What’s your first quarter performance scorecard? 

TUNDE OYEDOYIN  

Tunde Oyedoyin is a London-based personal finance coach and founder of Money Intelligence Coaching Academy, a specialist academy of personal finance. He can be reached as follows: +447846089587 (WhatsApp only); E-mail: tu5oyed@gmail.com

As a prelude; performance is like the hips, which, as Colombian superstar, Shakira famously sang, “don’t lie.” I will come back to it; just follow the drift.

For starters, one hates to be the bearer of bad news. But here’s the thing. Bad news, like many other things, is relative. As a matter of fact, nobody needs the brain of an Albert Einstein, nor a study of his ‘theory of relativity’, to acknowledge the fact that almost everything in life is relative.

The bad news in our context is that we’ve just gone past the first quarter of the year. For anyone working in a business organisation or in the civil service, the fact that the first quarter has ended may not even mean much. However, if you’ve forgotten about your financial goals for the year, it’s bad news, as you’ve lost some ground, probably. For the political activist, the needle may also not have moved, either.

After all, May 29 is what matters as the average activist and opposition are more interested in the scorecard of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s one year in office than almost anything else.

But for investors, the end of the first quarter means it’s time to check out their investments. If you haven’t heard from your stockbroker or anyone minding your interests by now, you’ll probably be on the lookout to know in which direction the pendulum swung for your investments.

Put differently, investors and among others, those who own the banks where you’re an account holder, care to know how their capital performed in the just ended first quarter.

The reason they care is because performance matters in every segment of the society. As mentioned in the opening, they’re like hips and Shakira’s call is on the money. They don’t lie. Relative to your financial goals, neither will your first quarter performance. It’s time you check them out for they don’t lie. Remember an earlier piece was on SMART goals in the context of your financial goals.

So, how did you perform in the quarter? While answering that and even if you can’t tick off any of your financial goals, remember that the second quarter presents you with the opportunity to wake up and smell the coffee.

Low savings “are No 1 money worry:

The above caption was the title of a short piece in the Metro Newspaper of Friday, February 23rd.

According to it, “nearly half of Brits have money regrets – with not saving more topping the bill in a poll of 4000 adults conducted by Moneybox. The report stated further that’ a third wish they had started planning for retirement earlier and a quarter regret not learning more about managing money.’ Brian Byrnes of Moneybox is absolutely on point for saying: “the fact most people never received any financial education is not right.”

Now, here’s the thing. If a similar poll was conducted in Nigeria, the result may be similar. But irrespective of what the outcome may be, now’s the time to set forth at dawn and start saving, if you haven’t already begun. Make savings a part of your financial goals for this second quarter. Even if the realistic amount you can save is just a thousand Naira per month or £20, go for it. Then plan to do more in the third quarter.

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