Having a single parent made me see many reminders that life is expensive, especially during primary school . When I asked for new uniforms at the end of the year, I often heard, “Uniforms are very expensive. Make sure you take care of what you’ve got.”

I asked my mother to join me for the school bus program in the morning and evening. She said it was too expensive. They gave me a fare for the public bus and sometimes even urged me to walk back home.

All those responses never pained me, except the time when I asked my mother for football shoes. I was among the few in the school team who had no football shoes. The coach issued an ultimatum that if we didn’t get the football shoes in a week, he would remove us from the team. When my mother said no to that request, because the football shoes were so expensive, I cried.

Each day I skipped practice, I remembered how costly football shoes and other gear were. I never considered whether these things were expensive. If they were, how do other parents still afford them for their children? Something was wrong here.

I never bothered to dwell much on that. Fast forward a few years later at the University of Dar es Salaam, I had two pairs of football shoes. And I don’t remember at what time I considered them expensive. I realised that my small allowance from the university was enough to buy the football boots.

When I graduated and started working at a top auditing firm, my salary let me buy all the shoes I wanted. At a certain time, I had five pairs. I started believing that football shoes were not expensive.

Then one day I was window shopping around a mall. I found a sports shop selling genuine items from global brands. I saw the price of the latest football shoes on display. All I thought was, “that is so expensive.” The cost was like three months’ rent for my place.

Something clicked into my mind. Things as they are are neither expensive nor cheap. Adding a football shoe to my mother’s budget was costly. Her salary and expenses made it tough to afford. My university allowance made those expensive shoes my mother wouldn’t buy feel affordable. I could now afford to get two pairs at the same time.

When I got the job, I could afford five pairs at once. Here’s a fun fact: many football shoes come in various prices. There are second-hand shoes and new shoes. There are counterfeits and genuine ones. What I saw that day at the mall was a different kind of shoe, for a different kind of person. To me, I felt it was expensive, but someone went there and bought two pairs.

In that moment, I saw the difference between something being expensive and not being able to buy it. What is expensive to you is not the same for another person. So the item on its own is not expensive; your ability to not be able to afford it makes it seem expensive.

That change in mindset helped me not to be afraid of the price of things. It motivated me to always find ways to be on the other side of the story, to be among those who could afford. I wanted to be like the parents who bought football boots for their kids, even though my mother said they were expensive. 

To be like those parents who paid for the school bus for their kids when my mother wanted me to take the public bus. To be like the guy who went to the mall and bought two pairs of shoes that cost the same as three times my monthly rent.

A few years back, I saved about three thousand USD. I wanted to surprise my girlfriend for her birthday. So, I planned a two-night stay at the Gran Melia hotel in Zanzibar. To me, that was the most expensive purchase I have ever made for a two-night stay, but I felt it was worth it. 

On the second night of our stay, I saw a young American man with his family of four leaving one of the other fancy rooms. I wondered how much he was paying and for how long they were staying there. I gathered my courage and asked. 

“Sir, how much are you paying for those fancy rooms and how long are you staying there?”

He smiled, and responded

“Well, Zanzibar is very cheap; we only pay nine thousand dollars per night here, so I decided to stay for two weeks. Last time in Monaco, the places were around twenty thousand dollars per night. Here is cheap.”

I tried to not show my surprise, I went straight ahead to the next key question, “Sir, what do you do for living?”. 

“I am a hedge fund manager and investor focusing on emerging markets,” he said. I wished him the best of his stay. He planted a seed in me to be on the other side of the story that nine thousand dollars per night for two weeks is a cheap deal. 

Nothing in the world is expensive. It is that some things you cannot afford. Find ways to afford things that you think are expensive.

Whenever you see people with things that seem or look expensive, don’t look at the price. Find ways to draw inspiration from what they do and how they afford it. Commit to growing and improving. Put yourself in situations where you find things affordable, too.

Next time you see an absurd price tag, remember that things are not expensive; it’s that you can’t afford them.

May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

May you be free from sufferings 

May you find peace and joy

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#iThinkSo

Rogers Katuma

Financial Artist, Senior Adventurer, Occasional Storyteller and an Amateur Golfer