WHY THE FRIVOLOUS SPENDING?

 

When a person buys things without making decisions, this buying is triggered by emotions. This emotion controls the person’s money and gives the money direction. This kind of person buy things in an uncontrolled manner. There is a possibility that the person ends up purchasing products without any actual intent or critical thinking. His/her aim is to quench that desire to get that needed product.
After the frivolous spending, it dawns on the person that the taste for the product dies at the point or even days or weeks later, regretting why they acquire the product that adds no value to them. Some never regrets either, they look at it as collecting arts and they are happy to acquire more.
These irrational or unconscious thinking in buying impacts the person finance and these are one of the reasons people are in debt and live paycheck to paycheck lifestyle and they don’t really care of the future consequences because it’s a habit to always acquire the latest product. These buyers are more emotionally attached to what they buy.
People with these emotions are tapped into by sales and marketing people to capture them to buy more by exploring that weakness to generate more leads for the company. These emotions and feelings is always triggered by seeing well-design and promoted adverts on the product and services. These can be fliers, posters, billboard, television adverts, radio jingles and online ads that captures and magnets your attention which sticks and stay with the mind, becomes a desire and hunger, the person ends up acquiring it and feeling contented.
These unplanned decisions that led to unplanned purchase affects a financially struggling person or impacts even an already financially stable person that budgets his money. 80% to 90% of the time, these unplanned decisions are against the person’s conscious mind but the unconscious one that speaks louder and aggressive pushes the person to buying without rational thinking leaving the person in financial difficulties, feeling of guilt or disappointment, worries and others.
These unconscious buying can be grouped into different categories of product or services ranging from clothes, watches, shoes, mobile phones, jewelries, cars, electrical and electronic sets and many more.
That’s why more research is being released to exploit this traits or personality in people by introducing new products and services to the market that are innovative and creative, catching the attention of customers and making them hunger and taste for these products and services. For companies to meet up with this taste, they introduce products quarterly, bi-annually and yearly to quench this unending desire.
This unnecessary and uncalled-for trait is FRIVOLOUS SPENDING

What is FRIVOLOUS SPENDING?

This is buying things unplanned for in advance or impulsively. It is spending in an unconscious behavior in a pattern without planning.

 

                                          WHAT PROPELS FRIVOLOUS SPENDING?

Our lifestyle of consuming and ever-changing environment and world leads us to acquire things without thinking of the end thereof. Is buying things bad? No. but when it becomes uncontrolled or unruly that the taste for that product cannot be quenched, it becomes dangerous to handle. This uncontrolled hunger causes anger, unhappiness and nervousness but when controlled it leads to mental balance and stability in every area of one’s life.
There are lots of answers to why people spend frivolously and I guess I might not be able to list all but subjecting it under control helps you in rational decision-making.
People spend frivolously because they possess inherited trait of frivolous spending and they are never aware of it. These traits have become habits which impacts every area of their lives. As the income comes, it all goes out with no record of money spent and even a penny saved. These set of people are social, concerned about their image and likely party freaks too. These people love looking good and presentable and always stand out of the crowd and draw more attention.
The other reason of frivolous spending has to do with the difficulty of controlling their emotions and their  unquenchable taste for spending aggressively.
Thirdly, moody people, mood swing people or people with emotional crack in their relationship buys to make themselves happy and console themselves by spending frivolously.
Finally, these set of people spends frivolously because they want to show off that they are rich and classy. They tell stories of places they have never been or things they have never achieved. They can borrow things to show off just to catch people’s attention. These people are window shoppers or shopaholic and have many wishes that never become reality.
There are also people attached to a product and obsessed with it. These product or services creates a bond between the buyer and the product. Once new version of the product is released, these set of people rush to buy without unconscious thinking and this form a habit because of long time pattern. These people are attached to the product because of its creativity, vision and innovation.
There are people who buy because of competitor or pair. They compare themselves to their pairs and wants to live up to the standard of that friend of theirs by rushing to buy the product because they feel its attract respect and class.
Others enters a retailing place like a mall, once the image of the product sticks to their mind, they buy instant, others go to borrow to buy and others come back after earning their income to buy causing instability in their finance.

                                                             CONCLUSION

Knowing the cause of your frivolous buying can help cut down excessive spending and help live below your means to achieve financial freedom. These emotions can be triggered any time or any day it’s just your ability to subject yourself under control and put yourself together by thinking of things of value you will invest in that adds more value to you instead of buying that product.
By simply replying that voice speaking to you and quickly taking your eyes off the product or keeping the product back in the shelf from the spot you took it or not even touching it will go a long way to help you manage and handle frivolous buying NOW and THEN. You will be happy, complete, more fulfilled, money smart and more in control of your money than the money controlling you.

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CASE STUDY TWO ON BUDGETING STRATEGY 70-30(10-10-10)

Jonathan and his wife Jennifer had two kids (Katie and Paul). They are both working class couple. Jonathan in his early 40’s works with a telecommunication company as a sales manager and earns #150,000 per month, Jennifer in her late 30’s works as front desk officer, earns #70,000 per month. In two to three years’ time, the kids will be in secondary school.

70%—EXPENSES: #154,000

Jonathan and Jennifer decided to plan their finance using the 70/30(10/10/10) strategy. Children school fees, feeding, debt (rent apartment), transport, utility bills, rent, cable network, travelling, entertainment, business skills and others.
They put their finance together for the upkeep of the family. In putting their finance together for clarity and honesty sake, they added up their finance together #220,000.

