Read more, spend less: financial planning lessons from novels

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (TV series)

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

That would be one of my many, many New Year’s resolutions. But I already read tons of professional journals, work-related books, and general non-fiction. Like so many people since November, I need a little happy talk to counteract the general mood. So lately I’ve been popping a series of mystery books instead of OxyContin. I might add that these are all available from my local library as free ebooks, so I haven’t violated the second half of the resolution.

But, I guess everything looks to me like financial planning. If you want to have some fun while getting a very small dose of good financial decision making, I strongly suggest taking a look at the book series The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Before I get into the books, let me say that the brief TV series of the same name was delightful, but the books are somewhat a different experience. The financial insights are a little more prominent in the books because, like all good novels, we get to roam around inside the characters’ heads.

I’ve popped 4 of these delightful happiness pills since Christmas, at the rate of about ½ hour invested per night—so you can see this isn’t going to take much time and you’ll be able to sleep nights.

The first book in the series is titled, not surprisingly, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Briefly, the books are set in Botswana, and are highly descriptive of the physical setting and culture. N.B. I have no idea whether it’s an accurate description of the real-world Botswana, but it seems like a near-Eden, albeit with cobras, scorpions, and mambas. (The tone of the thing reminds me a lot of the movie Mathilda—realistic, but it’s indeterminable whether it’s actually real).The protagonist is Mma Ramotswe, an extremely practical and sweet-natured 30-something with a “traditional” build (love it!)

What I am so struck by, looking through the lens of a financial planner, is how absolutely down-to-earth is Mma Ramotswe’s decision making process. To whit, her adored father dies and leaves her—more than 100 cattle. Maybe not the inheritance most of us hope for, but in Botswana cattle appear to be extremely beloved and are the best evidence of wealth.

However, unlike some people I see who seem to view their inheritance as sacred (yes, you CAN sell grandpa’s municipal bonds and stock in what, 30 years ago, was a good company), Mma Ramotswe has an immediate plan to use her inheritance to do what’s right for her, not her father. She views the inheritance as an expression of the love her father had for her, not a specific legacy that must be enshrined. She sells the cattle.

With the proceeds, she buys a nice but modest house (at one point she decides to wear bedroom slippers after stepping on a scorpion in the middle of the night) and set herself up in business—which is something she has thought through pretty carefully when she is faced with needing to be an independent woman outside the traditional role of caring for a family.

What’s perhaps more notable is what she doesn’t do: no extravagant vacation, spending spree of any kind, no dramatic upgrading of her life style. She invests in herself. Mma Ramotswe appears to be quite content with a very modest level of possessions: her prizes are a picture of her father, a commemorative plate of the founder of modern Botswana, a teacup with Queen Elizabeth II’s picture on it. What is so moving is that these possessions actually mean something to her, and she looks at them every day—constructing a home environment with objects that carry meaning for her, not something professionally decorated for the benefit of impressing others. She chooses furnishings that will make her comfortable. In a later book, another character comments on how delightful it is to have a rug underfoot—so soft and grass-like, instead of a concrete or beaten dirt floor. Would that ever occur to any of us?

Mma Ramotswe spends her evenings sitting on her porch, listening to night sounds, and talking to people. Again—no cost at all (except for tea). What would our lives be like if we did this? Would we be better connected? Would we be closer to our families and neighbors? Would we be bored out of our gourds? The relative silence allows her the pleasure of her own thoughts, a sensuous enjoyment of the natural world, and a connection with family that endures.

What I admire here is just how well Mma Ramotswe has decided to use her windfall to secure the (modest) life she wants, set her up for independence, and find contentment in a very frugal lifestyle, salient characteristics I see in people who (even with our more complicated lifestyles) manage to quietly amass a secure financial foundation. And is any life really more complicated than any other, except by our choices? More in subsequent posts about the other books I’ve so far read (all with financial lessons)…

 

Save

Save

Posted in Cash flow & Spending, General Financial Planning.

One Comment

  1. Pingback: College planning, child-rearing expenses & a novel approach | Haven Financial Solutions, Inc.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.