In life we tend to attribute a lot to mentors we meet outside the home. I thought I would do things differently and honour my mom, the first person who introduced me to that important tool called a budget. I grew up witnessing it and to this day she still maintains one.

Budgeting

Growing up my mom used to keep a mini diary from Link Pharmacy. In Venda where I was born and raised,  a diary and a calendar were very important items to own and collect at the beginning of the year. Whereas others bought paintings to decorate their walls, in Venda a calendar was a common item to find hanging on a living room wall.

At the beginning of the year you would find my mom diligently copying over her contacts’ details, account numbers and all important information from her old diary to the new one. In that diary you would also find her budget. Each month end she would consult that little booklet and update it as she received statements from the clothing retailers, Telkom and any other creditors she owed. When we went to town she would take it out to confirm how much she needed to pay them. That diary was always in her handbag.

Financial discipline

My mom is a legend when it comes to managing money. She was so good that we (my siblings and I) knew better than to ask her for money in the morning on a school weekday. Not that the rules changed over the weekend, but we were more likely to require money on school days than over the weekend. She would simply not entertain requests for money in the morning regardless of the purpose for which the money was required. It could have been for “Come dressed as you like” at school or any other important event, but she was determined to not let one’s disorganization interrupt with her financial plan. She would simply remind you that she was home the night before and you could have asked her then when she had the time to apply her mind to your request. She would then leave you whilst you are still trying to come up with a plausible response.

I also learnt soon after I went to varsity that you dare not call mom to ask for extra pocket money because yours ran out before month end. She would calmly tell you that she gets paid on the 22nd of the month and you would have to wait until then. That conversation would end very quickly and I knew better than to try and motivate the reason for the request.

This taught me a great deal about money. That someone else’s disorganization and poor money management skills should not be a reason for you to not stick to your budget or financial plan.

Maintaining a good relationship with your bank

My mom has always banked with one financial institution and overtime has developed a relationship with that bank. To this day she banks with FNB. She opened up BOB savings accounts for us when we were young, but strangely we never had access to those accounts until varsity. I suspect she used the accounts for he own purposes given the lower banking charges on youth accounts.

It wasn’t until I worked in banking that I understood the importance of having a good relationship with your bank/ banker even though my mom was first to introduce me to this concept. There is reward for the loyal, even in banking.  When you bank with one bank, it becomes easy for you to negotiate terms on financial products, because that bank has a clear view of your financial position and is able to draw a factual income statement indicating the money they make (after all costs) off you as a customer from all their products that you have with them.

They have access to all your financial obligations and the terms thereof and are able to monitor your financial behavior from the bank statements. It then becomes an easy conversation for the banker assisting you to have with the credit manager (the people that hold the key to the bank safe) because all the information is available to them. They do not have to wait for your other consultants at the other banks to revert to you with the required information, which they may still query. People in business know that it is easier and cheaper to retain an existing customer than to spend money in the hope of securing a new customer, hence they invest in existing customer relationships. So you want to be the customer your bank wants to retain.

Getting more out of limited resources

My mom taught me how to make a little go a long way. When I was growing up going to Louis Trichardt (the nearest town to Thohoyandou with all the big retailers and takeaway restaurants like Wimpy back then) was a big deal. It was a trip that you looked forward to primarily because you would get to have some takeaway food.

My mom would pack a lunch for the family, aka mbuvha/ umphako/padkos. There were very few occasions where we went into a KFC or Wimpy and ate in.

We would go into the KFC to buy chicken only and sometimes chips. Otherwise she would wake up in the morning, cook pap, muroho (dark green leafy vegetables) and or gravy, and we would have that for lunch with KFC at the park. She would also buy a 2 litre of coke for the family to share. Having your own can of coke to share was a luxury. And on some days everything would come from home, all pre-packaged. So you can imagine how many miserable faces would be in that car on those days!

 

We were having a good laugh with friends from home the other day about how savvy our mothers were when we grew up.  A family of five could enjoy one whole chicken for both lunch and supper for example. Buying live chicken on Saturday and preparing it for the Sunday meal was a thing back then and somehow our mothers knew how to make that one chicken last and feed the family twice. In my family that is a single meal, without leftovers.

These are just some of the things I observed about managing money from my mom which made me appreciate the resourcefulness of women. In my mom I had a strong financial role model.

What are some of the financial lessons you learnt from your mothers growing up?