I’m Making Money, So Why Am I Still Broke?

You earn money. Your career is growing. Your income is better than it was a few years ago.

So why does it still feel like you’re constantly starting from zero?

In this episode of The Money Blueprint Podcast, Isaac Nkusi tackles one of the most frustrating financial questions many professionals face:

• “Where did my salary go?”
• “Why can’t I save consistently?”
• “Why do I feel broke even when I’m earning more?”

This episode breaks down the hidden reasons behind the earn-more-but-stay-broke cycle and what you can do to finally take control of your finances.

🎧 The Money Blueprint Podcast is about turning financial knowledge into execution — helping you build wealth with clarity, discipline, and structure.

🎧 New episodes of Money Blueprint  every Monday 

Have a question? Email: themoneyblueprintpodcast@gmail.com

Produced by LF Media

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

So today's story is about regret. Back in 2021, I believe it was, I met and worked with a very prominent doctor to talk about personal finance management. And we went into a lot of detail about how he how much money he makes, how he uses his money, the responsibilities that he has. We also talked about how long he's been drowning. He makes upwards of$15,000 a month. He's a specialist. He has several decades of experience in his field. He's a husband, he's a father, he's a provider. He's responsible with people's lives, not just with money.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Extremely responsible person. But drowning financially.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

What we talked about was the goals that he has for himself, the time that he has left to work to achieve those goals, and the kind of income streams that he would like to see come to fruit with the few years that he has left to work. I think he wanted to work for another 15 years before he retires. And for him, retirement means that he still wants to be able to do professional work, but he doesn't want to have to work to meet his lifestyle and his obligations. So that's what he defines as retirement. And I 100% agree with him. It's a perfect description. Retirement doesn't mean that you're not doing anything, it means that you don't have to work to live your current lifestyle. You have money coming in to manage how you'd like to live from now until the day you go to rest. And we talked about these topics. But when we were done, he said something to me that has stuck and makes him memorable to me as a client more than many others. He looked at me dead in my eye and said, Why weren't you here 30 years ago to tell me these things? I've always known that I was supposed to invest in different income streams. I've always known that I have to be more reliant on other forms of income other than my salary. But there's just so much information out there. There's so many options. There is so much information that I feel overwhelmed when it comes to, I felt overwhelmed when it comes to how to invest my money. And when I feel overwhelmed, I tend to take a step back and look for more clarity. Unfortunately, taking a step back has meant more than 20 years of my life not doing what I know I should have done. And that is the cost of procrastination. Today's Money Blueprint podcast episode is about the cost of not having structure in your finances and how that affects your ultimate lifestyle and financial future. The way you use your money as soon as it hits your account will determine whether you're successful, financially speaking, over your lifetime, or whether you just pay bills and work and pay bills and work and eventually die. That's what structured money management means compared to what I call reactive money management, which we talked about in the second episode of the Money Blueprint podcast. If your money knows what it's supposed to do, as soon as it hits your account, as soon as you get paid, your money is informed about where it's supposed to go, what your priorities are for that month, and most importantly, what you're building, then it's only a matter of time until you achieve your financial goals. Because your money knows what to do. If, on the other hand, your money just reacts to life as it happens. Money hits your account after payday, relatives call because they need financial support from you. You are the golden child of your family. You are the rock that everyone relies on. And it is reinforcing to you that you are dependent upon.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

But your money doesn't have a plan.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

The fact that you are supporting others is going to be the reason that you don't achieve your financial goals. Not that supporting others isn't a beautiful responsibility, but supporting without structure is destruction.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Structure is the difference.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

If your money is reacting every month to the needs of that month, the appetites of that month, you are going from zero to a hundred with your bank account each month, and then back to zero.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

And that will continue year after year, generation after generation. It will be your legacy. So here's what Dr.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Shema could have done differently 30 years ago. Structuring your money simply means Dr. Shemma at the beginning of every month, not when his paycheck arrives. Dr. Shema is sitting down with his significant other or whoever else helps him make his financial decisions, and he's budgeting out how much money he's paying for rent and sending that money to his landlord, or in a different circumstance, maybe that's a mortgage that he's paying. How much money he's setting aside for his needs every month. Priority is always needs. That's where you start. Then, how much money is Dr. Shema setting aside for his debt to make sure that his debt doesn't grow? A relatively small amount. Doesn't have to be pay off your debt as immediately as possible. He's setting aside critically 5, 10, or 15% of his money every month to save and invest for his future. And then he's setting aside a small amount every month to enjoy, to have a good time, to prepare for vacations, to go out and have a drink with his friends, or have a dinner with a significant other. But this structure organizes exactly where his money is going each month, and he doesn't have to decide and firefight each time he gets paid because his money has a job. Saving and investing is the only money that Dr. Shemma keeps for himself. Everything else is for other people. Your rent money is for your landlord or for the bank. Your groceries is for the grocer or the fresh food market. The fuel that you put in your car is for the fuel company. The only thing that he keeps, him and his significant other, is what he saves for his future and what he invests today to grow for the harvest season. That's the money that will help him afford his lifestyle goals. And that money not existing, not being planned for, not being structured, that was his regret. If we draw down to the core of the problem, that is where he feels regret. There has never been any amount of money that he has kept aside for investing and emergencies. He's just been dealing with emergencies as they come straight out of his bucket. If you want to be different, this is the silver bullet. This is the great secret that you're searching for. Diligent, boring, consistent. 5 to 15% of your income every month being set aside, and everything else being planned for during the month that you need, that you must pay for because you have debt, and that you want in that order prepares you for your financial future. It's not glamorous, it's not shocking, but without this consistent habit, there is a limited chance for you to succeed with your money. It's almost everything. Okay, so let's come back to Dr. Shema. He's not 25, 30 years old anymore. He's in his 50s. What can I do now? I should have been saving 5, 10, 15% of my income. I should have been investing it in long-term assets to give me money when I'm in my retirement. But I haven't started. I'm 50 now, in my 50s, and you weren't here 30 years ago to tell me what I should do then.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

