Building wealth as a young person is a huge task. It’s easy to get tempted by simple luxuries and focus on accumulating liabilities instead of assets.
Liabilities don’t generate any income for us and they eventually end up being a burden. Assets on the other hand, improve your financial prospects. Here are three assets you can buy when your next paycheck comes:
1. Shares
One of the simplest and easiest assets to buy is shares. By buying shares, you become part owner of the company and the profits they make also trickle down to you. With as little as Ksh 2000, you can buy shares from any public trading company at the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Once you open a CDS account through your bank, you can trade through a stock broker. Some banks and brokers also allow for clients to make mobile phone transactions. Instead of spending your money on yet another phone you absolutely do not need, think of directing your earnings to something as simple as shares and build up with time.
2. Books
Here’s something you should consider: it’s important to actually buy books, even if it’s online, as opposed to downloading it from free sites. This is because when you pay to get value, you will ensure you get your money’s worth from the book. When you get books for free online, most of the time, you end up not making adequate use of them. Books are vital assets because they contain the knowledge you need to succeed. Another tip when buying books is once in a while, buy books that are not in your usual area of interest and learn something new. Curiosity, quenched by books, is valuable on your mission to build wealth.
3. Investments
There are tons of investment packages you can get into. From M-Shwari, to money market funds to saccos. Instead of spending your money on more items of clothing which you probably do not need, think of channeling the resources to an investment platform. Investing earns you money that you can always use for a rainy day. It’s also important to do a bit of research before committing to any investment plan so that you are aware of what you’ll get after a given period of investing and how charges would affect your savings.
As youngsters, we often spend more on liabilities such as unnecessary loans which lead to bad debt, buying unnecessary gadgets, clothes that we had not budgeted for and this hampers our growth. All it takes is a simple change in mindset on how to acquire more assets over time as opposed to what will weigh us down.