Why You’re Still Broke Even Though You Earn More

You’re earning more money than before—but somehow, you still feel broke. In this episode of The Money Blueprint Podcast, Isaac Nkusi breaks down why increasing your income doesn’t automatically lead to financial stability or wealth, and how lifestyle inflation, poor money management, and lack of financial structure keep many professionals stuck in the same cycle.

If you’ve ever wondered where your salary goes, why saving feels impossible, or why you’re living paycheck to paycheck despite earning more, this episode will help you understand the real problem and what to do about it.

🎧 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

🎧 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

A year ago, Jennifer got some wonderful news from her employer. She's being promoted, moved to headquarters to lead a department as a result of her excellent work managing a rural branch over the last five years. She's getting great benefits, some allowances, and feels like she's being recognized for the considerable efforts she's made over the years with her employer. Now, Jennifer is in my office with a problem keeping her up at night a year later. Her income has more than doubled since the promotion, but her savings haven't moved. So I asked her, what has changed in her lifestyle since her promotion? She tells me that life has changed significantly. Now that she lives in Kigali, her kids are in a more expensive school. She says, I've taken on new responsibilities for extended family members. We took out a low-cost mortgage. We bought a new car because now I have to drive to work and the kids to school, unlike when we were up country and I used to walk everywhere. And the cost of living and networking has risen a lot since I relocated as well. What used to be just a cup of coffee or a cold beer when networking and socializing now has become high-end restaurants, bars, and night outings. I'm living well above my income, out of nowhere. And I've even found myself coming to human resource for salary advances regularly over the last few months. Quite frankly, I'm embarrassed to even share this with you. Never mind how I feel when the HR lead sees me looking for her in the middle of each month, asking for another advance. I'm making more money than ever before, but somehow it feels like I'm financially stuck. Now, if you're listening to this for the first time, hi, my name is Isaac Mhousi. I'm a financial literacy expert focused on decision-making architecture with almost 15 years experience working with organizations, professionals, and highly capable business owners. I want to be very clear about something right from the start. The people I work with aren't struggling because they don't earn enough. That's not the pattern I've seen over the last several years. I work with people who are capable, intelligent, relatively high earning, but they quietly struggle. And when you really analyze what's happening, when you strip away all the surface level explanations for what's going on, you start to see something quite uncomfortable. Most of the people I work with don't have a money problem. They don't even have an investment problem, at least not at the heart of what they're experiencing. They have a financial decision framework problem. And without fixing this, no investment plan or salary increase will help them long term. When your money hits your account, does it automatically go where you need it the most each month? Or is it following a well-thought-out plan you made in advance? If not, then too many influences other than your critical needs are deciding where your money goes and what it does. And you are getting overwhelmed under all that pressure. Let's fix that. You're listening to the Money Blueprint podcast. Look, I want to start with something that might feel uncomfortable, but it's honest. There's a very specific kind of financial frustration I keep seeing over the years and across all manner of professionals. It's a human problem. It's not the frustration of someone who is constantly broke, never earning enough for survival, always asking family and friends for support. It's the frustration of someone who is earning more than they used to a few years back. They're also working harder than they used to as well. But somehow, nothing is really changed in their financial position. They're not much better off despite earning so much more, sometimes a couple times more than they earned just a few years back. Like Jennifer, their financial position has not improved. At least not in any meaningful way. You look at your life and compare it maybe to three to five years ago. Your income is higher, your responsibilities are greater, even your lifestyle looks better from the outside. But internally, inside your heart, your innermost thoughts, it doesn't feel like you've made progress. It just feels it feels like you're heavier, heavier than before. You're under more pressure to perform consistently. And if you fail, others who are close to you will suffer because more people depend on you now than ever before. Rightly or not, whether it's fair that they depend on you or not, this is just the situation you're in. So I want you to really hear me on this. What you're experiencing is not a problem of motivation. It's not an indiscipline problem. What you're looking at, what you're dealing with, is a problem of financial structure. The predictable way your money moves each month. And yes, I did say predictable. Now let me ground this in reality for you for a second. According