Cars, cell phones or rental houses in exclusive estates were not signs of wealth but what actually removed money from the pocket

Could you, for example, get your child's school fees and give to another person struggling with raising school fees?

Marshall your abilities: Start small and grow. Aim at becoming an employer too.

Even when you promise yourself to never buy some items because you do not need them, you find yourself amassing these items, promising yourself that you do need them.

The man will always view you as a leech, latching on him for financial gain and will have no respect for you.

The problem with many of us is that we keep complaining. You have a job, but you dismiss it in conversations as hopeless, swear about the ‘useless’ company you work for and say how your salary is just peanuts.

December as the last month of the year brings forth some agonizing stories about what those who failed to pay their loans go through. Forget debt collectors; the local chamas are the most merciless. And each year they come up with more severe and punitive punishment.

I went out with an acquaintance for lunch recently and when the menu was brought, she spent nearly ten minutes studying it. We were at a 'normal' restaurant so the menu was not complicated as it did not have items like prawns or octopus. Tired of waiting for her to make up her mind, I decided to pick the most expensive meal for us, chicken and chapati, at Sh420 each. She nearly screamed when I pronounced that.

At the meeting, they also agreed that each of the mzee’s seven sons and daughters would be contributing towards the patient’s expenses and the figures worked upon. It has been two months since and no contribution has been forthcoming. It is her good nature and generosity that made the others readily shovel this responsibility on her.

After an agonising week, she decided to quit her job last Friday, not knowing where to go or what to do to sustain her lifestyle

Money mistakes to avoid in marriage

It is amazing how making a little difference in what you do can go a long way in boosting your enterprise

You are the first source of knowledge about finances that children rely on and their attitude towards money will be influenced by you. This gives a woman the great responsibility of imparting the right knowledge in financial management for future generations.

We are now just days to Christmas. This is one day in the year that hogs so much money that after it is over, many people wonder what it was all about.

Throwing a Christmas party? You are not competing to outshine any family member who might have given an extraordinary bash the previous year.

“When you trust someone with your body and soul, why is it hard to trust the same person with something as valueless comparatively as money?"

As inflation keeps ballooning and many Kenyans find it hard to stretch the cents, ideas of supplementing incomes are being floated every day.

A few days ago, irate residents brought down a house they claimed was being built on a road blocking their passage

If this behavior has reached alarming levels and the church is concerned, what should the wife do to financially insulate herself from the economic disappointment that such affairs spell on the family? Will you change the usual family budgeting process to take care of that day you feel you probably will have nothing to offer your children?

As we ‘surveyed’ the work in progress, something caught my attention; the wife’s disinterest in the project. So what was the particular room she had her stamp on? I asked. Actually none, she explained. The husband was building while she took care of other issues such as ensuring the family is fed and clothed.

“The chama money I received at the end of May, I didn’t touch a cent. I sent to my mother instructing her to buy me three goats and five hens plus one cock

Last weekend, I attended two functions; a wedding and a birthday party. Both were miles apart in terms of the hosts but they had a similarity; extravagance

We are taught to save money from when we are young. To enhance this, there are many sayings that encourage people to save for a rainy day

In a recent meeting on financial management, a woman sprung up to share her "miserable financial woes", as she called her situation.

It happens to all of us. We buy things we do not need, suffocating our wardrobes and kitchens with what we do not need.

But while she was breaking her back and raiding her pocket to make the guests comfortable, she realised they were actually exploiting her!

Halt impulse buying. When you are so tempted to get something that was not budgeted for, always ask yourself, "Do I really need it?

In the past few weeks, many football fans have been glued to the TV as they watched the World Cup hosted by Brazil. Hanging out at entertainment joints in front of strategically installed flat-screen TVs has been the order of the day.

A man once went to his neighbour to borrow Sh2,500 to pay his wife’s labour ward fee.

Recent events in the investment sector, especially the politics of land, have left many couples at a loss on the best way to invest for themselves and their children.

The generation in their 60s and above usually got government jobs for keeps. Once they were employed, they relaxed and the thought that that job would ‘walk away’ never occurred to them. They waited for retirement, dutifully filing their payslips as they counted the years to retirement.

In the last few days of February, I heard people asking each other if salaries had been deposited in their accounts. They were in the red, they said, and literally counted days to the end of the month.

Most schools around the country open tomorrow. The past few days have seen parents and guardians run up and down to shop for their children going back to school.

In the last few days, Kenyans have been crying over the high cost of living after the VAT 2013 law came to effect. Milk that cost just Sh20 at one of the worst economic times for the country in 2002, now retails at Sh60.This is an example how prices of the daily consumables have shot up while the income — salary, business or otherwise — has either remained the same or increased by a negligible fraction.

I received this email from a concerned husband:

It is prudent that finances are discussed when the two of you are dating. At this point, you lay out your plans, your expectations and what you need to achieve within a certain period.