“No one was born knowing how to save or to invest. Every successful investor starts with the nitty-gritties.
Knowing how to secure your financial well-being is one of the most important things you’ll ever need in life. You don’t have to be a genius to do it”. You just need to know a few fundamentals: form a feasible
plan and be ready to stick and work on it. No matter how much or little money you have, the important thing is to educate yourself about the opportunities you have and can explore. In this article, we’ll cover the basics on savings and investing.

A few people may stumble into financial security. Thus, an inheritance from a parent, relative or a business takes off on a good note. But for most people, the only way to attain financial security is to save and invest
over a long period of time. “Financial success doesn’t just happen. If you can’t see it a mile away, that is not it”- William Mensah (Former Head of EDC Stockbrokers Limited).

“Anybody who desires financial security needs to take a decision. One cannot bump into financial security; a decision must be taken and ultimately one must have a plan for it”. No one in the world will make you
rich expect you. Even if somebody decides to make you rich, you must be ready for it. You need several people on your journey to Financial Independence, but none of them is as critical as YOU. You have the
responsibility to take that decision today- Foundation for Financial Independence (Paul Kofi Mante).

After the decision to become financially secure, you must have a financial plan. What are the things you want to save and invest for? You need to have an objective- the reason why you want to save and ultimately
invest.

Your financial plan which must state the reason or reasons why you are investing must be very clear and straight to the point. You don’t need a perfect financial plan to become financially secured. All you need is
a plan that is feasible and must not burden you in the short and long run because when it does, you may end up falling on the savings or the investment.

For some people, they want to save and invest in their education, children’s education. Others may look at retirement planning in order to have a comfortable retirement. For some, it may be to buy a home, a car, a trip twice a year etc. No matter the reason or reasons;
you must have a plan.

Before this plan can be achieved, you must know your current financial status. Having knowledge of this will go a long way to impact your financial plan. At this level, you must be very candid with yourself and put emotions aside. Look at how much you have or own and let’s call it your assets and compare them with your owing (liabilities). If you must write that
in a book or paste it somewhere you can see every day, please do it. Habakkuk 2:3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because
it will surely come, it will not tarry.

The worse thing that can happen on this journey to financial freedom is to be mentally prepared but not being clear on what to do or how much you must commit. It will be prudent to have all this information handy when preparing to save and invest. Your commitment to becoming financially secure must not affect you in any negative way (you must still live a comfortable and a healthy life). You must also do what you can and not what others think you can. It is important to do the mathematics yourself or get a professional who can help you do that.


The next thing is to have knowledge of what comes into your account as income and goes out as expense. This is so important because, you will be surprise at how much comes in and goes out unnoticed. I remember when I first heard about investment, I was so eager to commit a lot in order to generate more return. I started, however I ended up falling on the account after some months all because I didn’t fully understand that to build up money, it MUST take time. Look you can never get that money you are after today or tomorrow or some few months like how many assume. You need time.
How then do we find money to save and invest? I know a lot of people are waiting on this question to be answered. Hahahahahaha!!!

I ask, if you are spending all that comes into your hand or account at the end of every week, month, quarter etc, how can you possibly save and invest. When it happens that way, it simply means you didn’t take time
to do and analyze your cashflow and financial plan.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW WHERE YOU STAND FINANCIALLY AND IF IT IS NOT A
PLACE YOU WOULD WANT TO BE, WORK TOWARDS GETTING OUT

In my previous article “The Best Financial Advice” I wrote on key steps we can all take to become financially sound. One of the keys I emphasized was watching your spending habit. It will amaze you to know how small expenses that you can do without add up over a month or a year. They are sometimes
insignificant, so we are not conscious of them. But for the sake of where you want to be financially, it is important you “shine your eyes” on those petty expenses from today.

Starting a business may be difficult for most people but that could be a green light to becoming financially secured. When you understand this very well, it can ease a lot of pressure on you especially if you are a family wo(man) or you have a lot of financially obligations to fulfill.

Like I always say, money is hard to come by and so we must be smart about our finances. Money basically can be made either by working for it (salary) or money working for you (investment).

Paul Kofi Mante says, “if you don’t find a way to make your MONEY work for you while you are ASLEEP, you are likely to keep working for money the rest of your LIFE”. All we want to say is, WE CAN ALL SAVE AND INVEST TODAY.