Money, Money, Money... Money!
After working with money for the past six months not in the perspective of drawing monthly allowance without giving forethought to how I am going to spend it or what I am going to spend it on. That has fortunately changed in favour of my sanity, how I spend money recently seems to impress me, I have impressed myself in the past two months.
Since having being primarily active in the field of entrepreneurship, my concern was – as is with anyone in business - money. How was I to handle money and most bewildering of all was the probing question of which amount is fair for my set of skills in photography yet again considerate to my market? At first I called out any amount which came to mind, it was on-the-spot-pricing, dangerous for both my business and the prospective customer because one of two things occur (a) I price too little for the an extensive job or (b) I charge the customer more than what the job demands which inevitably leads to cancelling of the job and losing money in the process.
For the past recent years saving money has been the biggest challenge which I had I triumph over. Prior to learning about handling money in Profession Practice 2 it was as though I did not grasp the importance of money. Now I aim to grow my savings up to/over R1000,00, this will remain in the savings account untouched and only used in case of emergencies whilst I pile on it doing jobs. I am already half way to achieving my objective. Paul Piff (2013) says studies shows that the more money you gain the more confidence/control you gain whereas the manner in which I utilised money was uncontrollable, I used to take the money I did not earn (allowance) spend it on items which will not benefit neither me nor my business, i.e junk food and some even spend on going out with friends. However, tables have turned now that I earn my money I suddenly realise that money is to be spent wisely.
In late 2014, in addition to the savings account, I opened a fixed savings account, PRINCE, with bank (BANK X) under their brilliant, comprehensive banking option for their ordinary users. Its purpose is to save money and grow it at 3% interest with each amount of money I put in the account. This account has stood empty without any funds being injected since the day it was opened, an investment account - empty. All I did was take out money out of the savings account which my father had put in. As a results I acquired high bank charges which puzzled me because I kept questioning how does the cheapest banking option with the least aggressive bank in the country (as led to believe) charge their client R35.00, R42.00 or as high as in the range of R50.00 every month? The answer lied in my frivolous expenditure which led to my unnecessary transactions. Now I know better than to use external ATM’s not of this bank specifically or the BANK X ATM’s because they are just as costly. The best option when drawing money with the bank is when withdrawing from selected supermarkets. The charges when using the supermarkets are as little as R1.50. As a side bonus I have begun pumping PRINCE with funds imperative in the commencement of a maturing financial status.
It is amazing how even a university student can be reckless with his monthly funds until a time comes to be vigilant, it is said that you never knew what you know until somebody teaches you. I can honestly state that the days of leaving my bank account penniless are over.