When borrowing from my wife came in handy

As a Yoruba proverb I heard several times from my parents while growing up states, “may God not let you lack money. Be it yours or someone’s own.” This has stayed with me all these years. It seems that’s even one of the principles on which banking is built. Follow the drift.

Having your wife at home on the first working day of the week can be a blessing. Even though I’d always been a beneficiary of that on countless occasions, it took a new dimension last week, Monday, June 22nd.

It all began when, as it’s my practice, I’d checked in at the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NGX, before the market was to open shortly after 9.30 am. Having shown up before the start of the business day, the situation of all the stocks was as it ended on Friday.

Yours truly had taken a number of positions and by the time I worked my way down to where First Holding Company, First Holdco, was, there was barely anything in my brokerage account. Ordinarily, that shouldn’t have mattered.

Here’s the thing, though. On checking the status of the company and seeing that the share price was down by over nine percent, my head was quickly in calculus mode. The reason was because it’s a rarity seeing First Holdco shares down by that margin. But as already mentioned, there was nothing left in my brokerage reserves. That meant I couldn’t get a piece of the action.

Thankfully, the wife had already set her stall out and was doing her own thing on her laptop by then. I reached out to her and asked if she had some money in her Nigerian accounts. When asked what I wanted to do with the over twenty thousand grand I asked to borrow, I told her of the market situation and my predicament.

Within minutes, she wired the funds. With that borrowed money, I snapped up the required quantity of First Holdco shares that I fancied. Watch this. Before the close of business, her money was back in her account.

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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