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      • Robo Investing
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  • Big Money Stories
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    • Money Cue Cards
WealthSquats
  • Be a Money Ninja
    • Learning about Money
  • About WealthSquats
  • Know this Number
  • Future You & Pensions
  • Smart Ways to Grow Money
    • Cash Savings
    • Bonds
    • Stocks and Shares
    • Mutual Funds >
      • Robo Investing
      • ETFs
    • Peer to Peer Lending
    • Early Stage Private Equity
    • Real Estate and Property
  • Big Money Stories
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    • Money Cue Cards
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Books

9/25/2018

 
A selection of books to inspire your own journey. I'll continue to add to this page as I find new and interesting resources.

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Where did I learn my money habits?

9/23/2018

 

One of my friends asked her dad about how to save and he told her to google it

Looking back it is very likely that my friend's dad did not know much about saving and investing. To begin my own journey into understanding how I could plan and manage my money better, I had to go to the beginning and be honest about the following question-What do I know about money today and how to make it work for me?

To unravel this question, we must first understand where individuals learn habits in the first instance? As a child, you learn your speech, behaviors and values from your surroundings which is made up of family and friends. In just the same way you also learn your money habits from your surroundings. Your money habits include how you spend, save and think about money.


“Your money habits include how you spend, save and think about money.”

Your surroundings can have a profound effect on how you manage your money. It also defines your path to wealth. It is therefore critical to assess how much your money habits is attributed to what you have learnt from your surrounding in line with evaluating your current circumstance. This insight will allow you to understand how a family can have wealth for generations, because the rich teach their children rich habits and the less well off teach less well off habits. Teach can also be observation.

Take for example, if you lived in a household where there was always a scramble to pay rent and meet monthly expenses, you could accept this a normal and find yourself with very little to spend at the end of each month as a working adult. But you can make another choice, you can take the time to assess why the scramble took place and plan how you can make money work for you and not fear it.


“Your surroundings can have a profound effect on how you manage your money. It also defines your path to wealth.”

My middle class parents did not teach me about money and financial management. This was in part due to the fact that they did not get an education from their parents. To be frank, money is not a subject that most families or friends discuss in open. To some any topic about money is  best held in private or not at all. But if you want to manage money successfully, you need to understand it and you need to talk about it in order to develop successful money habits.

WealthSquats is intended to help others understand that they can start their own path towards financial with the right information, patience and discipline. There is no complex jargon about finance-it is basic, it is simple and it works.

It all starts with knowing that with what you have today, you can make the most of it by starting small.


If you want to manage money successfully, you need to understand it and you need to talk about it  in order to develop successful money habits

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“Your money habits include how you spend, save and think about money.”

Take Pleasure in saving money
~Suze Orman

​

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The Pursuit

9/23/2018

 
As a young child, I have always known that I wanted to be rich. I knew that I wanted the finer things in life. I did not want to live paycheck to paycheck and most importantly, I wanted to be rich quick.  This desire stemmed from my circumstance where I observed people who had more and wondered how they got it. 
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Shaking up the plan work hard in school, get a decent job, stay at the job and somehow I would get rich

The plan was to work hard in school, get a decent job, stay at the job and somehow I would get rich. The ‘how’ is something that I struggled with for a long time. Questions I wrestled with include:
  • How can I multiply my income
  • How can I sustainably save?
  • What are other successful people doing that precludes me?


The trigger for Change 
The answer to these questions are becoming clearer  over time through continuous research and a  thirst to get a solid education on managing money.  Now, your own quest for wanting to manage your money better can be for several reasons:
  • You want to retire early
  • You want the capability to afford nice things
  • You have goals that you have set for yourself e.g. travel the world, buy a house, buy a car, open a foundation
  • You are in debt
  • You always have a limited amount of money to survive on at the end of the month
  • Other

After much soul searching which included  a solo evaluation of my own life's current circumstance and my future goals,  I came to understand that getting or being rich was not my goal, my goal was to understand and implement the mechanisms of how to be financially savvy.

Your money management goal may vary from mine and that is a great thing. For you, the exact figure that you need to meet your financial goal is up to you to define.

Let me explain, Financial Independence to me, means that I get to a point in my life where I have enough funds to manage my expenses and address my financial issues without worry. I have always believed that if I do not want to worry, I must have all the necessary information and a solid plan.

In order to plan I needed to know:


  • What is my monthly income pre and post taxes?
  • What are my monthly and yearly expenses?
  • What percentage of my income is saved?
  • What percentage of my income is saved?
  • How can I budget to have fun?
  • What are my goals?
  • Why does being financially literate matter to me?​
  • And more.

With these questions addressed, I was ready to kickstart my journey towards building a more informed life.

About Me:

Age
Millennial

Employment type

Full time

Sector
Information Technology

Indulges in:
Food
Travel
Everything in Ottolenghi
Books

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How do I nail down my expenses?

9/22/2018

 
Managing your expenses is good way to find money that you can free up save and invest.

What is an expense?
An expense is something that takes money away from your pocket. This is my favourite definition provided by Robert Kiyosaki. An expense is in contrast an asset or investments which put money into your pocket (read Rich Dad, Poor Dad).


Taking note of your expenses is about making you aware of what things, actvities, or people that are taking money away from your pocket.  The table below provides a sample list of expenses. You can also use this simple spreadsheet to quickly calculate yours.
Types of Expenses
Description
Amount I spent per month is..
Rent
Money spent on housing. This should be circa 30% of your monthly income
...
Mortgage
Money spent on owning a home. This should be circa 30% of your monthly income​
...
Groceries
Money spent to buy food
...
Gym Membership
Money spent on fitness
...
Recreation
Money spent on socialization including theatre, concerts, dining out, going to the movies etc.
...
Electricity/water/gas bill
Money spent on your home utilities
...
Telecom
Money spent on phone credit, phone payment plans and phone upgrades.
...
DSTV/Television
Money spent on television packages
...
Clothing
Money spent on clothing,bags, shoes,sneakers etc.
...

An example of expenses

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The 70:30 Rule

As part of my research to gain a PHD in understanding money management, I always remember one rule that I carry around. It is called the Millionaire rule which states that Millionaires save or invest 30% of their income after tax and spend 70% on their expenses. This is called the 70:30 rule.
If you are able to save 30% of what you make on a monthly basis in line with the compounding effect  you are truly on your path to managing your money.
The 70:30 rule is a guideline for managing your finances. Depending on your situation, you can define what ratio works for you and that can be 80:20  or 75:25. You can even start with 90:10 and then work up to a ratio that you feel comfortable with. The goal here is to ensure that you do not feel strapped or have to struggle to save. If you start to struggle, you will dip into your savings frequently and that is not likely to help you achieve your financial goals.  
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