“The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.” Warren Buffett
So how did I do in June with regards to expenditure? I managed to save a nice amount of money though not as much as I had hoped. There was some unexpected expenditure this month as my nanny’s daughter got seriously ill and I had to pay quite a bit for travel and medicines. In June, I also managed to pay some money that I had owed for the setting up of my business. I did not track my expenses very closely and because of this there is quite a bit of money that I have not been able to account for, going forward I want to keep better track of my expenses by updating my spread-sheet every few days or so. On transport I paid 8,300 Shs – I do not have a car, so this is just taxi expense, in July I expect to spend a bit more than this because I did not move around as much in June due to my being ill. My grocery spend in June was 41,000 which is not bad since I aim to spend 40,000 per month. Below is my grocery spend by shop or store, the majority was spend in Nakumatt which I don’t like because I like to divide my spending equally between the supermarkets as I do not want to be overly loyal to anyone.
Below is my grocery spending by items:
Dividend Income: In the month of June I earned a very small dividend – 3,163 Shs, this is after paying tax on the dividends of 5%. The dividends will start out small for the first few years but with consistent investing they will grow and this is what I hope to eventually live off when I become financially independent.
Net Worth: My net worth is a little below zero and as I was looking back, I realised that my net worth has actually not changed much at all over two years and the reason for this is that even though I was saving money, using a credit card took me backwards more than I had imagined or expected. In hindsight, if four years ago I had stopped using credit cards and invested money in equities then I would have been very close to financial independence by now with a dividend income of about 50,000 shs per month.
Financial Independance in Africa 