Hey people!
If you’re just joining in, this is a series of posts on curing a lean purse – teachings on saving and investment in simple, relatable terms. The principles are taken from the book, The Richest Man in Babylon.
Even if you have read the book before, I’m sure you’ll still be able to pick a thing or 2 from this post series as we discuss how to apply those principles to our modern life. We’ve discussed four cures already covering saving, budgeting as well as investing. Make sure you subscribe to this blog so as to get new posts delivered straight to your inbox!
#5 ‘Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment.’
‘Thus come many blessings to the man who owneth his own house. And greatly will it reduce his cost of living, making available more of his earnings for pleasures and the gratification of his desires.’
Arkad
Owning your own home is an essential part of survival. On the scale of needs, shelter ranks high up there among some of the essentials needs of man. Owning a home is usually a long term plan though (except if you have rich folks who can afford to gift you one). It is easy to get carried away with other cares of life, forgetting to work towards achieving this goal since it is long term.
As in the quote above, owning a home reduces the cost of living as you do not have to worry about paying rent or anything like that. Although other expenses come into play, like maintenance and all, it is usually minute when other things are considered.
There was a discussion around this recently on Twitter and you can follow it here.
#6 ‘Ensure a future income’
‘The life of every man proceedeth from his childhood to his old age… it behoves a man to make preparations for a suitable income in the days to come, when he is no longer young.’
Arkad
As we all know, no one can work forever. Even if you own your own business/company, there will come a time when we have to retire. In our environment, we see a lot of retired folks who are really not thriving. To make it worse, the government sometimes holds on to their pension funds, owing as much as a year or more worth of pension.
It would be tragic for anyone who has enjoyed the good things of life in their youth to now have to beg and feed from hand to mouth. This is why it is important to money saved up for these times. Some companies open pension accounts for their employees where a certain amount of their salary is paid monthly. Also, pension accounts can be opened by the individual on his or her own.
'The life of every man proceedeth from his childhood to his old age… it behoves a man to make preparations for a suitable income in the days to come, for he is no longer young.' - Arkad. Share on XAnother instance where insuring a future income is important is when one loses a job. No one wishes for it but sometimes, people are let go from their jobs. It is usually advised that emergency funds are kept which is estimated to at least 6-9 months worth of the person’s current salary so as to enable him or her stay afloat while in search of new opportunities. Such funds most times take a while to accumulate but starting early helps as you will still have some cash to spare in the event of such occurrences.
Savings and investments which were talked about here is also a way to secure an income for the future.
For a lean purse to a man no longer able to earn or to a family without its head is a sore tragedy.
Arkad
That’s all we have for today folks.
How are you finding this series? Is it something you’ll like to see more of? Have you been inspired by any of the posts to make some changes to your finances? Let me know in the comment section below.
We’ll be having the last post next Friday. If you are yet to subscribe to this blog, kindly do so before leaving. I don’t want you to miss out on any of this awesomeness!