to data from the World Bank, income growth across many African urban populations, cities like Kigali or Nairobi, Kampala, Lagos, Johannesburg, has been steadily increasing over the past 10 years. Even though the income growth has struggled to keep up with population growth over the last 10 years. Now, more professionals are earning more money than previous generations. That part is true. But here's where it gets a little interesting. A separate trend shows that household financial stress has not been reducing at the same pace of increased salaries. In fact, in many cases, stress has increased with the salaries. And globally, it's even clearer. A study from the OECD showed that even higher income environments, like in the West, increase in income has often matched or been exceeded by increases in consumption spending. Which means people are earning more, but they don't keep more. Now, let's bring this to our context. Because I know that some of you are thinking, yeah, but things are more expensive now. And you're right, inflation is real. The cost of living is rising and will continue to do so. But listen carefully. If your income goes up and your lifestyle expands at the same speed or faster, then inflation is not your biggest problem anymore. You have knowingly become part of a system where every increase in income is immediately absorbed by a more expensive version of your life. So from the outside, you look like you're progressing. But internally, structurally, you're standing still. And this is where most people get it wrong. They think if I can just earn a little more, everything will stabilize. But what actually happens is if you don't fix the system that decides how your money is spent each month automatically, you're just going to upgrade the pressure you're under to maintain a more expensive life. You're always one big enough financial problem from total financial collapse. So, the real question I want to explore in this episode is simple. Why does your salary keep increasing, but your financial security isn't actually evolving? And more importantly, what is the one structural change that breaks this cycle completely? We're about to get into that next. But first, we need to understand something a little deeper about how money behaves in your life when you don't give it instruction. Because what's happening to your money isn't random, it's actually quite predictable. Listen, money doesn't disappear. It doesn't just fall through your fingers, it gets absorbed. And if you don't have a system telling your money where to go, then life will make that decision for you daily, quietly, automatically, and very efficiently. Here's what that looks like in real life. So you get a salary increase, maybe a bonus at work, a new job, a great new client. And at first, it feels like relief, this news. Like you've created some financial breathing room between you and your upcoming bills. But then, small upgrades in your life begin. Not dramatic ones, subtle ones. A slightly better housing arrangement, more frequent eating out or ordering food in, an upgrade to your phone earlier than you planned, helping family a little bit more, saying yes a little bit more often. Individually, none of these decisions feel like they're irresponsible. That's what makes this whole process so dangerous. Because there's no single moment when you realize you stop yourself and say, I'm making a mistake here. But over time, those small, reasonable decisions begin to form a pattern. And that pattern has a name. It's called lifestyle inflation. Now I want you to really hear this. Lifestyle inflation is not a reward, it's a system response. There's actually a concept in behavioral economics called hedonic adaptation. And what it means basically is humans adjust very quickly to improvements in their standard of living. And adjust, I mean adjust upward. What that means is that what felt like an upgrade six months ago quickly becomes your new normal. So you don't feel like you're better off, you don't feel richer, you just feel like you've made an adjustment. And once something becomes normal, you protect it. So now your higher income is no longer creating freedom and future and legacy. What it's doing is it's maintaining a more expensive version of your stable day-to-day life. Let me say that again. Your higher income, your salary increase, your bonus, your new client, your new status, your income isn't building wealth. It's just maintaining a higher cost of living. And this is where the real problem starts. Because now you need your current income level just to sustain your regular lifestyle, not grow anything. And that means you've increased your financial dependency on your job, on bonuses, on new clients without increasing or improving your financial position. So when uncertainty finally hits a job change, a delayed contract, a funding cut, and you have no flexibility, you have no emergency fund, you have no growing assets with additional income streams, now you're under pressure. And that's exactly why even high-functioning, high-earning professionals still feel financially exposed, not because they don't earn enough, but because their money has never been given a clear role, clear instructions, clear performance as soon as that money hits their account. In this scenario, their money is not ordered, it's reactive, it's not executing. So the issue is not how much are you making. The real question you should ask yourself is what system is controlling where my money goes even before I touch it? Because if that system doesn't exist, then every