card to withdraw cash overseas at something close to the Interbank rate and sell on the black market was fully utilised. The CBN promptly released a circular in April reducing the annual limit of transactions emanating from these cards from $150,000 to $50,000 and the daily withdrawal limit to $300.

As the US Dollar became scarcer and scarcer, banks found settlement of Forex liabilities more challenging, they themselves lowered the transaction limits even further, some restricting usage entirely. On December 21st, the CBN announced that there will be an outright ban on foreign currency transactions effective from 1st of January 2016. Use of US Dollar domiciliary accounts will not be a direct substitute because banks also stopped accepting dollar cash deposits in August.

In another response to the economic realities of falling foreign exchange income and dwindling reserves, the CBN, at the end of June released a now famous list of 41 items which could no longer be imported using Forex acquired officially. The publication of the list highlighted the extent of our tastes for imported products and brought to the fore the difficulties of running a successful manufacturing enterprise in Nigeria.

Despite the CBN’s best efforts, demand for the little foreign exchange remaining continues to remain strong. Following the reduction of US Dollar sales to bureaux de change (BDCs), the exchange rate spiked to N270/$1 in mid-December. At present, all indications point to further weakening of the Naira.


Conclusion

Nigeria has always been a place where you can get away with almost everything mostly because of the amount of cash “floating outside of the system”. This “subterranean economy” has been a veritable contributor to GDP in its own right and all of this year’s events, policies and market forces have culminated in the squeezing of this subsector. Regulations such as the BVN policy have also contributed to its fate and I believe that this is the story behind the stories for this year. The subterranean economy is being dragged to merge with the surface economy and the cash that used to flow around is drying up.

Yes Nigeria is broke but we have been broke before. A barrel of crude oil traded for $12 in 1998 under the Abacha regime. At the time, we didn’t suffer a heavy depreciation of the Naira, our inflation rate dropped from 10.6% to 7.8% and government expenditure actually increased by 14% from the previous year.

In the long run, I think this “wilderness experience” will benefit Nigeria. The driving forces discussed above have also coincided with the election of a President who (at least verbally so far) is tough on corruption and graft.

If indeed this subterranean economy has been propping up the economy, it is being attacked from two of three sides now. Firstly, as Nigeria gets broker, there will be less opportunity for corrupt practices. Secondly, with President Buhari at the helm, there is more accountability for wrong doing if any graft does takes place. The third side, the side which remains wide open for this subterranean worm to escape is our culture as a nation. We are a largely corrupt people and corruption is not only present in government or the public sector, it permeates every level of society and every age group.

World economics is cyclical. Oil prices will rebound eventually and our reserves will grow again. Whether our country “develops” after this experience will be largely due to whether this subterranean economy resurrects or not and whether we can thrive without it.

Your typical working day goes something like this: you get out of bed sometime between 4 a.m. and 5.30 a.m., you are out of the house definitely before 6.30 a.m. or else you are going to have a bad day and your arrival at the office is by 08h00 (give or take 1 hour). Assuming you are a dedicated employee, you work diligently all day and attend meetings where you listen to the same points that were discussed last week. Somewhere in between the 9 working hours, you squeeze out an hour or a little more to have lunch and take care of some personal errands and come 5 p.m., you are faced with the choice of either hitting the road and traffic head-on in the hope that you will get home in 2 to 3 hours or you stay back in the office doing nothing productive until the traffic has eased and you get home a little later than your colleagues who left at 5 p.m. You do this every workday, 20 times in a month and sometime in the last week, you get a credit alert on my phone that tells you that you've been paid. It’s what we refer to as your "hard earned salary".
 
Given that this is reminiscent of the life many of us live, I sometimes ask myself why some people still throw their hard earned money away. They must do it unknowingly because throwing your money away knowingly is clearly a diagnosable mental condition. If you have responsibilities that mean that your monthly income is barely enough anyway, this post is for you. I will be sharing 6 ways you are unknowingly either giving your money away, leaving it on the table or not stretching its full potential.
 
