Why Saving Money Alone Will Never Build Wealth

Saving money feels safe—but it won’t build wealth. In this episode of The Money Blueprint Podcast, Isaac Nkusi explains why saving alone is not enough to secure your financial future, and how relying only on savings can actually hold you back from building real wealth. 

While savings are important for emergencies and financial stability, they are not designed to grow your money or keep up with inflation. If you’ve been wondering why your savings aren’t getting you closer to major financial goals like buying a house or achieving financial freedom, this episode breaks down the difference between saving and wealth building. 

Learn how to make your money grow, develop financial discipline, and shift from simply saving money to building long-term wealth through smarter financial strategies.

🎧 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 

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Produced by LF Media

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

You're not going to save your way to wealth. About five years ago, I had a chat with a client at the time. She was in her early 40s, had a great job for anyone her age, and was being paid more than almost anyone in her age group. But she was worried, even confused about how she could ever own her own home. She told me, listen, I know how lucky I am to have my job. I know almost no one my age earns what I earn, but I don't understand how others are living. I don't understand how people are buying and building homes. Absolutely, there's no way I can afford to buy a house despite my income. I asked her why she says she can't, and she tells me she really doesn't want to get a loan for a home when she doesn't have at least half the price of the house in savings. Because she wants her dream house, but she doesn't want to have to leave to give up her peace of mind by having this huge loan amount that she can't manage if she lost her job. And anything happens, anything can happen in the modern age with employment. She said, I keep saving year over year, keep shopping for the kind of homes that I want to buy, but I can never seem to keep hold of my money because of my huge family obligations. And it also seems like the cost of the houses that I want keeps soaring. How do other people manage to buy these homes? Look, according to publications from the World Bank, Yahoo Finance and Lightstone Property, the numbers tell a story that you probably already know. Owning a home is getting more difficult by the generation with the growing costs of housing, costs of financing, the cost of living, and the earning power continues to drop for younger generations. Now, young people are more often opting to rent or live with their parents rather than attempting to buy a home. And that can't seem surprising. That should be quite obvious in all our African contexts. But I want to start this conversation carefully because what I'm about to say might sound uncomfortable, and it also might sound contrary to what we've been taught about money growing up. Some of you listening right now are doing everything you are told to do. You're working hard, putting that elbow into your job, into your occupation. You earn well. And some of you are even setting some of your money aside, you're saving. You're being responsible with what you have. You're not being reckless. But it still feels like you're not progressing, you're not getting ahead. And that should feel quite confusing. Or at least it can, can't it? Because the formula we're given was simple. Study hard, work hard, don't use all that you earn, and you'll be fine. Save some money along the way. So you followed it. You said no to certain things, you tried to be really disciplined and very mature, you're adulting, you've kept money aside. And however, when you zoom out over the last few years of your life, nothing really has developed, nothing has grown, nothing has progressed in your financial position. You're not exactly struggling the way you used to when you were a student or early on in your career, but you're not exactly progressing either, especially not in the way you expected you would by this time in your life. You're stable, but not advancing. Now, let's apply this to a real context. I want you to pick someone, I want you to picture someone. This might even be you. In the middle of their career, they have a steady income, like I've said, and they're doing air quote okay. They have some savings. They're not reckless, they're not irresponsible, like we've mentioned. If anything, they're actually trying harder than most people. They they put in the long hours at work. They're there for their family, they're there for the community, they're involved. But they have a common problem. Every year feels the same. It feels like the years come and go and nothing really changes. I've heard people make this complaint like, I wasn't born to just work, pay bills, and die. Each year looks like money coming in, expenses going out. Sometimes something is saved, a little bit of something, but then the next year comes and the cycle repeats. You should feel a sense of acceleration. You should feel that you're taking steps year over year closer to your goals. But there doesn't feel like there's any kind of big breakthrough. You're just maintaining. Here's the dangerous part. From the outside, this looks like progress. The fact that you're never in a crisis or rarely in a crisis, the fact that you can help others, you look like you're advancing. But even if you're not technically falling behind, nobody is questioning the growth that you're creating or the growth that they think they can see in you. However, internally, there's a quiet question that keeps showing up in your private moments on your own. Why does it feel like I'm just managing and not growing? Why does it feel like I'm treading water but not getting to my destination? Now, most people answer that question the wrong way. They'll assume I just need to earn more money. So they focus on their income, they focus on the career, they focus on taking that new course, focus on getting that new promotion. But even when their income increases, the feeling still doesn't fully go away. It feels like I am just maintaining. I might be maintaining at a higher level, but I'm still not developing. Why? Because the problem was never just about your salary, it's not just about your income. It's not that you're doing the wrong things technically. It's that what