Live a comfortable life, not a wasteful one. Do not spend to impress others. Do not live life trying to fool yourself into thinking wealth is measured in material objects. Manage your money wisely so your money does not manage you. Always live well below your means.
Redefine your definition of “rich”.
If your definition of being rich is owning a prado, living in Runda and dinning in those exclusive members only clubs and restaurants, then you need to redefine what your consider being rich is all about. Maybe you could afford to buy a Mercedes Benz C180 Kompresa but can you afford its maintenance fee. I’d rather own a Probox, as ugly as it looks, in the long run it won’t cost me as much to maintain as a Mercedes would and in turn wouldn’t push me to my financial ruins. My definition of being rich entails having enough money to meet my family’s basic needs, a few of their wants, and to be able to give some money away to others. That’s what I call true richness.
Borrow and share. Everyone wins!
What if we would adopt the habit of exchanging our DVD’s instead of buying new one’s every week. 50 shillings might be a small sum of money and it wouldn’t mean much if you spend some 200 Shillings to buy 4 pirated DVD’s. Do the math, in a month you spend around 800 Shillings on DVD’s, once you’ve watched them you’ll probably not watch them again and they just pile up in your DVD rack. What if we would exchanging our movies with our friends regularly? In the long run you’d save 800 shillings which you could add up to your monthly savings plus have some extra room in your DVD rack.
Avoid the mall.
More and more shopping malls are opening up in every corner of our city and we constantly find ourselves going there whenever we fell bored and in need of some entertainment. Of course, we usually ended up spending money while there may be through buying a cup of coffee at 100 Shillings. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to have stayed indoors, made yourself an instance cup coffee, am sure at most it would cost you 10 shillings to do that. If you need clothes, then shop sales or go to Muthurwa or Gikomba. You can save a ton on these items if you are a smart shopper. Dave Ramsey says, “Never pay retail!” We probably save 5,000 Shillings per month by staying away from the mall.”
Limit your intake of advertisements.
Advertising sucks. That’s the cold, hard truth. It’s engineered to make you feel like you’re incomplete, that you have an unfulfilled need, that you’re not good enough. Let’s just be realistic here, you own laptop and you can read your e-mails from it right? Plus do many more things with it. But when you see a smart phone advert you find yourself desiring one, they’d tell you that you can read your e-mails plus play your music on it too. Why buy it, these phones are expensive and you could save up the money to buy something better in the long run.
Find a better deal and actually SAVE the difference.
Regardless of what they sell, if you’ve need to switch companies for price reasons, then do it to save the difference. Think of phone companies, internet access, cell phones, and others. “Hama” if you have too. You don’t have to pay more for a service that is being offered cheaply by a different company.
Curb your consumerism!
Have you ever watched how a child can play with a cardboard box for hours, and leave the toy that came in it by the wayside? How is it that children can enjoy themselves without a lot of “stuff”, but we as adults feel the need to reward ourselves by buying more stuff. We men buy some unnecessary electric gadget, one after the other. Why do you need to change your TV set every year when a new model is released. Kasavuli would still look the same no matter the type of TV model you own. And you ladies, do you really have to own 5 hand bags?
Stay Healthy! Medical problems drain bank accounts.
James M. Rippe, M.D is a best-selling author, world-renowned cardiologist, and founder of the Rippe Lifestyle Institute. He explains that if you look at all the risk factors for dying, the one that is most predictive is fitness level. In addition, an older person with high cardiovascular fitness is healthier than a younger person who is physically inactive. By increasing your fitness level, you can actually roll back your biological clock. Go out for a long walk during your lunch break, it’s relaxing and revitalizing plus a healthy fitness exercise.
Stay in and relax
So, think about it the next time you go out. Are you going with a purpose? Maybe the solution is to not go out at all. Stay home and save! Save up for something you really want or need.
Gradually prepare yourself for a rainy day.
Even when things are going great, and you feel on top of the world, you must always be prepared for a change. If you take the time and patience to set yourself up properly, then when things to take a turn for the worse, you will be prepared to handle it. If you live above your means, then when the slightest change occurs, you will not be prepared to adapt. Financial flexibility is more important then keeping up with the Jones’.
Stop competing. Forget about the Jones’ altogether.
If getting rich makes us happy, then why don’t countries as a whole get happier as they grow wealthier? You’ll discover that as a country gets wealthier there’s no overall increase in happiness. Why? We continually compare our wealth against that of others. We are competitive and envious. Add to that the fact that Western countries encourage people to strive for more and more, and you have a formula that spins many into depression.
Get out of the “easy street” mentality.
I think there is too much emphasis on the quick fix or the easy option in today’s society. For example taking diet pills to lose weight instead of the “hard option” – exercising and eating well…. money is sometimes being used as a substitute for hard work. Do you think there is an increasing expectation that you can get want you want by throwing money around instead of working hard and “earning” it?
Avoid impulse buying. Buy things you truly need.
Don’t you just love the excitement you feel after coming home with a new TV? Driving home in a new car? Opening the box on a new pair of shoes? I sure do. But, from watching the behavior of myself and my friends I’ve found that the new quickly becomes just another item. The excitement of novelty passes quickly.
Time is money. Properly manage your time.
The fewer tasks you have, the less you have to do to organize them. Focus only on those tasks that give you the absolute most return on your time investment, and you will become more productive and have less to do. You will need only the simplest tools and system, and you will be much less stressed. I think that’s a winning combination. Focus always on simplifying, reducing, eliminating. And keep your focus on what’s important. Everything else is easy.
Don’t let greed and deceit get the best of you.
According to Stephen R. Covey, if you reach an admirable end through the wrong means it will ultimately turn to dust in your hands. This is due to unintended consequences that are not seen or evident at first. The example he gives in The 8th Habit is: The parent who yells at their kids to clean their rooms will accomplish the end of having a clean room. But this very means has the potential to negatively affect relationships, and it is unlikely the room will stay clean when the parent leaves town for a few days. Now, to return to the topic of wealth, I think it is possible to see much of the world’s current financial problems as stemming from people who wrongly believe the ends justify the means. My advice? It is fine to aspire to wealth, but don’t lose sight of the means to accomplishing it.