So what do I do right now? So my answer to him was it's almost the same.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

What needs to change about your behavior now in your mid-50s as opposed to mid-20s is that you need to be more intentional about the risks that you take. If you had 30, 40, 50 years to grow your money as a 20-year-old, you could have taken the slow scenic route to get to your financial goals. You could have invested in mutual funds, you could have invested in uh slow growth ETFs. You could have taken the slow way to retirement, but you don't have 40 years anymore. You probably want to take a more aggressive approach. So you want to consider still investing a portion of your money in government bonds, in ETFs, and in mutual funds, but you also want to consider what are the brands that you consume and people like you consume as well. You're an iPhone user. You're going to continue using iPhones, and your tribe of iPhone users will continue buying and using iPhones. Do you own any shares in Apple? And if you are adamant that you're going to continue using Apple, and people like you, tribal consumers of Apple products, will continue doing so into the future, that means that you have an opportunity to earn from every iPhone Apple product user around the world when they buy if you own shares. And if the product is good enough for you to consistently use, it's good enough for you to own. That was Dr. Shema's story. That was his situation. I don't have access to the New York Stock Exchange or the London Stock Exchange. I have 10 to 15,000 francs or$10,000 to$15 to invest on a monthly basis. Apple isn't accessible to me. And to that I say you are sorely mistaken. You have access wherever you are in our modern information age to resources that you can use to invest locally and internationally, here in the Rundan context. You could pop over to BK Capital and inquire about interactive brokers. You could use platforms online and find what works for you and use them to invest in all international, well, most of the internationally traded stocks and different assets. You could even access silver and gold as an alternative for your investments. What's holding you back is not that you don't have access. What's holding you back is you don't have relevant information. Personally, I use Binance, I use Coinbase, I use international tools to invest, like these. But that's also because these are the asset classes that I'm interested in. Each one of us needs to invest in the tools and with the resources that suit our goals and our objectives. So where do you start? Start by knowing and hearing that information and application of that information is the beginning, not action first. You need structure, like I shared with Dr. Shema. You need your money to know each month where it's going and what it's doing, particularly what it's building. And then from there, visit your local investment bank, visit your local stock exchange, go online and do research about which trading platforms are available in your market and get started. Potential without application is just a dream. You need to take action. Some people say, look, this is great advice, but I just don't have enough money. Some people say, I barely make ends meet month on month as it is right now. How do you expect me to save and invest when I can barely afford my bills? Some people say that inflation is just too great to overcome. What's the point of all this if I can't get ahead because of the rate of inflation? To these questions and resistance, I say this. Inflation is a real problem. But the opportunity that you have when you organize and structure your money is that now you have an opportunity to grow at a rate higher than inflation. I get it. Inflation can be double digits depending on where you are on the African continent and even globally. 10%, 11%, even more. But what is your alternative? Bury your head in the sand and act as if these problems don't exist. That only makes your whole and your legacy that much more permanent when it comes to poverty, when it comes to financial lack and binding. When you invest, when you plant your money seed, you are employing patience, you're employing structure, you're employing intentionality, and you're taking advantage of the awesome power of time and compound interest. There is no amount of working that you can do in any field that can come near to the creative power of compound interest. So if you condemn yourself to the idea that you can't get this done because life is against you, then your mindset is holding you back from your success. I understand if you're not making enough money to meet your obligations each month, if you're not making enough money to pay your rent, if you're not making enough money to buy your groceries, if you're not making enough money to get back and from work, then that's a different conversation. You need survival skills. But if you're in a position where you can survive month on month, maybe not with all the luxuries you wish you had, but you can survive, then you owe it to yourself, and more importantly, you owe it to those who depend on you to take 5, 10, 15% of what you earn and plant it for the future. There is no alternative. Before we leave today, I'd like to answer some questions that we've received on our email from our listeners. My producer is going to read a few and we're going to answer them as they come. Remember that if you have a question or a contribution to the show, send us an email at the MoneyBlueprint Podcast at gmail.com and we'll be happy to receive and answer them.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

My name is Kevin, I'm 27, and I live in Nairobi. I have a decent job in tech and I earn more than I ever thought I would at this age. But somehow, by the 20th of every month, I'm broke. I don't even know exactly where the money goes. Food delivery, outings, small, small not things. How do I build discipline without feeling like I'm punishing myself?

