How to control your financial life

If you are self-employed, businessperson or student and before your next income/revenue; you have exhausted your money and borrowed money till your next income/revenue in order to survive financially.

Then, you need to learn how to control (not manage) your financial life.

If your problem is not having enough money as the majority found themselves, even the majority of organizations, families, states, nations are in this category.

Then, you need to learn how to control (not manage) your financial life.

Hence, if you are in the category of those that complain that lack of money or its inadequacy is hindering their progress in life;

Then, you need to learn how to control (not manage) your financial life and get over it permanently for life.

Irrespective of the amount you earn monthly either as a salary earner, businessperson, student, self-employed or investor; if you do not control your financial life, you will end up complaining “not enough” every month.

Our dear country, Nigeria, is a good example. With our plenty of revenue, yet it is not enough that we need to borrow because the majority (if not all) of our leaders in charge lack the skills of controlling the financial life of the country. This same issue applies to organization, family, individual, etc.

To control your financial life is a skill that must be learnt and mastered before benefiting it.

The mastery of this skill has to start from your personal life and proceed to a group.

If you apply this skill to your individual life, it will also give you the same result if applied to a group of people like family, organization, state and/or country.

The skill to control your financial life is not only meant for the finance related people or the leaders at the top of organization/affairs or the bankers or the accountants or the wealthy.

It is actually meant for:

-              everyone that desire to control money;

-              people that desire to be free from the slavery of money;

-              people that desire to master the art of controlling money;

-              people that want to stop existing and start living; and for

-              people that want to live a purposeful life for humanity and for God.

Do you know that ALL that you have now is ALL that you need to get ALL that you need in life?

I know that the quote above is difficult to be accepted by the majority and it is making some people to be unsettled in their minds.

This is the reason for this class.

Do you also know that The End of Poverty Is in the Mind, And the Beginning of Riches Is in the Mind?

I want everyone here to put an end to poverty in his/her life. “Poverty is not a state of the purse or pocket, but a state of the mind.”

Money cannot make you rich; for it has not made anyone rich and will never make anyone rich. If you are not rich in your mind, irrespective of the money in your bank account, you will still not be rich.

The earlier this is understood, the better for such person

YOU! – YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE POVERTY IN YOUR LIFE!

I WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE POVERTY I HAD IN MY LIFE.

Everyone is responsible for his or her poverty.

Hence, this truth must be accepted for collective progress, it is not the president or the governor.

If you are poor; then, you are responsible for it and you will continue to be responsible for it.

Do not blame anyone or push the responsibility to another person or group of people or circumstances or environment or even a dead person.

Until you acknowledge this truth, poverty will never go. Before we look at how to control your financial life... let us understand a few terminologies in order for us to be on the same page.

3 TYPES OF FINANCE

1. Personal finance
2. Corporate finance
3. Public/government finance

Number 2 and 3 are beyond the scope of the class. Hence, our focus is mainly on Number 1, Personal Finance.

DEFINITIONS:

1. Personal Finance: “Investopedia defines personal finance as financial planning _which_ involves analyzing the current financial position of individuals to formulate strategies for future needs within financial constraints.

Personal finance is specific to every individual’s situation and activity; therefore, financial strategies depend largely on the person’s earnings, living requirements, goals, and desires.”

1. Control: It means to direct people’s behavior or cause of events; power to influence; to determine, rule, govern, command, etc.
2. Financial: It is an adjective derived from the word finance meaning relating to money or how money is managed. Finance is the management of money and its related activities.
3. Life: Here, it refers to an adult person that can earn legitimate income.
4. Financial Life: It means the area of your life that deals with your personal money management.
5. Control Your Financial Life: It means to direct the management of your money/resources to get what you need to fulfill your purpose in life.

There are universal laws and principles that are meant to control our financial lives. They are not strange to the majority of us but most of us ignore them.

I have personally been using them and have good results. It is my personal secrets that made me become who I am today.

I termed it “The Five Fingers Principle To Control Your Financial Life.”

1. PRINCIPLE OF BUDGET:

Mrs. Moradeke Lameed has dealt with this very well at the business level. Thank you, Madam, for the good work done.

Do you have a budget for this outgoing month?

• Is your budget fully written?
• Is your budget partly written?
• Is your budget in your head and mind?

There is no wrong or right answer. We all fall into these three groups

As I said, no wrong or right answer, they are all different methods of budgeting.

For your personal life, there are 3 steps to budgeting.

How To Budget – 3 Steps

• Revenue/Income

State your expected income either as:

-              Expected salary

-              Expected revenue from your business/work/side hustle

-              Expected revenue from your financier/sponsor as student

-              Expected returns from your investment/dividend, etc.

If you have many sources of income, state them all.

