As last year gradually came to an end, I started uping my financial literacy game. I knew about money, I knew about saving and investing. I also knew about mutual funds and I made all these amazing investment moves – fixed deposits, Tbills, Mutual funds, and FX investments. I was still scared of stocks, so I reached out to friends to improve my knowledge of money. They helped and it was amazing. One recommended a money manual – The Smart Money Woman by Arese Agwu. I think this is one of the best manuals for financial literacy that utilizes storytelling as a tool for knowledge transfer. I have set my financial goal for 2019 and I am excited! You should set yours too.
I have summarized it for my book club people and friends who are too lazy to buy the book:
Zuri panicked as she shook her head and stared at her “little above 80k naira” account balance. To some, this won’t be a big deal but her expenses told a whole different story. She lived in the salary cycle and she was still in the middle of the month. She earned 600k a month after taxes from her job as a Senior manager of a real estate firm, so it all didn’t add up. She stared at the letter from her landlord detailing her 430k service charge bills for the last quarter. She was also just informed she had fibroids and it would cost 950k to take out. She lived in a 2 bedroom serviced apartment in Lekki and drove a second hand Mercedes ML500 which was great till the engine started acting up.
How could she explain to anyone that she was flat broke?
Her best friend Tami stopped by and Zuri tried to talk about her gbese in the midst of their conversations
“Girrrl, if you had a man, all this would be story.”
Tami was an extrovert, a caramel-colored skin charismatic social butterfly with a petite frame. The kind who knew 80% of the people at parties. People were drawn to her. She had a never date married men policy but the men she did go out with definitely had to be rich and be in a position to take care of her high maintenance lifestyle.
She shook her head at Zuri “Honestly you need to get a man. You need someone to support you. All this independent woman nonsense you’re doing is what will get you in trouble. I’ve always told you your parents let you stay in obodo oyinbo too long. Living abroad for so long is what has got you thinking like an oyinbo woman. This is Nigeria, so you better start behaving like an African woman.”
After Tami left, Zuri wondered if she was truly naive or overly conservative. Was it wrong to think that there was something fundamentally wrong about trading sex for money? The problem with relationships like that was the power dynamics. Money often became a weapon and she didn’t want to be controlled.
