Are you in DEBT?

Statistics suggest that at least 90% of our country's population is in debt. So much so that quite a chunk of that percentage don't even own the clothes on their back. The suits they wear, the watches they floss, the shoes on their feet are still on loan from your uptown Italian/German/British store. Some of this debt is necessary but in many instances, most of it is unnecessary. For every sh.1 one of this 90% of the population earns, they spend at least sh1.50 clearing their debts.Some are even spending as much as sh100 for every sh1. In fact to the extent that they borrow more money to clear their debts. A vicious cycle that never seems to end.

There are 4 major categories of debt (to the layman. Am sure to some financial advisor somewhere, they're like 68 categories)
a) Calamity Debts:
Some debt is impossible to avoid. Your loved one gets sick or gets laid off or your car get written off in some silly accident. Or if you're in London, some hoodrut steals your clothes on the line (infact you don't even need to be in London for that). Anyway, bad things that are unforeseen happen and suddenly all that money you had saved up and planned for dwindles faster than you can blink. And your only other option is to go into debt.
b)Control Debts:
This is unfortunately the category I fall under. I have to have control of everything. So I get into debt because I am not humble enough to let someone else carry the weight. Apparently this little debt factor affects mainly men (and unfortunately me!). Not only do you have issues being left behind by others, you have issues letting go of things you don't need. Those unnecessary things are what keep you buried in debt. To beat this kind of debt, you need to beat your pride.
c) Contentment Debt:
"2 Tim 6:7 we came with nothing, we shall die with nothing" The Bible can be rough sometimes but if you think about it. You have a debt because you want to drive European instead of Asian. your landlord keeps hunting you down at the locals because you refuse to move to a neighbourhood that's "beneath" you. Your children go to school on a loan because you don't "like" the current education system. Contentment shall be the death of us. This debt is collected because we have no patience to wait until we can comfortably afford "contentment". Apparently it's a disease called Affluenza: 1 wife, 2 kids, 3 bedroom house, 4 wheel drive, 5 acres of land, 6 figure salary....

d)Bad business choices:
Whether it's bad luck or bad advise or an acquaintance who has just sabotaged you, this is probably one of the biggest debts people fall into and the hardest to get out of. This is because everything you own, will own or are owed, goes directly to that business. Your strongest belief is that the business shall work. (Prepare yourself for more statistics)75% of all start ups around the world tend to fail. If you're one of the lucky ones then good for you. Unfortunately, when people are doing start-ups they have only faith to their names. No money, no credit, nothing. This kind of debt requires perseverance and belief that someday, something good will come out of this.

So, there you are, looking daftly at your ATM, hoping someone, anyone will save you. Some super accountant or your rich long lost uncle 18th removed. There are 3 basic questions you should ask yourself at that ATM before you make your next withdrawal:

i) Are you fully aware of your financial position? Do you even know how much you owe or do you go collecting debt like some sort of entitlement.
ii)Do you know why you are in debt? Is it necessary.
"Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial" (1 Corinthians 10:23)
iii)Have you fully disclosed your situation to those closest to you? What happens to them after you pass on.
"Be careful that as you exercise your freedom, you do not become a stumbling block to the weak" (1 Corinthians 8:9)

Pride usually doesn't allow us to sit and finally tell ourselves that my financial life is a mess and I might need more than a little help to clean up. What we don't seem to realise is that your debt affects everyone else and everything else. Debt even tends to change you as a person. So there you are at the ATM, what happens next?

Disclosure:
Step out of your denial. It is not just a river in Egypt. Be very truthful about your situation. First to yourself. The longer you wait, the deeper you sink. Then you need to disclose to your spouse, life partner, family, brother etc etc. Their insight on the way forward might surprise you. And they are the ones who will get most affected should something happen to you. It would be good to prepare them. Then if you are Christian inclined like myself, you have to reveal this debt openly to God. He cannot help you if you have refused to tell Him what is going on. Finally, disclosure to a professional. A mentor, life coach, financial advisor,accountability partner, pretty much anyone who will make sure that you stick to the plan you have come up with.

