My first job straight out of law school gave me shitty pay. It was far below the acceptable minimum wage in my country at the time. This was 2018.

The salary barely covered bills, and there were times when bus fare to the office was a problem.

I had to do freelance writing with meagre rates to supplement my already sorry salary.

This was also the time I was on my personal finance journey. I was already learning about savings and investments, assets and liabilities.

As helpful as that knowledge was to me, it was working on the money mindset that carried me through my dire condition.

My mind was open to the possibilities available, and I was on the path to healing a lot of my embarrassing money wounds.

What turned everything around for me was when I started to appreciate the little luxuries in my life.

You could barely afford anything nice for yourself, so what luxuries could this be?

In my last newsletter, I shared a practice of relishing abundance. Here are more you can start with to tap into the abundance that comes from the little luxuries around you.

But in return I challenge you to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on X or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance. (Do people still use hashtags these days?)

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and I write about personal finance and learning to be abundant.

I can’t take credit for the practices I’m about to share. They’re from Katherine Zenkina of Manifestation Babe and Genevieve Rackham, who showed up at the lowest time of my life.

They helped me appreciate the little luxuries and expand my consciousness of abundance.

1. “There's more where that money came from”

In the early days of Manifestation Babe, Katherine shared that whenever she made payments, she would say the words “there's more where that money came from”.

So I decided I'll practice that, but with a twist — I'd also add “it feels so good to be rich”.

I can't begin to tell you how much resistance I felt doing this practice.

I felt shame for saying “it feels so good to be rich” when my circumstances were everything but rich.

I felt embarrassed because what if the shopkeeper heard me say this every time I bought cheap crackers? Can you imagine the look they'd give me?

But you know what?

At that time, I'd rather be embarrassed and ashamed than to remain in my position of lack. I had nothing to lose.

So every day my sister and I went to work on public transport, we'd say “there's more money where that came from” and “it feels so good to be rich” every time we paid the fare.

We said these words to each other. And kept at it.

For me, it wasn't just saying the words; I wanted to keep that feeling and make it a reality for me.

So each time I said those words, I made sure to feel in my body what it really means to know “there's more money where that came from”.

What does it actually feel like to know that “…it's good to be rich”?

That's the feeling and intention I carried through my day.

Yes, everything around me sucked, but not my inner world.

Not so long after, my sister and I got better jobs that paid so much more.

2. “This pillow feels so soft”

I can't remember how I came across Genevieve Rackham and her sister Gianna, but I certain it was on Facebook.

Genevieve was a money coach, while her sister was a relationship coach. When I came across their work, they were just starting.

In one of her Facebook videos, Genevieve shared her journey of working through her negative money beliefs.

One of the practices she mentioned she did was to appreciate how soft her pillow was. She used to take frequent naps as a way to reset herself when she struggled with her negative mindset.

Appreciating the softness of the pillow was her way of anchoring herself to the presence of abundance around her.

Another thing she did was to appreciate the warmth of the coffee cup in her hands, while sitting outside and enjoying the sun. The little luxuries.

So I decided to give it a go.

This was a wonderful morning and evening practice for me.

I'd feel the softness of my pillow and allow myself to be immersed in the consciousness of this luxury. I felt abundance.

I enjoyed this practice so much that I kept looking around for more things to practice with.

There was this one time I called in sick, and while I was in bed, I couldn't stop staring at the walls.

I thought, “man, how many bricks went into this wall? How much money is that? And the cement? And the paint? It must have cost millions! I'm surrounded by millions!”

3. “Spend the money in your pocket”

I can't for the life of me remember whether it was Kathrine or Genevieve who gave this practice.

How it works is you put money in your pocket or wallet and walk by shops and mentally spend that money.

The idea is to bring to your awareness all the things you can buy with that money. And you'll be surprised you can buy so much!

I remember when I was serving my country at the National Youth Service Corp, I had to pass a busy market to get to the bus stop that would take me home.

In my pocket, I put a single note and slowly walked by the shops, mentally spending my money.

It was a strange practice, but I found myself buying 2 items and then more with the same note.

Say you put a $20 bill in your pocket. I'd see shops where an item is $1 and go “Wow! I can buy 20 of those!” or “Oh! My money can buy that bag!”

By the time I got on the bus, my mind would be full of all the things I could buy with the money in my pocket.

I still do this practice today. But this time I smile knowing that I can now buy things from stores I never imagined I could.

Now it's your turn!

Each of those practices is easy, but they will challenge you. They're going to challenge your core beliefs about yourself and how you think about money.

You're going to feel all sorts of ways: joy, fear, anger, etc. And that's good. Those feelings are telling you something about your mindset.

They're giving you cues on what you need to work on internally. Don't fight them. Tackle them head-on.

Ask yourself:

• Why do I feel shame, fear, (insert negative feeling here) when I do this practice? Is my belief about what's causing this feeling really true?

• How can I reframe this false belief?

• Who do I need to forgive? What thoughts do I need to let go off?

The more you question the negative, the more you heal. Do this often and soon you'll get to a place where those negative beliefs would be history.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

This wasn’t how I wanted my comeback to this newsletter to be. But I'd rather be real and open than pretend that I have everything figured out.

I went from living my most abundant life to being crushed under the weight of being a shadow of myself.

In this newsletter, I’m going to share what happened so you don’t wait years to realize that skipping your daily abundant practice can be fatal.

But in return I challenge you to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on X or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance. (Do people still use hashtags these days?)

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and I write about personal finance and learning to be abundant.

Relish Abundance started with the desire to share what I did to improve my personal finances.

I was by no means a “rich kid”. I experienced the full depths of what it can be to be less privileged.

Where I come from, we call it “living in the trenches”.

Relish Abundance was my story of seeing the light beyond the trenches and actually stepping out to something better.

It got better, alright. So good that I forgot the practice of what got me there in the first place.

And I don't mean I stopped hustling. I mean I stopped working on my mindset.

Where most people (like me) miss it

You probably can't think your way to being rich. But you can put your mind and identity in alignment with the version of you that's abundant.

If your identity and the hustle don't match, one will drag the other down – and that's almost always your mindset.

When I stopped my mindset practices, it triggered the version of me from the trenches. And instead of course correcting, I thought I could “fix things” if I worked harder.

The more I worked, the more overwhelmed I got, and I eventually burned out.

From there, I picked up a new identity – the lost girl who just kept failing.

At that point, I tried to reinvent myself and picked up new skills. However, I still didn't touch my mindset, and my sense of identity crumbled.

I looked at my old posts, interviews I did, and reminisced about the “good old days”. For weeks I mourned the version of myself who was successful as if she died.

But she wasn't dead. She was left dormant because someone (me) didn't “feel” like doing the hard work.

In my despair, I broke down and blamed everything but my own thinking.

You can course correct now

Yes, I experienced disappointments and my confidence was shattered.

But instead of going back the practice to center my nervous system, I allowed the uncertainty take over.

It wasn't until I had some conversations with good friends that I saw a pattern.

Over the past couple of months, I've had random conversations that somehow end up being about abundance.

Ironically, I found myself sharing my past practices with my friends.

The more I spoke about my learnings on money mindset and healing from money wounds, the more it became clear to me that I had abandoned the practice for myself.

And that's what kept me stuck.

It wasn't that I didn't work hard enough; I worked with the wrong identity.

The real work wasn't the hustle; it was to build that unwavering certainty in who I wanted to be.

It was to challenge my nervous system to be capable of holding more abundance and not be complacent when things got better.

It was to seek more by developing the identity that I could be more.

That's where I missed the ball.

And here I am, years later, writing this with the hope that you don't have to wait as long as I did to figure it out.

This is your reminder that to relish abundance requires internal work. Daily.

What's next?

I’m going back to work on abundance mindset, and I'm taking you with me.

Relish Abundance will change a little. I don't want it to be just a personal finance blog. I want it to be much more than that.

I want this to be a place where you can learn to actually relish (enjoy, savour, immerse yourself in) abundance. Abundance comes in different flavors of wealth, health, freedom, and more.

If that's what you want, then stick around. And if there's someone in your circle who would appreciate the journey, please share.

Share Relish Abundance

Today's practice

I'll leave you with something you can practice today:

Look around you and relish every sign of abundance you can find. It's as simple as:

• Appreciating the softness of your pillow

• Enjoying your favorite cup of coffee

• Feeling the gentle breeze on your skin

Hold that feeling throughout the day. That's luxury.

Why it works?

With this simple practice, you're teaching your nervous system that you're capable of experiencing wealth.

You don't become abundant by hating everything around you.

If you were living in a mansion right now, wouldn't you enjoy that life? You wouldn't ignore your Olympic-size pool or newest model cars. You'd take your time to savour them because you can. (You don't have to rush to work.)

So practice that life now with what you have.

You can check out this piece if you’d like to dive more into changing your negative money mindset. (I certainly had to re-read that)

See you in the next one.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It’ll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

There was a time when one of my negative beliefs around money was “my foreign clients would be turned off by my payment processor”.

It may sound weird but this belief stopped me from getting clients for a long time.

But I was able to turn that belief around.

You might not have the same money belief as I had but in this newsletter I will share some steps that will help you turn your negative money beliefs around — whatever those beliefs may be.

But in return I challenge you to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance.

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and I write about personal finance and fintech.

Step #1: Identify the belief

If you’re able to identify the core money belief that’s holding you back, you’ve solved 50% of your problem. The deeper and more specific you can get to the money belief the better.

I wanted to work with foreign clients. For a long time, I thought my inability to work with them was because I wasn’t good enough to offer great service. But that wasn’t really the problem. It was a surface problem. When I got deeper, I realized that it wasn’t that I didn’t have what it took to provide great service. It was that I thought people wouldn’t want to work with me because receiving payments from where I am would be difficult for them.

It’s a crazy and dumb belief. But it literally paralyzed me.

Step #2: Challenge the belief

Under every negative belief is a clear reason why that belief is complete bullshit. And you must make it clear to you that that belief is dumb.

I made myself realize that no client, who truly wants to work with me, would make the payment processor an issue. In fact, my ideal client will go to any length to make sure that they pay me in full and on time because they want to work with me.

Convincing myself that my negative belief was bullshit took me about 10-15 minutes just because I can be a tough nut to crack sometimes.

Step #3: Affirm the new belief

The next thing I did was to tell myself the kind of clients I wanted to work with. I kept telling myself that my ideal client will go through any length to make sure that they pay me. And I mean ANY LENGTH to pay me, simply because they want to work with me.

The more I said it, backing it up with the exercise I did in step #2, it made it easier for me to run with my new belief.

And guess what? It worked!