you're solving for is the wrong problem. You're looking at the issue of your failure to upscale your financial position. You're addressing it the wrong way. And that's what's going on in today's episode. Because once you see this clearly, you'll understand why saving alone has never been enough and never will be enough to move you forward. I'll say it again. Saving alone has never been enough and never will be enough to help move you forward. More importantly, saving money, what it actually does is it protects you from crisis. Now, saving feels like the right thing to do, and I don't want you to think that this episode is about bashing savings and savers. Saving is important. Saving is responsible, it's disciplined, which is an excellent quality to have about your money. It provides a level of safety. Saving is good. But to be clear, even if it's not wrong to save, saving is a good thing, and we should save. You need to save. There's an element of saving that nobody explains properly. Because saving alone will not move you forward, but it will stop you from falling backwards significantly. That's the thing that is escaping most of us when we learn about savings. It won't progress you forward. Saving will not do that, but it will prevent you from falling back too hard. Let's talk about why. When you put money in a savings account, what are you really doing? You're storing value to come and retrieve it some point in the future. You're saying, I want to keep this money safe for later. That's what's happening when you're saving. And again, that makes sense because you're preparing for your future needs. But there's something happening in the background. Whether you're paying attention or not, whether you notice or not, something else is going on. Your money is not just sitting still. Even if you're saving it, it's not staying still. Even if it looks like it, your money is still moving in a savings account, just not in the direction you'd like. Because the world around you is moving, constantly changing. Prices are rising, costs are increasing, and value is shifting. Look at the environment we're in right now, with the world plummeting into another significant conflict. The United States and Israel against Iran, and now the Gulf joining in to this conflict. This is causing shifts in value. It's causing prices of fuel to rise. And when the prices of fuel to rise, everything rises with it. This is inflation. With the value shifting of commodities that we buy, the costs of things that we're buying to just stay alive, to maintain living. This is a definition of inflation. And very simply, inflation means that your money buys less stuff over time. When I was younger in my high school days, back in the 1990s, when I was a good student and uh made my parents proud, I would sometimes get um 100 francs at the time, in the late 1990s. A 100 franc note. At the time, 100 francs was a note, and that would have been the equivalent of about uh maybe 30 American cents, maybe 30 to 40 American cents at the time. And and when I get that, that would be my day to go and splurge on myself in the school canteen. And with that 100 francs or 30 American cents, I'd be able to buy soda, buy um some chapati, some mandazis, and even get change back then, right? 100 francs, 30 American cents, maybe 40, in and around there. And that was what my money could do, 100 francs, 30 to 40 American cents could do in the 1990s. In 2026, when we're recording this, what can 100 francs of that list, what can 100 francs buy? 30 to 40 American cents, what can that amount of money buy? The amount of money is the same, it's still 100 francs, it's still 30 to 40 American cents. The commodities are still the same amount of soda in a bottle, the same size chapati and mandazi, the same ingredients, but that 100 francs doesn't buy what it used to in 1997. What you used to buy with 30 cents, American cents in 1997, you will not buy today. And that's not because the commodity has changed. It's not because the money itself has changed. It's because the value is no longer the same. And that is inflation. And it happens quietly, it happens slowly every month, every year, our money reduces its ability to buy stuff by inflation. It's not sudden, it's not dramatic on a small scale, but zoom out, but take a step back, and you'll see how consistently, how enormously inflation affects your money. So, what does that mean in real terms for you? It means the same amount of money you save today will not have the same power to solve your financial problems in the future. And here's where this whole conversation becomes uncomfortable if it's clear to you. If your money is sitting in a savings account, earning very little or nothing at all, and inflation is rising faster than the rate your money is earning in a savings account, then something very specific is happening. You're losing value quietly. You might be losing value slower than somebody who is not saving, but you are losing value quietly and consistently. Not because you made a mistake, not because you did something reckless, but because your money is not doing anything constructive for you. Let me try and frame that in a different way, because this is really important for us to walk away with very clearly. You think you're being safe. My client thought she was being safe. But in reality, your money is slowly becoming less effective. It's losing its potential, its power. It's less powerful over time, less capable of helping you in the future when you need it most, when you're not as strong as you are today, as capable as you are today, or as energetic as you are today. And because this is happening gradually, like we talked about the frog in the pot of boiling water last week, this is a gradual struggle, a gradual loss of value. You don't feel it. The amount of money you put in your bank account last year is still that same amount of money. The zeros is the same, but the power has changed. There's no alert, there's no notification, there's no warning. There's just a slow, silent, enormously powerful erosion. So now you have a situation where you're saving consistently, but your money is not growing meaningfully. And at the same time, the real value of your money is declining. So even though you feel like you're responsible, even though you feel like you're taking action to prepare yourself for the financial, for your own financial progress, you're not actually progressing. You're just at best, you're preserving. And preservation on its