I survived four years of college life with a modest pocket money during my first year. In my second and third year, I barely got received allowances from my parents because there was a bit of financial constraint back at home. So I had to find a way not to manage the way I spent money on a daily basis in order to pay for my school fees and sort out other things that demanded money.
It got tougher when my fees for the second and third year skyrocketed by almost sixty-five percent. My parents assisted me in paying my college fees in my first year but as the fees flew up and things didn’t seem to get better, I had to take up the responsibility of paying the fees by myself for the remain academic years left.I was chasing a full-time degree from college. The college I attended wasn’t really one of the best in the country, but the course I offered was very competitive and also highly demanding. It required hours of dedication which contributed to my need for financial support.
The battle wasn’t funny; trying to cope with passing the written examinations which summed up to 50% of the total marks, and also getting involved with both group and individual projects which contained the remaining 50% marks.
Like I said, things were not running all that smooth at home, which led to my education at stake. But nevertheless, I refused to give up on this battle. So, I had to find a way to make ends meet. I came across an insurance job hopped on it so I could raise some funds to support myself. The advantage of the job was that I got to decide my working hours, but the issue was that I did not get a salary or got any leads. But as regarding the commission, it was pretty decent.
Here I was at just twenty years of age and struggling to put things in shape while still battling with completing an important milestone in my academic journey. I had almost no experience in selling, not to mention selling an intangible product that convinces prospects to hand over their hard earned money with to a big life insurance company that offers financial security in case of an unexpected situation and also decent returns when the service matured.
I occasionally came across insurance plans that were positioned as kid’s education plan and around other life events. Sometimes I wondered within me why my parents did not plan to save for my education?
However, through all this struggle I learned that wherever there’s a problem there’s also a solution lying around. I made a couple of friends who had extra pocket money and I managed to convince them to put aside a small amount of money every month. Also, some of my senior colleagues who had passed out of college earlier before me had already started working, so I decided to approach them and managed to convince them to save small amounts of money monthly.
Fortunately, I managed to get some references from my family and that was how I gradually started making decent money through commissions that took care of my college fees and other levies. Despite my running up and down with work and school, I was fortunate not to have a single carryover.
I went through this struggle while maintaining a positive outlook and attitude. Most of my colleagues had no single clue what I was going through. During this battle I learned to become economical with my finances and also to be faithful with the little I had at that time, because this in turn helped me a great deal to manage my finances judiciously when it gradually started increasing.
Through my time as an insurance sales agent, I acquired a lot of skills beyond just making sales, I became bold and confident that I could approach just about any kind of people. This was the opposite of who I was before I took on that career. I was determined to finish my education and was very proud of myself the day I matriculated and was handed my Degree Awards in Mass Communication.
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