Throughout the 2 years I’ve been running Financial Jesus I have probably got a few hundred emails from poor people (at least that’s what they say) in Africa asking for financial assistance.

Usually it goes something like this:

I am poor.

My family is poor.

I think you are rich.

Please give me money.

Just like most other people I just ignore these letters and delete them. I have to confess that there has been an odd email asking for a job or something original that has made me write an answer but I’d have to say – I will never give money to a stranger.

The Question

The question box I have on the website has also got me some questions about people wanting me to give them money – I have simply ignored these requests. Yesterday, however I got a question from Philip Chipeta in Zambia, Africa.

Here is his question:

How can I get financial assistance?

I am a student at the University of Zambia in Southern Africa, poverty is a problem I have!  Please help me out of this by helping me pay for education.

I decided to answer Philip’s question as best as I can – at least the first part of it. Unfortunately I can not give him money to pay for his school – he did not supply me with a way of contacting him or getting the money to him. Here comes my first tip when asking for money:

Unfortunately I have never been to Zambia where Philip lives nor anywhere else in Africa so you should take what I say with a grain of salt and adjust it to your needs as much as necessary.

Getting Financial Assistance for Education

If you want to get financial assistance in order to get through school you can follow the same model I am about to give you. It doesn’t matter if you live in Africa, Asia or America.

Make a list of everyone you can ask for assistance

Make a list of people and companies you can ask for assistance. Include local institutions first since they are likely to care more about you. People on the other side of the world can’t care less about you. If you will write me an email saying that everyone in your country will die if I won’t help  – I will still just delete the email because I don’t care about what happens to a country full of people I have never heard of.

Be sure to add all local rich people to the list. Also add the businessmen of your country that have helped someone in the past. Also add the businessmen who have never helped anyone – you might be there first victim!

Contact all the people and companies that you think can help you

Here are the ways you should contact the people and the companies on the list. From the worst method to best:

1. Write an email
2. Send a fax
3. Write a real letter
4. Go and meet people yourself

When contacting the companies and people who have the power to help you – you should stay professional. Don’t ask for money as the very first thing. Get to know the people deciding over your fate first.

When contacting your target persons in a written form – make sure you don’t do any spelling mistakes. For christ’s sake Philip – your question only had 2 sentences but I had to reword it and correct at least 4 mistakes before I could publish it above. This just doesn’t leave a good impression… Use a spellchecker if you are bad at writing. If you have access to the internet you can download Microsoft Office (I know it’s pirating but hey, when you are dirt poor, what can you do).

Meeting the people who you ask money from in person is your best bet to get help – don’t ask these people for money directly. Instead try to get to know them before. If they have the time – ask them about what they do and show real interest about what they are saying.

I have been a door to door salesman in the USA for 2 summers and after speaking to more than 5000 people – I know this for sure: Nobody cares about you – they only care about themselves. If you show them how awesome they are – they will like you and give you what you need!

What do you offer in return?

It is not a good idea to just ask for money. You have to offer something in return. Nobody cares about you – they will only give you money if it will somehow benefit them.

If it is a company you ask money from – you can promise to come and work for them for a few years after you graduate your school. If it is a person – you can find out if there is something you can help them with. If you look deep enough – you can find a way to help anyone.

Remember the golden rule:

Be an Excellent Student

If you are poor but still somehow manage to attend university you should do your best to become the best. University is your greatest bet at becoming rich. If you will get an excellent education and become the best specialist in what you do – you will be able to work wherever you want. Only a few people in the world are the best in what they do – they are the world’s most sought after specialists!

By being a great student you will most likely be noticed while still in university. It is quite common for exceptional students to start working for the university while still at school. Suck up to your teachers if you can – if they think highly of you they might recommend you as a specialist.

NB! Ask everyone you meet

While looking for financial aid you should never lose faith. When getting turned down for the 200th time you should ask them this:

“If you were in my place right now – what would you do to get the money I need”

10. You are not interested in money

You think that when you make enough money at work all your money related problems will take care of themselves

Actually the opposite is true – over 90% of people winning a multi million dollar lottery end up with less money just after 5 years of winning.

Getting rich takes effort and planning. If you are not interested in money then chances are that money is not interested in you.

9. You are afraid to lose your money

You are so afraid to lose your money that you keep it in an ordinary bank account with a terribly small interest rate. You are afraid to invest your money because you think that the risk of losing everything is too great.

By keeping your money on a savings account, it generates less interest than the inflation. This means that by keeping your money in a safe place you are actually losing it to inflation.

8. You invest in what you don’t know

After reading a story about a new high tech invention you decide to invest all your money into this startup company. If it’s high tech and complicated it must be a great invention, right?

Wrong!

Investing your money in what you don’t understand is the fastest way to losing everything. Something that looks like a good idea doesn’t have to be one. Stick to what you know and you will be able to keep yourself from the dumb ideas and go along with the great ones.

7. You hope that other people will take care of your money

You give professional money managers free will to take care of your money as they wish. Everyone wants to have more money so they will just end up making a lot of “necessary transactions” – of course you are the one paying the transaction fees.

Take care of your own money – always have the last say in what to invest and what to buy.

6. You want too much too fast

You want to get a lot of money fast and with little or no effort. This makes you go along with tens of get rich quick schemes that always end up losing money.  Your decisions are affected by the need to get a lot of money fast, which makes you take unnecessary and stupid risks.

You need to remember that there is no such thing as easy money.

5. You don’t have an emergency fund

You spend everything you make and don’t keep an emergency fund for unexpected things. If you are not covered by insurance an accident can set you back tens of thousands of dollars.

Without an emergency fund you would need to borrow to come up with the money. This also means that you will have to pay interest – not having an emergency fund can end up loosing you a lot of money.

4. Your goals suck

You don’t have any goals and even if you have one – its awful.

Just about every 10-year-old wants to be rich and famous but only a few will actually get there.
You need a goal that says what you want to achieve, how you are going to achieve it and by what time will it be achieved.

After coming up with a goal you will also need to make a plan on how to achieve it. You must be able to measure your progress at any point to get feedback on how you are doing.

3. You have bad habits

You smoke, drink and watch TV all day long. You spend money on the things that will never bring you anything back. In the long run you need to spend even more money on health in order to get back to your best drinking shape!

A bad and devastating habit can also be negative thinking. Research has shown that people who are more willing to keep their mind open and positive to new ideas are wealthier than pessimists.

2. You are impatient

You want to have everything now and are not willing to wait in order to buy it later. The concept of saving money for something you want to buy is not known to you – instead you use one of your many credit cards.

You probably haven’t heard that using a credit card makes other people rich (owners of credit companies) and keeps you poor.

1. You buy everything your neighbors and friends have

Trying to impress your neighbors and friends by buying all the stuff they have plus everything they would like to have? Don’t do it – spending money on things that you really have no need for is the number 1 reason why people have less money than they want to. Having a lot of things and having a lot of money are 2 things that contradict each other – you need to give money away in order to get stuff.

True wealth and money comes to those who are willing to wait – the 1000 dollars you choose not to spend on a new plasma TV with a giant screen can turn into 100 000 dollars in 20 years. Think of how much TV-s this money would get you then (as opposed to how much you would get when selling your TV after 20 years).