Katende advocates for financial literacy among women

Barbara Katende a lecturer at Makerere University and personal finance coach, hinges the core of her book Money Cure on two financial concepts of saving and investing. After years in the financial services industry, Katende observes that becoming wealthy enough to influence policies is how an individual can make the world a better place.
She stresses that wastage of financial resources can only be cured by financially literacy. When an individual is educated on what to do, they are in a better position to make empowered and profitable decisions for their money.

“You are a mother and wife but you are also a finance manager right from your home,” states the coach.
Katende says she is focused on empowering women because they are the primary care givers in our communities. She observes that most families are broke not because they lack resources but because they lack resourcefulness. Departing from the academic style that most financial literacy authors seem to favour, Katende chooses the more practical common sense approach to personal finances.

According to Katende, financial independence does not require to have lots of money but how you manage what you have is what matters the most. She advises women to get into the habit of saving first.
“Saving begins with a simple principle of living below your means. However, much as saving is a good habit, it will not add as much value to your finances as investing. So after learning how to save, go an extra mile and learn how to invest it,” Katende advises.

Save to invest
“You are not independent until you are financially independent. Keeping money on your account is useless until it starts to multiply. For example Shs500 will multiply to 600 only when it is invested. All you need is Primary Five mathematics to help you run your finances,” she says.
Alluding to Ecclesiastes 11: 2 (Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight; you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.) Katende advocates for the approach called seven streams of income.
This means going away from the concept that your salary is and should be your only source of income.

Because each time your job is threatened your life is most likely to come to an end, but if you have several streams and one is not doing well you can always survival on the other. For example if real estates is not doing well, shares might be doing well, if they are not then the bonds are or other business
“Get to diversify your business. Build other sources of income, which are ways of earning and might not require you to be presence all the time but still bring in money,” she advises.

Manage your expenses
She notes that most women earn less, save less or do not save yet have living expenses and face additional costs.
“From the time you wake up to the time you go to bed you are spending, on water, airtime, electricity, food, transport name it. With or without money your spending cyclical has not reduced and is the same day in day out. Learn how to reduce your expenses by making use of the available resources. This can help teach you how to save and at the same time invest, giving you a better approach to financial choices with confidence,” Katende says.

Find your passion
Katende explains that there is no one given job or career that will make a personal rich. “Anything makes money as long as you are passionate about it. Before students who were pursuing Music, Dance and Drama were never taken serious but today it is the one of the most paying industry. All you have to do is to follow your passion. Once you find your passion you are not going to call it work but if it is not your passion you will keep dragging yourself,” Katende stresses.
Katende challenges the reader to find that one thing they are passionate about then build it and start earning from it. “Your passion should be a guideline and behind every successful is a string of failures,” Katende cautions against getting discouraged by failure.