Money Sense
- Basically the knowledge, mindset, and behavior of making smart decisions with money
- Also call it Financial Literacy
- Also call it Personal Finance Mastery
Why the Ghanaian working millennial?
- Making the most income because we have time and energy yet with little to no formal financial education particularly in Ghana.
- Can manage more than one stream of active income because of the same reasons.
- Have more opportunities to learn new skills like tech skills, able to grasp new principles quite easily that can impact our active income positively.
- Great time to maximize active income to consequently maximize passive income later on.
- More time ahead to recover from pitfalls from the economy in building a wealth legacy.
Benefits of Cultivating Money Sense
- Empowers the millennial with a mindset and behaviors that give them the opportunity to make better financial decisions in order to reach our financial goals.
Developing Money Sense
- Invest in yourself: Invest in gaining financial knowledge, and invest in associations that will impact your financial literacy positively because this will impact your money behaviors. The more knowledgeable you become the better financial decisions you make.
- Avoid spontaneous expenditure. Spending on the go. Track your expenditure diligently over a set time. It aids in having a clear understanding of your spending habits and helps to identify where you should cut back and whether your current total income is not realistically sustainable for your lifestyle.
- Budget: A budget is allocating the total money that comes in, into different categories like transportation, food and provisions, savings and giving, etc. There are various budget rules and finding one that works for you and sticking with it is developing good money sense, especially in this economy.
- Saving alone won’t cut it: Inflation details saving money for saving sake. Investment is a system that hedges or protects your money from inflation. Because money grows, grow it overtakes the rate of inflation.
- Instead of 1 stream, many outlets; do the reverse: Many streams, fewer outlets.
- Don’t rely on the 1 salary to pay all the bills!
There’s more but I’ll end here with these points. Of course, there’s the issue of leveraging debt, diversification of investment portfolio for those already investing, retirement planning, estate gifting, and other essentials.
Conclusion
Your financial state is 80% of your behavior and 20% of your knowledge, convert today’s knowledge into action points today and not tomorrow.
Book knowledge is also not necessarily financial literacy. Strive for consistent personal development in the area of financial literacy.
Teaser Questions for the Audience and Host
- Suppose you had 100GHS in a savings account and the interest rate was 2% per year. After 5 years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow: [more than 102GHS, exactly 102GHS less than 102GHS? Do not know, refuse to answer?]
- Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1% per year and inflation was 2% per year. After 1 year, would you be able to buy: [more than, exactly the same as, or less than today with the money in this account? Do not know; refuse to answer.]
- Do you think that the following statement is true or false? ‘Buying a single company stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.’ [Do not know; refuse to answer.]
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She Found Her Real Voice When She ‘Broke’ Her Voice As A Teenager – FEATURING ON AFSESNET MAGAZINE 2023 June Edition