Moneying With Women: Amani's financial journey will inspire you to push forward

"You keep going", that is the mindset you pick up if you come from Amani's kind of background. Dive into her personal finance journey and learn a thing or two about pushing forward.

The way Nigeria is, you realise that it is not even about your income, but more about your expenses at the end of the day. So right now, I see myself as a 3 on the personal financial stability rating scale and that is mostly because of the hike in cost of living.

Here’s a financial snapshot of my family background…

I grew up in a home where my dad did my best and everyone contributed as they could. However, I knew that I shouldn’t be calling home to request extra funds even as a student. I knew that I should not be adding these expenses to them. I also knew that no matter how small what I was given was, I should try not to call home again-even if it was an emergency because I knew calling would only mount extra pressure on the Homefront.

So you see, financially, growing up wasn’t easy at all. If I were to classify my family financial background as a sort of wooden, bronze, silver or golden spoon, I would say it is a bronze spoon, pretty much a 2 on a scale of 4. It is not that I was necessarily always on the straits, but growing up, I lacked a lot of things and that to a very large extent. In fact, even now, home is not so nice financially. The good things is that, this background  propelled me to start earning my own money early.

This background has also influenced my current money habits…

For example, today, I have a bad spending habit where once I that I really want to get a certain thing done, I try very much to get it done no matter how it affects my finances. I also spend so much on my siblings- trying to make sure that they have whatever (or at least most of) they want, such that whether or not I have, I just do things for them even when I did not plan for it.

My financial journey is a work in progress…

I wish I could just say my personal finance journey has been good, however, that does not capture the reality of things. So, it’s been good and bad with highs and lows. With time, I’ve grown my financial understanding especially with savings and emergency funds for instance. I have also started understanding passive income and just how my money can work for me and I don’t need to actively make every money I have.

While the journey has not been all rosy, my background has already given me energy and no option than to keep pushing in the face of wins and losses, knowing that there is ‘no time’ and that things will surely get better.

Interestingly, this year was financially pivotal for me…

Sometime in the year, I realised that even though I have been hearing about stocks and investments, I did not really know what it was all about. I figured that I needed to move beyond just seeing influencers recommend apps and hearing all the investment talk to getting the nitty-gritty of how to go about it. I’m not there yet, but my investment journey has kicked off.

Right now, I try to put in funds into investment and I still spend and save. I also see my input in faith as an investment.

Money Moves

Best Money Move:
The best financial decision I have made so far was to change my money into dollars using Risevest, that is one of the best I have ever thought about for now.

Worst Money Move:
None at the moment because I don't do all those ponzi schemes, so I have not gotten into anything that made my money go down the drain.

If I got $1,000,000 now, first, I will upgrade my gadgets because are my sources of income and then, I have tons of courses in my ‘cart’ that I would like to pay for immediately. Then I will invest, first buy a land, then buy stocks and bonds, finally, I will love to get a house tat can be turned into apartments or an AirBnB.

Moneying with women is a series that dives into the financial stability of women from their own point of view. It uncovers habits, financial inclusion gaps and empowers women to take charge of their financial journeys.
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