You Don’t Make Use of Non-Taxable Income Deductions
Some of you may know that since 2004 it has been mandatory for companies that hire 5 or more staff (3 or more since the 2014 amendment of the Pension Act) to deduct a portion of their employees' salaries and remit to a Pension Fund Administrator (PFA). What you may not know is that the 18% statutory (note to hecklers: read the new Act, it’s no longer 15%) total monthly contribution is not the maximum contribution you can make. You are allowed to make additional voluntary contributions (AVCs) into your Retirement Savings Account (RSA). The benefit of making AVCs is that the money is deducted from your gross salary (before taxes) so when you make AVCs, you are paying less tax on a "lower gross" thus getting a bigger share of your salary overall.
 
The first question you may ask is, "what's the use of paying less tax if I can only access the savings when I retire?", Well unlike your regular pension contributions, you are allowed to withdraw your AVCs from your RSA after 5 years and guess what, the withdrawals are also tax free! Yes, the entire AVC system allows you to avoid tax so you can reduce your effective tax rate and earn more of your salary every month.
 
The same applies to life insurance premiums. When you pay any life insurance premiums from your pocket, collate all receipts and other supporting documents, pass to your tax consultant via your Human Recourses department and the premiums you paid will be deducted from your tax liability the following year.
 
 
You Are Not Applying For Your Entitlements
As you read this, a portion of your salary is being deducted monthly to fund the NHF (National Housing Fund) pool so that other people can get loans at single digit interest rates to buy their own homes. They are using your money to buy their homes and yet you haven't applied for your own home loan. An NHF loan is your right!
 
The NHF is actually a fantastic initiative set up by the Federal Government to ensure that as many people who want their own home can afford to do so. It has basically grouped all Nigerian workers into one big cooperative whereby we all contribute a little bit into the collective pool and those who want to borrow, borrow at an interest rate payable back to the pool. To be eligible, you need to have made pool contributions for at least six months after which you can access the loan via any Primary Mortgage Institution. Be warned though, the process is going to be arduous but don’t give up, the patient are accessing these loans and beneficiaries are reported quarterly in the daily newspapers.
 
You Don't Have Health Insurance
I hardly ever fall ill but when I do, it's like I've been run over by a bus; I just ache all over and I’m completely useless. It's hardly ever malaria or typhoid fever but those blood tests are done anyway and drugs are prescribed before the results are out. When the results of the blood tests are ready, there is nothing, the illness always usually turns out to be caused by exhaustion. I've had health insurance all my adult life so I've never had to pay for my visits to the hospital but I'm well aware of what hospitals charge for just basic healthcare. Healthcare is not cheap and paying for good healthcare could cost you an arm or a leg (quite literally). It's doubly expensive when you have a family, especially kids. Today, if your child visits a decent hospital, every consultation will set you back at least N20,000 be it a slight fever, a runny nose or diarrhea. There is then the follow-up meeting that will cost you between N5,000 and N10,000 and the cost can go up to six figures if your child needs to be admitted for a night or more.
 
The present health insurance infrastructure has been in existence in Nigeria since 1999. With an annual payment starting from about N80,000, you and your family can enjoy health care (within prescribed cover limits) without paying an additional kobo.
 
The question you may ask is; "will I spend up to N80,000 in one year for medical expenses?" The reality is that you may not have spent that much in the last 4 years combined but you don't want to be caught unawares and financially unprepared when you have to fork out double that amount for one medical care visit. Unscheduled payments never come at the right time do they? Making unscheduled payments mean that you can't plan for your financial future long-term. Even if you do start a plan, payments such as emergency medical bills come along and sweep away your savings. When there is a viable alternative to unplanned spending such as health insurance and you are not taking advantage, you are throwing away your money unnecessarily.
 