There were times my clients reminded me that I hadn’t sent them the invoice for the month yet. One client actually told me that she sat through a 2 hour call with their bank to make sure that the payment went through. Some have even paid me a week, two weeks and even a month in advance.

It can work that fast!

Now it’s your turn!

We all have negative money beliefs show up once in a while. And it’s okay. What’s important is that you tackle those beliefs as soon as you notice them. And I hope that the 3 steps I shared will help you overcome your negative money beliefs like they helped me.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It'll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

And if you found this newsletter helpful or insightful, please share with with friend.

Share

And if somehow you found your way to this place without subscribing, don’t leave without dropping your email.

Subscribe now

Aside from wanting to learn how to trade forex for the past 3 years it only made sense for me to actually give this journey a try. Plus, the current craziness around the dollar to naira rate made it the perfect timing.

As I learned and practiced this new skill, it helped me solidify some of the principles and beliefs I knew and had about money.

So in today’s newsletter I wanted to share the 4 things forex has taught me about money.

But in return I challenge you to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance.

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and I write about personal finance and fintech.

1. Money has to move

A lot of people’s belief around money is that they should be able to hold all of it constant over a long period of time. But the truth is that money has to move.

As I watched the candles on the chart go up and down, it made it more clear to me that money never stops moving.

Money must be exchanged or circulated before it comes back to you in larger amounts or higher value. That’s why it doesn’t make sense to obsess over keeping or hiding money.

Even the money you keep in the bank or some fintech app moves. They literally take your money and give it to the next person who’s making a withdrawal or securing a loan.

The day you go and withdraw money from the bank or the fintech app, you’re given someone else’s money. It’s never the very note you deposited. All you see in the app or the ATM when you check your balance are figures and not the record of the original notes you dropped in the bank.

You can’t keep money in one place. It has to move. (I know I said this many times already but I want it to stick.)

This is not for you to freak out or think that your money is going to disappear. It’s just a beautiful dynamic worth appreciating.

If money moves, then that means that as it leaves your pocket/app/bank more money will find its way back to you.

That’s why you shouldn’t freak out when you have to pay bills or borrow money. It’s all part of money moving. The money will eventually come back to you in leaps and bounds.

This now makes it your responsibility to hold on to this understanding and to keep reminding yourself that the money you spent or invested will one way or another find its way back to you in larger amounts.

Remember, you can be doing all the right things to make more money, but if you have negative beliefs about money, it’ll never come to you. And even if it does, it’ll come in drops or it’ll flow inconsistently.

So work on that part of your mindset that makes you think that once money leaves your pocket it’s gone forever. Money has to moves so that it’ll get the chance to come back to you in larger amounts.

2. Sometimes money “moves backwards” before it moves forwards

There’s something called a pullback in forex trading. A pullback is when the money goes in the opposite direction before it follows the general trend.

Let’s say that the market is on an upward trend (meaning the price is going up). There will be moments when the price will have to go down. It doesn’t mean that the market is going down. It just means that at that point the market needed to “breathe” before going back up again.

Think of it like stretching a rubber band. You have to pull it back in order to give it that strength to fly once you release it.

That’s how money works.

You see this happen a lot in the stock market. When the stock market is red and it looks as if every company listed on the stock exchange is making a loss, seasoned investors say that this “crash” is healthy. It’s even called a “correction”.

Despite the several market corrections the stock market goes through, the value of the S&P 500 never went to zero. In fact, the value of the S&P 500 increases every year.

3. You’re given a choice to either chase money or wait for it to come to you

If there’s something I heard a lot in the past month among forex traders it’s “wait for the market to come to you”.

I didn’t quite understand this until I got better at drawing my support and resistance lines.

There’s something interesting money does — it revisits the previous points they touched. These points are either the support or the resistance lines. The best times to enter a trade is when price hits those lines. This is because when it does, you know exactly how the price will react.

If price hits the support line, the next thing price will do is to go up. If price hits the resistance line, the next thing it will do is that it’ll go down.

The worst thing you can do as a trader is to go after the price because you can never know which direction it will go. But when you wait for price to touch your support or resistance lines, it makes it so much more predictable where next the price will go.

It’s the same thing with our behavior around money.

One thing my dad always says is that when you run after the money, it runs away from your. But when you pet it, it comes to you.

More often than not, chasing the money pushes it away. That leaves you feeling frustrated. You’re literally creating so much tension around it.

Money doesn’t respond to how hard you work. If it did, we would have had several millionaire laborers. But money gets attracted to those who enjoy what they do, who did not set making money as a top priority in their lives.

4. Money tells you a lot about yourself and your relationship with money

You’ve probably read in some of my newsletters or some of my posts on social media how important it is to work on your money mindset. This is because even if you’re doing all the right things to make money, a negative mindset around money will always repel money from you.

What better way to know about your relationship with money than through your interactions with money and anything associated with value?

3 years ago my money mindset was in such a terrible place, that I couldn’t for the life of me hold money. It left just as fast as it came. However, over time as I developed a healthier relationship with money and my ability to hold money improved.

But one thing about working on your money mindset is that it’s a continuous exercise. There will always be new areas in your beliefs around money that will need to be addressed, especially as you begin to cross higher monetary thresholds.

3 years ago I would literally celebrate being able to have N1000 saved. And if at all I had that kind of money, I’d celebrate with N500 yogurt from Pinkberry with my sister or a friend. That would take me back to N0 in savings.

I worked on that part of me on that level and on the N10k level, and the N100k. But there are so many other levels beyond that. That’s why you need to constantly work on your money mindset.

What trading forex did for me was to expose some of the beliefs I have around money, relationships and self-love and care that I need to work on.

And I know that once I’m able to work on those beliefs, I’ll be able to handle larger sums of money.

It’s crazy how money works!

As I reflect on my forex trading journey and how it’s reminding me of some of the intriguing principles about money, I can’t help saying “it’s crazy how money works!”

But at the same time, it’s sad to think about how there are so many people who have made enmity with money and see it as unfair or even cruel.

If that’s you, then think of it this way: every person you had the opportunity of meeting had their own unique characteristic, mode of thinking and approach to life. Wouldn’t it be weird to grudge them for simply being themselves without getting to know them first?

When you truly get to know them, you end up realizing that they weren’t so bad after all. What you thought annoying behaviors were just their way of navigating the world. Gradually your annoyance starts to turn to deeper knowing and maybe even fascination.

Drop a comment and let me know if the way money works sounds wild to you. I enjoy hearing how people perceive money.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It'll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

And if you found this newsletter helpful or insightful, please share with with friend.

Share

And if somehow you found your way to this place without subscribing, don’t leave without dropping your email.

Subscribe now

Since it wasn’t part of the plan I initially created for myself, I knew I didn’t want to use the money to buy clothes, shoes, gadgets or anything like that.

I wanted to make sure that I invested it in something that will give good returns in the long-run. But I was undecided on what exactly that could be. In fact, it took my 3 days to figure it out.

After thinking things through, I decided to invest ALL OF IT into crypto. The cryptocurrency market was doing well — Bitcoin was nearing the $50000 mark, Cardano touched $3 and it was due to launch smart contracts on September 12 — it was going to be all up from there.

…or so I thought.

In this newsletter, I’ll share with you

• exactly which cryptocurrencies I bought,

• the crazy incidents that happened along the way, and

• my thoughts about investing in crypto.

But in return I challenge you to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance.

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and I write about personal finance and fintech.

My Game Plan

My plan was simple: invest in Bitcoin, Cardano, and Matic. The platforms I decided to use for this were Bitnob to invest in Bitcoin and Bundle for Cardano and Matic.

Those coins were increasing in value and Cardano was going to launch smart contracts and the Polygon Network (the blockchain that creates the coin called Matic) was developing new projects.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

…and it went all down hill from there

The first “mishap” came from Bitcoin.

The day I decided to invest in Bitcoin, the price of Bitcoin had already gotten to $50303.62. But I didn’t worry so much because I believed that it would only be a matter of days before the price of Bitcoin would go higher.

So, once I funded my USD wallet on Bitnob, I added to the 3 Bitcoin savings plans I created. The next thing I did was to also fund my BTC wallet on Bitnob.

The bitcoin savings plans are locked until a certain maturity period, while the BTC wallet allows me to have easy access to bitcoin if the need ever arises.

I usually like to fund both.

If you’d like to know about how Bitnob works, I recorded a podcast episode all about it. Click here to listen. And if you want to know the story behind Bitnob, you can listen to my interview with Bernard Parah, CEO of Bitnob.

As I write this newsletter the price of bitcoin is at $46,345.19. That’s almost a $4000 drop since I bought bitcoin.

The second mishap was with funding my Bundle.

As I said earlier, I use Bundle to buy Cardano.

If you’re using Bundle to buy crypto, you have to fund your Bundle using peer-to-peer (P2P) transaction, because the “Crypto Ban” prohibits banks from facilitating cryptocurrency related transactions.

So, I use an app called Abeg to fund my Bundle.

Abeg is a social payments app you can use to send and receive money easily as well as do giveaways and communicate with people on the app.

To fund your Bundle, you need to initiate a payment with a Cashlink partner. So what I do is to send money to the Cashlink partner through Abeg and that person funds my Bundle.

Easy, right?

Absolutely! But for some reason Abeg was experiencing some issues with their giveaway future which restricted some people’s Abeg account. What this did was to prevent users from sending or withdrawing their money from their Abeg wallets.

Strangely, that morning I sent my sister and dad money via Abeg and both transactions went through. They also used their Abeg wallets to carry out transactions and there was no problem.

But when it came to funding my Bundle, my Abeg account was restricted. So I could not pay the Cashlink partner. The Cashlink partner was nice enough to contact me to suggest another mode of payment because his Abeg account was also restricted.

Although I was able pay the Cashlink partner through another means, my money (that was initially allocated to buy Cardano and Matic) was “stuck” in my Abeg wallet.

When I finally got to buy ADA (which is what Cardano’s coin is called) it was about $2.80 and Matic was about $1.70 before it tanked to $2.50 and $1.30 respectively two days later.

I spent the rest of the evening sending emails and DM-ing Abeg. It was nerve-wracking and frustrating.

At the end of the day I was told to send a picture of myself holding my Voter’s Card and the next day my Abeg account was back to normal.

My Thoughts About Investing in Crypto

Maybe reading about my experience cooled you off from investing in crypto.

One thing about investing is that it’s normal for the market to up and down. But the prices never stay down forever.

When you invest in cryptocurrencies, you’re not just investing in them as an asset, you’re also investing in them because of the story and projects behind them.

I invest in crypto because I believe in the projects behind them and the future they hold. And most times a drop in the market is healthy.

And for those who wanted to get the chance to invest but couldn’t because of the prices, can now invest at a lot cheaper.

