I have learnt a lot of what I know about money from my parents, although I am nowhere near graduating from the class.  My dad always said I should choose what kind of life I wanted to live and then stick to it at whatever cost. If I want to eat bread and butter every day, then I should have it every day. Back when I was young and foolish, I thought that meant I should have a flashy lifestyle and every expensive thing. Now that I am not so young (and still a bit foolish) I realise that sticking to your chosen lifestyle at whatever cost also means working hard to afford the things you want.

A related lesson my parents have passed on is to always look like a million dollars. Now my style sense is mostly asleep, so this is not about being a fashion model. I am talking about the art of floating through life looking successful. That has nothing to do with a pot belly and everything to do with being content; look neat, clean, healthy and satisfied. Even if you do not have a dime in your pocket, people will always be trying to borrow money from you.

I have only just recently figured out that the best way to look (and be) content is to learn to live within your means. It is okay for other people to lie to you, but you must never be guilty of lying to yourself. If you cannot afford something, leave it alone. However, sometimes you are not sure what your means are. People take it for granted that once you earn a salary you automatically know how to handle money, but nothing could be further from the truth.

It has taken me years to learn how to know what I can afford, how to make a budget, how to save, how to pay myself first and how to say no to friends and hangouts that take me out of my spending comfort zone. It helps if you are at peace with your own company; if you can stay home, relax and entertain yourself without needing to collect people and their accompanying bills and stress. I am still not where I want to be with money, but our relationship is getting better.

The reason taxi drivers and shoe shiners own land and houses while corporate types are busy renting is that we do not know how to live within our means. And then instead of trying to understand money, we stand on the office doorstep discussing how much other people earn. When you live within your means envy becomes obsolete. You can adjust your budget to eventually afford anything and you are prepared for any emergency. It makes you a more confident passenger in the bus of life and this inner confidence will change the way you appear on the outside.

Published on Sunday August 22, 2010

I love being Ugandan. I love living in this country, the weather, eating fresh fruit and having a village to call my own. Sometimes, however, I wish I wasn’t a statistic in a third world country. On some days, like yesterday, I wish I were the absolute monarch of a little island somewhere with huge oil and gold and diamond deposits. Then I could sit on my little throne and deal with the rest of the world on my terms.

Yesterday I spent three and a half hours baking one of my parents in the car and wondering whether my other parent had fainted from hunger inside the American embassy. You see, because I am a third world statistic in an impoverished, badly governed state, it therefore follows that when me or one of my own attempts to leave this country and enter another statistically fantastic one, we get treated like cow poo – to put it politely.  I have had much practice in cutting off my nose to spite my face; therefore I shall pen this rant and watch the bridges burn.

I have a high tolerance for nonsense because I am generally a timid person and I am easily frightened by threats of violence. I do not, however, take kindly to people giving my parents a hard time because as their last born it is my exclusive right. So when an embassy makes me go through the farce of making an appointment with them a month early, then shifts the appointment by 5 hours, and then makes my 80 year old father pay them to sit in their fortress for 3 and a half hours doing nothing I am more than a little bit angry.

It doesn’t help that the embassy does not allow you to bring in either food or telephone. So he had to sit in there on his 9am breakfast and finally got a snack at 5pm when they deigned to release him. I tried calling the embassy to enquire about how much longer it would take and whether my dad was alright and I was informed that no one knew the mysteries of the workings of the great embassy. In fact, it could be 4 hours or longer, and no, they would not check on my father for me. The operator’s tone seemed to imply that I should feel blessed and honoured that we even were granted access. If I could have reached through the phone and smacked the smugness out of her tone I would have.

I could argue that not all of us are impoverished desperate semi-literates looking to wipe bottoms and sweep streets in the Promised Land. Even if we were, everyone deserves to be treated with human dignity and consideration. However, they are just going to keep on doing what they do because Yes, They Can.  I am a statistic and my dear old dad just wants to visit his grandkids and take a much needed break. So all I can do is misuse my little space to rant and then go back to the embassy today to line up yet again and pick up the visa. This is officially the most powerless I have felt in ages.

Published on Sunday May 9, 2010

This is the year of our Lord two thousand and ten; a new decade in a relatively new century. Putting a man on the moon is old news. There are teenagers who have never seen a telephone which is connected to wires – let alone a telephone with an actual round dial.

The internet is out of control and amazing. I can count the trees in my compound on Google Earth. I can chat with someone 5,000 miles away. Using my mailbox I can work for clients I have never even met – and get paid with money transfers directly to my bank account, all without leaving the comfort of Sofa Inc.

Surgeons can operate without cutting you open. They just make a little hole, insert a tube thingy with a camera on one end and a light somehow inside the camera and a laser beam all rolled up into one. So they see and cut and stitch and they are in and out of your innards before you are even aware you were under anaesthetic.  You can shift fat from your rear to your lips or vice versa – it seems the only thing we cannot do is share fat with thin people who want to put on weight.

So can someone please explain to me why a trip to the dentist is still such a soul-numbing, bone chilling, pee-in-your-pants and weep experience? Did they miss the bus? I took my son and nephew to the dentist and after seeing two patients come out, my son, who had never even been to a dentist before, began to cry and ask to be taken home. The mere aura of the waiting room had frightened him.

And I must admit he is not the only one. As soon as you sit back in that dental torture contraption they call a chair, and he swings his tray of lethal and sadistic looking instruments towards you, you can’t help but panic. And it does not help that many dentists have perfected a tone of voice which is much akin to a psychiatric nurse soothing a madman before he plunges a great big injection full of sedatives into his arm.

We are centuries beyond performing amputations on the battle field with nothing but a manual saw, a bottle of whisky and several men to hold the patient down. Why does dentist still equal pain? Is it lack of PR? Do dentists take professional pride in being more frightening than undertakers? Is the amount of horror you generate one of the benchmarks of how well your dental practice is doing?

I guess this is my way of saying I have to have 3 teeth filled and I am not budging till someone gives me a guaranteed pain-free project proposal. Or a large bottle of whisky.

Published on Sunday February 21, 2010