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My struggles started when the prices of transportation options went up. I have a cab guy I use to make runs, and I pay him between ₦15k and ₦30k per trip. In July, this cost jumped up to at least ₦50k.
Then, the jobs stopped coming. Between August and November, I made zero income. It was very jarring because, in the previous years, I made up to ₦500k to ₦600k in profit if I had three to four jobs a month.
I understood the situation, though. My clients have wedding budgets of ₦5m – ₦10m. When things became more expensive, funnelling what they’d pay an event planner into something else made sense. Unfortunately, that wasn’t good news for me — no clients mean no pay.
Thank God I had my parents and some savings. They saved my life
Akinola, Photographer, 29
I’ve gone from making about ₦300k in an average month to almost nothing in some months. I’ve made zero in the past two months.
I didn’t become mediocre at my job; my clients have more things to worry about. I’ve gotten multiple enquiries in the past 1-2 weeks, but they have yet to get past that. They all said the same thing: “Sorry, I’m looking for something cheaper.”
My prices are okay; they’ve worked until now. But every essential thing is now so expensive that people must prioritise. They would rather spend money on things related to their survival. While food is on this list, photography services are not.
I have been forced to cut back on things and watch helplessly as my standard of living has gone down. It was a minor deal to buy takeout every day. Now, I can barely afford to cook food, which is considered the cheaper option. I hope that paints a picture.
I don’t know a lot about policy and governance, but I know enough to know that their decisions directly affect my quality of life. Unless a miracle happens, I worry it will be suboptimal for the next few years.
Shola, 30, fashion designer + other gigs
God knows I work hard. I’m a fashion designer, translator and researcher, but I’m not swimming in disposable income. With the rising cost of living, my ₦300k monthly average feels like nothing. It’s almost like it’s ₦3k when reviewing the bills I have to settle. I’ll be broke three days later if I receive a bulk sum today.
I realised this was a long match a few months ago. My wife took ₦20k to the market and came back with food that barely filled a bag. We spent ₦30k extra on food that month.
We recently found out my wife was pregnant with our second child, and we went into a shock silence. We were like, “are we really bringing a child into this?”
Who would have thought we’d get to a point when a married couple would be scared of having another child? I’ve always been bad at mathematics, but I’ve become a master calculator at this point. A few things have had to change: I could conveniently dash several people, but now, everyone should mind their business.
Ah, let me talk about my business. My fashion design setup consistently brings the most money, but my income there has taken a hit. I used to do embroidery design for ₦3500 and a monogram for ₦5k — they are now ₦10k and ₦15k, respectively. Many customers swear that my charges are now excessive, and some have even stopped coming to me.
Ten years ago, the least I charged for a piece was ₦3k, approximately $10. Now, I can’t do anything below ₦5k. Guess what, that’s about $4. I can’t tell if my business has grown or not.
Yet the price of machines and other equipment keeps skyrocketing. Before I can save up for a piece of equipment, the cost will have gone up again. It feels like I’m constantly catching up.
The plan is simple: keep my head above water and survive. It’s my savings that’s keeping me afloat.
Susan, 34, Travel Agent
When you’re an adult with two kids, any increase in the price of things feels like a threat to your life. Sadly, I wake up to new threats every week now.
My kids are growing so fast and need new things. One day, we woke up, and my eldest daughter’s school shoes did not fit. She had to manage it for school that morning, and I went to the market. What did I find? The price of school sandals had gone up.
There’s also their cravings. My younger daughter loves marshmallows, and we try to indulge her as often as possible. But Marshmallows used to be ₦2k and is now over ₦4000. How do you manage this when they have more critical needs?
Anyway, my savings have taken a severe hit. Before now, I could save from my salary. But now, I’m like, “Let me make sure my family eats first.” I need to earn more, but I’m curious how much I’ll need to earn to feel a sense of balance no matter what Nigeria does.
Nathaniel, Digital Marketer, 28
I was out to shop for some food supplies last week, and I couldn’t get over how prices have jumped significantly from the previous time I shopped two months ago. I planned around a ₦50k budget, ended up spending ₦60k, and it didn’t feel like I got the most value for money. You now spend so much to get little.
Food is not even my most significant monthly expense; transportation is, and it was the first thing that jumped up. One minute, I spent between ₦1900 and ₦2100 on a trip to work. The next minute, the prices rose to ₦3200. It comes up to a significant sum at the end of the month. Thankfully, my income has increased to cushion some of these effects.
I’ve had to be more calculative and intentional with my finances, but I’d like it to move the needle more. For the most part, this means finding [cheaper] alternatives. At the same time, however, I don’t want to compromise so much that it affects my living standards. More than ever, it’s all about finding the sweet spot.
Debt is just like the proverbial shege — it touches everybody. Almost everyone has had to deal with debt at one point or another, either due to money mistakes or urgent needs. I asked six Nigerians to share how they handled debt and what they learned from the experience. Here’s what they said.
I’m a mechanic, and in 2022, one of my regular customers dropped his car in my garage for repairs. His car’s AC system had issues. It wasn’t the first time his car — or even other cars — would spend the night in the garage, but that night, thieves broke into my garage and stole car parts. This customer’s engine — worth about ₦500k — was stolen.
The man refused to hear any explanation and insisted that I had to replace the engine. We finally agreed that I’d pay him ₦300k in instalments over six months. I paid twice but was broke by the third month and begged for an extension. He refused and got me arrested. I spent four nights in jail before a family member borrowed me money to pay for that month.
I still went into more debt during the remaining months because I had to keep borrowing from loan apps to meet the customer’s payment and avoid another prison episode. I finally finished paying all the money I owed to several apps in January 2024.
I don’t pray to experience that kind of situation again. I now try to be careful with the type of cars I allow to sleep over in my garage. If they steal a Benz, what will I do? I also pay for vigilantes in my street for added security. More importantly, I’m now avoiding loan apps. They’re easy to get, but the interest rates will keep you in a borrowing cycle for a long time. It’s better to ask friends and family for loans.
Charles*, 39
I was one of the people who lost their money to MMM in 2016. The worst part was that it wasn’t just my money; I had borrowed people’s money, too.
I was trying to double my profit, so I took my ₦300k life savings, borrowed ₦500k from two other people, and put it into the scheme. When it crashed, I started running away from my creditors. Omo, there’s no swear these people didn’t send to me. I kept blocking their calls, but they always used new numbers to send texts filled with swears and curses.
I only got to pay one of them back in 2019. The other person had died, and I still feel guilty about it today. It’s a bad sign to owe a dead person money. I’ve even seen the person in my dreams a couple of times. I’d have given the person’s relatives the money if I knew any of them. Unfortunately, I don’t, so I just have to live with the guilt.
The experience has taught me never to borrow money for any investment again. There’s always risk in investment, and losing money is easy.
Titi, 24
I borrowed ₦100k from my mum’s ajo contribution money to buy sneakers to sell online in 2021.
Before then, I’d been seeing people post items to sell on their WhatsApp and thought it was a good idea. I didn’t know these people didn’t own everything they posted o. They just posted pictures and only bought the items when people paid for them.
My mum kept the contribution money with me for safekeeping, and I thought I could quickly use it for business before she needed it in about six months. That’s how I bought about ten sneakers and started posting on WhatsApp. The business didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, and when the six months came, I only had ₦40k to pay.
I had to come clean with my mum, and she was very disappointed. She had to borrow money to meet up, and I eventually paid her back after some months, but I know I destroyed her trust in me. I should’ve involved her right from the start. She’d have even warned me about the foolishness of using that much money to start a business I’d never tried before.
Joseph*, 22
I used to have a bit of a gambling problem. I don’t gamble as much now, but the dumbest thing I did was gamble ₦80k out of my school fees on a ticket I thought was “too sure” in 2023.
I lost the money, and instead of telling my parents, I borrowed ₦10k from a loan app and bet it on another ticket to triple the money. I lost that one, too. I was too scared to tell my parents, so I kept going to school like everything was okay. I missed four exams because of non-payment of school fees, but I still didn’t tell anybody.
My parents only found out when the loan app called them and told them to make me repay the loan or risk going to prison. I had to tell them everything. They’ve settled the debts now, but I automatically have four carry-overs. Even me, I know I made a series of terrible decisions.
Lizzy*, 29
I went into debt in 2020 after I trusted a close friend and agreed to stand in as a guarantor for him to collect a ₦700k loan from a microfinance bank. He used the money to japa without telling anyone. We only met his apartment completely empty.
Of course, the bank came to hold me when they didn’t see him. I had to repay that loan monthly for the next two years. Thinking about it still annoys me but I know I’ll catch this “friend” one day. He thinks he’s run away, but hand will still touch him. I can’t stand in as a guarantor for anyone anymore, though. I’ve learned my lesson.
Israel*, 33
I got scammed trying to japa in 2019 and lost about ₦1m. I had borrowed that money from a friend who works at the bank with the promise that I’d repay the money once I started working abroad.
But my agent ran away with my money. I was right back at square one, and I had a debt to settle. Fortunately, my friend was very understanding and told me to pay any amount I was comfortable paying monthly. I used a year to finish repaying that money, and he never once stressed me. He even returned ₦300k to me after I finished paying.
When I later asked him why he was so relaxed, he said it wasn’t the first time I’d borrowed money from him, and I always repaid. He said, “I know this situation isn’t your fault, but I know you and trusted that you’d do the right thing”.
That left me with something. We can’t always avoid unforeseen situations like debt, but having a good reputation might just make all the difference in how your creditor treats you.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What was your first “I have to make this money” moment?
It was after one small nail killed my younger sister in 2000. We were playing outside when she stepped on it. The people we lived with just put bandages on her leg and left her like that. A week later, she started jerking like someone who had convulsions.
They called my father, and he took her to elewe omo (herbal medical practitioners). Those ones asked him to buy something, and he started pursuing some of his debtors to get money. To cut the story short, my sister died.
I was 13 years old, and she was 10. If there was money, she’d have been treated faster. We wouldn’t even have had to live with other people in the first place.
I’m so sorry. Which people were you living with?
I don’t know how to describe the relationship. They were probably distant relatives. But I called the man and his wife Mummy and Daddy.
My parents had seven children — apart from the other children from my dad’s two other wives — and they sent us to live with different family members when it became tough to raise us. My father earned little from his carpenter income, and my mother also made small change as a hairdresser. That’s why my sister and I were sent to live with those people. We’d only stayed a year when the incident happened.
Did you continue living with them?
I didn’t have a choice, even though I was angry. I’m sure they wouldn’t have left their own children like that, but you can’t tell someone who’s feeding you that the meat in your food has too much bone. Also, the man was the one paying my school fees. The only thing I could do was to make some money, so I wouldn’t have to wait for anybody to do something again.
What was the first thing you ever did for money?
I sold empty soft drink bottles in SS 1. This was around 2001-2002. One woman sold soft drinks to my school’s teachers and rich students. She was always at the school’s gate, but I didn’t have money to buy from her. I noticed she always came inside the school to look for empty bottles to exchange with her soft drinks suppliers.
We had plenty of those bottles at home because Mummy also sold them. So, I approached the woman and told her I’d sell them to her. I can’t remember how much we agreed on for each bottle, but she paid me ₦5 weekly for the bottles. I sneaked bottles from the house in my big school bag for six months.
Mummy eventually caught me with the bottles one day. She’d noticed the missing bottles, but there were always plenty of people in the house, so I could say it wasn’t me. The beating I got when they caught me ehn? Ah. it was serious gan. I still carry the scar on my back. After the beating, they called my father to come and take me.
Was that the end of living with them?
Yes. It was also the end of school. My father said, “Since you’ve decided to become a thief, you better start looking for money.”
First, I did labourer work at a construction site near our street. My job was to pack the blocks from where they were spread to dry to the place where the bricklayers used them. At one point, I was also pushing a wheelbarrow filled with stones. For all of this, I got paid ₦50/day.
I only worked there for three weeks because the oga stopped paying after the first week. He was always talking story.
What did you do next?
I started helping a market woman sell poly bags. She’d give me five bags, and I’d walk around the market to sell them to women who were buying things. I think each poly bag was like ₦5. If I sold ten, she gave me ₦1.
The money was too small, so I decided to buy my own poly bags to resell. The profit didn’t make sense so I abandoned it too.
After that, I became a sales boy at a poultry. The owner paid me ₦500/month to stay in the shop and sell eggs. They pursued me after three months because I almost stole all their eggs.
Ah
They beat me and reported me to my father. After he also beat me, he told me I was going to learn carpenter work under him so I’d stop disgracing him up and down.
How long did you learn carpentry?
I’m not sure how long it took me to learn, but I worked with my father from 2003 to 2014. He didn’t pay me, so I made money by adding small small change to the price of materials whenever he sent me to buy them. That’s what I used to hold body.
From 2010, I was the one who did the work for his customers because he started having health issues. Whenever that happened, he allowed me to take the payment. It was a good arrangement. I didn’t have to pay for shop rent and was making money — sometimes ₦10k for a one-week job, sometimes ₦50k.
I even thought I was going to inherit the shop, but I had to run away in 2014 after an issue with a cult group in my area.
What happened?
Woman matter o. I was dating one girl who didn’t tell me she was dating a cultist. When the cultist and his friends came to warn me, I was forming strong man. I said they should let the woman make her own choice.
I realised they were serious when I found a human finger in front of my father’s shop. On the same day, they went to see my mother and told her to warn me to disappear if she didn’t want to bury me. I left Lagos and went to live with an uncle in another state.
What was that like?
Hm. There is broke, and there is — what do you people call it? Sapa, abi? I was deep inside sapa. My uncle had a fish pond, and I started helping him for free.
But unlike the previous places I’d worked where I managed to remove small change, I couldn’t do anything like that because my uncle was always around. If he wasn’t at the shop, his wife and children were there. I was so annoyed. They were feeding me o, but as a man, you should have small money in your hand.
I managed for a year before I convinced my uncle to let me go and learn mechanic work.
Why mechanic?
I didn’t want to learn any work jare. I just wanted to find a way to leave his house without causing a fight. I told him that one of my friends in another state knew a mechanic who didn’t charge a lot of money. He agreed and allowed me to go. He even gave me ₦20k. That’s how I returned to Lagos in 2015.
What about the cultists?
I didn’t go back to my family house. Instead, I went to squat with a friend who lived far from our house. I concluded that Lagos is big, and it’ll be hard for them to find me. Also, one year had already passed. Didn’t they have other people to fight?
Anyway, the friend I stayed with was a yahoo boy and I also wanted to learn the work. I think I have bad luck because police raided my friend’s house and arrested all of us just one week after I started living there.
Ah. They knew he was a yahoo boy?
They suspected. It was one of his neighbours who gave a hint to the police. You know when boys have big generators, sound systems and POP ceilings, everyone begins to suspect them.
My friend settled the case with the police and was released, but I spent four months in prison — they wanted me to bribe them, but I kept saying I didn’t have money. In the end, I had to call my father to look for ₦80k so they’d release me. That was how he even knew I was back in Lagos. Looking for the money took another two weeks.
I was sick for several months after my release. Prison is not a good place. It’s just God that said I won’t die.
Phew. Sorry you went through that
At this point, I was just ready to calm down in one place, make small money and live peacefully. I returned to stay with my uncle in 2016, and he allowed me to use a small space in front of his house to work as a carpenter.
Small small, I started getting clients. The first time I made big money was in 2018. Someone was building a new school and called me to make 250 chairs and tables for her. I made ₦200k in profit. I could’ve made more, but the woman can price ehn. I just took the work because it was my first big job.
I used the money to rent a ₦100k/year apartment and used the balance for my wedding. I also got married that year.