Do I regret my decision of investing all of my leave allowance into crypto?

Absolutely not.

Am I advising you to do something similar?

Not if you don’t know what you’re doing. Or you’re not able to handle the drop without freaking out.

I actually laughed when the prices went down. 😂 And it turned out to be a great topic to write about.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It'll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

And if you found this newsletter helpful or insightful, please share with with friend.

Share

And if somehow you found your way to this place without subscribing, don’t leave without dropping your email.

Subscribe now

I shed a tear at the beginning of September right after I calculated my net worth.

For the past year I have been calculating my net worth consistently.

There were months when I felt disappointed with my decisions around how I managed my money. And there were also proud moments when my decision to build my portfolio paid off.

But this month was different for me.

As I wrote the figure at the top of my journal and compared it with last year’s number, I saw that my net worth had grown by over 600%.

Recording my net worth helped me stay conscious of my financial decisions and money habits. So, in this newsletter I wanted to share my process of calculating my net worth with you.

But in return my challenge to you is to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance.

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and I write about personal finance and fintech.

Step 1: Have a plan

In my last newsletter I wrote about the importance of paying yourself and how having a plan is the first step to pay yourself. If you’ve not read it or need a refresher, then click here.

The plan helps you:

1. stay focused on how you’re going to spend and manage your money after calculating your net worth, and

2. assess how that plan has helped improve your net worth.

I like to be clear on my plan before calculating my net worth, because right after doing the calculation, I start executing my plan to pay myself.

Step 2: Write down how much you have sitting in your bank account, fintech apps, crypto wallets…anywhere you have money

I keep a separate journal to write my net worth and I use it only for that purpose. The last thing you want to have different energies mixed up with your finances.

I start off with a list of my bank accounts, my savings apps, and other investment apps.

You want to know how much is in each account. So what I do is to write the source and then the amount in front of it.

Like this:

GTBank: N50,000

Kuda Bank: N80,000

Some apps have several “pockets” where you can save or invest money. Piggyvest is a good example. You’d want to write each of those out separately.

Like this:

Piggyvest:

• Total Savings - N100,000

• Investify - N50,000

If you’re like me and you keep your emergency fund in Piggyvest’s Flex Wallet, then you’d like to state the amount you’ve kept aside for emergency for tracking purposes.

Total savings under Piggyvest includes everything in the savings features (Target, Safelock and Flex Naira). So without specifically stating how much out of the total savings you set aside for your emergency fund, you wouldn’t know how you’re doing building your emergency fund.

So your segment under Piggyvest will look something like this:

Piggyvest

• Total Savings - N100,000 (Emergency fund = N40,000)

• Investify - N50,000

If you have your investments denominated in dollars, state the dollar figure and then convert it into naira according to the exchange rate of the app. Each fintech app that allows you to invest in dollar or dollar denominated assets have their own interest rates.

Most times you get to see their interest rates when you go to the wallet section and do as if you want to fund your account in dollars. You’ll see the exchange rate show up.

So when you’re recording the dollar investments it’ll look something like this:

Piggyvest:

• Total Savings - N100,000 (Emergency fund = N40,000)

• Investify - N50,000

• Flex Dollar - ($20) N10,500

Risevest:

• Total Investment - ($150) N78,000

• Wallet - ($90) N46,800

Bitnob:

• Total Investment: ($100) N50,000

• USD Wallet: ($30) N15,000

• BTC Wallet ($180) N90,000

Of course, you might have some cash in your wallet or in the back pocket of your jeans. You need to include that to your list under “Cash in hand”.

I leave nothing to chance so I literally check my wallet every time I calculate my net worth, even though I know that for the past 3 months I’ve only had N50 in there. 😂

So in the end this is how your list should look like:

GTBank - N50,000

Kuda Bank - N80,000

Piggyvest:

• Total Savings - N100,000 (Emergency fund = N40,000)

• Investify - N50,000

• Flex Dollar - ($20) N10,500

Risevest:

• Total Investment - ($150) N78,000

• Wallet - ($90) N46,800

Bitnob:

• Total Investment: ($100) N50,000

• USD Wallet: ($30) N15,000

• BTC Wallet ($180) N90,000

Cash-in-hand - N1500

Step 3: Add everything up and record the total

Here comes the fun part — add everything up.

I usually title my journal with the month and the year, then I write the total in front of it.

So if I’m going to use the example above, it’ll look something like this:

AUGUST 2021 : N571,800

Step 5: Express gratitude, pat yourself on the back for doing this exercise, and set an intention for the new month

This is the simplest but the most important part of the process.

Most times when we receive money, it’s easy to forget to be grateful. This also goes for when you know you overspent during that month too.

Looking through all the money you have in your accounts can feel strange. Sometimes it feels like you're exposing your shortcomings every month. But you should be proud of yourself every time you finish calculating your net worth. With time it’ll feel a lot easier and more fulfilling to do so.

And then set an intention of how you want the new month to be for you financially. This is not the place to overstretch yourself. See it more like a moment where you express where you’d love to be financially. No strings attached. No pressure.

Some additional pointers

A personal rule I give myself when calculating my net worth is to not spend any of the money until I know my net worth for the month first. So that means I hold off any payments and hold off the execution of my plan to pay myself until I have finished calculating my net worth.

It might seem a little extreme, but I want to make sure that I have as accurate a number as possible.

Another thing to note is that this process doesn’t take into consideration the value of physical assets like the value of your plot of land you own, or the value of digital assets like your NFTs. The reason for this is that you will have to get those assets valued by a valuer (not sure if that’s how it works for NFTs but you never know 🤷‍♀️).

You have to hire someone to value the property and it wouldn’t make sense to hire someone to do that every month. (At least in my opinion.) You could hire someone to do that on a yearly basis, though.

If you own a couple of those assets and they make up part of your portfolio, they also add to your net worth. You could get a rough estimate (or more like an educated guess). But if you do, then make sure you go for the lowest number.

The idea is to get a close figure of what your net worth could be without over shooting it, then you can course-correct at the end of the year when you do hire a professional valuer.

Now it’s your turn

I know that you’re reading this a couple of days into the new month, but it’s not too late to start the habit of calculating your net worth.

You wouldn’t know your financial standing until you start recording your process. And that’s what this is: A Process.

Calculating my net worth month after month was the best accountability I needed to make sure that I stuck with my money habits. And I’m sure that this process will help you as well as it helped me.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It'll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

And if you found this newsletter helpful or insightful, please share with with friend.

Share

And if somehow you found your way to this place without subscribing, don’t leave without dropping your email.

Subscribe now

As the month is coming to a close, I wanted to step out of my usual format of my newsletter and drop this reminder instead.

You probably grew up used to the idea of paying bills or buying things. Occasionally, you treat yourself to something special and that’s about how far it goes.

But guess what? All this while you’ve been neglecting yourself.

How?

You might say “I pay my bills and I take myself out once in a while. I haven’t been neglecting myself.”

But when was the last time you acknowledged yourself for all your hard work? And how is it paying you back in the long-term?

Yes, buying yourself something special sounds good, but that will only satisfy you in the short term.

You owe it to yourself to live a good life and to have a financially secure future.

Although it’s nice to treat yourself once in a while, it does nothing to build wealth for you.

That’s where the concept of “Paying Yourself” comes in.

In this newsletter you’ll learn:

• What it means to pay yourself and how that looks like

• The easiest way to start paying yourself

• How to keep paying yourself even if you get paid less than expected or at different times during the month

But in return my challenge to you is to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance.

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and I write about personal finance and fintech.

What does Paying Yourself actually mean?

Paying Yourself means setting aside money for your financial goals before you spend the money for other things.

So setting aside money to buy a new phone wouldn’t amount to paying yourself. And the reason is simple: a new phone isn’t going to add to your financial goals.

Some people will say that buying a new phone will help them meet their financial goals. Although you can use your phone to improve your financial condition (assuming you’re using it for business), the money you spend on buying the phone makes it a business investment. You’re not paying yourself.

So what does paying yourself look like?

It’s simple: saving and investing. This is what’s going to grow your wealth in the long-term.

There are different ways savings and investing plays out.

Savings could look like setting aside a fixed amount of money on a periodic basis (daily, weekly, or monthly).

You can do this manually by putting your money in your savings apps yourself. Or you can do it automatically by enabling the settings that allows your savings apps to withdraw the money from your bank account automatically.

The risk involved in saving is low but so is the returns in terms of interest.

Investing is more versatile. You can invest in:

• Dollars or any other currency that’s stronger than your local currency

• Stocks or shares of companies

• Mutual funds

• Cryptocurrency

• Real estate

• Bonds and treasury bills

Depending on the kind of investment apps you’re using you can invest automatically as well, but most times it’s done manually.

Unlike saving, the risk involved in investing ranges between medium to high risk, but the returns are a lot higher.

Typically, you should save and invest (not choose one over the other). And when it comes to investing, you should have a good mix of the ones above. That’s how you diversify your portfolio.

Just as different as each of those types of investments are, so is their performance and rate of returns. So diversifying your investments helps to cushion the effect of an investment that isn’t doing so well.

For example, let’s say you’re investing in cryptocurrency, dollar and mutual funds. The time when cryptocurrency isn’t doing so well, the dollar and your mutual funds would help cushion the effect of the drop in value. That way you’ll still be getting returns even if one of your investments isn’t doing so well.

The situation would be different if you only invested in one form of investment. The day that investment goes down, so does your whole portfolio.

The easiest way to start paying yourself first

Over the years I learned that the easiest way to start paying yourself is to consciously plan for your next payday. And I don’t just mean setting a reminder to pay yourself as soon as you receive money.

I mean…

• having a clear figure or percentage of how much you’re going to save or invest

• knowing the exact investments you’re going to make

• knowing the next step you’ll take when your savings and investments mature (Will you reinvest your investments or extend your savings plan? Will you redistribute the returns you make on your savings or investments and how?)

I typically consider all this a week before my monthly payments come in and then apply same to the next set of payments that will come in within the following month.

The more you do this the more you start to have a fixed pattern of how you pay yourself.

Here’s an illustration of how I plan to pay myself:

• 5% of every payment that comes in goes to my emergency fund (even if I earn N1000, 5% of that money will go into the fund)

• At least one client payment goes into Risevest, half of which is split among my 4 investment plans (2 real estate, 1 fixed income, and 1 stock plan). The other half stays in my Risevest wallet.
  (I wrote about how I “dumped” $400 in Risevest. You can read it here.)

• At least $120 goes to cryptocurrencies (specifically Bitcoin, ADA, and Matic)
  (If you’re thinking of adding more decentralized investment options to your portfolio, then you’d want to listen to this episode.)