increase in income will quietly disappear, evaporate into your life, be absorbed, as I'd mentioned before. And you'll keep wondering why nothing is changing, why you're not growing. Now, next we're going to make this even more concrete. I'm going to show you exactly how this plays out over time and why this pattern is far more expensive than most people realize. Okay, let's slow this down a little bit. Because up to this point, this might feel a little bit disconnected or abstract. You understand the idea. Income goes up, lifestyle expands, nothing really changes. But I want to make this real for you because the danger of this pattern is not just that you stay the same, is that you lose something far more valuable than just a bump in pay. You lose time. Look, I've shared a version of this before, but I want you to really sit and mellow in this, especially in this context. Two people, same income, same opportunities, same environment. One person decides early to take a portion of their income and give it a job. Let's say$200 a month, nothing extreme, nothing unrealistic. But they do that one thing differently. They don't wait until the end of the month to see what's left. They decide right in the beginning, before their money arrives, they allocate it, they invest it in a 12% per annum interest-earning account. The second person, they earn the same amount of money. Sometimes they even earn a little more. But their financial system, their money management system is different. They spend first, they live first, they respond to life's pressures first. And then what's left over, they'll think about saving. Now, here's where this becomes uncomfortable. According to long-term market data compiled by firms like Vanguard Group and supported across decades of global equity performance, consistent investing, even modest amounts each month, tends to compound at between 8 to 12% annually over long periods. Now, I want you to really get this final part because this is where people underestimate the cost of not structuring your money. If you took$200 or the equivalent, if this person took$200 or equivalent in your local currency and invested it consistently over 20-25 years, they're not just building savings, they're building momentum, compounding momentum that will serve them in their mature life. We're talking about the difference between tens of thousands of dollars in retirement to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, over time. And here's the part that nobody's talking about. The person who delays and waits five, seven, ten years to get serious and get started. The one who has been waiting to save at the end of the month if there's something left over, they don't just lose time. They lose leverage, they lose muscle because compounding doesn't reward effort equally. It rewards early structure. So now to catch up, they don't just need to invest$200 every month. They might need to start investing$400,$600,$800,$1,000 every single month for years, possibly decades, with a lot more pressure, a lot more stress, a lot less flexibility. And here's where all this emotional stress and weight also comes in. Because now saving doesn't feel like a light new habit. It feels like it's forced. Now, discipline doesn't feel empowering, it feels exhausting. And every financial decision carries more weight than it should because of one thing. There was no structure in the beginning. There was no early instruction on what their savings needs to do every month first before this person used their money on spending needs. So let me reframe this in a way that's brutally honest. The cost of lifestyle inflation is not that you enjoy your money. That's not the problem. The cost is that you delay building a system that would have quietly built your future in the background. And once that delay compounds, once that delay adds up, multiplies on itself, you don't just lose money. You lose comfort, you lose ease, you lose options, you most of all lose time. So when people say, I'll get serious about my finances later, what they're really saying is I'm willing to pay significantly more money, significantly more stress, significantly more headache, I'm willing to lose significantly more to achieve the same outcome as somebody who just planned earlier. And most people don't realize they've made this decision until it's too late to take a new course affordably. Now, we're going to bring this back to you, your life, your current situation. Because this isn't just theory. This pattern is already playing out somewhere in your financial life. And once you see it, you will not be able to unsee it. It's easy to listen to what I'm saying and think, yeah, that makes sense, but I'm not sure if this is me. So let's test it. Not theoretically, practically. Look, I want you to think about the last time your income increased. Maybe it was a salary adjustment, a new job, a contract, some kind of bonus, some new allowance. Now ask yourself this. What changed in your financial structure immediately after that increase? Not your lifestyle, not your spending, not the structure you had at the time. Did you decide clearly that a portion of that new income would go somewhere specific, automatically, consistently, or did life just adjust around your bonus, around your increase? This is where most people realize something uncomfortable. Their income changed, but their system didn't. And when your system doesn't change, your life absorbs the difference, as I mentioned before. Let me make this even more real. There are a few signals I see all the time with