By Babajide Komolafe

The story of George Foreman illustrates the importance of being in charge of your investment, as against outsourcing it to others. In addition to the points outlined in the first part of this article, the following steps will help you to be in charge of your investment.

Detail documentation: Have files, physical and digital where you keep documents of your investment. These include payment evidence, receipts for the investment, and any other document exchanged during the transaction. You should organise these documents under various categories and store them in a way that allows easy access. Also create a master list of all your investments, which you can regularly update as you make newer ones. Such a master list gives you a snapshot of where your money is and how well they are performing.

Use official communication channels: Avoid or reduce to the barest minimum verbal communication for investments discussion and decisions. Verbal communication can be forgotten and denied. What is written cannot be denied. In this regard, email communication is preferable. It is why most relationship managers of banks, investment firms always direct customers to use emails for communications.
Have clearly defined objectives for each investment type. If you bought land, why did you buy it? Is it for price appreciation, personal residential apartment, commercial residential apartment to be sold or rented out? The same goes for money invested in shares, mutual funds, treasury bills and commercial papers. As indicated in earlier articles, each investment type, based on its uniqueness, has its own usefulness for various purposes. Also, having a clearly defined objectives will enhance your decisions, review and monitoring.

Do periodic assessment of your investments: It may be monthly (strongly advised), or quarterly or as you may have the occasion. You must do this if you don’t want to wake up one day and realise that your money is gone. The investment world is very dynamic, with many factors influencing changes to different categories of investment.
So, nothing remains the same for too long. Also, human nature has its tendency for greed and exploitation of others especially the ignorant and the non-vigilant.

Do a periodic assessment of your investment: This will help you detect on-time any attempt for illegal handling of your investment by anyone. It will also help you recognise investment performing well and the ones not doing well. This can help you decide whether to continue or terminate an investment. Your assessment should be thorough and objective and you can engage the help of a trusted person who is more knowledgeable than you in this regard. (To be continued)