This is a question many people ask daily. Many South Africans struggle with finances and most feel they just need more money, and everything will be fine. The problem is most people don’t even know how much “more” is. Is it R1000.00 once off or per month more? Is it R10 000.00 once off or per month more? Maybe a R100 000 once off or per month more? How about R100 million once off and all the trouble will go away.

The problem with this is, the more you have, the more you want! Most people have not identified how much they really need to survive or thrive when it comes to financial income or have put any thought into how much prosperity will cost them. Most people are also happy with just surviving and don’t want to live in abundance. There is a quote that states “Financial literacy is not a byproduct of wealth, but wealth is a byproduct of financial literacy.’’ This means you need to be able to budget, plan and save when your income is relatively low, so that when the time comes that you have substantial wealth, you already have all the tools and knowledge to properly handle that wealth and not squander everything you worked for.

Here are tips on how to become financially literate, plan better and increase your income:

1. Budgeting: With budgeting you will be able to see how much money you have flowing in every month, and how much money you have flowing out. You will be able to see where money is foolishly spent, and where spending can be cut, and holes can be plugged. Changes in spending can also be brought on to lessen spending. For instance, instead of buying lunch every day, lunch can be packed and brought from home. Many things that are bought can also be made at home. Such as beer or other alcoholic beverages. This can then also be sold in small amounts to generate a little more income, a passive income, if you will.
2. SAVE: You need to start learning how to save money. This will do 2 things in turn. It will help you develop financial literacy skills, and 2, it will take away a portion of your spendable money and you’ll be less prone to impulse buy products you don’t need as you will not have the money to do so.
3. Side hustle/passive income: A lot of people look for something that generates massive financial gain with very little effort. Such a thing does not exist. Any new venture or business needs a lot of attention and effort to make it a success. Look at your hobbies or things you like doing to start a passive income or side hustle. Because you’re already passionate about the hobby, you’ll automatically have more of an interest in it. Now find out how are you going to make people pay you for your product or services. Work on your hobbies/side hustle in your free time, and over time you’ll see it grow and it will start to take up much of your time> that is when you get someone to help you with that business and that is how you can turn that into your full-time income creator.
4. Write down financial goals in order for you to know what you are working for and devise a plan to get there. Warren Buffet says, “an idiot with a plan will beat a genius with a plan any day”. This will help calibrate your brain to start thinking differently as you have coded your brain to focus on those financial goals, which will make you goals more attainable.

All of the above is part of the sacrifice you will need to make to understand how money works, and learning vitally important financial literacy skills to be able to build real wealth! By learning all the skill mentioned above, you learn the importance of financial literacy and you’ll learn the fundamental skills millionaires and billionaires implement everyday to build their wealth even greater!.

Go to www.novaseek.co.za to speak to our financial wellbeing consultants who are here to assist people who want to become wealthy in more than one way!