By Babajide Komolafe

This is a statement of fact that most people don’t recognise. Not recognising this fact has a lot of consequences in the way you handle money.

One of the consequences is a lack of appreciation for small money, and hence, carelessness about such amounts of money. One naira is small and can rarely buy anything in Nigeria today.

As a result, most people won’t bat an eye if they lose that amount because losing one naira is not what they will consider as a loss.
Such people will also not appreciate a gift of one naira for in their eyes, “it is nothing.”

Overtime, this attitude leads to spending unnecessarily more on items, or losing a lot of money-making opportunities.

To be rich, you must not only recognise that no money is small, you must also adopt it as a guiding principle in your attitude towards money.

Riches or wealth can be compared to the human body, which starts with one cell that multiplies to trillions.

Similarly, most riches, true riches, are products of small money accumulated over time.
As mentioned above, one naira can rarely buy anything in Nigeria today, but if you save one naira on 20 items during your shopping, you would have saved ₦20. Multiply this by 100 times, and you will have saved ₦2,000.
That is why those who recognise that no money is small take the time to scrutinise the price details and differential of every item on their shopping list.
A friend of mine does this religiously. When he goes shopping, he will check the price tag, divide the price by the quantity or weight of the item so as to get the price per grammage or quantity. This looks weird but when he disclosed how much he was able to save, my interest was Kindled.
It is for the same reason, that some people will never buy household essentials in small quantities, especially from retailers. They recognise that the small money saved by buying in bulk, over time, can translate to a month’s income.
This is one of the many benefits of cooperative societies or groups. Cooperative groups buy products in bulk directly from producers and then sell them to members at a discount. In some instances, individuals borrow from their cooperative group to buy essential goods in bulk and at discounted prices. By doing this, cooperative groups help members, who are usually low-income earners, save ‘small money’ on many household essentials. The money generated from these activities is the secret behind the multimillion-dollar cooperative movement around the world today.