SPEAKER_01 19:39

That's an excellent question. And it ties directly to the conversations that we've had on the show. What we're describing is structureless income. I make good money, but I have it goes places that I don't know exactly where. It might be going to clothes, it might be going to outings, it might be going to obligations with family. I don't know exactly where my money ends up. Here is the structural solution. You have to have a sense of balance. You know, the Asians have this wonderful yin and yang concept. You have to have balance with your money. You can't be lawless and expect to progress and advance with your money. What I mean by lawless, you have X amount of money on your account and you're just going to spend it however you feel. Doing that means that you're a firefighter, you're a reactive money manager. How you handle your money in a structured way, set aside an amount of money you want to spend every month on having a good time. Set aside the amount of money you want to spend every month on family obligations. Set aside an amount of money you want to spend on your future. When you have these amounts or percentages of your income set aside each month, you no longer have to feel like you are on a strict money diet, so to speak. What you're doing is organizing your fun and enjoying responsibly. As they say on our uh responsible drinking adverts all over the place. Don't drink and drive, right? Arrive alive. It's the same concept with your funds. So you are going to have to be controlled. That's something that you have to accept. Control is a good thing. But make space for having a good time in your budget. Make space for planning for your future.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

The second email we've received is from Patrick. He's 25 and from Kigali. He says, I've been saving money in my account, but people keep Telling me I'm losing money to inflation. When do you move from saving to investing? And how do you know you're ready?

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Well, if you're asking the question, you're probably ready. It means that it's troubling you. The reality is, I say it all the time: cash is milk. Cash is great, whether it's cash in your wallet, whether it's cash online, on your mobile money, whether it's cash in your bank account. It's milk. And this is what I mean. When you press fresh milk from the cow, you have this extremely nutritious drink. But milk doesn't last. If you keep it stored in your fridge, somewhere around you for a couple of days, it will spoil. Your cash that you earn from your employer or wherever you earn your cash from, it immediately starts to spoil if you store it somewhere. So, what should you be doing to prevent your money from spoiling? And by spoil, I mean it suffers the consequence of inflation. Every year, your money can do less than what it could do the year before. That's just the reality of currency. So, what should you do? Keep some of your money in a savings account after the structuring that we talked about, the structured management of your funds, putting together a budget. The next thing you want to do is keep a certain amount of money in an emergency fund. An emergency fund historically is about three to six months of your needs budget, the things that you need to stay alive. And that's the only real reason to save in my book. It's just for an emergency fund. And that exists because life happens. And you need emergency funds, COVID happens, you lose a job, you need to survive X number of months to a year until you can find a new job or a new source of income. That's what the emergency fund is for. Other than that, your money needs to start growing. And if your money just stays saved up in a savings account, like seed in a silo, it's going to spoil. You need to store it up and plant it in a field, plant it in a mutual fund, plant it in a government bond, plant it in uh international stocks, but it has to be planted. Listen, if you are troubled with the cost of inflation, the way you combat the cost of inflation is by compounding your money at a rate greater than the inflation rate.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Last question from Tracy, 26, and working in Kigali. Every time my salary increases, my lifestyle also increases. Better apartment, better clothes, and more brunches. I don't feel richer, just busier. How do you upgrade your life without upgrading your expenses?

SPEAKER_01 25:16

So you just don't do that. I guess that's about as straightforward a question as you can ask. You can't upgrade your life without upgrading your expenses. It's two sides of the same coin. If you're going to elevate your lifestyle every time you get an income and in an increase in your income, then you're always going to be near broke because you made the equivalent of$500,$750,000 ronda francs, if we're talking the Running context, and you're spending 80% of that on your lifestyle. And then your income doubles because you get a promotion. And now you decide to live in a house which is double your previous rent. And you are using a mode of transportation which is double the expense that you were using previously before your promotion. If that's your lifestyle, then you're always going to live near broke. Or worst case scenario, you're living beyond your means, which many of us do actually. So what is the solution? The solution is a mindset shift. You are living a good life. And a good life doesn't necessarily mean all the newest what's it, the newest things on the market, the newest material possessions. A good life means balance between where you are right now and where you want to be in your financial future. If we don't keep an eye on this, what means, what it means for us is that we're going to enjoy all our money today. And when tomorrow comes, we'll have an empty cabinet, empty cupboard, no food in the storehouse. And that is a very sad state. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that today's conversation has given you some of the tools that you need to create the life you want with your money. If you have any questions you'd also like answered, feel free to send them to our email, themoneyblueprintpodcast at gmail.com. You can also reach out to us on our social media platforms. Have a great week.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

Do not make decisions before consulting a qualified professional. This podcast is brought to you by LF Media, home of great African podcasts.