 
You Are Too Loyal
Many, many years ago now, part of my job at the time was to buy the computer hardware that my company used. In the initial request for quotations my team sent out, we invited five companies to submit proposals and quotes. We eventually selected three companies to deliver equipment on a regular basis but over time, one of the companies distinguish themselves in service delivery and price and our orders from this company grew until a point where they were our sole supplier. Exploiting our loyalty, this company gradually increased prices of equipment delivered blaming landing costs or the exchange rate with the US dollar as the reason for higher prices. It wasn't until a year or two later when a new member joined the team and compared prices we paid with what was paid by his former employer that we realized that we could have bought the equipment for much less. We were too loyal to one supplier and he took advantage of that.
 
How does this relate to you? The bottom line here is that when buying anything of value, you should shop around. Don't settle for the first offer you get. Secondly, you should also encourage competition amongst your suppliers even if it's newspaper vendors or artisans. Let them compete for your business. That way, even if they can't offer you a better price, they at least offer you better service. Thirdly, always, always, always ask for a discount. Most times, you can save between 5% and 10% of the list price of what you are buying just by asking and insisting.
 
 
You Are Not Loyal Enough
A direct contradiction to the previous header I know, but there is a balance you need to strike between being too loyal and urging competition. Almost all businesses have a loyalty scheme of some sort these days. Apply for a loyalty card if one is available and accumulate points which you can redeem for discounts or applied to future purchases. The airline industry is particularly well known for this. Even when there isn’t a formal loyalty scheme, there are informal benefits that you can get just from being loyal to a supplier. A personal example, I have been a steady patron at a certain bar in Lagos for the last 14 years. An old girlfriend once joked that by now, I should be able to point to specific furniture that my money has paid for in there. I go there because I enjoy my time there, I like the ambiance, the service I get is good and is commensurate to their prices so I am loyal. What have I gotten in return, well, the odd free drink or platter of appetizers here and there, priority seating for live events, priority parking (very important in Lagos), being able to watch my football team play on T.V irrespective of what else is happening on other channels or in the world and just as importantly, being able to run a tab.
 
Many will say that debt is not good (especially in this case as it can lead to unrestrained consumption) but I disagree. With discipline, there are many advantages to running a tab this way. The best example I can give is of a friend who runs his own company. If he is going to entertain a client, he does it at this establishment and he runs a tab. At the end of every month, the manager collates all the signed bills and delivers them to his office. In my friend’s office, these bills are captured in his accounts as business acquisition expenses. If he chooses to have lunch there with his family or just a couple of drinks on his own, who is to know whether clients were present or not? Ultimately, the business acquisition expense line reduced his profitability and his tax liability. He enjoys a comfortable lifestyle and the company which he owns settles his expenses. He wouldn’t be extended this significant monthly credit if he wasn’t a frequent patron of the bar.
 
 
You Don't Buy In Bulk
When you buy in bulk, you shift the power base in a transaction from the seller to the buyer and you have leverage that you can exploit for a better deal. When I say buy in bulk though, keep it within reason. I don't expect you to start storing petrol in your house so you can get a better deal but I’ll give you one practical example you can relate to. If you pay for your DSTV for 1 year in advance, you get one month free. This is a formal standing deal but there are so many that you can create for yourself during a transaction.
 
Some will argue against this point and reel out phrases like, "cash is king!" or "time value of money” or "you are tying down your money" all in an attempt to condemn the practice of bulk purchase. For these people, I want to share the conversation below which is a popular joke:
 
Lady : Do you smoke ?
 
Man : Yes
 
Lady : How many packs a day ?
 
Man : 3 packs
 
Lady : How much per pack
 
Man : $10.00
 
Lady : And how long have you been smoking ?
 
Man : 15 years
 
Lady : So 1 pack cost $10.00 and you have 3 packs a day which puts your spending each month at $900. In one year, it would be $10,800 correct ?
 
Man : Correct
 
Lady : If in 1 year you spend $10,800 not accounting for inflation, the past 15 years puts your spending at $162,000 correct ?
 
Man : Correct
 
Lady : Do you know that if you hadn't smoked, that money could have been put in a high interest savings account and after accounting for compound interest for the past 15 years, you could have now bought a Ferrari ?
 
Man : Do you smoke ?
 
Lady : No
 
Man : Where's your Ferrari then?
 