• At least $100 goes to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) (and the goal is to always by at least one full share of one of the REITs and fractional shares for the rest)

• At least $150 goes to my dividend shares with the aim of completing at least 2 full shares and fractional shares for the rest.

• At least N20,000 goes into reserve.

• Any extra money after the bills, upkeep, and miscellaneous, goes into overflow savings.

And I have this plan with me to guide me on what to do as soon as money comes in.

Of course, you don’t have to follow my plan. You should create one that works for you. What’s important is that you have some sort of game plan to pay yourself. And it needs to be as detailed as possible.

Now that we’re nearing the end of the month and getting close to pay day, this is the best time to prepare a detailed game plan to pay yourself. And if you have a game plan already, you should review it before you get paid.

The purpose behind reviewing your plan at least a week before pay day is to:

1. Remind you of the actions you must take as soon as money comes in

2. See how you can improve your plan and get specific on what exactly you’ll invest in or how you’ll save

3. Find ways you can expand your savings or investment or introduce more diversity in your portfolio. (In my earlier plans, I didn’t include other cryptocurrencies aside from Bitcoin. I also didn’t have plans for REITs. So this month’s plan is more focused on further diversifying my portfolio)

But what if the payment I receive is below what I planned?

The plan doesn’t change but the figures could.

If you set your plans according to percentages, then you don’t have to change your plan at all. The amount you pay yourself will vary with the percentage.

For example, even if I earn less for the month, that 5% I set for my emergency fund will not change. That’s because the 5% will vary the amount of money I’ll put in my emergency fund.

But if you set a fixed figure, that may have to change with how much to earn. But it must not be removed from the list.

Let’s say you planned to invest $50 into shares. But you weren’t paid what you expected and you’re only able to afford only $10 for the month, then put it into shares like you planned.

What if I don’t receive all my payment at the end of the month but at different times of the month?

This may happen if you have side hustles outside your 9-to-5 job.

That’s where adding more detail comes to play.

Let’s say you have a 5 point plan to pay yourself and you have a side hustle and a 9-to-5 job. You can write that Points 1-3 will be done when you receive your salary, while Points 4-5 will be done when you get paid from your side hustle.

Are you ready to start paying yourself?

It might feel a little scary to embark on this journey. I know I was scared.

More often than not, paying yourself is overshadowed by paying bills. But you cannot underestimate the importance of paying yourself and building your wealth.

I hope that as you get close to pay day, you have a clear plan and start paying yourself first.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It'll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

And if you found this newsletter helpful or insightful, please share with with friend.

Share

And if somehow you found your way to this place without subscribing, don’t leave without dropping your email.

Subscribe now

When I was growing up my mom would bake cookies and keep them on the top shelf in the kitchen.

I’m a sucker for homemade cookies, so I used to pull a chair to get to the shelf where my mom hid them.

As much as I would like to convince myself of the opposite, I never “stole” the cookies because I was hungry or felt like snacking. I took the cookies because they were available and I had everything at my disposal to get to the shelf.

It’s kind of like what when it comes to breaking into your savings.

And just the same way I put my hand in the cookie jar, I picked at my savings too. But over the years I was able to teach myself to not touch the money I saved. And that’s what I want to share with you today.

Huge shoutout to my friend, Femi Ariyo, for inspiring this topic.

Here are some things you’re expected to learn at the end of this newsletter:

• Why not touching your savings is more of a mindset issue than that of strategy

• How to start trusting yourself enough to attract, hold and grow your money

• Strategies that have helped me not break my savings

But in return my challenge to you is to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance.

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and share practical tips on personal finance.

What happens when you break into your savings?

To be honest, you don’t get to experience the true beauty of saving in the long-term when you keep breaking into your savings.

This is because of the concept of compound interest.

Here’s the definition from Investopedia:

“Compound interest (or compounding interest) is the interest on a loan or deposit calculated based on both the initial principal and the accumulated interest from previous periods.”

Let me break it down for you.

Let’s say you started your savings with N10,000 and the interest on that savings account is 10% per annum.

The N10,000 is your initial principal.

If you save N10,000 a month for the next 2 years, it’ll look something like this:

Total contribution for year 1 = N120,000

Interest for year 1 = N12,000 (10% of N120,000)

Grand total for year 1 plus interest = N132,000 (N120,000 + N12,000)

Year 2 total contribution = N120,000

Total contribution plus total savings for year 1 = N252,000

Interest for Year 2 = N25,200 (10% of N252,000)

Grand total for year 2 plus interest for year 2 = N277,200

So what happens when you decide to break into your savings?

You crumble the potential of the expected long term gains through compound interest. In other words, you’ll either start from scratch (if you withdrew all your savings) or less than what you were meant to have.

How to stop yourself from touching your savings?

You might be doing all the right things to prevent yourself from touching your savings, but if your mindset is not in alignment with your desired outcome, then you’re bound to slip back into old patterns.

For as long as I can remember I was a compulsive spender. I spoke a little about this when I wrote about my money habits.

It got so bad that I was afraid to carry cash or my ATM card because I’d probably find a dumb excuse to spend the money.

Things began to change when I worked on my beliefs around money and ability to hold money.

This is where the power of introspection comes in.

Ask yourself what thoughts come to your mind when you feel the urge to break into your savings.

After having several calls with people who struggled with their saving habits, these are some of the common responses I get:

1. If I don’t give this money to X, they’ll think I’m stingy/proud/selfish/ungrateful.

2. I want to be accepted by others.

3. I don’t want people to think I don’t belong.

4. I want to help and when I do I’d feel more accepted/be seen as caring/be taken as a good or loyal friend.

5. I’m not worthy of keeping this kind of money/having more/being wealthier than X.

6. I don’t want anyone to think I’m above them.

7. I’m terrible with money. Any time I get some money it disappears. (Or I don’t trust myself with money.)

8. I don’t have a specific goal I’m saving towards, so why save?

9. I feel responsible to help others and I don’t mind letting go of what I have.

I personally struggled with points 4 and 9.

Of course, these don’t cover all the the limiting beliefs around savings. But if you could resonate with any of the beliefs above, here’s how to work through them:

1. Fully own up to your limiting beliefs:
   Things won’t change until you accept that there’s a problem.
   

2. Reason it out and ask if your belief is really true:
   When you reason your limiting beliefs, you tend to realize how stupid there are. For example, why would deciding to save make you look like a bad person? And even if it did, would you rather be broke all your life in order to prove someone wrong for just a minute?
   

3. Reframe your limiting beliefs into something positive:
   Next thing is to start teaching yourself your new beliefs. So let’s say your limiting belief was “I’m not worthy of being wealthy”, switch it to “I am worthy of being wealthy”. Keep repeating your new positive beliefs to yourself as often as you can until it’s a part of you.
   

Now that you know how to handle the mindset around your savings, here are some strategies that will help you from touching your savings:

1. Separate your “Spending Account” from your “Savings Account”

Usually when it comes to spending, there’s an account you’re used to taking money from. Let’s call this your “Spending Account”.

In your mind, access to that account means easy access to all the money in it. If that’s the case, then you wouldn’t want to keep your savings in that account. This is where the “Saving Account” comes in.

I prefer using a fintech app with a good interest rate for this purpose. Piggyvest’s PiggyBank feature offers an 8% interest rate per annum. Crowdyvest’s saving features can go as high as 25% per annum, depending on the amount you’re saving and for how long.

Since your Spending Account is separate from your Saving Account, it reduces the tendency to touch your savings.

2. Lock your savings

When it comes to how I save, I like to take it up a notch by locking my savings. Depending on the app you use to save, breaking into your Saving Account before the due date attracts a monetary fee in form of penalties.

Some apps charge between 1-3% in form of penalties.

With that in mind, you’re less likely to break into your savings because you won’t want to incur any additional expenses.

3. Quantify “Giving Money” and keep that in a separate account

For all my givers out there, this strategy might be one that will help you.

I came across this strategy during a church service. The pastor spoke about the concept of the 7 Money Cups where your income is divided into buckets for certain purposes. One of those Money Cups was dedicated to giving, which should make up 15% of your income.

(Feel free to fast forward to 31:27)

So any time you receive any form of income, immediately calculate 15% of that income. That 15% is your “Giving Money”. Next, put that 15% in a separate account.

So, whenever you want to give money to anyone, it should come out from the account where you kept your “Giving Money”.

This takes the pressure off you touching money from your Spending Account and your Savings Account.

Ready to stop touching your savings?

Now that you now how to not touch your savings, it’s your turn to give it a try.

But trust me when I say that it’s going to be a process especially now that you’re working on your mindset as well.

Ever step you take towards working on yourself and your saving habits is going to be worth it.

If ever you get stuck or need someone to give you some accountability feel free to reach out.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It'll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

And if somehow you found your way to this place without subscribing, don’t leave without dropping your email and subscribe.

I come from a family that doesn’t believe in owning a First Aid Kit.

My parents believe that when you have a First Aid Kit that means you’re anticipating that you’ll experience cuts and bruises.

After all you don’t keep a First Aid Kit for decoration, do you?

Although I didn’t quite buy my parent’s thinking, I found myself acting in alignment with their belief around First Aid Kits.

For me, my First Aid Kit was my emergency fund.

One of the most popular advice people in the finance space give is that you should have an emergency fund to fall back on. And to be honest, I always ignored that advice, until one day I made a decision to actually build one.

In this newsletter you’ll learn:

• What is an emergency fund and why you should have one

• A simple strategies to help you build your emergency fund

• The right mindset to help support you as you build your emergency fund

But in return my challenge to you is to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance.

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and I write about personal finance and fintech.

Why Have an Emergency Fund?

I’m sure you already have an idea of what an emergency fund is. But just to make sure we’re on the same page, an emergency fund is money you set aside solely for emergencies. This can be for a wide range of emergencies from the little ones like your car breaking down to bigger emergencies like taking care of hospital bills.

But why have one?

Obviously, it’s to keep you prepared so that you don’t have to liquidate your savings or investments.

But I want to take it a little deeper.

If I’m allowed to take a wild guess, up until today you probably have been relying on your secret stash of savings to get you through rough patches.

I was that way too.

Life shouldn’t be about just keeping aside money for rainy days or emergencies. You should save for fun experiences, self-development or leisure as well.

Why only limit yourself to emergencies when there are other things to also live for? Certainly not every day is going to be a day of emergencies. It’s not realistic.

I think keeping a fund separate from your savings but dedicated to emergencies alone, will help put you in a better headspace when it comes to money and how money can support you.

It creates the spaciousness you need to begin to see money as something that is out there to support your dreams and also hold you up when things don’t go right. And this can happen more effectively when you compartmentalize money.

