Why You Don’t Know Where Your Money Is Going (And How to Fix It)

You think you know where your money is going—but you probably don’t. In this episode of The Money Blueprint Podcast, Isaac Nkusi breaks down why most people underestimate their spending and how small, everyday expenses quietly add up to significant financial loss over time. 

If you’ve ever wondered why your money seems to disappear, why saving feels difficult, or why you’re not making progress financially despite earning, this episode will help you understand the real problem. 

Learn how to track your spending, build financial discipline, and take control of your money by creating awareness around every expense and eliminating the hidden leaks in 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

I want to have a quick I want to quickly revisit a story that I've shared many times over about a client that I had working in the diaspora at a international development organization who earns an excellent salary, one that most of us listening would probably envy to have. She has huge responsibilities. She is in her early 50s. She has two sons, and um both of them are college age. So she's paying uh university fees. One is graduated, I think, and the other one is still in college. And she has this excellent job. She gets paid a great salary, but she has significant family responsibilities. So she's supporting her mother, she's supporting uh a few siblings, I think two of them, um, with their regular day-to-day costs. She has some investments that she's made. She's a big fan of real estate, as most of us are. So she has a couple properties that she's invested in. She has a couple of um some debt. She has a couple of loans uh for personal uh debt and also some debt on uh on mortgages on a few on a home that uh she recently purchased and uh and a plot of land that she's almost paid off. So she earns very, very well. But her money is being pulled in many directions, as you can imagine. And also because she's working in the diaspora, she's not managing herself, all the different responsibilities she has back at home. So she has to get family members, friends, maybe even hire some people to help her manage responsibilities on the ground at home since she's working in the diaspora. Now, again, her position is one that many, many envy. At least in terms of the status of her job, the status of her employer, and the amount of money she makes. She works really, really hard. It's not a nine to five anymore for her. So work-life balance is is uh is not a thing. Now that's not something that we will recommend, and that's not something anyone would encourage, but that is something that people experience on the ground all over the place, especially with highly paying or high-paying, um, high status, high responsibility jobs. The salary is great, but the responsibilities are greater still. And those expert those responsibilities at work don't just stay at work. Those responsibilities also exist at home. There are different responsibilities, great responsibilities at home as well and in the family. And so she was quite stressed out, significantly stressed. She's got bills coming out of everywhere. She's not only paying for her own needs and her children's needs, her grown children, but also the running costs of maintaining her mother's home, her helping out a couple of siblings, like I like I'd mentioned, their day-to-day expenses, uh, any crises that they experience. She's the first call, of course, as you can imagine. And so her stress levels are through the roof. She doesn't sleep very well, she doesn't eat very well. Uh, she ends up working all the way into the late evening, sometimes early morning, up until 10 p.m., 11 p.m., sometimes 1 a.m. in the morning. So she's eating late meals. Um she's uh she's making, she's admitted to be at times making money decisions when she's really tired and she just wants to solve the problem and get done with it and be done with it. Not necessarily make the best, most measured decision, just get this over with kind of approach. And this has been going on for the better part of the last 10 years, and she's stretched, very, very stretched. She can't wait for her retirement. She can't wait for the time where she can put down all this responsibility and let people take care of themselves, but she feels like she's holding up the whole family. And this is a sentiment like I'd mentioned on previous episodes of the Money Blueprint podcast that is carried among very, very many high-income earners, especially in our African context. When they earn well, they become the solution for the entire clan. Again, I'm not condemning this situation. What I'm saying is that it's demanding, very demanding. With every new opportunity comes new responsibilities, new obligations, and new skills required to manage them. Otherwise, they can easily overrun us. So, what am I saying? Having a greater income, having more money coming in per month alone doesn't solve your financial stress. In fact, it's a very real case to be made that more money coming in actually creates more financial stress because you take on more roles, you start supporting more people, you start dealing with more problems, you start carrying more load, and your time in the day isn't multiplying. Your mental ability