My money journey started way before I knew that it started. Observing how my parents spent their money and how they responded to me and my siblings’ requests for things shaped my money habits. When my parents could not afford to buy the things I wanted, I vowed to myself that I shall never lack the things that I want. I vowed that when I have children of my own, they will have the things they want.
My money journey took off when I was invited to join the Young Tycoons competition for my high school. We sold sandwiches during the break times to the kids at our school and we would get assessed after a month to see how much we have made. We did so well, that we made it to the quarter finals. When the competition ended, we continued to sell sandwiches. We even got an award from the Polokwane business chamber for the best young entrepreneurs. With the award came a cheque with which I decided to open a 32-day notice account, for me to start saving my money. We continued with the business until the end of grade 11 and handed it over to the next group when we started grade 12.
In my Varsity years I then started working as a waitress since I was used to having extra money and I wanted to continue earning an extra income. In Varsity I spent most of my money on food and clothes and did not save – even though I always tithed 10% of my income. Straight out of varsity I got employed, earned a good salary and did not continue saving then as well. It only got worse when I fell pregnant as I had an extra mouth to feed. But my yearning to save never stopped, I wanted to save for the unforeseeable future. The next 8 years was a blur in terms of money. Even though I was an auditor, my money habits and my decisions around money were horrible. It got to a point where I was in so much debt that my salary was too little compared to the commitments, I have put myself in. How to handle my money was never taught to me in school, varsity or at home.
I started reading books on self-empowerment and listening to motivational videos and my thoughts started to change towards how I am living my life. I realised that my relationship with money is not good and that was reflected in everything else in my life. As they say, you cannot change your life or your money habits with the same thinking that got you in that position in the first place.
I started the journey of empowering myself and improving my thoughts process in 2017 and I am still on the same journey today. Now I know that I must save or invest before I spend my money. Now I know that I must pay myself first before anything else. I have learnt that I need to build my “asset column” as Robert Kiyosaki would say in order for the proceeds from my “assets column” to buy me the things I want.
Having children can put a spinner on your money. If you grew up not having everything you wanted like me, I overcompensated when it came to my children. I wanted them to have everything they wanted until I couldn’t afford to give them everything they wanted. As a woman and mother, my relationship with money is so important as my kids learn money habits from what I say and do. So now in my household when my kids ask for something that I can’t afford (even though I can at times), instead of saying I can’t afford it, I ask my children how they can afford to get what they want.
My money journey is continuing to date, I read almost every day and listen to videos to grow my financial literacy as this will not just shape my relationship with money but my children’s relationship with money too.
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