25 Aug 2023
You somehow manage your finances and money to travel abroad. But once you land in a foreign country, you have to sail through several complex situations to manage your money.
This is one of the challenges Ghanaians face after they go to foreign countries to earn a living there and send money to Ghana to offer financial aid to their families back home.
A report by the Atlas of Humanity said that about 4 million Ghanaians live in foreign countries for jobs with better financial prospects and the best-quality education. Ghanaian migrants are contributing significantly to the country’s economy through remittances. A World Bank report said that the remittances they sent back in 2022 were $4.66 billion.
This is a significant financial boost to a country’s economy whose nominal GDP in the same year was just $72.84 billion, according to another World Bank report.
It is not just about earning a living and spending it carelessly in a foreign land. You must understand that you have to develop certain habits that will help you manage your finances well. The lack of these habits, otherwise, will take you back to the same financial point where you had started. And your effort at the back of your expatriate life will likely go in vain.
Therefore, you must learn about those habits and tips that will enable you to become smart financially and gain financial mastery, which this blog will help you with.
But a look at the reasons for pushing Ghanaians out of Ghana is essential to fully appreciate the importance of the habits and tips to attain financial viability abroad.
If you consider the factors for leaving Ghana to work abroad, you will see a mix of two types of factors: one, the push factors and two, the pull factors.
We will, however, focus on the push factors because we want to understand the intensity of the financial challenges the Ghanaians face in their native country.
Unemployment is rampant in Ghana, which leads to poverty. As a result, people suffer from destitution. So, people find jobs abroad and support their families financially through a money transfer to Ghana. Additionally, due to a nominal income in their native country, they cannot afford to provide life essentials for their families.
Understand here all you must about how to move to a foreign country from Ghana.
Let’s face it.
No matter how hard you try, you will still struggle to manage your savings with your earnings in Ghana. Because whatever you earn is exhausted in meeting the basic needs of life at the bare minimum level. It leaves you financially vulnerable on rainy days! Don’t you think?
Let’s now understand personal financial planning and how to attain financial mastery.
Personal financial planning involves the creation of a strategic plan to manage your income, expenses, taxes, savings, and investments during your stay abroad. This plan must be broad in its scope as it should consider the challenges of expatriate life, including lifestyle, cultural differences, legal and regulatory issues and language barriers.
Managing personal finance is essential for you as a Ghanaian expatriate because your job in a foreign country will come to an end someday. And if you have not achieved financial stability during that period, your financial struggle will continue.
Now, let’s see what steps you should take to achieve financial stability as a Ghanaian expatriate. But remember that you should turn the following steps in your habits to derive optimal benefits.
The following steps are easy and simple to achieve financial stability.
The first step is to clearly define your financial goals and know what you ultimately want to achieve. Remember that your online money transfer to Ghana should only be a small part of your financial goals because you aim to pull yourself and your family out of poverty permanently, not through temporary financial help via regular money transfers back home.
You must create a budget and set upper and lower limits for expenses under different heads. But creating a budget will never achieve the purpose; sticking to and following it strictly, however, will serve the purpose.
Record every penny that you earn and spend. Several digital tools will help you with this, or you can manually record your expenses in registers meant for this purpose, like was the practice in the past. But again, a mere recording will not serve the purpose unless you visit the details at the end of each month.
We have always maintained that emergencies never knock before coming. They just appear. And if you are not financially prepared for these, they can be disastrous. Therefore, create an emergency fund and regularly contribute to it no matter what.
When it comes to managing finances, you often find the lines setting needs apart from wants to be blurred. And more so when you are an expatriate. Therefore, it is essential to understand the difference between wants and needs clearly.
Remember that smart spending on needs will help you attain financial freedom, while any amount spent on wants will financially ruin you.
Adopting a lifestyle that depicts your financial strength is just not necessary. You must avoid it. Try living below and well within your financial means. It will bring financial viability.
You can save money in several ways. Instead of just trying to save your funds in the traditional ways, look for different ways to save. An example can be choosing a service provider that helps you save money on your international transfers. It is a different saving approach whose benefits you get there and then.
These are some of the easy steps you can take to attain personal financial freedom as a Ghanaian migrant.
Fees and exchange rates, if not taken care of, can slash your funds by a big margin. Therefore, send money to Ghana online with ACE Money Transfer to increase savings on your money transfers and enjoy speed, safety, low fees, and live and market-competitive exchange rates right away!
What is personal financial management?
Personal financial management means creating a strategic plan to monitor your income and expenses and ensuring that you focus on savings by living within your means and avoiding unnecessary expenses.
Why is personal financial management important?
Personal financial management is important because your job as a Ghanaian migrant abroad will draw to a close someday. If you do not manage your finances, your financial struggle will continue even though you have spent your life earning in a foreign land.
How do I achieve personal financial freedom?
You can achieve financial freedom by paying off your debts, avoiding borrowing money, living within your means, deeply understanding the tax implications of the country you are working in, and so on.
What habits should I adopt to achieve financial viability?
You should make it a habit to create a budget and live by it, spend smartly, avoid spending on wants, record your income and expenses, analyse your income and expenses at the end of every month, create a budget and live by it, and contribute to an emergency fund regularly.
Why do Ghanaians find work abroad?
Ghanaians travel abroad because they cannot find reasonable means of earning in their native country, which leads to acute poverty and destitution. It also leads to the hard challenge of making ends meet.
Resources
(Ghanaians in the World (atlasofhumanity.com)
(Personal remittances, received (current US$) - Ghana | Data (worldbank.org)
(GDP (current US$) - Ghana | Data (worldbank.org)
(GDP per capita (current US$) - Ghana | Data (worldbank.org)