doesn't grow with the rate of responsibilities you're growing. Your mental ability is fixed to what your capacity is and how much time in the day you have and how many things you're supposed to do in that day. So, in today's conversation, what I'm going to talk about is the illusion that I know where my money goes. Do you really know where your money is going each month? Or are you tricked into believing that because you have more, you've managed it better or you're doing a better job managing? That can be a significant, significant limitation on your financial success, not knowing where your money goes each month. If this is your first time listening, my name is Isaac Nhusi. I'm a financial literacy specialist focused on financial decision-making architecture. I have over 15 years experience working with organizations, professionals, and business owners at all kinds of income levels. So listen, professionals aren't broke because they lack income. You're stuck because your money decisions are unstructured. And this lack of structure costs you invaluable time and compound expenses. When your money hits your account each month, does it automatically go where it should, where it needs to, in order to solve immediate needs and serve your organized desires? Does it do so? Does it follow a plan automatically? If it doesn't, let's fix that. You're listening to the Money Blueprint podcast. I often refer to a story when I do when I work with my corporate clients. I refer to a story from the book The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Classet, where I talk about Arkad, who's been given a responsibility by his king, the king in Babylon, 2,000 years ago. And his responsibility is to teach the principles that he learned to make him wealthy to a bunch of other men that the king has identified in order to increase the number of middle class wealth, in order to increase the number of citizens in Babylon who fit the middle class, earning strong income and able to maintain the status of Babylon as the richest nation in the world at that time. And one of the principles he laid out, again, this is a book that I highly recommend, but one of the principles that Arcad laid out is that if you're going to become successful with your finances, what you need to do is set aside at least 10% of your income for wealth generating activities, for investing, for saving, for things like this. 90% can be used for your consumption, your regular day-to-day, month-on-month consumption, but 10% needs to be set aside for investment activity for growth activities. Now, the message that he was delivering is that if you're going to become successful with your money, one thing that you have to do is set aside a portion for growth. But even more so, when asked how to do that, what Arcad said is that all of us need to learn how to separate what we need from what we want. And without taking this step, separating needs from wants, then there is no possibility to be consistent with the way we control our spending. When we separate what we need from what we want, you focus your first spending on critical things for your survival. Your rent, your food, your water, your clothing, your transport to and back from work, your communication with your employer or your clients, things that your money is spent on that secure your survival or make survival over the long term realistic. So it's all about survival when you talk about needs. Not things that you enjoy, spending your money on things that you require to stay alive or that will facilitate staying alive over the long period. And that list is short, like I'd mentioned. What happens after we set aside our needs is that the money left over we can use on our desires. And the question came from the crowd, from this group of men listening to RCAD as he lectured, as he shared principles of wealth generation. One of the questions was: how am I supposed to set aside 10% of my income when I have absolutely nothing left over after I pay my bills? And this question might resonate with so many of us listening. How can anyone realistically be expected to set aside 10% of their income when 100% of our income isn't enough to take care of our needs? And therein lies the biggest problem. It's really one of two things. If your needs are clear, which for most of us, let's be honest, for most of us, the vast majority of us, our needs are not clear and budgeted in our lives. It's not a clear number for most people, the vast majority. Many of us even think that we know what our needs are, but have never taken the time to sit down and criticize how we are using our money on literal, practical, these are essential. If I don't have this, my ability to stay alive becomes significantly diminished. Very few of us have this audit that says, this is this is the bare minimum I need for survival. Again, there's so many reasons for this. It could be that we're under so much pressure to provide for others. It could be that we have this huge social obligation or social peer pressure to look like other people that we believe are at our level or the level we want to be, all these come into our financial decision-making structures, whether it's on purpose or not. And if that structure, if that frame from which you decide to spend your money isn't organized, isn't