A 9-Day 'Put Your Money House in Order' Challenge

So I did a very adult thing this month. I hosted a 9-Day Challenge for friends asking them to put their money house in order. It started as a whim but with nothing much to do during the COVID-19 Stay Home order, I decided to act on that whim.

Over nine days (ten actually, if  you count the first day I introduced the challenge), I made and shared amateur quality videos with specific advice on how people can better manage their personal finances. The feedback was generally awesome so I decided to put them up on my personal YouTube Channel and post the links here so more people can have access to them.

Now, the purpose of the Challenge was to share good and actionable personal finance ideas. I wanted to give my friends (and their own friends) advice I had personally implemented and found to be worth it. Not much about the Challenge was Professional, not the videos (as you will see) and certainly not the Challenger. I am not a Personal Finance Professional, I did not play one during the course of the Challenge and will not play one here. These are merely (good) advice to get you working on putting your money house in order; to get you to reduce your expenses, save more, invest more and generally work harder towards having that money life you dream of.

Alright friends, sin mas rodeos, (that's the fancy Spanish way of saying 'without much ado'), let's get on with the Challenge...

Intro
Day 1: Tracking Your Expenses
Day 2: Reducing Your Expenses
Day 3: Operating an Emergency Account
Day 4: Following the Right Money Order
Day 5: Making and Using a Budget
Day 6: Giving to Family and Friends
Day 7: The 72 Hour Rule to Kill Impulse Buying
Day 8: Growing Your Income
Day 9: Wrapping Up, Moving On

I Did a Survey

Yes, that's right. I carried out a survey which I am not expecting to see published in the Lancet.

It was Monday morning and I was suffering from MMB, Monday Morning Blues. You know, the sickness which starts on Sunday evening when you realize that it'll be Monday morning in a few hours time and that that means that you've got to go to work. I suppose the sickness afflicts people in different ways; generally,  mine starts on Sunday evening and ends at about lunch time on Monday, only to start again the next Sunday evening, MMB is recurrent, like that.

Well this post is not about Monday Morning Blues, it's about that survey I did on a Monday morning. Let me dish you a little story to illustrate.

There I was on my way to work, suffering  full symptoms of MMB, ( wishing I could prolong the fun of the previous weekend, cursing Adam and Eve who in my mind are responsible for the tediousness of work, hating the brushes, noise and smoke caused by traffic,  dreading the Monday morning meeting and targets, etc etc etc), when I suddenly got an inspiration to play a mental game as antidote to  the MMB. Uninteresting girl that I am, the game I invented was to take a survey, to count how many people I saw who wore a particular trait. I settled on people on foot who had earphones on that morning.

That was the survey, the results were surprising. I counted fifty four people who had earphones on, on both ears, on busy Lagos Mainland roads. It was interesting to see that earphones are not a vogue only with teenagers; most people looked dressed for 'office' work (maybe that was their own MMB antidote), there was one secondary school girl, a tricycle operator, several agberos and roadside sellers and of course jeans sagging teens. White and black seemed to be the favorite colour of earphones here in Lagos. I did not count people in automobile; all my survey population were people standing or walking on their feet. Also the distance to work from my home is less than seven kilometres.

Well I did the survey to knock off my MMB but it's Wednesday now and I still can't get the survey experience out of my head. If you know Lagos, you can attest to the that maximum attention is needed on our roads. Most Lagos road users, especially bus drivers, motorcycle and tricyle operators are neither educated in traffic issues nor respectful of pedestrians.  I think it is  foolhardy  to deliberately tune into some sort of audio entertainment while walking on busy Lagos roads strewn with vehicles manned by reckless drivers and riders.

Is it wrong to listen to music or your fave podcasts via earphones? No. But please not while walking on Lagos mainland roads.

Catholic Sexuality

I am a Catholic, unashamedly. That means that I believe and try to practice all  that the Catholic Church teaches. It also means that I share those beliefs with people I am in contact with. I do  not force people to believe what I believe, I only recommend good principles which the Church prescribes for a happy life which I think is what everyone wants. 

