By ChinyereDistinguished
The year 2022 is gone and you probably experienced some fluctuations in your finances as a result of the inflation rates and economic downturns across the globe, particularly if you’re a Nigerian living in Nigeria. The financial bite hit hard, but there’s a way to set up your life, business, career and finances so that you’ll never go broke throughout the year 2023.
Excited to learn these tips which some of them might not be entirely new to you? Then let’s dig in!
1. Review your 2022 financial records – income and expenses. Ideally, you should have done this before stepping into the New Year, but now is still a good time to do so. If you don’t track your finances, you can’t know where your money goes or how to stop the loopholes.
Reviewing your financials includes calculating your Net Worth (review your assets and liabilities). Your net worth is the amount of money that you have after accounting for your assets and liabilities.
2. Have a clear financial goal for 2023 with clear plans on how to achieve it. Before you can plan a budget and set financial goals, it’s important to do a complete overview of your assets and liabilities. That means making a list of everything you own and everything you owe. It allows you to understand your current financial position and envision where you want to see your finances in the New Year. This is why doing step one is of utmost importance. Please, go back and do step one if you haven’t done so yet. Draw up a personal balance sheet that shows your overall net worth.
Next, check your spending plan – review your present budget and look for areas where adjustments might be made. Do you have any areas where you consistently overspend: data, hair, food, entertainment, etc.)? Do you have any bills or expenses that you could reduce?
Once this is done, sit down and create a plan of how you’re going to generate five, six, seven or more figures consistently in 2023 (depending on your financial goal). If you see that you need to make some strategic moves like, diversifying your service offerings, creating new products, serving a new market, etc., then start doing so already. Results belong to action takers, not wishful thinkers.
3. Pay yourself first, right after paying God (tithe). And invest, too. The Richest Man in Babylon has taught us that you must put aside a percentage of every income as your savings if you must grow rich and become financially free. Savings is not something you put aside when all the bills are paid. If you do so, you’ll never have something to put aside because the bills never end. Hence, you must determine to deliberately and consistently take out a percentage of your income, right after taking out your tithe, and save it. You can automate this by giving your bank a standing order or with financial apps like Piggyvest or Risevest.
Having money in an account you can easily access is tempting, and you do not want to end up tempting yourself after the good work you have done in saving. So, keep that money in an account that you will think twice before withdrawing from, such as the wallet on the Risevest app or Piggy bank in Piggyvest app. Also, set an amount that would be automatically removed from your account and sent to that savings account (auto-invest or autosave).
When you have some money saved up over time, it is easier for you to take advantage of investment opportunities and/or acquire assets.
4. Join a financial club/group. The Bible says, iron sharpens iron. When you belong to a financial group or club, you get access to financial information and opportunities that are not easily available to the general public. With such information and professional financial advice, you’re able to make better financial decisions, early. Some examples of financial clubs in Nigeria include, Smart Stewards, Rise Investment Club, Money Africa, etc.
5. Pay out commissions for referrals to your business. Also Request for commission for referrals. The structured name for receiving commission when you refer one’s business to another is affiliate marketing. However, way before the affiliate marketing websites and platforms sprung up, we all have been doing and still refer the business of people we know to those who need their products and services, and sadly, without a pay. In 2023, you can make this a steady stream of income.
When you refer a friend’s or an acquaintance’s business to someone else, request for a commission. For instance, if your friend or neighbour is a graphics designer, you can have a conversation and an agreement with him or her to receive 5% commission on every client you refer to their business.
In the same vein, to increase patronage and revenue to your business, you can offer to pay out commissions to anyone who refers a client to your business.
Needless to say, you receive and pay out commissions only when the referral has purchased the product or service.
6. Create and sell digital products. If you don’t have and sell any digital product yet, then you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. The great thing about having a digital product include: it can be created by anyone, anywhere and at any time; it can be sold to anyone in your target market anywhere in the world without barriers; it have no inventory cost as it is stored digitally; it can be easily scaled in terms of price, and it requires you to create it once, yet sell it over and over for years to come. Examples of digital products include: eBooks, videos, audio books, online courses, etc.
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