How Tunzaa Is Helping Young Africans Develop Positive Financial Habits
We all have things we’ve wanted but were way above our budget. In some cases, we forgot about them in a few days. But if we’re being honest, most times we keep thinking about them and so we just add them to our never-ending mental wishlist, the hope being one day we’ll be rich enough to buy them. As days go by, bills pile up and the wishlist starts looking really wishful. It’s becoming clear: you’re never going to have the money to get those items.
Except you can. We exist so that you actually can.
This is what we, at Tunzaa, have noticed in ourselves and of people around us. When we spoke to people in Dar es salaam & in Tanga (Tanzania), we noticed the lack of proper financial habits and, sometimes, even self-discipline. It is what we aim to help solve.
Tunzaa (Pronounced Tun-zaa), the name being a play on words i.e., Tunza and zalisha:
Tunza meaning to preserve and Zalisha meaning to produce, the combination of both puts the app into perspective in that it is an app that allows you to hold on to the product you’d like until you can buy it and you can also produce and benefit from the app as a business provider.
Basically, we are creating a marketplace and uniting the users with the sellers, and allowing our users to be able to buy the product/service that they would like in installments!
“But, how does that help their financial habits?” you ask. Well, we do this by gamifying the activities done by the user! How? Okay, I’ll explain:
Let’s take, Mark, here for an example:
Mark has been working really hard for months and was thinking about taking a vacation, maybe a trip to South Africa to properly rejuvenate. He isn’t earning that much and has to save to actually go on such a trip. But, due to bad spending habits and his very active social life, yeah, let’s say he’s not doing too well on the saving part.
That’s where we come in with a solution: where Mark can pay for his trip in installments. This is great for Mark! He chooses a trip bundle, where Anatunza the trip and goes on to the process.
He chooses to spend 3 months paying for the trip, and that he will put in money each week until the 3 months are done to complete the payment for the trip. The Tunzaa app will automatically calculate how much he has to pay per week until he accomplishes the goal in those 3 months.
With this, we help Mark in his journey to self-discipline and commitment! With positive reinforcements and support, Mark notices the efforts he is making in putting in money and learning what it is like to save up for something.
“What if he just decides to cancel and get his money back?”.
Don’t worry, we’ve noticed this habit in ourselves, as well. Failure to commit and Mark gets charged a fee/ cut to get his money back.
There must be consequences to counter when one self-sabotages their journey to growth and becoming better. With this, we navigate Mark back into achieving his goal.
Most often than not, people are more likely to not run away from the money they’ve already spent, so no, we don’t think Mark will just quit and leave, either, he spent his hard-earned money.
After Mark fully pays for his trip, he can gather the points he got to cash in for a coupon or discount and utilize the app for other spending purposes.
Once Mark achieves his goal, he will see the benefit in patience and staying true to his commitments, the outcome being more promising than the process. And, because he was learning to put money aside to save up for the goal, he has created a habit for himself of learning how to save.
Tunzaa is beneficial to the youth, who want to save up for things they desire but usually don’t know how or don’t have help to do so. Think buying land, buying building material, paying rent and so much more. Starting young means they create better financial habits for themselves as adults, easing their financial responsibilities as adults.
