DO YOU HAVE A PIG?

We've looked at at how to ensure we get our finances right by the way we think, because the way you think is responsible for the way you act. Therefore, how you handle money or what you do with it is mostly due to how you think. So, let me try and put this in your mind, if I can...

You need a pig!!!!

Yep! You heard me right. You need a pig. A money pig. A pig that helps you hold your excess money or change, if you have any. And you should have!!!! You must have!!!! If you choose not to have one, please stop complaining that you have no money.

The mentality of savings must be a top priority for you regardless of whether you are making regular income or not. You must entrench that habit into your mindset so that you don't get swept away when whatever you describe as good money eventually falls into your laps. So, my friend, get yourself a pig...a Savings Pig.

Aside from getting yourself hooked on a workable budget, which is very important if you must be financially free, the best way to even run that budget is to have all your spending organised into percentages. And do all you can to stick to those percentages no matter how your income fluctuates. It will do you a whole load of good.

I had my first encounter with the Savings Pig mentality as a young boy when my stepmother gave me a small raffia basket that we used as part of our sitting room decor at the time. I converted it into my own personal savings bank and often would actually put it on the pedestal above the window and many thought it was just a decor element in my room and hardly paid any attention to it. Risky, I know, but it was the only way I could disguise what it really was and what I was actually doing with it. It worked.

At the time, being pretty young, I didn't really understand money; I just wanted to have control over mine since I realized that my parents won't always give me money for what I craved for from time to time. And it always gave me satisfaction to see and know that I had money stashed away from the little pocket money my parents would give to me and my siblings for school every day. I used to pick out the very shiny coins from the money my parents gave me and dropped them inside my savings basket. It felt so good. 

Today am a whole lot more matured, more educated and obviously more enlightened and I've discovered that the best way to handle your money is to always have a percentage of it saved. The usual rule-of-thumb is to constantly put away between 10 - 15% of your income into your savings box or container or bank account or whatever else represents your Savings Pig to you. Please, hear me....you need to have your own pig. It's the best way to lock up some extra cash that will come in very handy for you in the future.

Nobody will ever plan your life for you except you yourself. Give this a pig a little test. It could save you more than you ever know. I still have my pig. It's no longer in the form of a small raffia basket but it still does the very same thing for me now as it used to many years ago. And am pretty glad indeed.

LET IT FLOW!!!

I used to think that the true meaning of being wealthy is to have loads and loads and loads of money. You know, an abundance of it, so much so that I will never have to complain of not ever having enough; so much so that I can always afford what I desire and at any time I want. You agree with me, right?

But if I do have loads of money and I also have loads of spending power, it means buying becomes an effortless and unrestrained venture. And if I get to keep on spending anyhow I want, it means that I will most likely be spending as much as am making. Now, what kind of wealth would I have if am virtually spending almost all I have simply because I think I have plenty money?

A serious word of caution. Nothing is perfect in this life, especially you. And so to think that you're altogether super just because you've started making some steady flow of money is a very serious error. It's the mistake many have made. One moment they have tons of money and the people around them plus the world will no longer hear anything else than their wealth; the next moment they are down and out and they so earnestly pray that the people around them and the world would stop noticing their plight.

Wealth is not defined by how much you make but by how much you retain from how much you make. How much you retain is the pot of gold you can always rely on because it is there for you unlike the channels of making money that may not always be available for you. And this is where you need to try to hone your money making skills on...practice the art of retention.

In earlier posts I did speak about having a good budget and the great benefits that it carries. However, a budget only works based on two telling factors:

(1) Sticking as much as possible to the budget you have prepared

(2) Making sure you don't spend at any whim the difference between your income and your expense, which is a result of you sticking to your budget.

That difference is actually your Cash Flow. And it is what you need to really take care of what you need to take care of should the need ever arise. If you keep on spending at will just because you seemingly always have money coming in, you will never have the cash to fall back on or use when the need arises. Your ability to manage how you release what you make is the best way to always lock up your funds and ensure that you can always have money on your hands. It's no magic, just pure discipline applied.

The money you work hard yourself to make or save is the one you will value and take seriously, because you knew the sacrifices you made and the efforts it took to make that happen. It's time to stop dreaming and instead wake up to face reality because the last thing you want is to suddenly come up short and then realize that you goofed when you truly could have been a whole lot better of.

