Money Grows Gradually – A Chat with Dooyum Mchiaga – Tsivar.

On January 15, 2022, Dooyum tweeted this. 👆🏻 Testimonials like this from our users inspire us to keep up with the good work we do at Cowrywise: helping people build wealth by saving and investing their money in mutual funds. So I reached out to Dooyum to have a chat with her about Cowrywise and know her experience using the app to build wealth. She talked about how she found Cowrywise, her journey through saving and investing and why she tells people about the app. She also emphasized the place of patience when investing bearing in mind that money grows gradually.

Our conversation started on a casual note and I asked her to tell me about herself. “I am a civil servant,” Dooyum said. “And I do quite a number of things. When I do one thing for too long I get bored so I just do many things so I don’t get bored. It helps me to be versatile. And also, I stay in Abuja.”

How Dooyum found Cowrywise.

I wanted to know how she came across Cowrywise; it’s not everyday you see someone in their fifties using an online savings platform like ours. Like many of our users, Dooyum was referred to Cowrywise by a family member.

“My younger sister told me about it,” she said. “You know we were discussing apps and savings and then she mentioned that she uses Cowrywise for her own savings. Something about the name and the logo, and the blue…I am not really a blue person but this shade of blue really resonated with me.”

“We’ll have to pass that across to our design team,” I quipped. The Cowrywise blue, we often call our shade of blue. 

“And I like to challenge myself,” Dooyum continued when I asked how her experience with the app has been so far. “Sometimes I have four different savings plans going on. I see them as a form of challenge sometimes. Like I wonder, how long will it take me to save one million naira? – So I start. I give myself a challenge like, if I do six months, how much can I save? “

This habit struck me. This is actually what we preach because most people don’t know how much they actually spend or earn.  This was the case with one of our users, Owivri Eseoghene until she started using Cowrywise. I was curious as to how Dooyum developed this savings habit.

Forming better savings habit. 📈

In explaining how she started saving this way, she said, “Our money habits are formed the same way our other habits are formed. A lot of them are connected to our growing up. How our parents or caregivers actually view money affect how we also view money.

“My mother was a very money conscious person. She was a civil servant but even then, I never heard my mother say she was broke. She had money saved all day and my father always relied on her savings. Seeing how my mum’s savings kept on helping the family whenever the family was broke unconsciously formed my savings habit. When I was in the university, I got pocket money from both my mum and dad and I was able to still save while I was in the university. I always wondered, why buy the best dress when I don’t have any savings? It is always better to have savings than buy things based on trends.”

Retracing your money habits. 💰

She also talked about returning to the basics: “In retracing our money habits, we need to look at how we grew up and see how this has affected our perception of money. Some people grew up having enough funds so their relationship with money is comfortable and they may be extravagant. Also those who grew up poor may end up saving so much, thereby denying themselves of certain luxuries. Some may do the exact opposite.

“Your relationship with money is closely linked to how you related with money while growing up. Whatever you are doing on the conscious plain is just a reflection of what you have picked up unconsciously over time.”

Moving on, I asked her what she thought about the average Nigerian’s perspective to investments. Then, Dooyum spoke about financial trauma while stating again that money grows gradually.

Recognising financial trauma. 🫂

“For many people it is a trust problem. They are thinking, I don’t have a one-on-one relationship with these people. What if they disappear tomorrow? It is like saving with a faceless app so there is a fear. 

“In life we sometimes go through trauma which forms how we live. Emotional trauma, even financial trauma. When I shared the Cowrywise video after I got my gift box/goody bag, people asked me, ‘How do you trust these people? Should we trust them?’ And really I don’t blame them after all the MMM and various Ponzi schemes. People are traumatised, some lost money then and so joining anything at all that is not conventional banking would be scary for them; the pains of having lost money.”

I asked her about the unrealistic returns people expect from investments having grew up in a ponzi scheme era.

Money grows gradually. 📈

“It is going to be quite difficult convincing people but the truth is money grows gradually. Some of the big cocoa, mahogany and palm trees were seeds that were planted decades ago by grandfathers and the kids are reaping rewards now. Any seed you plant requires time to grow.

“Unfortunately, we are in a microwave generation and that affects investment perspectives. We need to teach a bit of slowing down, a bit of patience. We need to be ready for seeds to germinate before they blossom into fruits that we can pluck from. We need to spend a bit of timing. A bit of patience. A bit of delayed gratification. There is no shortcut to it. We need to be ready to do the work for almost  anything productive. Durable and sustainable things take time to grow. Just the same way our careers don’t grow in a year. We made progress gradually. Slow down and enjoy the process.”

Lastly, I asked Dooyum to say a few words.

Save for the rainy day. ☔️

“I know this may be hard with inflation, cost of living and excess demand; it may be a bit difficult to save and tough it through but please save, no matter how little. Save for the rainy days.”

Thank you very much, Dooyum. I really appreciate you having this chat with us.

That was a fun read! Now it’s time to take action.

Be like Dooyum! Want to start making money moves? Start here.