It’s common, most Kenyans are not familiar to smart ways to save money to reap maximum benefits. I am one of the victims and here is what used to happen to me.
When I was an employee of the government, salary was guaranteed and my routine spending habit was this: My salary would reflect 26th of every month. In the eve of this day,I would take my car from the parking lot, drive all the way to the office in anticipation for my pay. That day, I would fill the fuel tank and proceed to town to meet my friends.
In a single night, I would squander over Ksh 5, 000, just drinking alcohol. The following day you would see me in my car, the next day the same until the fuel in the tank was exhausted. In most cases, by 15th I was broke and back to normal life.My program read like this:
Receive salary
Fuel my car
Call friends for drinks
Spend on friends
Buy expensive clothes
Pay rent..it was Ksh 15,000 by then
Spare Ksh 10,000 for transport
The reason why I wasn’t keen on saving was because I was a permanent government employee, I knew even if a miracle happened, I had to get the following month’s salary.
The trend of spending lavishly continued for 5 years, until when I realized my friends had invested in shares,bonds,have bought houses, build homes, bought matatus and others have ventured into business while I had nothing under my name. After soul searching, these are what I found to be the best money saving tips in Kenya.
The moment my monthly salary reflects in my bank account, I take half and save it in what I am going to reveal below.
The next thing I did was to reduce my friends to a maximum of three.I realized that most friends contributed nothing to my life, they were there to help me squander my salary without any solid money saving ideas. I only remained with the friend of value.
The third thing, which was not easy to do, was to drop my car. I actually sold my car for Ksh 450,000 and saved all the money in money Market Fund.
Another painful decision I made was to move from an expensive apartment, which used to consume Ksh 15,000 of my salary to a less expensive apartment, one that cost Ksh 7,500.
Having made all these adjustments, I then came up with wise investment decisions. I realized a job without a small business was not going to help me much. Having thought so, I came up with a list of 5 small but profitable businesses. The list was:
- Salon
- MPESA
- Grocery
- Bodaboda
- Women handbag business
Due to my busy schedule, I thought Bodaboda business was the most ideal venture. I finally bought one motorbike, which cost me Ksh 120, 000, and employed a cousin to run it.
With a bodaboda business and my salary, I managed to eliminate salary advances, which were common and had enough to save. Truly, bodaboda was earning me Ksh 21,000 per month, which was enough for my rent and transport. This meant that I save more than 90 % of my salary.
As a newbie in saving ecosystem, I had to ask opinion from my friends, some told me to go for shares, others fixed deposit saving account, others bonds and the rest told me unit trusts. I realized unit trusts were the best because they had zero risks but had the best returns.
Summarily, within a year of knowing the world rotates clockwise, I had saved Ksh 700,000 plus the amount I had sold my car. In the same year, I had increased my bodaboda to and profits were flowing like milk from a Friesian.
To conclude, no one will come to advise you how to save money, the best decisions to make is to stop/reduce alcohol, reduce friends, minimize spending on car fuel and rent.Finally,you should have a business to supplement your salary.
