Without a doubt, you must have been acquainted with the word Millennial also called the Generation Y born from the 1980s up till date. They are the trail setters, they are technology savvy, they are the digital innovators, they are the fashion icons, and they are the Mark Zuckerberg, the Jessica Alba, the Debola Lagos, the JJ Omojuwa and the groundbreaking entrepreneurs of our time.
A report shows that over 91,000 businesses are registered yearly in Nigeria, but barely one percent make it through the first year. This shows that millennials are always up to something new, redefining what already exist to suit the digitally inclined generation.
Notwithstanding, it is noted that a large number of millennials end up with nothing because of their flamboyant lifestyle to keep up with the trend.
If you are one of such millennials, here’s how you can develop smart money habits for financial freedom.
Track your spending
A lot of millennials have a hard time saving because they always seem to buy one thing or the other every time. To get this under control, it is advisable to track spending for at least a month for starters. This means, write down everything you spend money on, that way you are aware of the exact things you spend most of your money on.
Create a budget
Now that you’ve tracked your spending, it should be pretty easy to set up a realistic budget. Keep in mind that budgets change all the time, so if you need to make adjustments, don’t feel too bad about it. Also, there are many things that we forget to budget for since they’re not reoccurring expenses, so make sure to keep those in mind too as miscellaneous.
Start saving more
Prioritizing your savings is one of the easiest ways to reach your financial goals. This is the rule to pay yourself first. What this means is that after all our fixed bills are paid, you set aside a set amount for savings. To take this one step further, you should automate your savings. Set up some auto-withdrawals to time with when you get paid, this way you won’t get tempted to spend the money since you’ve already put it aside for savings.
Start investing
While saving is good, investing is a lot better. Considering the fact that your savings would not yield more than you have saved, but rather, some of it would be deducted as bank charges among other account maintenance charges from your bank. If you have noticed, investing in Nigeria has changed. It’s not as scary as it used to be because financial institutions in Nigeria have been able to make investing simple through their various investment plans that are effective and straightforward for anyone to understand it.
That being said, there is no doubt that Millennials now have better chances at experiencing financial
