PERSPECTIVES IN WEALTH CREATION

Greetings!!! Welcome back to my media space. Let's start off, fairy speaking am not your high flying twenty - something year old guy driving a prestigious four wheel drive car or living in a posh home in the suburbs of Nairobi Kenya. And I have no large bank or cash balances. Forget it, am fairy worth no more than $ 300 period. Am this guy who has only been hardworking just to earn and win fairly. I didn't sell candies over tea and lunch breaks as an eight year kid. What I have is purely out of God's blessings, competence and diligent hands.

THAT IS TOO LITTLE

But wait a minute, that's meager compared to other kids doing well than I am. Sincerely speaking been wondering what I should do to improve my financial position. And I have found it. It's financial planning which is the key to accumulate wealth. It's the secret, trick and rule in solving the puzzle around money matters. Wanting to accumulate wealth than riches is a decision you've to decisively make. It will keep you from being greedy and falling into self-destruction

THE KEY TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM

Let's begin to unpack my perspective. My wealth has so far come through unstructured personal savings. Times I save large percentages of my income and others significantly less or none at all depending on periodic financial needs. It has worked but this ain't growing my wealth at a rate I so desire. Desperately, I’ve been searching a better formula and found none better than in the biblical story of Joseph in Egypt. In a vision, God revealed to Pharaoh that the world would experience a great famine to last 7 years. This is to be presided by 7 years of bounty harvest. Joseph was recruited to come up with an agrarian policy that would make Egypt food secure in the coming days of famine.

And so he gave instructions all over Egypt that during the seven years of sufficiency and abundance, every household must give to Pharaoh a fifth of total harvest yearly. The food would then be held in the reserve of the country. It worked! Egypt feed the whole world in the years of famine and it prospered. The Pharaohs accumulated a lot of wealth and bought all land from Egyptians a practice even today that exist where peasants hold land on rent for production.

LESSONS I HAVE PICKED

These are the lessons I picked, one, make use of financial or investment knowledge available, two have a structured savings plan when you have income and have the guts to implement it, and lastly make wise investments on your savings. You’ll reap bountifully and enjoy your hard work after you retire or in the eventuality one stream of income is cut. Our greatest undoing - me included is failure to be disciplined on what percentage of our total income we should save. And like me, we actually save when we've overstretched our expenditures. In our 30 streams of incomes we probably save from one stream and when we do, we choose a savings plan that isn't hard on us. We save on our convenience. In so doing, we ain't concerned when we save nothing. If we’ve to realistic in our savings then we must project what to save and in what period we want what. If we want to be sufficient for 20 years then we must save for an equally amount of time.

CONSISTENCY IN SAVING

It's common sense that it's when we are young, full of energy and little load to saddle on our back that we should plan the future with our money. Yet we completely ignore this fact. With that knowledge we still completely act as if we're unaware. Too bad! I want to recommend saving a fifth of your income every day. That's 20% of your income/revenue. Then put it in a ‘reserve” - an investment that will bring good returns when it matures. This could be inform of buying shares, setting up a production plant or in agribusiness or in an insurance premiums.

I must however caution you from investing for speculation that's the last thing to do. I'd go for an investment that earns a profit or interest. Investment advice is all over, why not make good use of it?

GROWING $ 20 INTO AN EXCESS OF $1500 IN 3 YEARS

Let's take it a step further with a hypothetical case, if I earn a minimum of $200 monthly, I'd save about $ 40 using this model, right? Saving consistently for one year brings total savings grossly at $480. Good money to start with. Of I invested this on a promising start up relatively profitable by buying shares from its owner, I could reasonably earn a similar amount at the end of the year totaling to a wealth of about $720 by the end of year 2 and in excess of $1500 by the end of year three. You may not be automatically lucky to find a good start up to invest in but what if you invested in an investment club that want to set up a warehouse to collect food during harvest and distribute it when it's out of season, that would gross you about 4-6 times your initial investment in a span of 3 years. Sounds great, is it?

Now walk with me in this, from my initial $300 I want to grow it 7 fold this year. All I need to do is save as much from my streams of incomes and make wise investments in technology start ups and financial markets. Next article will show you how to create multiple streams of incomes so that you can save as much.

Have a reflective life. Remember to stay in touch with me at jeremiahwakamu@gmail.com or on Facebook Jeremiaho Wakamu to keep this discussion going. And again referrals though you social media network/connection and word of mouth is the best you can do for this blog.