In trying to build wealth we are usually told that it starts with saving, that is paying yourself first before making expenses. Save, save, save. Then we are told that after saving, investing is the next step. Recently the Tony Elumelu Foundation posted a video on their social media page where their Chairman, Mr Tony Elumelu reiterated the same steps for budding entrepreneurs who were gathered together in one of their training programs, emphasizing the need to save and delay gratification, then invest, as a means of breaking the chain of poverty and moving up the ladder. Undoubtedly these are golden principles which are tested and trusted, and have stood the test of time.
However in the execution of these principles, sometimes we fall into another trap, the trap of falling in love with a fat bank account or cash in hand. A growing or fat bank account especially as a result of saving usually gives a sense of fulfilment and a high level of confidence, making one forget that saving is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. And when this is not checked one can veer off to another extreme of just enriching the banks with one's fat bank account, becoming so attached to money. I have seen this happen to several people, to the extent that they found it difficult to spend on themselves and their families, the end game was just to see their bank accounts grow fat.
Wealth building however, is not about stashing liquid cash away or keeping it in bank accounts. It is about building your assets, not just your cash reserves. It is about building income generating assets that grow in value over time. It is about leveraging the 8th wonder of the world, Compounding, as is attributed to Albert Einstein. In fact, some of the richest people in the world are not cash rich, rather they are asset rich, and sometimes borrow against their assets to fund their lifestyle or other projects.
So in building wealth, when you save, your aim should never be to derive joy and satisfaction from a fat bank account or from liquid cash. That is still an offshoot of the poverty mentality and should be detoxified from your system. Rather focus on growing your assets, especially income generating assets that ensure consistent cashflow, which can either be used to fund lifestyle or to fund other investments for compounding purposes. You can have savings required for family upkeep for some months (say six months in case of job loss) in your bank account as usually advised by Personal Finance experts. Any savings beyond that should not be for the sake of saving, but to invest in assets, especially income generating assets that compound. And when you are saving against a future investment consider saving in a mutual fund or a fixed deposit account, not just in a regular savings account, so that that money can be generating some good interest until you are ready to deploy it.
For instance, if you are saving to invest in a real estate property, you can consider saving that money in a Money Market Fund at a 20% per annum interest rate (currently obtainable in Nigeria), until you have saved up to the amount that you require for the property and are ready to buy it. The interest you would have earned from that Money market fund can then be used for other purposes, as a against saving it in a Bank Savings account which would not yield anything significant within the same period. When people hear that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has a huge cash pile of hundreds of billions of dollars waiting for the right opportunity to deploy, they think that it is in liquid cash. However, it is usually in government treasury instruments yielding interest. The majority of Berkshire's cash hoard is held in short-term US Treasury bills, which are considered almost as good as cash and generate risk-free returns for the company.
In conclusion, every time you have money lying uninvested in your bank account, you are enriching the bank and not allowing your money to work for you to generate interest or capital appreciation. Emancipate yourself from the joy of a fat bank account, and move up to the Joy of compounding. Put your money to work for you.
Happy investing!
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