The biggest challenge we black people have is money. Money for us doesn't equal liberty and prosperity; it rather leads to envy, greed, competition and pride.
How can we train our black mind so to not fall into the trap of money? The change is almost instant to a black man as soon as he starts making money. This is because he has entered unfamiliar territory with no previous experience. The results are over spending and no saving. Debts creep up on him worse than a thief in the night. Once debt has a firm grip, he becomes a slave to his paycheck. Debt will cripple you in ways unimaginable, it’s an evil system meant to keep you slave to the working force so not to venture your mind into other profitable areas. Interests have been cleverly set up so that paying back debt is near impossible without declining your lifestyle drastically. How do we stop this, how do we train the black mind?
The theory is simple, save more and spend less. If only it was this simple. Thing about the black mind is that money makes him feel superior and being superior means you have to show the rest of the world that you can afford. Everywhere he goes everybody must see that he has made it. We know that majority black girls love money so to date the best you must make the most. The pressure put on us by those who are supposed to be supporting us is immense. That is why our cars are more opulent than the houses we live in. We live to impress others. We give little to no support to our fellow brethren who are trying to make money because we hate being “left behind”.
The saying ‘charity begins at home’ should be a pivotal starting point in our mind set. Don’t try impressing the world if your family is struggling. The thing with a lot of black families is that there is always that one rich person but the rest suffer. What prevents that rich person from sharing his wealth with his own blood and empowering them so they too can have the knowledge to make their own money? Remember that it’s not called wealth until the whole family lives in abundance. We also don’t take the time to plan, we just want to make money and enjoy life. Very few black people have a will put in place let alone life cover. We are big fans of funeral cover though, forgetting that we leaving loved ones behind. We don’t care much for them. We live for us, we die with our money, leaving them to fend for themselves.
It’s time to train the black mind to know how to handle money so that it doesn’t just come visit us for a short period of time and then leave again. Know how to save, take interest in investments, spend within your means, buy cash and borrow less. We have heard all of this before but the lure of spending when money is in your hands is too strong. Here are tips you can use; from here on settle all your debts starting with the very small one. Spend minimal until you achieve absolutely zero debt barring your house and car instalments. This process can take up to 5 years so a budget should be drawn to remind yourself where your money is going end of the month. After you achieve this, start saving. Save for anything and everything you want and stay disciplined and strict to your saving. The more money you make the more you should improve your budget. These are just some helpful tips to help you.
End of the day we have a problem that money changes us and we are weak to its lure and promise of a lavish life. A life that we as kids saw on TV and have been dreaming of ever since. Only discipline and wisdom can help us. We have to understand that what we are doing is leaving a legacy for our children. Wealth won’t be achieved at our generation level but if we nurture our mind, harness our skills and start educating our children at an early age then future generations will enjoy living in abundance.
