7 TIPS ON MANAGING YOUR INCOME

7 TIPS ON MANAGING YOUR INCOME

Do you know how it feels when you are tired and weak, and now you have a headache, not due to fatigue but due to the fact that the calendar reads 28^th and you have calculated your salary the umpteenth time yet your budget weighs more than your salary. Trust me, I know what it feels like when you suddenly think your salary is not enough at the point you get the alert. It is quite ironic to feel sad and overwhelmed the moments you receive your monthly salary rather feel grateful. Elizabeth Warren opines that “Balancing your money is the key to having enough”.  Sometimes most of our financial challenges are tied to our inability to manage our income per time. Here are a few tips:

7 TIPS ON MANAGING YOUR INCOME

1. COMMIT YOURSELF TO BE DEBT FREE: You need to set a standard for yourself else every month, you would be paying a debt. Agree with yourself that you will not borrow, no matter what arises. Have noticed that every time you are paying off a debt, it rubs you of future plans.  It, however sad that some people borrow from one cooperative to network recharge cards, to salary advance, to colleagues at work who add some interest and also from the different online platform.  Sometimes the things we take loans for can be avoided. Will Rogers asserts that “Too many people spend the money they earned… to buy things they don’t want… to impress people they don’t like.”

2.   PLAN YOUR EXPENSE AHEAD

Planning your expense ahead often help you to plan 95% of your spending. It is often said that poor people calculate spent money while rich people calculate before spending. Do you know you can save your house rent from the month you paid the last rent: simply start by saving a portion of the rent monthly, to avoid stories that touch two months to your rent renewal. Draw up a financial plan for your wedding, Plan the delivery of your baby the moment your wife conceives, you don’t want to stories that touch while she is in labour. 

Can I at this juncture say, you do not have to do the usual naming ceremony for your newborn by throwing a party? Instead, call Pastors to pray for the child and invite a few people to join for the Baby thanksgiving in church.  Personally, I do not believe in throwing a party for the naming ceremony of a newborn. Do it the English style and save the funds. Moreover, as parents, you plan school fees ahead by fixing your children in good schools, you can afford. You can equally plan as much as your monthly recharge cards and data plan and be loyal to your budget book.  I know a primary school teacher who loads recharge card of 1000 for each month and does not have to buy more. Rather than make more calls, she sends text messages more often. Technology has made life better if it is not important to call: just dm, Whatsapp, send chat through any of the available social media the person uses. Remember: WE ARE OUT TO REDUCE COST.

3.  BUY AHEAD AND BUY IN BULK

 You will agree with me that bulk purchase is the key to financial satisfaction. When you buy household things in bulk it saves you the energy and time you would have spent in buying bit by bits. The purchase of things like vacation tickets and a few other things of the time it is needed often saves you from the late purchasing cost. The beauty of buying in bulk is that you also could get it at a discounted rate; you would be shipping or paying the same cost of transport it home. It also gives you peace of mind.

4.    HAVE A BUDGET JOURNAL:

This helps you to keep a tab on how successfully you have been in managing your own finance. Pen down your monthly quarterly and annual budget as well as how you intend to achieve it. Note down months where you had reduced cost and high expense and learn from the cost reduction model. No book can tell you the right model but you can build your own model depend on your financial challenges. “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” Joe Biden

5   5. RESEARCH ON LEGIT SIDE BUSINESS:  

     

     I often feel the smallest and easiest medium of savings is t use a piggy bank (kolo) or to engage in thrift (Ajo) this would enable you to invest your extra cash in which might equally help you to sustain yourself beyond your income.  Think and research into ideas or businesses you can do that will bring in good returns. This range from the supply of goods or services, property business, partnership with an investor, investment banking: stock, bonds, treasury bills and much more. You need to allow your money to work for you. Idowu Koyenikan says, “The more your money works for you, the less you have to work for money”. Sometimes the capitals invested in businesses are borrowed but what is most crucial is how you plan the business, the returns and if the business can sustain itself over time.

   

6. GIVE 

The law of wealth, harvest and increase lies in your giving and not in your prayers or going to church.  Give financial support to fund your parents' upkeep and take care of them well. Give to the needy, less privilege and distress people, for as you give to them you are borrowing to God. Giving is very important. Give! Give! and Give!

     7.    BE INTENTIONAL: Be intentional about saving cost and earning more.