purposeful, isn't audited and checked to make sure that it is correct or it's realistic, then we are under an illusion that you know where your money goes and you're using your money well. And this illusion is so very powerful. It's enslaving so many of us. This illusion that you know where your money goes and you're using your money efficiently. Let's start with something that might feel a little stressful. Most of us listening right now don't actually know where our money goes. That's just what it is. And before internally you resist this statement by saying, no, no, no, no, I have a I have a general idea of where my money goes. That statement itself is part of the problem. A general idea isn't clarity, you're not clear if it's general. The general idea that you have, I pay rent, I handle my bills, I spend a bit here and there for my desires and have to have a good time. But when you get to the end of the month, you still ask yourself the same question. Where did my money go? Now think about that. You earned it, you worked really hard for it. When you received it on your account, you spent it as you always do, using the structures you normally use. But you still can't fully explain how that money went. And that should bother you, that should disturb you because in every other area of your life, you don't operate like this. Imagine running a business this way, or managing your teams this way. Money comes in, money goes out, and at the end of the month you say, I'm not exactly sure what happened. But we'll figure it out later. Your business would collapse, your team's objectives would fail. But somehow, when it comes to your personal money, we're normalizing this exact behavior. All right, let me give you a simple picture. You get paid. For the first few days, you feel like you're controlled with your money. You pay for obvious things, like I'd already mentioned, your rent, your utilities, maybe a deposit on a loan, maybe some family member support. And then things start to happen in your life. You go out and grab some lunch with your colleagues from the office, you send some money to someone who's asked, you take a ride, a cab, instead of going on a walk that would help your health. You subscribe for something small, you have an outing with your friends. None of these are extreme or irresponsible spending. It's just normal day-to-day life. But here's what's happening underneath. You're making financial decisions without clarity and visibility. And when decisions happen without visibility, new unstructured patterns form. Well, I don't know if I should say they're unstructured, but they are not deliberate. They're not deliberate patterns, they are not intentional. They are ad hoc. Pay as you go. And when these ad hoc patterns form, slowly but surely your money starts moving in ways that you're not tracking, you're not aware of at the end of a period. So by the time the month end comes, you're not just broke, you're also unclear. Or even if you have some money left over, you're still unclear about where the vast majority or a good portion of your money went. And that lack of clarity creates a very specific kind of frustration. A very specific kind of condemnation for your financial success. It's not a sense of panic, this frustration. It's not an immediate crisis, but there's an underlying quiet feeling of I should be doing better than this. It's a feeling. This isn't about income. It's also not about opportunity. This is something much more subtle, a lot more simple. You can't control what you cannot see. And right now, for most people, their money is not being controlled. It's being experienced, it's being vibed, it's vibes, it's being reacted to based on immediate needs and obligations from people around you. Your money is just lying around, but it's not clearly understood. And until that changes, we can't progress with our money. This is such a fundamental clarity issue. Where does your money go? Now, let's break down exactly how this happens. Because money doesn't just disappear. What it does is it follows patterns, those that you're aware of and even those that you're unaware of, which is what we're talking about today. And once you see these patterns and you understand exactly where your money has been going all along, that's when clarity begins. So let's address this question properly. If it's not just disappearing, where is it going? It's leaking. Your money is leaking quietly, consistently, predictably. And it's breaking down your ability to prepare for your future. So the reason you don't see it is because none of the individual decisions feel important. They don't feel significant. And that's what makes this so very dangerous. Let me show you what I mean. Once again, this isn't about making big mistakes. This isn't about being reckless and careless with your money. It's about normal air quote, normal everyday behavior, repeated without visibility and clarity, knowing where this money is going. Let's talk about a typical week. In a typical week, you might go out with your friends once. You might order some food or have lunch at the local buffet. Uh, you might impulse by something. You might send some money to a relative or a friend that you hadn't planned to give this month. You might get a call from somebody that you owe money