Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. As part of our Business and Life Tips category, we are have Zimbabweans who offers tips for life and business.
In the article, 30 year-old banker and agribusiness entrepreneur, Rugare Chakauya shares his tips for managing life expenses so as to invest into starting and growing a small business. This way, one doesn’t have to wait for someone else to inject capital for business ideas to come to life
Outside his regular job as a loans officer at a local bank in Chiredzi, Chakauya farms road runners. He also has a clothes retailing business.
Chakauya shares below:
This question is limiting most of young potential entrepreneurs to venture into projects.
Never spend what you don’t have. Most people spend money that they don’t have by borrowing. They assume that they will eventually get the money to cover the debt, but it’s a trap. Don’t Fall in this trap please.
Grow your own vegetables. If you visit my home, I grow my own tomatoes in a small bed. I have another for shallot onions, another for covo, another one Tsunga (Mustard vegetable) and other horticulture crops. Why? Because fresh vegetables are one of the biggest costs at home. We spend money on veges on a daily basis.
Not buying in bulk basically means you are spending more for no additional value. You’re using money you could be saving for starting your business.
Here are some items that you should always bulk in bulk from wholesalers: Sugar, Salt, Cooking Oil, Washing Powder, Tea leaves and Bathing Soaps.
Always stay at a place you can afford. If your family is still small, why do have to live in an expensive house. Just find decent cheap house to rent and use other money for business. After your business has gained some traction then you can move to a better home.
An easy way to get a clear picture of how much you’re losing to rentals is to not think of it as a month to month expense but as an annual or even 5 year expense. Say, you’re paying US $250 a month for a place – that means that you’re losing US $3,000 annual to rentals only. And over 5 years, that’s US $15,000 gone! You could move to a cheaper $50 place and save a huge chunk of that for your business startup costs.
This is one of the thing that causes a lot of debates. Parents feel strongly that they don’t want to compromise on the quality of their children’s education. Yes, your children deserve quality education but the question is, are you really affording it right no?
The truth is that most of the parents send their children to schools they don’t afford. They depend on Bank loans to send their children to a boarding school but is this really sustainable?
It’s not sustainable especially because you’re exposing that child to a shaky and volatile situation – one day they are in fancy school and the next you’re disrupting them to send them to a cheaper school because they have been chased from school for late fee payments. This affects their performance and mental health. Worse off, you’re still have debts to clear with your bank.
Why can’t we do things we afford, then adjust as the business grows.
Just because you’re making some sales (revenue) does not mean that you can start taking money out to spend on fancy meals like Pizza and fast food chicken. Revenue is not profit. And even when you make a bit of profit, reinvest it in the business so that it grows.
Reduce buying fast food. Learn the recipes and do it yourself at home. Cooking your own food at home is not only cheaper than buying, it’s also healthy. Take your home cooked food to work in a lunch box.
There’s not really much to add here. Don’t use that money to buy clothes, fancy food and other such things. Any extra money which is not your salary must not be spent carelessly. Invest it. Most people don’t realise this big opportunity, and only think back on it after the opportunity is gone.
Sometimes you are clear how much you want to spend at a place, or over a certain period, but then you carry extra money, just in case. Guess what, you just end up spending it all. We don’t all have the self-control it requires to not touch money that has been set aside. Leave the temptation at home or somewhere else safe.
Everyone have the reason not to do business. If you spend too much time calculating risk, you’ll talk yourself out of an otherwise good business opportunity. Yes, it is good to make a business plan and to know the risks and challenges ahead, but don’t overdo it. Business is all about risk, we fall and rise every day but we continue pushing with business.
One of the biggest causes of people not starting income generating projects is the fear of failure. Failure will come, but you have to treat it as a lesson move on with a solution.
The author, Rugare Chakauya, affectionately known to his colleagues as “Prof”, can be contacted via WhatsApp on +263778813113
Magonesa Prof