SCHOOL FEES: ——— #60,000

Katie and Paul fees and all expenses is #60,000, every term (every three months). The school is one of the best and of standard around the vicinity. In changing the children’s school, they school fees reduced from #75,000 to #60,000.

FEEDING: —— #15,000

Jennifer prepares the meal and everyone carries food to their various destination to also help cut down eating outside and accumulating more expense.

DEBT (HOUSE RENT LOAN): ——- #10,000

They had to move out of their formal two bedrooms flat to another one (lesser in price) in a location a little closer to their place of work and It helps adjust their finance. They took loan from their bank to payback before the end of the year with interest rate. This amount is deducted from their income monthly.

RENT: —– #10,000

They decided to budget this amount for their rent so as not to get stressed for the house rent and avoid being in-debted for months before rallying around to pay.

UTILITY: —– #5,000

From electricity, cable network, water, security rounds up to this amount. It’s either higher or lower based on how the bills come in each month and must one way or the other balance his budgeting.

TRANSPORTATION: —-#15,000

They budgeted for transportation because of price fluctuation and most times walk distance that’s trekkable to work.

BUSINESS SKILL: —-#5,000

They both registered for a class to help focus on side hustle to help the family income and make money for the family because the family needs will grow as the years pass and inflation will also affect things. They decided to focus on fishery business.

PROFESSIONAL COURSE: —-#12,000

Jonathan decided to start a professional course. Project management to help plan for a career path and growth in his company. He needs to upgrade himself to get a pay raise and bonus to which will impact his financial goals positively.
Jennifer registered for her three- month course to help get a change of job for a better one. Her current job is totally unstable and might fold-up before the end of two years or less because of economic policy and atmosphere.

ENTERTAINMENT: —–#5,000

They had to create time for each other and for the family once in a month. To interact with each other and spend time together with the kids too, hang out occasionally with friends and family. They go shopping, if no outing that month, to upgrade their clothes and that of the kids. They visit many stores and look for the one with the best market price and the budget created for the shopping.

TRAVELLIING: ——-#7,000

They create time to travel to visit their parents once in 4-5 months to know about their well-being and work purposes might take Jonathan outside the state occasionally.

OTHERS: ——#10,000

This is for urgent expenses and emergency issues that ought to be tackled

10%—GIVING—#22,000

Jonathan and his wife pay 10% percent of their salary to their place of worship monthly, they pay separately. They believe, it opened the door abundance and its gives them the opportunity to contribute to the growth and expansion of a great course, helping the needy and they have been really blessed.

10%—-SAVING—#22,000

When they receive alert form their income, they quickly automate to their joint personal savings account before they withdraw any amount or pay any fixed expenses. Their saving has really grow extremely well over the years. They also pay into their retirement savings and that’s taken care of by their employer.

10%— INVESTING—#22,000

The couple were approached by an investment firm that enlightened them on investing in mutual funds, T-bills, stocks, bonds and others. They decided to pick money market funds and have seen and monitor their investments on the company’s app. They saw the money grow and they feel happy and comfortable about it, they visit the firm occasionally and they are assigned to a financial planner who’s of great help to them and they plan on buying into other investment before the end of the year.

                                                   CONCLUSION
This was how the couple planned their finance and budgeted their money to achieve their financial freedom and for emergency cases too and cut their excesses in many ways and moved it into where it would be useful and helpful to ease the family financially.

CASE STUDY ON BUDGETING STRATEGY(ONE)

                                                               50-30-20
MATT works as a Consultant for a marketing firm and earns #70,000 monthly. He’s single and plans on getting married before the end of the year. He just moved into a room and parlor, a location where housing is affordable. He’s in his early thirties and wants to start planning for his future. He realized that he needs to start budgeting his money ahead to give him the chance to achieve his financial goal for the year. His company has been restructuring (cutting down staffs by reducing their excesses) which made him start planning for his future too. He decided to use 50-30-20 budgeting to manage his finance.

50%– EXPENSES—#35,000

In his monthly expenses, he planned for fixed expenses like rent, feeding, transportation, utility, debt (pay off the loan he collected to pay things into his apartment) and he pay into his younger sister account monthly for her upkeep in university. She’s the last born and only sister.
He decided to break down his expenses by allotting certain percentage to each of them to help manage them well.
For FIXED EXPENSES, he budgeted half of his salary: #35,000. These are his expenses:

19%—–RENT——#6,650

Matt pays around #80,00 yearly for his rent, he budgeted this amount to help him settle his rent to avoid quarrel or insult from his landlord because of late payment. He decided to choose this way to manage his finance.

5%—– DEBT——#1,750

He decided to budget this for his 8 months to one year debt of around #35,000. The amount gets deducted from his account by the loan company monthly. Once he done settling his bill, he will surely reallocate it to support his rent, feeding or transportation.

3%——UTILITY—-#1,050

Electricity, water, security and others which rounds up to this amount. It’s either higher or lower based on how the bills come in each month and must one way or the other balance his budgeting.

9%——FEEDING—#3,150

He bought all the needed food items, He eats at home and take food to work for his lunch. If time do not permit him to cook, he eats outside just occasionally in a restaurant with extremely affordable price or snacks and drinks which he budgeted certain percentage for. If there’s any excesses, he moves it to feeding to have more at home.

