It’s no doubt that January is the most difficult month to survive financially due to over spending during December holidays.
Even if one has not overspent in December, there are other commitments such as school fees among others.
Sometimes due to the pressing needs, one is forced to borrow or seek loans repaid the first weeks of February once again forcing the same problem of financial crisis come mid-February.
There are number of options on how to survive the January aftershocks come February:
Early preparations
The time to prepare is now, for example there are Saccos that offers good benefits including Christmas savings, where members can contribute some amount per month from January to November. This contribution is then withdrawn in December, where one can use it for shopping among other things during Christmas.
It’s also good to be on lookout for sacco’s that agree for their loans to be re-paid from the savings that the member has. For example, if one has savings of Sh30,000, they can take a loan of Sh24,000 and they will not need to repay anything else. The Sh6,000 caters for the loan interest. This way, the member will not have to be paying monthly.
Merry go round or chama
Here a group of employees may agree to form a chama where each can contribute Sh1,000 or Sh2,000 per month to be given to one member per month. The number for members in the group should not exceed 12 since each member gets contribution per month. This way you don’t have members waiting to get the contribution for a whole year.
Since investing in a bank account may not be possible, sometimes emergencies may arise and one is forced to withdraw the savings. It’s good to invest in insurance policies like three-year or four-year investment plans or education policies.