This Is Money 101...
I remember one time shortly after my secondary school when I was still searching desperately for admission. I was a night crawler back then, I clung to any and every reason I could find to go out after dark. And during that period of my life, I got a valuable lesson from a neighbor that I apply in my life to this day.
Our neighborhood was a bit rough, when going out at night there was always the possibility of running into robbers who would like to take everything you’ve got on you. That’s why to date, when I go out at night, especially in a rough area or somewhere I don’t trust their security status, I just leave my phone or other valuables at home. I go out with the small phone though, because changing it and retrieving my SIM would be cheaper than replacing my smartphone and all the goodies locked in there.
However, this neighbor of mine told me that leaving my phones and valuables behind was smart, but it wasn’t all that safe. There was nothing quite as risky as coming across robbers and you have nothing to give them. After all, it’s not like they’ll just let you go, is it? Many of them are always stoked on drugs, many of them rob to be able to afford their next fix for their addiction, so they’ll be willing to do anything to get it.
So, the advice my neighbor gave me? Always go out with money. As long as you’re going out at night, in a fairly unsafe neighborhood, just have some change in your pocket. Even if it’s just N500 so that if these guys come up to you, you’d give it to them and they’ll leave you alone. I followed this advice back when I was at home, and when I got admission. I have to say, it has helped me a lot in this school environment. I’ve heard the story of someone who got beaten because the robbers couldn’t see a single thing when they accosted him. Thank God they didn’t kill him.
Now, I know that this isn’t financial advice or a lesson because it does nothing to boost your financial capabilities, but it did lead me to one major lesson I learned about finances. And that is to always have cash. No matter how small it is, always have cash. Make sure that you have at least N1000, lying somewhere in your house that you can easily get to.
Relying solely on transfers will disappoint you one day. I’ve seen when someone had N10k in his account and wanted to withdraw it because he was hungry and needed to buy food and clear up other bills. However, that moment he needed it, different problems kept coming up. At first, the bank didn’t have network, and then the money got stuck somewhere, he was debited but still not given his money. It took until the next day before he was able to get his money back. By then, he had to borrow just to do what he wanted to do.
As I am now, I do a lot of transfers, almost every day as a matter of fact. If I can run a transfer, I’ll prefer it to paying cash. But still, I have some cash in my home. It’s small, but enough for whatever emergency might occur if suddenly all the internet were to shut down. No one knows tomorrow. There’s nothing as painful as having money and not being able to access it simply because of network.
That’s not all I’ve learned though. Still on the issue of transfers, I’ve come to see how these online payments can be addictive and way too expensive. If you can, it’s better to get up and go out of your house to buy things. Placing orders from the comfort of your home is expensive asf but you’ll never notice. Because when you start, you don’t really have a plan for when you’ll stop. Probably until you spend all your money!
However, when you’re going to a physical market, you already have in mind that you’ll spend a certain amount of money. Also, when you factor in the fact that you’re going to bargain a bit for the prices, you might end up saving more money. These days, I leave online shopping for things I can’t easily get, or for when I don’t have the time to go out. If not, I have no problems going out to buy things.
But it’s all good. We’ve all gone through a lot to come to have all these financial lessons, and even though keeping to them might be a bit difficult, it’s alright. We’ll keep doing our best because, in the end, we want a better life. And cutting down on our costs will go a long way in ensuring that.
Having some cash in our pocket is indeed necessary and we need it in many emergency cases. I truly understood the message through the incident you shared here. Nobody knows what will happen next and we may not be able to access that cash immediately if those are in our hands.
Nobody knows what will happen ooo, so having a bit of money will always go a long way when things get tough.
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Thank you for this.
I started trying out having cash at hand after cashless policy showed me shege...
It's not easy to manage finances this period, because I hate holding cash seeing that it is always as good as gone
As in ehn... once you withdraw cash, it's just one or two things that you'll buy and it's gone. It's really painful, man!
That 1k at hand is sometimes can be very valuable than the 10k in the account and I learned a lot from this because I am someone who basically rely on transfer except there is this dire need for cash.
I've been stranded before just because there was no network to access my bank. Having cash at hand would have saved me all the stress that came later.
I’ve always learnt to go out with money anywhere I go and I have also inculcated the habit of not spending the money on unnecessary things
As in ehn... being frugal is the new bae ooo. No more unnecessary spending biko.
I got this advice from starstrings01 sometimes ago. Cash at hand or somewhere will save you on a bad day, like messy network, out of data, bank issues. Somtimes here in school, you'd meet cab drivers who don't accept transfer: only cash could save.
Physical market traders as local as the one in my town now accept transfer especially since the naira note redesign. But cash at hand is a big advice that doesn't sound serious until the day it is needed.
Yeah... you won't know how important it is until you suddenly find yourself in need of a ridiculously little amount of money, but you can't get it. Really crazy!
Right
Crazy experience I had.
The cash is hand means we always feel safe and empowered. Some time the network issue put us in conditions that even we have good amount in account but its noting if we will not be able to use it for making payments.