We are close to the end of the Barclays #AfricaSaves savings challenge. If you have not read about this challenge yet, please start by reading the previous posts. I started by introducing the Hand and the Heart conflict and why the hand keeps winning- why we keep impulse buying (reaching with the hand), instead of holding out to accomplish our long term goals, which are…
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Open any Kenyan magazine/newspaper article that has an interview with a female executive (married or a mother), and it will have this question “How do you balance family and work?” For me, this question often is, “Kellie, how do you balance single motherhood and work?” Both in formal situations and socially. There has been online sentiment that we should stop asking women this question. I agree…
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This is the 5th post of our 3 months’ savings challenge. Our mission for the 3 months is to learn how to save more, through converting our poor spending habits into good saving habits. Why do we buy things we have not planned for? Because our brains love it! We have been using the hand versus heart analogy – the hand is our impulses, what…
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Nairobi County has announced the introduction of the New Unified Business permit, which consolidates 5 permits that you need to start and operate a business in the County into one permit. Starting November 1st 2016, businesses will be able to get one permit that consolidates the following: The single business permit Fire clearance certificate Advertising signage Health certificate Food hygiene In addition to this, business people…
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We are in the second month of our 3 months’ savings challenge, where we are saving more by curbing our impulsive spending. In the first post, we looked at “the hand versus the heart“, where the hand is our impulse to reach for what we want now, against our heart – the things we want to achieve with our money long term. We then tracked our…
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This is a guest post from Latiff Cherono, he first tweeted about this, and was kind enough to write a post about it on my request. He is a Manufacturing Process Engineer, he helps businesses improve and optimize their processes. Follow him on Twitter—> @LatiffCherono Have you recently taken an Uber ride in Nairobi and found that your driver was intent on making your trip to…
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If you are a regular reader of this blog, or if you follow me on Twitter, you know that we are on a savings challenge, where for 3 months, we will change the way we spend, a week at a time. Typically, we tend to hold our money goals in our hearts, while our hands keep reaching out for things that satisfy our immediate wants…
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Last evening, I finally watched Queen Of Katwe, the film that is based on a true story of young Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi and her struggles to succeed despite the odds of growing up in a slum in Uganda. As an amateur movie watcher, I am not qualified to review the acting, cinematography or even the story line. People who are great at such things have said…
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A few months back, I met with Tania for lunch and she happened to mention in passing that reading Big Magic had really inspired her to be bold in her creativity. That evening, I got the book, read the first chapter, but hesitated to continue. The first reason behind my hesitation was that I had not read “Eat Pray Love” , an extremely popular book by the same author…
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Last month, the president assented to an ammendment to the Banking Act which effectively limits how much interest banks can charge loans and how much they pay out as interest on savings. In summary, the bill put: (i) a cap on lending rates at 4.0% above the Central Bank Rate (CBR) and (ii) a floor on the deposit rates at 70% of the CBR. Banks have no choice but…
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