WASTE MANAGEMENT III: How to avoid buying the same thing two times with money you don’t have

Do you know that it is cheaper to live on the money you presently have than to earn more? You don’t get it? I mean literally “N100 in your hand is worth more than N200 in someone else’s hand”.

In order words, the money you have earned is worth more than the money you can earn. Yes! But that is when you know how to manage it efficiently.

So many people believe earning more money tomorrow is better, and more important than spending less today. They want to live large, and fast and expensive. So they don’t pay extra care/attention to their expenses, they don’t regularly save, and they don’t seek to increase their financial knowledge. But all they end up doing is mortgaging their financial future for today’s pleasures.

I know you are not like that since you are here reading this article, that gives me a clue that you want to take control of your financial destiny by equipping yourself with more knowledge. But sometimes despite our best intentions, we end up making some stupid financial choices that leave our accounts in red, especially at the end of the month.

When you spend less than you earn, you make the amount you are yet to earn more valuable. And knowing that the money you are yet to earn can be taxed means that the one you have already earned is the one that can assure your financial prosperity- not the one you are hoping to earn in the future.

A penny saved is a penny earned. Actually, when you consider that you pay taxes on every penny you earn, you really do make more money by saving than by increasing your income, especially if the extra income will increase your tax rate dramatically. For example, let's say you have a choice between saving N10, 000 or earning an extra N10, 000. If you pay 15% taxes, then when you earn N10, 000, you only get N8, 500. But when you save N10, 000 off of your existing budget, you keep it all. Moreso, if you take advantage of compound interest as found in most savings accounts, over time you'll start making money on the amount saved plus previous interest paid on that amount saved. It'll be little at first, but eventually the amount will multiply exponentially.

Moreso, when you don’t maintain what you already have/things you’ve bought, you increase the chance of them getting spoilt or lost, and the chance of you needing to change it. My sister says she prefers to buy a new electronic gadget than repair a spoilt one. But if you keep buying newer things, you will keep losing/trading away the money you should use in meeting your other financial goals. Buy quality, even if it costs a little more, be it electronics, clothes, clothing accessories, or home gadgets, etc. Quality lasts longer and save you the stress of having to replace things frequently.

That way you will reduce wastages and be a better manager. Don’t be a typical Nigerian who doesn’t know how to manage resources or maintain things. Go against the norm, learn to recycle things including money. And nature will reward you by making you a millionaire, or even a billionaire.