Posts in category: Blog

What is Money Management?

It is the ability to handle or direct money with a degree of skill or to treat it with understanding and care. It’s to be a steward over it and to add value to it. Therefore, the goal of money management or stewardship is to improve the value of your money.

It was P.T. Barnum an American showman, politician and businessman that once said “Money is the excellent slave and a horrible master”.

This short but powerful statement of his summarizes the major lessons anyone can learn on the subject of money. That lesson is simply this – you can either choose to be a slave of money or master of money. The choice is absolutely yours. And this is irrespective of your tribe, nationality, level of education, age, sex, religion or even your family background.

Your choice to be a money master instead of a slave begins with an investment in your financial education. A financial education that encompasses the following money concepts – Money Minding Secrets, Money Making Secrets, Money Management Secrets, Money Multiplying Secrets and Money Mastery Secrets.

However, for the purpose of this paper our focus here shall be limited to Money Management Secrets –How to develop a good savings habit.

6 Steps to Successful Money Management

1. Budget It – Have a Wise Plan for money even before it comes.
2. Invest it – Put it into profitable ventures for more monies.
3. Save It – Prepare for unexpected opportunities to exploit.
4. Use It – Take care of your needs and the needs of your family.
5. Record It – Monitor your Cash flow (Income & Expense) daily.
6. Avoid Waste – Don’t engage in riotous living to impress others and prove you are rich.

Finally

I am sure you can now see that it’s not just enough to make money. To gain mastery over money, you must also know how to manage it very well. And the good news is money management is a skill that anyone can learn. Therefore, as you learn and put these lessons to practice, remember that the goal of money management is to add value to what you already have irrespective of the size.

Internet fraud popularly referred to as 419 or Yahoo Yahoo in Nigeria is generally motivated by the need to make money illegally through the internet no matter what law is broken. The money is then used to buy things like houses, cars, big phones and the likes so they can look good among their peers. But if I may ask; how can we call stealing other peoples hard earned money to acquire things for ourselves ‘Success’? Success has a positive lasting impact on society but illegal act like internet fraud only destroys the society. I will highlight three negative impact here;

1. Lack of Vision

One of the skill of successful people is vision; the ability to see far beyond where they stand. If I may ask this question at this point; what kind of world will you like to create? Is it a peaceful one or a troubled one?

I am very sure that you do not look forward to creating a world where people kill their loved ones for ritual, hypnotize others and steal their hard earned money. Do you see a world that is built on crime; when no great country has been called great through the citizen’s illegal act like internet fraud? This is because acts like cyber crime are illegal and only thrives on stealing what others have acquired through legal hard work.

Engaging on internet fraud only destroys your ability to have a clear picture of the future. A future where it is possible for you to make the world a better place than the way you met it rather than destroy it through fraud.

2. Destroys National Identity

Criminal act like this that is punishable by law will always paint a negative picture of a country like it has done to Nigeria over the past years. But I believe this generation can change all that by thinking and acting differently. This act only makes the nation a less desirable place to live in. Just imagine going to another country and people keep suspecting you like a criminal because you are a Nigerian. We all should be building the nation and not destroying it. A country is only seen and called success based on the persons who have made success out of themselves. You must know that internet fraud can’t be counted as success but as failure.

3. Beyond Poverty

Research has shown that the more reason people involve in internet fraud is as a result of greed. This is because individuals see the little they have as not being enough. But the truth is that in pursuing their greedy appetite they end up destroying law and order in the society, prevent businesses from operating normally and increasing unemployment. This will generally lead to increased level of poverty and increased level of violence leading to loss of lives which I believe is much more than poverty.

Just as the saying goes ‘knowledge is power’; but it is the application of this power in knowledge that leads to success. In the same light, it is the application of creativity that brings success; truth is anyone anywhere can be creative but what makes you stand out.

Creativity is more than producing that clever, new something, it is a vitally important facet to human development, and it drives us to not only create but innovate.

Applying creativity cuts across every sphere of life, it could be the way one, talk, dress, and work. It applies to different field s of study- artistically, scientifically etc. But right now we shall be placing emphasis on your talent, skills, and intellect.

Please note that if you are skillful or talented and you are not applying your creative ability towards problem solving to your benefit and to change your world, you are like that individual who is privileged to get an education, has all textbooks but will not read; and so is not different from that individual who is not privileged like him/her.

A close look at the word ‘CREATIVITY’, you will find that the first syllable ‘CREATE’ which means to invent something new while the second and third respectively is ATIVITY; permit me to add a ‘C’ after ‘A’, it will now form  the word ‘ACTIVITY’ which means the state of doing something and being active to achieve an success.

