SAVING and investing are not synonymous. To become an investor is like in farming, you need to have a seed to invest with.

Saving is the starting point of a lifestyle of investment. There is a mistaken notion that saving is something one does after all their needs have been met. Others keep putting it off until some future date when they hope to have financial stability.

Whether you landed in your host country as an asylum seeker or high flying professional, whether your vocation is “rese-rese” or you are a well paid top of the pile executive at a fortune 500 company, you should define your own savings and investment path.

The minimum amount of savings I recommend to every able bodied person is at least 20% of whatever income that accrues to their name.The traditional western perspective of savings is a means that enables you to retire comfortably at the end of your working life.

Zimbabwe’s life expectancy may be just 37 years but empirical evidence abounds that people everywhere are generally living longer. You may retire at 60 years then get the grace to live until you are 95. If you were hopping from one job to the next, one livelihood to another across countries without any plan, then the next 35 years could leave you on welfare with no particular system willing to take responsibility for you.

The focus of the previous Zimbabwean generation given their meager earnings was just to get their children through school. The numerous children then became the pension plan upon retirement. Unfortunately, this formula may not work in future given that the average number of offspring is dwindling.

Personally, I think it is either low ambition or plain selfishness to aim to accumulate enough wealth to cover just your own retirement. Given our historical deficit, I think all able bodied Zimbabweans should set their minds on generating wealth that will last to second and third generations. We have clinics to be built, sanitation still outstanding and thousands of children to be educated. We should wean ourselves from donor mentality and the expectation that someone somewhere will fund our future national requirements.

If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got. If you want to create the life of your dreams, take 100% responsibility for your life. By blaming the global financial system, politics, employers or our national history -- some of us have abdicated our obligations. The reality is that all reasons have expiry dates, if we perpetually clutch on to them they just become excuses for inactivity.

If you want physical health, you watch what you eat and you engage in physical exercise to burn excess fat. If you want financial health, you also watch what you consume and you develop a plan to spend less than you earn. Like physical exercise it becomes easier once you get into the rhythm.

Choice is the most powerful tool that we have in our lives. It enables us to go from who we are today to whom we want to be tomorrow. Expressing ourselves through choices gives us the opportunity to establish ourselves as unique individuals; therefore our financial plan should be designed around our individual goals.

For people that I mentor, my advice is always that they should pay themselves first before they meet other commitments. If you are an evangelical Christian, I suggest you pay God first followed by yourself second. The budget is then drawn up based on the 80% that remains.

Every month, one has to train their mind that this 20% is not there just like your mind has been trained to accept that the tax money your pay your government is not included in your every day budget.

If you are one of those with a willing spirit but a weak flesh, then I suggest a stop order which takes away that 20% the same day it enters your account depositing it in a barbed wire destination which requires some procedures to extract it. My other suggestion for people who really struggle to put anything aside is to start during bonus time or just after receiving an increment. After all, a bonus is a privilege and not part of your normal earnings. This is just before your expenses expand to consume the new increment.

If you are in formal employment, a minimum financial plan should allow you to meet your current financial commitments for at least three months should you lose your current job. It is not your employer’s duty to give you financial freedom. Sometimes our relationship with employers becomes like the relationship drug addicts have with their pimps. The earnings you get from employment are just enough to cover your monthly requirements, and at the end of the month without fail you have to come back for another fix.

Financial freedom means you are not constrained by your finances. You, not your financial situation, control and choose your actions, decisions and choices. It means being in control of your finances, free from worrying about money and free to enjoy your money as you choose. It would also give you joy in your current vocation as it becomes the labour of love not just a means of survival.

Creating wealth is entirely different to earning a living. Earning a living implies, essentially, swopping your time and labour for a fixed amount of money. This puts a ceiling on your earning ability, because it doesn't matter how hard you work or how many jobs you have, there are just 24 hours in a day.

Creating wealth, on the other hand, involves making money work for you, so that it generates more money, while your time and labour remain your own. Working for a living is a noble concept, but it is unlikely to create the wealth you deserve. To create passive income, you need to acquire assets that generate an income that is not dependent on your physical presence, your time or your labour.