You sold your harvest. You had money in your hand.
Now it is planting time again. The money is finished.
Nobody stole it. It went small small. A little here. A little there. Every one of them looked important that day.
This happens when farm money and house money stay in the same pocket. When they are one, the farm always loses. School fees have a date. The hospital has a date. Fertiliser only has “before the rains”.
One rule
Keep farm money and house money apart.
The day you sell, share the money before you go home:
- One part is for the farm. It buys seed, fertiliser, workers, bags, transport.
- One part is for the house. This is your pay. Choose how much before you sell, not after.
Your farm is a business. A business that never gets back what it spent cannot plant again.
How it looks
You sell 12 bags of cocoa. Before you leave the buyer, you already know: this much stays for the farm, this much goes home.
Put the farm part somewhere else. A different mobile money account. A tin you open only at planting time. A njangi. The bank.
It does not have to be plenty. It has to be decided, and taken first.
Why this lesson is first
The rest of this course asks you what your farm earned and what it spent.
If the two moneys are mixed, you can never answer. Every other choice becomes a guess.
Do the exercise above, then go to the next lesson.