6 reasons people know so little about money

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  1. Financial literacy was not taught in school which was the only source of learning for many people.
  2. They did not know anybody who had applied principles that made them financially better off. The examples they had were of people who stumbled from one financial crisis to another or people who pulled themselves from one financial hole to the next. They therefore concluded that becoming financially content, stable or successful was impossible.
  3. They knew people who were financially better off than they were but these people might be unwilling to explain how they got to where they were. That made their watchers conclude that financial success was a matter of luck – being at the right place at the right time; (yateba dilo ne kafumbe)  – being the child or spouse of a wealthy person or having the right connections.
  4. Man was said to be a creature of habit. For instance, we take particular routes to and from work, eat particular foods, and sleep in particular positions. There were people who also managed their finances according to habit and would not have time to examine new information that could positively impact on their finances.
  5. State patronage going back to Idi Amin’s ‘magnanimity’ in expelling the Asians and allocating their fully stocked shops to the fastest-running Ugandans continued to foster beliefs that one had to get lucky.
  6. Success was often attributed to a corrupt deal with government, murder of a partner, robbery, going under water or detaching human heads. From this perspective unless one was connected or knew a good butcher, what hope was there?

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