to, putting you under extra pressure to pay. And each one of these is a small payment a 5,000 franc here or the$5 equivalent, a$10 equivalent there. Thirty dollars here. But because this is just a few dollars individually, none of these decisions feel like you're doing anything wrong. And here's the issue that most people miss who are not tracking this pattern is that this money is going without you knowing it, without you being aware, without you having a record. So your brain tells you, listen, it's not this, it's not that much, it's not that big of a deal. But your bank account is telling you something different, especially over time. I don't know how many of you have had the chance to sit down and download your bank statements for the last year or few years, and see how much money has gone into your bank account over the last year? And how many of us can say, this is what I use this money for? This is what I use that money for. And yes, this was a very good decision because it this decision got me this outcome that I very much needed to achieve. Or how many of us look at our bank balance and say, oh my goodness, where did all this? I made all this money, where did it go? How come what did it do? What was this expense for, that expense for? It is shocking, especially over time. Because money doesn't move in isolated moments, it moves consistently over time. It's adjusting to your demands, it's adjusting to your situations, it's adjusting to crises that you're facing, or people are facing whom you care about and now you are supporting. It's moving in sequence: payment, payment, payment, payment, no money left, no more payments. Income comes in, payment, payment, payment, payment until the money's done. And when this sequence repeats, it becomes a system. It's just an intentional system. That's what it is. And that is robbing you of your financial stability. So even if you don't have an intentional financial system, you are still operating inside an unintentional one. Your money is evaporating from you, not because somebody is stealing, somebody is embezzling, somebody is dragging it away from you, it's disappearing because your system is unintentional. This isn't money disappearing out of one significant big decision that you can correct. It's money disappearing from small, invisible decisions, dozens of them. And because you never paused to observe it, to qualify it, to check, and you never stopped to correct it, it's grown into this massive silent leak. No alarms, no warnings, just a gradual movement of your money away from your control. All right. Again, I realize that you have obligations, you have expectations from your family and friends, you have moments where saying no or saying I didn't make room for this in my budget isn't just difficult. It can feel like it's impossible. So your money moves, not just because you're spending it, but because of relationships, because of duty, because of culture, because of obligation. And again, none of this is exactly wrong. But it's just there is no structure for it. There's no visibility to it. And so it is unregulated and it is pay as you go. It's completely uncontrolled, unplanned. And eventually that becomes a massive problem. Okay, so here's the deeper issue. Because you don't see these patterns clearly, and you might misdiagnose the problem. You might say to yourself, I need to earn more. That might be the solution you come to. I need to earn more because the money I have isn't enough. But in reality, the problem is you need to see more. You need more clarity. You need not earn more, you need to see where your money goes more. Because if you increased your income today, but kept the same unstructured patterns, then your leak would just increase. You'd have more leakage. More money would slip through your fingers because you're following the same unintentional, unplanned, unbudgeted structure. More money would come in, more untracked movement of money would go out. Same result. At the end of the month, your salary has increased by 50%. It has doubled, but so has your unplanned spending, and maybe even more. So that's why people who earn more still feel the same pressure. Nothing really has changed. They're pouring more water into the bucket, but the bucket, the hole at the bottom of the bucket is grown bigger. So more water is going in, but more water is pouring out at the same time. And nothing is building. The water level isn't rising in the bucket because it is not staying in there. So what do we do about it? Obviously, the goal isn't, the solution isn't to just stop spending. But the goal is to make your spending visible, make it clear to you what you're spending on. Because when something becomes clear and visible, it becomes manageable. It's no longer a mystery. It is now clear in front of you. And this makes stress around money so much more manageable, so much more controllable. All right, let's talk a little bit more about the cost of this because there is real damage that is caused by this silent leak I'm describing. And it's not just the money you lose, it's the opportunities you never even realized you're missing as a result of this leak. So let's go deeper just a little bit more. Because up to this point, you might be thinking, okay, I'm leaking some money here and there. Fine, that