Don’t take your eyes off your financial goals

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

Let me start by confessing that I was recently given a nasty reminder on the importance of not taking the eyes away from the ball, which in our context, is our financial goals for the year.

As it turned out on that occasion, I was on a westbound overground train I hopped on near the house. It’s a familiar route that I’d plied several times on the way to work. Knowing it like the back of my hand and coupled with being a fairly long journey of about half an hour, I got engrossed in being busy with a newspaper article shortly into the ride. I just didn’t give a thought to my destination nor paid attention as the journey progressed.

That’s the way it is with financial goals.

Next thing I knew, when I looked through the window, I saw Acton Central. Boy, oh boy! I had gone past my destination. That’s what taking your eyes away from the ball can do to your financial goals.

If you have noticed, talk is actually very cheap. Inflation doesn’t jerk up the price. So, anyone can afford to talk big and that’s why many people are fired up with new financial goals at the beginning of the year. But then, as the days give way to weeks, they allow other things to make them lose focus. That may subsequently make them fall short of banking that seemingly insignificant fifteen thousand naira in their investment account.

Here’s the thing. If you find out that you’re drifting away from those goals, retrace your steps as we approach the end of this first quarter of the year. That could mean paying close attention to what you’re spending and what you need to keep.

After finding myself at Acton Central, yours truly had to retrace his steps by going over to the other side of the station and to then get on the next available Stratford bound train back. So, whether it’s to rein in your spending or forcefully address your shortage of income, just see to it and keep your eyes on those specific goals.

Fraudsters are increasingly desperate

Not too long ago, a message came in from somebody very close, touching base. In the second message, the person asked if they could ask for a favour.

Yours truly responded and said he was all ears. They then said they needed to borrow some money till the next day. Almost at the same time, we were alerted on the group’s platform that the number of the close person had been hacked.

But to see the matter to an end with the hacker, I played along by asking the supposedly close person to send their account details. The criminal sent their real name and account number. That was when the game ended.

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