Nice
That was my first and only big job. But I was still doing quite well and making small money — at least ₦40k – ₦50k monthly.
2020 was a bad year because of the lockdown and everything becoming more expensive. But I was still surviving small small.
Towards the end of 2022, I started considering finding something else to do.
Why?
The market became somehow. One time, I charged a customer ₦60k for a dining table, thinking I’d use like ₦40k to buy wood and other materials. By the time I reached the market, everything I needed cost ₦55k, and I couldn’t go back to tell the customer that I wanted to increase the money.
I had to buy less quality materials to deliver, but even that caused problems because the customer kept complaining. I started telling customers to buy the materials themselves, but I had to stop when they started trying to make me collect ₦10k-₦20k for workmanship.
I’d also moved from using my uncle’s space to my own shop back in 2019, and paying the ₦80k/year rent became difficult.
I shared my troubles with one of the alhajis in my local mosque, and he asked me to think about a business I could do and get back to him. I decided on okada. It seemed profitable.
Everyone in my town uses okada, and I won’t have to think about looking for money to pay shop rent or buy goods. I told the alhaji and he bought me an okada in 2023.
Has this been more profitable?
It was profitable at first. I made up to ₦6k/day after removing ₦1500 for fuel and ₦300 for tickets. I gave my shop to my wife, and she turned it into a salon. Things were going fine, and I was happy.
But Tinubu came and removed fuel subsidy in May 2023. I first parked my bike at home for one week because fuel became scarce. There’s a filling station near my house, but as early as 5 a.m., you’d see plenty of okadas already lining up. Being first in the queue didn’t even mean you’d see fuel to buy because the filling station people could come at 8 a.m. and say they didn’t have fuel.
I can relate like mad
Even when I finally found fuel, finding customers was another thing. Like other okada men, I had to increase the amount I charged because of the fuel matter. But people were more interested in trekking than paying ₦500 for a journey that usually costs ₦100.
I’ve been riding okada for just about a year, and I’m already regretting it. If not that someone gave me this okada, I would’ve sold it. I’ve just been moving from one wahala to the other. If fuel is not scarce, it’s expensive or even fake.
My okada started having issues late last year because of one fuel I bought from the black market. The mechanic said they mixed the fuel with something. I used about ₦30k to fix the engine when the problem started. Since then, I return to the mechanic to fix another problem at least once every month. That usually takes between ₦10k – ₦15k.
What pains me about this thing is that the alhaji bought the okada new. I should’ve still enjoyed it for a long time before having to repair it every time.
How much do you make these days?
Now, I struggle to make ₦4k daily. Most times, it’s ₦3k — after removing fuel and ticket money. I can’t go long distances because my okada can just start misbehaving. It’s tough, but I’m just trying my best.
I’m considering restarting my carpenter work on the side so I can earn extra cash. I need another income now, especially since I’m marrying a second wife soon.
A second wife?
Yes. She’s pregnant, and I can’t let my child be born as a bastard when my religion allows me to marry more than one wife. I didn’t intend to remarry so soon, but God has a way of doing things.
I hope to sort out the wedding plans within the next three months — I’m spending more money because she’s not living with me. I have to send her own feeding allowance separately. There’s also money for antenatal and medicine. I had to pay half of her ₦80k house rent in January. When we get married, those costs will be reduced.
I’m curious. What are your expenses like right now with your current home?
God is helping us because I don’t really calculate how much I spend. I just spend. But I give my wife ₦3k every two days to cook. We have one child who just started nursery school last term, and I paid ₦14k for his school fees and uniform.
I mentioned my wife has a salon, so she helps to pay for small things in the house like water and the NEPA bill. I pay the ₦150k rent for our two-bedroom house. I thank God for ajo. I make a ₦3k weekly ajo contribution, and it’s what I use to save for rent.
Why do you think carpentry would work now when it wasn’t profitable a few years ago?
Someone advised me to go into making bed frames. I heard it’s easier to make more money on them. Before, I focused on just tables and chairs. If I see ₦100k now, I’ll just make like two or three bed frames and display them in my wife’s salon. I’m sure customers will come.
Have you considered what would happen if they don’t come?
Ah. Are you wishing me bad? I just have to hope because if I can’t hope, I’d better just sit down at home. But if the business picks up, I may consider selling my okada and investing more in it. Let me just get my wedding out of the way first.
Let’s rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10
5. I’m not happy with my finances at all, but there’s hope.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
This is debatable, but the most dangerous venture, apart from dodging a Nigerian mother’s slap, is investing in land — especially in Lagos. If it’s not the fear of getting scammed, it’s navigating “omo onile” and hoping you aren’t buying land in an area that’ll be demolished by the government in the future for one reason or another.
However, land remains a valuable long-term investment option, and you can invest safely by following these tips I got from discussing with Grace Ogunlaja, the lead consultant at I-Brow Properties.
Check for the type of land
Not all land in Lagos is for residential purposes. Some have been earmarked for agricultural, commercial, or even mixed use. Buying a residential land and using it to produce pure water may earn you visits from the authorities, and you’ll probably lose ownership. Some lands can even be in locations under territorial dispute. You can verify the type of land at the state Ministry of Lands (or Lands Bureau).
Does it have a title?
You should always confirm the land title with the land seller or real estate developer. Do NOT purchase any land without a title.
A title can be the Certificate of Occupancy (AKA, C of O) or Governor’s Consent. The C of O is a state-provided document demonstrating land rights to an individual; It proves ownership. Governor’s Consent is given when someone buys land that already has a C of O and wants to notify the Governor and the general public that the land has a new owner.
Land title differs from the deed of assignment or receipt the land seller gives after purchase. Those documents just indicate that you’ve bought something. You still need to confirm you didn’t buy stolen property, or worse, land that’s been mapped out for government purposes. Like a coastal road project, for instance.
Run away from “freehold”
Some real estate agents in Lagos will try to sell you land and claim it has freehold rights, meaning you own the land in perpetuity (or forever) and can use it for anything. This doesn’t exactly work because all land belongs to the government. Also, freehold isn’t exactly a land title, and chances are that the land isn’t free from government acquisition. When in doubt, always verify at the Ministry of Lands.
Go with your own surveyor
The seller may try to convince you that the land already has a registered survey plan approved by the State’s Surveyor General, but those can easily be falsified. You should always go with your own surveyor to pick the land coordinates and verify them at the ministry.
Get familiar with the authorities
When buying land, you must verify everything with the Ministry of Lands because land issues quickly become complicated in Lagos state. If proper verification isn’t done, you risk losing your investment.
Also, verification doesn’t end with buying the land. You also need to obtain building approval from the state government before doing anything on the land. If you build something different from what was stated on the approved building plan, the government has the right to demolish it without giving any compensation.
Remember: The government can come for your land
It’s important to make peace with the fact that the government can claim land for major projects at any time, even if the owner has a C of O or Governor’s Consent. The only difference is, having the correct land titles gives the owner the right to sue the government or collect compensation. The owner has no compensation or fighting rights if it’s untitled land.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
When did the hustle start for you?
1987. I was 17 and had just run away from home. I squatted with a friend whose mother sold ice water, so I started helping her hawk, too. Although she didn’t pay me, she fed and allowed me to live in the one-room apartment she shared with my friend.
It’s not like I hadn’t hustled before sha. My mother had a restaurant, and I always helped her cook and serve guests. But hawking ice water was the first thing I did on my own to survive.
Why did you run away from home?
I was a young, stubborn woman who wanted to experience life by making her own mistakes. I grew up in Ajegunle — a popular slum community in Lagos — and it was easy to follow the wrong crowd. You know, the type that drank and partied with area boys.
My stepfather always tried to discipline me. To me, it was like the man just didn’t want me to shine or was only trying to prove seniority. This led to us fighting a lot, and my mother was always on his side. So, I left home immediately after finishing class 5 — what you people call SS 3 now.
Did you have a plan, though?
Freedom was the only thing on my mind. I squatted with my friend for a year before her mother brought someone she was seeing to live with us. It was obvious that time had come for me to leave.
I squatted with another friend and got a job at a nearby canteen. My job was to keep the place clean and wash the plates. I can’t remember how much I earned, but it may have been around ₦200/month. ₦200 was enough to buy foodstuff — for me and my friend — to last at least three weeks.
Ah. Why wasn’t I born in the 80s?
Funny enough, we also complained about things getting expensive, but things were so much better then, compared to what our eyes see now. I was living well on that ₦200. I even saved out of it to pay to learn nursing in 1989.
Like nursing school?
Nursing school, ke? It was auxiliary nurse training. I paid a doctor some money, and he trained me in his clinic for two years.
Why did you decide to go into nursing?
I was tired of working at the restaurant, and nursing seemed like a more distinguished job. So, I asked around and found the doctor who trained me. I also worked for him during those years at his clinic. He saw that I was a fast learner and retained me after the training, paying me ₦1k/month.
Was that good money for 1991?
Somewhat. It was a small clinic, and I wasn’t an actual qualified nurse, so I was earning quite well at my level. It was enough to move out of my friend’s house and rent my own apartment.
Also, I mended my relationship with my family around this time. My mother reported me to one of my aunties in the village, and the woman appeared in the clinic one day to talk to me. Since I was now on good terms with my mother, I started sending money home once in a while. I wasn’t making money only from my job, though. I also started selling okrika (thrift clothes) in 1992.
How did that work?
You know I mentioned that I worked in a small clinic? Well, it’s not every time we had patients. The clinic had a verandah at the back that opened up to a major street. People always passed by, and I thought it was a great spot for an okrika business.
I used to buy the clothes I sold from Katangua market and display them on the verandah when work was slow. Thankfully, the doctor didn’t have a problem with it. I made roughly ₦4k in profits monthly from the clothes. That time you could buy up to ten shirts with ₦100.
My salary was ₦3k/month when I left the clinic. I spent five years there. I sold okrika throughout the years I spent at the clinic.
Why did you leave the clinic?
The doctor married a new wife who started complaining about my okrika business. I think the woman just didn’t like me. She helped her husband run the clinic, and one time, she put me on night duty for a month. I got angry and resigned. After I left, the woman started selling okrika at my spot.
What did you do next?
I got married and moved out of the area in 1997. I tried to continue selling okrika, but it was difficult to manage during pregnancy. There was one time I went to the market to buy more clothes to sell during my third trimester, and I fainted at my customer’s shop. She warned me seriously not to show my face until after I’d given birth.
While at home, I found another business idea.
What was that?
Jewellery. I lived close to a local government office and noticed that the staff loved owambes. I used to take my okrika to the offices to sell to them, but most of them either wore corporate clothes or ankara. However, they all wore jewellery. So, I decided I was going to sell that.
I started with watches and costume jewellery sets. I’d load them in my bag and go from office to office. The good thing about the business was that I could sell a ₦800 or ₦1k watch for ₦3k. The more expensive, the better. Office people like to dress well, and these ones thought that “expensive” meant quality.
Most of my customers bought on credit because they were salary earners. They only paid me at the end of the month. But it wasn’t hard to collect my money because the local government paid in cash then. The staff would all line up at the bank on salary day to withdraw money, and me too, I’d wait outside for them. Immediately I saw any of my customers come out, I’d go meet them to collect my money. They couldn’t tell me stories because we were in public.
Hehe. I love it
That was a good period for me, and I made a lot of money. My husband and I bought our first land for ₦100k in 2000. Unfortunately, we lost it years later to a land grabber — I mentioned it so you have an idea of how well the business was going.
In 2001, I bought my first mobile phone and SIM card. I think it was a Nokia 3310, but I know it cost ₦18k. The SIM card was also ₦18k. It’s hard to believe that these telecom companies basically give out SIM cards now.
2001 was also the year I started considering other business opportunities.
Did jewellery stop being profitable?
Something like that. The debt became too much. Some of my regular customers were transferred to other local governments, and I think the government also changed how it paid its staff. Or maybe the bank they used. I can’t recall well now. I just know it became more difficult for me to pursue my debtors and collect my money on time. So, even though I was still making some money, I was close to broke as most of it was tied up in bad debt.
I thought about it for a bit and decided it’d be best to get a shop and expand into shoes, bags and other accessories. That way, I wouldn’t limit my customer base to the local government office.
I found a small kiosk close to the local government office in 2002 and rented it at ₦12k/year. Then, I used all the money I had at the time from my jewellery sales to stock shoes and bags. It was a risk, but I knew I couldn’t start with two bags. No one would enter an empty shop.
Did the risk pay off?
It did. I was already popular in the area, so it wasn’t difficult to get customers. But I still couldn’t avoid credit buyers, so I tried to make up for delayed payments by increasing the cost for people who wanted to pay later. For instance, if I wanted to sell a bag for ₦2k, but the buyer wanted to pay later, I’d sell it for ₦3k. On average, I made ₦20k- ₦50k monthly.
My income went into assisting my husband to provide for the house and our three children. His mum also lived with us from 2000 to 2005, when she passed away. She suffered from a stroke, and a good part of our income went towards her medication too.
In 2006, I moved from the kiosk to a bigger shop where rent was ₦36k/year. I also added ankara and lace to the list of items I sold. Those were the days when people could just buy fabric and sew. I could buy six yards of material at ₦1k and sell it for ₦1800 or ₦2k. I stopped selling these in 2010 and faced my shoes and bags because people were no longer buying.
Do you know why?
It got more expensive — six yards of ankara fabric increased to ₦3k upwards without profit — and more people had more aso-ebi than they knew what to do with. It didn’t make sense to just buy fabric to sew when you’d get a new aso-ebi for someone’s wedding or burial by the next month.
But even though I stopped selling fabrics, I was comfortable. I still sell shoes and bags till now, but I really enjoyed the business during those early years. Some friends offered to help me land a job at the local government, but I laughed it off. Why should I sit in an office for ₦30k/month when I made up to ₦200k in two weeks during the Christmas season in 2015?
Now, I sometimes wonder if I should’ve taken the job because things started changing in 2016.
How so?
Buhari entered, and everything just scattered. I think 2016 was when the dollar first entered ₦300. I buy most of my goods from wholesalers in Lagos Island, who import them. With the rising price of the dollar, everything became more expensive. Fuel prices also increased.
I remember I had this bestseller that my customers really liked: a half-shoe that cost ₦1200 from the market. I always sold it at ₦2k. Then, this shoe moved from ₦1200 to ₦2k in a matter of weeks. People didn’t understand why I was suddenly trying to sell it to them at ₦2500. I was charging even less profit, but my customers still struggled to pay. I went from going to Lagos Island twice a week to restock to once every two weeks.
I began thinking of more ways to make money to cushion the decline and decided to try a business that grew popular in that period.
What business was that?
It was like a mini-provision business. People could no longer afford to buy tins of milo and milk or even full packs of cornflakes, so sellers started selling these provision items and cereals the same way they sell rice — with measurement cups. So, instead of spending ₦2k on a tin of milk, you could ask them to sell ₦500 worth for you, and they’d measure it with those tin cups and tie in a nylon.
I wasn’t too sure about the business — I heard some of the sellers buy these cereals in unmarked bags from factories — but the business was moving, so I decided to try it. I took ₦50k and used it to buy a few 50kg bags of milk, cornflakes, chocolate powder, and sugar. Then, I arranged them in one corner of my shop. This was 2017.
Was it profitable?
Profit is a different matter. It was selling fast because people needed to buy these things in small quantities, but the profit wasn’t much. I could sell a whole bag of milk and only make ₦2k in profit. The profit only made sense when I sold plenty of bags quickly.
But everybody likes good things, and soon enough, almost everybody was selling measurement cereals. It made sales even slower. I didn’t bother at first because I still had my shoes and bags to sell.
