I’m sure you are curious to see why you are always broke despite all your efforts. You should also be curious to know why the politicians in your area get broke after leaving office. How did Muhammad Ali and mike Tyson end up broke?? C’mon!!!
Well, man is a product of habits and these habits ultimately define your accomplishments or lack of in your life. So, I will go on to describe habits that limit financial freedom and also give potent tips on wealth accumulation and financial freedom.
Warning!!! You may not like what you see on the list but hey we need to tell ourselves the truth every once in a while. I encourage you to look at every item on this list with deep and maybe sober reflection and then go further and try to keep to the prescribed dosage for dealing with them.
- Living from salary/wage to salary/wage:
Always be on the lookout for legitimate ways to increase your income and make that extra N1.
- Eating outdoors consistently:
Learn to cook your food or get someone come in to cook for you once a week. Sometimes a plate of food outdoors is worth a week long three-square meals.
- Starting with high maintenance cars.
Never, I repeat never buy high maintenance cars when you a starting out in life. These maintenance costs are a crippling effect to capital accumulation. Listen, life is more gratifying and fulfilling when you grow into certain things. Climb the ladder one step at a time. I’ve seen people spend almost all they earn to maintain their cars.
- Every day is a hangout day with friends:
You need to ditch high maintenance friends. Even girlfriends/boyfriends and I mean it. All other groups of people that undermine your savings efforts are not left out.
- Avoid expensive weddings.
I assure you, people will forget your wedding as soon as it ends. They will instead be carefully scrutinizing your lifestyle after the wedding. I’d rather give my haters something to talk about while married than a wedding they would forget in a month. I see people who live in rented apartments spend 2million on just wedding dresses. This is demonic. Pressure, fraud and depression is lurking around the corner. I can assure you. But if you learn not to live for the applause, you’ve got everything under control. My brother skip the diamond ring gang for a season. Trust me, you will end on top and no one will remember that insignificant past.
- Social media addiction.
Consciously work to limit the time you spend on Instagram, Pinterest, twitter and Facebook. I cannot emphasize this enough. All habits of consumerism comes from this channel. This is a financial pit. Very successful people rarely dwell on this channels except they are using it to leverage business. Even the Airtime subscription needed to keep up with these habits is usually telling on your finances. Imagine if you didn’t have to subscribe. Do a virtual and mental calculation. There you go.
- Staying in accommodations that cost more than a quarter of your annual income:
So you stay in apartment that takes virtually all your annual income when you add transport cost and feeding to it? Really?? What a shame. You are living your life for your landlord friend. When the evil day comes, none of us will remember where you once lived, we will remember that you moved back to the village.
- Not saving at least a quarter of what you earn annually:
By hook or crook always have the equivalent of 18 months of your salary saved away either in securities or some earning account. No matter how small this account is. This is your “cover shame” money in case something goes wrong with the job or you have a family medical emergency. It could also be to cover up for a separation/divorce from a once upon a time supporting partner.
- Making new outfits for every wedding in town.
I mean you could recycle cloths you used from weddings at a different destination. If you wore it in Lagos, you can repeat it in Benue. Maybe don’t take too many pictures. lol
- Laziness:
Laziness in every form brings about poverty. If it’s not poverty then it disrespect from spouses and friends. Discipline your mind. Read and study your way to financial freedom. Be curious to understand success factors that have become success stories. Don’t be afraid to replicate/copy business models. After all, China copied their way to industrialization and economic growth.
- Excessive alcohol consumption and drug addiction:
If you convert total money spent on alcohol in a month and you can’t honestly tell your spouse or reasonable friend about it, then you have to check yourself my brother/sister. Some of that drinking budget could actually convert to a start-up capital for a million naira business. Do the maths.
- De-emphasize spending on liabilities.
Buy assets no matter how small. This may sound scary but it’s totally achievable. For the ladies, how much gold do you have stored for a rainy day??? Guys, how about buying land back at home or the outskirts of town? You must not buy land in the city, start small and watch it grow.
- Buying clothes and shoes you don’t need:
Some of us actually buy things we don’t need in a year or hold onto things you don’t use in a year. Why?? Asides clutter, it’s not an economically sound habit. Such habits would definitely impact on your savings and then investment thereby tampering with your financial freedom and future financial security.
- Not writing a shopping budget:
You stand a risk of buying beyond what you can accommodate financially for that period. This habit puts you into debt that you end up upsetting with the next pay check thereby distorting your financial plan for a period. You also end up with stuff you don’t even need or that go to waste due to storage.
- Following trends that especially don’t even agree with your personality or values:
Stop living for the applause. You don’t need that. Your originality usually attracts more genuine people to you than you could ever imagine.
- Copying the Instagram life:
Instagram isn’t real. It is the surest way to frustration and poverty. Don’t live your life for the gram.
- Having the life is too short mentality concerning purchases:
This is a loser mentality. Avoid it.
- Going on more than one vacation a year especially if that gulps more than a quarter of your annual income
How about skipping vacation for a year to accommodate some development plan you have? The main purpose of a holiday is to change your location so as to refresh and unwind. How about trying some new state in Nigeria as your holiday spot or an African country with a better currency exchange rate? You need to find a balance.
- Paying exorbitant prices for designer names.
You don’t have to struggle to buy these things at the detriment of doing things that bring you value or taking care of family and friends. People will still value you without showing up in a designer outfit or bag. Any man/woman who tries to win your friendship because of designer outfits isn’t with you for the right reasons. I’ve seen ladies buy a bag of $3,000 (N1m) when they don’t have any asset of that value. Such goods do not have any second value, so when a rainy day comes, how would that bag help you??
- Doing things to impress the public.
Well it’s consoling that this same public will be there to see you go to the gutters
- Excessive junk intake.
Limit your junk intake. You wonder why our parents are fitter than we are. Junk foooood!!!! Not only does it build excess depressing fat, it also kills finances. Please be wary of excessive intake of Ice-cream, doughnut, pizzas, sharwamas etc.
Well there you have it. It’s like when you manage to escape one point, the other is staring you in the face and judging you. Most of those comments hit me too but I’m not going to sit and whine and push blame around. I’ve decided to save this list and be guided by the principles.
You could choose to actionably pick a few to begin with then gradually cut off all or almost all these habits that are limiting your financial freedom and making you poor. Believe me, there is nothing glorious about poverty. Nobody should lie to you. So let’s get started, what’s the first thing on your list for immediate action???
