The one about SFFG

Jose and I recently enrolled for a Straight Forward Financial Growth (SFFG) course for couples with my lovely Pastors Angela and Emmanuel Okullo. The first session was about our background with money while growing up.

Jose, my husband talked about the fact that he used to hawk yellow bananas in the evenings after school and during holidays in order to earn money for school fees and other needs. He started making money at a very young age and it is evident in the way he currently treats money.

I on the other hand said I could not have relationship with someone I did not know- namely money. I mentioned in my earlier post that at the onset of my birth, scarcity was the default setting.

When I was 8 years old, my dad came to Kampala for further studies and we went to live with my paternal grandparents in a village deeper than the one for my maternal grandparents where we used to live before. My paternal grandfather freely leased part of his land to mum to cultivate food to feed us on. Between the time of planting and harvesting, we had no food at all and I remember my mum constantly going to the market miles away that used to take place every Saturday to beg them for food for her 4 children. Things became much better after my dad returned but because my parents were both teachers and were also taking care of our relatives, we were constantly in need of most of the basic things.

When I joined secondary school, my parents used to give me pocket money of two thousand shillings, a loaf of bread, millet flour, washing and bathing soap, and sugar. On the first day of school, I would eat the whole loaf of bread in one sitting- the rest of the days would take care of themselves. I used to daydream of the day that I would make money so that I eat bread and eggs to my satisfaction.

During school visitation days, my parents never carried food- but my friends would have pilau, chicken, fried potatoes among others. I was always privileged to be invited to partake of the food. But because I was not used to such delicacies, food poisoning would set in a few hours later- throwing up in the school flower gardens on my way to the toilet is a story for another day.

When I started working, because I did not know how to treat money, every time I was paid, I would buy and eat every kind of food I had missed as a child as well as clothes I desired to wear. My salary would be blown in one weekend. I would then work my way to my next pay day.

During the SFFG session, I mentioned that if I had treated money the way it is supposed to- get it, save it and grow it, things would have been different now. Imagine, just imagine if I had fixed a 20 thousand Uganda shillings from the time I started working in 2008.

I am grateful for the education that I have received from my church about money and for the opportunity to join the SFFG mastermind. Things will never be the same again.