Arese Ugwu’s Smart Money Woman is brilliant! If you can remember, it was on My 2018 Reading List. The book provides personal finance guidance for the Millennial African Woman and recently, news broke that there will be a sequel to the first book in the series and possibly a TV show. Quite exciting!
This review will focus on the first book in the series, where we follow the plot through the lens of the main lead, Zuri’s experiences. We are drawn into the events that unfold in her life and the lives of the women that surround her; her friends and mother mainly, focusing on how their financial choices and decisions seep into their daily lives and vice-versa. The genius of the book is that it provides a combination of succinct finance breakdown with a chick flick storyline that picks up in the middle of the book. Reading the book was super easy and straightforward, it seems there was a lot of advertising in the book as a lot of real-life names and events were included (Arese’s really stacking her coins!! She’s teaching us to stack ours too so it’s all good), this made things more real but I wish these mentions were more subtle.
Title: The Smart Money Woman
Author: Arese Ugwu
Genre: Personal Finance/Romance
Number of Pages: 184
Favourite Part: The most successful people are the ones who are able to articulate what they want for their lives. Success is deeply rooted in having a solid plan that is tailored to what you want.
Although this book focuses mainly on Zuri and how she endeavours to be on top of her money struggles, I am quite certain that there is something to be learnt from the financial habits of every woman introduced to us in The Smart Money Woman, as such we will be paying attention to the financial life analysis of some of the women in the book to see what we can learn.
Let’s go!
Zuri is a very intelligent girl but she is not living up to her potential. It is very easy to sit in mediocrity and ignore the growth appeals that gently tug at us by life demands. Growth is necessary for progress and it is important that we allow ourselves to be stretched and disciplined, making sure to gather as much knowledge as we can and live optimally, wisely using the resources and opportunities that the life phases we live through provide us with. When we continuously pay no regard to the alleys of new information and refuse to climb the stairs of new experiences that life opens up to us, we start to stagnate and shrink without realising it.
This retrogression is not usually conspicuous until we realise there is a huge margin between ourselves and those we started the same race with who have chosen to allow themselves grow or until life hits us and forces us to be accountable. All of a sudden we realise that we are indeed doing ourselves a disservice by choosing to live beneath our potential. The latter was Zuri’s experience. Life hit her so hard! She was broke. She owed her landlord money and risked being kicked out of her apartment, she also could not afford to pay for the impromptu surgery her gynaecologist told her she needed, her lackadaisical attitude towards her job led to her almost being fired and she could barely help out when her mother’s house caught fire.
Personally, I think the most admirable thing about Zuri is her ability to be honest with herself. Although it took a couple of negative experiences to get there, she faced the truth regarding her situation, admitting to herself that she was broke not because she did not have a job but because she was bad with money. Even though she had been working for eight years, she had no assets to show for it. The most important thing is that Zuri had the courage to change her mindset on money and took steps forward towards altering how she spent money. She was ready to change her status from broke to wealthy.
Her first step towards getting out of her financial mess was to assess the poor financial decisions she had been making by sorting out her bank statements which she never really paid much attention to in the past. Zuri forgave herself for her previous waste and poor money decisions and decided to cut down on some of her unnecessary expenditure. She also aimed to keep herself accountable by having money dates where she would track her spending.
Lesson: I admire Zuri’s courage. It is never too late to start making changes to your habits so you can achieve financial freedom.
Tami is Zuri’s closest friend and seems to depend on the men in her life for her luxurious lifestyle. Tami specialises in fashion designing and has her own studio; quite enough to provide for her but the other pleasures of life that she enjoys such as upper-class tickets, rent for her work studio and designer clothing are as a result of her wealthy father and rich boyfriends supplementing her income. When Zuri relates her financial woes to her friend, “Find a rich man” is the only piece of advice Tami is able to give her.
Tami doesn’t seem to be in a financially strong position. She depends on her father and her boyfriends to provide for the lifestyle that she wants. When it comes to financial freedom/growth, dependency on other people should be avoided at all costs. While it is good that Tami has her own rented studio for her fashion designing business, if she is serious about becoming financially secure in her own right, she would need to grow her business to the point where it pays for the rent of the studio itself with the ultimate goal of buying her own studio. If we are being honest, compared to Zuri,
Tami is very much cushioned by her father and is in a comfortable position. Until that comfort is rocked as Zuri’s has been, Tami might not see the need to change her unhealthy financial dependency attitude.
Lesson: Comfortability is the enemy of growth and progress. Tami needs to stretch herself and level up!