However, in 2019, I noticed that I was practically making nothing from it. The cereals got more expensive, and I couldn’t raise my prices too much because of competition. The last straw for me was when the bag of milk I usually bought for ₦16k increased to ₦30k in two days. I decided enough was enough.
So you returned to focusing on shoes and bags
I did. They were still expensive, but at least I didn’t have to sell my whole shop to make ₦1k profit. But business gradually grew worse as inflation grew worse. You don’t expect people looking for what to eat to think about getting a new bag. There were weeks in 2019 when I sold only one bag for the whole week.
Business was far worse in 2020 due to COVID. No one was going anywhere, and for a while, I returned to selling the measurement cereals. I was hardly making anything in terms of profit; I just sold it to have something to do.
In 2021, I decided to start selling ready-to-wear boubou gowns too. They were popular then, and I thought, “At least, if people don’t want shoes, they’ll buy gowns.”
How did that turn out?
It was a saving grace. People loved the gowns. I’d buy them for ₦1500 and sell them at ₦3k or ₦3,500. In addition to the few sales from the shoes and bags, I returned to making at least ₦30k monthly. In good months, I made ₦50k.
But good things hardly last in Nigeria. I began recording a slump in sales in 2023 after the whole fuel subsidy issue. Again, people were looking for how to survive, not how to look good.
As if that wasn’t enough, prices kept skyrocketing. The gowns moved from wholesale prices of ₦1500 – ₦2k to ₦3k, and then ₦4k. Now, wholesalers sell these gowns for ₦6k – ₦8k. By the time I add my profit, it’s around ₦10k. How many people are ready to buy simple boubou gowns for ₦10k? I’m so tired.
I can relate. What’s your income like these days?
My dear, I honestly don’t know. I went to the shop all through last week and didn’t sell a single item. Sometimes, I sell one pair of sandals, make ₦1k profit, and not sell anything again for the week.
It was much easier to make a good profit by selling bags. I could buy a bag for ₦5k and sell it for ₦9500. But when quality bags now cost ₦25k from the market, how much do I sell them for? I can’t even remember the last time I sold a bag.
I’ve been racking my brain about what I can add to my business to make money. I’ve considered a food business, but do I really want to try that with food prices going up every day? I just bought four pieces of shombo pepper for ₦500. Imagine doing that on a large scale.
I’m tired of the whole thing. It’s like I’m always trying to fight inflation, but it keeps beating me back. I’m not sure how long I can continue trying to keep my business afloat. Nigeria doesn’t even look like it’ll get better. My children have advised me to stay at home and rest. But I also don’t know if I’m ready for that. What will I be doing at home? I can’t sit idle.
What takes your money on a monthly basis?
Basically, feeding and transportation. I lost my husband in 2022, so it’s been just me and my last born in the house. My eldest is married, and my other one is in university. I pay school fees for the children still in school, but thankfully, my husband’s family also supports us. I don’t know how I’d have managed otherwise.
God is just good. The economy can be doing its own thing, but I’m not homeless or begging for food.
What’s something you want right now but can’t afford?
I want to send one of my children out of this country. At least, with one abroad, the other siblings can find ways to go too.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
5. Things are tough, but I’m alive with my children. There’s hope.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
In 2014, Omolola Akintola left the US for Nigeria with a dream. She’d spent the last seven to eight years getting her degrees — a BSc in Economics, an MBA and an MSc in Marketing — and knew she didn’t want a long-term banking or consulting career.
“I wanted to do something different, something that didn’t already exist,” Lola tells me. “I wanted my own startup so I could solve a problem and impact Nigeria.”
She decided on greenhouse farming. Nigeria’s fine dining scene was on the rise and with it, the need for fresh produce. Lola predicted that it’d be difficult to keep up with importing produce like fresh strawberries and herbs, necessitating a need for all-year-round cultivation — the perfect market for a greenhouse farm.
But setting it up isn’t a small investment. The cost of a small 250 square meter-sized greenhouse averages ₦3m now, and Lola had big plans. Bigger than just one greenhouse.
“I knew what I wanted to do would involve a lot of money,” Lola says. “I planned to stay and work in the US for a few more years to raise capital for the farm and then return. But I fell in love with my partner and returned to Nigeria much earlier — let’s hope my dad doesn’t read this. Greenhouse farming was still the plan — specifically, a 10-year plan. I just needed to work for some years in Nigeria before that could happen.”
Soon after returning to Nigeria, Lola found a job at Access Bank, one of the country’s big four banks.
“I enjoyed my time at Access. I worked in the strategy department, and I felt useful. I loved the fast-paced, exciting environment. I was going to stay at the bank for years so I’d have saved enough for my greenhouse farm.”
However, Lola only spent a few months before she resigned to pursue another business idea.
A “breakfast for the skilled middle-class” business opportunity
Working at the Access Bank head office in Victoria Island opened Lola’s eyes to two things.
First, the 9-5 life for young professionals in Lagos is hard. She had to leave her home in VGC before 6 a.m. if she hoped to beat traffic and get to work by 8 a.m. Returning home wasn’t easier as long hours at work meant she often had to leave the office at 10 p.m.
Secondly, her new lifestyle meant she never had time to grab breakfast or prep food. This wasn’t a problem peculiar to her.
“My colleagues had the same problem. The higher-ups could afford to get in-house chefs or maids to bring them food. Married guys didn’t have to worry about food because they had someone else doing that labour for them. But the single men and women — mostly millennials — didn’t have time to cook their own food.”
Lola also noticed something interesting. The skilled middle-class wasn’t willing to rely only on roadside food.
“It was 2015 in Lagos, and people had disposable income. There was always a concert or show happening during the weekend, and people could afford to go. I had 9-5 friends in different industries too, and I knew that the average millennial Lagosian liked going to cafés on the Island to treat themselves to brunch on weekends. What if they didn’t have to wait for the weekend to treat themselves? What if they could have nice, fancy breakfasts delivered to them daily?”
“In business school, we discussed how businesses are gradually going online,” Lola says. “Buildings are disappearing, and people are exploring new ways of doing business. When I got the idea for a breakfast business, I knew I didn’t need to invest resources in a physical restaurant.”
It made economic sense to run her new idea as a subscription-based service, where customers could subscribe to a meal plan, pay and get their food delivered daily. This way, Lola didn’t have to worry about buying ingredients in bulk and hoping that the power supply was regular enough to store them.
She did a trial run with her sister and some friends first. “I’d close from work and prep the meals I wanted to send to them the next day. My menu included local and international (mostly American) cuisine. Most of what I did was self-taught and by reading recipe books. I already had a passion for cooking and wanted to attend culinary school to get professional skills, but that would’ve meant sponsoring myself and an additional two years of study. So, I decided to just start.
I’d wake up really early to cook and send the meals through my sister’s driver to save costs. Interest grew when other colleagues at work noticed my sister and friends having meals like tortilla wraps and quesadillas for breakfast.”
The referrals flew in, and Milk and Honey became a full-fledged business in 2015. Lola offered different meal plans, from the Bronze subscription plan (breakfast-only) at ₦7,500 weekly to the Platinum plan (including lunch) at ₦20k/weekly, with customised recipes designed to replicate the fine dining experience.
She did that for a few weeks before deciding she could no longer juggle it with her 9-5 at the bank.
“But I was wary about leaving because I had senior colleagues who loved me. Fortunately, I had to report to the NYSC orientation camp soon after, and I used the opportunity to resign. I couldn’t bring myself to do it face-to-face.”
Without the distractions from her 9-5, Lola could now give her full attention to building her business. And she did exactly that, but there was a lot to figure out.
“I was new in the country with a lot of theoretical knowledge. But I didn’t know how to get the right people to bring my vision to life. I was building a tech-enabled startup, so I needed to know where to find experienced website developers. Also, I knew the kind of packaging I wanted, but I needed someone who knew how and where to get materials to make it happen. My lawyer-sister helped with filling me in on legal registrations and regulations, but I needed someone who knew how to run a business specific to Nigeria — a partner.”
Olumide Akinsola became that person. Introduced through mutual friends, Olumide was the key to connecting Lola to everything she needed for her new startup.
“Olumide had a guy for everything,” Lola says. “We discussed the brand image, website and operations. It was like a meeting of the minds. He immediately saw the vision and ran with it. We created a system and knew it would work. We were creating the next big thing.”
Slow and steady [and expensive] growth
Naturally, running a business involves spending money. While Lola didn’t have to invest in a physical restaurant, she had to spend on chefs and kitchen assistants, branding, digital marketing and delivery bikes.
“I didn’t get external funding, and my parents’ support only extended to them allowing me to cook out of the home kitchen and using my dad’s car for delivery initially,” Lola explains. “I get it, though. My dad didn’t understand why I left my US degrees to come and cook.”
However, as Milk and Honey’s clientele expanded to over 300 subscribers, running the business out of her parents’ kitchen became impossible, so she had to rent a ₦1.1m/year kitchen space and office.
“I’d saved about $20k over 7-8 years working summer jobs in the US, and most of it went into keeping the business running between 2015 and 2018. It shouldn’t have cost that much, but like Temple Run, Nigeria kept bringing us new hurdles to jump over.”
Inflation and the adverse effects of government policies
In 2017, the Lagos State government announced a ban on commercial motorcycle (okada) and tricycle (keke) movements on major highways, bridges and roads. This wasn’t the first time the state would restrict bike activities — the last ban was in 2012 — but the new ban affected hundreds of routes, including Yaba, Surulere, Ikeja and the entire Lagos Island. These areas were the major hotspots for Milk and Honey’s activities.
Image: Tribune Online
“We initially bought two bikes for delivery,” Lola says. “But when the government impounds one, you have to go and beg, which affects delivery time. At one point, it was like we had to buy proper motorcycles that didn’t look like okada.
We did that, but we still ran into problems. When it became too much, we partnered with Gokada — the government allowed their bikes on the road. That cost us an extra ₦5k/day for each bike.”
With Nigeria’s age-long power supply problem and the need to keep generators running to preserve ingredients, Lola also had fuel price increases and scarcity to worry about. In 2016, fuel prices rose from ₦87 to ₦145 and maintained the same price between 2017 and 2018. However, frequent scarcity increased the price slightly at several points in the same period.
“It was just hard. I had to maintain relationships with several fuel station managers because no one knew when fuel would suddenly become scarce again.”
On top of all that, the naira kept falling against the dollar. By 2017, it had fallen to ₦300/dollar as against ₦197 to the dollar in the previous year. For an importation-heavy country like Nigeria, this led to a steep rise in the cost of packaging material Lola needed to keep her business going.
“We tried multiple things to keep our costs low. We started a recycling drive and encouraged our customers to return their plates for a discount, but it didn’t do much to minimise expenses,” Lola explains. “I also never paid myself a salary — even though I made sure my eight regular staff were never owed, but it was a lot of money. We had no choice but to increase the prices of some of our plans.”
Even as Milk and Honey was fighting for its life, the customers were fighting for theirs, too.
“People could no longer afford to pay ₦7,500 weekly (without delivery) for breakfast. It wasn’t like they were moving to different brands. There were just more important things they had to pay for or prioritise. When I started the business, I argued that people would always eat. Now it became clear that, yes, people would always eat. But what they ate was a different question. Bread and eggs could fill them just as much as a BLT sandwich.
For most of my bronze plan subscribers, the service was initially a small price to pay for luxury. But when the economy took a nosedive, it became a luxury they couldn’t afford. There just wasn’t as much disposable income to work with. We lost 70% of our bronze subscribers in 2017”.
Trying to stay ahead of the curve
In a quest to stay afloat and reinvent the wheel to continue serving her customers, Lola started offering health-based meal plans in 2017.
“I got a dietician, and we started offering nutrition consultations to create meal plans for people with dietary restrictions who wanted to stay healthy.”
Of course, this service was mostly used by the richer middle and upper-class who could afford to care about what they put in their mouths. The problem? This target audience was a tiny portion of Milk and Honey Gourmet’s initial customer base.
“I had to gradually abandon the idea that our service would be for the global millennial. I had to focus on older rich people, and this category isn’t necessarily online. I needed to re-invent Milk and Honey if we wanted to make enough to keep running. That would involve a new form of branding, marketing and the whole works.”
Making the difficult decision to exit the business
By 2018, it became clear that the economy was deteriorating faster than it was trying to improve, and everyone was struggling. Even Lola’s husband, who’d initially refused to leave Nigeria, had decided it was time to leave.
“At the end of the day, I didn’t really leave Milk and Honey. I left Nigeria,” Lola says. “I’d already calculated that the pivot to an older market was what we needed, and we could turn profitable in the next two to three years so I could take a step back and let the business run on its own.
But Nigeria just wasn’t working. Did I want to stay because of all the time and money I invested or because I thought Nigeria would get better? What if the upper class also have to make tough decisions and decide our services are an unnecessary luxury?”
Lola left Nigeria for the UK in December 2018 after giving her customers a month’s notice to shut down operations. She sold the remaining bikes and donated most of her cooking equipment.
“I rarely talk about Milk and Honey because giving it up was so sad. I’d invested everything into it; my finances and my mental and physical health, and for a while after it ended, I lost my confidence. I did everything by the books, and while that always resulted in success, I was suddenly introduced to the possibility of failure. That fear followed me into the other dreams I tried to pursue.”
As our conversation ended, I asked Lola what the experience has taught her about doing business in Nigeria and what other prospective business owners might benefit from knowing.
“Nigeria discards economic principles. I have a degree in marketing and knew all the fun things to do to make a business work, but one plus one was no longer equalling two. The government can announce a new policy, and you may think it’ll have a positive effect. But it doesn’t because they don’t follow through with all the other things that should make the policy work.
For instance, the government can announce it wants to tackle inflation by releasing funding. That should work, right? At the same time, the same government can decide to stop importation and allow only one person to produce an item. Or they sell forex cheaper to that person. It causes chaos. The word for the Nigerian economic market is just chaos. Some businesses are still making it work regardless, but it’s exhausting. All your permutations and projections can mean nothing at the end of the day.”
On what she thinks might help, Lola says, “So many businesses would do much better if the electricity and transportation problems were solved. If someone comes and solves just those two problems, I’d say they did a wonderful job.”
Ten years later, Lola isn’t the same person who stepped into the country with big dreams.
“I don’t think I’ll return to Nigeria. Many people are doing greenhouse farming now too, so no one needs me. I might consider returning for a vision that has to do with the girl child. If I’ll be helping save a million lives, then I can come back. Otherwise, I’m fine where I am.”
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
My parents gave me ₦10 daily for snacks in primary school, and I spent it on those frozen powdered drinks sold as “ice cream”. ₦5 could get five of those, and I’d spend the balance on whatever. Life was good.
How good?
Good enough to take food to school and still have money to spend on whatever I wanted. My parents were civil servants, and sometimes, my dad would drive me to school. We were the average middle-class family. But then, my parents separated when I was in Primary 1, and money became a problem.
How so?
My mum, siblings and I had to leave our three-bedroom house and move in with a family friend until my mum could afford a one-room apartment. We even moved in when it was practically empty — we had just three plastic chairs.
My mum became the sole provider. I went from being the student with money to spend during lunch break to being one of the students who was sent home for not paying school fees. It was a harsh transition that lasted about three years before my parents got back together.
They stayed together for a year and separated again — for good this time — when I was in Primary 5. This was in 2008.
What did this mean to you?
It affected me more than it did the first time. I must’ve been around six when we had to leave the first time, and I don’t remember feeling sad that my dad wasn’t around. But by the final separation, I could see just how much it affected my mum financially.