Sexuality is one of the several aspects of life where many have gone wrong in the pursuit of pleasure and 'happiness'. We clearly have got it wrong when it comes to love, sex and marriage.  A week hardly passes without a story of a rape, child molestation, a question on how to get over a bad break up, news flash on the divorce of a popular or not so popular person, lewd songs with pornographic videos and so on catching my attention, I guess yours as well. A colleague aptly said the other day that we live in an 'oversexed' culture.

Hence, it was with joy that I discovered this new website, CatholicSexuality.com. The good fellows over there have kindly put up videos explaining everything from meaning of life and happiness, same sex attraction  fidelity in marriage, achieving and avoiding pregnancy the natural way to the consequences of casual sex. Philosophy lovers will be thrilled to know that issues like the principle of double effect, elements of morality and other logical and ethical guides for judging human acts were covered in some of the video courses.  The best part is that it costs nothing except an internet ready device to sign up and receive the courses. 

So go on to CatholicSexuality.com, sign up and share the knowledge with everyone you want to be happy.

Is This the Way to Help?

Was passing by a busy street near my office today and met a really sorry site. There was a young man sprawled on the floor, apparently he was recovering from some kind of fit judging by a small pool of saliva by the side of his head. I did not immediately see anyone offering to help him get on his feet or to clean him up. Passersby busily went on with their passing by. But there was this lone man at the scene who seemed interested in the convalescent guy. But the kind of interest he had in him was sickening, he was only interested in taking pictures with his phone. I approached closer to see the glee on his face as he finished with his shooting session with a comment on how 'Lagos is a place where wonders will never end'.

Is this really how we help nowadays? When we see people who are injured or who need immediate help, should our first reaction be to extend a helping hand or to flip out our gadgets to take 'uploadable' pictures? Victims of accidents or any form of emergency need help, we should go out to their aid or run to obtain the aid if we cannot immediately supply it. It is bad enough that at times people lose their lives or suffer irreparable damage because first respondents during accidents have no clue on what to do, it is much worse that people do not respond and worst that when they do, they exploit occasions of other people's misery for their own entertainment.

Let us be more of helpers and less of reporters.

The End to World Hunger ?

I was very much interested in this article that was on Yahoo this morning. NASA, apparently is sponsoring a new food production technique using a 3D Printer. It uses ingredients that include insects, algae and leaves to print and cook the foods. When fully developed, users will be able to personalize their menus based on dietary requirements and share recipes through coding.
Very techspiring. Better update your programming skills if you want to cook in the tech age.
What do you think? Are you looking forward to 3D Printed Food?

Small Steps

Have you ever dreamed of wanting to be someone big, to achieve something 'big' and after a while just gave it up because it happened to be too big for you. This happens to almost everyone, we all want to acquire new skills, get better jobs, move into better apartments etc but just do not seem to muster enough 'energy' required for such highs. 

One thing I think can help everyone facing this challenge is to start small. Nothing born big survives for long anyways. Think of it, humans start small as zygotes, then into fetuses  then into babies, toddlers, children, teens and finally into adults, big businesses that are forces to reckon with started small and athletes who are stars in their fields always say they  started with learning and mastering the tiniest details of their games.

The challenge for all of us who want to get that big break in anything is take take one small step in that direction today, another one tomorrow, the next day and everyday. If you want to be a great writer, start by spending at least ten minutes writing something,start running a little distances everyday if you want to run the next city marathon, listen to or read a few passages in that language you want to fluent in. Just start doing something about your dreams today

Prayers and affections for the innocent people being displaced by the military operations against the Boko Haram members in the North and for families affected by the deadly tornado in Oklahoma.

Welcome

Wow! I have conquered a whole new territory in my life by opening this blog. I call it Simply Ebere, well because posts here will be simply and strictly my take on issues as I see them. I am Ebere, as you might have guessed and a young woman living and working in Mainland Lagos, Nigeria. I try to live a fulfilling life, I love learning new things in fun ways, good jokes, being around good people and having quality 'me' time as well. You can expect posts on diverse ordinary every day things and my perspectives on current issues.