Earnings:
"What do you have in your hands? What is your current stream of earnings? What can you liquidate to increase your cashflow and more importantly reduce your debt? And now more importantly, what can you do to increase your earnings without compromising what you already have? Kama wewe si mtu wa biashara, try and get advice on your best way forward, kama wewe ni mtu wa biashara, you know what to do.
Budget:
Every budget you draw up, should have debt repayment at the top of the list. For morale booster, pay the small debts first. That 1000 bob, you borrowed to buy that ka-top, that 200 you used for lunch. No need for the small money to hung over your head for no good reason. Anything with a high interest rate should be top of the list. Involve the people close to you as you budget. Like I said, they will surprise you.
Training:
Now that you are slowly crawling out of debt, the worst thing that could happen is for you to go jumping back in head on. Not everything is important and so you need to train yourself to know what is important and what is not. You need to embrace that debt free lifestyle that you're working towards. Train yourself to embrace all that advice you have sought. Train yourself to trust that everything will actually be fine without those rims or even without that car. Move out to a cheaper place if your rent is draining you, eat at cheaper restaurants (or carry food from home), plan a cheaper wedding (esp. plan a cheaper wedding). It won't kill you to simplify.
"Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11)


(see what we did there with the letters :-)This is an issue that affects more than just me. I keep thinking, I can honestly not be the only one who hyper ventilates every time I have to walk to the ATM. Debt is a burden and not a right. It's not a rite of passage and neither is it a cool thing. Are you in DEBT?

(paraphrased from Cents and Sensibility- Janet Mutinda)

Why I want to get married...

Hehehe! I know. No I do not have a fever, I have not been replaced by aliens and yes, I will admit, I have gone a little bit soft on the edges.I've never been particularly vocal about such matters mostly because I never thought I really wanted to get married. I like my independence, I like my time.

About a month ago, I gave up on the whole concept of dating and marriage and happy ever after. (A story for another day). For the life of me, I could not understand why I would want to knowingly throw myself into harms way. All the pain and drama and arguments over tiny and ridiculous issues. I had been hurt and it just didn't feel worth the effort.(Back to the reason for this blog!)In this day and age where we have build such thick walls around ourselves that not even a nuclear war would bring down, the concept of opening even a window to another person seems incredulous (urban dictionary: of a nature that does not believe or is prone to be skeptical. as used in a sentence:An incredulous person would not believe this definition.)

Life is continuously showing us how terrible the other side of marriage looks.How bad things can get. Women lie, men cheat and if that brat that was throwing a tantrum at Uchumi last week is to go by, children are a menace that should not have been let out of the womb. Every conversation I have involving the subject usually ends with a declaration of either "I am never getting married" or "I don't believe I got married". This would be fine if we were teenagers but we are not. All our parents were married with broods of kids by my age. And yet here we are. Looking warily at every bride we see foolishly marching down the aisle.

As recently as last week, texts got licked from a local radio station and if you had the chance to read them, you would wonder why so many people fall into the marriage trap. It was story after story of fed up, disgusted and resentful couples who are just barely holding on. Every week there's a story of a man who's genitals now lie in a hospital incinerator or a family that has been slashed to bits by an angry spouse or an enraged husband/wife who went after some barmaid, co-worker or secretary or something.

So why do I want to get married?

My reasons are all selfish (insert evil laugh here). There is always the thought of going home to a legally warmed bed and all those other things, etc,etc. But that is not the main reason why I am now thinking of throwing my independence in the trash. When I go to weddings, I look at the groom. Most of the time, everyone looks at he bride but in my opinion, if you want to know a marriage will work, look at the groom. If the groom is happy, and I mean truly happy, I can guarantee, there's a happy marriage ahead. So those are the grooms that make me think, maybe it could not be all bad.

I want to get married to a man who will truly be happy to see me stand by his side. A man who will brag about me. A man who believes he's lucky to have me. Someone who will make me believe that this could be one of the best decisions I have ever made. I have met a guy who said "I have been married 279 days to the most incredible woman I have ever met" Can you imagine how happy that woman is to go home every evening. To that man. The man who cannot even begin to imagine life without you. It made me think that not every marriage is crushing to the ground and running to file for a divorce. 279 days may not be much but I have had the privilege of living with a couple who have been counting the last 33 years of marriage as a blessing (yeah, I know, I also don't know where my skepticism for marriage comes from!)

I want to come home to a house that doesn't feel cold. I want to get married so that I can have someone to rant and rave about my day. I want to get married so that I have someone who will exclusively worry about me for the rest of their lives.

I want to get married so that I can experiment my recipes on someone. I want to get married so that I can bounce my ideas off him no matter how ill thought of or silly and listen to honest criticism. I want to get married so that I never have to look for another mechanic or wonder how the buttons on the camera function. I want to get married so that I never have to go for another gruesome first date or listen to another boring story of things that I don't care about.

