How I lost all my money
Yes. That is correct! And No, I wasn’t swindled. I lost every single penny with my consent — and here is that story.
Just as every young individual born into these times of economic pressure to make lots of money, I was and still am no different. I too wanted, wants and will make lots of monies. But before we get to the future I have a rather interesting story with a handful of lessons about how I didn’t pay attention enough to my finances until I had an empty pocket.
I finished high-school nearly a decade ago, but didn’t transition immediately into college which is perceived to be the natural order in my home country, Nigeria. Coming out of high-school, I wasn’t sure what career path I wanted, if any career path at all, but one thing was constant — I wanted to make money.
So I started off with manual on-site labour, as a hired hand on a construction site, then I transitioned to tech, basically as a cybercafe attendant before getting my hands on writing code (although till date, I have never written a single line of code for money) because I saw a hacker movie and thought it was cool. Eventually I interned at a handful of tech environments (even without having gone to college) most of which didn’t turn out as expected but always left me with an important lesson or a new discovery.
In time I discovered I actually enjoyed writing above every other thing I knew how to do at this point, but no one would hire me, so I stared off with mini-projects just to pacify my excitement. I wrote about tech, personal development and random poetry under hundreds of pen names. With time, my friends with better financial positions noticed my writings — and perhaps out of goodwill and a desire to help, I got a few gigs but I kept working on my side projects.
Funny how I was writing, teaching people how to get into tech, but rather than code myself I played videogames all day [mumu me]
I put some of my works out on the internet, including professional sites such as LinkedIn, and one day, I got a random text for a job offer which agreed to pay me 10x (ten times) anything I was earning already, which frankly was nothing really (although ten times zero equals zero; you still get my point).
With a few months working, I made a nice amount of money for myself. Right after that I started a social media agency that focused on social media and ad management for small businesses. It wasn’t a banging success at any specific point but it brought in some income to still maintain a lifestyle that at the time I considered simple but in reality was still way above my financial knowledge.
Then COVID-19 hit. The world went on pause, but my money didn’t exactly. Now I made 10x of 10x and then… I blew myself out of the park!
10x of 10x for anybody is a substantial increase, regardless of the specific figures and here I was “papito-jamalaya, biggest boy in town!” with very little knowledge of what I was getting myself into. I made my first mistake:
- Sporadically increasing my expenses to match my income!
I’m not big on regrets, but this I can easily laugh at and say it was outright foolish. While a piece of it was fuelled by my insecurity to look successful since I hadn’t gone to college like most of my peers who were even done at this point, I should have realised that no one necessarily gives a flying five about your life if it is successful or not.
Everyone has enough troubles to keep them occupied and while some will occasionally find time to poke fun about who is successful or not, they simply don’t care as much as you imagine they do.
Nobody send your papa — Nigerian Proverb.
Thinking about the figures makes it all sound silly to me, but I still will entertain you without the details.
As soon as my expenses (doings — as we like to refer to it in Nigeria) became noticeable the expected by unanticipated happened;
2. Bills, billings and more bills
With an increase in expenses and upgrades, of course you’ll expect to pick up some bills along the way, what I didn’t anticipate were recurring bills and even more the obvious; everybody wanting a piece (which isn’t a terrible thing especially if you’ve got in abundance)
I was becoming responsible for things I had little concerns about and for people I didn’t know too well. I basically became a hotline and I had a flawed logic to the concept of giving that I gave out more than I could absorb.
Now, the present but unconscious emotional pressure of bills and billings effortlessly put me in a position to make my next mistake.
3. No Investments
I had savings (that I could easily access with any sort of restraint) but nothing to grow money. I kept spending, till I moved into my savings just to unconsciously keep up with my new persona. Of course, this was a terrible logic and soon enough I was starting to forcefully budget my expenses and would pass on many things I used to get because obviously (owo ti ku waso) there wasn’t a whole lot left.
I realised this mistake a little early but quite late, so I started to swing and miss with most of the money I had left by trying to become an angel investor to projects I had little knowledge about. I put in my money into many things that promised ridiculous returns and why not? Who doesn’t love a sensational comeback story.
I went big on many projects, and the expected happened — I went home! Empty!
There are a handful of silly details I intentionally omitted because they really have no lessons in them and are just a show of poor decision making and horrid financial skills.
Have I recovered just yet? Well, I know what I know now and with that I will keep plugging away and focus on making myself more money but more importantly keeping and growing what I already have.
Moral of my story:
Na mumu dey buy Azul for club dey drink garri for house, no let social media pressure you and no forget to chop for your house before you waka go anybody papa house. God no go allow them make dem shame you; and oh! shora fun obirin, olorun a wa pelu e — A quote of Nigerian street proverbs.
— WILLIAMS FALODUN