11%——TRANSPORTATION—#3,850

His distance to his work is not much. There are trekkable distance to help him manage his transportation budget. Most times, he joins tricycle, if he’s caught up in hold-up to avoid lateness to work but all inside the budget.

 3%——-HIS SISTER——-#1,050

He budgets this amount to his sister monthly in school to take care of herself and meet her needs in school. He can also increase the amount based on fluctuation in other expenses.

                                               30%—SPENDING—-#21,000

These includes hanging out with friends, gym memberships, data plan for mobile phone, cable network, movies, travelling, haircuts and acquiring a professional course for his skill to help him grow his career and learn a business to start small poultry business too.

                                             2.1%—DATA PLAN FOR HIS PHONE——#1,500

MATT spends this amount on data plan for his mobile phone monthly.

                                                 0.6%—-HAIRCUT—–#400

He spends this amount cutting his hair twice a month.

 14.3%—-PROFESSIONAL COURSE——-#10,000

He’s currently doing a consultancy programme to get upgraded in his place of work or look for job somewhere else with raise, the programme runs for the next six months which prepares him for the professional body examination.

4.3%—-BUSINESS SKILL ——–#3,000

He started his business course on poultry to start a side business later in the year. This training takes place in weekend and last for more than a month for more in-depth and practical knowledge of the business.

  3.6%——CABLE NETWORK —3.6%—-#2,500

He prefers watching movies at home than the cinemas and love selected stations, he decided to pick the one that’s the most affordable.

  5.1%—–HANGING OUT WITH FRIENDS —#3,600

He loves hanging out with friends once or twice in a month to also have the time to meet new friends and network with people too.
Matt do not like travelling or gym membership. He prefers watching movies on TV. He also prefers strolling and trekking once he’s less busy.

20%—–SAVING—–#14,000

Matt decided to start setting the entire 20% aside to saving and plan for his future for emergency, unplanned job loss, plan for his personal project in the future and other things. He pays himself first before touching his income by automating #14,000 to a saving account he opened.

                                                           CONCLUSION

With this, Matt could see excesses in his finance and redirect them somewhere and be more organized. If he’s done with paying up his debt, professional course and business skill he will redirect the money for his business plan, real estate, marriage to help him plan more ahead to become financially secured.
The amount and person is just a case study to help understand better how you can really budget your money in a way that makes you comfortable to help achieve your financial goals for the year.

4 WAYS TO BUDGET YOUR MONEY

I want to thank DDblog (liveandlove17.wordpress.com)for nominating me for this award and I nominate

• Bestylechic (http://bestylechic.wordpress.com)
• bajezen blog
• john mulindi( businessandlifetips.com)
• Lorna Holowaychuk (quartz path)

 

I want to thank Bajezen blog for nominating me for QUILL COMMANDER AWARD and I nominate the following:
-Bestylechic (http://bestylechic.wordpress.com)
-john mulindi( businessandlifetips.com)
-Lorna Holowaychuk (quartz path)

There are ways to budget your money to achieve your financial goal for the year and years ahead. With these ways of budgeting, you can easily allocate your money into different group. With these, your saving, spending and investing are categorized and you can know where the excesses are going, how to control or put a stop to it. when you achieve the set budget, follow the budgeting system with a level of discipline, commitment and dedication prepares you to be financially free.
These are the four ways to budget your money and I use one of them to help me live a financially stable life.

FOUR WAYS TO BUDGET YOUR MONEY

(a)50/30/20
(b)70/30(10/10/10)
(c)60/20/20(10/10)
(d)40/20/20/20(10/10)

These four ways of budgeting your money helps you to LIVE BELOW YOUR MEANS (past blog post) and manage your money well. With these budgeting style, managing your finance becomes flexible, it helps you break down your salary into necessary category. It’s not time consuming but easy to follow through and won’t be put aside. You can now deal with issue of spending too much on your WANTS than your NEEDS. With these list in place, you can manage your money well and be more financially responsible for tomorrow’s financial achievement.

50-30-20

This way of budgeting is the highly accepted and approved by financial planner, experts, money manager and so forth.

50%– EXPENSES

You need to know all the fixed expenses that falls into this group from rent, food, transportation cost, healthcare, insurance, utility bills. It also includes your payment plan to offset the debt sooner or later. These can be manage based on the expenses within your limit. With this percentage, you can manage your budget in a sound way so that it does not impact your standard of living.
In these category, your transport might be higher or lower because of distant to work and you will have to schedule more to maybe feeding or debt payment to plan and manage resources effectively and efficiently. Some expenses might be higher this month and the following month lower because of one circumstance or the other but you need to balance and round them up to 50% for efficiency.

30%–SPENDING

This is meant for your needs to enhance healthy living. With these you differentiate between your needs and wants and know when to delay gratification to live a balanced life. These includes plan hanging out with friends, gym memberships, data plan for mobile phone, cable network, movies, travelling, haircuts or plaiting your hair. This is spending to its barest minimum for conduciveness. It can be used to invest in one’s self like your hobby. Maybe blogging, photography, writing, and so forth.
Your spending ought to be carefully watched or else you exceed your limit but if controlled, you achieve your aim of being financially convenience.

