DARE TO BELIEVE

Posted by centsiblewoman on May 14, 2012 in Blog | 1 comment

Faith is believing in the unseen. The main obstacle we face when it comes to money is not having this Faith.  We may have our objectives and goals established but we don’t always know the how and this tends to discourage us from moving forward. You want to buy a house but when you calculate the cost of even the mortgage repayments, it may look like a lost cause. I have said in my previous articles that financial goals will stretch you – do you decrease your expenses or find a way of increasing your income?  However to support those two actions, we need to ask ourselves do we believe we can do it or do we believe we deserve what it is we have established as a goal.

Personal Financial Management Course

Posted by centsiblewoman on May 11, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments

We have been humbled and excited to see the various ways in which people have made positive changes in their lives, and determined to keep our material and content relevant to what you need. As part of our ongoing initiative in empowering you to take the next step to wealth creation, we will from May 16th, 2012 be offering our third intake to the  structured course on Personal Financial Management which will be covered over 10 weeks, with your attendance required once a week. The aim of this program is to ensure that you are able to come up with your own financial plan/strategy and be equipped to take the necessary steps in making that happen through investments. From our success stories over the years we believe that people create the most wealth when they can be motivated and educated to proactively manage the process themselves, therefore in each section/module you will be doing practical exercises on yourself to ensure that the learning can be immediately applied. The course content is built from practical experiences, professional Insights into investments, and includes a lot of the feedback we received from you. We look forward in walking this journey with you.

For the details of the course and the content click here.

SIMPLE INTEREST VS REDUCING BALANCE LOANS.

Posted by centsiblewoman on Apr 26, 2012 in Blog | 3 comments

Kamau is window shopping for a five year loan.  There is a good investment opportunity that has arisen and he does not have all the funds he needs to access it.  He is anxious about the rates he will be able to get because of the currently high interest rate environment. He first walks into the first bank and they give him a quote of 20% p.a. He then approaches a second bank and much to his surprise they give him a rate of 15% p.a. everyone he talks to tells him that is a good offer, as there are hardly any institutions offering that kind of rate in the current environment. It therefore becomes very obvious what his preferred option is.

WHAT ARE UNIT TRUST INVESTMENTS?

Posted by centsiblewoman on Apr 13, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments

A lot of people seem to think they have invested in Unit Trusts. In fact a lot of people think they have invested in the company that is managing the Unit Trust.  A guest speaker I had at one of my classes helped us put this thinking into perspective recently.

What is a Unit Trust?  A unit trust is a vehicle that is used to pool resources from different investors with the same objective.

THE IMPORTANCE OF RECORD KEEPING

Posted by centsiblewoman on Apr 5, 2012 in Blog | 3 comments

Simon decided to pull up his bank account statements for the last three years and go through them. He realised that the bank had debited him twice, a year ago for a cheque of Kes 15,000 that he had written out for school fees. Susan going through the same exercise realised that the lump sum payment of Kes 500,000 that she made to reduce her mortgage had not been credited.  Therefore she was still paying interest on a large amount when she should have been charged interest on a reduced amount. Janet realised that a bonus payment of Kes 200,000 from her insurance policy that was supposed to be paid six months ago, had not been paid. She could have invested that bonus and earned some additional money in returns.

SAVING FOR EMERGENCIES

Posted by centsiblewoman on Mar 30, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments

Fred has a good job he enjoys with a local marketing company.  This week, he was called in by his boss and advised that the company had lost one of its major clients (due to no fault of Fred).  Because of loss of this account, the company’s revenues would take a beating and unfortunately they have to lay off staff. Fred is unfortunately one of the people who have been laid off. This news came as a complete surprise to Fred. He had just bought a new car financed with a loan and he has a young family.  To many of us this may be something we are going through, have gone through or can go through.

YOUR HOME IS NOT AN INVESTMENT

Posted by centsiblewoman on Mar 23, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments

Jennifer has had fruitful working life and is now due to retire. Her plans for retirement are to spend time travelling and visiting her children who now live in various countries and do some volunteer work.  Jennifer has finished paying off her mortgage in her house in Langata. She is also going to receive a lump sum pension payment. Five years down the road Jennifer’s pension money is fast running out and she has to take a hard look at some of the financial decisions she made.