A feature of my childhood was my Mom and her A4 black cashbook.
Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s as one of 7 siblings and a Dad who struggled to hold down a job, money was extremely scarce. Yet we always had food on the table and a roof of our heads. We all completed high school and obtained tertiary qualifications.
Having lived through World War 2, Mom had learned to make do.
Nothing was wasted.
From the age of 13, when we entered high school we were given a monthly allowance. ZAR1.00 per year of our age + ZAR1.00. That was it!
Besides tithing 10% to the church, 10% to our Post Office Savings Account, pay our annual school fees of ZAR6.00 which we did at ZAR1.00 per month, we had to pay for entertainment, bus fares and clothing.
Mom did make most of our clothes which helped.
Every day Mom sat down with her Black Cashbook and entered money received and money spent.
A non negotiable for her was a daily newspaper at ZAR0.03 which was delivered to our door. The greatest gift she gave her children was a love of reading and learning about what was happening in the world.
When I married in 1977 I started my own Cashbook, recording income and expenditure each day.
I wrote an article for Fair Lady Magazine called Write it Down to Save It up and earned a fee of ZAR50.00. I was beyond excited.
My financial discipline worked until the mid 1980s when my (now ex/late) husband suddenly resigned from a director's position to start his own business - he had no real idea of what the business was going to do. Desk top computers had just come to the market and he thought he would sell them to businesses.
We had 2 young children, my Mom had moved in with us, and we had purchased a more expensive home which was mortgaged to the maximum based on my husbands earnings. A live in gardener and a live in domestic also joined the family. We were going up in the world!
He had never been in sales and after a week of cold calling, reality hit and we both panicked. I had been doing voluntary work while I was studying bookkeeping by correspondence and taking care of our boys. I literally picked up the car keys and rushed to the closest Recruitment Agency looking for work.
We had cashed in his pension which kept us afloat while we re-grouped. However, this was a bad mistake for our long term financial security.
Starting your own business is never easy. But this is the sort of thing that many ADDers do - either because they like taking risks or can't see alternatives.
In my next article How Not To Start A Business, continues our journey and mistakes we made, which hopefully you can learn from.
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