This is the story of a young man who won a lottery at the age of 21

He won what at that time was the largest jackpot ever in the history of the lottery; about $6.7million. He eventually lost every penny. He later acknowledged, “ THEY GAVE ME ENOUGH MONEY TO GET ME INTO TROUBLE”, BUT NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE ME RICH.

He narrated how he made very expensive mistakes, once he received the money, he quit his job, went on a shopping spree, bought a new Porche convertible, a Rolex wristwatch. Took his immediate family on a trip around the world.

He said the lottery changed his life. What I did with it afterward was the problem. He spent everything until he became bankrupt. His wife is now the breadwinner of the house.

According to the Lottery board, nearly one-third of all lottery winners end up losing it all.

Having a solid emotional foundation with money, before winning a lottery is the key, I believe a lot of people are unhappy with their life for various reasons, they attribute it to lack of money; then they get money and they think everything is going to be perfect.

You can either have a good relationship or a bad relationship with money. It’s like any relationship: there are ways to make it work. Just like a personal relationship with a friend or a spouse, your relationship with money needs to be nurtured. You can’t keep ignoring your finances and expect a positive outcome.

 

The rules are simple.

1. You take responsibility

What is your money personality? We all use money differently. Sometimes you will be a spender, other times you will be a saver.

Each of us does however have a dominant money personality driven by specific needs, your current stage in life, and other external factors like peer pressure and your background. Others include the way you spend and save your money. It is important to understand how the way you manage money affects your financial future.

If you are a SUPER SPENDER you will most likely like to treat yourself, enjoy shopping, you always experience shoppers’ remorse – (regret your purchase when the good feeling passes), you often feel addicted to buying things, you are often impulsive when spending, you would rather feel good now and save later.

If you are a SUPER SAVER; this means that having money provides some kind of security for you, you feel financially safe and you always have money saved for the rainy day, you love bargains; you look out for discount sales and promotions when you want to buy things.

Taking responsibility for your finances and committing to taking a good look at where you stand involves you being honest with yourself and your financial situation.

You may have loads of credit cards and the loan interest is piling up month after month. Know that denial is not going to make that debt disappear. If the thought of seriously examining your present financial situation leaves you feeling overwhelmed, try and call a friend who is good with finances and who you trust, to help you sort things out.

When you know better, you do better…we all need to improve our relationship with money in other to grow our wealth

2. You need to budget.

Don’t say I don’t know how to budget. Budgeting is a very simple task that you need to achieve a successful wealth creation journey. Budgeting gives you control over your money.

A budget helps create financial stability. By tracking expenses and following a plan, a budget makes it easier to pay bills on time, build an emergency fund, and save for major expenses such as a car or home. Overall, a budget puts a person on a stronger financial footing for both the day-to-day and the long term.

Budgeting helps you to keep your eye on your short and long terms goals, it helps to ensure you don’t spend money you don’t have, it leads to a happier retirement, it helps you prepare for any emergencies and it also helps shed light on bad spending habits.

In a typical economy like ours, many people are unhappy as such they keep spending to make themselves happy; while people who lack money think that money is all they need to be happy.

3. Don’t spend more than your income. (earnings, money gifts etc)

Truly speaking, if you adhere to strict budgeting you will never spend more money than you take in. However, there are 3 habits I have practiced over the years that have helped me to avoid spending more than my limit.

STOP relying on your own willpower to restrict your spending

STOP focusing more on immediate satisfaction versus long-term benefit, and above all.

STOP following the crowd.

4. Put some money away for a rainy day

The phrase save “money for a rainy day” is an idiomatic expression that means to reserve money for a time when it might be needed unexpectedly. Someone said to me, every day is a rainy day in Nigeria; so my answer is the reason why you should put more money away.

Savings cannot be overemphasized.  Save money and save your life. Having a supply of cash to draw from without racking up debt will position you to tackle unexpected expenses with a sense of calm and control. Start now with what you have no matter how small. Make it a habit and be consistent.

5. Invest

We have learned a lot about investing in this column. We have discussed how to draw a financial plan, one of the best ways is to start when you are not ready.

Two things should however stand out for anyone that is a newbie. Please identify your risk tolerance and your investment time horizon. This is an extremely important determinant of the amount of investment risk you can handle and is generally dependent on your age and investment objectives.