Zuri’s Mother – Zuri’s mum has an entrepreneurial vein, she is industrious and hardworking. Unfortunately, none of the monies she realised from her various business ventures were invested. They were always spent on short term needs with a good chunk loaned out to friends and family who rarely returned what they borrowed. While it is important to fund our current pressing needs as well as be a helping hand to people who need it financially, we also need to know our financial boundaries because we are then aware of how much we can afford to lend out to others. Giving and lending should be strategic if we don’t want to relegate ourselves from being able to lend to becoming borrowers. What is the point of making money if we are not going to invest in our own financial development and freedom? We can only love our neighbours as much as we love ourselves, meaning that we need to love ourselves first. It is one of those ‘you need to fix your own oxygen mask first before you can help others’ type situation.
Lesson: Zuri’s mum’s giving and nurturing nature is admirable but giving and lending should be strategic if we don’t want to relegate ourselves from being able to lend to becoming borrowers.
Ladun married into a wealthy family and gets given an allowance by her husband but she seems to spend it all on designer items. She is carried away by the fact that she married up and enjoys basking in the glory of her material wealth and newly found status but naively, she never considered the foundation on which this rich family she married into built their wealth on. As a housewife, she receives a healthy allowance from her husband but spends it all shopping. This allowance is essentially her salary and if she were wise, she would invest a good chunk of that healthy allowance into a couple of profitable ventures. Unfortunately, Ladun belongs to the crop of women who believe that it is the job of their husbands to deal with everything that has to do with finances and the bringing in of money to the household, they just look forward to spending the money without any interest in becoming financially savvy.
Well, it was not too long before her bubble burst, her father-in-law who was the head of the family business suddenly passed away and it came to light that he was running the business on borrowed money. In an instant, they were left with nothing and the lifestyle they were accustomed to was beginning to slip through their fingers, so much so that she wondered if they would be able to continue to pay the fees for their children’s school. Assuming Ladun saved or invested some of her housewife allowances as previously mentioned, she would not have been as helpless as she was when the incident happened and at this point, she should definitely be thinking of swapping her acquired designer goods for some cash.
Lesson: There is nothing wrong with Ladun appreciating the fine things of life. She just needs to realise that it is not wise to be financially dependent on other people. Financial literacy and savviness is a must for everybody, even a housewife.
Adesuwa is in Zuri’s inner circle and although she is an associate at a law firm and is doing well financially, her husband is not on the same page with her. Adesuwa seems to place a high price on being married and seems to have low expectations from men so she blindly accepts and puts up with her husband even though he is a liability to her. This mindset of hers shines through when she expresses her fears of Zuri possibly scaring away suitors with her fancy apartment. Adesuwa thinks Zuri needs to downplay her achievements to get a man. This choice and mentality of hers definitely came back to bite her – Soji, her husband does not seem to have anything going on for him, therefore, Adesuwa is the only one shouldering the responsibilities and financial obligations of their family yet she continues to make excuses for him. I guess the lesson from this is that choosing a spouse to marry is not only a spiritual or personal decision, it is also an economic decision. Soji brings little income home yet Adesuwa not only fends for him but for his family members as well. Even though she resents this added weight of responsibility, she shies away from addressing these issues with Soji and puts up with her mother-in-law’s horrible attitude towards her. In the end, Soji cleared all the money in their joint account and ended their marriage via text message. I mean, should we even be surprised?
Lesson: If you downplay your achievements to attract a man, you will spend the rest of your life feeding the man’s ego and insecurities to the detriment of your own personal and financial growth. The choice of who to marry is not only a spiritual or personal decision, it is also an economic decision.
Lara, another one of Zuri’s friends who is well-established career-wise, working in an oil and gas firm but saddled with the responsibility of taking care of her mum and her siblings. Lara earns a decent amount but it all goes towards bills for her family members. What fascinates me about Lara’s story is that she upgraded her mum and siblings’ apartment first from Iyana Ipaja to Gbagada and then to Lekki. Personally, I don’t see any wisdom in this because each move has definitely been an increase in rent bills which she still continues to pay. All the rent money she currently pays in Lekki could have been used to build a decent house in Gbagada which will not only house her mum and siblings but will generate some income from renting one or two flats out. That way, she does not have to pay any rent for her mother anymore and the income from renting the flats out would contribute to her siblings’ school fees, taking off a chunk of the financial burden from her. The good news is thinking through her money issues made Lara start thinking of growing her passive income.
Lesson: Lara is very responsible and of all the ladies, seems to be the most mature and like us she is starting to learn that passive income is a very good idea.
Aunty Uwa, Zuri’s aunt seems to be very dependable. She does not seem to be a financial burden to anybody and can carry her own weight. She was able to house Zuri’s mum during the fire incident and when they were short of money, Zuri and her mum contemplated asking her for some. Aunty Uwa seems financially stable. I am curious to know just a bit more of her story. I hope some flesh is added to her character in the next book.
Lesson: Become so financially free that you have an abundance to give from.
The ladies of The Smart Money Woman book have taught us so much and I look forward to seeing them thriving and moving on from their excesses and baggage (fingers crossed) in book two of the series - The Smart Money Tribe!
