MONEY LINE

WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR MONEY? 

Money is a very important thing in life. Those who don’t have it hunger and crave for it. Those who have it crave for more of it. Those who don’t know how to handle it end up mourning.

Money matter is at the root of many vices in the world today, from robbery to assassinations, corruption to prostitution, divorces and separations between couples and business partners and so on. While the love of money is said to be a killer disease, poverty is equally a killer disease. A lot of people do all kinds of things just to get money, and once they get the money, you will be amazed at what they do with it.

If you don’t know what to do with money before it comes into your hand, money will tell you what to do with it. Many have made money in life, but today they have nothing to show for what has gone through their hand. In this edition, we are going to be dealing with practical issues in the area of making, managing and multiplying money.

In this edition, I want to ask you a simple question “WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR MONEY”

I hope you know that it is not how much you make that matters but what you do with it. I have seen people earn millions per annum with nothing tangible to show for it, and I have seen people earn hundreds per annum with assets to show for it. What are you doing with your money? A Yoruba adage is translated to state that, “the first money a child sees, he uses it to buy bean cake”. Many seem to forever remain children in the area of financial management and so continually use money wrongly.

As a financial consultant and wealth creation agent, I have come to realize that there are only three things you can do with money.

• Waste it
• Spend it
• Invest it

Which of the classes do you belong to?

• Foolish people waste money
• Average people spend money
• Wise people invest money

If someone was to walk up to you and ask, “Are you a fool” you’ll most likely feel insulted and never consider it to be a question but an insult.

“What are you doing with your money?”

Are you wasting it?

Wasters are a group of people that always waste their money on liabilities. They are people who indulge in impulse purchases. Every time you use your money to acquire liabilities instead of asset, you are wasting money. A lot of people have their bungalows in their wardrobe or jewelry box, because the money they should have used to invest in valuable assets is wasted on perishables and liabilities.

After speaking in a seminar on Rising Above Waste, a lady walked up to me and affirmed to me that she needed help. She told me she buys an average of four expensive lady’s wear per month without even wearing them. By the time she was speaking with me, she had over twenty new clothes worth hundreds of thousands in her wardrobe yet to be worn.

• She had no portfolio of shares and stocks
• She had no plot of land or house
• She had no serious money in the account
• She did not even have a car.

By the time I was through with her, I gave her steps and strategies to take and today she is a wealthy business woman with valuable assets in stocks and real estate.

Are you a waster? Wake up!

• To buy a set of jewelry for hundreds of thousands without its equivalent in stocks or real estate is a waste.

• Why will a man labour for six years to have a few hundreds of thousands in savings and then waste it on a two-hour service called Wedding?
• Why will couples who are tenants have their sixth child and block the street to feed the world on the 8^th day with their poor living condition?

It’s time to rise above waste and face reality. False prosperity is fake prosperity. Official car, official house, official handset e.t.c end the day the job ends. What do you have to fall back on?

Wasting money is foolishness.

                         “There is plenty saved up in the life of the wise but foolish people

                           squander all that they get without savings”

                                                                                               Solomon David

Are you spending it?

Spending money is the lifestyle of the average man that is involved in the rat race.

If you make money and spend it all on bills, bills and bills without any savings, you are a spender. If you continue in the rat race of spending money and making money and spending money and making money, you are trapped in the poverty cycle of the average man.

Every average spender has a typical mindset that operates thus:

MAKE MONEY- SPEND IT ON YOUR NECESSITIES- SAVE AND INVEST- IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING LEFT- GIVE SOME TO GOD / CHARITY IF ANY

If you are one of those thinking like this, and you are not planning to change, you may end up in poverty and shame. To break free from the rat race and poverty cycle of ever spending and never investing, you must embrace a reverse mentality thus:

MAKE MONEY – SETTLE GOD FIRST (minimum of 10% of all income) – SETTLE SAVINGS AND INVESTMENT (btw 10%-20% of your income) – SPEND THE REST BASED ON BUDGET (maximum of 70% of your income)

If you think this reverse mentality is impossible, then forget the possibility of ever becoming rich and wealthy. Everyone that wants to be truly wealthy must live within 70% of their income. No one will plan your future for you if you don’t plan it for yourself. Stop the rat race. Stop keeping up with the Joneses. Cut your coat according to your material and not your size, because your size may be bigger than your material due to overweight, desires and appetites. Live within your means.

Are you investing it?

To invest money is to make money work for you instead of you working for money.

To invest money is to use it to acquire assets i.e. things that appreciate in value and put money in your pocket. To invest money is to make it multiply. No one will plan your future for you if you don’t plan it for yourself. Do you know that if you put 10% of every income you make all through your working life into a 10% per annum yielding investment, you will be extremely wealthy at retirement? Do you know that investing N10, 000 per month in 20% per annum investment will give you over Twenty Six million in twenty years? And N20, 000 per month will give you over Fifty Three million in the same investment and time.

Stop living your future to chance. It’s time to wake up and do the right thing with your money.

keep your dream alive!

 

To Your Success,

Olumide Emmanuel