Mbeca (pronounced as 'besha') means "money" and Ciaku (pronounced as 'shiaku') means "mine" in Kikuyu, one of the venacular languages in Kenya. Put together, you get "My money". This project is aimed at helping a user to visualize his money.
- Overview
- Budget
- Expenses
- Income
- Assets
- Liabilities
- Income Statement
- Features
- Tools Used
- Deployed Application
- Contributors
- Testing The App Locally
Good financial habits are the foundation of a successful life. But what is a good financial habit? It's a question of personal preference, not a set of rules. However, a lot of successful people recommend that you do a few things every day as far as money goes. The thing is, being alive is EXPENSIVE. Expensive is the mighty word here. It comes from the term EXPENSE. As long as you are alive, you are going to be spending something, mostly money. So let us start there, with the expense of living.
Your spending habits should be defined by and constrained to your budget. At the end of every single day, you should be consiously and unconsiously aware of how much money you have spent. It should not be "I think/guess I have spent X amount of money today". You should be aware of how much money you spent in a given day, even a fortnight ago. "I spent 500 Kenya shillings on Tuesday, March 8th, and this is where it went: KES 300 on food, KES 100 on fare, and KES 100 on internet bundles". So, develop the habit of setting your daily budget every single month.
Habits are difficult to form, but once developed, they will stick forever. Every day, preferably at the end of your day, spend a minute or two to record all your expenses, even if you did not spend a dime. Null values should be recorded as 0 KES. This means that you should remember where your money went during the day. If you struggle recalling what item you spent money on, you should probably carry a pocket notebook with you for real-time record-taking.
Your expenses are catered for by your income, how much money you make. If you have no income, then someone else is financing your expenses, indirectly. Regardless of your situation, you should record how much money you made in a given period, preferably on a monthly basis.
Your income can come from multiple sources, say salary from your day-time job, bonuses, compensation for extra services you render, side-gigs income et cetera et cetera. Try to be as accurate and transparent as you can about your sources of income.
An asset is something that puts money in your pocket, passively. You don't have to be actively involved in generating that income. It definitely takes time to build an asset. Time, being of essense here, plays a key role in helping you put that extra coin in your pocket. It is strongly advised that you learn how to create an asset as fast as you can. When you do, the assets column in your income statement should be alive with options and bright green in color.
Examples of assets can be dividends from your SACCO and bank savings, stock investments or even a business you run. All these income sources need to be recorded as your assets, preferably on a monthly basis, once you have them.
A liability takes money out of your pocket. If you buy a motorbike, for example, you have to come to terms with the fact that you will be spending money on fuel, maintenance and mandatory insurance. As long as the motorbike does not generate cash to pay its own bills, then you as the owner has to foot those goddam extra bills!
Liabilities affect your income statement and as such need to be captured clearly, and without fault, as soon as they occur.
This is your performance report in a given period of time. In school, they call it 'term report'. In the real world, they call it 'income statement'. It summarizes all your financial habits as far as your expenses, income, assets and liabilites go. This is what you will take to a bank seeking a loan. Banks care less about you as a person, how wonderful and cute you are. They want to see your income statement. As a matter of fact, they treat you by the quality of your income statement. Have you come across bank offerings that say PRIORITY BANKING? Ever wondered what that means?
| Item |
|---|
| Income Salary: KES 500000 Side-gig: KES 320000 |
| Expenses Rent: KES 25000 WIFI: KES 5000 |
| Assets | Liabilities |
|---|---|
| Uokoaji SACCO dividends: KES 2500 | Motorbike: KES 5000 |
| STANCHART dividends: KES 2500 | RAV 4: KES 250 000 |
