Are you really financially-healthy?, by Ola Emmanuel

In this era of social media self-hyping, huge sum of money is practically wasted every minute on sweet-nothings by millions of people in the absolute-consumer category. They spend money they don’t have to buy data, some even beg for the money to buy the data not for anything productive but to satisfy the gods of gossips and their appetite for rumours. They move from one social media platform to the other downloading and watching mind-numbing videos uploaded for them by those who are cashing in on their weaknesses to make money since the absolute-consumers lack the capacity for accountability and responsibility.

If nothing at all, you must remember this financial fitness rule: the money you spend (money given out) is no longer your own. When you spend heavily on consumables, when you pay for transportation, when you buy that thing or the other, when you pay market women for the products you ask for, such money you are spending is regarded as not your own. Then you need to ask yourself: what part of the money in your hand is actually your own? You should take extra care to build your own portion so that you can live a more satisfying and rewarding life tomorrow.

A careful understanding of the above reveals clearly that it is necessary that you plan your spending very well; otherwise you may be counting years of earning incomes without having anything meaningful to show for it.

Having already devoted the past two weeks to the personal financial issue, let’s look at the checklist that is germane to your financial security. To locate your spending habits, carry out the following personal checks.

1. Do you make up to what you spend? Anyone who spends above his or her income is clearly operating a bad money habit.
2. With the way you spend money at present, can you sincerely say that your financial future is safe and guaranteed?
3. Can you really say that you really need the product you am about to buy? If your answer is ‘no’, you are about to spend money on a product that you don’t really need.
4. If the amount of money you want to spend on a product is significant enough to contribute to giving you a better and secured future and you can do away with the product at the moment, will you be willing to suspend the buying of the product till a later date? If it is difficult to delay the immediate pleasure you may derive by not spending a particular amount of money today, it may be a tough call to meaningfully build savings to achieve a higher goal in future.
5. Is the product necessary, so urgent and so important to your immediate well being or it can wait till other time? The basic needs of life such as food qualify as necessary and important. You need this spending for your present well being and to enable you have a better future but if it becomes without measure and uncontrollable it can lead to gluttony and make you become wasteful.
6. Do you always think about the product you want to buy and make a list before you make your purchases or you just buy as the products catch your attention? If you have the habit of buying products without first planning and budgeting for it, you are not only an impulse buyer, you also operate bad spending habit. Any product you can buy immediately it catches your attention should be one that you had pre-planned but which you haven’t procured. List out what you spend money on. Study your list for a while and determine whether you are actually spending well. Remove not so important things from your list.
7. What do you need to put in place before you can conveniently embark on acquiring certain products? It is important you know the level you should have attained in life before you should go after certain products; otherwise you may find yourself putting the cart before your horse of life.
8. Is the product I want to buy too expensive and can I really say I get value for the money I want to pay? It is your duty to be on top of the market to know what competition is doing. You are not doing anybody any favour by paying exorbitantly for products, rather you may be celebrating your ignorance and lack of entrepreneurial instinct. Are there substitute products that can give good value at fair prices?
9. Are you paying higher for the avoidable goods and services?

10.What exactly do you need? Is what you want to buy a need or a want?

Ola Emmanuel is a business planning and cooperative consultant