Then, write your Total Expected Income. This is easy for the majority of us.

The second step below is where the most work lies.

• Expected Expenses

That is, what you intend to spend your revenue on. List them here.

Expenses Categories:

1. Kingdom investments   -            15%
2. Your assets                       -            15%
3. Necessities                       -            40%
4. Self-education                 -             5%
5. Project                               -             10%
6. Dependents                      -             10%
7. Others                                -             5%

This is the method I recommend among numerous methods.

Note that:

👉             You may use the 7 Categories above and adjust the percentage to your purpose.

👉             You may adjust the Categories to your choice and thereby change the allocated percentage.

👉             You may not use this method but ensure you use the one that gives you the expected result.

“Another impediment to controlling your financial life is the dictates of mammon or the inability to manage expenditure. That will always lead to poverty.”

• Cash Flow

The difference between steps (a) and (b) above is your Cash Flow.  It could be positive (surplus budget) or negative (deficit budget).

The surplus budget gives you great happiness and mastery over your financial life. It is your sole duty to achieve a surplus budget. Nobody can do it for you...

✔             If you are not disciplined, you cannot budget.

✔             You must be ready to live by it up to 80% and above for it to be effective.

✔             When you budget correctly, you will always live a happy life.

✔             There are many methods of budgeting. No one method is better than the other because of our individual differences in life.

✔             Start/choose any method best available to you and improve on it over time.

✔             If you do not budget, you cannot control your financial life and you will always complain “not enough”.

1. PRINCIPLE OF SAVING

Mrs. Amaka Donald-Ibe has dealt with this principle very well. I will strongly encourage its application.

This second principle will help you to live well. If you are in debt now or find yourself in one, determine to get out it by using a debt-free strategy.

If you are debt-free now, develop your own debt-free strategy in order not to get into debt.

Types of Debt

1. Bad debt - Debt used to acquire liability. This is real debt
2. Good debt - Debt used to acquire assets. This is not a debt in reality

Hence, if you must get into debt, get into good debt.

Debt Free Strategy Development

Create your own debt-free strategy as follows:

1. Define/Know your relationship boundary with all people/organizations.
2. Set your personal do’s and don’ts with money.
3. Create your budget methodology and live within it. That is, do not have more than 20% variation.

“The poor have not learned how to reduce their expenses, whereas the rich have learned how to overcome their appetite.”

1. PRINCIPLE OF RELATIONSHIPS

Several Facilitators have handled this PRINCIPLE very well. You may ask Mr. Donald for this.

Any relationship that does not support you positively, quit strategically. Ensure you foster high-quality relationships ONLY.

1. PRINCIPLE OF FINANCIAL IQ (INTELLIGENT QUOTIENT)

Most of the classes on this platform are designed to increase your financial IQ if and only if you are taking notes and applying them accordingly.

Financial intelligence is part of our total intelligence we use to solve financial problems. Financial IQ is the measurement of financial intelligence in percentage.

Summary of the five financial IQs are (accordingly to Robert Kiyosaki):

Financial IQ #1: Making more money.

Financial IQ #2: Protecting your money.

Financial IQ #3: Budgeting your money.

Financial IQ #4: Leveraging your money.

Financial IQ #5: Improving your financial information.

The only way to increase your financial IQ is to solve a problem and become a problem solver. This is where your self-education budget should be and any other skills related to your life purpose. The self-education in your budget should go into this segment of your life.

1. PRINCIPLE OF GENEROSITY

Be someone that is incredibly generous positively towards all people that come your way.

Meanwhile, live within your budget – the first principle of financial life control. Under your necessities category, give generously based on your capacity.

Give freely to people in need around you positively and nature will command resources to come to your ways when the need arises.

Faith or belief is not needed to get the 5 Principles done. Just do it! If you now apply faith, then you will have mega results. Start from this moment, start now! The result is in your doing and not in your knowing.

This Five Fingers Principle To Control Your Financial Life will make you have 100% control of your financial life and in a short while of practicing it, you will be glad you did because poverty will disappear from your life.

I pray that you will begin to put into practice all that you have learnt in this Finance and Investment Masterclass.

More so, it is my prayer that you will extend the application of these lessons to several other people, especially poor people in your domain.

Proverbs 20:12 says that God gave ears to both the rich and poor, but some ears can hear and some cannot because they are blocked with ignorance.

The latter is a common problem among most people. They appear to be listening, but when they walk away, they remember nothing.

If the Bible says we can do all things in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:13), I would rather agree with God than assume I am not good and I am not called to control my financial life and make great money for kingdom purposes.

Just being on this platform makes you a success already, so apply your mind to knowledge and your heart to understanding, and witness for yourself the impact of The Five Fingers Principle of Controlling Financial Life upon your life.