all kinds of clients. If you recognize even one of these, this pattern is already active in your life today. First, you don't feel poor, but you also don't feel secure. If your income stopped even for a few months, you would feel pressure almost immediately. You've had moments where you've said, I should be further ahead than this. Not because you're comparing yourself to others, but because you know how far you've come and doesn't feel like you've done too much with it. That sentence right there, that quiet frustration, that's not about effort. That's describing a structure problem. Because what you're actually feeling is a gap. A gap between what your income suggests your life should look like and what your financial reality actually feels like. And most people try to close that gap the wrong way. They think, I need to earn more. I need a better opportunity. I need a bigger break. But listen here. If the system doesn't change, more income will not close that gap. It'll just expand your lifestyle and preserve the same underlying problem. Let's go one level deeper because this part really matters. For many of you listening, especially if you're in your late 20s, 30s, or even in your 40s. There's a different layer to this. And that layer is responsibility. Family expectations, support systems, dependence. So when your income increases, it doesn't just expand your lifestyle, it also expands your obligations and the expectations of others. And again, individually, these decisions aren't exactly wrong. They're human, they're cultural, they're very real. But without structure, they become permanent and unsteady. And now your income is not building your future, it's maintaining an ever-growing present. And that is the trap. Because from the outside, you look like you're doing well, but internally, you know something isn't quite adding up. So before we move forward, I want you to sit with one question. Not rushed, but honestly. If your income doubled tomorrow, what system would ensure that your life actually improves, your financial life, instead of just becoming more expensive? If you don't have a clear answer to that, then what you're experiencing right now isn't a money problem. It's a structured problem. Okay, now let's fix it. Not with something complicated, not with 10 different strategies, but with one decision. One simple rule. A rule that most people might avoid because it feels restrictive, like dieting at first. But it's actually the one thing that creates your freedom. Here it is. Your money must be assigned before your life even touches it. I'll say that again. Slower. Your money must be assigned before your life even touches it. Because right now, for most people, the sequence is backwards. You earn, you receive your income, your life begins. Bills, requests from family, comfort from your hard work, convenience, obligations to people, loved ones around you. And whatever survives that process, you consider saving or investing. But listen, that's not a system, that's leftovers. And leftovers don't build anything of consequence. So what we're doing instead is flipping that order in this one rule. Before anything else happens, before spending, before lifestyle, before your decisions from extended families and their requests, a portion of your income is already directed, not based on your mood, on your discipline, but based on a single rule. This is what's known as a pay yourself first system, a principle popularized by people like David Buck, but often is misunderstood because most people treat it as a suggestion. And I want you to treat it as non-negotiable. Here's what it looks like in practice. You decide every time I get paid, 5, 10, 15%, or whatever is realistic for you is automatically moved into investment or a saving system. Every month, automatically, not manually, before your lifestyle expands, before new obligations appear, before new comforts become normal to you. I want you to notice something important. I'm not asking you to reduce your lifestyle dramatically. I'm not asking you to suffer. I'm saying you need to define your future first and let your lifestyle adapt around that. That's the inversion. Because right now your future is adapting to your current lifestyle. And when your lifestyle expands because of inflation, your lifestyle inflation, nothing's left over for your future. That's why nothing's changing. When you install this rule, however, something subtle and powerful begins to happen. Your income increases, but your lifestyle doesn't immediately absorb it. So now you begin to create that gap, and that gap is where wealth is built. Not through effort, not through stress, but through a clear, defined structure. I know that some of you are probably thinking, this sounds simple, and you're right, it is. But simple doesn't necessarily mean that it's easy. Because what you're really doing here is confronting something much deeper. You're deciding my future deserves priority over present comforts, especially expanding present comforts. And that is not a financial decision, it's an identity decision. So before we move on, I want you to answer this honestly with yourself. If your next paycheck came in today, what percent of it already has a job before you spend anything? If the answer is unclear or it's zero, then this one rule alone will change everything about how your money behaves. Look, you don't need a perfect system to start. You don't need five accounts, spreadsheets, or complicated tools. You need just one thing: a clean, simple flow. Let me walk you through it. Your first step