Don't Eat Tomorrow's Food Today

DON’T EAT TOMORROW’S FOOD TODAY

SUNDAY ADELAJA

Sunday Adelaja

DON’T EAT TOMORROW’S FOOD TODAY

©2017 Sunday Adelaja

ISBN

Copyright © Golden Truth Publishing

Kiev, Ukraine. All rights reserved

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise — without prior written permission of the author.

Cover design by Alexander Bondaruk

Interior design by Olena Kotelnykova

© Sunday Adelaja, 2017,

Don’t Eat Tomorrow’s Food Today — Kiev, Ukraine:

Golden Truth Publishing, 2017

All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENT

INTRODUCTION 5

CHAPTER ONE: THE PLAGUE CALLED

CONSUMERISM 17

Social comparativism 22

People are becoming economic slaves 24

The rush for accruing luxuries 26

Black Friday spree – a shopping ritual 27

Oniomania – the shopaholism problem 29

CHAPTER TWO: DON’T EAT

TOMORROW’S FOOD TODAY 33

Credit is big business 39

Debt – till death do us part 40

The folly of misguided flamboyance 44

Just how rich is the baddest man

on the planet? 45

The imprisoned giant 48

CHAPTER THREE: HOW YOU ARE

EATING TOMORROW’S FOOD TODAY 55

Answering three essential questions 57

How healthy is credit card debt? 73

CHAPTER FOUR: THE PICTURE

OF YOUR TOMORROW 77

The formula for wealth 79

CHAPTER FIVE: PSYCHOLOGY OF

INSTANT GRATIFICATION 97

I want it now! 100

Yoloisis – the yolo problem 103

Help me, i am addicted 104

Your way forward 109

CHAPTER SIX: PSYCHOLOGY OF

DELAYED GRATIFICATION 115

Delayed gratification is waiting 15 minutes

to get two marshmallows 116

Is delayed gratifcation an inborn endowment 119

Top 7 practices that help develop

delayed gratification 121

The future is now 124

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE BEST THING

MONEY CAN BUY 127

Attaining financial freedom 130

Why do we neglect good financial judgment? 133

Freedom for all 137

CHAPTER EIGHT: 10 TIMES OVER

FORMULA 143

The best affordability rule 145

When do you qualify to buy what you want? 149

CHAPTER NINE: SECURING YOUR

FUTURE 153

What you need for a new beginning learn

from the rich 156

Watch your spending 157

Have an emergency fund 157

Create sustainable investment portfolio 158

Understand the power of compound interest 158

Understanding assets and liabilities 159

Control your appetites 160

Owe no man anything 163

Before you spend, earn 164

Some tips to help you secure tomorrow’s food 164

CONCLUSION 171

INTRODUCTION

Do you know that in this world you are either classified as rich, middle-class or poor? The reality is that money has become a significant component of the modern-day life. We must appreciate the fact that economic prosperity is not just a vain, unimportant pursuit but a means for a better life.

The world boasts of over 2,000 billionaires in dollars with popular names like Bill Gate, Amancio Ortega, and Warren Buffet just to mention a few. The other side of life has billions of people living in abject poverty. A few people with billions while billions of people with a few. Do you know that 8 of the top richest men on earth from Bill Gates to Michael Bloomberg are richer than half of the world’s population?

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) using its Human Poverty Index (HPI) defines the poor as those making less than $1.25 a day. The UNDP multidimensional poverty index covering 101 of the world’s developing countries revealed that:

About 29% of those countries population live in multidimensional poverty with at least 33% of the indicators reflecting acute deprivation in health, education, and standard of living.

And close to 900 million people are vulnerable to fall into poverty if setbacks occur, setbacks like financial, natural or otherwise.

A cardinal question to think about is this, what do poor people think about poverty? For anyone who has not experienced extreme poverty, it is easy to romanticize poverty. There are religious sects that believe poverty is holiness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Usually, those sects who take the vow of poverty have other sects that work to provide for the needs of those who purport to be suffering for the Lord. Suffice to say that there is no empirical evidence that suggests that poverty is romantic for those living in poverty.

I grew up in abject poverty, never wore shoes till I was 12 years old. Reached the brink of committing suicide at age 13 because I didn’t have enough money to afford 3 square meals a day. I qualify to say to you; there is nothing romantic about poverty.

It is an obvious fact that the African continent is extremely rich in scarce resources. The continent is rich in oil, uranium, copper, gold, platinum, tin, diamonds, timber, export-based agriculture, biofuels, biodiversity, land and people (labor). Despite this vast natural wealth, the biggest challenge for Africa is how to translate this wealth to meaningful benefit its people. Corrupt politicians and business cartels seem to be the only beneficiaries of the continent’s wealth. Africa's natural resource has certainly fueled a decade of rapid growth in other parts of the world, but most Africans are yet to see the benefits. Poverty remains high in this gold mine.