So keep your stash of savings separate from your emergency fund.

Lessons I Learned From Building My Emergency Fund

I’ve only started working on my emergency fund for the past 2-3 months. At first it felt strange. I must admit that there were times where I struggled with it.

But after sticking through it for the past couple of months, I realize that a lot of what held me back were my self-imposed limitations.

Here are 3 lessons I learned so far:

1. The kind of mindset you have towards a fund could encourage or discourage you. So, approach emergency funds with the right mindset.

I’ve been learning about personal finance for about 5 years and having an emergency fund was among the first steps to working on your finances.

But I never bothered to build an emergency fund. I didn’t see it as important.

As I dug deeper to understand why, I found out that it was because I dreaded emergencies. So I saw having an emergency fund as granting permission for the floodgates of emergencies to open.

If this is you, then I’d like to challenge you to look at your emergency fund from a different perspective.

Instead of seeing it like an open invitation to disaster, see it more like a support system. This will help shift the energy from “Oh my gosh! Now anything can go wrong!” to “I am supported, secure and safe”.

This simple mindset shift made it a lot easier for me to build my emergency fund. I no longer have any resistance towards it.

And if you’ve struggled with having a positive relationship with your money then this will help you too.

Most times people who see money as never being there when they need it, truly desire to experience security. When you start seeing your emergency fund as being there to support you, this line of thinking will ultimately spread to other aspects of money in your life.

2. Starting an emergency fund doesn’t have to be difficult. The easier the process to get started, the longer you’re able to stick with it.

I have a bad habit of overcomplicating the process of everything, including money. The downside to overcomplicating the process is that you run the risk of never starting.

With this in mind, I decided to allocate 5% of whatever money I receive and add it to my emergency fund. That’s it.

I’m so conscious of this “rule” that setting aside 5% is the next thing I do as soon as I receive payment. And on the days I forget (which is rare) I make sure I have it done.

The app I chose to keep my emergency fund was PiggyVest, specifically the Flex Naira feature. I created a label called “Emergency Fund” and drop my 5% in there. Interest on the Flex Naira wallet is 8% per annum, so I’m making additional income on my emergency fund.

3. You can actually survive on less.

It happens to the best of us. When you take a portion out of your income, you tend to wonder if you can survive on less.

You might even be tempted to question if you really need an emergency fund.

But the truth is that, you’ll be just fine.

If you decide to follow my approach by keeping aside 5% for your emergency fund, you’ll notice that the amount is determined by how much you receive. It’s unlike a fix figure that you have to pay no matter how much you earn.

If you earned N100,000 this month then 5% of that is N5,000. But the day you earn N50,000, you’ll only have to keep aside N2,500. And if you don’t receive anything at all, 5% of zero is zero.

When you take a second look, you’ll see that you’re only setting aside a small fraction of the money you earn — a fraction you can do without and one that won’t hurt your pocket.

So it is doable.

Now It’s Your Turn

I’m glad you didn’t skipped this piece on emergency funds. The old me would have. So I’m proud of you for sticking through it.

I hope this newsletter will encourage you to consider building your own emergency fund.

And if you had an emergency fund but gave up on it, I hope I was able to provide you a strategy that will encourage you to get back on track.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

In this recording, I spoke about what it means to finish the month strong.

…and no, it's not about making more sales.

As always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

Pardon the quality of the audio. I wanted to try out Substack's audio feature. 😫

Last week on Relish Abundance on Clubhouse I hosted a room with Oluwaseun Adeyanju. He is a financial writer and has written for a number of publications like Motley Fool, Investopedia, Forbes, and a host of others.

We spoke about how to combat devaluation and use it in your favour. Seun brought in his experience in the finance space as well as his 10-years experience as a freelance writer for foreign clients.

And the conversation was rich with value.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Here are some of the highlights of our discussion:

• Our perspective of the effect of the devaluation in Nigeria and how it has affected long term wealth

• Measures we're taking to protect our wealth from devaluation

• People's reaction to inflation

• Other means of hedging yourself against inflation (eg. StableCoins, Gold, etc)

• Can you run freelance business and a full-time job?

• Side hustle ideas

Huge shoutout to DennisMary, Godbless, and Lanre Basamta for their contributions to the conversation.

Mare sure you follow them on Clubhouse:

• Oluwaseun Adeyanju

• DennisMary C

• Godbless Onyebuchi

• Lanre Basamta

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It'll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

And if you found the recording helpful or insightful, please share with with friend.

Share

And if somehow you found your way to this place without subscribing, don’t leave without dropping your email and hitting the ‘Subscribe’ button.

Subscribe now

Many people call me the Fintech Queen. But after what happened this week I doubt I’m worthy of that crown.

If you've read my previous newsletter about my money habits, one of the things I do is to save or invest my money as fast as I can so I don't get tempted to spend it.

This was one of those occasions.

…and decided to deposit my money in RiseVest.

I'm embarrassed to say this but for some reason I was surprised when I was asked what my monthly contribution would be. 🤦‍♀️

Anyway, maybe I'm being dramatic but…

Here are some things you’re expected to learn at the end of this newsletter:

• Why investing in dollar-denominated assets is the smartest thing to do (especially if you're in Nigeria)

• How RiseVest works

• How to decide which plan to go for

But in return my challenge to you is to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance.

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and one of the reasons why I love fintech is that they make it so much easier to invest in things I never thought I'd ever be able to.

And for me, that’s real estate.

Usually during a recession, the US housing market experiences a decline. But with the pandemic, the market is experiencing a move in the opposite direction.

With many companies implementing work from home policies and more millennials buying their own homes, there has been a boom in the housing market.

For us reading this here in Nigeria, investing in the US housing market could help with your portfolio.

When I saw this notification from RiseVest, I knew that the real estate market is one we shouldn’t miss out on.

Why should this matter?

It’s no longer news that the value of the naira has dropped against the dollar. Dollar is now sold at N503 to $1 in the parallel market. In the grand scheme of things, this only means that it’ll be a terrible idea right now to keep most of your net worth in naira.

I’m no financial expert, but in a time like this, the best place to look for investment options is in something that is dollar-denominated.

This where RiseVest comes in.

RiseVest helps you build your dollar portfolio. All you need to do is create a plan, fund it and then allow RiseVest to manage your investments for you.

For someone who is risk averse like me, you might feel more comfortable knowing that experts will be managing your money instead of you doing all the heavy work like research and analysis. The only thing you need to do is to maintain your commitment to invest monthly.

So what I did this week was to deposit $400 at once.

Although I’ve used RiseVest before when I was testing the app, that was the first time I deposited that much at once.

But as I spent more time on the app, I noticed and learned a couple of things I didn’t know when I first started using the app.

1. Look at percentages up close

Let’s take a look at their real estate plan.

The historical returns on the real estate plan is at 15% per annum.

But what most people see the “15%” and they hardly notice the words “per annum”. 15% per annum it means that you will get 15% returns on your investment at the end of the year.

But what’s interesting is that, if you’re looking to invest in the short term, you can set your real estate investment plan to 3 months or 6 months.

Here are the percentage returns you’ll get on your investments for those periods:

• 3 months = 3.75%

• 6 months = 7.5%

• 12 months = 15%

Now let's look at what the app says.

The percentage mentioned on the app is 12-15%. This may be because they want to make sure they give some sort of buffer. This could be because you can never predict the market.

So if you’re making your investment plans, you need to take that into consideration.

Now let’s look at the fixed income plan.

The dollar-denominated assets covered by the fixed income plan are bonds. There was a time when it clearly stated Eurobonds, but right now I’m not sure what kind of bonds they’re investing in.

The historical returns here is at 15% per annum. Just like the real estate plan you have the option of investing in the short term.

But this is where things get interesting.

What you see above is what shows on the app. But when you hit “Get Started” you get the following breakdown of the rate of returns:

• 3 months = 3%

• 6 months = 6%

• 12 months = 12%

You have 3 different percentages depending on the duration of your investment.

Unlike what’s written on their website, the app actually “guarantees” you 10% returns per annum.

Fixed income is a little more stable than real estate and stocks so I’m not sure if:

• the difference is them giving some wiggle room in case the market is bad, or

• they just forgot to update the content on their app or their website.

I personally go with the percentages that you see when you tap on “Get Started”.

Now let’s have a look at the last plan — the stock plan.

What we have on the website is 14% returns per annum, which is the same on the app.

Unlike the real estate plan and the fixed income plan you don’t have the 3 or 6 month options. This could be because of the nature of stocks. They’re not a predictable kind of investment. They’re more volatile than the other two investment plans.

I created a stock plan with a $10 monthly contribution for the next 12 months. And this is what it looks like.

This is how RiseVest came up with the projected estimate of $136.80.

Monthly contribution is $10. So, your total contribution at the end of the 12 months is $120. The additional $16.8 is the 14% returns from your investment.

It might look little at first glance, but it’s because you’re making a monthly deposit of $10. If you increase your contribution, you’ll inevitably make more in return.

That brings me to my next lesson.

2. Make regular contributions

RiseVest promotes an investment strategy called Dollar Cost Averaging.

In layman’s terms, dollar cost averaging is when you make a regular investment of the same amount of money irrespective of how the market is doing.

This is how it works:

Let’s say that you want to invest in stocks.

As we all know the stock market goes up and down depending on how the market performs.

Let’s say you’re committed to investing $10 every month no matter how the stock market performs.

In month 1 you’d invest $10.

In month 2 you’d invest $10 again but the stock market did a lot worse than last month.

In month 3 you invested $10 and the stock market out-performed month 1.

The reason why this strategy is good is because you’re making consistent investment. It’s extremely difficult to time the market. You can never tell how the market will perform.

When the pandemic hit, businesses were affected. The government policies changed and affected the performance of the market.

Almost every sector tanked. Not even the expert investor saw that coming.

In the video above, Rose shows all the figures of how much you can make through dollar cost averaging. She also compared the figures of how much you would make if you had some psychic ability to time the market. Hint: the difference wasn’t much at all.

3. Let RiseVest’s portfolio inspire you on what to invest in

Just the way you’re investing, so does RiseVest. And I recently found out that if RiseVest is heavily investing in a particular plan, then it’s something worth looking into.

RiseVest shares their portfolio on the app. When I first started using RiseVest, their most of their portfolio was invested in stocks. And I naturally gravitated towards that plan. But this year, they’ve been very focused on investing in real estate. And of course, I followed that too.

So if you have no idea what whether to go for the real estate, fixed income, or stock plans, you can use their portfolio as a guide on what you can invest in and how much.

How I invested the $400

Before I go into how I invested the $400, let me give you some background.