Guess what? I don't have much but am never broke. Now, why do you think that is?

Please, pause and ponder a little about this. It will save you loads of money headaches in future. That's a promise.

You are free to leave comments on this post and the others before it. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

THE PROBLEM WITH MY MONEY

Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to embark on a project so you decided to either save towards it or borrow money from somewhere or someone for it, only for you to have the said needed money for the project and later discover that you could no longer do the project because the money is either no longer enough or no longer available? And your next reaction may be to start wondering what the problem is with money that it just wouldn't stay in your hands? You conclude that you may never be able to embark on that project because you may never have enough money. If only you had more money than your original estimate.

Or you work quite assiduously to earn a living every month but your eventual take-home never seems to be enough. If only you had more money than you currently earn. Ah…there must be something wrong with money. It must prefer some people more than you. Money must run in the veins and families of others and not in yours. How come others can have it the way they want and you can’t? All you have are bag of stories to tell of how you didn't have enough for this or for that, or how you really can’t afford this or that because you don’t have enough. There must be a problem with money.

You are right. The problem with money is you!

Surprised? Please, don’t be. Haven’t you noticed that money can never leave your hand without your permission except it is taken away from you by force? Money cannot stand up from where you left it and walk away except you remove it from there yourself or if someone else does without your knowledge. Money will always move in the direction that it is made to move to. Nothing less, nothing more. Money doesn't spend itself to buy things, you do. Money doesn't spend itself to pay for anything, you do. Money doesn't spend itself to pay for a car, house, trinkets, jewelry, or anything else, you do.

The biggest problem with money is actually its owner or handler because it will ALWAYS take the likeness of the person in whose possession it is. Before you start protesting, please take this to heart…there are those who seemingly have very little compared to others yet they seem to be achieving more with the little they have. No matter the amount of money you have, you must take responsibility for it because EVERY amount of money has VALUE. When you recognize that every amount of money has value, you will treat it more with respect. And once you start doing that, the money in your hands naturally will take your likeness and subsequently also treat you with respect. If you stop being a problem, so also will your money. Change the way you look at money to change the way you treat money, and you are very well much on your way to riches and wealth.

And one of the best ways to show your respect for money is to put in place a structure or platform that will allow it to flow in the possible right way. My suggested structure is a BUDGET. And you need to make the effort to have a personal working budget; you owe yourself and your money that much.

With a very good budget in place, your money will only go to where it's meant to go. If you set up one that you will make concerted efforts to respect, you are guaranteed that your money will be safe. Don't forget what I said earlier....that, "Money can never leave your hand without your permission except it is taken away from you by force." So, control your money by preparing a budget; it's the right structure your money needs in order for it to be safe.

Please note that a budget is not just meant for the Federal, State or Local Governments in your country but for everyone who truly wants to have a sound sleep every night without the worry burdens of insufficient funds to live on. And a good budget helps you to shut the door on unnecessary spending and helps to open doors of opportunities instead.

The budget doesn't kill; it just helps trim your financial health and helps to give your finances some good balance. And with it, you can easily take proper stock of your income, expenses and cash flow (which is the reason for most of our headaches anyway, when we can't lay hands on ready cash to sort out what we determine as immediate or urgent needs.

So, the problem with money isn't money itself but you...as well as your lack of a good budget structure that will help you effectively control your money.

Please take out some quality time to pause and ponder on these thoughts. We shall continue next week.

WHERE IS MY MONEY? (PART 2)

Money, money, money.

Every one of us, it seems, must have an encounter with its intriguing personality. We all need it, and it affects all of us one way or another, whether directly or indirectly. And without doubt its powers and abilities are endless. It pays bills and buys things. It runs governments, businesses and other organisations with the non-profit making appellative. Some believe they need it (and plenty of it as a matter-of-fact) for their lives to be very comfortable. Others need it to show their power and class. Others need it just to get by for a while, at least. You know what I mean, because even you need it.

Does everyone, however, deserve to have money? Stupid question, you think? Maybe, maybe not. But you still need to ask yourself that question…if you actually deserve to have money. And if your most likely answer is yes, ask yourself why you think so.