I was just about to enter secondary school, and she’d always talk about trying to raise money for my fees. At the end of the day, she had to convince my principal to waive some extra charges so I could resume school after I’d spent a few weeks at home.
Then my mum got laid off from work when I was in JSS 2 and started selling raw grains to make money. I helped her anytime I was home from school. That was the first thing I did to earn money.
Did your mum pay you?
Yes. People in our area couldn’t afford to buy in bulk, so she’d open a bag of grains and ask me to divide them into smaller portions and tie them in smaller bags. She paid ₦100 for every bag I tied, and I could tie two to three bags in a day.
I did that on and off during the weekends. In SS 2, I started selling chocolates to my classmates. I’d moved in with a family friend to reduce the financial burden on my mum, and I decided I needed to make extra money to cover transportation and other things I needed at school.
My mum was still paying for my school fees and sending a ₦2k – ₦3k monthly allowance, but the extra money from the chocolates came in handy for additional expenses.
What kind of profit did you make?
A pack of 80 pieces cost ₦300, and transportation to and fro the market cost ₦100. I sold each candy at ₦10, making ₦400 in profit after removing the cost of buying and transportation.
I sold the chocolates until I left secondary school in 2014. I didn’t get admission into university until 2018. I first took on a ₦14k/month waitress job and then left to work as a receptionist at a photo studio for ₦15k/month.
After a few months, my mum had an accident, and I had to stay home to take care of her. It was while I was at home that I started writing for money in 2016.
How did you start writing?
I read a lot and often wrote to replicate what I read. I wrote a lot about everything going on in my family. I posted some of these stories on Nairaland and met the first person who paid me to write. She paid me ₦1k for a 1000-word lifestyle article. She liked it and gave me three more writing gigs. I made ₦4500 in total from her.
I applied for more writing gigs on Nairaland and gradually got clients. I could write up to three articles weekly and earn between ₦6k – ₦10k. That became my primary source of income till I finally got into uni in 2018.
Did you continue the writing gigs in uni?
Managing the gigs and school work was difficult, especially because I used my phone to write. Since I didn’t have a laptop, I’d first write out the articles on paper before typing them into my phone. It was too stressful, so I just stopped looking for gigs.
Around the same time, I saw an advert for a modelling audition at school and decided to apply. I passed the audition and got cast to walk for a fashion show for free. I was happy to do it for the experience. The agency offered to sign me on, and I paid ₦5k to register as one of their models.
How does modelling for an agency work?
A modelling agency should train their models, send them out for gigs and then handle payment. Unfortunately for me, my agency only took their models to parties and clubs to meet men.
The final straw was when they made me do a nude photoshoot. I wasn’t comfortable with my nude pictures being out for anyone to see, so I quit. I was with them for only five months.
Did you try to get gigs on your own?
I went for multiple auditions, but I’m short, and most of the casting directors said they wanted someone 5’9” and above.
I didn’t get another gig until 2019 when I got paid ₦10k to walk the runway for a one-day show. The fashion house owner saw one of my online practice videos and liked it.
That show helped me meet other people in the industry and build a network. I started getting small modelling gigs once or twice a month. ₦7k for a photoshoot here and ₦5k to work with a make-up artist there.
I spent most of what I made on transportation. In modelling, you’re always on the move for one rehearsal, fitting or the like, and that took a lot of my money. When I wasn’t working on paid gigs, I worked on unpaid collaborations to build my portfolio. Honestly, it was just something I enjoyed doing, so I didn’t mind that I wasn’t making much from it.
But how were you surviving?
I picked up stage decoration — mostly from watching others do it — and did the odd decoration gig for faculty and departmental functions when I wasn’t modelling. That usually brought in ₦10k – ₦15k per gig, but it wasn’t regular. I hardly got any allowance from home.
In 2021, another modelling agency signed me. I found them on Instagram and they looked legit. I paid ₦15k to register, but I left after six months.
Why?
The gigs weren’t coming. None of the new models got gigs within that period, and I couldn’t even take on outside jobs. At that point, I decided to give modelling a break.
I took up a part-time job as an assistant to someone who produced cosmetics. It was just twice a week and paid ₦20k/month. It was the highest I’d ever made up to that point, and it helped that it didn’t interfere with school. I worked there for seven months and left when I was about to enter my final year because I needed to go for a three-month teaching practice internship.
Did you get paid for this internship?
Nope. I survived by taking random modelling and movie extra gigs on the weekends. I even got a small supporting role on a movie set once and got paid ₦70k after filming.
The school I interned at did try to retain me and offered ₦20k/month, but I didn’t take it. Around that time, I participated in a beauty contest/reality show situation that turned my life upside down.
I’m listening
I honestly don’t know why I keep falling for sham agencies, but I fell for this one. It was a pageant that was supposed to pay the winner ₦100k. I paid ₦5k for the application form, and the organisers housed me and the other contestants. Then, they began hounding us for votes.
This was how votes worked: You had to get people to “buy” votes for you by paying the organisers. Each vote cost ₦100, and most contestants bought their own votes just to get ahead.
I had to join them to buy votes after the organisers placed me in the “bottom five” group twice in a row. I contacted a few people for money but got no help, so I borrowed ₦10k from a loan app to buy my votes.
Did that help?
It kept me in the house until the main event. But then, the organisers came again and told us to start selling tickets for it, and I just gave up.
But I still had to repay the loan, and with interest, it came to about ₦13500. I started getting multiple calls from the loan guys after the pay-back date elapsed, and I panicked and took another loan from a different app to pay them. That’s how my loan cycle started in 2022.
I didn’t have a strong source of income, so it was easy to fall back on more apps to repay my debt. Plus, the interests were always so much. I’d borrow ₦18k and have to pay back ₦27k. Then I’d borrow ₦27k and have to pay ₦35k.
My debt had grown to ₦78k when I saw a WhatsApp BC about an opening for bikini girls for a pool party.
Bikini girls?
Dancers. We just had to dance in bikinis. The pay was ₦6k for a one-day event. I’d never worn a bikini in public before, but I was desperate for money. So, I applied and got the gig. I danced and got paid, but the organiser complained I was too self-conscious and stiff.
A week later, I got another bikini dancing gig for two weekends. That one paid ₦12k in total. I got another gig at a lounge that paid ₦5k to dance every Friday. I noticed the other girls got tips when they danced close to the men. So, I did the same thing and made ₦15k in tips on the first day.
I danced for a month and made enough money to clear my ₦78k debt. There was no reason for me to take the gigs anymore, so I left most of the WhatsApp groups that posted those jobs. But two weeks later, I realised I was pregnant. I couldn’t tell anyone, and I couldn’t keep it either, so I Googled options for an abortion. I found medication online that cost ₦38k. I didn’t have money, so I returned to the loan apps. I borrowed ₦45k and bought the drugs. While waiting for the drugs to be delivered to me, I had a miscarriage.
Damn
I couldn’t get a refund, and I had a debt of ₦70k — the loan amount + interest — to clear. The fastest way I knew to make money was to return to dancing, so I did that.
I found a club that hired strippers on a tip-sharing basis — they took 40% of every tip the dancers made. I worked there for a week and made ₦30k. I left because they didn’t allow dancers to wear masks, and I wasn’t comfortable.
The next gig I found only required me to strip dance at a lounge on Fridays and get paid ₦15k. Thankfully, I was allowed to wear a mask. I sometimes had sex with male customers to get extra tips — usually up to ₦15k/week. It weighed a lot on my conscience, so I only had the courage to work once every two weeks. That worked for a while, and I was able to reduce my dependence on loans.
But then, I hit a setback in 2023.
What happened?
I lost over ₦200k to a fake Instagram vendor. I was trying to buy a phone, and the vendor looked legit. I borrowed the money from several loan apps. But the vendor took my money and blocked me. Thinking about it now, it was a very unwise decision.
I began another round of borrowing to repay the different apps. But again, their interest rates were high, and within three months, my debt had grown to ₦700k.
Yikes. What was the plan to settle that?
I had to start stripping every weekend to meet up. Sometimes, I dance twice weekly, depending on how often the gigs come.
I graduated from university in 2023 and am currently serving, but I still have debt, so I strip and dance. I do any job I can find at clubs: bikini dancing, bottle service and stripping. I make at least ₦50k weekly.
How much do you currently owe?
₦215k. I created a list with all the apps I owed and gradually paid them off according to who I first borrowed from to limit the multiple calls and reminders to pay. They even called my mum and sister multiple times to threaten them. But I was determined not to borrow from more apps to pay back my debts, so it helped me progress. I’m not putting myself under any pressure to pay anymore. When I have, I pay.
You mentioned you’re currently serving. The extra income must be welcome
It is. I started NYSC in February, and my PPA pays ₦30k/month. Then there’s the ₦33k NYSC stipend. However, I spend ₦30k monthly transporting to and from my PPA, where I work as a front desk officer. So, it’s only the ₦33k stipend I can say is mine. I also rented a ₦300k/year apartment in March, so saving for rent takes part of it.
Can you break down these expenses into a typical month?
Thankfully, I’m the youngest in my family, so there’s no black tax. I also don’t have a “flex” budget because I know I’ve been super irresponsible with money in the past, and I’m just trying to move past my mistakes.
My experiences have made me a lot wiser. For instance, I currently have ₦120k saved up for rent that’s due next year. My relationship with money isn’t healthy yet, but I’m on the right path.
How do you juggle a 9-5 with the many gigs you do?
There are days when I go to the lounge to dance straight from my PPA and then go from there back to work the next day. That’s after dancing in heels for hours. But I don’t have a choice. I have to dance so I can pay off my debts.
Apart from the long hours, stripping can also be very demeaning. It’s a mental struggle. I can be dancing on my own and someone would come and try to pull off my lingerie or touch me. Some days, I finish working and go back home to cry. Like, this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing.
I make sure to always wear masks as a way to preserve the little dignity I have left. I overhear snide remarks from male customers all the time. Stuff like, “This one is only good for sex”. It’s crazy how people judge you for the same things they’re there for, but this is Nigeria.
Have you considered what the next few years of your life might look like?
I’m actively planning for my future. I hope to transition into tech after NYSC, and I’m taking courses in preparation. One is a virtual assistant course, and the other is about using AI to write. Both courses cost me ₦57k, but I see it as investing in my future.
How much do you think you’ll earn monthly from these skills?
₦500k/monthly would be a good starting point. The aim is to earn in dollars.
Rooting for you. Do you have financial regrets? Apart from the loans
I wish I’d reached out to family and friends when I first got into the loan cycle. My parents don’t support me anymore, but I could’ve reached out to my siblings and friends for help with my debt rather than going at it alone.
It would’ve been quite embarrassing, but at least, I wouldn’t have gotten into as much debt to resort to everything I’m doing now to get out of it.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?
5. It’d be higher when I start earning money in a manner I consider dignified.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
Tell me your earliest memory of money
I stole ₦10 from my mum’s purse when I was 10 years old. I was annoyed that she always made me homemade food when my mates got money to buy food at school. I thought she was purposely trying to make me “uncool”, so I took matters into my own hands. This was around 1998, and ₦10 wasn’t small money.
I used part of the money to buy tampico and puff-puff on the first day. But my teacher noticed I bought snacks instead of eating the usual rice at my desk and gave amebo to my mum when she came to pick me up. I had to confess where I got the money. My mum made sure a teacher flogged me every day on the assembly ground for a whole week.
She also made me wear a cardboard placard that read, “I am a thief” on my uniform. She wanted me to wear it for a week, but my teacher begged on my behalf, and I only wore it for one day.
But that one day ehn? I was so embarrassed. My classmates called me “I am a thief” for the whole term. That was the first and last time I stole anything — not even meat from the pot.
I guess it’s safe to assume your mum was strict
Both parents were very strict, and their disciplinary methods sometimes bordered on abuse. There was a lot of flogging and creative punishments whenever my siblings and I misbehaved.
My parents were pastors and held their three children to high standards. I’m also the firstborn, so the expectation was times a hundred.
For example, I couldn’t collect monetary gifts from people in church even though we really needed the money. My parents thought it’d trigger the love of money in me — which, according to the Bible, is the root of all evil.
Were things hard at home?
Very. My mum wasn’t a full-time pastor like my dad; she had a provision store, and we lived on the sales from the store.
My dad got a salary from the church, but it mustn’t have been much because he occasionally borrowed money from my mum’s business.
I was once sent out of school in primary five because we hadn’t paid school fees. I later found out it wasn’t the first time my school fee had been delayed, but the teachers didn’t punish me out of respect for my dad.
I really hated not having enough money, though. I saw how important money was, and it didn’t make sense that admitting a need for money equalled sinning against God. So, I decided to find ways to make money as soon as I was old enough.
When was “old enough”?
As soon as I got into the university and no longer lived under my parent’s roof. I got into uni in 2007 and immediately started hustling.
The first thing I did to make money was serve as the class rep for my level.
They pay class reps now?
Haha, no. But it gave me an opportunity to make money. Lecturers were always selling handouts, and I’d sometimes add small money to the price. That didn’t work all the time, though. Most times, the lecturers announced the price of handouts in class.
I also made money from photocopying the handouts. This only worked for an elderly lecturer. For instance, I’d tell her that only 100 students paid when 105 did. Then, I’d make five extra copies for the other students. Photocopies could cost about ₦500, and each handout could be about ₦1500. I’m not proud of it, but I made some money.
What were you doing when you weren’t selling handouts?
Everything. When I was in 200 level, I started playing instruments for two different churches on Sundays — learning how to play instruments was one benefit of growing up as a pastor’s kid. I was paid in transport fare and made between ₦3k – ₦4k weekly. I also had stints assisting the cyber cafe and photographer guys on campus for money. My parents sent me ₦10k/month, and I just used to jama jama everything together to survive.
I didn’t really do much for money in my last two years in uni because I unexpectedly became more involved at church. The pastor also put me on a ₦20k/month allowance to support me, so that helped.
Why do you say “unexpectedly”?
I didn’t really like the idea of church growing up. I didn’t like how seriously my parents took it and the fact that we didn’t have money. So, I thought becoming independent would allow me to be as far away from the church as I wanted.
Ironically, I gave my life to Christ and became closer to the church. In fact, I was an executive of the corpers’ fellowship during NYSC in 2013.
I also helped start a fellowship at the secondary school where I worked during my service year. The school paid me a ₦5k stipend in addition to NYSC’s ₦19800 allowance, and I used my income to support indigent students. I was posted to the north-central, and there were a lot of students like that.
But what were you living on?
I don’t know. I just know I didn’t starve. Many of my students’ parents were farmers and they sent me foodstuff. I also lived in a hostel the school provided. There was accommodation and food. What else did I need?
After NYSC in 2014, God led me to volunteer with a student fellowship in the state where I served. Apart from spreading the gospel to students in secondary and tertiary institutions, the fellowship also organised training programs to help the students become well-rounded individuals and career professionals. I resonated with the vision, so I joined.
Did it come with a salary?
More like a stipend. ₦20k/month. I lived in the fellowship’s office, so once again, accommodation was sorted. Those were simple days — I was doing what I loved and didn’t have to worry about money.
I had very minimal expenses, so I saved most of what I made — except when I had to support students or anyone in need.
Were you saving towards a goal?
Not really. But in 2016, I used my entire savings — about ₦250k — to purchase land and other necessary materials to farm yam and rear chickens. It made sense because everyone else had a farm. Besides, I wanted something to do with all the extra time I had.
I wouldn’t say I made money from the farm because I hardly sold any produce. I either ate my harvest or used it to support other people.
This happened until 2021 when I left the fellowship.
Why did you leave?
