Below Book Balance

Greetings.

It is a beautiful Friday and once again we have our article for the week. Last week I threw in something about resignations with a focus on the Jacob Zuma situation and the reaction it generated. In the same article, however, I pointed out how I had wanted to write something about my K4, 903.31 account balance and how I managed to get my account balance to an amount below the Book balance of K5000 way before the halfway mark of the month. Over the course of the week, I have been in a constant debate of whether to still bring that up on the blog or not. The best alternative for me was something to do with the functional status of our commercial capital and it's markets. Hopefully that will come up later because I made the final decision to write a "feel my pain" article on my not-so-favorable financial status when I got feedback from one Nkhwachi.

Nkhwachi is one friend of mine who follows and reads every blog post I make. I bumped into him at Kaya Lounge where we went to feast on the Chelsea-Barcelona game. We talked about a few things over the halftime break and one of the things he pointed out was that he likes my articles when they are more personal as opposed to topical. That sort of made sense to me and that was probably the most useful piece of feedback I have ever received from a reader. It sort of tallied with the one Cornelius Huwa's description of what Richie Online is. When he was asked as to what the blog about, he said something interesting, but rather ironically I had not given it much of a serious thought until recently. What these two gentlemen said will in the long run help me to be focused and to be a bit more strict with the "fact-based opinions" motto of the Richie Online blog. We have been having too many articles that were too topical and too serious here.

To the meat of the day...

A couple of weeks ago, I had a rude awakening when I got the "Insufficient Funds" alert upon attempting to buy airtime on National Bank's MO626 ice. I found it funny because the amount of airtime I was looking for was K200. With a cat's curiosity, I changed the mission and went on to check the account balance. Voila! K4, 903.31! I laughed at myself because I had gone down to my all-time low when it comes to account balance. You might wonder as to why I laughed at myself like that. Well.  I had seen it coming. My account had been a ticking bomb and I knew that such would have happened at any point owing to my financial policy.

I did not grow up giving much thought to finances and personal financial management. Realities caught up with me when I went to secondary school where I had to manage the little monies I had and to nicely manage them. The money didn't have a lot of exit channels then; tea break money, occasional supplementary extra vegetables when the relish was unfavorable and church contributions. We also had some once in a while trips which I usually wasn't part of, anyway. And then there was the tricky thing of saving money for transport at the end of the term. Tricky thing, if you are to ask me. While the secondary school thing had it's part in helping me grow along the personal finance management trail, it was college that shaped my philosophy around monetary ins and outs.

I got into college in December, 2010. This was the time when the University of Malawi decided to run away from it's responsibilities of providing food and accommodation; opting to give out meal and accommodation allowances to students and outsourcing the services. Then came the famous MalSwitch which provided us with credit cards through which we received the meal allowances. This change was an interesting development because immediately after people got control of the money, the food dynamics changed. People stopped going to the cafeteria with some opting for a soft drink afnd snack twice daily and some opting to go to subways za chips and those restaurants in shanks at the market near Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital.

Others started operating some make-shift catering services in their rooms. The services started small with people boiling spaghetti and eggs in kettles. By the time I was finishing, there were people who had a full kitchen on campus; equipped with a got plate, rice cooker, deep fryer and toasters. One might justify the presence of the artillery with the fact that with the rising cost of living, life was becoming unmanageable on the allowances. On the other hand, the days that immediately followed the switch from getting meals to getting meal allowances saw people divert the "food money" to fashion. U diva ndi u yoo. We saw a lot of people who came in as traditionals get new outfits that were more suitable for college; sneakers, leggings, weaves, t-shirts, suits and all. Some of you might wonder as to where I was in all the frenzy. I am a foodie and I always put my food first. I diverted a little money for airtime (there was some girl I was hoping for, then) but that was it.

Over time, I started to grow and to appreciate the thin line between wants and needs. I am not too sure as to why this awakening came in (probably from the combination of Bible studies, Henry Kachaje teachings and my mixed up mind) but I later got to over-apply the fact that people do not need money, but rather the things that money can buy. In college? This sort of made life simple. Get the meal allowances, pay a lump sum to the not-so-good external caterers and enjoy your meals for the whole month. I graduated with the same idea and it has remained rooted in me to an extent that I hardly have any extra cash by the sixth day post-salary.

The belief that I don't need money is one reason for which money almost always has a fast exit from my custody. For some reason, I don't find it necessary to be keeping a bunch of notes or fancy numbers in National Bank's computers (I am told that money is just a bunch of numbers in a computer nowadays) when I can have the goods and services the same can pay for. Along those lines, I always have a nicely made budget way before the salary; bills, groceries, lunch and transport and then something for home development. Not much of savings in this end. By the time I get the bank alert, the only thing that I do is to throw the change around via MO626 and then grab my card and go to the shop and Blantyre market via the ATM. Zikatero zatha.

This whole thing works well for me. I have pretty much everything I need and my life runs pretty okay. It is the Matteos Gudu type of life, devoid of balling and KFC meals and along with it comes a rare type of enforcement of discipline. Good as it is, however, this "I don't need money so I won't keep money" type of thinking has it's own challenges.

Earlier this year, Blantyre Water Board people decided that I wasn't worth of receiving their water so they came over and disconnected it. As usual, I had spent my money on my survival kit and snacks (bought a lot of snacks to keep me company when watching basketball games over the festive season). By the time the BWB uninvited guests were coming in, I almost had nothing. How I solved it was a story for another day but the fact remains that I was forced to endure a significant waterless period because I didn't have the money on me. And then there are those moments that friends and relatives (who have an idea of what your salary is) call you for you to borrow them "ka handede". Such people do not believe when you say you have run out, but who could blame them? While their opinion of me matters less, I feel bad about not being able to help. I mean, it is a situation one could avoid by being normal with their personal finance management.

You can probably already draw the unsolicited lesson from the article. One needs to have some sort of Plan B with their finances and if you are the kind of person th at cares about friends and family, sometimes you need to reserve a few thousand bucks in case they show up looking for help. It is important to  reach out in such circumstances.

I, perhaps, will not change despite everything. When the February salary comes, I will probably fly to Lilongwe and finish the change from the purchase of the air ticket at some beach in Salima. I will end up feeling bad about it later, but I will recover from that and tell myself there was nothing I could do about it.

There is a huge diversity in the way people manage their money. Others go on the extreme side and save all they can while others invest. Some are ballers whose monies end up in some club at the first opportunity while weirdos like live a barter oriented life and believe in keeping material things as opposed to money or investments. I believe that there are pros and cons to each of the modalities of expenditure. I also believe that each and every person needs to make a proper monetary plan and set personalized goals about how much they want to make and spend and where they want to reach financially. With planning comes discipline and that way you create some controlled environment in which you can not fall neck deep into financial difficulties and bad debt.

Our friends who work in banks have probably received their salaries by now. I hope you will offer some of that money. I need to beef up the embarrassing "below book balance in my account. Inbox me for account details if you want to rescue a brother.

Have a lovely weekend.