Cut extravagance to achieve family goals - Nana Dwemoh Benneh

Nana Dwemoh Benneh, Head of Personal and Business Banking at Stanbic Bank, has cautioned families to adopt conscious measures to safeguard unnecessary spending in order to achieve their family goals.

He said acting on impulse with one’s finances is a major cause of family bankruptcy.

“Money is the fuel that moves our daily lives, and once you have been blessed with some of it, managing it to a good end is a necessity,” he said.

According to Nana Benneh, a sure way of setting up prudent financial principles and keeping them is by isolating money used for specific things in the family and channelling it into a separate investment account where the earners in the family can contribute into. This account can be used for different purposes without interfering with project accounts.

An example is setting a leisure account for a family holiday. If the money in that account cannot suffice for the purpose the family can either have an accelerated plan or postpone the holiday until a time when the investment account can serve that purpose, he proposed.

That way, it will not upset other priorities that have been set nor cause any diversion of funds.

Families could also set up emergency accounts to cater for unforeseen, inevitable expenses. With proper planning, nonetheless, some emergencies might never come up in our lives.

But setting up emergency accounts gives a better understanding of what caused those emergencies. More often than not, it appears emergency expenses come about only as a result of a bit of lack of better planning and not necessarily because they were unavoidable. This understanding can help regulate the emergencies that turn to come up in our day to day lives.

Another essential measure of ensuring financial discipline that is often overlooked, according to Nana Benneh, is the request for statement of accounts.

“Statement of accounts gives you a clear picture of what is going on,” he said. “Many people have been able to adjust their lifestyles just by taking a critical look at their statement of accounts and that is why it is very good to have an account where these funds can be channelled to, so daily family expenses can be properly regulated.”

To help families go through their financial lives with ease, Stanbic Bank has set up a household account where people who earn money in the family can deposit their contributions, in order to help them manage their household activities through effective planning. The Bank also has investment accounts for children that encourage them to save by funding their own accounts.