20%–SAVING

You need to pay yourself and invest by making your money work for you, by planning to become financially free. With saving, you plan for days ahead, retirement plan, unforeseeable events that can occur and how to resolve it without being financially stressed. With this, you have a shift in thinking about money and its value. Every amount you save now presently grow to give you that confidence in the future that you have achieved a level of freedom.

70/30(10/10/10)

This is another kind of budgeting your money if you are not comfortable with the first one but what matters is the one that makes you financially less stressed.

70%— EXPENSES

This is still the usual fixed expenses and spending here but budgeting more because you need a lot more to deal with here. Which include children school fees, debt, utility bills, rent and others. The whole explanation is the same as the one above. In this place, you take time to break it down and budget certain percentage to expenses to help manage them well.

10%—-SAVING

As explained earlier to always pay yourself and plan for more than enough for your unforeseen events and plan to be financially free.

10%—-INVESTING

You have worked hard for your money and after income it goes down because of the spending and inflation eats deep into your money. Now is the time to stop being enslaved to money and time to make your money work for you and feel like a boss. You can automate it with your bank or do it yourself by transferring into the investment of your choice that fits you and make you feel comfortable like stocks, bond, mutual funds, treasury bills.

10%—GIVING

With these, you develop the habit of giving. It’s a heart of generosity expressing gratitude, love and so forth. Giving attracts more into your life. It’s a source of giving hope to those in need and fighting poverty. You give to church, charity organization and others. It draws blessing, gives a heart of gratitude and prosperity to make you have more. Giving is a true reflection of one’s self, it’s that heart to give joyfully without worry and hopeful for greater things to come.

                                                        60-20-20(10/10)

60%– EXPENSES

As usual committing this percentage to expenses for the month.

20%– SAVING

Paying yourself as usual by saving this percentage and paying or automating into an account.
10%—-INVESTING

As usual, making your money work for you as you work hard from 9-5 and you watch your money grow with value and beat inflation by investing in stocks, bond, mutual funds, treasury-bills and others.

10%—GIVING
Giving out to charity organization of your choice, church and others to help give the life of other’s a meaning. Its attracts and gives a mind of abundance and you will never lack financially.

                                                       40/30/20/10
With these rule, you are hard on yourself and very frugal and you cut down all your excesses and don’t spend anyhow and manage your expenses to the barest minimum and you delay gratification more to plan for your financial freedom. With these rule, you do a deep level of calculation before spending a penny and give specific reasons for spending money on that goods or services.

40%—EXPENSES

Cut down your expenses and debt and manage them effectively well. money discovered from excesses is either for any unplanned unforeseen events or to SAVE more.

30%—SAVING

Saving more to plan for your projects and financial future.

20%—INVESTING
Splitting to buy up to two different investment to help manage market risk or market fluctuation and still be financially safe.

10%—–GIVING
Giving to the needy, charity organizations or your religion to help the growth of the religion and making the lives of people better.

                                                      CONCLUSION
Being financially aware of your situation makes you allot these percentage to different amount. The challenges lots of people face is controlling their spending which eats deep into their finance and have no control over it but all you need is a level of discipline, commitment and focus. You can easily track your spending, control, manage and make your money work for you. If you are consistent with it, it helps to become financially free and enjoy life.

9 REASONS YOU NEED TO BUDGET YOUR MONEY

Do we really need to budget our finance? Do we really need to plan our spending? Why do we need to do it? Why the planning and budgeting? Why can’t we enjoy frivolously, buying what we want and need? Why can’t we enjoy now and forget then? Why can’t we be entitled to the live style we want?
If you forget then and enjoy now and unforeseen events occur how do you manage it? Can some expenses be managed? Can the world economy be depended and relied on in years to come? Do you know that money not well managed will be accounted for in tough times or years to come? Is this not the right time to correct the financial errors you made years back to become financially free?
I once chatted with a friend who got married five years ago. He wished all the money he wasted enjoying frivolous lifestyle when he was single could be gotten back. He wished he planned and budgeted for his money. But now, he documents and keeps account of every penny used and where it went. Now, not a penny of his fall to the ground because responsibility surfaced. He accounts and document for every penny used. Once his salary comes in, the first thing he does is to budget his money. He never spends above his salary, saves and controls his spending.

What is budget? Why do we really need to budget?

BUDGET is planning your finance for future savings, spending, investing and listing out future income and expenses.
It is the money set aside to manage your planned expenses and project for the future.

The budget might be to have excess money for use in future time or to manage your expenses not be greater than your income. It helps to avoid being a failure in what you aim to achieve. It makes your plan goal- oriented, specific, smart and achievable. Budgeting is another financial map to guide you to your desired financial destination of being financially free.
KINDS OF BUDGETING

Corporate body budget for their business to have a great year and manage expenses, salary payment, liabilities and others.

Government budget to plan for revenues and expenditures and projects to handle for the year.

Personal budget is a financial plan used to manage income towards expenses, savings, investing, debt and others. This is how we really plan our spending to become financially free. It helps to have enough money to do things you need to do or start that side project you need to invest in.

TO CONTROL RESOURCES AND STOP FRIVOLOUS SPENDING
With budgeting, it limits your overspending and help you not to drown in debt. It helps to always delay gratification for the achievement of financial goals. It helps close those chapter of excessive spending which has developed into a bad habit. Its helps to rethink and helps focus on road to financial freedom.
Knowing where your excesses going, you can easily cut it down like eating outside or excessively, transport, bills and materials things. With this, it helps you cut it down or either manage it to help achieve financial freedom.