I clashed with management over their decision-making. It felt like some people sat in an office and decided what the volunteers would do without leaving room for feedback. It took the joy out of the work, and I thought it was dangerous to approach God’s work feeling cheated.
I wanted to stay back in the north-central, but the Fulani herdsmen issue was getting worse, and I was about to get married. My fiancée lived in the west and wasn’t thrilled about moving there, so I joined her instead. I sold my farm for ₦300k, most of which went into our wedding expenses.
Did you have a plan to make money?
I planned to get a job, which turned out to be much harder than I imagined. I didn’t have formal work experience, so I got rejections left and right. For the first six months, my wife and I relied on her ₦150k operations manager salary. Then, I finally got a teaching job that paid ₦80k/month in 2022.
The salary wasn’t great, but my wife and I pooled resources together and made it work. We’d been living in her room and parlour apartment since we got married, but we moved to a ₦180k/year two-bedroom apartment towards the end of 2022.
Things were looking up
Yeah. But I felt like something was missing — like I wasn’t really where God wanted me to be. I prayed a bit and discussed it with my wife, and realised God still wanted me in ministry.
Around the same time, the pastor at the church my wife and I attended approached me and said he felt led to ask me to join the pastorate as a youth minister. We’d only been part of the church workforce for less than a year, and it seemed strange I’d become a minister so quickly. But I knew it was God directing me, so I accepted the role.
What does being a youth minister entail?
It’s like being a junior pastor. I don’t get paid because I’m not a full-time pastor, but I do everything a pastor does. I’m at church twice weekly and on Sunday for services.
My schedule worked pretty well while I was a teacher, but I got another job towards the end of 2023. Now, it’s harder to juggle both 9-5 and my work at the church.
What’s the job role?
I work in marketing for a drinks company; one of my wife’s relatives helped me get the job. My role requires me to travel for market activation, so I’m not always available for weekly church services.
I love the marketing part of the job, and it feels like I should’ve been on this career path much earlier. The salary is also good — ₦250k/month. It’s just that my conscience often pricks me about doing this job.
Why?
The company also produces alcoholic drinks, and I sometimes feel like I’m directly responsible for marketing something that has led so many lives astray. I don’t primarily cover the alcoholic drink category, but I occasionally have to work with the product.
My senior pastor and wife think I’m overthinking it, but I’m not sure I am. If not for the fact that I have a child now and my responsibilities have doubled, I’d have resigned. Even that reasoning increases my guilt. I’m working at a company I feel ashamed to talk about, and to make it worse, it’s taking over my time and reducing my availability for God. Is the need for money now overcoming my desire to be right with my God? Maybe my parents were right after all.
Hmmm
I’m praying to find something else soon because I don’t know how to explain to my wife that I want to quit without another job lined up. She’s an understanding woman, but I’m trying to be fair to her. She deserves to relax without constantly thinking about how to manage money. It’s not like the ₦250k even does much in this economy, but it’s better than ₦80k.
Fingers crossed you find something soon. But have you considered what you’ll do if you don’t?
I’ve thought about saving to start a poultry business I can fall back on while I figure out what to do with my career. But it almost doesn’t make sense to start a business in this economy.
Just last week, someone complained about how the price of chicken feed had almost doubled within a few weeks. What if I think I need ₦200k to start, then finish saving and realise I now need ₦400k? Planning is almost impossible in this country.
For now, I’ll just focus on trusting God to lead me. I’ve gone from being willing to do anything to make money to relying totally on Him for my finances. I’m currently at a point where it feels like I’m relying on money to live, and I need to leave this point and go back to relying on Him. I just need to retrace my steps.
Hopefully, you find that soon. Can you share a breakdown of your monthly expenses?
I have about ₦80k in my savings, but it’s more of an emergency fund. In Nigeria, one sickness or accident can carry all your money away. My dad is late, but my mum is elderly, and I constantly worry she’ll suddenly need medical care at any point. So, I like to prepare for any eventuality.
What’s one thing you want but can’t afford right now?
An inverter. It’s interesting that I spend more on fueling my generator than I do on electricity bills. And with all the different news we’re hearing about whether or not the fuel subsidy has truly been removed, the cost of fuel will only get higher. But I don’t have ₦2m to spend on an inverter right now.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
3. I’m earning more than I ever have, but I don’t feel fulfilled. I was happier when I was earning ₦20k and doing what I loved.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
A Nollywood actress’ recent comments about wishing she’d married for money instead of love has woken social media debaters from their slumber and inspired another version of the age-old conversation topic: Should you marry for love or money?
I spoke to married Nigerians, and they talked about marrying for either love or money and what they’d do differently if they could have a do-over.
Gbemi, 51
I married for love, but I won’t advise any young woman to do the same. My husband isn’t a bad man, and I’m not suffering, but I have a reason for my answer.
When I married my husband, he was unemployed and only had foam in his bedroom—no bed or mattress—just foam to sleep on. If you mistakenly slept on that foam without a bedsheet, you’d have to spend hours removing foam from your hair. But I loved him, and he was kind to me. I also had a job, and we planned to use my salary to build a school as our family business.
It worked out for us, but only because my husband is a rare breed. For over six years, I brought most of the money, and he never acted out. He never talked even when I did my normal woman wahala and spent money on unnecessary things. He neither asked me for money nor tried to police what I used money for. I dropped it at home by myself because of our school plan.
Men of these days can’t do that. I can’t count the number of family issues I’ve helped solve that’s rooted in the woman earning more. Don’t say your own man can’t do it. Marry someone with money, please. Marriage is already stressful without adding money and the stress of managing someone’s ego to it. If I didn’t get married to my husband, I most likely wouldn’t have married a poor man.
Obinna, 43
I didn’t even marry for either love or money. I got married to my partner because my parents knew her family and recommended her. I don’t have any regrets. She’s made my house a home and is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. We’ve been married for over 10 years, and that’s love if you ask me. If I had the opportunity again, I’d still allow my parents to pick for me.
Rola, 29
I married for both love and money by making sure to find love where the money was. I understand that money is vital in building a home and removing unnecessary stress, so poverty was a deal-breaker for me when I was single. I don’t have much in common with broke men, so where did they even want to find me? I make good money and expect the same from a romantic partner. That’ll always be my standard.
Justina, 40
I married quite young for love, and while I’m grateful that my husband and I are fairly financially comfortable now, it wasn’t always like that. There were years of struggle that affected the love. Of course, you can’t be thinking about love when landlord is threatening to throw you out over unpaid rent, or when you’re doing 001 and eating once a day so your kids can eat.
Fortunately, we stayed together through those years, but I don’t think we’re as close as before. We lost that connection while struggling to make ends meet. If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, I’d have waited for us to make money first before getting married and raising children.
Femi, 34
Do Nigerian men really have the option to marry for money? I don’t think it’s as common for us. I married my wife because I love her. Whether she brings in money or not isn’t really my business because I’m meant to provide for her and my family. That’s not to say it doesn’t get difficult. I’ve been married for five years, and sometimes, I want to run away from all my financial responsibilities. If it’s not house rent, it’s fuel or the children or even extended family. Maybe if I had another opportunity, I’d find a way to hook Dangote’s daughter so that I, too, can enjoy.
Yemi, 31
I married for love and peace of mind. Money isn’t everything. My husband and I don’t have it all, but at least we’re together. I’ve heard stories of richer couples who eventually divorced or are battling one problem or the other. I’ll advise anyone to consider peace of mind and whether they can stay happy with that person for years over how much is in their account. Money can disappear overnight, but marriage is a lifetime thing. Will you end the marriage because there’s no money again?
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
When was the first time you made money?
I worked as a childminder — an assistant class teacher — at a nursery school when I was 16. The school paid me ₦7k/month to look after the children and help with their school work. This was 2012, and I’d just graduated from secondary school. I took the job so I could reduce the time I spent at home.
Why’s that?
My parents often fought about money. Our financial situation wasn’t even terrible — my mum was a teacher and my dad was a lecturer — they just hardly agreed on what to do with money.
For instance, my dad would talk about saving money to pay school fees and house rent, but my mum didn’t think that should stop us from going out to eateries and parties on Saturdays. Then I started hearing my mum say my dad was hiding money so he wouldn’t have to spend it on what he called “unnecessary things.”
It was always one thing at home, and after secondary school, I had to get out and try to forge my own path.
Did your first job help you do that?
The job helped me earn a living and build a sense of responsibility. My parents still provided for me, but I had something to call my own. I even gave my siblings money sometimes. I also saved, but I usually spent it on food. I wasn’t keeping track of my expenses either.
When I got admitted into the university in 2014, I quit teaching and moved to the south for uni, which was a long way from home. My parents usually sent me ₦15k as my total allowance for a whole semester.
How did you survive on that?
I had an aunt who I called for financial assistance when I got broke, which was often.
In 300 level, I decided to start a business. I think ASUU had declared another strike, and I needed to start something that’d bring me money. That’s how I started selling ankara fabrics in 2017.
How did the business work?
I used about ₦5k to start. I’d buy two yards of ankara at ₦1k and sell for ₦1500 or ₦1800. My primary customers were my friends and classmates, but I also gave some of the fabric to someone who sold provisions in school to help me sell. That turned out to be a good idea because I soon expanded to buying six yards. She’d sell at a markup and remit the remaining money to me. I made between ₦3k – ₦4k in profits weekly.
Not bad
I also started a palm oil storage business that year; I heard it was lucrative. A village close to my school had several oil mills, so I used the profit I made from selling ankara to buy six gallons of palm oil at ₦4k each.
The trick was to buy in January when palm oil was cheap and store it till September when it becomes expensive. By September, I sold each gallon at ₦16k.
There was already a market for it so it was quite straightforward. I just took the oil to a depot that Hausa traders frequented. The traders brought in yam and potatoes to sell and they bought palm oil to take back to the north.
I did both businesses till I graduated from uni in 2019.
Would you say you made good money?
I was comfortable. Just before final year, I moved to an off-campus accommodation and paid the ₦84k annual rent myself. I was essentially taking care of myself; I didn’t disturb anyone for money and no one disturbed me.
That’s the dream, TBH
After graduation, I stayed back in the south. The COVID lockdown met me there the following year. I couldn’t sell ankara because of the restricted movement, so I decided on a new business idea: sex toys.
How?
I discovered a need. Before the lockdown, I heard stories from my mum about one family or the other having sex-related issues. You’d hear one aunty had never had an orgasm and was sexually dissatisfied in her marriage. Anytime I went home, my mum and her friends would swap stories like that.
When lockdown came, it was like sex was all people could talk about online and offline. So, I decided that pleasure was a need. My plan was to sell vibrators to married women so they’d at least get some satisfaction.
Married women?
Yes. Women were the ones suffering according to the stories I heard. Also, I felt married women were a market audience people hadn’t gotten into like that. Till now, the market still isn’t saturated.
How did you start the business?
I started by dropshipping for a sex toy company. I paid ₦10k to register as a reseller, which gave me access to their website for pictures and videos of their products. From there, I marketed the pictures on WhatsApp and put my own price. If someone signified interest, I’d buy the toy from the company at a discounted reseller’s price and keep the profit. The company was in charge of delivering the product to the customer. For instance, they could give me a vibrator at a reseller’s price of ₦12k and I’d sell for ₦20k – ₦22k.
I only sold one item for the company in the whole of 2020 sha. A wand vibrator that brought me a ₦5k profit.
Was it difficult to get customers?
The problem was the company. They hardly gave resellers good products. Customers would reach out to me for products but I couldn’t deliver. The company could just decide to refuse to sell, saying they’d finished selling that particular product to resellers and wanted to sell the remaining themselves. It was like they only left the worst products for resellers, and that wasn’t helping me.
Yikes. What did you do?
I stopped dropshipping for them in 2021 and decided to buy and market my own toys. In March, a friend gifted me $100 (about ₦50k) and I used it to buy my first set of toys — 13 pieces of vibrators, dildos and BDSM kits.
My plan was to run ads on Instagram so I wouldn’t depend on WhatsApp. I didn’t do that till around October because I changed cities and needed a few months to settle in.
Why did you change cities?
I was tired of where I was and wanted a change of environment. Plus, a friend offered to let me stay in one of their self-contained apartments for free, so it was a win-win.
Fast forward to October, I started reaching out to bloggers and Instagram influencers for ads. I paid ₦5k to one influencer, and ₦3k to another. That week, I made ₦150k in sales. Profit alone was about ₦100k.
That’s impressive
It was as if the whole city knew about me from those posts. That’s how my business kicked off. My main mode of marketing is still influencers, and I run ads continuously every month. In the early days, I spent about ₦15k monthly on the ads and made almost ten times that figure in sales.
I’m curious. Did you experience any challenges starting out?
Not really. My family knows I sell sex toys and everyone minds their business. I’ve even sold toys to my relatives. I hardly have issues with customers too. People love their sex toys, maybe even too much. They treat them like important items.
If I were to name a challenge, it’d be that people tend to abuse sex toys. I started with the intention of selling the toys to married people, but it’s mostly young people who buy them. They’d buy up to four or five toys at once and come back again the next month.
One time, I visited a friend and saw that she had eight vibrators. People buy several types to experiment with and toss them after a while. I mean, it’s good for business but it’s bad for them. Excessive usage like that can’t be healthy.
Oh, I didn’t mention I also started a decorative flower business in 2021.
Tell me more about that
I’m always on the lookout for business opportunities, and I stumbled on bonsai flowers. They’re used to decorate TV consoles and are imported from China. I made findings and started off buying small quantities from a supplier — like 20 at a time — and reselling.
At the time, each flower was ₦1k, and I sold to wholesalers at ₦1800 – ₦2000. I also created an Instagram page for the business. For retail customers, I could sell the flowers at any amount. I once sold four pieces at ₦5k each.
I got my big break in 2022 when my sugar daddy gave me ₦2.6m to invest in both my sex toy and flower businesses.
Woah. This is the first time you’re mentioning him
I met him through a friend during lockdown. He was the “friend” who allowed me to live in a free apartment. But I didn’t want to rely on anyone and wasn’t asking him for money. Living for free was enough for me. I just wanted to do my business and make money.
How he even gave me the ₦2.6m was funny. I’d given him some of the flowers, and he liked them. He asked if I could sell them on a larger scale, and I responded that I’d need at least 1000 pieces to start. Then he just announced that he’d give me the money. I used that money to buy 3000 flower pieces and about 100 sex toys in October 2022. Funny enough, we parted ways soon after.
That investment must’ve changed your income flow
It did. The thing about having so many products as a business owner is that you become more confident in your marketing. I think I cleared off that first bulk batch of flowers in seven weeks.
This is how it worked: I imported the pieces straight from China and stored them in a warehouse. Since I was buying so much, the cost price for each piece was ₦600. Clearance at the port was the same cost for each item. So, I also paid ₦600 for each item. That meant it cost me ₦1200 to bring one flower pot to Nigeria.
After I cleared the products, I started running ads on Instagram with influencers. Also, I sold mostly to wholesalers — people who could buy at least 400 pieces. The flower business is quite profitable in Nigeria o. I didn’t expect the turnover. I didn’t know so many people were into interior decor like that. I made about ₦3.2m in profit from the flowers in 2023.
That same year, I was finally able to afford to move into my dream two-bedroom apartment. That costs me ₦600k/year in rent.
Nice. So you run both businesses concurrently?
The flowers are like a side hustle. I imported only three times in 2023. It’s capital-intensive and clearance costs can be all over the place. I’ve not even imported anything this year. Right now, I work with a supplier in Lagos whenever someone reaches out wanting to buy them. So I just add a small profit on top and she sends it to them. It’s not regular and I don’t actively market so I can’t say I make a particular amount from it each month. My sex toy business brings in enough money for me.
