Be careful lest you flaunt to poverty this festive season

By John Kariuki

 Showing off riches smacks poverty of the mind that often leads to losses and destitution

With festivities fast approaching, many Kenyans are traveling upcountry to dine with their relatives or families. These safaris will reach a crescendo next week. There would be plenty of riches as some urbanites troop to the village.

 This insensitive breed of the novae riches, who like a star that shows sudden large increase in brightness before slowly returning to its original state, take each opportunity to flaunt their riches for a calculated and, frequently, intolerable social goal. They will argue and complain of long hospital’s outpatient queues, laxity in pubs, restaurant, matatus, banking halls, walkways and so on about how “such sluggishness cannot happen in Nairobi.” Such people are always sported with iPads, expensive mobile phones and jewelry, whose net worth can run a small State department.

 Typically, they complain of “poor and slow services,” even at the Christmas church service, and utter awe-inspiring names of posh places in Nairobi where they can get better deals and customised attention.

Others park expensive cars where they can be easily noticed. They will  make several trips to ostensibly to get mineral water, calculators, coat or umbrella and so on, leaving no doubt that they own the limos. 

But personal finance experts warn that such behaviour smacks poverty of the mind! Often it is the small fish who flaunt their riches and one cannot pick out the really wealthy people in crowd. They are humble to a fault.

The wannabe millionaires want to prove that they are in “big money” which has changed their social classes. But people with the real wealth don’t go on spending spree, but instead, lead quiet lives, making more money.  They have nothing to prove to anybody.   Anderson Kenga, a personal finance banker, advises that it is unwise to show off one’s riches.

“It is a better strategy to be discreet if one wants to continue being wealthy for a long time,” he says. “By flaunting riches around, one opens himself or herself to hangers-on, broke friends, lazy relatives, gold-diggers and beggars,” adds Kenga.

Public confidence

Kenga observes that keeping one’s wealth modest is not the same as hiding it from the taxman.  “It is all about being wise with your money and keeping it away from people who can decimate it given a chance,” he says.

 He however adds that there are times when flaunting one’s wealth is necessary. “For a personal business to gain public confidence, its owner is expected to give generously and publicly to worthy causes,” he says.

Public confidence is an important factor to any successful business, he adds. And the best way in earning it is by showing that one runs a financially strong personal business. Kenga advises wealthy people to flaunt their riches in socially acceptable yet discreet ways like starting funds for worthy causes. “The billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have pledged enormous amounts of money to charities. Even if you donate a modest amount of money to a cause, People will get curious where it comes from. They will start researching your personal business and give it some publicity, which can make your fortunes soar, ” says Kenga.

Charles Njeru, a financial planner, says one should choose a money show-off that he or she can afford. “Making a thoughtless pledge might earn one some publicity in the beginning,” he says. But when one cannot sustain or even honour such a pledge, he or she can be financially finished.

 “There is nothing that kills a person’s financial reputation better than pledging more than he or she is actually worth,” says Njeru.  And issuing bouncing cheques, ostensibly to gain publicity at an event, is nowadays considered a criminal offence,” adds Njeru.

Arrogance of wealth

  A common money mistake that some people make is to display an arrogance of wealth before their friends, especially those they have toiled with. They may get some attention, borne out of false pretense but nobody respects them or their wealth. Effectively, such people shut the door to their friends who would bail them out of future financial doldrums or recommend potential clients to them.

   The world’s richest people never reveal how much they are worth. Often, they give non-committal answers and their net worth is frequently an approximation worked by the press from the market value of their many businesses. Telling everybody how much money one rakes in monthly or holds in a bank account is one of the cheapest ways of flaunting one’s riches, yet there are scores of Kenyans who commit such indiscretion over the Christmas break.

 They will not only come across as boastful, but also stupid despite their academic credentials and social standing. By nature, people don’t like loud mouths, who brag about their property and fat bank accounts.