own, it won't build wealth. I mean, it's just that simple. It will never build wealth. Now, this doesn't mean I'm not saying stop saving. That's not what I'm saying. That's not the message. What I'm saying is saving is only one part of the system, a critical part, an important part, but one part. And right now, for most people, the only part that they're using of the equation is the savings part. How do we address this? You'll understand why this belief that saving alone will get you where you need to go, whether it is something that you're consciously aware of or something that is just built into you that you're living out with your money, this belief is extremely limiting. Okay, let's put some numbers to this. Because up to this point, I think we've grasped the idea. But when you see the math, it's gonna hit you differently. Here's a simple example. Say you're doing this right thing, you're saving the equivalent of$200 a month. That is 200 times 12,$2,400 in a year. Okay. Over five years, that's$12,000. In the local equivalent, that would be something like uh 16, 18 million francs. Now, that might feel like progress. And to be very honest, it is. It's a form of progress. But let's inject some reality in many of our economies, East Africa, or even Africa on the whole, or even globally, but especially across emerging markets. Inflation doesn't sit at low single digits. It's usually higher single digits to double digits. And so it can range between five, eight, ten, even more than 10% at times, depending on where you are and depending on what's happening in the world. Which means the cost of living is rising every year, every single year. And now compare that to what your savings account is giving you, right? You might be getting, depending on what kind of savings account it is, 2%, 3%, 4% if that, 6% if you're lucky. So what's really happening? You're earning less than what you're losing. You're earning less money than what you're losing. Your money is growing slower than the cost of living. Which means, in real terms, you're going backwards. You might be going backwards slower than somebody who's not saving at all. And that might be a comfort, but you are still going backwards at the rate of the difference between how much you're growing in your savings account and how much you're losing to inflation. It's not dramatic, but it is consistent. And that word consistent is an atom bomb in your finances. It either creates power to propel you through energy, or it can decimate everything in a ten kilometer radius when it's uncontrolled. Consistency, slow, quiet. There's a proverb that says water doesn't break the rock because of its strength, because of its power. Water breaks rocks because of its consistent flow. Constantly rubbing against a rock until it breaks through. Now, think about this extended over time. That$12,000 you saved over five years will not buy you what$12,000 would buy today. It might buy something significantly less. So even though the numbers increased, its power again has decreased. And this is the part most people never really calculate. They look at the number, the$12,000 number, and they don't look at the value that number can acquire. Now, let's take this one step further. Imagine two people, same income, same discipline, same starting point, the same$200 a month. Person A saves$200 and keeps it in a savings account. Person B save$200 but puts it into some kind of growth asset. Maybe a diversified fund, an ETF, some stock. Even they might select some alternative asset like land, like international assets, whatever it may be, but they put it into some kind of growth vehicle, some kind of growth product. Nothing very aggressive, just doing something on purpose because person two understands that saving alone isn't enough. They're intentional. Fast forward 10 years, and person A has saved money, but his money's real value has eroded. And person B has savings for safety, but also has some assets that have grown over the 10-year period. Same effort, same amount of money invested, different risk taken, and completely different outcomes. The difference is not about intelligence. It's not even about income because they both had$200. It's not about luck. And this is what trips up most people. Oh, they were just lucky. That's not it. It's understanding one thing. Money needs to grow, not just sit. You need to see your money as though it's an employee of yours. But without a job, it's just sitting there idle, consuming resources. Eating, sleeping, eating, sleeping, not working. Just sitting. And here's the real cost: it's not just what you lose to inflation, it's what you will never gain as time passes you by, because your money was never positioned to grow. That's the hidden loss. Time is passing you by, opportunities are passing you by, and you never access them. And worst of all, you can never go back to adjust your behavior. The opportunities you never accessed, the compounding you never activated, the future you delayed without realizing it, all of those are costs. Each one of them is its own cost. Alright, let's talk about why this is happening, why this keeps on happening. Because clearly by now we see the logic. Saving alone isn't enough. Money needs to grow. So the real question is: why don't people move beyond saving? Why aren't you moving beyond saving? Even though you might already know. You've already had this discussion, you've already noticed that your money isn't growing the way you want it to. The answer is simple. Saving feels safe. It feels like it's controlled, it feels predictable. And so you put money aside and it's still there tomorrow when you check. No surprises, there's no volatility, there's no uncertainty. And psychologically, you feel a sense of comfort. Now compare that to investing. Whether it's in stocks or funds or some other alternative asset, what do people normally associate with investing? What comes to mind? What words immediately come to mind when you think investments? The word is risk, loss, uncertainty. People imagine, what if I lose my money? What if I make a mistake? What if I don't understand what I'm doing? And because those questions don't have immediate answers, you immediately default to what feels safe, saving. So even when someone knows logically, intellectually, that saving alone won't build wealth, emotionally, we stay there because of the sense of safety. Because safety feels better than uncertainty. And even if that safety is quietly costing them, that's what