Year in Review: Investing for the Future

Whenever I’m in front of my laptop about to write my year in review, I think of a common theme I observed throughout the year. I’ve spent the last few weeks reflecting and the common theme I noticed was investments. I spent most of the previous year laying the groundwork for the next few years of my life. From financial investments to upskilling in my career field to most importantly, investing in people. I’m happy with most of these investments and making corrections for things that didn’t work out. In the end, you “either earn or you learn" as the popular saying goes.

I invested in 4 main areas: career, financial, ideas and people. I’ll go over the highlights in the next few sections.

Career

From a quantitative standpoint, I did more work over the last year than in any of the previous years since I started working professionally. I’ve worked as a front-end web developer since I started my career and continue to do so. However, I was able to explore other areas that are beyond what I’m familiar with.

I originally started the year with plans to learn Flutter, mainly to develop mobile applications. I knew I could do this with web technologies, I had already worked on a mobile app with web technologies in the past but I was curious about learning a new language. In the end, even though I didn’t learn Flutter, I learnt more about using web technologies to build mobile apps.

Another thing that piqued my interest was the Blockchain. My interest increased as I started learning about cryptocurrencies. It’s such an interesting application of the technology and it makes me think of other possible applications. I also needed to learn it for jobs I did throughout the year. Hopefully, it’s something I’ll use in personal projects in the future.

Finances

I believe in saving and investing for the future. I also believe in enjoying the finer things in life 🙂. I love gadgets, high-quality food and having a good experience so I spend money to get these things. The key is finding a balance between saving/investing and my expenses so I did a few things to keep myself in check.

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

First, I decided to make plans ahead of every “major" money move, whether it was saving, investment or a purchase. Second, I made a budget based on my income and I tried to stick to it. Of course, I went outside the budget a couple of times but for the most part, I stuck to it. This helped me especially when it came to big purchases like gadgets. I made sure that if/when I get to the limit for the month, I stop and just postpone to the next month.

Finally, I spread my savings and investments into different places. The old saying “not putting all your eggs in one basket” sounds good to me. I used the platforms below depending on the goal:

1. Cowrywise — to invest in mutual funds
2. PiggyVest — for savings and naira investments
3. Risevest — for real estate investments
4. Bamboo — to buy stocks

These platforms simplify and automate processes that would be otherwise complicated and tedious so I appreciate the people building them.

Ideas

One of the main reasons I set out to become a programmer was because I wanted to have the ability to build my ideas and create things that I wanted to see in the world. I’ve not been able to do that so far but throughout the previous year, I was laying the groundwork for some of these ideas. I couldn’t do as much as I would have liked in between work commitments, personal commitments and getting a decent amount of rest. I’m making some adjustments moving forward to ensure I’ll advance my ideas in the coming year.

People

What I tried to invest in people the most this year was time. I say tried because I wasn’t always successful. I like to think I connected more with my family. I made a deliberate effort to be there for friends and family. I also think I was a bit more vulnerable and shared my fears and worries with these people. It wasn’t always easy but I felt it was necessary.

A favourite highlight of the year was going back to my alma mater, Emarid College, to give a career talk to the current students. It was more significant because it’s exactly 10 years since I left school.

mum, me, brother

I spent the Christmas holidays with my family and it was such a fulfilling way to end the year 2022, an overall successful year. I’m always learning, working and improving so I’m sure there will be more stories this time next year.