TO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO START SIDE PROJECT
With budgeting, it helps you plan for that side project, helping you know how much to set aside for the project, the financial implication and how to achieve the goal.

IT HELPS TO WORRY LESS ABOUT FINANCIAL ISSUES
It overcome any financial issues ahead and worry less about it and help to make adjustment to your finance before the problem expands or surfaces. with spending limits, it opens opportunities to see more money and know where to categorize it.

IT BECOMES A YARDSTICK FOR MANAGING YOUR FINANCE
You become a better money manager and accounts well for any amount spent, you become accountable and held responsible if your money is well managed or not. It gives a pattern organized pattern for spending your money.

IT HELPS CREATE WEALTH
With budgeting, you will be able to create plans to settle and pay off your debts and live a debt free life and plan your finance well. It now gives you the chance to grow your savings, plan for investing a portion of your money to make your money work for you and know how to spend, control spending and have a future financial forecast to become financially free.

IT HELPS PLAN FOR RETIREMENT
With budgeting, you will plan for retirement which is vital for wealth creating. You can create the retirement account if you don’t have, budget a portion of your income into the account monthly or the bank automate it for
future reasons, this budgeting for retirement needs great attention.

TO COMMUNICATE PLANS FOR THE FINANCE
When your income comes in, you break it down to know how to budget and what you are budgeting for and why are you budgeting for it. Planning for your finance also show there’s a change of habit and want to know what’s wrong with your finance and where you are spending excessive and make the right financial decision.
Communicating plans for your finance with your family help project for family needs, educational plan for the family, vacation, buy the car and achieve a desired family goal.

TO ACHIEVE FINANCIAL SET GOALS FOR THE YEAR.
Once you become financially aware of your situation and its structured by knowing what goes in and out, you will easily achieve your financial goals for the year you will easily create budget for all expenses from daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Also, create budget for fun and entertainment and have a great year.

UNFORESEEN EVENTS
With budgeting, you plan for unforeseen events or expenses that can occur in any time of the year and manage them well without affecting your finance or even destabilizing you in any way.

CONCLUSION
With these valid points above, we now know why we budget and how invaluable it is to become financially free. With budgeting, your finance has a map guiding it to its desired location.

FINANCIAL PLAN FOR THE YEAR

If the financial plan is not well organized, the chances are high the others might be a little complicated and confusing and money is needed to execute other goals and a stepping stone to the next phase of your plan.
To manage your finance well this new year, you need to be financially awareness of your situation in the past years and your current situation. How good or bad the situation was? What really made your financial life look good or bad? Do your money control you or you controlled it? Where is your money really going? What’s really making you financially miserable? Do you know what’s going in or out? Do you create budget for it? Do frivolous buying leave you in financial woes? All these factors and others destroys you financially. you need to create your financial plan for the year.
If you have planned well for your money years back and have a better financial structure, you need to improve on it to make the years ahead better and comfortable. If you have not started at all, now is the time to start planning for the years ahead because of the unpredictability of job security, economic instability and other factors. These are not times when the government is as dependable as time past. Now is the time to step up and turn your finance around for good and prepare for a better financial future.

 

                         FINANCIAL REVIEW

You need to financially review yourself to know your stand. You need to think hard and meditate and answer these questions yourself to step up financially to be become free.

-Are you financially aware of your situation?
-Are you in debt?
-Is frivolous spending killing you slowly?
-Are you still in paycheck to paycheck life style?
-what’s your mindset about money?
-Are you saving?
-Do you save to invest?
-Any budgeting for your finance?
-Any plan for real estate or acquire your own property for the future?
-Any plan for retirement?
-Any plan to create more source of income for yourself?
– Any plan to build your career?

All these and others you need to sit yourself down and think deeply about and know where you are and what to do to break away from your financial woes. If you have answers to these questions and they are the right ones, you will surely breakthrough financially but if you don’t now is the time for the right answers to project ahead for the future is NOW.

THE EIGHT-FINANCIAL PLAN FOR THE YEAR SHOULD BE:
– PAYING YOURSELF
-START BUDGETING
-STOP YOUR FRIVOLOUS SPENDING
-PAY OFF YOUR DEBT
-SAVE TO INVEST
-RETIREMENT PLAN
-REVIEW YOUR PERFORMANCE
-MULTIPLE SOURCE OF INCOME ( you really need to start a side hustle and money is needed)

All these needs to be in place this year to help you achieve your financial goals and to keep you in good shape in all ramifications. This year should mark the beginning of financial freedom for you and flee from a life of financial struggling. The years ahead is totally unpredictable and none of us can proudly foretell the future and how stable the global economy will be.
I will elaborate one by one on the listed points above so that you can understand better and really know what you are doing and how to go about it. I initially talked about two of them in my past blog post but I will shed a little light here.