happens, but it happens to all of us. So it's not an emergency. It might not even feel that serious. But that's exactly why it continues to happen and it will continue to happen. Because there's no fire alarm going off, but this problem is a real one. Because the real cost of not knowing when your money goes isn't obvious. Again, there's no there's no fire alarm, it's not loud. It doesn't hit you all at once. It's a slow bleed. I think there's a a story of uh of the biomechanics of a frog. You know, frogs are cold-blooded animals, and if you put uh a frog in a pot and uh turn on the heat to cook it, the the the frog, because it doesn't regulate his own temperature, uh he will slowly feel the heat in the hot pot and jump out on his feet. He'll feel the heat rising over time and jump out because his feet will burn. But if you put a frog in uh cool water, in a pot of cool water and put it on the stove and then warm up that water. Put that water on fire, put that pot on fire, eventually the temperature of the water is going to rise, but slowly. It's a slow rising temperature. And the frog's body temperature will rise with the water slowly. And the frog will stay in that warming water until it starts to boil, not noticing that that warm water is killing it. Because the temperature is rising slowly. And the point of this message is that that could be us with our money, that frog in a boiling pot of water could be us as long as the water starts cool. It's not hot to begin with. If the temperature rises slightly over time, then we might just sit there and wait to be boiled in a pot of water, figuratively speaking. Is that is that you? Is that me quietly, slowly getting cooked by our financial spending because we are not noticing, we don't have visibility, we don't have gauges and measures to show us that this situation we're getting into is becoming financially dangerous. The fire doesn't burn you, the heat, the temperature, it's not noticeable immediately, but it builds quietly over time. So let's get back to something we discussed earlier. Say you're losing, even conservatively, some$50 a month,$100 a month,$200 a month, through patterns that are not clear to you. You don't see them, you don't see this money as it's going. It's also not reckless spending, it's just normal, untracked spending. That's$2,400 a year. And most people don't stop there. But I want you to think differently because that money isn't just spent, it's unallocated. What could it have done? It never had a chance to do something useful for you, but what could it have done? Now let's apply it to a simple assumption. Let's say that$200 equivalent had been invested over time. For the last 10 years, like I described in the beginning of the story with my client with the development organization. Over the last 10 years that she's been supporting her entire family unplanned, what could that$200 a month have done over those 10 years? Using long-term market averages supported by institutions like the Vanguard Group, you're looking at a potential annual return of between 8 to 12% over those 10 years. And we've already discussed what 8 to 12% could do, 10% per year could do for you over 10 years. You're talking about almost doubling your money in that time.$2,000 a year,$200 a month, that is being spent in an unplanned manner, being thrown at an interest earning account at 10% per year, in 10 years would be what$24,000 of capital, money that has come out of your pocket, planned. And that$24,000 at 10% per year for 10 years could grow just shy of$40,000 in and around there at 10%. And that's in 10 years, what if this was 20 years? What if it was 30 years? For those of you who have been working long, longer than the 10-year example I've been giving. What about those of you who are just starting out? Or who are just growing in your organizations? You're establishing your foothold in your career. What would the next 10, 15, 20 years of your life look like? Unplanned. Are you willing to throw away$200 a month or the equivalent? Are you sure that you're not throwing away more? Not because what you're spending on that money on is not important or not critical, but is it planned? Are you aware? Are you efficient? Are you visible? Are you clear on where that money is going? When we look at it like this, you start to see that your money is not just getting lost. What's happening is that wealth isn't being built over time. Your wealth is not being built. You're eliminating your chance to build. And whatever you are building is significantly handicapped by your lack of visibility. So we're not talking about small differences anymore. Now, what we're talking about is significant sums of money, tens of thousands, even sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars over a few decades. Now that should feel significant. This is where this topic becomes so much more serious. Because the cost to you isn't just financial, it's behavioral. It's your investment, it's your legacy, it's your family security, it's your peace of mind. When you don't know where your money goes, you hesitate. Your delayed decisions, like I'll start investing later, I'll need to stabilize first and to normalize the situation I'm in, I'm not ready yet. These statements come from a lack of visibility, a lack of clarity, and