Raf Manji left high-level finance roles after realizing his values didn't match the work. He argues consumerism traps us in cycles of rising expenses and diminishing happiness, and now volunteers with Christchurch Budget Services helping people manage tight budgets.
So people always thought I was slightly a bit weird, you know, and I had the. It's hilarious story where I had the. In I think 98, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was like the 50th anniversary and they had this great poster and I put it up on the trading floor behind my desk and I had some colleagues over from, from New York and they came through and they looked and Rav, are you a communist or something? And it's like I said, have you heard of Eleanor Roosevelt? She was the person behind this thing. And they were like, oh, really? We didn't realize. I said, yeah, United States used to be quite focused on things like human rights. They kind of lost their way a little bit. But yeah, it was an interesting pathway. And I think life can be a bit like that. You don't always have your life planned out, but you sort of get into things. I think for me anyway, I've always been someone who's like, oh yeah, I'll have a go at that. You know, I'll try that. And I think after that sort of 10 years where, you know, we'd had a nice lifestyle, it was like, what next? And I felt a big pull to get away from just making money and what's my purpose in life? And you talk about leading with purpose. And I think I got to that point where the opportunities for me were leading in the financial sector, being managing directors or global heads of this was offered all these types of jobs. And I thought, actually I don't want to do that because I'm not interested in leading this thing. I was quite happy working in it, but I wanted to do something else. So I left and everyone went, well, I think you've got to have a. Yeah, you got to have a certain lack of worry about what people think or being in a way kind of tied to stuff. So that. And I probably, I guess my attachment style is probably slightly avoidant so, you know, or ambivalent in some respects. I never got attached to, to the lifestyle or to the money. To me it was just kind of a means to the end. And yes, I lived in a beautiful home and all the rest of it, but I can live very simply at the same. Most people can't. Most people can't turn off what they used to because they're so invested in it. And I think they're invested in it also from a status point of view. But if you see that that's not you. It's just stuff, you know, and people sometimes lose themselves and the stuff. And I Saw I was surrounded by people who created, could not get out of that and, and I said to them, I said the problem you've got is your opex keeps going up so you keep all the money you're earning, you're spending and, but you're also digging yourself into a lifestyle that if you don't have, you'll find quite difficult. I never kind of had that so you know, I never had a Porsche or you know, all the accoutrements that people get or a second home and things like that. Why didn't you? What was different about your mindset where you're like I don't need that stuff. Yeah, basically you don't need it. And also I look at it financially and goes, that doesn't make sense. You kind of got another depreciating asset. And so like I said, yeah, we used to, you know, love traveling, I love travel and you know, stay in nice places and you know, that was the luxury part of things. But in terms of home life it was just kind of the same. Just lived in a nice house but we still just did the same things. I'd still get on the bus or get on the tube or whatever and we just had one car which was like the family wagon, that was enough. And I think the same here as well. And I, and I think that's that sort of sense of kind of knowing who you are and what you're about and being comfortable in your own skin in some respects and not having to, you know, show off as it were, or not get sort of sucked into maintaining a lifestyle that isn't always that good for you or that supportive for you and money is, you know, a tricky beast, you know, we all need it and anyone who says, oh, money's not important, no, money is very, very important, but obviously beyond a certain level you're kind of your marginal return on that extra dollar lessens in terms of your well being impact certainly in terms of consumer good impacts. Yeah, you just keep buying stuff but it's not actually going to improve your lifestyle. I mean you can only be one place at a time. So you can have seven houses but you can only visit them once at. So you can certainly make your life comfortable, but it's incredibly important. And I think financial literacy is something I'm very passionate about. And I think it's not a surprise that when we moved to New Zealand to live, the first role that I kind of took on properly was working as a volunteer for Christchurch Budget Services because I thought I want to do some volunteering. But what skill have I got to offer anyone, apart from, I don't know, you know, doing sort of a manual type job? I thought, well, I'm kind of an expert on money, so why don't I go and help people with their budgets? And that's what I did. And yes, it's a bit simpler because it's generally, you know, $600 in, $650 out. So it didn't need any financial engineering. It was just to kind of help people get on top of difficult situations that they were in and then start to develop a different approach to money. But when you've got nothing, a lot of that stuff doesn't, you know, it's survival. Yeah, there's a lot of people just surviving.
