The Plight Of A Young Kenyan Girl

The date: Sometime end month.
The time: Late in the evening.
The Place: It could be anywhere really.

So there I am, calculator in one hand, a plan on the other, a few bank statements lying around and a perturbed expression on my face to boot. That was me budgeting for my month.What I should cut back, what I should keep, clothes I should sell and whether I should start selling my mother's old newspapers to the butcher (they are just so many). I made a few decisions. I came out of school already in debt. And the more I worked, the more debt I seemed to be collecting. I feel like your every day debt collector....#sigh!

The salary was about to come in. Loans and debts had to be cleared.I had just been slapped with the impossible;A debt I just didn't know I had(there goes my merry-go-round money-the handbag will have to wait!)Suddenly, it dawned on me like it does every end month: I might not make it next month... I do make it month after month however. With the skin of my teeth but somehow, I make it.

They say more money more problems....Ha! when I'm sitted in the dimming lights making a budget that won't just fit into place....more money has never sounded so good. A girl after all has needs. Like food, shelter and shopping. Especially shopping. So for a few minutes, I fumbled at what to do. I needed to get into that utopia called, Financial Freedom. I keep hearing it on TV, why did I seem like such a con game? Here are a few options that I have come up with to solve my ever present broke-ness:

1)I have cut back on expenses: I have officially stopped buying shoes, tops, shorts, dresses, skirts, cute notebooks, evening hot-dogs on my way home,random road trips to see if God-knows-who is home. etc etc etc. I have cut back on going out, experimenting with drinks that cost more than my daily expenditure, experimenting with food I can't pronounce...just generally anything I wouldn't consider a life threatening decision.

2)Money out means money in: The only time I allow myself to go to the ATM nowadays is to get money to invest somewhere, fuel or basic needs like water on a hot day or credit. Otherwise any money that gets out of that hole in the wall is only if I expect money back.

3) Speaking of that hole in the wall, No loose cash: I walk around nowadays with minimal cash. I call it the emergency fund. I ask myself, If I get robbed today, do I have enough for them to run away without hurting me? So if that week, I figure my "robber's budget" is 200 bob then that is as much as I am allowing into my wallet over and above food and fuel. Anything else is just a temptation to impulse buy things I don't need.

4)I moved banks: This was more out of circumstance but as soon as I did it, I knew I had made the right choice.Being a "mwananichi" I banked in a "mwananichi" bank.I was assaulted by ATM after bank after ATM. Anywhere I needed it, I got it. Once I booked shoes at Toi market, ran to the ATM, removed my last remaining cash and almost had to walk home. Now my main account is in a bank with facilities so far away, every time I want anything, I just turn and roll over in bed. Only an emergency can get me traveling across town to withdraw money. Ever since I opened the account, my ATM card is yet to meet with the hole in the wall.

5) Look for bargains...everywhere: If I can get it cheaper somewhere else, I will find someone going in that direction and get it. This habit I seemed to have developed of buying at first sight had to die. And die fast.So now, I google, walk around, consult, count shillings and coins and then when I am absolutely sure that it is the very cheapest I can get at a decent quality, I reluctantly pay.Of course some things cannot be compromised.

6)Lastly, I've joined the "biashara" generation: I used to hate that phrase "Mimi ni mtu wa biashara". I used to think it was sooooo lame and that maybe you were in the drugs business or human trafficking. Now, I am actually laying foundation for my full time "side biashara". I have never been a marketer but circumstances are forcing me to walk around in heat and dust talking to people I'd never have approached in a million years. So now I am "biashara" generation. I have business to run after 5 o'clock to support both my expensive and not-so-expensive habits.

I don't know how well my 5-6 point plan will work. Hopefully it won't turn me into those anti-social people who are always running around looking for money but I am really hoping that at some point when I look back from my "Financial Freedom" perch, I'll think, that was such a wise move.

So help me God!