Take for example one of Africa’s oil giants Nigeria. It is said that Nigerian legislators are among the world’s top paid. Their annual salaries range between $150,000 to 190,000 depending on exchange rates. As you can see Nigerian lawmakers, can earn around $160,000 more than British MPs who make just around $105,000. This shows how differently African leaders relate to money in comparison to their European or American counterparts. Instead of directing public funds to developmental projects African leaders would rather enrich themselves, lavishing themselves with the luxuries of life. If this trend continues, Africa will plunge even deeper and deeper into poverty. When millions are living under a dollar a day we still have politicians that refuse to sacrifice in other to build a better future. This is common in African nations. They tend to live an extravagant lifestyle. They buy fancy cars, go on exotic vacations, and maintain offshore accounts with large sums of money at the expense of the taxpayers.

A century after World War 1, there is still a struggle for Africa’s resources by industrialized counties like the United States, China, Japan, Russia, India, Israel, South Korea and Brazil are competitors for Africa’s riches, each desiring a larger piece of the cake. Riding on the backs of corrupt leaders these countries use state-supported corporations, transnational corporations, world organizations, foreign aid, loans, diplomacy and military intervention to further their national agendas. If there is a continent that should be ahead of all others Africa is that continent but its leaders choose to undervalue her resources and whatever money comes in goes into the pockets of the few at the corridors of power. Africa’s gold and copper beautify the western and European countries while it remains under developed. The diamonds and other precious gems of Africa decorate the affluent super nations living behind blood trails.

William Easterly of the Center for Global Development, Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC, USA explains that "The central paradox of the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) is that they became heavily indebted after two decades of partial debt relief and concessional lending. How did this happen? This may suggest that the factors that lead to high debt are long-lasting and not easily changed by debt relief. Consider the following example. The HIPC of Haiti is not growing. The ratio of foreign debt service to exports has reached 40%, well above the 20–25% thought to be ‘‘sustainable.’’ The debt was accumulated not to finance productive investments, but to finance the government’s patronage employment and large military and police forces. Corruption has been endemic, so there is the suspicion that some of the proceeds of foreign loans found its way into the leader’s pockets.

The theoretical concepts in his paper How Did Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Become Heavily Indebted, predicted that governments with unchanged discount rates, in the long run, will respond to debt relief by running up new debts or by running down assets. There are some signs that the incremental process of debt relief over the past two decades fulfilled these predictions. New borrowing was correlated with debt relief so that the debt ratio got worse. Per capita output had a trend decline, suggesting a de-accumulation of productive assets, broadly defined. Oil reserves were depleted more rapidly and sales of state enterprises to foreign owners were higher in countries that got debt relief. Policies by which government implicitly or explicitly taxed asset accumulation displayed a mixed pattern of gradual policy improvements and a few unsuccessful improvements. The most important policy indicators for heavily indebted countries - the current account deficit and the budget deficit, failed to improve, and they remained above other LDC’s (less developed countries) levels of control for their initial values in 1979".

The attitude that is observed among leaders of third world countries is the problem which is deeply rooted in the culture and this makes a person, family or nation poor. If the continent continues in this direction then worse days are ahead. Natural resources do get depleted but while they last Africa must learn and start to convert its natural wealth into economic growth. Here we see that Africa is deeply eating into her future through corruption. Its leaders urgently need to realize that securing a future through prudent management and accountability is imperative.

This continental picture reflects the values of the African people. The point I am making here is that Africa’s leaders are endangering her future through corruption that only benefits a few in the short-term.

We are seeing a poverty mentality being expressed by these African leaders. To change a continent, we need to change is leadership, to change its leadership we must change its citizenry and to change its citizenry we must change individual mindsets. You must change. Your whole value system must change. You must begin to realize that securing your tomorrow is as urgent as life itself.

Having been informed of this continental outlook I want you to take securing your financial future as a personal business. Warren Buffet makes a very remarkable statement which shows why some people continue to struggle financially all their life while others go on to enjoy the good life, he says When people start buying things they don’t need, they soon need to start selling things they need. The poor see something they want, and they must get it immediately. That propensity towards immediate satisfaction sponsors perpetual poverty. What are you buying that you don’t need today? Are you busy buying things that can be put on hold? As simple as these questions might seem they are very fundamental in addressing and accessing your financial future. What Warren Buffet statement is also in agreement with what Benjamin Franklin said, he said: Buy what thou has no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy Necessaries. You have to be smart to beat this world system. You have to be frugal to outsmart this worlds system that is created to put you in perpetual servitude.

Usually, poor people and the middle-class spend money on things they don’t really need. They are bent on pleasing self immediately and getting the approval of other people at the expense of their own prosperity. They are living a repetitive lifestyle of work, earn and spend. Their life is an endless, self-defeating, pointless and purposeless pursuit.

I’m still challenging you; what are you buying today that you really don’t need? Are you purchasing things that you can currently afford to do without?

Do you know that worse than spending all you earn, many times you will come under immense pressure to spend the dollars you have not yet secured or earned? The first law of money says that MONEY IS NOT MEANT TO BE SPENT, ignorant of this law, many people, unfortunately, are spending all they earn and irresponsibly going on to spend the money they have not yet earned. Maybe that goes for you too? Are you spending money you have not yet earned? Gullible people even say that what is money meant for, if not to be spent. If you want to escape the grips of poverty you must never allow this kind of thinking, the thinking that only sees money as something to be