they're going to do. And here's where it gets a bit deeper. For many people, especially in our East African environment, there's also a deep lack of trust. We don't really trust financial systems, investment platforms. Sometimes we often trust our own ability to make good financial decisions. So what do you do? What do we do? We avoid the entire space. We avoid the topic in its entirety. Just leave investing alone. It's not for me. It's this is something that other people do. I don't do this. They say, I'll learn later. I'll start when I understand more. I'm not ready yet. But later keeps moving. It's like tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. Each day is today. And you tell yourself, tomorrow I'll do it. But tomorrow never comes. And while they wait, time keeps passing, inflation keeps rising, opportunities keep coming and going. And here's the irony: the very thing that they're trying to avoid, that big scary word, risk, risk is still happening every single day, just in a different form. Because doing nothing is also a decision. It's a decision to keep your money idle, to keep it from working. That is a massive risk. It's just a slow, difficult to see risk. It appears invisible to you, but it is very, very real. So now you have this. You have this tension. Logically, I need my money to grow, but emotionally, I don't want to take a risk. I don't want to lose my money. And most people resolve that tension by doing this. They stay exactly where they are. You just stay exactly where you are. You don't move. Because not by not moving, you're preventing yourself for stepping in the wrong place. They're saving, waiting, and delaying. But staying where you are doesn't freeze your life. It doesn't freeze your financial position. It doesn't secure you from what's coming ahead. Because what's coming is coming. Years are passing. We're getting older. Responsibilities are increasing. More and more of our immediate family and our community rely on us as time passes. By standing still, your financial position is still coming at you, but you're not preparing for it. So you're slowly weakening your financial position. And that's the part that most people don't fully confront or don't fully understand. Let's strip this down to its bare minimum. The bones of the truth of the matter. No complexity, no gentle language. Let's dive in. Saving alone will never ever build wealth. It won't build wealth slowly. It won't build wealth eventually. It will never build wealth. Now, before you have a gut reaction to that statement, let me be precise. Saving is important. It gives you stability, some emergency protection, and it gives you some breathing room in the event that life happens and you meet a financial shock. Savings have its role, a very important role. Without savings, you're exposed. So I'm not saying that you need to stop saving. I'm not saying that we need to remove savings from your financial practice. What I'm trying to do here is put saving into its proper place. Saving is for protection, it is not for growth. And this is where most people get it wrong. They treat saving like it's a wealth strategy, but it really isn't. It's a safety mechanism. And here's a consequence of misunderstanding the role of savings. If all your financial effort goes into saving, then all your financial results stay limited to safety and preservation. No forward movement. Which means you can avoid going backwards significantly, but you can't move forward meaningfully. And this is exactly where many people get stuck. They're disciplined, consistent, and responsible with their money, but their system is incomplete because wealth is not built by holding on to money. It's built by planting your money. It's built by employing your money. It's built by deploying, sending your money out into the world to go and capture friends. Putting it into places where it can grow, where it can compound and multiply over time. Now, this doesn't mean reckless investing, however. It doesn't mean chasing wild returns, but it does, and it doesn't mean jumping into things that you don't understand. It does mean something a little simpler. It means your money needs a job beyond sitting still. Some of it protects you in your savings account, in your emergency fund, but some of it must work for you. Because if all your money is resting, then none of it is building your future. And that's the part that most people, it's a truth that many people avoid. All right, let me give you a line to anchor all that we've talked about so far. Saving keeps you safe, but investing moves you forward. Saving keeps you safe, but investing develops your net worth. You need both. But if you only do one, you will always feel like you're maintaining, not progressing. And over time, that gap becomes the frustration you feel. That you've been working hard, earning well, being responsible with your money, but you're not moving forward. Because you have made all these efforts, but your outcomes aren't changing. So the real shift is not should I save or invest. The real shift is how do I structure my money to do both? And that's exactly where we're going next. Because when you understand this, the solution becomes much simpler than you think. All right. Stop treating money as one thing. Start giving it different roles. That's the shift. Not complexity, but structure. So instead of saying I save money, start telling yourself, I allocate money. This is the mindset shift. This is the identity shift. You're not somebody who just saves money. You're somebody who allocates money. And that allocation is simple. Divide your money into a few core functions. Safety, this is your foundation. This is your in your emergency fund. This is you securing deposits for your home, for your the future that you want for yourself, even future spending. Deposits, saving. Money that is there to protect you, to handle emergencies, to give you stability, to prepare for future expenses. And that's where your savings sit. Accessible, predictable, easy to acquire in the event of emergency. But it's not about growth. This isn't about growth. Your money isn't growing. It is sitting waiting for a specific purpose. It's security. But the second change, the second use of your funds, your money, is growth. And this is where things really begin to change. This is money that is not meant to sit idle. It's meant to work. It's meant to grow and compound over time. And this is where you begin to introduce exposure to ownership in