is to decide your number, decide a percentage. A number that is realistic, something you can commit to calmly. For some of you, that might be 5%. For others, 10%, 15%, or 20%, but no more than that. The exact number is not your priority. Consistency is. Because a small percentage done consistently beats a high percentage done emotionally once in a while. Step two, and this is where the shift really happens: you separate that money immediately, not later in the month, not when you feel ready. As soon as the money hits your account, a portion moves automatically. This could be a standing order to a savings account, a transfer into an investment platform, a fixed allocation into some kind of fund. The mechanism itself doesn't matter as much as the timing. It must happen before you have a chance to spend your salary. Because if you see it, then you'll justify using it. It's human nature. That's how we are all wired. All right. Step three, and this is where people might get a bit uncomfortable, you build your lifestyle with what remains after saving your 5, 10, 15% of your income. Not the other way around. And this is where discipline comes in. But it's a different kind of discipline. It's not let me try to control my spending. It's more my spending is already constrained by design. That's a completely different experience. Because now you're not constantly negotiating with yourself. The decision has already been made. You're automatically saving a percentage of your income. And what this does over time is reduce the mental stress and load of managing money each month. You stop thinking about should I save this month? Should I invest now or later? Because the system is already doing it. And this is important, especially for those who are busy, responsible, constantly making decisions in other areas of your life. The last place you want stress, strain, or friction is in your financial system. You need money to move even when you're distracted, even when you're tired, even when life gets complicated. That's what a structure does. Now, one more thing I want to address because it always comes up. What if my money is irregular? What if I have growing obligations? What if things change month to month? That's another reason why this system matters so much. Because without it, irregular income becomes chaotic. With it, even irregular income becomes a little bit more structured. You simply apply the same rule. Whatever comes in, so whether it's a big month or a small month, the behavior stays consistent. And consistency is what builds momentum. Not timing, not perfection, consistency. Here's something that many people don't expect when you implement a financial system for your money. Because we've been talking about systems, percentages, automation, but what actually changes is not just your money. It's how you experience yourself around your money. Right now, for a lot of people, money feels unpredictable. Some months you feel like you're in control, other months you don't feel that way so much. Some months you feel like you're ordered and disciplined. Other months, life just happens to you. And over time, that inconsistency starts to affect something deeper in you, your confidence. Not your income, how you feel about your income. Because when your money behaves inconsistently, you start to feel inconsistent. You start to second guess yourself. Am I doing enough? Am I falling behind? Why does it still feel unstable? Here's the truth. That feeling has very little to do with how much you earn and has everything to do with whether your system is a reliable one or not. Now, when you install what we just talked about, that system allocation rule, something changes. Your money starts moving even when you're not thinking about it, which means progress starts happening even if you're not conscious of it, without requiring constant effort from you. And that does something powerful psychologically. It removes decision fatigue. And that's where actual research from institutions like the American Psychological Association shows repeated decision making, especially under uncertainty, drains mental energy over time. Now think about how many micro decisions you make around money every day. Should I spend this? Should I save it? Can I afford this? Can I afford not to look like I can't afford it? That's constant negotiation can get so exhausting. Most people don't fail financially because they don't care. They fail because they get tired. And when you're tired, you default to what's easy. And spending is easy. Structure and management is intentionally hard. But once your system is in place, you remove a large percentage of those decisions from your month-to-month experience. And now instead of feeling reactive, you start to feel stable. Not because everything is perfect, but because something is working in the background that you don't have to consciously pay attention to every month. And this is where identity begins to shift. You stop seeing yourself as someone who is trying to manage money and you start becoming someone who operates with the system. That's a completely different posture because now, when income increases, you don't get excited and lose your structure. You stay consistent. When pressure increases, you don't panic. You are just within a system that already exists. And over time, that consistency builds something that most people are actually looking for, but can't quite put their finger on. Financial calm. Not excitement, not hype, calm. That kind of calm that comes from knowing I'm not guessing anymore. My money is moving even when I'm not watching it, and it's going in the right direction. And that is the beginning of real financial confidence. Confidence that's not based on income, but it's based on purposeful intentional structure. So at this point, you don't need more theory. You need a way to start without turning this into another thing you have to overthink. So I'm going to give you something simple, not easy, but it's simple. Three moves. That's it. Not 10, not 20, not 50. Just three decisions. These decisions begin to shift you. These just three decisions that begin to shift how your money behaves. First, decide your number. Before your next paycheck arrives, choose a percentage. 