If you earn a monthly salary, paying for items in bulk doesn’t mean you are tying money down. What tangible thing could you do with the money if you hadn't spent it. Even if you choose to save the money in an account (which I don't argue with per say), compare the interest you earn on that amount versus the savings you get from a bulk purchase. Most times, the difference is immaterial. If applied with reason and good judgement using a cost - benefit analysis, buying in bulk can save you money.
 
Enough Talk, Act Now
• Speak to your HR department about how you can make AVCs. If they have no idea what you are taking about, contact your PFA directly. If you don’t have a PFA, you can report your company to PENCOM for breaking the law, change jobs or continue to suffer in silence.
 
• Apply for a NHF loan NOW and own your own home. You can borrow as much as N15 million for a maximum period of 30 years at 6% interest. Again, talk to your HR department.
 
• If your employer does not offer health insurance as part of your package, get a group of 10 or more together and collectively shortlist an HMO that will offer you a group scheme.
 
• Consider at all your monthly expenses. Where can you benefit from being more loyal, less loyal and buying in bulk?


More articles on personal financial management available at http://www.talkingmoney.com.ng/

One half of 2015 has passed and if you are like 36% of people who make New Year resolutions, you have already broken most, if not all of yours. Right now, you may feel guilty or disappointed with yourself but with time, these feelings will fade. By the ’ember months , you would have started promising yourself and others that “come January, I will stop this and I will start that”. Another year would have gone by and you will still be nursing the same fantasies, dreams and desires that live only inside you. You will have nothing to show for all your talk.

Fortunately for all of us, January 1st is just a point in time, just another day on the calendar. Any day can be the day you start actualizing your dreams. To buttress this point, did you know that some cultures use calendars other than the Gregorian calendar (also called the Christian calendar) which is widely used in the West and in Africa? The Chinese new year for example, starts on January 31st, the Ethiopian is on September 11th while the Arabic calendar starts sometime in October. Any day can be the day you decide to commit to making your dreams come true. Here are 5 steps to follow that will help you set and make 2015 the year you kept true to your goals.

Write Down Your S.M.A.R.T Goals

Bob once told me, “Anything not written down doesn’t exist.” That is so true. If you don’t physically write down a goal and read it to yourself, firstly, you can’t access it from a less biased view.

If it were someone else who wrote those words and you were the one reading them, would the goal come across as too ambitious, a little vague or down right ridiculous? Writing your goals on paper helps you to look at them more objectively and make the goals real. They are no longer thoughts or ideas floating around in your head. Secondly, writing your goals creates a reference that you can meditate on periodically. For example, reading your goals every morning before you leave home for work is a powerful way to set the tone for the rest of the day. That goal will become a compass for everything you do for that day making you focused. Reading your goals and spending time reflecting on them start to harness a universal law, the Law of Attraction. My interpretation of this Law, for the purpose of this post, is that any goal that occupies your mind often enough for long and deep enough will eventually attract the necessary resources you need to achieve them. I can attest to the efficacy of this Law with many personal accounts.

When I decided that I was going to own my own home and committed to achieving that goal in 2007, I suddenly started discovering opportunities to acquire land (opportunities that may have existed prior but I just didn’t notice them). A friend who was also committed to home ownership was drawn to me and we contemplated buying a plot together and splitting it in two, effectively halving the cost of acquisition albeit for a smaller parcel of land.

A former colleague of mine once committed himself to a goal to make N1 million a month for 12 months from “side hustles”. A laudable goal if I ever heard one. However, when I asked him how he was going to achieve this goal, there was a lack of clarity and it was obvious that he had not thought things through . His goal was not S.M.A.R.T – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, or Realistic . It was at least Time-bound given that he wanted to achieve his goals over a 12 month period. He hadn’t set a start date and after month after month of falling short of the goal, his enthusiasm began to decrease and eventually, the goal was a distant memory.
Outline Step by Step Actions

Once you have your goal written down, the next thing to do is think through the process of making that goal a reality. Constantly ask yourself; “What do I need to do next to move me closer to achieving my goal?” When you have the answer, write it down, then ask yourself what you need to do after that. Walk methodically though this process of writing down the next steps until the last step that will see your goal actualized. For example, if your goal is to own your own home, the first step is to decide which areas you may want to live based on your our criteria (proximity to your workplace, future development in the area etc.). Following that, the next step will be to find out what house prices are in these areas so you can ascertain what you can afford. A four bedroom house somewhere in Akowonjo for example may be equivalent to a two bedroom flat in Ikeja G.R.A. The next decision after that would then be to make a decision on the type of house you can afford and the area based on all the information you have gathered.

