Amaka had always dreamed of going abroad for her Master’s degree since her undergrad days. After she got her first job with a Telecoms company in Lagos, she was super excited at the opportunity this avails her to achieve her goals. Five years later, she applied for a Master’s degree program at two of her preferred schools in the UK, one of which gave her admission. The tuition was 18,000 pounds.
Indeed, this was great news for Amaka. Finally, her dream of a foreign degree will come true. Moreover, this was her opportunity to japa and allow snow to touch her body small. What a relief from Lagos traffic!
A few days later, Amaka sat down to do a calculation of the total cost of her school plan. Suddenly, she started sweating. Amaka realized that she did not have enough funds to cover her tuition and visa fees, not to mention flight costs and other expenses like rent that she would need to pay to enable her settle in.
What was wrong? Amaka failed to plan and calculate ahead of time the cost of her goal. This way, she would have been able to set aside the required amounts on a regular basis to enable her achieve the dream.
Financial planning is the plan–to–action on how to achieve your financial goals. A dream is only an aspiration and it requires proper planning to achieve. Like Amaka, most times we fail to look at the financial implications of our goals, for example, vacation, building a home, schooling etc, and the timeframe we would need to save towards it, before setting out.
Planning should be the ‘first step’ and not the ‘last’. This way, you will be aware and adequately prepared for the financial implications of your goal.