businesses, investments in funds that are managed professionally, and alternative assets, depending on your comfort level and level of understanding. Nothing crazy, nothing extreme, nothing rushed. Just intentional movement of your money away from just saving and into growth. Now, here's what matters most. You don't need to do this perfectly. You just need to start separating the roles of money, saving and growth. Because right now, for most people, 100% of their money is in safety. Those few who do save, 100% of their money or close to is in safety, which means 0% is working to build their future. And that's the imbalance that we're trying to correct with today's episode. So let's make it practical. You could start with something simple as a portion of your money, a portion of your savings, a portion of your money goes towards savings, a portion of your money goes toward investing. And even if that portion is small, that portion changes everything. Because now your money has direction. And over time, that direction compounds. Now, here's an important mindset shift. You're not trying to get rich quickly, you're building a system where some money protects you and some money grows for you consistently. Over time, years, decades. Because wealth is not built in one move. Rome wasn't built in a day. It's built through structured repetition, month on month, year on year. Money coming in, being allocated properly, and again and again and again going out to saving and investment activities, in addition to paying for your month-to-month lifestyle. Until that reset, until the results start to separate you from where you started. That's the real power of this shift. You move from I hope I'm doing enough to I know my to I know my money is working in the right places over time. All right. So this is where your real transition, transformation happens. Because up until this point, we've been talking about behavior, saving, tracking, allocating. Long-term change, however, doesn't come from behavior alone. It comes from a sense of identity. How do you see yourself? How you see yourself determines how you act. The names, the words that you use to describe yourself will determine how you act. So if you see yourself as someone who tries to save money, your actions will always be limited to trying to save money. You'll protect, you'll preserve, but you won't fully engage with growth because that's not how you identify yourself. That's not how you see yourself. That's not how you move in this world. Now contrast that with a different identity. Someone who says, I'm someone who allocates money with intentionality. I'm somebody who is purposeful about where every one of my coin goes each month. That's a completely different posture or mind frame. Because now you're not just reacting to money, you're directing it, you're telling it where to go. As soon as money hits your account, what is it supposed to do? Where is it supposed to go? What problems is it supposed to solve, and how is it supposed to grow? You're making decisions with purpose. And that changes absolutely everything. Because once you adopt this kind of identity, every time money comes in, you don't just ask, what do I spend on? You ask yourself, where does this money go? And more importantly, what is this money meant to do? Is it protecting me? Is it building my future? Is it supporting family members? Is it for fun? What is this money supposed to do? That one mental shift turns money from something you manage into something that you deploy. You're not managing it. You have a system to deploy it almost automatically. And here's what's powerful about this: you don't have to be an expert. You don't need to understand everything about markets. You don't need to get every decision perfectly right every time, because your strength is no longer in protection. Your strength is now in structure. And structure reduces mistakes automatically. Because instead of random decisions, instead of making decisions based on what's happening contemporarily, you have a system that is consistent. Money comes in, it gets allocated, some protects you, some grows, some is sent for obligations, and you repeat month on month. That's it. Over time, this identity as well begins to compound. You become more intentional, more confident, more decisive. Not because you're forcing discipline, but because you've changed how you think, you've changed how you move, you change who you are. From I hope I'm doing the right thing to I know what my money is doing every month and I approve. If I had to come back five years from now and look over what I have done with the information I had, this is the right thing to do. And once that happens, you stop feeling stuck, you stop feeling frustrated, you stop feeling like you're unsure about what the future holds because now you're not just maintaining your building. Let's make this real for you. Because if this stays an idea, then nothing's going to change. Nothing in your personal life is going to change with your money. You need a way to start immediately without confusion. So I'm going to give you something simple. It's not perfect, it's not final, but it is a good start, an effective start. From your next income, do this one thing: split your money with intention. That's it. No complex system, just split your money with intention. No overthinking, no complexity. How much money should you be giving for your family obligations? How much money should you be giving to make sure you pay all your immediate bills? How much money should you be setting aside for emergencies? And how much money can you set aside to invest realistically? What portion protects you? What portion builds you? Those are the questions you're asking yourself. First, define your safety base. You make sure that you are covered, which means your basic savings, 5-10% of your income. This is your emergency support, your stability. If you don't have this, start at this point. If you don't have a savings account, if you don't have an emergency fund, start with this. Because growth without some kind of stability, some kind of protection creates stress. And that stress comes alive when some tragedy happens. And what you were depending on changes. And now you need some kind of safety net, some kind of buffer. You lose a job. Somebody who's a non-insured family member, but somebody who you're responsible for, somebody dependent on you, suddenly needs a sum of money that you're not ready for. That's instability. And it comes from