“Emma teams up with Nadal coach Roig for US Open.”
It was while inside the 07.29 Eastbound overground train as it pulled away from Willesden Junction recently, that the Metro newspaper sports piece about the former U. S. Open champion made me curious.
According to it, “Emma Raducanu has hired Rafael Nadal’s former coach, Francisco Roig, ahead of the US Open.
That’s actually a smart move. Reason being that having not performed as she felt she should in the first half of the year, the British number one must have reasoned that, with the season nearing its end and with just one Grand Slam to go, she cannot just watch her goals vamoose. That must have made her come to the conclusion that she needed to make changes to her game and also find help.
As a former champion at Flushing Meadows, I reckon she fancies becoming a two-time winner. More importantly, she must have also known the quality of the other contenders, including the likes of Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek.
Here’s the thing. We can easily juxtapose her strategy in our personal finance. Just like in tennis, when the results of the players’ efforts and goals become evident at various championships such as the Cincinnati Masters and the forthcoming U.S Open, we too get to know the outcome of our efforts and by default, financial goals at regular intervals such as the end of every quarter and half -year.
Thus, if, for example, your goal of living on only seventy percent of your salary had not been achieved throughout the first six months of the year, and perhaps in July as well, you might want to consider changes to your spending strategy. Like Raducanu did, and coupled with finding help in Nadal’s former coach, you too should consider seeking the guidance of a coach. Of course, it’s got to be someone with a specialty in personal finance. That strategy might also mean figuring out ways to scrap that five thousand Naira or £10 away regularly in savings.
So, if your financial goals seem to be turning into nightmares and becoming unachievable, consider changing your strategy. Make the effort to salvage something from those goals by reaching out for help. You might even want to go through some of the previous columns.
Whatever you reckon will help in getting off your dependency on salary advance, give it a trial.
Pleased, to be of help to a young mother
While heading home from a picnic at the Shoreditch park on the penultimate Saturday on a Tottenham Hale bound bus 76, yours truly found himself behind a young mother who didn’t have money on her Oyster card. She definitely didn’t have it on her bank card either.
Interestingly, the woman driver didn’t look sympathetic nor impressed. Not even the sight of the little girl that was clutched to the body of the commuter, of around late twenties, made the driver budge. I heard her tell the driver: “Honesty, I don’t know what happened.”
That was after two taps on the reader and the resultant characteristic sound that the machine makes when you don’t have sufficient funds. It was then I asked the driver: “Can I pay for her?” She shrugged her shoulders to indicate go for it. I was glad to have the opportunity to take care of it.
A few stops later, both mother and her little one got off with their buggy. As she tried unfolding the buggy, I had the feeling of the satisfaction that one got the opportunity of offering a tiny help.
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
