Starting Life After School
In this post, I will be sharing with you my experience starting life as a university graduate from the KNUST. I completed school in the year 2013 with a degree in Aerospace Engineering.
As a young graduate from the university, I was paid an amount of GHS 800. Now GHS 800 and living in Accra, I spend GHS 300 on rent, GHS 200 on transportation, GHS 300 on food, GHS 200 for clothes etc and a Christian like me I have to pay GHS 80 as tithe. You can see at this point the expenses have exceeded the salary. If care is not taken you might have to borrow money to pay your debts. Then what happens is that next month’s salary is used to pay off your old debts and on and on. This situation is what we called “Robbing Peter to pay Paul” and then like in Robert Kiyosaki’s Book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” you remain in the Rat Race.
So the big question is how do you live with the GHS 800 you have received as salary and still save towards your future ??.
I will share with you three key lessons I learnt from some books I read some time ago and also my experience living in Accra as a young graduate.
Pay Yourself First
I learnt this from the book title “Richest Man in Babylon” and also from the book “Think and Grow Rich”, some great books I read. The idea is to set a percentage aside from your income as a reward for your work. Now come to think of it you pay your rent so why not pay yourself too?. The secret of success is learning to pay yourself first. If you are a Christian, after paying your 10% as tithe, the next thing is to set aside a percentage to pay yourself which will serve as your future investment. Starting up, I paid myself 10%. But now I pay as high as 40% to myself of every paycheque that comes to my hand. The whole idea is to start small and grow the percentage. Without this attitude, you might not have any seed money to use for investment in the future.
Have A Plan
This is very very important, there is a saying that if you don't know where you are going then everywhere is your destination. It is also said that failure to plan is planning to fail. If you don't have SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time Based) goals then it is hard to measure growth and success. So starting I told myself I wanted to save GHS 200 every month, wanted to read a book every two weeks, wanted to rent my own place in three months since I was staying with a friend by then. These were just a few of the goals I had and I worked hard at them. Though I have not achieved some at least I knew I had failed at it. Remember the goals have to specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based.
Live Within Your Means
This is the last thing I want to talk about in this post. When we are starting life we are tempted to compare ourselves to others. I can remember some of my friends buying cars immediately we completed school because they landed a good job. Some of them rented apartments costing GHS 300/month, others bought air conditions for their rooms etc. At the same time, I was living in an apartment that was costing GHS 120/month. Now because I knew I did not have that amount, I lived within my means. The point I am making here is that you should know what works for you and stick with it. Don’t make decisions because someone else is doing it.
Finally, I want to say that if you really want to see a change in your life then you have to do something now.
Remember, Nothing happens if you do nothing.
I strongly believe if you stick to these few thoughts I shared, you will look back someday and smile.