not having an emergency fund or some kind of savings first. So we build the base first. Next, on step two, introduce some kind of growth allocation. Now, this is where most of us will hesitate. But we're going to remove that stress, that friction. You don't need to go big, you don't need to do everything at once. You just need to start. Even if it's 5%, 6%, 7%, 10% of your income, a small but consistent amount, it needs to be allocated to something that can grow, preferably faster than the rate of inflation over time. This could be a simple mutual fund. It could Be a diversified investment fund, an ETF, it could be stocks owning parts of businesses. Nothing aggressive, just something you can participate in. Because the goal is not to win immediately, the goal is to enter a system of growth. In step three, you're going to automate the decision. Now, this is critical. Don't rely on willpower. Don't tell yourself every month I'm going to make a deposit into my savings account. I'm going to make a deposit in my growth account. Don't rely on willpower. Set it up so your money is allocated automatically or immediately after your salary hits your account. Because if you wait to decide, you won't decide. Life will happen, expenses will come, and the growth will be postponed by something that feels urgent, but in the perspective of your entire life is not nearly as important. Again, we don't want your growth to postpone. Step four is be consistent, not perfect. You will not get this perfectly right the first time. That's not the objective. The objective is to start and be consistent. Money comes in, you allocate it again and again and again. Every time maintaining the same posture because repetition be builds the outcomes you're looking for, the growth you're looking for. And not perfection. Not one big decision. In step five, you increase over time. So as your confidence grows and your understanding of what you're doing improves, you can increase your allocation. But don't rush this. Again, start small. Build familiarity. Learn about these different growth tools available to you and be consistently feeding them. Let your behavior stabilize over time. When it's stable, then you can expand. All right, let me say something important because many people delay at this step for years, waiting to learn more, earn more, or feel more ready. But while they wait, nothing grows. This is why starting is better than perfection. Because as you start, whatever you start with grows, while somebody waiting for perfection grows nothing. So don't wait for perfect understanding. Start with simple structure. Again, because structure creates clarity and clarity will build your confidence. So don't mix up which comes first: confidence or clarity. Clarity from taking action in an uncertain environment is what builds your confidence. That's why, in the first three months of working your job, the first six months, the first one year is the most anxiety-ridden because you're unclear. And because you're unclear what your role is, you're lacking in confidence. But the more you do your job, the more you show up day to day, the more you improve your ability to perform at your job by doing your job imperfectly in the beginning, the better you get at it, the more confident you become, the more of an expert you will ultimately be. If you keep going. So from today, you're no longer just saving, you're allocating. And that one shift is what separates people who maintain from people who build. All right, let's close this out properly. Because you need one idea that stays with you long after this episode ends. Many of us, you might be thinking, right? You think you have a discipline problem. You think I need to save more. I need to control my spending. I need to be more responsible. And on the surface, that might sound right. But after everything we've just broken down, I hope you can see clearly now that that's not the real issue. The real issue is that your money isn't doing anything. It comes in, it sits, it slowly loses its power. And you mistake that stillness for safety. So you keep saving, you keep preserving, you keep doing what feels responsible, but nothing actually changes because your system is incomplete. And once you see that, you can't unsee it. Because now you understand saving is not the problem, but saving alone is a massive limitation. So let's simplify this into one line. The one I want you to carry with you after this episode of the Money Blueprint podcast. You're not struggling with money because you don't save. You're struggling because your money isn't working. And the moment your money starts working, everything changes. Not overnight. Inflation doesn't work overnight. Building your money also doesn't work overnight. But it's working directionally. Because now some of your money protects you, some of your money grows for you. And that balance is what builds your momentum. It's what will build your confidence. And ultimately, over time, that balance between saving and growing is what's going to build your wealth. So from today, you don't just save, you allocate. You don't just hold money, you give it purpose. And once you do that consistently, you'll start to notice something very subtle. You're no longer maintaining your lifestyle. You're actually building your future as well as maintaining your lifestyle. And that's the shift. Now, if you've listened to this and something has clicked for you, if you're starting to realize that your money isn't actually working for you the way it should, then I want to invite you to something a bit more intentional. I've created a private list where I break down step by step how to actually build a working financial structure, not theory, not just coursework, but a clear practical guide on how to make your money start working properly. If you're serious about fixing this problem, the link is in the description. Join that list and we'll start building this properly. Before we go, my producer has shared with me, as usual, a list of questions that have come from listeners via email. Again, if you'd like to share questions you have about this topic we've discussed or anything other than what we've discussed today, please send an email to the money blueprintpodcast at gmail.com, and we'll be happy to include your questions as they come. My producer is going to read them out as always, and I will take a few moments to answer them before we close out today's episode.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

