Kikondo, UG – Employee saves for a home – 16 Dec 2016

Wamukisa manager Michael Kiwanuka is celebrating an extra special year-end accomplishment: he bought his own home! He plans to move into the new home in early 2017. After moving in he hopes to start considering marriage and starting a family.

Kiwanuka, 31, currently lives with his mother, siblings, and extended family members in the house he grew up in. He has wanted to move into his own home for years but didn’t have a consistent income to afford it. Since Wamukisa became a Better Lives partner, the consistent income has enabled Kiwanuka to make longer-term plans and budgets.

“At the beginning of the year we conducted a training session about SMART Goals,” remembers Kiwanuka, “After that training I decided to set my own SMART Goals for how to get my own home.”

Kiwanuka had his eye on a particular home in Kikondo that had been built by a businessman from Kampala and then abandoned when the man changed jobs. He approach the owner to get a rough idea of the home’s value and then set his savings goal. He targeted to save 50% of the home’s value in 2016, and then approach the owner with an offer of 50% cash and 50% paid in installments over 2 years.

By living off income and food from harvests at his family farm and sales of eggs and pigs, Kiwanuka was able to put nearly his entire salary into savings each month. This strategy enabled him to meet his goal of saving 50% of the home’ value.

The landowner was happy to accept Kiwanuka’s offer and now they are finalizing paperwork and hoping to have the deal official in early 2017.