PAYING YOURSELF

Paying yourself in these interesting and changing times is one of the best thing you can do to yourself to be financially safe. I had a post on this topic before (WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO BE A GOOD SAVER; WHY YOU REALLY NEED TO BE A GOOD SAVER) Paying yourself is your true value and gives a level of confidence and security. It’s not easy but it’s a level of discipline and sacrifice to make for the now and then. Times are changing so is the job. You need to pay yourself up to 10-30% of your salary every month and you can be a little strict by increasing the percentage to have a better and secured future. You need to have a saving plan. Create a special account or any dormant account you have or rarely make use of. As you get paid monthly, you automate it by transferring it to that account monthly or talk to the bank to do the automation for you once your salary is paid into your account. There are hundreds and more reasons to save. To secure the future, to become financially free, start your business and a few other things to do.
Now is the time to act and take action. Nothing is ever too late to do or start.
If you notice that you feel stressed with your saving plan and you are always short of cash, work on the percentage you are saving so that it’s simple, achievable and smart. You can have a yearly saving target at the end of the year like having saved a minimum of #50,000 to #150,000 or saved a maximum of #200,000- #900,000 at the end of the year after accumulating your monthly saving at the end of the year.
To know the exact amount to save just make use of this simple idea I once learned from a financial planner and a fund manager told me about to help you save comfortably without stress or worry.
SAVING (The real money to pay yourself monthly) = SALARY (Money earned at the end of the month)- EXPENSES (All expenses to be paid for the month)
For example; saving (#35,000) = salary (#100,000)- expenses (#75,000)

CONCLUSION

Paying yourself leads to financial security and always to first step to been rich. With these plan in place, act on them and it will lead to financial freedom.
These sums it all, with these you know how to start your financial goals for the year and take a bold step to secure the future.
You can share with me why you can’t really save and why you don’t have a financial goal to achieve.

 

DO YOU HAVE PLANS FOR THE YEAR?

 

Welcome to an exciting new year. Another amazing and wonderful year with so much to offer. What have you in plan for the year?  This year ought to be better, greater than last year. What have you in plan to make this year better, pleasurable and yield greater result for you?

What goals or resolutions do you have for the year? If you have them in place, how do you plan on achieving them? Are they realistic? Are they feasible and achievable? Will it propel you to get them achieved? Or just a junk list to write and abandon in a month or two?

Time flies, if care is not taken you will realize that you are stagnant with no goals achieved or bucket list or resolutions to keep you motivated.

If you have the plan, that’s good but if you don’t, you need to have a simplified one to help you achieve your goals and make it visible, where you can look at it each morning and evening and be motivated to take steps and action to make it a reality.  If you need help anywhere, talk to the needed people and network for help to achieve your goals for the year.

 

Your plan ought to be your map for the year to help manage your time and  do the needful to help your personal growth too. This plan can be edited and adjusted by adding or removing later to make it smart and achievable and not ambiguous and unrealistic so as not to get stressed out. When you are stressed out, you will abandon it, throw it away, care-less about achieving the goals and see meaningless reasons not to evaluate or either review it.

After preparing your plan, you need to have more copies to work with. One on the wall in your room to stare at when going out and coming in to keep you inspired and evaluate what you have done so far. If you have it on the wall, there will be days when the plan will speak to you on the wall. When you stare hard at it, you will surely be motivated to lift yourself up again and carry on with where you have stopped. I also suggest you have one in your bag. It has been of help to me. When am less busy, I bring it out to review and evaluate it, think of smart ways to achieve one of your goals. It worked for me on two to three occasions to achieve one of my set goals. I wanted to buy into an investment, I thought of moving it over to the following year when am ready. I brought it out of my bag on my way home one evening and kept staring hard at it on what to do and how to go about it and ideas began to drop, I opened my phone memo and typed it there. When I got home, I elaborate and meditate on it and made the right calls. By the end of the second week, it became a goal achieved and I felt fulfilled.

To simplify the goals, I broke it down to seven parts:

–         FINANCIAL

–         BUSINESS

–         CAREER

–     COURSES

–          SPIRITUAL

–         HEALTH

–         PERSONAL (FUN, RELATIONSHIP, OTHERS)

With these seven listed above, it’s simplified and smart, you can work out how to go about them and make them a reality and have a great year. For every goal listed, there should be an actionable plan to achieve them. All you need is the commitment, focus and time to have to make the goals a reality.

In my next post, I will simplify one or two but elaborate more on financial and I trust the others are not tough and could be worked on personally.

You can share insight on how to make your new year plan achievable and if need be, I can also help in any way too to make it simplified.

DID YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS FOR THIS YEAR?

The year is entirely rounding up. How has it been so far? Did you set goals for the year? How far did you go with it? Did you achieve any goal for the year? If any, did you review your performance so far? Did you end this year with no goal or achievement? Did you really invest in any area of your life to help you grow? How did you personally review this year? How did you rate yourself this year? Did you make yourself better? Did you make the life of anyone better? What of the side hustle? What of buying into any investment (stocks, bond, mutual fund, treasury bills and others)? The course to upgrade yourself educationally? You had the bucket list or new year resolution or goals or plans but you ended up achieving none of them? Fear, negativity, procrastination and doubt made you join the mediocre who had nothing to show as the year round off. “I will save, I will save but could not save a dime. I will buy that investment, I will do the course, I will start that business but did not move an inch closer to take any action. Mostly importantly your financial goals? Did you set any saving goals for the year? Any goals to become financially free in a world of unstable economy? In a world where money has lost its value? Still hoping and searching for that safe and secure job in an unsecured world? still waiting for that job with the enormous salary? Did you ever save any penny so far, this year? Expenses and excuses did not allow you to pay yourself? The salary is small and never enough to meet your needs? Will it ever be enough when you start earning high? Will the expenses not all grow with you? Will your wants and needs not also skyrocket?

