About

I'm Fabrice Basten Mugiraneza. I run this site from Kigali, Rwanda.

I'm in my twenties. I'm a software engineering student. I am not a financial advisor and I have not solved any of the problems I'm going to write about on this site. What I have is a habit of paying attention.

A few years ago I worked in a remote customer service role, taking calls from people across multiple countries. The job had a script and a sales target. What I actually did all day was listen to people talk about money. Most of them were struggling. Some were one missed bill away from losing something they could not afford to lose. The ones who weren't struggling acted like they were fine, but you could hear it underneath. Same fear, just better hidden. After months of that I stopped reading news headlines about inflation and household debt as abstract numbers. I had spent months listening to what those numbers sound like through a phone line.

Then I started watching what was happening to land prices in my own country. A plot of land in Kigali that sold for 1.5 million Rwandan francs in 2002 now goes for around 45 million on average. That's a thirtyfold increase in 23 years. Wages have not moved thirtyfold in 23 years. I look at the people younger than me and I keep asking the same question. Will any of them ever own a home?

Then I saw something that shifted the question. Stories started appearing of regular people using AI tools to navigate the homebuying process. Running their finances. Comparing mortgages. Finding properties their agents missed. Negotiating better than they could on their own. People my age, in markets just as broken as the one I'm watching, actually buying homes. Not by working harder than the generation before. By using a tool the previous generation didn't have.

That's why this blog exists. WorthBuilding is me trying to figure out the new playbook in real time. For housing. For saving. For the conversations families have about money. For the small daily decisions that compound into a different life. I'm writing it for the people my age who were handed an impossible market and told to figure it out. I don't have the answers. I'm looking for them alongside you.

What I cover

Five things, and only these five:

• Housing & Homeownership — what it takes to own a home in this market, and how AI tools are changing the playbook.
• Earning & Career — wages, side income, career changes, the gap between what people earn and what life costs.
• Saving & Budgeting — the foundations, written for people who never got taught.
• AI & Money — how to actually use AI tools for financial decisions, with real examples.
• Money & Family — the conversations most families never have, and the planning they wish they'd done.

What I don't do

I don't give personalized financial advice. I'm not a licensed advisor in any country. Everything on this site is educational, based on research and observation, and should be a starting point for your own thinking. Not a replacement for talking to a professional who knows your specific situation.

How to reach me

Email me at contact@worthbuilding.blog. I read everything. Reply times vary because I write this around full-time work and school, but I get back to people.

— Fabrice