Moneying With Women: Dive into Jedidiah's inspiring journey and her her 1 Million Naira 'worst money move'

As the saying goes, "the enemy of the best is the good". Jedidiah (not real name), is almost living the life, but she refuses to settle for less, in her own words, "I know I can do more". Today, she takes us through her journey, a quick look into her past, her plans for the future and her 1 Million Naira worst money move.

Let’s uncover my rating of 4

Wheew, I rated my personal financial stability a 5 because I know I can do more. For instance, with my jewellery business, I am not making a lot from it right now. If I were to be making as much as I should with my business and others, I should be speaking of 1 Million Naira at least, and in fact, that should be in a bad month.

Here’s some family financial history…

My upbringing is is a key part of my current financial realities, and while I am not from a flamboyant or very wealth family, growing up, we have always been (at least) very comfortable. My parents were able to ensure that they gave us their best and their best was/is really good enough for us.

Financially, I grew up with both my parents as government workers. My dad also had a pharmacy business when we were growing up, while my mum has never really been the business person. Even though I learnt how to sew from my mum, she sewed for commercial purposes, it was just for us her kids back then. However, my mum has actually been the ‘ginger’ behind my financial knowledge because she has always been in a sense financially independent.

I believe she can do without my dad’s money, we’ve seen her run things and she did not necessarily need my dad’s money to run it, interestingly, we discovered that she earns more than he does, so, there’s that dynamic at play too, plus she is a go-getter. To my understanding, if you want to compare them, she has more money than my dad. Also, she has always been a huge proponent of one being able to fund their lifestyle without depending on someone. Seeing that from my mum gave me a sort of ‘independence mindset’, so I never grew up with the ‘marry a rich guy’ mentality. I never even believed a guy should foot my bills, but with time, I relaxed a bit on that notion, because ‘I need to be pampered abeg’🤣

And this background shaped my personal finance journey…

As far back as when I was in nursery, if when we are given 10 Naira for snacks, we would either not spend it at all, or we take only have of it to school and that is how I started saving. For my finances generally, I would give kudos to my mum.

This also plays out in how I give for religious purposes, I can give a million or a billion Naira and not even think twice about it because, growing up, my parents would give us offerings and tithe. So, when I started making my own money, I already knew that, I have to pay tithe, I had to save. I guess savings has always been my thing, but definitely growing up with that mindset was a game-changer. So, if I tell you, I am ‘broke’, it means that the money I have is for something else, it doesn’t mean that when you shake me, you cannot see money. I don’t even think it has ever reached a point where I don’t have one Naira anywhere.

Also, I learnt how to budget really early. In fact, when I was dating my husband, I had to also introduce him to budgeting, such that before money comes, we budget it. This was really helpful especially when I had a fixed income, but even now that we don’t have a fixed income due to certain peculiarities in my husband’s case, we budget based on the minimum income, while making room for change. Generally, I don’t spend my money day to day from the bank. For instance, I can tell you that I don’t have money to do my hair, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have money to eat. That way, I can’t be in a position where I don’t have transport money, because I have already kept it aside. Things often change and I might overspend from a certain allocation, but, I try not to dip into other purses, especially the essentials.

Basically, growing up, I have learnt financial discipline. Also, my mum has never been an impulse buyer or a trends-buyers, so that also rubbed off on me. In summary, they taught us contentment, so, at every level and stage of my life, I don’t spend more than I earn. Sure, I do upgrade my standard of living as my income improves to a place I feel is comfortable given my income. For instance, there was a phase in my life where I could not comfortable afford Uber, so, I stuck with ‘along’, now, I can afford it, and cannot remember the last time I used public transport. Since I am not impressing anyone, the most important thing for me is comfort at whatever level I am in. So, yeah, my background really helped me.

Interestingly, meeting my husband has significantly helped my financial journey...

Before meeting my husband, I was mostly only budgeting and saving, but he talked of bigger things like emergency funds, investments, etc. He intentionally gives me books and articles to read (because he reads a lot) and this has helped improve my money mindset and made me go beyond savings and budgeting to now investing and making my money work for me. That way, I started investing money. So now, if you ask me for 500,000 Naira, and I say I don’t have, it doesn’t mean that I don’t really have, it means that the money is probably locked up in an investment. Also, we get to watch movies on finances like some on Netflix. My husband has helped me go beyond budgeting and savings to investment.

At this point in my journey, I think I’m a blend of the spender, saver and investor archetypes, mostly because I try to create a balance. I spend on things that make me happy, then I save and invest, but I think I invest more overall, I currently invest about 1/3 of my income monthly and most of my investments are S&P 500 and some real estate on Risevest.

Money Moves

My best money move is getting started on investments, seeing my money grow and having my money work for me gives me a lot of satisfaction.

My worst money move was getting a human hair for almost 1Million Naira. I did do MMM, but I withdrew before it crashed. But that hair, my mind still skips a bit when I think of it. My sister had gotten one and gingered me to get it too, even though the quality is top notch, I still don’t think that was a good use of the money. Also, I realised the vendor was a celebrity vendor, so I figured it was pricier than it should have normally been. Thinking back now, I would have used the money to buy at least 5 hairs or something better.

With $1,000,000 (1 million dollars), I will invest massively into my business. I want to go into ready to wear dresses and end-to-end event management where I have my own event venue (building), catering, photographers, etc.

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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