Do you even save bro?

Asides from having multiple streams of income, being a ridiculously hard working and smart person plus all other traits of a member of the Council of Future Rich Gang, there’s one that has threatened to defeat me.

I , timigod, face a stumbling block in the path of acquiring massive wealth.I don’t know how to save.

This is very surprising and highly detrimental.

My parents save a ridiculous percentage of their income. My younger siblings have taken after them and usually have significant amounts of money stashed in some alternate account for the rainy day.

It saddens me that I (a god amongst men) missed the SavingAbilityDNAModule.

I have a lot of traits, some innate and others self taught, that serve to make me a wealthier person and they are about to be made worthless because I don’t (know how to) save.

Let’s put this in perspective. My siblings are 20 and 18 respectively, they don’t work and their source of income is mostly the allowance they get from the parents.

I’d be 22 in a few days and I’ve made some millions of Naira in the past 2–3 years. If some unforeseen circumstance should happen that requires a fallback stash of money to survive, I’d run out and die a while before my siblings do.

I began to think about it, how can he who makes multiples of what these puny siblings make, be the first to die post-apocalyptic unforeseen circumstance?

I started blaming it on things like a higher standard of living, responsibilities like having to pay rent and whatnot.

I also used to say “Why save to spend later when you can spend now?”.

I hadn’t seen the light.

Recently, I had a contract with some client that paid monthly.

I figured if I could arrange a steady source of income, my problems would be solved. I had previously lived off erratically timed inflow of cash (which is quite common in this software development business.)

So yeah, I thought I had hacked it, that no matter what happens, no matter how spendthrift I was in a month, x hundred thousand Naira would find its way into my account.

Well, that didn’t happen. I got owed every damn month. The money never came on time. I’m still being owed for July. I either had to find a client that would pay quickly or loan some money to cover the beginning of the next month.

There have been so many scenarios involving my money being held up by somebody or something that’s out of my control, and it sucked a lot because I work ridiculously hard to deliver what I’m to deliver at the right time(s).

Do you know what would have solved this problem?

If I had saved a mere 10% of everything I made, I won’t be in this recurrent mess.

It’s not like I’m saying one should accept the useless behaviour that is rampant in the very make up of the Nigerian client.

Nah, that’s not my point.

There’s a certain discomfort one goes through during bullshit like this and to prevent that discomfort, to never allow your living be out of your own control, saving money is the holy grail.

It’s not like I hadn’t heard all this before anyway. My parents have given me the same advice 5 billion times in the past year only.

It’s not like I didn’t agree with them, I just like to spend my money. I also didn’t think I made enough to save.

What one doesn’t realise, however, is that when the unforeseen uncontrollable circumstance beckons, and you have no cash stash, you’d end up surviving on way less than you’d ordinarily have.

Why not just spread out surviving on less for a longer period of time? So that when the owu blows, it doesn’t really blow.

There are also additional benefits to saving that you can read from any book that any billionaire wrote.

Bottom line is, I have chosen a new path. A path of saving a little bit whenever I get any form of income. It won’t be easy, but I’ve started and nothing can stop timigod, honestly.

It’s nice to know that I’m making some of these mistakes now that I’m still relatively young with less responsibility at stake.

Not sorry if that rubs off on you old cats the wrong way, but I think everybody knows that it’s never too late.