Road To Financial Wealth: Say No To Waste!

Waste propagates poverty, and it is the greatest enemy to financial prosperity. Wasteful people always find it difficult to rise to the top. Christ also taught us not to be wasteful in life, when he fed five thousand men at a gathering, and after everyone was satisfied, he ordered his disciples to gather the remaining food in a basket, Mathew 14:20 “Everyone ate and had enough. Then the disciples took up twelve baskets full of what was left over.”

If it were today, those left over would have been thrown away into the trash bin, but Christ taught his disciples to be conservative with things, a life we all must emulate if we must succeed in our struggle for financial freedom.

            

You cannot claim to be financially wise, when you are good in wasting resources and money. Even in blue chip companies, they are always conscious of waste, in fact every company’s struggle is to generate more revenue with minimal resources, which means to cut down waste.

            

If you do not need a suit, why buy one just to impress people who care less about you? I quote one philosopher saying, “the problem with most people in life is that they buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t even like”. 

Some people have formed the habit of doing things they never wished to do, just to impress others. I have a friend, he works with a commercial bank, and as you know, bank job involves working almost 12 hours in a day, so he never had much time to do some things.

            

It now happened that a young pretty female student just moved in, just a room before his, so he thought of how to impress this pretty girl, and he went and swapped his car for a new edition luxury car, changed his house furniture to a costly one, and added more suits to his wardrobe. One Sunday afternoon, I visited him in his apartment, and I became amazed, so I thought maybe he won a prize at his workplace or that he got promoted.

            

So I asked, he replied, “one pretty student just moved into the next room, men, I have no option than to get that chic, in fact I want her to start falling for me, even without asking her out.” So I asked him, “How?” “You know you are old school," my friend ridiculed, "she would think I am a very rich guy, plus the fact that I am a banker, you know pretty ladies love money,” he said, “and what are your plans on the maintenance cost of this new ride, you know it is too expensive for your salary?” “Men I don’t care, as long as I will have that girl, what’s money for, is it not for spending?” He queried.

“But this doesn’t make sense, stop spending money like that, if the girl will like you, nothing will stop that, and all these things you are doing might not even turn her on anyway, I know some girls, its better you learn to save than to squander money to impress women!” I advised.

 

“how much will I save from this chicken salary, of course I will be promoted soon, then I can start saving for a house, another car and maybe marriage,” he replied almost immediately.  

“I have told you, learn to save, that’s my word, there is no job security in this country, especially in this your field, anything can happen,”  

“don’t tell me you are praying for me to be fired?” 

“No! I am only advising you as a good friend, even though you are working, you can still own your own business” 

“Frank, you seem to forget that I am a banker, we don’t have time. What I should be thinking now is how to upgrade myself academically to ensure I am promoted soon, and not starting up a business.” 

“Are you indirectly asking of the kind of business you can startup as a banker? Why not start the supply of suits to your colleagues at work; I have somebody who is into that, and I bet you, he is making it pretty good! Better still, you can be a freelance I.T expert and a banker at the same time, which will give you income leverage over your colleagues.”

            

My friend couldn’t take my advice, in fact, he started hiding things from me, because he thought I didn’t want him to enjoy life, and he always saw me as an old school guy, so I learnt to be an observer.

            

Not quiet long that the global economy melt down occurred, he was among those enlisted for retrenchment, and he did not save up to a hundred thousand, when this retrenchment tsunami struck him! His Digital satellite television subscription expired, no money to subscribe, his luxury car once developed minor mechanical fault, no money to take it to a mechanic shop for repair, those numerous suits he bought became obsolete, no money to replace them and no one to buy them either, and he doesn’t enjoy wearing them anymore because they have gone out of fashion, and now he is asking me the kind of business he can startup when he has no savings to start with.

Don't go away...we will continue the story next week, so stay with Frankie and be inspired to greatness!!