Once you have settled on the area and type of accommodation, you will have a fair idea of the targeted amount you need to spend. Next step? Decide how you will pay. Will you be saving the entire amount or just a proportion, which will help you qualify for a mortgage loan. You get the picture?

By now, you should have a list of all the steps written down neatly (or not so neatly- the important thing is that they make sense to you). Next to each item, write down the dates you intend to accomplish each task. Some tasks can start simultaneously, others will depend on one task or the other finishing first. Use your intuition and shuffle around the dates around practically until the steps all fit into your time-bound S.M.A.R.T goal.

.....

To read the continuation of this post, please follow the link below:
http://www.talkingmoney.com.ng/make-a-success-of-the-rest-of-2015/

The last time the matter of spraying money was a topic of heated national debate in Nigeria was between 2006 and 2008. It started when the then President, Olusegun Obasanjo sent a new Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Bill to the National Assembly for ratification. The Bill wasn’t signed into law until the following year after boisterous debate in both chambers of the legislature and a televised public hearing. The main theme of the bill was around amendments to the independence of the CBN but the section that ignited debate was Section 21(3): “For the avoidance of doubt, spraying of, dancing or matching on the Naira or any note issued by the Bank during social occasions or otherwise howsoever shall constitute an abuse and defacing of the Naira or such note and shall be punishable under Sub-section (1) of this section”.

The punishment referred to is imprisonment for a term not less than six months or a fine not less than N50,000 or both. The erstwhile CBN governor, Professor Charles Soludo was singled out by enraged Nigerians as the face of the beast that was trying to take away one of their favourite pastimes. Renowned juju musician, King Sunny Ade in particular was very vocal at the time, speaking against the ban on spraying money (possibly out of self-interest?).

The matter of spraying cash is one of those that splits public opinion right down the middle. A staunch group made up of mostly habitual ‘owambe’ revelers propagates an argument that it is part of our culture and traditional, however, they are yet to make a case about the ancestral origins of spraying that holds water.

Article concludes @: www.talkingmoney.com.ng/will-you-be-spraying-at-your-next-party-read-this/

There is a lot of emphasis on bad money habits that keep us from realizing our long term financial goals and we each know, by and large, that we are guilty of at least one of these habits when we choose to ignore that little voice in our heads that tries to help us keep our spending in check. In this post, I focus on positive money habits while I seek to validate the good ones that you already have and challenge you to pick up one or two more. Here are 5 good money habits that will set you well on the road towards financial independence.

Save At Least 10% of Your Monthly Income


Many people in their 30s and 40s are still hopeful that their one “big deal” will come through and from the derived proceeds, they will catch up on all the savings they have neglected to make since their 20s. The unfortunate reality is, however, that for some people, the “big deal” has been in the pipeline for over 10 – 15 years and is no closer to seeing the light of day. Does this sound like you?

Imagine a young boy you know, who is in his teenage years and imagine also that the young boy were to tell you that because he believes that he is as good as some football stars from European leagues, he has decided to pursue a career in that line and thus not bother with finishing school or gaining any further academic qualification. What would your advice to him be?

Because you are older and wiser, you know that putting all his eggs in one basket in that fashion can have disastrous consequences, hence, you advise him to rethink his strategy. If your advice to this young boy would be against putting your eggs in one basket, why then would you rely on one big money idea as your retirement plan or your home acquisition plan? At the very least, you should have a backup plan in place. The surest way to financial freedom is to diligently save at least 10% of your earnings and live on the rest. If you spend more than you earn, you are working against yourself on the ladder towards financial independence.