Are you still living paycheck to paycheck? Are you still in huge debt after salary? living a flamboyant lifestyle but swimming in debt?
What of the habits that have tied you down? What of the habits that have made you live in abject poverty? What of the inherited pattern you been battling with for years?  What have you put in place to break this hard pattern that has left you this way? Why did you still decide to continue with this style of many years or go back to it after all the new year resolution or bucket list you made a year ago?
Did you discover your purpose this year? Did you discover the vision for your life?  Have you discovered your strength and weakness? Do you know who you truly are? Are you living the life you dreamt of?  you passionate about what you do? Are you still struggling with that job? Still struggling with starting that business and not knowing what to do or how to go about it?
Do you want to go into the new year with these habits that have held you back these years? Do hope to make a change to become a better personality? Do you want to be transformed for greater height or make your big thinking a reality and achieve that big dream?
It’s  time for you create a day to sit down to think and meditate for the way forward and make sure the coming year is not the same for you. The time is right to bring about that change. To take note of vital things to achieve for the following year and how to go about achieving them in a simplified manner. How to break away from that pattern and move forward. It’s time to cut off every form of excesses from you to be prepared for the coming year. Let people see you and admit that the coming year will be prospective and better.

As you enter into this new year, resolve  in your heart to focused, disciplined, determined and committed to bring about that change that will make you financially free, get the help you need to start the business, the necessary support to help  break the strong habit holding you down.
Have a great, wonderful and positive year ahead of you.

 

3 TIPS TO THINK BIG

START SMALL

Do your starting point matter? Where you are presently do not determine your next phase in life. So, it doesn’t matter where you are presently? Do you know the point of thinking big is your small beginning? Do you know small beginning can lead to a great beginning? Do you know ROME WAS NOT BUILT IN A DAY? If it was not built in a day and those men started at a point to take a bold step meaning you can take that step and start at a point too. Acquire that skill, take that step to buy into that investment, start that side hustle that leads to great height.
Are you bothered about what you will face? How you will overcome them? How you will manage the losses? The men that built the Rome experienced all sort of challenges to build that great city, these men experienced  losses in one way or the other but they stood their ground and came out strong to build that great empire that stood the test of time and today everyone quotes “ROME WAS NOT BUILT IN A DAY”. These men experienced a lot of obstacles and challenges that was never talked about, they acted to start building, they stood their ground and today it’s all history.
Can you take that bold step to think big and step out of that limitations? Break out of the NEGATIVE THINKING? FEAR? HABITS? BELIEF SYSTEM? It’s time you start believing that IT IS POSSIBLE? That it is achievable? That you will succeed? You can do it?
THINK ABOUT IT….

 

PEOPLE

To think big and achieve your desired goal, you need people to support you. Do you know you need people better than you? You need to seek for that right knowledge that can help you build that business? Do you know you need the right set of people to guide and enlighten you more on the stocks, bond, mutual funds to buy so as not to make the wrong buy and what to do when you get caught in the web of troubled market? The right people that will help you in that business and guide you well? The right set of people that will give you the direction you need?

By now, you should know yourself better. Know your strength and weakness. You need to bring in the right person to guide you in achieving that goal you have been thinking about or get the right support you need to become financially free. You need that experienced people to gather around to lift you to that next level. Through gathering around them, they make your big dreams a reality easily through their support and guidance.

THINK ABOUT IT…

BIG THOUGHTS

If you are not clear about your thought, you keep roaming around a point. What do you really want with what you are after? As you think big, clearly define yourself and the goals/ project/ side hustle and the desired end to achieve a desired result.

Do you know you need to sit and envision yourself a success about what you are about to enter than allow those noisy thoughts that render you powerless preoccupy your mind and kill your dream? Do you conceive how that idea should look like? What you really want from it and what you really want it to look like? How you want the world to view it and all you need to do for that big dreams to become a big reality.

THINK ABOUT IT.

 

CONCLUSION
You can share your tips to think big or how you achieve that goals you set for yourself and overcame the challenges, how you overcame paycheck to paycheck pattern? How you overcome to start that saving, buy into that investment, start that side business, overcome that debt. it’s been a great year all the way.

7 LIMITATIONS TO THINKING BIG

 

 

HABITS

There are habits that can hinder us from personal growth to think big if you keep indulging in them.
These habits are either from your environment, family and friends. They limit our thoughts and action and they hinder us from moving forward. These habits become part of our lives that they become normal and day-to-day activities and we seem not to be bothered but feel extremely comfortable with where you are. If you look at the people around you, their words and lives are limited that they can’t think big. You will notice worry, anger, aggressiveness, fighting and even murder cases. Do you know this habit affect you? Do you know it’s hard to break through amidst these habits? Do you these habits limit your earning power? These habits stop you from becoming financially free? These habits impact your thinking pattern to think big? These thoughts leave you in debt and you don’t know how to manage these debt issues or even settle them? These thinking pattern makes you work hard for money without thinking of adding value to yourself? With questions, you will know how your thoughts can make you rich or poor and where you inherit your thought pattern from. We must know that reprogramming our thought pattern from thinking small and trivial things to big things is our road to financial freedom.