And why am I even saying so? It’s pretty simple, really. Some of us don’t deserve to have money because it is not just an item that we must have, but something that we must respect; and some of us, quite frankly, don’t respect it. Our lack of respect for it is arguably one of the main reasons we hardly have it, and not just because we don’t have the dream job or dream business or dream contract or dream whatever else that should guarantee us a steady supply of money. Our lack of respect for money makes our handling of it careless and so money in turn reacts carelessly towards us.

The personality of money, I keep saying, is intriguing. In fact, money is neither good nor bad, careful or careless. Instead, it always takes on the personality of the person in whose hands it is. Money x-rays and amplifies itself in us. And the way we handle it is the way it will behave.

Money doesn’t buy things, people do. Money of itself can’t deliberately waste itself or invest itself, people do. So before you start stammering again about not having money and how if you had you would do this and achieve that, please take out some time and look at yourself again. Don’t look at money, look at yourself.

So that you know, money can never leave your hand without your permission except it is taken away from you by force. Think about it. If you keep your money anywhere, except someone else takes it or moves it without your permission, you will still come back to meet it where you kept it. Money will always obey its owner, it will always obey you. Money is very loyal and never causes problems for its owner. That means you are solely responsible for how money has moved in your hands over time regardless of how small or inadequate you may feel it is. Handling money is like driving. The fact that you can move a car from one point to another does not mean that you can drive. For you to be classified as driving, there are rules. You must respect every other road user, you must keep to your lane, you must adhere to speed limits rules, etc. In like manner, having money isn’t about volume, never about having it in millions or billions, because if you don’t know how to handle it properly, you will waste it. Money has its own rules too and when you properly operate them, then you have money. That is why someone may be earning Fifty Thousand Naira (Nigerian currency) and will be comfortable compared to someone who possibly is earning One Hundred Thousand Naira or more.

So, the way money works in your mind is the way it will work in your hands. If your mind is filled with the spending and wasting mechanism, that’s how your money will perform; and if your mind is thrifty and much more careful at spending, that’s exactly how your money will perform. The problem, therefore, with money isn’t money itself but the person in whose hands it is.

In truth, we really can’t have everything or buy everything because we really don’t need everything. Some people buy on impulse, others just crave to buy, spend, buy, spend, because they feel that their status in society seriously depends on it. It’s an incredulous way of thinking but it’s pretty rampant in our society today. We are so caught up in the desire to impress others who may or may not be bothered with our impressions anyway. I have always asked myself, “Why should I spend money I don’t have to buy what I don’t need in order to impress people I don’t like? (and who MOST LIKELY DON’T LIKE ME EITHER!!!!!!). It’s a terrible life to live and an unnecessary pressure to carry. But some allow themselves to be under such pressure and inevitably make decisions that now negatively impact on their money.

So, where is my money? My money is inside my head, inside my mind. Whatever my mind says, my money does. We must therefore learn how to control the things happening inside our minds and consequently control the money we have in our hands.

WHERE IS MY MONEY?

One of the trickiest things to handle and manage in this life is money. Because of its essential nature, everyone of us need it...to buy things, to pay for our education or for others under our care, to pay for a vacation, to pay our landlords or get our own houses in order to avoid sleeping in the rain or under the bridge, to have a steady supply of food in the house or to be able to afford it whenever we need to eat, to handle health-related matters...settling of hospital bills and the like, to acquire that car we say will help cushion the stress of transportation in our city, etc. The list is endless. And for all of the above and more to be possible, we all need a steady supply of money.

And this is where it gets tricky. For how do I ensure that I have steady money that's always available when I need it? I know for a fact that my monthly pay at that job of mine never seems to be enough to handle all my needs. My business may be thriving, yet still my dividend from it never seems to be enough to handle my needs. Money  is never enough in my hands, it seems, especially as am always in need of this and that and those. I enter every new year with great enthusiasm and expectations, dreaming of a special box of money that I can always go to whenever I need to settle any pressing need, yet somewhat I keep falling short, keep having disappointments. I dream of a better-paying job, or of winning a dream government contract that will change my financial world forever. 

Yet somehow, I can't explain why I hardly have enough money the way I dream of it, the way I see it in my mind. Sometimes I actually do have money coming into my custody, but I can't ever explain where it always goes. I get my dream job or start my dream business and see loads of money fraternizing with my bank account, yet I can't explain at the end of the month or the year what happened to it all. Where is my money?