First question from Elvis23 and Living in Kigali. I don't earn much yet, so I always feel like saving or investing is pointless until I make real money. Does starting small actually make a difference?

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Oh yeah. That's uh that's really that's a hard one for most of us to wrap our minds around. Yeah, I mean, you don't earn, and I always feel you always feel like saving and investing is pointless until you make real money. That that uh that's a matter of order, in my point of view. It's a matter of order because if you're not stabilizing your current financial position, and what I mean by stabilizing, I mean do you have your basic needs met? Is your life are you content? And now some of the concept of content is a matter of you appreciating what you have, and uh, and some of it is a matter of are you earning enough to sustain yourself, right? There's a balance in being in between those two things. Because your money does need to be used to help you stay alive, obviously. But staying alive alone isn't enough for the human condition. We we need to feel a purpose behind our living. We want to feel some that we are driving towards something. We want to also feel like we are enjoying the process, at least to some degree, enjoying that process of living. So, so some of your money is going to be spent on your survival. Some of your money is going to be spent on some level of enjoyment and purpose. But until you've got that sorted, investing and saving for the long term becomes a little bit redundant. And I'll say why. Uh, the reason why is because if you are saving, for example, trying to build an emergency fund, which is the first thing that we talked about, in building a balanced um structure to your income. If you're not, if you're saving, but you don't, you're not surviving, you're you're you're struggling to survive, then the first casualty of some kind of financial shock, the the first sign of trouble, you're going to go after that savings account. Or even without trouble, maybe the first time you're you decide to emotionally spend, you're going to go for that savings account. Again, because you have not met your immediate right now needs. And without meeting those needs, your savings and investments are at risk because you're going to go after them to meet your needs. So, again, this is another reason why having an emergency fund is so critical. But even before having an emergency fund, you see an emergency fund protects an investment account, right? Because in the event of an emergency, if you have your basic needs met, when an emergency comes, you use your emergency fund to solve the emergency. But if you don't have an emergency fund and an emergency comes, but you have investments, you're going to go after your investments to solve your emergency. However, if you're living in a constant state of emergency because your basic life needs aren't being met, then saving and investing becomes a non-starter simply because you're not stable enough to sustain real saving and investment investment over time. So I'd start with establishing some stability in your income and your living costs. Find a way to cut your costs, find a way to live inside what you have, find a way to earn more stably so that you can start saving and investing and building, right? Nobody can build without a foundation. And having a stable income, some form of stability, is where we start building from. Great question.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