PROCRASTINATION

Procrastination holds you back and pulls you down from moving forward in your life. It’s the act of putting off till later time. It’s when you delay what you ought to do now. When certain factors within your control make you hold-down what you ought to do to achieve your desired result or move your life forward.
You plan to start working on that ideas but you keep deferring it. You plan to start working on that product or services you want to offer that will make your life better but you keep deferring it? You plan to save, invest or start a side hustle to become financially free but you keep deferring it ? Why? You keep postponing it to do it later and forget that time flies and with time, that particular project or vision die because you keep deferring it for worthless reasons that are aimless.
In the midst of this procrastination, comes worthless and valueless excuses that are valid to you. For example, telling yourself you will save later once you are done paying your debt which you never do as more expenses surfaces, you have long list of expenses that your salary is too small for you to save, you need to enjoy your life now because it’s too short and you will save later once you are ready, you will buy into that stocks, bond or mutual funds later, you need to resolve an issue now. You can’t start that business now or you can’t do this or that now for one invalid reason or the other.

NEGATIVE THINKING

Negative thinking hinders a lot of things and stagnate you and tire you down. You never see anything good in anything. Everything is bad and nothing makes sense when are a negative thinker nothing ever work. you can end of failing in everything you do because nothing good comes out of it. everything is see is only now and you never see the future. The future is entirely bleak to you. there are 80% chances that events and people around you mean or yield nothing good to you. These thoughts come easily or with life experience which puts you in bad shape and destabilizes you and stop you from ever producing any good ideas and also expecting the worst case scenarios which introduces disappointment, pessimism, depression, overthinking, find fault in people, failure, mediocrity and a few.
With negative thinking you can’t achieve your goals and everything about goal setting is negative and your thoughts are small and limited and you don’t see far and beyond. This negative thinking affects your health, state of mind and the way you relate with people around you. With these thoughts, you attract the same set of people who see nothing good in thinking big.
These thoughts drain our energy in every area of your life and that’s why nothing good seem to come out of you. It prevents you seeing things that are possible to do now and in the future and makes you tired of life most times.
A friend once told me he can never ever buy into any investment because his father once did and lose and all his money which led to his father’s death so he can never let anything lead into buying into investment. He expresses his negative thought anytime you talk about investment.
These are what negative thoughts do, you never see anything good truly

 

PROBLEMS

Worthless and minor problems keep distracting you from thinking big and they don’t allow you to see the bigger picture. These problems take your time and saps your energy and you lost focus to think big or even chase that big dream. These problems preoccupy you and in your heart becomes bigger problem that can’t be solved and it keeps dragging your attention away from good and positive things.

FRIENDS/FAMILIES

In my past post, (9 WAYS TO INVEST IN YOURSELF; WAYS TO CHANGE YOUR MINDSET ABOUT MONEY) i talked about the impact of friends and families in your growth and habits about money and these set of people go a long way to being a success in life and to getting to that great height in life. Their words which is as a result of their habit formed their decision and this creates their point of view in life which also impacts you and hinder you from thinking big or even ever having goals or chasing anyone. They either support you or destroy you. Your big thought will change lives and destiny and not everyone will see it the way you do. This people will criticize and almost destroy your big dreams with their condemnation because 80%-90% never had one and never believed in one and if not careful that goals die and you live an aimless life like them too
Where you are currently, is a function of the company you keep and where you will also be tomorrow. If you want to be successful, productive and efficient to a level, the company you keep has a part to play.
The right set of friends possess the attributes that leads you to your desired destination. These friends/families have no right network that can influence any area of your life.
Your improvement is built on the right friends you keep and they influence your choice and decision-making most times and help connect with others that can help.
Making friends and hanging out with these set of people can make you tend to poverty and scarcity and no big dreams.
For example; hanging with these sets of friends can’t make you save money, they will talk more about financial challenges and with time you have more financial problems. They will tell you buying into investments is bad. Giving you reasonable points or tells you about all the negative parts of starting a business and the challenges and how it can pack up in one year.
It’s time to review your friends and watch where your advice come from and what they say to you.

FEAR

Fear has crippled and hinder a lot us from thinking big it affects our being a success or failure. This fear has destroyed lives and destiny. A lot of people could not go into that business because the fear of losses, the fear of the business closing down in less than two years, the fear of the known and unknown, giving power to your thoughts to feed you with more of the bad part than the good it has to offer you. The fear cripples your mind with valid reasons not to invest and as you keep procrastinating the vision to dream big and become financially free dies. For every step, you want to take to achieve that big dream this fear comes in with better reasons not to venture into and it breaks you down and you accept your status quo. Your decision-making
it hinders our every steps, thoughts and action. Your decision-making experiences the challenges of fear because of the negative advices from friends and families and the negative thoughts that preoccupy your mind.

TIME

Big thinking requires time and commitment to achieve your dreams. Time to plan it out and how to go about it and what to do, who to talk to, advice and decisions to make. But if the time is not there, failure will surely surface. If no time to acquire the knowledge about the business or investment you want to buy into, the chances are high that you might likely fail. The time is a vital key to thinking big if the time is not there to think, meditate, plan and acquire the knowledge for that big dreams you are ending

CONCLUSION

There are many more factors not included and you might even know more but these are vital factors that are limits you from thinking big. Will you break or fight these limitations? Will you let your life remain the same? Will you continue to live from paycheck to paycheck? It’s time to think and meditate and break this barriers that have held you down from start that business, buying into that investment or running after that project. You can tell about your personal limitations from thinking big and did you break forth from anyone and how you did it.