Fast-Tracking Your Financial Freedom Journey With Ease & Pomp In The ‘New Normal’ Era…

Head - Corporate Affairs & Marketing Investrust Bank Plc

Dear Reader,

We trust that you and your wonderful family are well and keeping safe during this difficult time of Covid -19. We continue to share stories of how we can maximise our efforts in making good of our Money Management skills during this time. As we adjust to living in the ‘new normal’ and learn to navigate through this phase of our lives, we also need to sharpen our Money Management skills. This will set you on your path to realising your Financial Freedom (FF) and will ultimately change the quality

of life for you and your loved ones.

In the last two weeks, we shared stories regarding how we can maximise accelerating our FF journey by adopting behaviours that set us on this path as ‘shared’ by wealthy people. We also shared tips on letting go of those ‘family traditions’ we hold dear to our hearts and where we often spend

unnecessarily.

This week, we go a step further by narrowing down on how we can take advantage of this period to manage how we spend; spending less than you earn/make is the first step to attaining your FF. Failure to do this in good time will leave you in a bad financial state that you may find extremely challenging to turn around for the better. Be wise, always endeavour to spend less than what you earn/make. Living by the following tips will go a long way in setting

you on the right path:

Discipline - The Number One Ingredient In Wealth Creation

If wealth creation ranks highly on your life agenda, you need more than your plans to attain this. You need the discipline to avoid bad behaviours that are a barrier to realising your financial goals. For example, you need

to adhere to saving and investment rules and be intentional about wise spending. You may have a dream or ambition to create wealth and a great plan to achieve this, but if you are not committed to executing that plan and lack the discipline this requires,

you will not succeed.

Understanding Difference Between Asset And Income

If you want to grow your wealth and sustain it, you need to understand the difference between assets and income. If your goal is to create wealth, you should focus more on accumulating assets, not income. It is those assets that will help you to increase wealth. This way, your money will make money for you, and you will have attained your Financial Freedom in no time! Only through wise spending will you realise this, so please think before spending even when you think what you are spending is so little and will not amount to anything. Remember that wealth brings you freedom, extra freedom for you to make choices according to your terms such as choosing holiday destinations that you fancy, kind of hospital to seek health facilities from when you or your loved ones fall ill or when and where to go to for fine dining should

you feel like it. What beats that?

Spending Correctly

You can only create and sustain wealth when you spend correctly. We all experience moments when we fail to resist impulse spending. Wealthy people do not allow themselves to be easily swayed by anything when it comes to protecting their wealth; they keep such temptations under strict control. They are very careful about how they spend money. For them, spending has to be done correctly. Price tags matter to the wealthy because they know that wealth can only be sustained when unnecessary spending is totally cut out in their lives. Wealthy people are actually very frugal in the way they spend. They look for bargains and they question every expense. They are not in a hurry to spend and they have a habit of comparing prices. They also avoid fees and penalties

of any sort in their lives.

Cautious Handling Of Unexpected Windfall

The way we handle unexpected monies that may come our way really determines the outcome of our wealth creation journey. These monies manifest in various ways. This may come in the form of a bonus for salaried people, that extra ‘ cheque’ we all love and change in salary due to a promotion. We need to develop a habit of saving or investing such money as opposed to spending it. This is money that you did not plan or budget to spend so please do

not squander it on unnecessary things and do not suddenly develop ideas you did not have.

Minimise Undesirable Economic Outcomes

No one knows what tomorrow brings in terms of our ability to be able to earn/ generate an income as a salaried employee or a business person. This reality, therefore, calls for each one of us to plan ahead. Apart from ensuring that you work on having an emergency fund that can sustain you for a period of at least six months should anything happen to you, you are also encouraged to ensure that your health is well taken of. Please spend some money on this aspect if you have to. Invest in having regular medical check-ups and pay strict attention to your health so that you avoid spending more money on treating illnesses which you could have taken care of had you focussed on making annual check-ups a priority. Remember that good health is paramount in everything that we do. All those monies we spend carelessly

could be put to good use.

Don’t Emergency Shop, Ever!

Emergency/impulse/emotional shopping is usually our biggest enemy in wealth creation. Let us avoid buying things as we want them. There really has to be a need for us to spend, and that need should be planned, and the plan should be adhered to. When we emergency buy, we lose out on the opportunity to practise great behaviours such as comparing prices which could save us a lot of money. How often have you expressed shock and utter disappointment upon noticing that something you purchased at say K1000.00

costs only K500.00 or less in other shops?

Remember that wealthy people are not different from us. It is their mindset and behaviours towards money that are different. We can all master behaviours that can lead us to create and sustaining wealth! Let us keep practising, keep learning and growing, and let us create quality lives for our loved ones and us; we can do it! Please remember to teach your kids and other children under your care about the importance of money, its role in our lives, and why managing it well now for a better tomorrow is key. Begin early enough in their lives. That way, you will be proud of

raising Money Smart kids.

Dear Reader, we trust that you enjoyed the read and that you will make firm decisions to turn around your FF journey if you are not doing so yet. Adopt behaviours that

accelerate it and do that now!

Remember to keep safe by following the Ministry of Health safety guidelines as

we navigate our way in the new normal.

Be blessed and be a blessing to others!