Surviving Nigeria: The One Tool Every GTBank User Should Take Advantage Of

I came out of the closet of financial unintelligence a few years ago.

I knew the signs were there, but I failed to acknowledge them until quite recently. The problem with being financially unintelligent is that if you graduated from a course offering economics as a core, you tend to think you have bragging rights about finances. Heck, you may even have written one or two brilliant articles about the macroeconomics of the federation and thrown in words like per capita income, revenue allocation, trickle down economics to a smattering of applause.

When it comes to applying the most basic of economic principles (take opportunity cost, for example), I found myself floundering. I am not sure I have ever drawn out a scale of preference apart from during a sweaty examination, nor do I think I have ever been found to be suspiciously carrying a piece of paper containing my budget for a particular period of time.

In writing a few personal finance articles for a client in 2011, I read an article on Financial Unintelligence and the lights went up: ding.

Oh my days. I am the drooling stepson of the finance world!

Not that it is a severe handicap anyway: many of the world’s people no just know book for money matter so I am in good company. The problem, however, is that with this brain-dead approach to my finances comes my proclivity for emulating one of the characterics of liquids.

You know the one: liquids have no shape; they take the shape of their container.

This meant that no matter what cash is in my possession, my expenditure expands- or shrinks — to fit it. This ensured that no matter how high or low I was paid, I almost always arrived-screeching and panting — on the 30th or 31st (or 28th, or 29th, if we’re counting that annoying Maverick, February) of the month with ZERO in the bank account.

Needless to say, this worried me immensely.

But not enough to force me to consider — and I shudder to say — drawing up a ‘budget’ for the month.

So I continued my life, aware of my unawareness, yet unwilling to make the change required to have a cash buffer for this topsy-turvy economy.

If we were countries I would be Greece.

Anyway.

I have been experimenting lately with GTBank’s mobile app, and I was recently introduced to GT Target by a lovely woman of fair face and wonderful heart. But her beauty isn’t the basis of this writeup, so I would ask you to appreciate it perfunctorily and accompany me down the rabbit hole of by-force-by-force money management.

GT Target allows you set up a ‘second account’ under your original account and set a monthly date for the second account to ‘snap up’ and take a certain amount of cash from your main account and ‘keep it’ from your maniacal spending propensity.

What does this mean, you ask?

Let’s say you earn N100,000.
N100,000 enters your account at the first of the month.
If you have a GT Target set to take N20k on the second of every month, on the 2nd of the month, your N100,000 account will be debited of N20k and it will come to the GT Target account.
You can then go reckless on the N80,000 left on your main account, resting in the full knowledge that you have some ‘untouchable’ cash in another location.

I set my GT Target to consistently collect this cash for the next ten months, after which I intend to spend the lump sum on some luxurious frivolity, like, I dunno, going to Madagascar or something.

I know I know. But hey, I’m unintelligent!

You can be intelligent. Use GT Target today if you have a savings problem like I do. Or ask your bank — if you do not use GT Target — if they have a similar package.

Notes:

I do not work for GTBank, neither is this a sponsored post. I am not Linda Ikeji.
When setting your ‘start date’ on GT Target, do not use the selfsame date you are setting it up as your start date. This should be explicit on their app/website, but I didn’t see it and it caused a friend of mine grief.
I believe GT Target charges you N300 for using this service. A small price to pay, I hope.