It pays to learn from your mistakes

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 (WhatsApponly); E-mail: tu5oyed@gmail.com

“We all make mistakes,” but “you’ve made a big mistake, and you must learn from your mistakes,” an adviser at a Charity near the Royal London Hostel told a gentleman I’d accompanied there on the first Wednesday of this month.

Choosing her words carefully like a well schooled pound for pound champion boxer does before letting go of his jab and punch, she told the soon to be deported fellow Nigerian that, having blown the opportunity of living and working in the United Kingdom with his own hands, he must live with the reality of his mistakes. But more importantly, to ensure he doesn’t repeat them. Well, that’s if for any reason his family is able to gather another couple of millions of naira for him to make a second coming as a student. Hoping he gets the opportunity again.

Anyway, while there, listening to the conversation, I couldn’t help but agree with the adviser that we all make mistakes and that we must learn from them. With money matters, you can’t ignore such a sermon on the Mount.

Though the mistakes the gentleman made were immigration based and which then resulted in the cancellation of his five-year visa, that’s a lot of money down the drain. When you make mistakes costing your family a few million of naira money that they don’t even have in surplus, it can be a long road back up.

As the session progressed and she chipped in lighter things, I knew she had, unknown to both of them, handed me a column idea that is hard to ignore. Just as the gentleman’s mistakes turned out to be costly, you may have made some of yours that took money out of your pocket too.

Here’s the thing, take a second look at any mistakes that left a dent on your bank balance since the beginning of the year and put in the safeguard so as not to repeat them again this year: However, if you’re yet to make any this year, keep up the good work and learn from those of anyone you know.

How changing what to wear cost me

A few days after the gentleman was deported to Nigeria, yours truly realised he had made a mistake of his own upon hopping on a bus 55 at around 5.30am.

At that time of the day, especially being a Monday, the last thing you want is to discover you left your travel card in the wardrobe. That was how it panned out for me last week. It turned out that, on Sunday night when I decided to change what to wear the following morning, yours truly didn’t remember removing the travel card from the shirt’s pocket before shoving it inside the wardrobe.

The penny stopped when I got on that bus. Had to then use my bank card to pay, and on the way back, got on the tube, padding through Zone 1. Though the entire commute was just a hit of nearly nine quid – £9- the mistake made me go back to basics. That means, to always put the travel card in my wallet. Won’t be making the same mistake again this year.

But if I do, yours truly will atone for it by forcing himself to register for the London marathon next year.

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