Where are you in personal finance?
Oh, personal finance?
After I completed my undergraduate studies a year ago, I found myself with perpetual sickness. I was always broke or nearly broke every month yet I was earning. Some months I would end up borrowing because I didn’t know where my money went. By the time we get to mid-month, payday feels like a lifetime away.
It felt like I was in a hole I couldn’t get out of.
Was this adulthood? Was all my adult life going to look like this – being constantly broke, borrowing, and never having anything left to save?
No.
One of my superpowers is recognizing when I’m in a rut, then working a way out.
Personal finance is one of the most crucial subjects we were never taught in school. They taught us X and Y, and the advantages of colonialism (shame on them), but nobody told or showed us how money works. No one told us what debt is and how it may wreck our financial lives or how saving and investing could buy us financial freedom and peace of mind. No one!
And if you’re like me, a young Kenyan woman brought up in poverty, you definitely do not have the best role models in terms of money. You grew up lacking in almost every area of your life, running on scarcity and a survival mindset, racking years of poor spending habits, and afraid of the next money crisis which left you more impoverished than you already were.
Personal finance, chei!
Unfortunately, you can only blame your circumstances for so long.
It reaches a point when it is now your personal responsibility to see you get from where you are to where you want to be.
Regarding personal finance, that may look like not being broke seven days a week, thirty days a month.
It may also look like this:
1. Getting out of debt
2. Saving consistently
3. Sticking to a budget
4. Living below your means
5. Choosing wise investments
6. Setting up an emergency fund
7. Sleeping better at night because you’ve fewer money worries
Whatever your money goals are, the journey will always begin at the same place.
Personal finance awareness.
Some say what you don’t know won’t kill you.
It’s a lie!
What you don’t know is killing you.
It’s killing you with brokenness, stress, debt, out-of-control spending, gambling, and many more unhealthy money habits.
Personal finance awareness.
Personal finance awareness is self-educating yourself on what money is and how it works, taking a real close look at your money behavior, and re-evaluating your spending habits, income-earning abilities, debt-trigger situations, and any loopholes keeping you broke.
There are many different ways to learn about personal finance, but today I want to recommend only one method that’s simple and requires you only to buy data bundles and dedicate some time – listening to personal finance videos on YouTube. Yes, there are hundreds if not thousands of YouTube channels talking about money, personal finance, and wealth creation, and for starters, I don’t want you to listen to every one of them.
That’s why I’m going to recommend three of my favorite personal finance channels on YouTube. I literally binge-watch these personalities and shows like crazy.
Are you ready?
1. Dave Ramsey
3. Susan Wanjiku, Financial Coach
Dave Ramsey:
Dave is an American Radio Show Host who’s been a multi-millionaire twice. The first time he became a millionaire, he went flat broke, lost everything, and filed for bankruptcy. After years of starting from scratch again, he became a millionaire again but this time, he learned how to stay a millionaire. As of now, he has a net worth of over 200 million US dollars. For thirty-plus years now, he’s been teaching Americans and people around the world how to get out of debt and start building wealth to pass on to their generations. He is famous for his most simple, practical, yet long-term strategy known as Total Money Makeover in Seven Baby Steps. If you watch nothing else on YouTube or personal finance, watch the 7 baby steps to building wealth by this guy.
Now Dave Ramsey as a person doesn’t have a channel in his name. Instead, he has the Ramsey Show, but I will get to that in a second.
The reason why I wrote Dave Ramsey is that this guy has been hosted in numerous videos on YouTube and I want you to watch everything that has Dave Ramsey in it. He is a total game-changer.
The Ramsey Show:
The Ramsey Show is a national personal finance TV and radio show hosted by Dave Ramsey and other personal finance personalities. It has been in existence for over three decades and generally, Americans call from all over the United States with a staggering range of money problems. You may be tempted to be skeptical at this point and ask how Americans’ money struggles relate to ours, but I promise after you listen to anything Dave Ramsey, you’ll realize the only difference to Ramsey Show talks is the currency. They’re dealing in US dollars while your money problems are in Kenyan shillings. Everything else is less or more of the same.
Susan Wanjiku, the Financial Coach:
Okay, I like balance. While Dave Ramsey is great, some of the advice he gives I cannot relate because I do not have access to such wealth creation vehicles. Kenya doesn’t have S&P funds, Roth IRAs, and 401Ks. So while I follow his advice, I do need to know what the Kenya equivalents of such wealth vehicles are.
That’s where Susan Wanjiku comes in.
She is a financial coach whom I discovered roughly four months ago but only began binge-watching her content at the beginning of this year. She talks of everything personal finance. From black tax, saving and investing, getting started with chamas and money market funds, how to budget, and much more. I like her because when she talks of five thousand shillings, I can see the money in my mind, and see what she is doing with it. Also, she came from poverty but right now she is coaching lots of people in different earning brackets. I relate to her story and in many ways, want to emulate her.
There are other Kenyan YouTubers in personal finance I love, but for the sake of keeping it simple, I will only recommend her.
I hope these two personalities get you started on your personal finance journey, and soon you break out of the constant broke or nearly broke cycle.
If you’ve already begun your personal finance education and knowledge of other YouTube channels we should watch, please recommend them in the comments.
Until next time, that’s it for today!
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