Do you identify with the aforementioned or even have an experience that is close to it? Have you ever wondered how it is that you don't ever seem to have any luck with money? I have certainly often wondered why in the past (and, let me not lie, even at times now it still bothers me), and it led me to really search myself, made me to observe myself more and to critically watch how money moves in my hands. The little I came up with has helped me to make some adjustments that have also helped me to gradually improve my financial state. I strongly believe that you will benefit from them yourself and can go ahead to improve your own financial state too. So, if you will be kind enough to give me a few minutes of your precious time, I will show you what I found out and help push you in the possible right direction you need to go in order to find out where your money is.

Will you let me?

If you will, then be ready for the next part of this post... I will try to make it worth your while. I promise.

READ! READ!! READ!!!

This week, I want us to briefly take a look at a very serious dying art...the lifestyle of reading. And not just reading, but reading of materials that have the potential to help improve our lives.

"Young people today are as bright and quick and potentially teachable as ever. The problem is they are no longer readers. They are watchers. Their most influential classroom is the TV screen. With each passing year, they know less and less about more and more." (BOB ORBEN)

How apt and frightening the above statement is.

Back in the day, when we were kids growing up, reading was very much important; pretty much important as it still is today. Unfortunately, the advent of technology seems to be taking more of a negative toll on the minds of many these days than making a positive impact. We all seem to prefer the quick glances at TV screens to get what we perceive as a faster and better way to learn, a more 'proactive' way of saving time and avoiding the rigors of sitting or staying in one place for a reasonable period of time with books to flood our precious minds with the much needed information capable of empowering us for life.

Technology has inundated us with several gadgets and devices that, I presume, were meant to help improve life; yet these gadgets and devices have more or less carried us to other realms of activities that seldom empower our minds, especially when it comes to reading, as we are too concerned with playing with these devices than learning with or through them.

Everyone's life is a direct reflection of his or her mind. And our minds must continually be in very healthy states and conditions for our lives to reflect the same. You will be in serious error to think that all you need in order to have a dream life, is to have the cars and houses and money in their millions or billions. You will be in serious error to think that all you need is to have a vast cache of acquisitions that can be flaunted before people and thus catapult you on to the stage of one of the best on the planet.  But at some point in time of your life, you will come to realize that nothing will ever compare to your having a healthy mind; a mind that can help you scale through issues and challenges because it has the capacity to do so. A mind that can make you stand out and thus naturally make you the attraction you probably may deserve. A very healthy mind.

For that to be possible, you will need to learn the art of reading. And am not just talking of you reading only to pass a class course or exam for academic grades, but you being able to expand the horizon of your mind by digging into books and reading materials that can empower you.

Our generation has really become very lazy. It's even the reason why many students continually make woeful grades during their SSCE and JAMB exams. And they even carry the lazy spirit into the universities and other tertiary institutions where, aside from exams malpractices, they don't have any hope of making it. It is also on the backdrop of this that some lecturers themselves have thrived in their quest to drain students of their pocket money or torment others for sex before helping them with grades for them to pass exams.

Quality reading is important for a quality mind to emerge. And such reading isn't ever possible if discipline is lacking. Good discipline is time-sensitive. You must be willing to spend good time reading good materials and books to help build up your mind.

Instead of the tons of man-hours we spend on social media every day (and am not saying social media is bad), we could actually spend a good portion of such hours feeding our minds with positive and healthy information; information that could see us become the best we can ever be tomorrow. 

Thirty minutes a day or even an hour of quiet reading can help develop your mind positively. Try to commit yourself to it and see the great impact it can make to your life. There is no alternative to quality reading if you 

want to have a better future. 

A healthy mind makes you an attraction and not a distraction. It empowers you to the point where your options of opportunities become vast and not limited. It boosts your confidence as you wake up each day to face it because you know you are prepared to face challenges. It helps you stand tall in the midst of others and takes away any form of intimidation from you.

Commit yourself to quality reading today instead of being distracted by the many excitements that abound all around us in many ways... and that end up not being of any good whatsoever to our lives.

You really should pause and ponder on this...

ORDER!!! (PART TWO)

This week, we shall continue on my thoughts about order, and I hope it would be most positively empowering for you.