How much do you make on average from the toys?
I comfortably make between ₦150k – ₦300k in profits monthly. ₦150k in a really bad month.
I’m currently in a good place with my finances. There’s a satisfaction that comes from knowing I can pay for most of the things I want. I can walk into an eatery and order food without first asking for the price. I can hang out with friends and travel — at least within Nigeria. But I’m okay.
Can you break down what these expenses look like in a good month?
I’m always home, so I hardly spend on transportation. But I often host get-togethers to spend time with friends, and that increases my feeding expenses. That’s usually like an extra ₦80k. It’s not every month though.
Also, I don’t save. I’m always buying one product or the other for my business so I always need liquid cash.
What about black tax?
I rarely send money home unless it’s absolutely necessary. Maybe ₦5k here or ₦10k there. The most I’ve ever spent on black tax was ₦100k a few years ago when I paid my parent’s rent. I’ve realised that black tax isn’t always from a place of need, it’s usually from entitlement and greed.
I sent money home regularly when I first started making money, but I shut that down when it became too much for me. I noticed everyone was still fine without my money, so they’ll continue to be fine.
What’s the hardest part of running a sex toy business?
People treat the toys like food. What I mean is, someone would place an order right now and expect it to be delivered immediately. Some are ready to pay double the delivery fee just to get it immediately. I think it’s the state of mind people are in when they order an item. I constantly have to manage expectations.
Is it weird that that’s the only “difficult” side to the business?
Uhm —
It’s just a relatively easy business. I don’t even look for customers anymore. Sometimes, I spend only ₦3k in a month for influencer marketing and I still make sales. My customer base is mostly repeat purchases and referrals.
How would you describe your relationship with money?
I believe money is a spirit. If I don’t plan how I want to spend money before it enters, I may end up spending it on emergencies or impulse purchases. So, I try to plan and track my expenses to avoid that.
Also, I’m earning well, even though it sometimes feels like I’m not with how the economy moves these days. I need to reach a point where my income is more than my expenses. Maybe then, things will begin to make sense.
How much do you think you should be earning for that to happen?
At least ₦3m/month. I say this because, even though I don’t have that many expenses, I spend a lot on my business. I have to restock regularly and my money is tied down until I sell them. The thing with business is, you’re always buying. It’s sometimes difficult to separate business money and personal money. So, if I’m earning ₦3m and spending like ₦1m, I’d be rich.
Have you considered what you’d need to get to that figure?
I started offering business training classes this year. In fact, my first class is a few months away. I’m charging people ₦50k to teach them about the palm oil storage business, and I’ve gotten seven students so far. I should start running ads to get more students soon. I also plan to hold mini-importation and business foundation classes. Let me teach what I know how to do best, right?
Get it! Is there anything you’d like to be better at financially?
Knowing how to grow my money through investments, but I’ll still need money for that. I bought two plots of land for ₦1.3m in 2023 and they’re worth about ₦2.4m now. The land is close to a university and I know I can make good money if I build on it. It’s that or I turn it into a farm. But these are plans for the future.
Is there anything you want but can’t afford right now?
A phone so I can have a separate business phone. It’s very difficult using one phone for both business and personal life because of the tons of messages and calls I get. I’m considering an iPhone 12, but that’s like ₦530k.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
8. Maybe by the time I start the training classes and make small additional money, it’d be a 10. Ask me again in October.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Resignations and layoffs aren’t strange terms in the world of capitalism, and while the latter usually comes as a surprise, it’s not often immediate. There are often a few days or weeks to tie up loose ends — the notice period, AKA that “hanging around” period when you’re not actually working but still “working”.
We asked some 9-5ers who’ve been in this situation to share what they did — or didn’t do — during this period. Think of it as a guide.
“Just go on leave” — Wilson*, 27
I went on my annual two-week leave and then sent in my one-month resignation notice on the first day of leave. That way, I used half of the notice period to rest before returning to discuss the handover. I thought my bosses would try to cut the leave short, but they didn’t. Everything went smoothly. I advise people to do the same, especially if they’re leaving to join another job. So, they can catch a little break before jumping into the 9-5 life again.
“Steal everything” — Esther, 23
I was fired from a social media management job because I couldn’t grow the Instagram followers from 3k to 15k in two months. To make it worse, they kept me for two weeks extra to help hire my replacement. I stayed because I wanted to get my full salary, but I stole all the office milo and milk sachets. At least, I was drinking tea for two weeks for free and no one noticed, or maybe they didn’t care.
“Stop pretending to work” — Tayo, 29
My previous workplace was quite toxic and competitive. Even if you managed to finish your tasks early, you still had to make a show of being busy by announcing what you were doing so you wouldn’t look unproductive or be told you aren’t “thinking outside the box” to look for more things to solve. I used to form busy a lot by being all over Slack.
But when they laid me off and gave me a two-week heads-up, I just stopped faking it. I did my tasks quietly within a few hours and slept for the rest of the workday. No more announcing on Slack or volunteering to do things outside my duties. I was laid off with a few other people, and those two weeks were the quietest our Slack channel ever was. Work still went on fine. I guess we all just threw busy body-ism out of the window because we knew there was no point again.
“Tell your employers your mind” — Kay, 31
When I turned in my resignation, my boss scheduled an exit interview, and I used the opportunity to tell them my mind about everything I thought they weren’t doing well. It’s not like I was fighting with them. I just finally had the freedom to talk, knowing they couldn’t use it against me or become passive-aggressive. Plus, it was up to them to take my feedback or not. It no longer affected me.
“Remove personal items” — Mariam, 22
Don’t be like me who forgot to sign out of WhatsApp on my company laptop only to find out weeks later that my account was still linked there. I cringe every time I remember how much I shit-talked my boss on a group chat with my friends or even my personal chats with my boyfriend. Jesus.
“Show them what they’ll miss” — Detola, 28
Anytime I resign from a place, I make sure to do my best work during the notice period. Most of it is due to excitement that my days there are numbered. A part of it is also to show them what they’ll miss. Like a corporate version of “You’ll never find another woman like me”. It’s petty, I know, but I absolutely love it.
“Look for another job” — Ben*, 25
I was once laid off with a one-month notice, and I used the entire period to job hunt. I’d literally be in a team meeting with my phone, and on a job interview with my laptop. I was still working o, but my priority was securing my future. I also took many sick days to prepare for interviews. The game is the game. If you like, feel guilty. Everybody will move on.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s the oldest memory of money you remember?
A bunch of things. For example, when I was five, I’d find stacks of mint notes when taking my father’s socks out of his shoes. Let’s talk a bit about him.
Sure thing
My father was a businessman who owned a warehouse selling chair and couch materials, so he handled a lot of cash. He was barely home, too — his business was in a different city. So, every time he came home, and I found the mint notes in his shoes, I felt a sense of comfort; it was like we were more comfortable than we were.
It wasn’t just about the notes; the quantity of food items and snacks increased when he was home. I sensed that nothing could go wrong whenever he was around. When I asked for money, he gave me on the spot.
He passed away when I was seven years old. Naturally, all of these things stopped.
I’m sorry to hear that. Can you describe what life was like after his death?
He married multiple wives and had many children, so everyone went on their way. I’m the last child from my mum’s side, and all my older siblings were already working. It was after his death that I found out that my siblings probably had the lowest income in the family. It even took a while to know that because I lived with my mum, and they all lived in different cities. My mum and I lived in one of those towns where the lines between the rich and poor were blurred as long as everyone had food to eat.
When I was 14, I moved to Lagos to live with one of my sisters. She had a business but only little money, and sometimes, it was clear that she didn’t have enough to give me. Whenever I noticed this, the first thing that crept up in my head was, “This wouldn’t be happening if my dad was alive.”
From that time, I developed an aversion to asking for stuff. When I got into university, I didn’t expect a monthly allowance, and I only called my siblings for ₦2k—3₦k when my account was red. Sometimes, I’d go to a restroom first to cry. It was easier for me to cry than ask for money.
It’d be easier if I were making some money in university, but I didn’t know how to. The only path I knew was to go to school and get a degree, and that’s what I did. That said, I wrote for people in university, but I got paid in “You’re good at this.” Nothing more.
Thankfully, I finished uni in 2017.
What happened after?
I returned to Lagos. But something happened on my way back: I passed the gate of a prominent newspaper company and told myself I would return the following week to look for a job. It was a slightly long process, but they accepted me as an intern.
Ouuuu
They said they wouldn’t pay me, but I didn’t mind. That’s how I found myself in the newsroom. While I didn’t have an official salary, I occasionally got handouts from the editors. Some also lived close to me and dropped me at my bus stop. Then, I started writing and getting my bylines; things changed slightly.
How?
Brown envelopes. If you work in print media, you can’t escape them. It’s pretty simple; you cover an event or write about an organisation, and they pay you. The average I got was about ₦5k.
What was the highest amount you made?
I once made about ₦70k in a week. I don’t remember the number of stories I wrote to hit that number though. But I remember that once I started that internship, it was the last time I asked for money from home. You’d think I’d be happier for it.
But you weren’t?
Nope. My mum fell sick. Stroke.
Nothing has remained the same since. I still think it wouldn’t have happened if we had money, and I was angry about that for a long time. It also meant that I couldn’t stop thinking about how to help my siblings take care of our mum, so there was pressure to make money.
But you know, I had to focus on the things I could control: work.
I feel you. How was it going?
For six months, I lived primarily on those brown envelopes. On a random Sunday, one of the senior editors came into the newsroom and said something about how he’d been seeing me for a while but wasn’t sure what I did. I told him I was an intern. He asked if I was getting paid, and when he learned I wasn’t, he instructed them to pay me ₦10k for the six months I had worked there and then ₦10k for every subsequent month I worked.
That’s so wholesome
I didn’t get the arrears payment — something about documentation — but I started getting paid ₦10k/month. Fast-forward a few months, and I went for NYSC. The newspaper transferred me to a branch in the city where I was posted. There, I had about four income sources: NYSC paid ₦19800, the newspaper paid ₦10k, and the brown envelopes.
And the fourth?
Advertising. The newspaper gave anyone who brought an advertising lead 30% of the total amount paid as commission. I got that a couple of times, but it was far and in between. By the time I finished NYSC, I had saved up to ₦200k.
I don’t know. But that feels impressive.
I saved money like hell. The ginger was my mum. She was now living with my sister, and we wanted to move then from the apartment they lived in. Everyone had to chip in.
I saved ₦10k monthly and lived on the NYSC ₦19800. Also, I didn’t touch the money I made from advertising commissions — about ₦100k.
I had some big help, too. When I was leaving for service, an older friend helped me find accommodation in the city I was posted to, so I didn’t pay rent — such a huge help.
When service ended, I chipped in for rent, bought my first laptop and a phone. I had about ₦10k left. I can’t say I was very bothered — I was used to not having money, but I now had a decent phone and laptop.
And a plan, I imagine
Kind of. I knew my time at the newspaper was over. I didn’t think I belonged there anymore; I’d had my fill working with older adults. I wanted someplace that had more people around my age.
A friend introduced me to a HOD at a music company to write for their website. I took their tests, and I was in.
How much?
₦50k/month. They promised to review the salary for six months, and I was naive enough to believe them.
One year passed, and I didn’t hear a word. The place had also become really toxic, and the person I reported to was moving weirdly. It wasn’t the best time of my life.
But see, ₦10k still went into my savings every month. I shared what remained between commuting and contributing at home. However, that meant I couldn’t afford to buy lunch at work or do anything much, really.
Not having money sucks, man. Do you want to hear a story?
Yes please
On my way to work one morning, I stopped at a train tracks to buy some snacks. As I was taking money out of my bag, some guy charged at me and took my phone out of my bag. But for some reason, he returned and gave it back. I should have been relieved, but I burst into tears.
I was like, “I’m out here at this spot at 6:30 a.m. because I had to jump buses. I’m buying snacks because that’s what I could afford.”
I almost lost my phone at a job that didn’t rate me enough to keep their promises. It was then that I decided to leave.
What did that look like?
I started by volunteering. I did a bunch of work for conference organisers. There, I met someone who had a business newsletter. One thing led to another, and I started contributing to the newsletter — no pay.
But it led to something
It did. A company that published a business blog hired him. Luckily, they needed one more person on the team, and I backed myself and asked him to throw my name in. About a month later, the publication editor invited me to write tests. In the end, they asked how much I wanted. Without missing a beat, I said ₦150k. The editor said okay, and I was like, “Wait a minute.”
You should have asked for more, right?
I didn’t think about that at the time. It was more about feeling like I was leaving the trenches. Some context: When I was in uni, my ultimate goal was to land a job that’d pay me ₦100k. Now, I got ₦150k.
I started the job in December 2020 as a writer and social media strategist. I threw myself into the role, and my salary jumped to ₦200k after my first performance review six months later. In December 2021, I got another 50k raise.
Sweet. Now you were at ₦250k
The raises made saving 20% of my salary every month easy—no compromises. Also, for the first time since I started working, I could afford to buy lunch at work occasionally.
Interestingly, ₦250k/month was also beginning to look small.
What changed?
The people I now had in my network. It’s essential to open your eyes to what’s around you. When I was in school, the only people I knew were my family members, and they didn’t have much. But the place I worked opened me up to another world. I was working with people from private schools and some who went to school abroad.
Growing up without money sometimes makes you feel like you’re not enough. But this company hired me and these people, so I knew I was on to something. It helped that I was also good at my job.
What came after this realisation?
I knew I could ask for more. During the next performance review, I asked for ₦500k. However, I got ₦320k plus another ₦50k monthly allowance. I had a feeling it could have been more, but it did something for me — I could now afford taxis to work. I was also saving 40% of my salary. By the middle of 2023, I saved up a little over ₦1m, which was enough to get me an apartment. But again, I was now broke.
But my discontent at work was only getting worse. Besides, I was tired of social media management, and it felt like I’d reached a ceiling. The best thing was to focus on what I could control — putting my CV out there.
How did that go?
I had a couple of leads, but nothing panned out until October 2023, when I got a ₦170k/month side gig. The following month, I got another offer to lead marketing at a tech company. I asked for ₦1.4m, but we landed at ₦750k.
How did you feel about that?
It was about 2x my salary then, so it was a good deal for me. I held all three jobs for a month, making my first million.
Haha. I was 27 before ₦1m entered my account at the same time. The following month, December, I resigned from my previous job and the side gig and focused on this job. I’m still there.
How has 2024 been for you?
I’ve been primarily focused on a savings goal. In December last year, my mum mentioned how she’d like a piece of land in our hometown. She wanted it, and I told her I would make it happen. I gave myself a six-month timeline to raise the money, and I’ve been saving ₦200k/month. I have ₦1m in that savings account now. The piece of land I want costs between ₦1m and ₦1.5m.
Well done
I was also saving ₦50k in another account for my rent and ₦50k for emergencies. The only problem is that I almost always touch that one. I will say that although I’m earning more than I’ve done in my life, I’m working a lot of hours for it. However, it feels like I’m hustling backwards.
Why do you think so?
The easiest suspect is inflation. It’s eaten into all my gains in the past few years. I can’t even afford to move out of my apartment, which costs ₦580k/year, because the rent prices have increased. And I don’t want to use more than a month’s salary to pay my rent. I feel like I’m standing on solid ground now, but it’s still nothing compared to what it would have been like a few years ago.
As it stands, I’m down to my last ₦2k and looking forward to my salary at the end of each month. I work long hours every day of the week, so it feels unfair sometimes.
