Chachanomics Money Talks

Reader's Question My name is John. I am 32, married with one child. I got a salary increment from Sh70,000 to Sh100,000 net. My monthly. My monthly expenses are as follows; rent Sh10,000 (though relocating soon to a Sh15,000 house), shopping Sh5,000, food Sh6,000, emergency saving Sh5,000, bills Sh5000, chama Sh2000, entertainment Sh5,000 and parents Sh2,000 shopping. I bought a parcel of land with a bank loan in 2020 with a repayment period at Sh14,000. I am planning to build a two-bedroom house on this plot and also buy a car. Kindly advise on which development is best to begin with and how. I am very afraid to join any saccos. The last sacco I joined collapsed with my Sh400,000 savings. Which are the best investments that can give me passive income or lead me to financial independence or what adjustments would you recommend I make on my finances? Please help. My Expert Personal Finance Advice Your total expenditure per month is Sh54,000 (including loan repayment). Using Sh70,000...

Should I use Sh1.25 million to build my house or start a business? My name is Kennedy. I am married with two children. My wife is a trained P1 teacher working at a private primary school. We live in Nyandarua. I am employed on a permanent & pensionable terms with a net salary is Sh36,000 and my expenses are as follows: school fees 6,500, wife 2000, househelp 4000,, shopping 6500, food 3000. I don't pay rent as  I have set up temporary house on my plot. I also have savings of 240k at a Sacco. I want to take a loan of Sh1.25 million and the following projects are running through my mind: 1). Build a 3 bedroomed house worth Sh2.5 million that I have bought materials of approximately Sh370,000 for I sourced thses funds through my monthly salary for the past two years. These materials are at my plot where I live and intend to build a permanent house. I'm dead set against building the house through loans and as such, I was thinking of building the said house using my monthly sala...

1). What is your name, where do you work and what position do you occupy there? What's the business all about? What does it deal in? What makes your business unique? My name is Chacha Nyaigoti Bichang’a , a Lecturer, Trade Unionist and a Personal Financial Coach. I am the Founding CEO of Chachanomics Limited, a Consulting Company that offers mentorship and coaching programmes. Our mentorship and coaching programmes are unique because we not only focus on personal financial management, but also mental and relationship wellness to ensure that our clients undergo a wholistic transformation. We offer one-on-one coaching sessions, 3 – 6 months’ personal financial and life skills training, corporate and institutional talks. 2). What has been your greatest milestone and how did you come to achieve it? (Please be detailed with a personal example.) What lesson can people learn from this? My greatest milestone is when I embarked on a journey to self-educate myself on how to manage my m...

One of the best methods of safeguarding and multiplying your savings or investing a windfall or unexpected money is through the stock exchange particularly the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE). The NSE is a very small market with only 64 counters. The listed companies are called counters in the stock market language. Of the 64 companies listed, there are about 25 counters which are active. Safaricom controls more than half of the activity in NSE. Do you remember the much-hyped Safcom IPO after the 2007 bungled general election? I am one of the naive investors who invested in the counter in readiness for a huge financial gain without any due diligence.   It is note-worth stating that a lot of money is made at the NSE daily by smart traders. The activity there is purely a market activity.   Buying and selling stocks Those with shares come to sell and those who want to buy (otherwise called speculators or investors) come to the market to see what is on offer and place ...

One of the dependable ways of creating passive income is through building a sustainable portfolio income of paper assets – investments literally on pieces of paper that define ownership of assets such as shares, mutual funds, stocks and government securities. This article examines mutual funds as part of the paper assets. Mutual funds comprise a pool of funds collected from investors for the purpose of investing in securities like stocks, bonds, money market instruments etc. Also called unit trusts because one buys a fraction or unit costing kshs. 100 or multiple units. They are operated by professional fund managers who invest the funds’ capital to produce capital gains based on market trends.   Mutual fund providers in Kenya include Britam, Old Mutual, Zimele, CIC, UAP, Amana etc. Interests per annum varies according to market forces – for instance 5 - 12%. They are run professionally by experts who give small investors access to diversified portfolio. They are open-ended and ...

As celebrated the Mashujaa Day, one of the important milestones worth noting is the demonetisation exercise that saw the replacement of the old generation currency with new ones, the Building Bridges Initiative whose contents are in the public limelight among others. On demonetisation, it is over one month since the old generation of Kshs. 1,000 notes were rendered invalid, illegal and useless. That is not news now. However, the CBK governor was on record saying that about 7.4 billion shillings were not returned (7.4 pieces of the old Kshs. 1,000 notes). One wonders where the money disappeared to. It is rumoured that drug barons and looters of state coffers may have gotten insider knowledge and traded the money with foreign currency. Some may have decided not to exchange huge sums of cash stacked in sacks in some people’s houses lest they risk being investigated and arrested. The third case scenario is about the numerous stories of people who forgot to return the money stored in th...

I recently attended a conference dubbed Making Money that was graced by Kyle McCarter - the American Ambassador to Kenya, Tabitha Karanja - the Founder of Keroche Industry, Simon Kabu - the Founder of Bonfire Adventures, and Banice Mburi - the Founder of Jade Collections. The Chief Host was one Dr. Kinyanjui Nganga of Sense 101. The panelists had shared nuggets of life-long lessons learnt in doing their business as outlined below. 1. Banice Mburi of Jade Collections She excels in the beauty industry and has opened branches countrywide selling fashion products. She transited from being a TSC teacher because she realised teaching limited her growth once she discovered her passion in modelling. She asked herself critical questions that jolted her into action: 1. Why do Kenyans wear mitumba?  2. Are Kenyans destined to wear them for long?  3. What can be done? She believes in putting God first. That if the purpose is from God you cannot fail. 2. Simon Kabu of Bon...

Q1. Who is Chacha Nyaigoti Bichang'a? I am a lecturer at a local public university, passionate about teaching people about personal financial matters like financial planning and management anchored in budgeting, saving, managing debts and investments. I am the Founder and Lead-Coach of Chachanomics 101 Mentorship and Coaching Program. Q2. Why did you decide to teach people about personal finance? My passion is informed by the realisation that money matters cause more intolerable stress and suffering to many people than they can dare admit openly because money is a tabooed subject just like sex education. Research indicates that 80% of the domestic conflicts, separation and divorce are due to money-related problems. In fact, money is the number one cause of depression in Kenya and Africa in general. Q3. Who are your major clients or target audience? I adress personal financial matters that touch all cadres ranging from students, graduates, professionals working in various ...

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Reader's Question My name is Gilbert. My wife and I are primary school teachers upcountry. We both earn a net of Sh28,000 each. We have two children. One is in nursery PP1 and the other one is a toddler. These are our first jobs. We are excited and anxious not to mess up our money. We have big dreams. We would like to go back to school and scale ourselves career-wise. We would also like to buy a piece of land and build our own home in the foreseeable future. We haven't done much with our first salaries because we don't know how to budget. Please help us draw a budget. We don't have loans yet. Should we also pay tithe and give to relatives at this stage? Expert Advice Your total income as a couple is Sh56,000. It is important that you hold a candid conversation with your wife on how to share your financial obligations as a couple and leverage on your dual salary for increased savings and investments. This will help you to overcome any feeling of  financial infidelity, es...