ORDER YOUR LIFESTYLE

This is one area of our lives that most of us overlook or take for granted. I can't count the numerous times I've entered a new year with high hopes of changing my life and never really getting round to doing so. I'd say I must do this and this and this and this...to ensure my life is different this time around. I'd want to be healthier and fitter yet I can't get myself to be moderate about my eating habits or endure enough to carry out the little exercises that can help my cause. I constantly get into trouble because of the kind of company I keep, yet am not willing to make the hard but positive decisions to break free from that stronghold because of whatever misplaced loyalties I may have.

A good life isn't lived carelessly. A productive life isn't arrived at haphazardly. Careless living is dangerous and has impaling effects. Get a journal or a diary and list out properly what you really want to deal with or achieve this year. Schedule your life on a daily basis with little targets to be achieved and see that you do all you can to get them done. Success in one gives you the joy, enthusiasm and encouragement to want to tackle the next one head-on. Try knocking off the things your life doesn't need as much as you possibly can no matter how painful it may be. Because your life must work this year and you owe yourself that much.

Eat right, exercise well, sleep well, walk and sit properly, avoid drugs and substance abuse, drive sensibly on our roads, be careful with whom you relate...etc, etc. You get the general picture, don't you?

ORDER YOUR IDEAS

Everything we do stems out from what goes on inside our heads. And the average human brain carries loads of incredible things that can benefit thousands and millions. Ideas constantly flood our heads and minds on daily basis but only the ones that we take out good time and effort to mine out will ever amount to anything valuable or positive.

We must stop wasting this God-given ability and start using it properly. It has been severally said that ideas rule the world. So, a very good and positive idea that you have will help make your life a very worthwhile one this year. Learn to put your ideas down frequently. Learn to brood over those ideas constantly. And learn to try accomplishing something out of your ideas passionately. You never know what that seemingly small idea can do in the long run. You never know the lives it can affect positively or the institutions or systems it may be able to positively change permanently.

Transform your ideas from mere thoughts into tangible projects this year.There are many people who are copyrighting or patenting their brilliant ideas all the time. Aren't you as special and as gifted as well? Such brilliant and wonderful ideas coming from your head are called Intellectual Properties and could be worth a great fortune to you and to our world. So, don't play with them anymore.

There's great power in that head of yours. Use it well this time.

ORDER YOUR FINANCES

A lot of us are great failures at this (please, no insult intended). We are very poor with our money cum finances, yet we continually dream endlessly for higher pay plus bonuses on our jobs, for better financial rewards in our businesses, and even expect an avalanche of miracle money one way or another to just drop into our laps from God-knows where! We want to buy everything our eyes see, spend on anything our hearts seek and yet wonder why our money bleeds. We must change something about how we handle our finances otherwise we will continue to cry out every year that we are broke or that things are hard.

Don't get me wrong, am not saying that the economy isn't harsh...am saying that we can still stay afloat if only we can be a little bit more disciplined than we've being in the past. We must handle our finances better by tightening up the various leaky areas through which we've constantly be losing money. We must learn not to allow ourselves to be put under undue pressure by the need to belong, and realize that when we lose money by spending on unnecessary things or items, we end up hurting ourselves and not the people we were trying to impress by the acquisition of that new car or dress or shoes or belt or wrist watch or whatever else. I will always say this....."Why should I spend money I don't have to buy what I don't need just to impress people I don't like?"

Unnecessary pressure, I tell you. When we spend carelessly, we can be guaranteed a sure result of financial gloom and doom. It's as simple as that. There are things that we can delay from getting until we really have enough to acquire them without stress. And the best way to guarantee that we don't repeat the sad mistakes of years and times past is to simply order our finances. Get a budget prepared, my friend. Don't be afraid of it, it doesn't kill! In truth, a good budget that's well prepared and optimally adhered to can save your life a great deal in future. Through your budget, you can have concrete financial plans laid out. It will help you cut down on non-essentials and help you face only the essentials. Through your budget, you can have a very good savings plan that definitely will come in handy in the future. I will not lie to you; the little savings habit that I've been able to practice in the last ten years has yielded positive dividends. And each time I look back at what it has helped me to get, there's always that wry smile of satisfaction and achievement, as well as gratitude to God that I used my head in that matter.

In another blog post in the coming weeks, I'll do my best to outline and detail for you easy steps on how to arrange a budget that is unique to you and that will work for you. But please note that it is very necessary for you, and that it will save you loads of headache this year if you can adhere to this one little advice.