Can you believe I can’t even take a taxi to work every day because the prices have shot up, too? So, I still jump buses.
Is there even any way to work around this?
There is. I have to “outearn” inflation. That’s where my head is at now, and how I can insulate myself. For example, my life will be soft if I’m on $4k/month now. The only work I’ll have to do is manage lifestyle creep. I won’t move to a duplex in Lekki just because I want to change apartments.
Fair enough. This inflation talk makes me curious about your monthly expenses.
These are the recurring expenses. I still send more money home because I’m now the biggest earner and sometimes have to help out my siblings.
And your savings?
I have about ₦3m in savings right now, plus the ₦1m I have for my mum’s land. I’ve been saving for so long that I’ve become comfortable with it. The next ground I want to conquer now is investing.
Tell me more?
I started putting money in stock in 2021 out of curiosity. I invested ₦50k and bought some Apple stocks when they were $80 and MTN stocks at ₦170/share. It’s grown to ₦250/share now. The Apple stocks are doing pretty well, too. I topped up my investment portfolio with some Berkshire stocks at some point. Overall, my portfolio is worth about $500 now.
I’m giving that more thought and learning more about the stock market. I’ve also bought a couple of courses. I’ll even take it if I can work in a financial institution.
You’re going all in, aren’t you?
I have to. There’s so much I have to do. The plot of land I’m buying for my mum is the beginning — I need to purchase properties in her name. She deserves a lot more than she’s getting, and it’s my responsibility to provide these for her.
Curious. Have you questioned why you feel this way?
It’s simple: the happier she is, the happier I am. I’ve realised that money is a tool to show love, and I won’t have it any other way.
But have you thought about how much you need to be making now, realistically?
$2k/month is an excellent place to be right now. It’s a short-term goal for me, and I know I’ll have to put in a lot of hours to make it happen — as it should be.
Oh, wait. I almost forgot —
I’m listening
I just got a side gig paying me ₦300k/month. By the end of this month, I’ll start earning ₦1.05m. Exciting times.
You’ve come a long way, haven’t you?
It feels like that sometimes. I’m not going to lie; there’s been a lot of growth, and it’s shaped by the environment and the people around me since 2019. I’ve seen what’s possible, and that’s where my sights are now.
LFG! Is there anything you want but can’t afford?
A car. I go out almost every day, and taxis are expensive. I save money from jumping on buses, but it’s not convenient. Sometimes, there are hidden costs, too. Imagine ruining a ₦26k dress because I wanted to save ₦6k on transport.
But where do I find ₦6m – ₦8m for a car right now? It’s so interesting that I’m earning ₦1m/month and can’t close my eyes to buy a car. It will take some time and probably mean clearing all my savings. God abeg.
The “God Abeg is so real. How would you rate your financial happiness?
2/10 for a bunch of reasons. I earn more, but I feel poorer. Even though I’m intentional about it, I don’t have much savings. I’ll have to dip my savings if I don’t work for a month. I’m grateful for my growth, but I’m still in survival mode. Yet I have to work every day even to make this much. There’s still a lot of work to do to create the life I want for myself. But It’s also how I know there are many beautiful things to look forward to.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
We’ve established that bridesmaiding is an expensive venture for Nigerian ladies, as they shell out as high as ₦800k to be a part of the intending bride’s bridal train. But what does it look like for their counterparts, the groomsmen?
Considering that men don’t have to spend extra money on glamming up their faces or sewing expensive owambe styles, one might assume that their expenses should be significantly lesser and budget friendly. But to confirm, we asked six groomsmen about the costs of being a groomsman and their stories are proof that “weddings” are expensive for everyone involved.
Taiwo, 30
Highest spend: ₦280k
The most recent wedding I was a groomsman at was in April. A friend of over 10 years was getting married. He was also my groomsman when I got married, it was only right that I returned the goodwill. The wedding was outside Lagos, so we had to sort out accommodation. We got a shared apartment for ₦150k per night, and it was shared among five occupants. I paid ₦60k for me and my wife. Apart from my outfit material , my wife also had to wear the theme cloth of the day, so that was about ₦90k on materials and another ₦50k on tailoring. Another ₦50k went into getting new shoes for me and my wife, and I contributed ₦30k for the couple’s gift.
For me, I always ask myself some questions before I commit to the financial burden of being a groomsman.
“How close are we? Can the person do the same for me?” Once I have my answers, I make a decision. I’ve politely turned down several requests in the past.
Deji*, 30
Highest spend: ₦1.25 million.
I spent this much because I wasn’t just part of the groomsmen, I was the best man. The groom had come through for me in so many ways too —he’s my guy, but also like a mentor and older brother.
The wedding was in Benin, so I spent ₦80k on flights — this was in 2022. We wore two traditional outfits and one suit, and I paid ₦125k for all three. ₦40k went into accommodation, and another ₦150k for spraying the couple at the party. As groomsmen, we also had to chip in ₦250k for gifts for the couple. The bulk of my spend — ₦600k — was a personal cash gift to the couple.
To be honest, my finances took a hit, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way;he’d have done the same or more for me.. Right now, a friend’s impact on my life and my current earning power will determine how far I’m willing to go for them.
Feranmi*, 31
Highest spend: ₦125k
As a groomsman, I had to pay ₦50k each for suits. The groomsmen were also required to wear white agbada for the traditional ceremony. I didn’t have one, so ₦22k went into that. The wedding was in Ibadan, and I had to make a trip down from Lagos. Thankfully train tickets were quite cheap at the time,so I only spent about ₦4k on transportation.
When I got to Ibadan, I realised that the groom didn’t make plans for accommodation so ₦30k went into paying for a -2day hotel stay.
As a groomsman, you also want to spray the groom on the dance floor. I think I withdrew about ₦20k for that. The whole expense came down to over ₦125k which was a huge sum to me in 2022. I literally spent a third of my house rent on groomsman duties. But the groom was my guy guy, so I didn’t bat an eye going all out like that.
Although my finances have significantly picked up these days, you have to be a very close friend before I agree to be one of your groomsmen. Otherwise, I’ll just send in a cash gift of ₦15-₦20k, which is a fraction of whatever I’d have spent as a groomsman.
Hammed*, 25
Highest spend: ₦200k
The wedding was outside of Lagos and I travelled by road to Osun. I spent about ₦200k on sewing the different clothes to be worn. This was a significant amount for me at the time as I had barely started working and didn’t have a huge savings.
When I got to Osun, I barely had money left to spend on anything. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about accommodation. We all slept in a large hotel room, courtesy of the groom.
I wouldn’t say the costs had a huge effect on my finances as I was able to make any money spent back, . However, I didn’t envisage that I’d have to be part of so many activities before and during the ceremony. I anticipated a fun experience, but it was hard work all through. I don’t regret it. And while I can’t even confirm the groom would do the same for me, I’m sure he is a valuable friend in several other ways.
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Ayo, 30
Highest spend: ₦230k
I was a groomsman and best man for the wedding. The groom and myself are good friends. I escorted him to buy his ring, and even planned his engagement, so at that point it was settled I was going to be the best man. The whole time I wasn’t thinking about the financial implication of things. I just wanted to make sure my friend had the best day he could.
Majority of the expense went into our clothes. I spent ₦70k on a three-piece tux, and another ₦30k went into a new pair of shoes. We also had to wear white for the traditional ceremony, but thankfully I had one and didn’t have to incur extra cost. The wedding was in Akure, so travel expenses by road came to about ₦30k. There was also ₦100k that went into spraying money.
I still approach groomsmen requests with graciousness. I look at the relationship I have with the groom;I don’t take it for granted that someone finds me worthy to play a special role in their day. If it’s beyond my budget, I politely decline and offer a modest cash gift to support the groom.
Jaiye*, 28
Highest spend: ₦180k
A friend got married last year and he needed me to be a part of his “agbada men”. I’m not sure if agbada men and groomsmen are the same thing, but we didn’t have to pay for suits. It was just one outfit for the wedding and that seemed fair enough. The material was ₦50k and it came with a custom-made beaded velvet cap for ₦15k. I spent another ₦15k on sewing and ₦20k on shoes. The agbada men also planned a surprise bachelor’s eve for the groom so we had to contribute ₦30k each to make that happen.
The wedding was in Badagry, so I made plans with a neighbour who offers private cab services. ₦50k went into the transport expense because the man had to wait to take me back. The whole expense came to around ₦180k and I wasn’t proud of my financial decision because the guy wasn’t even a close friend like that.
Now, once I get an inkling that your groomsmen ask is nearing a ₦50k budget, I politely decline and send a monetary gift. Maybe ₦10-20k.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
My daily allowance in primary school. Every day, I‘d get ₦500 to share with my younger brother. But I’d save my own half of the money for two weeks and return it to my mum. After collecting the money, she’d laugh and pray for me.
Why were you returning the money to her?
I was nine years old and saw how she struggled to provide for us; I wanted to make things easier for her in my own little way. My mum was once a trader, but she got robbed around the time I entered primary school, and had to start roasting corn to make money.
My dad, on the other hand, worked at a beverage factory but it wasn’t stable. He always feared he’d be laid off due to constantly changing company policies.
When was the first time you made money?
2014. I was in JSS 1 when I started hawking uncooked corn for my mum. Some context: My dad had been laid off and was now working at a transport company where he made little. My mum became the primary provider, so my siblings and I had to assist whenever we could.
I was out to hawk every day after school with my older sister from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. I’d go out with ₦900 – ₦1,200 worth of corn on a tray and usually did three or four trips within that period. This brought about ₦3k in profit, and my mum gave me a percentage — usually ₦300 or ₦500.
What did you spend the money on?
I saved most of the money in a piggy bank, and I often used my savings to help out my mum whenever she complained about being broke. I spent some of my money on myself, though — from snacks and soft drinks to okrika clothes.
I stopped hawking in JSS 3 after we started hearing kidnapping rumours in our area. My mum didn’t want to risk it.
What did you do next?
I got a job serving food at a restaurant after finishing secondary school in 2019. My salary was ₦10k/month and I made between ₦1k – ₦2k extra in tips weekly. I stopped after three months because the male customers kept trying to sexually harass me and the owner didn’t care.
After that, I moved to another restaurant where I also served food, but my salary was ₦7k/month. I didn’t make as much from tips either, but I felt safe. The owner was a woman who didn’t let her customers try rubbish with her staff.
I worked there for about five months before I left to start JAMB lessons. The lesson fees were ₦6k/month, but I couldn’t continue after the third month because I’d exhausted my savings. Thankfully, I managed to pass JAMB.
So, off to the university?
The lockdown happened and kept me home for a few months. But I wasn’t idle. I worked in a hotel as a receptionist, and then as a bar attendant. It paid ₦15k/month and I made even more working at the bar.
The hotel was running “codedly” because it was during the lockdown and no one was supposed to be there, but we had Yahoo boys who came regularly to drink. I made extra money by increasing the price of the drinks. If something cost ₦1,500, I sold it for ₦2,500 and pocketed the extra money. I can’t remember how much now, but I made so much at the bar.
Foolishly, I left the bar after three months.
What happened?
I got into a relationship with a guy who didn’t think a lady should be working at a hotel and bar. He promised he’d get me another job, but that never happened. He gave me money — between ₦15k – ₦50k — on several occasions, though.
It was from these monies I gathered ₦60k to pay for admission acceptance when uni resumed in 2021. But the relationship ended when admission came. He didn’t think I’d be faithful in school, so he ended things. I was only able to afford school fees with my elder brother’s help. He sent me ₦200k — all his life savings — to help complete the ₦220k fee.
Did you try anything to make money in uni?
Well, I dropped out of uni after a year. During that time, I relied on whatever amount my elder siblings sent to me.
Why did you drop out?
In 2022, my mum’s pastor told me and my mum about an opportunity to travel to Egypt to work as a house girl or house manager, and make as much as ₦300k/month. The plan was that someone in Egypt would sponsor my passport, visa and travel costs. In exchange, I’d pay them everything I make in Egypt for a year and seven months.
I was quite sceptical about the plan; I’ve heard stories of people who travel abroad to work and end up in prostitution. So, I initially refused to do it. But my mum reminded me there was no money to keep me in school. I saw a point in her argument.
I didn’t have a source of income, no potential boyfriend to sponsor me, and my brother could go broke at any point. How did I expect to start raising ₦200k? Plus, ASUU was on strike again and it looked like I was just sitting at home doing nothing.
I had no other choice. I agreed to travel to Egypt.
What was the process like?
I applied for a passport and visa and did a lot of medicals — especially COVID tests. I was also screened for HIV, diabetes and pregnancy. They don’t take pregnant house managers because the job involves cleaning and taking care of children, and pregnancy means you can’t do as much.
The whole process took about three months. My sponsor paid for everything, so I don’t know how much it all cost. That said, I know that sponsors make a crazy amount of profit from bringing people in. There’s no way they spent so much that you need someone’s full salary for over a year, but that’s how it works here.
So, you travelled to Egypt in 2022
Yup. I arrived at my sponsor’s three-bedroom flat with several other girls she’s sponsored also living here. Everyone only eats once a day in the house. When you’re lucky, you eat two times. The usual meal was one loaf of bread, a tea bag and some sugar. Sometimes, we’d cook Nigerian rice and stew with chicken and share it among ourselves.
I stayed there for eight days before I got my first job as a cleaner. The jobs are pretty easy to get —people are always looking for help. Most of the house girl or cleaner jobs in Egypt require moving in with your bosses. I only get to return to my sponsor’s house for brief periods of time. But the jobs aren’t fixed contracts; I can decide to stop working with an employer at any time.
How much did the first job pay?
EGP5,500/month. The exchange rate was ₦35 to an Egyptian Pound then, and it came to ₦192,500. I kept EGP300 of my salary as a living allowance because I had to send the rest to my sponsor.
My feeding was handled by my employer so my allowance went to small expenses like jackets and socks for when I’m cold. Then, I’d gather whatever was left of the allowance — usually ₦15k— for a few months and send money home to my mum. She wasn’t pressuring me to send anything; I just did it because I wanted to help out.
What was the job like?
It was pretty decent. I cleaned for a Syrian family of two who were nice to me. Syrians are actually really nice people. I’ve worked with two of them, and they treated me well. Anyway, these ones gave me a room and bought pads and perfume for me. Sometimes, they tipped me if they thought I did a good job. I worked long hours — from 10 a.m. to midnight, but their kindness made it easy.
I was with them for five months. The woman of the house gave birth and became cranky. One day she shouted at me and asked me to leave. She said she didn’t want to see me again. So, I Ieft.
Did you find another job?
Yes. I found another within four days. Though this one was both cleaning and nanny work. The pay was also EGP5,500/month, but I left after 12 days. Taking care of babies is stressful and the madam saw I couldn’t do it. So, she just paid me for the days I worked and I left.
My next cleaning gig paid the same amount, and I spent seven months there. I never went on holiday once because my madam’s children always wanted to see my face. I finally left because my salary kept getting delayed and my sponsor wasn’t having it. Salaries are paid on the 26th here, and if I don’t send money to my sponsor that same day, she’ll call and start swearing at me. It was my sponsor who insisted I find another job.
Why were there salary delays, though?
My madam was a stay-at-home wife — most Egyptian wives are — and all the expenses were on the husband. I think they struggled with paying their children’s school fees and paying for my services, which caused the delays. I left the job in November 2023.
My next gig was supposed to pay EGP6,500/month, but I only worked for 10 days. I fell ill and my employer asked me to go home to get treated. By the time I returned, she said I should go back because she didn’t have money to pay me.
Ah
Thankfully, I got another EGP6,500/month gig with a rich family of seven in January 2024. My job was to clean and basically take care of whatever they needed. They had two other black women working for them — a Nigerian and a Sudanese.