the anxiety those things cause. So you're not waiting for more money. You're waiting for a sense of clarity. And your sense of clarity is being held back by the fact that you don't know where your money's going. And then as a result, you're staying in this constant feedback loop of inaction. You're not sure what to do with your money because you know how much money you have. Your money is not under control, so you don't want to invest and make a mistake. So you don't do anything, so you don't grow. Your money, you don't invest in anything, your net worth isn't developing, time is passing, you're getting more stressed about the fact that time is passing and you're not progressing. So you wait even more for future clarity. And the cycle continues. You're losing time through hesitation. And when those two combine, they are extremely explosive. They slow down your progression to a crawl. You are barely moving at all. Because the people who build their financial stability, they're not just earning, they're allocating their money early. They're telling it where to go, they're telling it what to do, and they're executing every day, every week, every month, so that over time, their farm grows significantly. It explodes, not just grows. And while you're still trying to figure things out, their systems are running smoothly, consistently, and their money is compounding. Because their decisions were made in advance. And you don't see this happening because you don't have the visibility and you don't have the feedback. From the outside, you look like you're earning just like they are. You might even be earning more than them. Their system is working for them, and your system is working against you. As somebody is growing their wealth, you're digging deeper into your struggle. Same income range, same lifestyle, maybe even the same environment. But underneath, there's a very massive difference. They have clarity and you don't. That clarity allows them to progress. And that progress is often very, very quiet until the finish line, until retirement, until it's absolutely necessary to reveal your financial stability, like in a financial crisis. So let me say this as directly as possible. Not knowing where your money goes is not a small problem. It's a compounding problem. Because every month you remain unclear, you're not just spending money. What you're doing is you're missing the chance to direct it positively for you. And when that pattern repeats year after year, decade after decade, you don't just lose money. You lose growth trajectory, you lose compounding. So let's bring this back to you. Because this isn't theory, this is what's probably happening in real time in your life right now. And when you see it clearly, you'll understand exactly what you need to do to change. So let's make it personal. When your money hits your account, automate exactly how much you need to spend on your rent and mortgage. Or mortgage, I mean, your rent or mortgage. Automate as much as you can of your needs. How much do you need to spend on your groceries, on your kids' school fees, on your electricity bill, water bill, the things that are absolutely critical for you to survive. And inside that critical survival I submit to you, that automate a specific amount of money, a percentage of your income, 5, 10, 15% of your income that you automate, send automatically to a savings account or an investment fund. When you do this, you immediately inject structure into the way your money is used. Have a conversation with your significant other. Have a conversation with somebody who you think has a sound mind and can advise you well. You can discuss with them well and have a conversation about how much you can realistically support your extended family with, with whatever it is that you're going to support them, whether it is their ongoing bills, whether it is ongoing crises, whatever it is, set aside an amount and let that amount be for them. Let that amount roll over for them every month if you don't finish it all. And if you do, let that amount be strict. When you have that structure, among other things, what are you going to spend on your desires? How are you reframing the way that you live so that you can live inside 85, 90, or 95% of your income after you've set it aside some money, some amount of money, 5, 10, 15% for your saving investment activities. When you do this step, when you take this step, you will finally have the beginning structure for financial clarity. And that is what's going to give you your peace of mind today for your future and for the future of those who depend on you. Now we have a few questions that have come in from my producer has just shared with me that we're going to address, that have come in via email. So when you're listening to the Money Blueprint Podcast, please remember to send out your questions via email at themoneyblueprintpodcast at gmail.com, and we'll be happy to include them. Here are a few that we received over the last week or so. My producer is going to read them and I will respond.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

First question from Peter33 from Nairobi. I hear people say build an emergency fund first, but I also feel like I'm wasting time not investing. Which one should come first? And how do you prioritize?

