From childhood I learnt to make my own money. I must have been nine or ten years of age when I started selling sweets in the school bus, this business I started using my grandfather's sugar to make the sweets. Later, when I'd make enough capital, I started buying a pack or sweets and putting a mark-up, at least then I didn't need to use the sugar from home and I also cut out the labour of making the sweets.
Fast forward to my student days, I crocheted hats and cell phone pouches to make some money, just enough to supplement the very little student monthly allowance.
When I was a student, not for one day did I think of myself graduating and working for someone else. I had been financially independent since I was nine and have been able to create things that I sold to make some money.
My clothing brand was founded towards the end of my third year and I'd started making items which I could sell. I thought I would continue in the same pattern, and I did. I didn't have start-up capital. All I had were my two necessary sewing machines. I supplied so many stores with my clothing, you would have thought there was money that was put into the brand. But I managed because I live a modest life. I hardly had any expenses. I moved from home the year after I graduated, I lived in a tiny cottage, and we all know, the smaller your space, the less you need.
I was not meant to be born in the current times, everything about the status quo does not resonate with me. One cannot live in Johannesburg and want to live a simple life. If at my age (41), one does not have a bond, a car, a stressful but highly paying job, life insurance and several monthly debit orders, they are just considered unaccomplished.
The older I get, the more I realise that for me it's never been about being a business woman or an entrepreneur with five or ten year goals on how I would make loads of money; it's always just been about independence and not having anyone own my time. It's been about being free to do things my own way without owing anyone an explanation and being free from all that. The ultimate independence would be for me to be even free from the topic at hand which is money. Just like other animals, I'd love to live from nature, in nature and not be affected by economics. Paperless transactions have happened before in the past and people survived and connected on a more natural level. The investment I'm dedicated to is health, that is the true wealth.
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