1. I didn’t have a strategy in mind before funding my RiseVest wallet.

   All I wanted to do was to lock away my money in dollars. I didn’t want to subject my money to the increasing inflation rate and the maddening devaluation of the naira. That was my only reason.

2. The PiggyVest dollar rate was unreasonable.

   I don’t blame them, but I found N506 to $1 insane. And if I wanted to withdraw the dollar, the selling rate is N495 to $1. That’s a difference of N11. The interest rate on the Flex Dollar feature is 7%.

   RiseVest’s buy rate was N499 to $1 while the sell rate was N490 to $1. That’s a difference of N9. And the interest rate on the RiseVest plans is 10-15%.

At that point, it was a no-brainer to choose RiseVest.

With that out of the way, this how I invested the $400:

• Created a new real estate plan.

  I already had a real estate plan but I wanted to create a brand new one and specifically observe its growth. And as is my custom, I gave the plan an empowering and abundant name. I feel that doing that helps you set a positive intention with your money. Sounds crazy but I find it fun.

• Chose the 12 month plan.

  I wanted to take full advantage of the 15% return. Although 12 months is a long time, I felt that it was the best. I didn’t want to be tempted to touch the money.

• Made a commitment to deposit $10 every month to grow my real estate investment.

  $10 was the minimum I knew I could commit to.

• Deposited $100

• Invested $24 in my old real estate plan.

• Left the balance in my RiseVest wallet to think through my next investment strategy (which will be to invest in more real estate).

I admit, my method doesn’t make much sense but I wanted to be transparent.

Just like a lot of people it takes a lot of courage to make some major investments. Sometimes I just have to feel secure and proud of myself for depositing money, and then cheer myself on to take the next step.

Whatever be the case, just start investing no matter how little. Even if it doesn’t make sense, it will after a while.

I’m not saying that this is the best way to invest. But if you’re like me then I hope this encouraged you to take that first step.

How Would You Have Invested $400?

I wanted to end this newsletter with a question. I’m curious to know how you would have invested $400.

Like I said earlier, I’m not an expert. But I do hope that today’s newsletter inspires you to just make an investment.

I didn’t have a strategy behind my investment. All I knew is that I didn’t want to be tempted to spend the money and at the same time get really good returns.

And if you’ve not started invest in dollars, I hope RiseVest sparked your interest. If it did, here’s my referral code to get started: TGP1QG5O.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It'll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

And if you found this newsletter helpful or insightful, please share with with friend.

Share

And if somehow you found your way to this place without subscribing, don’t leave without dropping your email and hitting the ‘Subscribe’ button.

Subscribe now

If you read my last newsletter about leaning into your edge, I did something to lean into mine.

I decided to be audacious this July and host series of events on Clubhouse.

…and I may have scheduled 2 this week. 😅

• How to Run a Profitable Podcast, featuring Tiyan Omo-Idehen (Wednesday, 7th July, 2021 at 7pm)

• How to Combat Devaluation and Use It In Your Favour, featuring Oluwaseun Adeyanju (Friday, 9th July, 2021 at 7pm)

I'm sure you know by now that Relish Abundance is all about personal finance, money mindset and embodying the rich vibe.

So my Clubhouse events will follow suit.

My edge this month may not be money related but hosting events is something my abundant self would have done.

My Challenge to You

I know we're 6 days into the new month, but it's not too late to do something audacious with your life.

Respond to this thread with 1 thing you want to achieve this month that your abundant self would be proud of you for.

I have a confession to make…

Making big payments scare me.

But in the past 5 years I learned that the secret to making more money was to make scary moves. This is because those moves expand your capacity to receive more money.

So when I made my biggest investment for a coaching programme the other week, I realized the power of leaning into your edge in your journey to abundance.

Here are some things you’re expected to learn at the end of this newsletter:

• What it means to lean into your edge and why it’s crucial to expand your capacity to receive and hold more money

• Simple exercises to help you lean into your edge and expand your financial capacity even if you’re broke

• What to do to continue to lean into your edge even if you’re scared

But in return my challenge to you is to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance.

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and before diving into the world of personal finance, I not only had to fix my money habits, I also had to learn how to fix my money mindset.

I spoke about my money habits in my last newsletter. You can click here if you’ve not read it to catch up.

One of my favourite money coaches, Genevieve Rachkam, has been an amazing resource for the past 5 years. It was from her I learned the concept of leaning into your edge.

Genevieve continuously challenges herself to lean into her edge. This was how she was able to make multiple 6-figures in dollars.

She is a living example of how expanding your capacity to receive more money is a by-product of leaning into your edge.

But what does it mean to “lean into your edge”?

Leaning into your edge is a simple concept. It’s all about you taking a step out of your comfort zone.

Imagine you’re going parachuting. 🪂

You will not be able to experience the thrills of gliding through the air in your parachute unless you take a step out of the plane.

You might be able to feel the adrenaline rush while standing on the edge of the entrance of the plane. But if you don’t lean over the edge and jump out of the plane, you’ll only dream of parachuting but never experience it.

When put in the context of abundance, leaning into your edge is going out of your comfort zone to do something to experience abundance.

But more often than not doing those things are scary, even though you know that they will improve your life financially.

And it’s normal.

Fear doesn’t mean something is wrong, it means that you’ve never done it before.

How does leaning into your edge expand your capacity to earn more?

Let’s go back to the parachute example.

If you’re parachuting for the first time, you’re going to be afraid. Crazy thoughts would rush to your mind like:

“You’re insane”

“What if you die?”

“What if you won’t be able to do it properly or something goes wrong?”

But the minute you jump out of the plane, you’ll realized that it wasn’t as bad as you thought and that you were more than capable of handling it. Another plus, is that you end up enjoying the experience.

The next time you go parachuting you wouldn’t be as terrified as you were when you first started. And the more you keep parachuting, jumping out of the plane would be so easy for you.

You’ll go from being worried about jumping off the plane and begin to start experiencing the splendor of being in the air and looking at the beauty that lies below.

In other words, you expanded your capacity to enjoy the full experience of parachuting.

It’s the same with leaning into your edge to embody abundance.

Prior to the time I hired my first coach, I always wanted to have a coach. I knew that I would learn a lot through coaching and get the accountability I needed to stay consistent. But investing in coaching was way over my budget at the time.

So the first stage of leaning into my edge was talking to coaches online. I spoke to so many coaches for years. I hopped on free discovery calls, followed their content, asked questions in the comments and even offered to be a beta tester for their coaching programmes. Every time I was on a call or I engaged with a coach, I allowed myself to feel as if I had hired them.

My first call with a coach was scary. My fear soon turned to shame when they pitched their programme at the end of the call because I couldn’t afford their programme.

But the more I spoke to coaches, I increased my capacity to hire a coach of my own. And as a birthday gift I hired my first coach and paid in full. As for my second coach, I paid almost double what I paid the first.

And I must say that I wasn’t as scared of hiring the second as I was for the first.

Leaning into your edge normalizes abundance in your mind.

What this does is to subconsciously tell you that you have what it takes to handle such abundance. The more you’re able to handle such abundance, the more you start to find yourself coming across opportunities that will lead you to more money.

How does the money show up?

When you say you want money, it’s not actually the cash you’re after. It’s the experience that money gives you that you’re after.

You want the security, the confidence, the freedom, the options money gives.

When it comes to attracting money, people usually do it backwards.

They run after the money to get the experiences money gives. But that method is tough and more often than not a fruitless exercise.

Money is only attracted to you when you start experiencing the security, the confidence, the freedom, the options before having the money. The truth is that money is not the only source of those experiences.

My father always says “When you chase money, just like a rat money runs away from you. You have to pet money before it comes to you.”

So each time you’re leaning into your edge, you’re giving yourself the chance to experience those feelings first. That’s what draws money to you. That’s what brings about the opportunities to receive more money.

If you’re loving this newsletter, but you haven’t subscribed yet, drop your email below and hit ‘Subscribe’.

Subscribe now

How to lean into your edge if you’re broke

Up until this point, you probably think that leaning into your edge requires you to have money. And that’s far from the truth.

Back when I was working on improving my money habits, I didn’t have much money to play around with.

So most of the time leaning into my edge was made of me:

• walking through the market and asking the price of items as if I had money to buy them

• sitting down at a hotel lobby soaking in the luxury whenever I was sent to represent my former workplace at events

• confidently depositing N1000 at my bank as if I was depositing a million naira cheque

• ordering for a N500 piña colada flavoured yogurt from Pinkberry imagining I’m treating myself to something very fancy

Doing those things weren’t easy and I was scared just thinking of doing them. But as I leaned into them, I realized that it wasn’t as bad as I thought. The more I leaned in, the more it felt normal to think and live abundant.

And that’s the key: for acts of abundance to feel normal. That is what’s helps you increase your capacity to receive more.

So in my case

• walking through the market as if I had money to buy whatever I wanted, made me feel confident that I have options

• sitting down at the lobby of a luxurious hotel and made it feel that I could be a part of that luxury

• confidently depositing N1000 in my account made me feel a semblance of financial freedom and ability to handle my own money

• ordering my N500 piña colada flavoured yogurt made me feel abundant enough to treat myself to something special

And it was only a matter of time when my income caught up with the abundance that I was already experiencing.

So will you lean into edge or will you back out?

Your edge could be anything:

• sending that pitch

• starting that business

• creating that course

• trusting yourself that you can be responsible enough to improve your personal finance

• going to that event

And it’s normal to be afraid when you’re taking that unfamiliar step. But your abundant life is right across the bridge of your comfort zone.

So do those little things that make you feel abundant even if it’s ordering N500 piña colada flavoured yogurt.

Or walking through boutiques as if you have all the money in the world to buy whatever you want.

Or sitting in the lobby of luxurious hotel, even if it’s only for 10 minutes.

Lean into that edge and allow the money to match your experience of abundance

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It'll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

And if you found this newsletter helpful or insightful, please share with with friend.

Share

And if somehow you found your way to this place without subscribing, don’t leave without dropping your email and hitting the ‘Subscribe’ button.

Subscribe now

To be honest, I had my reservations about writing this newsletter.

I’m actually afraid that you’ll be carried away by the title and quickly scroll down to see if I inserted a screenshot of my account balance or investment portfolio.

But just like what I said in my last email: focus on the strategy that will bring in the wealth and not on the figures.

If you’ve not had a chance to read the last email, you can catch up and read it here.

Here are some things you’re expected to learn at the end of this newsletter:

• How being self-aware is the secret to solving your money problems

• How you can tailor your money habits to work for you

• Why paying yourself first before giving your money to anyone else is an act of self-love

• My exact money habits and how they worked

But in return my challenge to you is to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance.

Deal?

