Life is full of wonders. But there are few wonders that compare to ketchup and fries. I am telling you, world people love this stuff so much, there are thousands of video, pictures, and tweets about it daily. My aim today is to find a way of combining ketchup with what I love most – talking about personal finance. 

This post is on a lighter note but don’t skim over it, I put my heart and soul into it. Kidding. But I tried to make it exciting. Plus, don’t you wanna see if I have finally lost it?

Origin of this post – My beef against ketchup and fries

The human habit and interest never cease to amaze me. I posted an article that I thought would be very helpful for people on how to budget their money to live the life they want.

It was a well-researched article with multiple points and topics covered. We covered a lot of ground in that one article  – 10 reasons to budget, 8 steps to create a successful budget, 5 risks of not managing your money, 4 tools to manage your money including our free budget template and to cap it off, we discussed the money habits of millionaires.

I tweeted the post, what happened? Crickets. 2 likes after 24 hours.

That same day, I saw a post about fries and ketchup. Literally, some guy eating a few fries with a huge amount of ketchup.

What happened? 23,000 retweets (well including me), not even counting the likes and comments.

Well, I retweeted to point out that entertainment sells much more than finance tips that actually help people.

But then, my own tweet took a life of its own and got lots of comments and retweets. So I gave up.

Not really, my friend Miriam(from Greenbacks Magnet) and I decided to write a blog post about ketchup and fries. She picked fries, I picked ketchup. 

I think a simple approach to life is best. If ketchup and fries are what people want to see, we will give it to them.

To better prepare you for this post, check out this very scientific video about why ketchup is so hard to pour.

Seriously though, the ketchup bottle has bested even the strongest men and women of this world.

Literally 1.7 million views on this 3 minutes video. See what I am saying?

I originally promised 12 financial lessons from eating ketchup, but I decreased it to 3 just for you my readers, to spare you the agony. You came here for the ketchup anyways, not financial advice right.

 3 Financial Lessons From Eating Ketchup

1. There is a sweet spot for everyone in personal finance – Find yours

Based on your goal in life and your philosophy, there is a sweet spot that you are comfortable with. Stick to it and don’t let people try to knock you off your financial mission statement.

If you feel like 30% bonds is where you are comfortable with and you have done your due diligence and researched, then stick to it.

Since I don’t do half job, I dived deep into every article I write. I came across an article about the Heinz ketchup bottle and how it could be a nightmare getting the ketchup out when it gets clogged.

I am not much of a ketchup guy, so this was news to me. You do not understand how many forums are discussing this and how frustrated people get.

Don’t even bother asking how many curse words, punching, kicking has occurred because of this phenomenon.

Finally, a spokesman from Heinz revealed the secret. It was almost like Heinz intentionally made people struggle first and after a few years, they felt bad about it and finally said – you have been doing it wrong for years. Imagine that!

A Heinz spokesman said: “To release ketchup faster from a glass bottle, here is a little secret from Heinz.

“The sweet spot to tap on the Heinz bottle is the 57 on the neck. All you need to do is apply a firm tap where the bottle narrows and the ketchup will come out easier.”

It turns out that all the years of frustration that people experienced, banging the bottom of the bottle, cursing, yelling, throwing the bottle across the room, punching and kicking the bottle and getting nowhere – the answer was simple and it has been there in front of us all this time. New York time even wrote about it. 

You already have your financial mission statement, why don’t you reread it and reassure yourself. Stick to your sweet spot, it will save you a lot of head banging, kicking and screaming. 

2. Ketchup cannot make up its mind whether its solid or liquid – Keep your finance simple

This one is even more fun. Who knew lots of scientists study ketchup. I mean, I would not be surprised if ketchup is being researched more than some diseases. Osler–Weber–Rendu syndrome for example.

Keep your finance simple. This is what I do. Instead of using 72 different funds in my portfolio, I started with the 3 funds portfolio. Also, that’s why I wrote about my 12 toddler steps to personal finance. I agree, it’s not perfect, but it gives me the general guideline to follow.

Throughout my fellowship training and first 6 months of my real job, we focused mainly on paying off our loans. Simple enough, that we paid the loan off faster than I expected.

There is an Australian researcher, Anthony Stickland, who made it his life mission to solve the ketchup flow problem.

Dr. Stickland, a senior lecturer at the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Melbourne in Australia, literally developed step-by-step instructions that should help your ketchup flow much nicely. In that instruction, there are lots of physics theories involved.

3. Don’t just jump into investments because an authority figure recommend it – Just like the ketchup cure

I learned this from my short encounter with cryptocurrency investing. So I watched some youtube video and also followed some big names on twitter at the time.

Many times, they promote a coin for people to buy – for example, John McAfee would tweet about coins, and then people rush to buy it, artificially inflate the price of the coin.

Then a pattern started to emerge, a few hours after, there would be a huge dump in the coin. It turned out he got paid to promote those coins. I also believed he bought the coin right before, then dump the coin after people buy up and he would benefit from the promotion.

This might not apply to other investments because bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not regulated. However, you get the point.

Ok as promised, the story of the ketchup cure –

Apparently, ketchup used to be a medicine around 1835 and it was sold as tomato pills. A genius doctor at the time spearheaded the project. Dr. John Cook Bennett, the medical department president at Willoughby University in Ohio. The pill was sold as a cure for illness ranging from diarrhea, jaundice, indigestion to rheumatism.

Conclusion 

While this might have been a funny or unfunny version of my venting, there are some things I felt need to be addressed.

1. Human nature loves entertainment than something serious, even if it will improve our lives. 
2. You can relate finance to anything, just gotta be creative
3. There is a sweet spot for everyone in finance – just like the 57 spots for ketchup bottle
4. Keep your finance simple – don’t be hot or cold. Pick a strategy and stay the course
5. Don’t jump into any investment without doing your due diligence – Ketchup cure did not work – no magic formula for investing. 

Part 2 is even better. You all know I tend to be more serious than most. My partner in ketchup and fries Miriam is more fun, and she published Financial Lessons From Asking – Do you want fries with that?

 You have to check it out. 

Adebayo

 | Website

I am a pulmonary and critical care doctor by day and personal finance blogger/debt slaying ninja by night.

After paying off close to $300,000 in student loan debt in less than 6 months into my real job, I started on a mission to help others achieve the same. There is no magic to this than to strap up and get it done. Some of the ways we achieved this include side hustle, budgeting, great negotiation skills, and geographical arbitrage.

When I was growing up, common knowledge in Nigeria is that there is one thing you cannot trust anyone else with, and you guessed it – your money.

Being frugal came easily to me based on my background. However, the concept of building wealth did not solidify in my mind until when I finished medical school. I wish I knew what I know now when I was 14. Still, I don’t know enough and I am constantly learning to improve my knowledge.

My goal is to reduce financial illiteracy among young professionals. I am catering to the beginners – babies and toddlers in financial literacy.