Money Hack is a weekly series that asks real Nigerians to share a money hack — for saving, investing or spending — that they swear by.

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For this week’s episode of Money Hack, Anny Robert, a 31-year-old photographer, talks about how making his money tedious to access helped him save better — and save his business. 

What’s a money hack you swear by?

Honestly, I only hacked saving earlier this year. Before now, I had all my money in one account, and I used whatever was there to sort out any issues that were on ground. When I realised that wasn’t sustainable, I started saving in dollars. 

Anny C Dollars!

LOL. For me, once money is out of sight, it’s out of mind as well. Saving in dollars changed everything for me. When I start to think of exchange rates and the long process of dollar conversion, I just lose interest in touching the money. The only exception is during an emergency that my accessible funds can’t solve. 

How did you learn this hack?

I had a money epiphany. 

There was a huge sum of money in my account and old Anny would have left it there, spending it on issues that came up simply because he could see the money. But when I learnt that I could function with any amount available to me, I decided to credit my dollar account instead of my flex account. What that did was make access to my money a tedious process, thus helping me save better.  

Once I started saving a larger chunk of my money in dollars, whatever was left became my financial reality. 

Can you think of an instance where this money hack saved you? 

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, a lot of people didn’t travel for summer. What that meant for business was, I had a lot of clients and made a lot of money. This year, because the lockdown restrictions have loosened up, a lot of my clients travelled out. 

Thus, I suffered the longest dry spell of my career. 

Omo.

Money wasn’t coming in as usual, but I still had staff to pay, a home to maintain and parents to help. What saved me during those months were the dollars I stashed away, plus the dollars I had in cash. 

Also, one of the reasons I had no savings in the past was because I always had money. There was always something popping up, so in my mind, money was always going to be there. Obviously, this wasn’t feasible and the recent events have proven that.  

Obviously.

The recent dry spell made me realise that if I had started saving a chunk of money earlier, maybe 70%, I would have had so much money stashed away. Now, what I’m currently trying to hack is saving from the naira left over after the dollars have been deducted. 

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Check back every Tuesday by 10 AM for new Money Hack episodes. Catch up on old episodes here.