Oh yes, it is real. It was a new discovery for me but like all discoveries, it has always existed but recently been defined as ‘a thing’.
When someone asks you for money, do you ever say, “I do not have any?” That may be a knee jerk reaction or it may be true. I recall being in campus and the first two weeks of every semester, almost nobody would eat in the students’ mess. Reason being we all had full pockets either from our parents or from the Higher Education Loans Board.
Hawkers would be parading the halls of residence peddling their wares and business was great. We would all troop out of the compound to go eat outside of campus, in hotels and kiosks that would offer better fare than the mess. By the second and third week, the queues at the students’ mess were remarkable. We used to say, “I need to reduce my funds to manageable levels.”
Guess what, now as salaried staff and business people, immediately we receive our payments, we live large until we have reduced our money to “manageable levels”. Since most people have the mindset of “There is no money” or “I do not have money”. it is probably because we heard someone say the same when growing up. This shaped our midset as far as money is concerned which may lead us to have interesting reactions when we get money. We could:
- spend it all as fast as possible in order to match your belief of there being no money or you’re having no money
- hoard it so that you never have to be in the position of not having
- Or somewhere in between
Figure out what your money mindset is and if it is not healthy, change it.
Author of this article, Susan Nyakiamo has dedicated her life to helping people make better decisions with their finances. She does this by sending email updates, via her website (Suziema) and also via Campus Radio Kenya’s Money Matters segment. Visit her blog and subscribe to her mailing list to learn more about financial management.
