“My years at Honeywell had taught me that all roads lead to numbers.”  Mannie Jackson, Bringing a Dying Brand Back to Life.

We have come to the end of the road! A few weeks into the festive season and eleven months away from the New Year’s fuss about New Year’s resolutions and goals. Already I sense a few frowned faces at the mention of the “subject”.  Yes, 2009 is in the offing!

Over the year I shared on how to set personal goals intentionally avoiding the aspect of numbers as this is a very elusive aspect of most people’s life’s. The finance professionals are the biggest culprits. Research done over the years has revealed that only less than 10% of our population is aware about their expenditures compared to slightly over 50% who are aware of their incomes. This represents those that are actually aware about their disposable incomes. How much they spend on domestic expenditures and other personal amenities versus total receipts in form of wages & salaries and other contributions.

This is worsened by our bad spending that is a characteristic of our impulse buying habits. The average Ugandan is by nature an impulse buyer. It’s not surprising to find one who purchases items that are not relevant for the moment if only to make a point. The growth in the banking sector is a clear testimony of the value that the middle class citizen places on status ignoring all reason.

All this exorbitant spending has to be financed somehow; this implies additional financing through increased borrowing from available lenders! The real question should be can we achieve sufficient incomes to support our expenditures? The Safaricom IPO was one of those times when we evidenced bad investment decisions. If you had any doubt you might want to think again. A lot many people borrowed money from banks to finance investments in the Safaricom IPO and we experienced huge losses in foreign exchange alone.

The bad savings culture increased the risks of losses. A research by the government of Uganda reveals a disturbing less than 10% of the population actually making savings. There must be a deliberate effort made to change the status quo or risk being compliant to the “millennium bug”. Poverty is not defined only inform of numbers or how big your bank balance is but also how much you know about your situations. It was written in the greatest book “my people perish because they lack knowledge”.

It’s one thing projecting numbers and the other actually living them. In both cases you do not lose anything but acquire great insight on both your incomes and expenditures. Refusing to do either is denying the obvious and moving blindly towards the unknown!

Choose to project today.

Best Wishes for 2009!