Second question from Paul 37 and living in Kampala. I have a stable job, but I keep thinking about starting a business. The fear is losing my steady income. How do you know when it's the right time to take that risk?

SPEAKER_01 55:38

Yeah, this is another fantastic question. Thank you for asking it. It's the same thing that uh my client that I mentioned at the beginning of this episode was talking about. She had a stable job, but she wants to buy a home, but is very worried about the potential of losing her job and what that could do to her loan, uh, especially an extended loan, 15, 20, 30-year loan, and you don't have that income that whole time, right? So she's worried about if I take a loan, if I take a risk, particularly this is what's what this listener is asking about. If I take a risk like starting a business, like buying a home, and my income isn't steady, um what's going to happen to me? Uh now you are gonna have to take risks. That's just a reality of life. Life is a risk. Taking a shower is a risk. You know, getting in your car is a risk. Going to work is a risk, uh, eating out is a risk, having children is a risk. There's now no part, there's no life without risk. The question is, how do we contain um these risks? What are we doing to manage them? Uh, when we have that settled, we'll become more comfortable taking risks. So, just like a farmer on a farm, you know, there's no guarantee that the farmer, when they plant their seed, they're going to get a harvest. There's no guarantee harvest will come. There's no guarantee tragedy won't happen. There's no guarantee that pests won't come or birds won't come in and eat their crop or other animals. So, what farmers do is they protect their farm. They put their crops into, or they build greenhouses, they they fertilize, they irrigate, they uh put up scarecrows. Um they do all kinds of things to protect the farm, to encourage growth in the farm, but there is no guarantee. In the same way, with your money, you need to take risks that are managed. Not completely prevented, that's not possible, but managed in an intelligent way, right? So there's a there's a deeper conversation, but it's a great question.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

Last question from Crystal 25 and living in Kigali. I'm in a relationship where I'm more financially disciplined than my partner. I save, I plan, but they live more in the moment. It's starting to worry me long term. How important is financial compatibility?

SPEAKER_01 58:05

Isn't this the truth? Yeah, I mean, isn't that the way all of us, everyone in a relationship, you know, one person is a saver, the other one is a spender. It's like we attract um our opposites. And that doesn't come from that statement doesn't come from nowhere that's saying opposites attract. Uh, it's very common that you'll have two people in a relationship. One is a planner, a saver, and the other one is a spender. What is important to do in a relationship when you're in it, you definitely have to do this, but even more importantly, before you get into a committed long-term relationship, we need to have a discussion about the way we use our money. We need to come to consensus because we're not the same. Even if you were both savers or both spenders, you you're not the same person. So you have don't have the same concept of of saving and spending and planning. You don't you don't operate at the same scale. Um uh so what is very, very important to do is sit down and have a very clear conversation, a coming to mind, a meeting of minds about what you want to do with your money, right? We want to, what's our priority? We want to to build a home, we want to retire early, we want to put our kids in these kinds of schools, we want to live this kind of lifestyle. Now, your resources, most likely for everyone on earth, your resources don't meet everything you desire to do. So you have to prioritize. Without having this conversation, you're likely to run into conflicts, very preventable conflicts, um, because you didn't discuss what you expect. And I think, again, one of the greatest reasons for relational and marital conflict is unmet expectations. We can't meet expectations if we don't discuss them. So, your first step to resolve this long-term worry is to discuss and build a plan together, one that takes into concessions because you're not the same person. You're different, your relationship is two people, two different people. You need to come to some kind of agreement about what to do so that you can move forward. That's how you deal with that stress. Alternatively, have this discussion before you get into a long-term decision relationship so you can make a decision about whether it's a right fit. And we should be doing that not only about money, but about everything critical in a relationship. Faith, um, family, culture, um, lifestyle, habits, all these things need to become part of that conversation. I hope that helps. Once again, thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next episode of the Money Blueprint Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

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