For those reading my newsletter for the first time, I’m Mary Victoria and I love fintech but one of the highlights of my journey into fintech was when my roommate said this about me:

“Mary is the kind of person who would walk into a bar and say ‘free drinks for everyone!’”

My first reaction was to laugh, but as I mulled her words over I knew she was right. I was spending my money on dumb shit. And no, I didn’t walk into a bar and neither did I buy everyone drinks. What I did was to spend my money on everyone except myself.

And don’t get me wrong. I didn’t say don’t do nice things for people. But always make sure it’s after you’ve paid yourself first.

What does paying yourself look like?

My mom always told me about how she made it a policy to buy herself something as soon as she got her salary from work. It was her way of appreciating herself for the job well done. Or in my mom's words, she wanted to “have a remembrance” of the work she put in or give herself a “consolation" for all her effort.

That was my mom's way of paying herself first.

But for most people, as they receive their salary, they're off to cover some expense (or in my case, spend it on other people).

And I understand. You have responsibilities. But think of it this way:

Who busted their ass off working?

YOU.

Then why not pay yourself something out of your salary or profits from your business that you can put into something that will secure your future financially?

You're the one who earned the money, so why not reward yourself for doing so. I think that's the highest form of self-love.

In the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, the concept of paying yourself shows up in 2 forms:

1. Setting aside money for savings

2. Setting aside money for investment

The Rich Dad in the book always paid himself first. And he was so diligent in this practice that he paid himself even if there wasn't enough to cover the bills.

And you may call him insane, but he knew that paying himself first would improve his financial future. He played the long game.

Sadly, many of us put ourselves on the bottom of the list.

We pay our bills, spend money on items that we don't need, buy food at eateries, then pay ourselves out of whatever is left of the money (that's if there's anything left).

I did this to a fault. And my net worth was ZERO or some loose change which I knew I'd give away for some absurd reason.

How did we get here?

I couldn't help but reminisce over my past money habits when my friend, Jeremiah Ajayi (or Jerry, as I fondly call him), asked me for some money advice.

For the past couple of weeks we've been having our weekly “mastermind” calls and it was on one of those calls where I spoke about my process.

Jerry shared some of my tips in his newsletter, The Weekly Goodness, where he sends bi-weekly emails with career advice and juicy stories about his experience in different workplaces.

You can subscribe to his newsletter here. His tips are pure gold and he gives the best gists.

Money habits that 5x'ed my net worth

You might find some of my strategies extreme. But they changed my life.

Before I go into my money habits, let me give you some context.

I knew I had a spending problem, so I had to create systems that will make me think that there wasn't enough to give away without making me experience and/or exhibit scarcity.

This was important.

I wanted to teach myself to exercise restraint from a point of abundance and not from the perspective of scarcity.

This is because I knew that if I started to feel that there was a lack of money, I'd act in a way that will attract more lack.

The law of attraction says that you attract more of what you think. So, if I thought lack or scarcity, I'd attract more of that. With a zero net worth, that was something I didn’t want to risk.

I knew I had a spending problem, but instead of feeling bad about it, I used my problem as a clue to guide me on the strategy that would work for me.

With this level of self-awareness I was able to develop the best strategy for me. And if you're a crazy spender like I was, these strategies will help you too.

1. Carry little cash around

I realized that I only spent money that I easily had access to. That means that in order to reduce my spending, I had to reduce my access to cash as much as possible.

So I decided to only carry just enough cash to get me through the day.

I calculated everything from my exact transport fee to and from work, to money for a little snack. I carried food from home so I didn't have the need to buy anything while at work.

My sister and I went to work together, so I handed over my transport fare to her, leaving me with money to only buy snacks on my way home.

Since the only money I had available was my snack money, that made me think of spending that money wisely.

My snack money was N200 and more often than not, I used it to buy bananas. And I made sure I kept some for my sister to eat on our way back home. So whenever I shared bananas with others I made sure it was only from my ration.

That detail is important.

In my mind the N200 wasn't just mine. It was my sister's too. My spending problem was geared towards spending money on people. So, naturally, my mind hinged itself on the next person I should spend my money on.

In my mind, giving away that N200 to someone else, felt like me starving my sister. So if I wanted to help someone, I'd rather save my half of that money and use the other half to get my sister snacks.

My sister had more than enough money to spend on snacks but my mind didn't process that.

So if someone asked me for money, all I could think of was “money was budgeted to the penny".

2. Use only one bank account

I applied the same reasoning above to my bank accounts too.

I had more than one bank account, but there was one account that I formed an attachment to.

In my mind, access to that account meant easy access to all the money in it. But when I kept money in another account, my mind processed that as money I don't have access to, even though that account was mine as well.

So, what I did was to put a good chunk of money in different accounts and specifically labelled such accounts in my head as accounts that can't be broken into.

It might sound strange that although I technically had access to them, labeling them as accounts that must not be broken into made those accounts a no-go area for me.

I made sure that I never got myself a Debit card or find out the USSD codes to withdraw money from those accounts. I didn't bother downloading their apps either.

More often than not, I'd even forget I had anything in those accounts until the day I had to put another chunk or money in them.

This simple exercise helped me limit the amount of money I had access to in my bank.

Before I spent any money in my bank account, I'd count how many days left to the end of the month.

This was to remind myself that the money in the account had to last until the end of the month or I'd be broke (which technically wasn't true but my mind believed it).

So each month turned into the fun game of me trying to out do my last month's balance.

3. Set spending thresholds for your accounts

This was an exercise I did way back in 2017. It started off as a game. The goal was to not spend money beyond a set threshold.

For example, let's say you have N500 in your wallet and it’s your usual custom to spend it all before getting home. You can mentally set a threshold of N100 and try as much as you can to make sure that by the end of the day you have exactly N100 left.

I played this game as a way to prove to myself that I could exercise some level of control over my money.

But trust me, it was hard.

There were days I walked instead of taking a tricycle to my stop or forego snacks. (I know I've mentioned snacks a lot. I'm half-Filipino. 😂)

But it was satisfying to see that I'd make the threshold. I kept at it until I had N1000 extra in my wallet. It was crazy depositing N1000 in the bank but it was the most satisfying victory ever.

I carried this same practice to my bank accounts as well.

Let’s say you have N50,000 in your account. Your threshold could be N10,000 by the end of the month. So the goal is to make sure that by the end of the month, you don't spend beyond that threshold.

Whenever I met that goal, I'd take that money and keep it in another account, then restart the game.

After successfully hitting the goal several times, I increase the threshold. This gave me an additional challenge. But it was fun to see just how I was able to use my money wisely.

If you’re loving this newsletter, but you haven’t subscribed yet, drop your email below and hit ‘Subscribe’.

Subscribe now

4. Lock up your savings

Taking cue from my need to reduce access to cash, another strategy I employed was to lock my sayings.

For this purpose I used PiggyVest’s Safelock feature.

Safelock gives between 6-13% per annum depending on how long you lock your savings. In return you are given your interest in advance which goes straight into Flex Savings.

In my mind, I also labelled PiggyVest as one of the “accounts that must not be broken”.

What I loved about the Safelock feature was how I made more locking my money away than I did keeping my money in different savings accounts.

Eventually, I moved the money my former savings accounts to PiggyVest to benefit from the higher interest rates.

On PiggyVest you can lock up your money for as long as you want.

I started off locking my money for one month, then 6 months and now I go as far as a year.

The longer you lock away your money, the higher the interest you're given. This not only reduced my spending, it increased my net worth.

5. Autosave

By this time I was really attached to PiggyVest. My friend, Anosi Olumekor, told me about PiggyVest’s autosave feature and I wanted to give it a try.

Anosi made a guest appearance on one of my podcast episodes about PiggyVest titled “A Quick Tour of Saving and Investing with PiggyVest + Review from New & Long-Time Users”.

Click here to listen to the episode

Through the autosave feature, money is saved automatically into your Piggyback on PiggyVest. All you need to do is to set the date PiggyVest should make the withdrawal and how much they should withdraw from your account.

The great part about it is that if you don't have that amount in your account, PiggyVest will not withdraw any money until the next withdrawal date.

The interest rate on the money kept in the PiggyBank is 8% per annum. So you get to enjoy the returns from the money that was saved.

6. Invest…a lot

At this point I was on a look out for other opportunities where I could keep my money. So the next thing I did was to start investing.

One of the fastest ways to grow your net worth is to invest. Although investing is a lot riskier than saving, the returns are a lot higher.

I'm risk averse so I naturally was on the look out for “safer" investment options.

PiggyVest's Investify feature gives you the opportunity to invest in projects. The projects that piqued my interest were the ones geared towards agriculture. They offered returns between 12% to as high as 36%. depending on the timeframe of the investment.

This was a gamechanger for me.

Through investing on PiggyVest I grew my net worth really quickly.

Then I took my investment game up a notch by adding stocks, crypto, and real estate to my investment portfolio.

To invest in stocks I used Bamboo and I started my investment journey with $20. Although I wasn’t able to buy a complete share of blue chip companies, I was able to buy a fraction of those shares. So I started off with investing in $4 in 5 different companies.

When I first started, I honestly didn’t know what I was doing. So I invested in a growth stocks like Google, Tesla, Spotify, and Etsy. Then I included one dividend stock: Apple. I didn’t have any reason or strategy behind my investments. I wasn’t aware that 4 out of the 5 stocks I bought didn’t give any dividend.

But it was after I received my first dividend from Apple that I took investing in stocks seriously.

Want to know how I invest in the stock market? Comment below to let me know.

Leave a comment

Then I started my crypto journey by randomly investing in Bitcoin and Ethereum on Luno just about 2-3 weeks before the infamous “Crypto Ban“. Just when I thought my crypto investment journey was over, I came across Bitnob and started saving my money in bitcoin.

I spoke all about Bitnob and how it works in my podcast titled “A Quick Review of Bitnob (+ Investing in Bitcoin)”

Click here to listen to the episode

And then I discovered RiseVest. RiseVest allows you to invest in dollar denominated assets. All you need to do is to create a plan, deposit money and RiseVest does all the investing for you.

You can create 3 plans on RiseVest:

1. The stock plan, where your money is invested in stocks. The estimated annual returns on this plan is 14%.

2. The real estate plan, where your money is invested in high demand rental properties. The estimated annual returns on this plan is 15%

3. The fixed income plan, where money is invested in secure, appreciating currency. The estimated annual returns on this plan is 10%

Me being me, I created all 3 plans.

7. Live on only one of your sources of income and save or invest the money from additional sources

According to the American Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the average millionaire has 7 sources of income. And if you start doing some of the things I mentioned in this newsletter, you would have created about 3-4 sources of income.