At times when I spend money to buy an item, I see the transaction as a self-sabotaging event whereby, I am helping someone else fulfill their goals while weakening my own position. I feel like I am contributing to someone else’s financial goals when I hand the money over. That is why I have resolved to see my monthly savings as a payment I make to myself and I make this payment first every month; I pay myself first!

Create a Monthly Budget

Writing down all your expected monthly expenses for the month and comparing the total with 90% of your income is a good way to plan and access how your month will fare. Whether you have money left over or you are in the red, budgeting monthly will show you clearly what your spending priorities should be for that month and the expenses you should & should not be making. Budgeting will show you clearly that you cannot afford to take that weekend trip to Ghana with your friends or buy that aso-ebi for a wedding hence you are less likely to overspend and fall into debt (unless you lack self-discipline but that’s another blog post entirely).

I had a friend who would start spending money once he got his salary until all of it ran out midway through the month. He had no budget or plan that showed him how much he could spend on entertaining himself or how much he would need for the NEPA bill for example. When his electricity prepaid meter would suddenly run out mid-month after he went broke, he would either borrow to recharge or forgo electricity all together in has flat until he was paid again.

There are a few ways to budget effectively. I choose to separate my expenses into 2 broad areas; expenses that I have to pay which I call non-discretionary and secondly expenses which I choose to make or expenses that I can influence how much I spend, these I call discretionary. I write out this budget monthly before I receive my income so that as soon as I get an alert of the credit in my account, I settle all my non-discretionary expenses such as savings, utility bills, tithes and debt repayments.

Whatever I have left, is what I call my “net-net income” and this is the potion which I have control over and this is the portion which I monitor to ensure I am able to adjust to any financial “surprises” that spring up mid-month.

To Continue Reading, visit http://www.talkingmoney.com.ng/7-habits-that-will-set-you-on-the-road-to-financial-independence/

To read the continuation of this post, please follow the link below:
http://www.talkingmoney.com.ng/why-you-are-always-broke-part-2/

Maccoy1:
Very educative, one other thing is many people don't have budget or they have but are not dedicated to it
lalasticlala obinoscopy front page.

Thanks. Look out for part 2

I’ve heard too many salary earners blame their low disposable income on their employers, their spouses, the economy, the government and even spiritual forces; everything except their ability to apply discipline to their money management. You yourself may have even uttered the words, “If only I made more money…..” at some time or another.

The truth is, you can hardly ever earn “enough”. One of the common versions of Parkinson’s Law states that no matter how much you earn, your expenses will always rise to a level that will consume your extra income. I know of people who earn over N2 million a month in salaries and still borrow money frequently to tide them over till the end of the month. If you talk to many pay-day lenders, they will tell you that their best clients are salary earners, more specifically, bank employees because these individuals rely on near guaranteed future income to pay for present day expenses. If you get broke mid-month, month after month, it is most likely because of certain bad money habits you have. In this post, I am going to cover 5 reasons why you are always broke and proffer some possible remedies.

Immediate Self-gratification

There is a particular gentleman I used to know (I call him gentleman just out of courtesy). Whenever he received his salary at the end of the month, he would literally disappear from the face of the earth for a week. He wouldn’t show up for work and his wife and family wouldn’t know his whereabouts during the period. He would eventually turn up the following week, usually in the same clothes he was last seen in, looking dirty, scruffy and reeking of alcohol with bloodshot eyes and an unsightly brownish grey stubble on his face. From the euphoria of receiving bulk money, his monthly practice was to meander between bars, brothels, betting shops and God knows where else, reveling in a hedonistic orgy of all manner of sin. He would spend his entire salary in this week and get so broke that he wouldn’t even have money to either feed himself or even go home from his workplace.

I trust that your case is not this bad but if you were to be honest with yourself, you practice your own form of this self-indulgence to some extent. Immediate self-gratification is the number 1 reason for most people being broke. Once they receive their salaries or any windfall that would help them reduce their debt or purchase a much needed asset, their thoughts go towards that $1,000 hand bag they have been obsessing over or the latest N150,000 smartphone.