SPEAKER_01 44:17

This is a great question from Peter. Thank you very much. Emergency funds are critical. And I think I've mentioned before that when you're saving, you know, there are really two reasons to save, like you've already alluded to. There's saving to invest, because you have to set money aside for investment purposes. And then there's saving for emergencies. The reason why saving for emergencies is so important is because if you can set aside in your budget three to six months of your needs, the spending on your needs, you've given yourself an opportunity to resist a crisis when it comes. And crises come for all of us, right? An unexpected bill, an accident, um, a family member who needs your support, and it's uh it's a crisis that you're responsible for in some way. These crises, when they arrive and we don't have an emergency fund, these crises cause us to go and eat off of immature investments. So you might have had a very beautiful plot of land that you purchased after saving out of money to invest in that plot of land. And then now that land is worth a few thousand dollars and you sell it for a fraction of its value. You sell it for 20% of its value, 30% of its value, because you're in a hurry to get that money for a crisis. So we're killing our investments when we don't have an emergency fund. So don't feel like your emergency fund is a waste of time or a waste of resources. It a fire extinguisher is not a waste of resources. If you have a fire extinguisher in your house or in your car in your business and you're driving and your car catches fire, and that fire extinguisher immediately solves that problem right then, so that your car doesn't burn down, you're going to be thanking the heavens that you have a fire extinguisher, right? An emergency fund is a fire extinguisher. Don't feel like it's a waste. It's there waiting for a crisis. And when the crisis comes, the uh fire extinguisher is ready.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Second question from Sharon 28 from Kampala. I'm in a job that pays well, but I don't enjoy it. I want to switch to something I'm passionate about, but I'm scared of earning less. How do you balance purpose and financial stability?

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Oh wow. This is a huge question from Sharon and Kampala. There is no one-size answer for this question. Many of us do work that we don't enjoy for the sake of our survival, for the sake of those who depend on us. Um, there is a different level of satisfaction in life and purpose when you do what you're passionate about. And I must recognize that working a job or doing having a career that is aligned with your passions and what your principles and well, definitely your principles should always be present, even in your job, but your passions, things that are important to you is a rich blessing. None of us should take that for granted. And I'm I'm very lucky to be doing what I'm passionate about. Being able to manage the transition, however, from doing what you have to do to doing what you want to do is probably the trickiest part. Because if you go right after your passions without putting together a plan, you could find yourself in a self-made crisis. So patience and planning. Support from people whom you trust, whom you think uh have uh a sharp mind to support your decision making and make sure that you are thinking pragmatically, not just uh with emotion and passion, is always helpful. But take your time. Excellent question, Sharon, and a difficult one for so many people.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

Last question from Bruce27 from Kigali. When dating, there's always this expectation around money. Who pays and what lifestyle you must show? Sometimes I feel pressure to keep up appearances. How do you navigate dating without compromising your financial reality?

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Bruce has touched on some fire. Who's responsible for payments when going on a date? What is the lifestyle burden? Uh wow, what a question. And also very, very much uh uh part of our gendered conversation in the modern world. You're a young man, are you responsible for all the bills? Um we live in an equal world, why aren't we paying bills equally? This is a cultural question as much as it is um on a in terms of the society you live in, but also in terms of the culture you have with the person that you're dating or talking to. Unmet expectations. Unmet expectations. It's one of the leading causes of relationship drama, is unmet expectations. So one of the things you want to do right at the beginning, when you're talking to someone, dating someone, what are their expectations and what are yours? Can you come to a meeting of the minds? Can you be honest about it or not? And again, these are social conversations. I mean, obviously, money is involved because this is ultimately about how money is used. But everyone needs to get in where they fit in. And I'd suggest to you that these are critical questions to have with someone whom you're planning on spending time with, maybe even spending your life with. What are your feelings? What are your expectations on this subject? And what are they really? Not what do you think they should be? What are they for you? What would make you happy? What would make you satisfied? What do you think is right? And then how do we live our lives around that? Because when you don't align on this issue, you're likely to land in a lot of problems moving forward. So I don't know if my answer is straight enough or direct enough, but there is no one size fits all. Sit down with someone and then build a relationship with someone when you're in agreement. 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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