DearNSPFellow: Be Smarter, Don’t Save Part Of Your Allawa, Invest

A decade ago, saving a percentage of your income could be seen as the smatters thing to do. Especially if you want to create wealth. But in today’s fast-moving world and our conventional wisdom of the new economy, saving is just a phoney thing to do. Especially for a young man who is setting up to face life.

Savings can be the safest thing when you want to create financial security. But it is largely unsustainable. It does not take much to put money aside these days. Even senior high school students have perfected this act. The real problem is that putting money aside doesn’t generate any additional value. Whatever you saved is what is available for you.

Today’s world requires that you use your money to make more money. Or use your income to create assets for yourself. This has a long term benefit when we compare it to savings. Investment is the sure way if anyone wants to attain financial freedom in the 21’s century. Just that it will take some time.

When you invest part of your allawa into an asset and give it one year to grow, by the time you are done with your service, you have already created a revenue source you can depend on and can even employ you. Imagine you save part of your allawa instead of investing, after a year, you may have a reasonable amount of money but how long can that last you when you are not fortunate enough to get a job right after national service?

Why Are You Not Investing?
Investment to you may sound like a big deal and something we should leave for the big men. We may see it as the birthright of the rich and people who have nothing to lose.

I recently approached a contact to discuss the investability of my company (not network marketing) and the first thing she mentioned was I should seek some MTN startup funds. It didn’t even occur to her to ask what the idea was about. And when I finally informed her that I was looking at her as an investor, she exclaimed and said she is broke. Again, she didn’t even try to find out what the whole investment thing is about.

I think this is common with poor people because they think they don’t have money, they are afraid to ask questions. Questions lead to knowledge or information and information make you rich. If she had tried to ask questions and received information about what I had, she would’ve found out that with 100 cedis, she could have invested into an idea that could end up making her few cedis every quarter in the future.

Or she could put that 100 cedis down in a savings and the value will be the same or even depreciate. That is the difference between savings and investment.

I have three reasons why I think young people are more interested in putting their money in a savings account in a bank than investing it in business or asset.

1. They Fear Risk
It’s true, investment comes with big risk and you need more than money to be an investor these days. But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? And you have a choice to make; take the risk and multiply your money or play safe and watch the value of your money depreciate.

I think it is riskier to your future when you chose savings over investment. You are putting yourself and your children in a dangerous position. Most people are not seeing this picture, which is why only a few are rich. You don’t become rich by putting part of your salary/allowance aside. Nobody saves to become rich; you can save to buy a phone, which is smart. But to be smarter, you invest to buy a phone.

2. The Lack Of Information
Well let me put it this way; the lack of advanced information. Because it is not that we don’t have access to information, we do, but the nature of the information we are open to and receive on daily basis is what is creating the gap between those that have access to the right information and those that don’t.

We are no more in the computer age. I guess you didn’t know this till now. The new economy now is an information economy. Those who have the right information are making better choices and constantly improving their lives.

If you have access to information that will enlighten you about the world we are in today, you would know that the banks who you think are helping you save money are not your friends. They don’t really mean you well. You are just a product they are making profits off.

3. I Don’t Have Money To Invest.
If you are waiting to gather millions of cedis before you pursue a business idea then you don’t know what is happening. Majority of the rich men we have today did not become financially free by investing a big sum of money into a big-time idea overnight. They started from somewhere, with that they had and did what they could do at the time.

A minimum of 100 cedis and a maximum of 1000 should be enough for national service personnel to start delivering value, which could end up multiplying into millions. We don’t need millions to make millions at our level. All we need is a few cedis. It will be easy to think you have no money to invest but I challenge you to take the hard way and find out what you can still do with the little you have.

4. I Want It All For Myself
One major disease killing ideas is the attitude of trying to have all for ‘yourself’. And because of that, instead of involving other people to give your idea a fighting chance, you decide to go alone so that you can gather all the glory.

You can never do anything all by yourself. Even God at a point needed someone to die to save humanity. God with all His authority and position doesn’t operate alone, He needs men. Getting others to believe in your idea makes it easy when you want to invest.

It also gives your idea or business a fighting chance. It is better to have two heads than one. It is also better to have 4 people bring 500 cedis to the table to start a business or venture than one person producing all the money. When it fails, you end up losing 500 cedis and learning valuable lessons than losing 2000 all by yourself which can end up making you sick.

Bottom Line
There are great stories out there to prove how young men and women built value and are now making money from nothing. There are stories out there to prove how a group of friends came together to start a business and are now having their money work for them.

It is also true that many of these people most of the times fail than succeed. Because we were not taught that failure is part of life and failing means at least you are trying to do something instead of just being an ordinary person, we prefer to play safe than to challenge ourselves.

Yes, it might be risky. That’s the more reason you should be trying to do it. Because only those who try what is tagged as risky receives the prize; they either win or learn. And this is your time, don’t wait another day.