5, 10, 15%, 20% at maximum, but no more. It doesn't need to be perfect, but it does need to be something that you can consistently maintain. Again, if you pick something unrealistic and an unfortunate life event happens, then your system might break down. So we don't want that. Choose a number that feels slightly uncomfortable but sustainable. That's your starting point. Second, and this is critical, set up the separation. The method doesn't matter. The timing does. It must happen before you have a chance to spend your money on your lifestyle. Because once your lifestyle adjusts, you've lost control of that money. And then finally, this is where most people resist. Don't do anything else for now. Don't try to fix everything. Don't try to optimize every category. Don't try to be perfect overnight. Just let the system work. Because what you were building here isn't a perfect financial plan. You're building a habit and momentum. And momentum doesn't come from doing complex activities, it comes from repetition. Okay, here's something I want you to watch out for. Over the next 30 to 60 days, not in your bank balance, but in your behavior, you'll begin to notice less hesitation, less internal debate, less emotional decision making with your money. Why? Because the most important decision has already been made. Your future has already been prioritized. So everything else becomes easier to manage. And that's the shift. Not from I'm trying to manage money better, but to my system is already doing the work. So let's close this out properly. Because everything we've talked about today comes back to one uncomfortable truth. You're not stuck because you don't earn enough. And you're definitely not stuck because you lack discipline. The issue you're facing is because your money has never been given a true automated structure that forces financial progress. That's it. Forcing financial progress for your future self and those who rely on you. And I want you to really sit with that, marinade in it, not emotionally, but honestly. Because once you see it this way, once that identity becomes clear to you, something will start to shift. You stop blaming your situation. You start taking responsibility for the system you employ in your financial life. And those are two very different, very powerful things: blame and responsibility. Look, most people spend years trying to improve their financial life by earning more money, by learning new information, and by waiting for the right time or whatever other thing they feel like they need. But none of those things solve the underlying cause. Because without structure, more income just becomes more consumption, not development. More knowledge becomes more delay, and the right time, that idea of the right time will never actually arrive. So the question is no longer, how do I make more money? The question is, what system ensures that my money creates progress? It creates assets that generate money for me every single time I earn my salary. Because once that system is in place, everything for you will change. Your income will increase not only from your original source, but from multiple income streams. And your life will actually improve, your irresponsibilities will grow, but your pressure won't. Your future will stop feeling uncertain and it will start feeling achievable, predictable. Not because you can control everything, but because your money is no longer reacting, it's executing with intentionality. All right, this is the shift that I want for you. It isn't dramatic, it's not exciting, it's not hype-filled, but it works. It's structure. And structure is what turns effort into results. It's what turns income into wealth. And most importantly, it what it's what turns intentions into lived reality. So if we take one thing from today's show, let it be this your salaries increasing is not progress. Your system improving is progress. And if your system doesn't change, then truthfully, realistically, nothing else will. All right. In our next episode, we're going to go even deeper because when people understand this, there's another problem that quietly holds them back. They don't actually know where their money is going. And until you fix that, then ultimately you're still operating in the dark. So we're going to break that down on the next show of the Money Blueprint Podcast. But for now, make the decision, install the rule, and let the system begin. But before I leave you today, we've received some questions on our email from a few listeners that my producer is going to read out for us to discuss.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

We have our first question from Joseph38 and living in Kampala. My wife and I both earn, but we've never fully combined our finances. Sometimes I don't even know how much she saves. Is financial transparency necessary for a healthy marriage, or is privacy okay?

