On this blog, we look at tips and tricks to frugal living, but we also seek to learn new things that help us become better investors. My aim is to build a reader base made up of savers and discerning investors that can build a secure financial future for themselves. So while it would be easy for me to carry out an analysis and tell…
Read More“An Investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis promises safety return of principal (amount invested), and an adequate return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative” – Benjamin Graham. The Intelligent Investor An investor’s focus should be learning and implementing strategies that ensure security of the capital, and an adequate return. Anything that is not focused on these two objectives is considered speculation…
Read MoreAbout beating the market… Most books will claim that they can teach you how to beat the stock market, i.e how to invest in such a way that you will earn better returns than the general market. No one can teach you how to beat your market, and beating the market shouldn’t be your goal. Focus on maximizing the chances of achieving sustainable gains. About…
Read MoreWell, this isn’t exactly jargon, but I thought it would be useful to introduce Warren Buffet to you, since we will be using his wisdom in picking stocks in the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Keep checking the stocks category to see how that goes (though we just got started). Warren Buffetis considered one of 20th Century’s greatest investors, something he started doing at a very early…
Read MoreThis is a guest post by Rebecca Wanjiku, a leading tech journalist, blogger and a burgeoning finance person. Read her insightful blog here, and follow her on Twitter. Wanjiku blogs about her conversation with The Village Banker. Enjoy! If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here. When you think of a Shylock, who comes to mind? The person who lends you money…
Read MoreQuick: If I gave you Kshs 200,000 today, what would you do with it? Every so often, or at least once in a lifetime, we receive money we didn’t expect. It may be from a lottery winning (very rarely), your employer could feel generous and decide to reward you, or you could close a business deal and get more profits than anticipated. Windfalls may be…
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Any investment adviser worth his salt will tell you to include stocks in your investment strategy, but few tell you how to do it. I strongly believe that stocks are great, and should be part of everyone’s long term investment strategy, but I haven’t focused much on them in the past. However, after observing the trends in the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE), then reading this…
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We are introducing a new section on the blog, Jargon Friday, to appear every Friday (rather obvious isn’ t it?). Jargon Friday aims to simplify some finance and tax terms, and make it easier for a non finance reader to understand our posts, and even more, manage their finances better. In this edition of Jargon Friday, we look at the term: Loan Interest. Definition: Interest is…
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In Part 1 of the 50,000 dollar problem, we looked at my techie friend’s dilemma. He’d come across Kshs 50,000, and was looking to make “good” and certain returns in a year, and since I wasn’t offering him any viable solutions, he was going to buy the iPad2 instead. My advice to him was to take a SACCO loan to pay for his gadget. Why…
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Most clubs are born of casual conversation in a social settings, where friends, inspired by various things, but mostly the emotion around being rich discuss and agree to pool funds towards an investment goal. It’s however not advisable to start making contributions on the spot, an investment club is a long term commitment, and it requires a bit more structure than casual conversation can give….
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