The basics of Investing.

Hello Friends.

Happy New Month. This is my first post in the new month, even though the month is almost half-way gone.

I decided to change my writing pattern, as it seems, I don't write consistently on the day of the week, that I've chosen to be my 'writing day'. So I have decided to post as the spirit leads me. ***smiles***

Today, we will be talking about Investing.

Recall that in my first post, I made a list of questions I asked friends and colleagues, and decided to post their replies, and my opinions as we progress.The questions we will be dealing with today are:

Do you believe in investing?
Do you have any investments?

I had mixed feelings, when I got the reply to these questions. Infact my feelings/reaction were bitter-sweet. This happened because to a large extent, I absolutely loved people's answers to the first question, but their answers to the second question, had me 'hmmming' for lack of a better word.

Most people believe in investing, and know they need to invest in assets(somebody praise the Lord), but they believe that they need to hammer, or have a large pool of funds before they invest. Thus, they are of the opinion that they cannot invest with whatever they have at the moment.

Someone actually put it his way: "Lola, I don't have that kind of money now, but don't worry, make I just hammer. na then, you go know say I sabi invest"

My response to this school of thought (you can't invest until you hammer is) : NO NO NO!!!!!!

You can invest with whatever you have. Friends, you can invest with as low as Fifty thousand naira (N50,000). You absolutely don't have to 'hammer' before you invest, you can start small.

This is where mutual funds come in (I'll talk more about how mutual funds work in my next post).

You can also decide to save (via ajo or escrow) as discussed in earlier posts, in order to pool funds , and invest this lump sum when you get the funds. This option, however, requires a lot of discipline. You have to strictly spend the savings on investments.

Waiting to pool funds might not be favourable (remember time value of money), as prices of things (investments inclusive) go up in the future.

My final word or tonight is this: "Don't leave till tomorrow, what you can do today"- (borrowed).

Start investing today. Start small, re-invest your earnings/proceeds.

I hope I have been of help tonight.

Till next time.

'Lade

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