HOW TO APPLY CREATIVITY?

Applying creativity involves taking positive actions, using your skills, talents, and intellect towards success.

In order for our creative ability not to be a total waste or domicile, four important steps for applying creativity are listed below;

1. Be innovative: for you to be innovative, you need to first believe in yourself, that you have the capacity to do something new and different, you must be able to think outside the box
2. Be active and determined: applying creativity involves action, no room for being passive
3. Build yourself: You need to continually build yourself to remain valuable
4. Do not be afraid or concerned about criticism: while you are applying your creativity for tomorrow’s success story, always expect criticism, it helps you to do better

 BENEFITS OF APPLYING CREATIVITY

• It makes you a problem solver thereby contributing to your nation
• You will be recognized: it singles you out and causes you to be seen; once an individual is different, he or she is easily noticed
• It keeps you engaged and increases your self confidence
• Productive thinking helps in reducing stress
• It makes provision for you; again in the word CREATE the word ‘EAT’ is right in the middle; this implies that one’s innate ability to invent can make provisions for him or her.

Just like a building, any successful person today is founded upon a sure foundation. But because of the hidden nature of foundations, most young people seem not to appreciate the need to lay a solid foundation for a better future. Many times when a young person looks at a successful individual, they are mostly blown away by the glory and glamor that surrounds that individual.

One thing they fail to realize however is that for every outstanding and successful person you see today, there are foundations upon which they are standing. Therefore, our goal in this short article is to uncover one of such foundations. This is so that we can found our lives upon it and build successful lives that others can emulate as well. And that foundational value is faith.

What Is Faith?

Now what exactly is this thing called faith? In the most simple way;faith is believing in our tomorrowbeing better and greater even though we can’t see it physically yet. It is having a vision of a better tomorrow, which then empowers youwith the much neededinner strength to take little steps today that will ultimately take you the place called success. Foryou to have faith in your future without taking steps towards is equals to failure.

Why Is Faith Important?

Faith is an essential life value that cannot be ignored by anyone who desires to live a successful life on planet earth. Faith is not only a virtue; it is also an instrument for accomplishing the impossible in this world. It takes faith to surmount the various challenges and unfavorable circumstances that life will throw at us from time to time. Without faith success is absolutely impossible.

Faith Hall of Fame

All through history we have seen men and women achieving one success or the other because they believed in the possibility of what others thought was impossible. One of such success story is the Wright brothers who invented the airplane in 1907. They had faith that it was possible even when most people saw them as failures; because what they were saying seem impossible at the moment.

Finally

Therefore, I want to call on you my dear friend to have faith in yourself that you will become successful in your academics and life in general. Have faith in other people that they too will get better. Have faith in our nation that someday the true change we all seek will come. And above all have faith in God’s ability to help you where and when your own ability fails. Have faith my friend, because faith never fails!

The presence of tolerance and perseverance is not the absence of fear, pain or hard times. You might think the best student in your class at one point or the other will never want to quit, but the truth is that tolerance and perseverance is usually about keeping going on even though you really want to stop.

So how can you develop this all important life’s value? How do you push on when academics and life in general feels hard and impossible?

You can actually master this important life’s value called tolerance and perseverance by mastering the four (4) steps below;

1. Set Goals

You just must set clear goals so you can clearly see where you are going to. At a point in my secondary school days one of my goals was to score a minimum of 70 out of 100 in mathematics. This clear goal that I set for myself served as a reminder of the prize that awaits me after going through hours of solving mathematics. So you must set clear goals so you can tolerate and persevere through any challenge on your way to success.

2. Take a step

Don’t spend all day thinking on the goal you have set for yourself. You will need to focus on actions to carry out immediately after setting your clear goals; so you can start making progress no matter how little it looks or feel. It is consistently carrying out these little actions that will someday enable you reaching or accomplishing your set goal.

3. Set your pace

Once you start taking actions daily you don’t want to find yourself back where you started from in a week or a month later; so avoid carrying out so many activities that will burn you out. As the old saying tells us, slow and steady often wins the race. So carry out the daily actions in a way that you can handle consistently.

4. Just keep going on

That your daily consistent action will lead you to your goal someday is something you should always keep in your mind. This is because the basics of perseverance is in going all out to reach a goal while putting everything in place to make it a reality without giving up.

Sometimes you will be well and truly stuck — maybe you’ve come down with an illness or something unexpected. This doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do to keep going on. There always will be something you can do to keep going on.