If this sounds like you, I have some tips at the end of tis post that can help you control the urge for impulse spending or self-indulging purchasing patterns.

You Don’t Save

Many years ago, I shared the George S. Clason book “The Richest Man in Babylon” with a former colleague of mine. One of the 7 cures for a lean purse shared in the book is, “Start thy purse to fattening.” The principle behind that simply states that you should save at least 10% of your income for yourself and live on 90%. After reading the book, he returned it to me saying, “This book cannot work in Nigeria!”. My friend’s excuse for not being able to implement this was that even the 100% was not enough to live on, how could he and his family live on 90%?

Saving consistently helps you build a reserve which will come in handy on “rainy days”. You need to be quite disciplined about this to make sure that every day is not a rainy day however. I had no ready made response to my friend’s statement at the time but over the years, I’ve observed many peoples’ financial situations and have concluded that even in lower income brackets, many are still living above their means. Let me make my point about living beyond our means with this example. A young man approached his uncle (who happens to be a senior friend of mine and has close over 25 years banking experience. The young man mentioned to his uncle that he had just gotten a job in a bank head office in Lagos and because he will have to move to Lagos from Benin, he would like his uncle to assist him with money to rent a flat. My friend was livid with his nephew. He later shared with me the tongue lashing he gave the young man. My friend had come to Lagos under very similar circumstances over 20 years prior. He didn’t have a place to stay and he definitely didn’t have an uncle who would “assist him”. What he did was to make contact with a friend’s older brother who was working in Lagos and squatted with him. He squatted for close to a year with different friends until he had saved enough to get a flat of his own. He recalled that at some point, he was squatting in a colleague’s flat along with 4 other young men and each of them, one by one, moved out into a place of their own with money they had saved.

I think I’ve managed to make two points with this story. Firstly, that with little money and dedication, can save enough to rent a flat in under one year (I hear some people saying, “Not in these days!”). Secondly, that it did not occur to my friend’s nephew that dropping in social status in order to fulfill a greater purpose is at times a necessity. Squatting was not an option he had even considered. If saving 10% of your salary means that you have to stop renewing your DSTV subscription for a few months or that you ration the hours you use your generator even tighter, so be it. As George Clason’s book says, pay yourself first. What many people are doing is distributing their hard earned salary to all and sundry. Pay yourself first as you collect your salary. You deserve the first bite, after all, you worked for it.

Back to my friend who I had shared the book with. What he didn’t want to consider is a drop in lifestyle. To him, all his expenses were non-discretionary and there was nowhere to trim the fat. There were no sacrifices he was willing to make. He didn’t consider that walking an additional 10 minutes from his office to another joint where their lunches are on average N100 cheaper than the more convenient place closer by could save him N2,000 a month. He didn’t consider that if his wife cooked his lunch and packing it daily, he would be eliminating the midday lunch expense line altogether (over N100,000 a year).

Enough Talk, Act Now

Commit today to saving 10% of your monthly salary. It’s the first step out of being broke and leads towards building wealth. It’s one of those universal principles that cannot be refuted. Open a savings account today in your bank or preferably another bank other than where your salary account is paid into. Don’t ask for an ATM card, even if its issued anyway, don’t take it around with you in your wallet. Remove any other source of temptation to access the money. Do this today and transfer 10% of your next salary in it and every other salary going forward. You will learn to adjust and you will also eventually have that confidence boosting feeling of knowing you have cool cash in the bank.

Before you receive your salary, plan out exactly how you will allocate your expenses. As said before, pay yourself first with 10%, allocate some of the money to debt repayments, some to feeding, petrol for your car or generator, some for a relative you are supporting and so on. The allocation will be based on priorities. If there is any money left after all these other priorities, you can use the money or a part of it to but that handbag or that smartphone. You may find that after allocating money to your priorities, you can’t afford the item.

Visit www.talkingmoney.com.ng for Part 2 and other personal financial management blog posts.