SPEAKER_01 41:57

This is an excellent question from Joseph in Kampala. Uh I and I get it often when I talk to couples or families about financial transparency. It's it's it's a relational issue. Yes, this is finance, but this is about how you manage your relationship. I know that not one size fits all in all our different cultures and belief systems, but transparency is extremely helpful. You can prevent waste, you can prevent inefficiency when you're transparent. So if you have a goal as a couple, if you have a goal as a family, pooling all your resources and using them with transparency is going to help you get to your goal with more speed, with less stress, with fewer setbacks. So I do highly encourage that couples are very transparent with their finances, or at least transparent with their structure. Um, and I and I expect that's what I do not only with my own family, but I expect that's something that will help uh Joseph in his circumstance.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Second question from Ruth 29 from Kigali. I'm engaged in planning a wedding. The pressure to make it big is overwhelming. Family expectations, social media, and reputation. We might even take a loan to make it happen. How do you decide between a dream wedding and financial peace?

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Wow, Ruth, this is a very tough one. Family expectation, social media, reputation, all tied into your wedding planning with all the pressures that naturally has is a tough one. And and we live in a culture where it appears more and more that weddings are a statement of um financial might and importance and relevance. So this is a difficult decision to make and an important decision to make as a couple and as immediate family, especially those who are involved in. Planning your wedding, like your potentially your parents, siblings, your immediate family members, close friends. This is part of the decision-making structure that defines your relationship with money. Because frequently through life, you're going to experience situations where you might be pressured to pay for the appearance of something as opposed to the value of the thing. Because again, of the same things you brought up: family expectations, uh, societal expectations, reputation, um backbiting gossip in the in in social networks, all these things. Um it's not an easy decision to make because it depends on, from a philosophical position, how you identify yourself and your household. In my home, we address this problem by letting people know, letting our family know that we're going to have a beautiful but in-budget wedding. And whatever consequences that arise is just what it's going to be. Because we are adamant, we were adamant that we didn't want to have a very expensive wedding. Uh, the wedding wasn't cheap by any means, but we weren't going to have a wedding that leaves us broke or even worse in debt. And that it just didn't make sense to us. It's not who we want to be as a couple. And I'm very grateful for my wife having this mindset with me. And and we've gone through all kinds of uh financial struggles over the years as a couple with uh having our children, um, with our family obligations as well. But having this identity right in the beginning has significantly supported our development as a couple and as a family. So I would encourage taking time to think about who you identify as as a family, as you and your spouse, the family, the home you want to build, the culture you want as a couple, um that is going to determine what sacrifices you can and cannot make in order to live up to that identity.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Last question from Kelvin26 and also from Kigali. The moment my salary comes in, it's like it already has owners: rent, transport, food, and airtime. By the time I think about saving, there's almost nothing left. How do you build savings when your income already feels fully allocated?

SPEAKER_01 46:46

Excellent question, Kelvin. Um, it's as if he had preempted today's discussion topic before sending in his question. This is exactly what we've been talking about today. It does feel, Kevin, sorry, Kelvin, it does feel that um our money can be decided. Our income might be decided. It might at least feel that way, even before we get access to it. We have to pay our landlord or our mortgage, we have to pay for transport, food, all kinds of expenses and responsibilities. We might have debt that we need to take care of as well. And the reality is, as I'd mentioned before, the only money that's truly yours, Kelvin, is the money that you keep. And that's the reason why paying yourself first is such a critical concept. Setting aside money for yourself in advance of paying any of your other bills. Now, obviously, tax is going to go immediately before you even get your paycheck. The government is taxing your income. And you should even think about why that is. The government is paying itself first before allowing you to spend your money on your lifestyle. So why not do the same thing? Adopt the same structure is so critically important. Because when you pay yourself first and then allocate that money to something that is productive, that can access additional income streams for you, then you're actually building something, you're implementing something consistent. But we want to do one thing at a time. So again, I would suggest listening to this episode. We probably have if you're come this far. But even more so, take this very, very seriously. Pay yourself first, introduce structure into the way you use your money, make it automated, 5%, 10%, 15% of your income, send it to a savings or investment account, and then spend what's left over. If you start by spending, there is never anything left over. So that might be helpful. Thank you again for these questions. They're excellent. Thank you, Kelvin. Ruth, that was really touching a very difficult, a difficult struggle that many young people planning weddings in our context deal with. And I'm pretty sure this is a problem globally. Um I look forward to discussing more of your questions on our next episode of the Money Blueprint Podcast. 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.

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