Having other sources of income and investing all (or most of it) while living off your primary source of income is, in my experience, the fastest way to grow your net worth. And I’m not the only one who thinks that way.

One of my favourite people to learn about investment from, Andrei Jikh, did the same thing. He invested most of the money he made from his side hustle to quickly grow his net worth.

Are you ready to take up the challenge?

Now you know the exact strategies I employed to 5x my net worth.

It’s been about 4 years since my roommate told me that I’m the “…kind of person who would walk into a bar and say ‘free drinks for everyone!’” But when I look back I’m always so grateful that she said this to me.

It was the reality check I needed to get serious about my finances and tackle the wrong habits that made me over-spend.

If you’re like the way I was, I hope the tips I shared will help you out or at least give you a blueprint along which to fashion your money habits.

The key is to not hate yourself for your bad money habits but rather use it as a clue to create smart strategies that will help you save and invest better.

And for those who were expecting a screenshot of my investment portfolio or savings account, I’m sorry I wasn’t as brave as Andrei to make mine public. Hopefully one day I will.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It'll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

And if you found this newsletter helpful or insightful, please share with with friend.

Share

And if somehow you found your way to this place without subscribing, don’t leave without dropping your email and hitting the ‘Subscribe’ button.

Subscribe now

Trove users have been literally sitting on a goldmine all this time. But here’s the most upsetting part: they probably don't even know it.

The good news is that you're different.

Together we're going to approach the Trove referral program with a lot more intelligence and tact than probably the person whose referral code we used to sign up.

Yay to more money! 💰

Here are some things you’re expected to learn at the end of this newsletter:

• How to not get carried away by the figures and focus on the strategies that make you more money

• How to make extra money from your Trove app

• How to calculate the annual dividend you can get from a company that pays dividend

• How to properly analyze your potential gain from referral programs

• How to effectively gain more conversions from sharing your referral link

But in return my challenge to you is to take a screenshot of the part of this newsletter that you found insightful and tag me @mary_imasuen (on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtag #RelishAbundance.

Deal?

Well, since this is my first newsletter, you might as well know a little about me.

I'm Mary Victoria and I love fintech — more the apps than the regulations — and I find it fascinating that an application you download to your phone or use on a web browser has the potential to make you wealthy.

And what I discovered over the weekend is a perfect example of how these fintech apps play out.

Allow me to veer off for a minute…

Honestly, it all started off as a joke.

Never did I imagine that it'll lead me to tear apart Trove's referral program.

Last Saturday I watched Fisayo Fosudo’s video about the saving strategies he used to save $20,000 in less than 6 months.

Before you get too excited about the $20,000, let me point out that:

1. He lives in Nigeria and has foreign clients who pay in dollars. And we all know that the devaluation of the naira favours those in the gig economy right now.

2. He has multiple streams of income including ad revenue from his YouTube channel, brand deals and so on.

3. He applied the saving tips he shared consistently over a prolonged period of time.

I'm not saying all this to dash your dreams, I just want you to focus on what's important: the strategy behind accumulating the wealth and not how much was accumulated.

Not everyone’s circumstances are the same. So use the strategies and adopt them to your unique situation.

Personal finance is a personal experience.

And those figures did their part by pulling you in and getting you curious enough to click the link.

I used a similar technique when I recorded my podcast episode titled “How I Saved Almost Half A Million Naira in PiggyVest in 16 Months”.

Listen to the episode

That episode attracted the highest number of plays so far.

But I digress…

The gem in the video

There was something in the Fisayo’s video that caught my attention — Trove's referral program.

Trove is a brokerage platform in Nigeria. Through the app you can buy both foreign stocks from companies like Tesla or Amazon and local stocks from companies in Nigeria.

What was peculiar about their referral program is that using someone's referral code gives you free stocks.

So when Fisayo mentioned that in his video, I dived right in, downloaded the app and used his referral code. All because I wanted to get free stocks. (Like why not?)

The next day, I posted how my only reason for downloading Trove was for the free stocks.

It was meant to be for laughs.

But it wasn't until a friend of mine asked me how Trove was like, that I realized that not many people knew about the potential of earning extra money just by getting people to register using your code.

She had previously downloaded the app, but never used it.

So, I told her about the referral program as a way to encourage her to use her fintech app to make some extra cash pending when she decides to actively use it as an investment platform.

That was when I saw Trove's incentive:

“Invite your friends to Trove and you'll both get 5 shares of either Dangote Sugar or GT Bank FOR FREE"

How you can make extra money from Trove and build your investment portfolio

After a bit of digging I realized just how valuable Trove’s simple offer was. Trove basically gives you 2 things for the price of one.

Allow me to explain.

Let's zoom in on Trove’s promise for referring your friends to the app.

If you already have Trove installed on your phone, you can find information about the referral program when you tap on the menu bar on your dashboard, and then tap on ‘Get Free Shares’.

Trove was very specific about what they're willing to offer you for getting a friend to sign up using your referral code.

They were so specific that they mentioned the exact companies the stocks will come from.

This wasn't anything like what their American counterparts Robinhood and WeBull offer. They give you free stocks, quite alright, but they don't mention which ones.

For example Robinhood clearly mentioned that they choose each stock “randomly”.

When you check WeBull they guarantee you'll get 2 free stock but what they don't guarantee is which ones.

You have 1/100 chance of getting a free stock from Facebook, Starbucks, or Snap and a 1/50 chance of getting Google, Procter & Gamble, or Kraft Heinz.

Now this is where things get interesting.

When you do a quick search of Dangote Sugar and GT Bank and how they're being traded in the stock market, you'll see that those companies offer dividends to their shareholders.

That's gold right there!

If you’re loving this newsletter, but you haven’t subscribed yet, drop your email below and hit ‘Subscribe’.

Subscribe now

When a company on the stock market gives dividend, it means that they share the profits from the company with their shareholders.

Some companies pay dividends weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly. So, when you invest in a company that gives dividend you're making passive income just by being an investor.

That means Trove's referral program does 2 things:

1. Helps you build your portfolio

2. Gives you passive income

Now let's do some math.

As at the time of writing this newsletter one share of Dangote Sugar was worth N17.80 with an annual dividend yield of 8.43%. GT Bank was worth N28.90 with an annual dividend yield of 10.34%.

The dividend yield is the percentage that is paid out as dividend per share.

So assuming you only had one share of any of the two companies within a 12 month period, you would have earned N1.50 for holding one unit of Dangote Sugar shares and N2.99 for one unit of GT Bank shares.

If you found the math confusing, please leave a comment so that I can help you understand it better.

Leave a comment

It may look little at first glance, but there are infinite possibilities to how much you can make from this.

Just have a look at your potential earning from the dividends alone:

Dividends from Dangote Sugar

1 share of Dangote Sugar in 12 months = N1.50 as dividend

5 shares in 12 months = N7.50 as dividend

10 shares = N15

20 shares = N30

50 shares = N75

100 shares = N150

Dividends from GT Bank

1 share of GT Bank in 12 months = N2.99 as dividend

5 shares in 12 months = N14.95 as dividend

10 shares = N29.90

20 shares = N59.80

50 shares = N149.50

100 shares = N299

You get the picture?

And that's just the dividend!

And that’s all passive!

And you've not even added the value of the stock itself to it yet.

Let's say at the end of 12 months you only have 10 shares of GT Bank and that the price of one share remains the same during those 12 months. The total value of your GT Bank shares including the dividend will be N318.90.

That’s (10 shares of GT Bank x Price of GT Bank stock) + Dividend for 10 shares = Total value of 10 GT Bank shares including dividend for a period of 12 months (assuming the price of one share remains the same during those 12 months)

[(10 x N28.90) + N29.90] = N318.90

Now imagine going at this same pace for 3 years. Assuming the price of GT Bank shares remain the same throughout those 3 years and you don't add more of the same share in your portfolio, you'd have N956.70.

That’s Total value of 10 GT Bank shares including dividend for a period of 12 months (assuming the price of one share remains the same during those 12 months) x 3 years

N318.90 x 3 = N956.70

Of course, the price of the shares won't remain the same.

The stock market has a history of making an average of 10% return every year. Meaning that the value of the shares will increase over time.

So, the more people who use your referral code to sign up on Trove the more money you make, because those companies will continue to pay dividend.

It's mind-blowing!

Most investors keep reinvesting the dividends to grow their portfolio until it gets to a point they can literally live on the dividends.

I started off investing in stocks using Bamboo (a brokerage app like Trove) and up until a couple of weeks ago they weren’t promoting their referral program.

Bamboo's current referral program gives you 2.5% commissions from the first stocks your friend buys that is above $20 if they used your referral code to sign up.

And that's it.

You're not making anything more from the referral. In fact, you'll have to do extra convincing to get your friend to buy more than $20 worth of shares especially if they're newbie investors.

And that's why I found Trove's referral program exciting.

Where do we go from here?

Some of those who will read this newsletter actually have a Trove account. And the app is probably just lying in the midst of the barrage of more “interesting" apps in their phones. It sits there hoping that one day it'll get noticed.

If that's you, then you're leaving a lot of money on the table.

And it's understandable.

Very few people will actually do the math to ascertain just how profitable the referral program is.

And I bet up until a couple of minutes ago, you never knew any math could be involved.

Maybe you were among those who knew about the referral code and mentioned it to a couple of friends.

Maybe you posted it in blog posts, YouTube videos, newsletters, or anywhere that will give the 6 digit alphanumeric code some love.

Maybe you did what you had to do to make more people sign up to the app but didn’t just know how to market its benefits well enough to get them interested.

If that’s you, then start off by letting people know that the referral program isn't one-sided. Trove rewards both you and the one who used the code to sign up.

You both

• get 5 stocks each,

• receive stocks are from companies that give dividend, and

• enjoy the dividends that are paid monthly.

And if you’re among those who don’t have Trove yet and you want to start off with 5 free stocks from Dangote Sugar or GT Bank, here’s my referral code: AKNR6U.

As for those who aren’t an ounce interested in Trove or their referral program, I hope this newsletter inspired you to look deeper into the kind of fintech apps you have in your phone.

Trove is just one out of the several fintech apps that have referral programs you can benefit from. I encourage you to explore them just as I did.

And if you’ve been thinking of investing but weren’t sure what kind of stocks to look out for, I pray that you go for dividend stocks because of the potential of earning passive income involved.

The Money is really hidden in the details, and the details are right under your nose. This is one of them.

Keep shining,

Mary Victoria 💋

P.S.

It'll mean a lot if you could share your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

And if you found this newsletter helpful or insightful, please share with with friend.

Share

And if somehow you found your way to this place without subscribing, don’t leave without dropping your email and hitting the ‘Subscribe’ button.

Subscribe now