I want to get married so that I can have someone to gossip with and make fun of useless yet wrongly named movies. ( not to mention make fun of other people around us) I want to get married so that I can have kids and my kids can have a father they look up to.I want to get married not so that I can have a financial advisor but also a cheerleader, a confidant and a friend. I want to get married so that I never have to worry alone again.

Why do I really want to get married? So that someday I can brag "I married my best friend.....and I didn't even have to turn lesbian."

#My 5 links

I was tagged by @gitts and I've been postponing for a while now.

Most Popular Post:
Me and my vices I don't understand why. I wrote it a forever ago and yet I still get comments on it to date. Just goes to show that you're your own best subject.

Post That Didn’t Get The Attention It Deserved:
Hope for the hopeless. I keep hoping someone read this and did something.

Post Whose Success Surprised Me:
The Margin Principle. I really did not expect as many people to read this as they did. Thanks y'all

My Most Controversial Post:
Shameful I was so annoyed when I wrote this. I almost sent it to a paper for print. and from a personal stand point, Losing my religion was the hardest for me to write.

Post I Am Most Proud Of:
Ma feelings I just loved writing this and it got me through a particularly difficult time.

Thanks for reading me people.

Well, I think everyone I read has already been tagged, other than nyambura's diary and fishy memoirs So, if you haven't what are your 5 links?

The best conversation I ever had.

Sometimes in life, you get surprised. By the people you meet, the places you end up, the things you do. This was one of those times.

It was a long time ago. I was on the bus quietly minding my own business. I'd just had an misunderstanding with my boyfriend at the time and my mind was jumbled and confused. That's when I saw him through my window. He wasn't particularly pretty. He wasn't an adonis or anything. But for some reason I noticed him. I watched him walk up to the bus stop, I followed him as he entered and I observed him from the corner of my eye as he took the seat next to me.

He was carrying this book. Looked the size of a modern day encyclopedia. I had nothing to read, I was killing myself with my thoughts and I needed to talk. Normally, I'm a very shy character. I speak when I'm spoken to, I go to places only on invitation, I'm the type of person who goes to a party and sits by the door waiting for a quick exit. Well, not this time. I turned to him, looked him straight in the eye and said "hi!"

He looked abit taken aback. Then he said "Hi! I was hoping you'd talk to me." Even his voice had nothing special to it. But this time, it was my turn to be taken aback. That was how the best conversation I ever had started.

We talked about the book he was reading. We talked about the book I was reading. We talked about work and school and the reason he was boarding a bus in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. He was an IT expert type at CFC. He'd been working all night so he'd taken the day off. I was a student with big dreams. I talked about them. He talked about his. It's funny that the most memorable thing about that conversation was how it made me feel. The ease of it all. The ease with which one sentence flowed effortlessly into the next.

He didn't offer to pay for my transport and yet it didn't feel wrong or impolite. He just never offered and I never asked. In fact before today, I don't think I ever noticed. The ride home felt long but at the same time it didn't feel long enough. We were strangers and yet we were old friends. It was strange and fascinating.

He got off with me at my bus stop and offered to walk me home. After about half a km, he gave up te walk (he was abit on the heavier side). He didn't lie about it. The weight(he loved it)or the fact that half a km was as much as he was willing to push himself. It was interesting that he didn't feel the need to. He still had to walk back, get on another bus and go to his home. His last words to me: " For a girl like you, your boyfriend must be a god". I would be lying if I said that wasn't the best compliment I have ever been given. I smiled like a teenage school girl. "my boyfriend's human, just like every other boy." He smiled and walked away.

I have never seen him since. I have no idea if he moved out or if he still lives 15 minutes away. I do not know if he's still an IT expert sort person. I don't even know if I'd recognise him now if he passed me on the street.We both must have changed so much. But sometimes I think about him. Sometimes I wonder if we ever met again, whether the conversation would be just as great. Whether we'd be the same people. I have never talked to a random stranger on the bus since. Unless you can call the kange a random stranger.

Someday, though, in the future, I'd like to bump into him. When I'm all settled down and doing better. I'd like to tell him that I didn't quite achieve my dreams. Not by a mile but I'm doing good. I'm still trying to pursue them, I still read but books of much smaller sizes. And look, "you were right. My boyfriend is a god. Just like you imagined him."