Knowing the difference between needs and wants

The reason you go broke easily may not be because you aren’t getting enough money or even because the bills exceed the available revenue but because you haven’t acquired a good savings culture/inability to differentiate needs from wants..

You must have heard that ‘tiny drops make an ocean’ and it’s true..
I’ll share a little experience from secondary school..

I graduated from Abia state senior science school Ihie(most of my classmates are here on my list😁)
If you passed through the boarding houses in Nigeria you’ll know they’re living hell(except maybe the tushed ones I see these days) now take that hell and multiply it by 50?? There you go! You have my Alma mater🤣🤣

We saw nwii in that school, the only good thing about the school is the standard of Education! You go sabi book by fire by force😒
But conditions surrounding studies? It was a sorry sight, by the way it was years after graduating that I realized that for three years of my life I lived like a lower animal just to acquire an education in a boarding house😑

Savings brought about this story yeah??
We were fed ‘things’ you won’t give an ekuke to eat, the soups?? Eeewww! Stew??😞 jollof? Beans?? Tea nko? Ahn ahn… the only good thing from the refectory was the eggs on sunday and the bread.

So you now know why boarding students look with anticipation of ‘visiting days’..
So here’s what happened, every visiting, my mum, dad or my brother would come but largely my mum, even when she didn’t come on the Saturday that’s the usual visiting day maybe because she couldn’t find anyone to stay in her shop, she’ll definitely come on Sunday(God bless her for me)

Now it was known as ‘contraband’ ‘breaking bounds’ etc to bring in things, or move beyond certain points except when it’s visiting, but because my classmates then knew my mum always came fully loaded, even if I weren’t aware she came, they’d come call me..

So my savings journey started! Now, I had every reason to not save a dime from there because we didn’t have good food to start with but I already knew where I was going back to after school, ground no level..

There were several goodies on display for sale by teachers’ wives then during break periods but I’d be the last person to buy anything, maybe once in a black moon, not like I didn’t fancy those, or I wasn’t tempted, but I was quick to tell myself that ‘me and these students no be the same’..
Then if on your visiting you get 500naira or 1k you’re big! I mean by the time you buy 20naira meat pie like 5 and share to your goons, you’re the lord😁😁

So painstakingly, little by little, small denials here and there, the savings kept trickling in..
I never went to my house master to ask for money, instead i always went to save more, so when i graduated, i had 25k saved! Yes you read right!
This was when a basket of tomatoes cost 3k or 5k max! So imagine my mum’s amazement when I bounced into the market from school and gave her 25k! She had to sit me down, query me as to how I got that kind of money, not until I showed her the card where my money was ticked with my house Master before she believed me and relaxed!

The trick was, I was able to differentiate what I wanted from what I needed, before I spent 10naira in school then,I’d have been certain that I needed to spend that 10naira, if I couldn’t convince myself? No way I’m spending a dime! Even if everyone else bought or spent 10naira, I needed to agree within me that it was worth it..

Now, I’m not sure, how many understand what a need is and what a want is..
First you should know that your needs and wants must correlate with your current financial capabilities, I’ll explain, you can’t have access to 50k a month and expect your needs to be the same as someone who has access to 500k a month.

You see? Life comes in stages, as you climb the financial ladder, the needs and wants change too, so you can’t be in the first step of the ladder and be taking care of needs in the 2nd or 3rd step of the ladder, they’ll be WANTS and not NEEDS, hopefully you’ll understand that…

Your ability to differentiate your needs from wants and spend accordingly will determine how far you’ll go financially..
For instance…Just because you have 50k in your savings today doesn’t mean you can afford to buy a 50k or even 30k hair.
Teach yourself to save, even from the driest of pockets, tiny drops do make an ocean..

I hope you’re having a lovely evening dears❤