We know, fufu is that hill many of us are willing to die on. The good news is you do not actually have to skip fufu because when addressing the matter of savings, most often than not, it is your ‘wants’ that you have to radically sacrifice, and not so much your needs. More on that later.
To undertake a successful savings endeavour, there are certain fundamentals that one must employ—you ought to be SMART in your approach. SMART as in the acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. You need to be SMART because it does help make your journey more defined. It makes the journey trackable, and most importantly, achievable.
Specificity:
You ought to be very specific with your goals. ‘Save money’ won’t cut it. That is not plan enough. You would have to be clear about those goals—everything from the desired figure to timelines, all these matters must be laid out precisely. Save GH¢12,000 by the end of 2024, for instance, is a specific plan.
Measurable:
The savings plan adopted must be measurable, quantifiable, trackable. A plan having mere words, devoid of figures, is like a toothless bulldog. Your plan must be measured and measurable. For instance, save GH¢1,000 each month.
Attainable:
They say that a ridiculous law is an ineffectual law. Same goes for those plans of ours. Ridiculous plans oftentimes are no plans at all. It is true that luck and chances delightfully rear their heads in our lives sometimes. Yet, they are phenomena that cannot be measured, and consequently strategised for. So, when planning, go with the attainable. Go with that which is assured. GH¢500 may be your ‘assured’. Don’t plan with GH¢5,000 if say, your salary is GH¢6,000.
Realism:
This goes hand in hand with the matter of attainability. It is only in realising the facts on the ground—the real circumstances surrounding your finances—that one can proceed to make informed plans and set attainable goals. Realistically you may have more dependants to take care of with your GH¢7,000 salary than your colleague who is paid the same figure. So do not necessarily expect to be able to save the same amount that he/she does monthly.
Timelines:
Apply timelines to all your plans. Procrastinators barely succeed in endeavours. And setting out a plan without attaching accompanying targets in terms of timelines, that leaves room for procrastination to set in.
Now, what…?
After you have these foundations on lock, you can approach this saving endeavour of yours with these underlisted strategies.
Establish those priorities
At this stage, what one must do is conduct what we like to call a ‘Wants/Needs Analysis’. Saving is important, but you cannot save yourself and your dependants to death. Hence, you must establish on an ongoing basis, what your wants and needs are. Eating fufu—eating any healthy food for that matter—is a matter of life and death. But even in this realm of needs, one can exercise some restraints.
Maybe in your particular case, you might have to skip the tilapia/goat/cow/chicken/eggs protein combination that you are used to at each serving. Perhaps you might have to skip those weekly ‘fine dining’ that delight yourself with, so as to meet that savings target of yours.
In summary, make a list of your essentials; make sure your spendings are stripped down to the bare minimum. That is, stripped down versions of things you need—and sometimes want for that matter.
Conduct ongoing income/expenses analysis
You cannot save your needs—true. Money is made to be spent—also true. But what differentiates a financially sound life from an unsound one is the ratio between their respective incomes and expenditures. Your expenditure should never exceed your income—that is very bad financial planning. Hence, you must take a surgical approach towards tracking your expenses.
Admittedly, it can be difficult tracking your exact spend throughout a period. But it helps when you break things down. Before each month begins, you can spell out the list of things you will need and want. You can list those required expenses down in broad categories. So instead of listing word-for-word the meals you will be purchasing during the period, you can broadly state ‘feeding’ and assign to feeding, a figure. Do the same for each item on your needs (and perhaps wants list) for the period.
And as the month begins, start putting down your actual spends against those budgeted figures. When expenditure on one item (e.g., feeding) actually exceeds its budgeted figure, you can make up for the shortfall by reducing budgetary allocation for another item. This may prove daunting at the beginning, but it does not take long for you to master this routine oversight. Sometimes to help with this, you may have to meticulously keep receipts—for those purchases that come with those.
A Cedi saved is a Cedi earned
Very often we just need a third party to help us follow through on our savings target. And that is where your bank/financial institution comes in to save the day. And in this regard, you can find no better partner in this savings journey than Letshego. At Letshego, we offer you unmatched convenience, security, and competitive interest rates with our products.
Our Fixed Deposit account offers you flexible investment tenures of 91, 182, and 365 days. You are able to keep close track, in real time, of your investment.
And with our savings offering famously dubbed the ‘LetsGo Save- *898# account’, all you need is a mobile phone and a mobile money account, and you are good to go! With a 12% per annum (i.e., 1% per month) interest rate, you are surely guaranteed bang for your bucks.
>>>No need to stress about your financial future! With Letshego’s Fixed Deposit Account, your money works for you 24/7. Don’t wait any longer! For more information, Email: [email protected] or call 0302208333/ 0800898000 (Telecel only) or WhatsApp 0263677677
