The other day, we woke up to news that Nairobi was ranked the second worst place to live in Globally. Sad. But again the recent discovery of commercial deposits of oil in Turkana County has created hopes that our republic could be in the verge of graduating into a middle level economy.

“A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so.” But is he always right?

In addition to that, I believe somewhere in your resolutions one of your goals this year is to grow your money. Here are a few basic investment terms you ought to know in case you chose to invest in the capital markets, and to make that occasional drink with investment professionals less torturous.

To keep my sanity, I resigned to treating Sacco’s like my local church. In church, you only grow spiritually if you don’t move too close to the decision making organs. That way, you don’t ask your pastor why the church spent ten shillings to buy an item that costs two shillings in the streets. You also maintain your perception of the leadership as custodians of virtue and godliness.

For instance, this year the Central Bank projects the GDP to be at 5.2% compared to last year’s which was at 4.4%. Several interpretations of this would be that this year the economy expanded 0.8% more than last year or simply there were 5.2% more goods and services produced in the economy this year compared to last year which saw an expansion of only 4.4%. Confusing, isn't it?

All in all, treasury needs money, and has made bold moves to seek more revenue, including slapping tax on the mobile money transfer. A 10 percent excise duty will affect mobile money users. M-pesa handles more than KSh. 60 billion per month in deposits and a similar amount in withdrawals, and KSh. 80 billion in transfers. Maybe we just be more efficient.

At it's onset, the decade that led to the millennium was marked by a very low penetration of financial services in Kenya. Today, thanks to the mobile phone, this is quickly changing. In a country of 40 million people with 75% of it having direct access to a mobile phone, the financial services landscape significantly differs to the one of the nineties.

I had quotations from a number of middlemen for machine dressed quarry stones ranging from KES 29 to KES 40 per piece. Somehow, I managed to go to a quarry alone only to realize the price was KES 12 per piece. That's a huge discrepancy, isn't it?

You either own something or you don't, right? Well, it can get a tad more complicated. Law has created a number of ways in which property can be owned. The different categories serve varied property ownership situations so that there is something for everyone.

One of the things that discourage most 20 something year olds from establishing businesses of their own is the perception that they will have to do everything themselves. With this comes fear that most of your time will be dedicated to the business meaning your social life could end and everything in your life will revolve around the business.