I worked with them for almost five months, and I was able to pay off my debt to my sponsor in March 2024, four months earlier than I was supposed to. I felt like I was finally financially free.
How did that happen?
You see the family I was working with? Their money is long. They could just wake up one day and travel to London for a few days. They also had multiple luxury cars.
The husband was a health worker, but he didn’t work anymore. He stayed at home during the day and only went out at night. He also always moved with cash. The Nigerian maid told me he was into money laundering. She understood Arabic well and had worked with him for a year before I joined.
One day in February, the husband returned from a trip with a few bags. One of the bags contained chocolates and gifts, which he shared with everyone. I tried to help carry the bags inside, but he instructed me not to touch one of the bags. He took that bag inside himself. Later that night, his wife asked me to go inside the room to take their child’s pacifier. I saw that same bag in the room and got curious. I opened the bag and found lots of dollars and pounds. I’m not sure what possessed me, but I took some of the notes. When I later counted what I took, it was about $1,200.
Did your employers notice?
They didn’t. I hid the money in the visitors’ toilet downstairs just to be safe. I knew they’d kill me if I was caught. It was stealing, but I was just desperate.
I didn’t even touch the money for a few days because I was worried they’d look for it one day. I understand a little Arabic, so I consistently eavesdropped on their conversations to see if they’d talk about any missing money. Nothing like that.
I got the chance to take the money out of the house some days later when they travelled. Normally, they searched every maid leaving the house for holiday to be sure we didn’t take anything. But they travelled ahead of us and couldn’t search.
I finally took the money out and hid it in my sponsor’s house. I didn’t tell a soul, not even my Nigerian colleague. You can’t trust Nigerians in this country. They can snitch for no reason.
Was that the money you used to pay off your debt?
Yes. I first changed the money to naira because there was no way I could explain having dollars. I did the conversions small small, though. It was risky to carry all that dollars to change. Then, I called my sponsor and told her I was ready to pay off my balance. At that time, my outstanding debt was about ₦700k. She probably thought a man gave me the money to pay off my debt because it’s normal here.
I also sent ₦100k to my mum because she was ill at the time. I told her my employer had dashed me the money. I also sent my brother about ₦200k to buy a laptop. After paying off my debt and sending money home, I had about ₦200k left in my account.
Did you have to move out of your sponsor’s house after paying the debt?
Nope. My stuff is still there. She has her issues — especially when it comes to money — but we got along well because I hardly owed her. I know how she treated others, though. I once saw her beat up someone because they hadn’t paid for a month.
People get into those money issues when they try to send more money home. They’d ask the sponsor to loan them a month’s salary so they can send home or sort out some things. When they delay in paying back, it becomes an issue.
Curious. Do you know anyone this sponsorship thing didn’t work out for?
Yes. Several ladies I know are back in Nigeria because they couldn’t handle the pressure. In 2023, I met a lady in a hair salon; she’d just come into the country. The next thing I heard about her was that she wasn’t in the right mind and couldn’t work anymore. Her sponsor eventually called her family to pay for her return ticket back home.
I see. So, where are you at now?
I’ve collected my full salary without having to pay anyone for two months now. I left my former employer’s house recently because they claimed I didn’t complete my work one day and refused to pay the full salary. I’m at another job now, cleaning and managing the house for a family of three. My salary is EGP8,000/month, which is around ₦300k.
What are your monthly expenses like these days, since you don’t have to pay your sponsor?
I know I can’t do this work forever, so I’m saving for whenever I need to leave and look for something else to do. Right now, I have about ₦350k saved in a separate account.
Have you considered when you might stop?
I think I’ll do this house girl work for another two to three years to gather money. It’s one of the easiest jobs to get in Egypt. That doesn’t mean it’s not hard o. It’s really difficult.
There’s also the risk of the police catching and deporting me. I was supposed to get a one-year work permit when I got here which would be renewed every year, but my sponsor didn’t do it. I hope to do that next year.
It costs $1k to get the permit and about $200 to renew it every year. I’ll also have to pay for the two years I’ve already spent here.
What do you imagine will happen after?
I plan to take a software development or cybersecurity course after the third year. Maybe I’ll also look for a job I can do thrice a week, so I have more time. I can’t do much about future career plans now because my work doesn’t give me any extra time.
Do you plan to return to Nigeria?
It’s in my plans, but I have to learn a skill first. Even people who finished university don’t have jobs in Nigeria. Not to talk of me who didn’t finish. Dropping out of school is my only regret, but I have to move on.
What’s something you want, but can’t afford right now?
Land. I feel like owning land in Nigeria is a good investment choice.
Can you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
4. I’m making good money, but I’m not satisfied with the level I’m currently on. That number would be a 6 if I was in another country like the US or Canada and making like $5k/month from software development or working as a travel nurse.
That’s another thing I want to do if I had the money — study nursing. I believe I can do that well. I just generally have big dreams, and I hope I can achieve them someday.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
The Nigerian wedding industry is the epitome of the saying, “It’s expensive out here”. From make-up to hall decoration, the cost of an item is most likely to double — or even triple — once the word “wedding” is mentioned.
Wedding vendors be like…
The intending couple aren’t the only ones affected by this account balance-reddening venture. In recent years, bridesmaids have had to dig deep into their purses to afford the expenses that come with the position. We spoke to six Nigerian women about what it costs to be a Nigerian bridesmaid.
May, 29
Highest amount spent bridesmaiding: ₦800k
I spent that much on one wedding because I had to take flights to the bride’s village for the traditional wedding and then to Abuja for the church wedding. That cost about ₦300k. Then I spent about ₦150k on two outfits, ₦50k on make-up and contributed ₦30k with the other bridesmaids to throw the bride a bridal shower.
I can’t remember how I spent the rest now, but I still bought her a gift and took her out to eat one time. Then there was the cost of transportation within both cities and spraying money during the reception. I even had to borrow money for my flight back because my salary was delayed a bit. The expenses were worth it because she’s my childhood best friend. I wouldn’t spend that much money if it were someone else.
My usual bridesmaid budget is ₦100k – ₦200k and the outfits take most of the money — specifically sewing. Aso-ebi can cost between ₦15k – ₦50k, and my tailor charges between ₦30k – ₦50k. I try to limit bridesmaid activities to once every two months because of these expenses.
Rebecca, 26
Highest amount spent bridesmaiding: ₦300k
The bride lived on the outskirts of Lagos and didn’t provide any accommodation. She expected all six bridesmaids to manage in one room in her dad’s house for two days. I couldn’t do that. I think I spent about ₦80k on hotel fees alone — I stayed three days because I was too tired after the wedding.
I actively avoid bridesmaid activities — because where is the money? — but when I have to, I try to keep my budget under ₦100k. That almost never works out because I still have to spend on Uber cabs, make-up and outfits. And good owambe make-up starts from ₦20k. How much is remaining?
Ola, 31
Highest amount spent bridesmaiding: ₦400k
My husband and I drove from one city to another for that wedding, so a good percentage of the ₦400k went into servicing and fueling the car for the six-hour journey.
Out of that ₦400k, I also contributed ₦30k for the bridal shower, ₦20k for the wedding gift and ₦60k for hotel accommodation. Aso-ebi was ₦45k and sewing was ₦15k. I also had to buy shoes, a new purse and new hair. The hair cost about ₦100k.
I think a reasonable bridesmaid budget is ₦200k, especially with how expensive things are now. At least, I don’t do it every weekend, and I can only be a bridesmaid for people I care about.
Chioma, 23
Highest amount spent bridesmaiding: ₦150k
I’ve actually only been a bridesmaid once in my life. The expenses would’ve been more than that, but the bride is my close friend, and she was very understanding of the fact that I was going through a rough time.
The aso-ebi cost ₦50k, but she gave it to me for free. I used ₦50k to sew it and contributed ₦15k for the bridal shower. I made souvenirs for the wedding and that cost ₦35k. Make-up cost ₦15k, and the rest went into transportation, spraying and helping the bride pay for random things.
I feel like ₦150k is a reasonable budget for a bridesmaid. When it’s not like I’m the one getting married.
Prisca*, 26
Highest amount spent bridesmaiding: ₦200k
This was a few months ago and the money I spent still annoys me because I’d already accepted to be a bridesmaid before realising I’d have to buy two different aso-ebi for the traditional and white weddings. That cost ₦40k. The bride also asked all the bridesmaids to do a ponytail for the wedding, so I had to install a 360 lace wig. That cost about ₦120k. Then there was still make-up, hotel fees, styling and the rest.
I’ll make sure to confirm what I’m expected to buy before I agree to be a bridesmaid again. Spending more than ₦100k for someone else’s wedding is wild.
Jola*, 30
Highest amount spent bridesmaiding: ₦250k
I was the chief bridesmaid and a lot of that money went into getting outfits for the engagement party, traditional wedding, white wedding and afterparty. That also meant triple the cost of makeup (because of the three different events) and transportation. The bride handled accommodation and feeding, though. So, that helped.
My usual bridesmaid budget is ₦80k – ₦100k. Most of my friends don’t like wahala and a good number of them combined the traditional and white wedding on the same day. One-day weddings are usually more cost-effective because you’re just spending once. Right now, my motto is, “Count me out of any wedding that goes over a day”.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
When did you first realise the importance of money?
I have vague memories of my parents telling me I couldn’t go on an excursion in primary school because there was no money. I didn’t understand it. All my classmates were going; what do you mean there’s no money?
But the first time I really understood how much money can change your plans and affect your life was when I was preparing for my wedding in 2011. Before then, I didn’t have to think about money. My own was to collect money from my parents and go to school.
What happened during wedding prep that made you come to that realisation?
I was 22, unemployed and fresh out of NYSC, but somehow, I thought my husband and I would be able to afford my dream outdoor wedding and a one-week honeymoon in the Maldives. We did the outdoor wedding — it cost a little over ₦1m, but the Maldives trip would’ve cost us between ₦3m – ₦4m, which we didn’t have.
It’s not like the money wasn’t there. My husband has a thriving electronics business, but we had to prioritise everything on a scale of preference. We were planning a wedding, had to rent and furnish an apartment, and all the other expenses that come with starting a new home.
This was my introduction to financial responsibility. Things don’t just happen; money makes things happen, and sometimes you have to sacrifice a few things to afford something else.
That’s true
But I still thought life would be relatively easy. My husband has a traditional “provider” mentality, so I didn’t have to work for money. I just needed to have children and start my stay-at-home mum ministry. But the children didn’t come, and after about 10 months, I grew tired of waiting and visited the hospital to check if anything was wrong.
How did that go?
My worries were confirmed. I had fibroids, which were making pregnancy impossible. I got the diagnosis after I visited a second doctor and insisted on getting tested.
At the first hospital I went to, the doctor told me I was in too much of a hurry and just needed to have more sex. As in, he didn’t try to check anything — he just told me to go home and try more sex for the next six months. Now, I know many TTC mums can relate to having their worries overlooked by doctors in the early stages of infertility, but I didn’t know then, and I thought maybe I was overreacting.
But I still felt in my heart that something was wrong. So, I visited another hospital and got a doctor to listen to me. I paid ₦10k for the consultation, ₦15k for a hormonal profile test and I think ₦3k for a scan. It was the scan that showed the fibroids. The doctor said I needed surgery if I hoped to get pregnant.
How did you feel about that?
I was devastated and relieved at the same time. Devastated because I was scared of surgery, and relieved because it looked like I had found a solution. I told my husband but he was immediately against it. He also thought I was rushing. But I had a reason to rush. He’s eight years older than me, and the only male child in his family. I knew his family would soon start dropping hints.
Surgery was out of the question, so I began looking for alternatives. My mum swore that herbs could shrink the fibroids, and introduced me to a herbal practitioner who claimed to specialise in treating fibroids. This person charged me ₦80k for a herbal concoction that was supposed to shrink it in three months. This was 2012, so you should know ₦80k wasn’t small money. I collected the money from my husband and paid.
Three months passed, and my periods only got heavier. One time, I changed my sanitary pads in a restaurant’s toilet and bled through the new pad within 15 minutes. It was that bad.
Damn. I’m so sorry. Did you complain to the herbal practitioner?
I did. He suggested I wasn’t taking the concoctions as instructed, even though I was sure I followed all his steps. He gave me another concoction — that one cost about ₦20k — and said it was to stabilise my system to reduce the bleeding.
The bleeding reduced, but I started having migraines and dizzy spells. I fainted one time in the kitchen and my husband returned home from work and found me on the floor. He threw all the concoctions away and warned me never to visit the man again.
Did you return to the hospital?
For some reason, I still believed I could treat the fibroids without surgery. Most people I told about the situation either said they knew someone who got pregnant with fibroids or swore they used natural remedies to treat it.
Google became my best friend, and when I read that green tea helped reduce fibroids, I became a green tea ambassador. I drank it so much, I’m sure my pee was green at a point.
In 2013, an aunt introduced me to another herbal practitioner, claiming he was legit because he’d treated a close friend. I convinced my husband and he gave me the ₦45k I needed to start on the herbs. I spent about ₦120k over four months with that guy. I first had to do a herbal detox for a few weeks, then different herbal regimens over different periods. The guy felt legit, though. He kept asking me to do scans so we could observe the fibroids.
Were there improvements?
I grew tired of waiting to find out. I felt like I was doing scans and drinking potions without an end in sight. I’d asked the herbal practitioner several times about how long the treatment would take, and he always said it depended on how my body reacted to the treatments. It was too vague for me.
Also, my husband’s family had started dropping hints about babies. My mother-in-law had started calling more frequently to pray for me. Everyone knows that’s code for “Where are the grandchildren?”
I convinced my husband to agree to the surgery, and I did a myomectomy in early 2014. The operation, including some preliminary tests, cost about ₦200k.
What was recovery like?
It took me about two months to feel like myself again. I also had to wait at least four months before trying to conceive again. During the wait, I started sending out job applications as a joke. I was trying to keep myself occupied, and I figured the highest I’d get was a few interviews.
Surprisingly, I got a ₦80k/month front desk officer role at a logistics firm. The job proved to be a lifeline because it was the only thing that kept me sane when 2015 and 2016 passed, and I didn’t get pregnant.
Now, I was properly worried. The fibroids were gone, and I was taking fertility supplements to help with hormonal imbalance every single day, but nothing happened. Funny enough, all while this was happening, my husband hadn’t been tested.
Why, though?
He was busy and almost never went with me to the hospital. Plus, we all just assumed the fibroids were the problem. I changed doctors in 2016 — I wanted a second opinion — and my new doctor insisted that my husband do a semen analysis. To summarise, the chances of my husband naturally fathering a child were low and we needed to consider assisted reproduction — in vitro fertilisation.
Paint a picture of what that looked like
It was a lot of money, and mental and emotional stress. When we started the process in 2016, I quit my job because I didn’t want the stress of commuting and working to affect the procedure.
The process took about three months; they had to keep repeating tests and putting me on drugs to stimulate egg production. There was also the part where I had to inject myself with hormones every day for a week. I think the whole procedure cost us about ₦1.8 million. My husband even had to borrow part of that money because business wasn’t great at the time.
We got two viable embryos from that cycle and decided to transfer both. I was already dreaming of being called “mama twins”. Unfortunately, the embryos didn’t take and the cycle failed.
Oh no
I’ve never cried so much in my life. One thing about infertility is, you don’t know when it ends. You don’t know if a particular cycle is what will change your story, so you keep hoping. But the hope gets dashed again and again, and you have to keep it moving.
I had so much hope for that IVF cycle. I already had embryos! My children were alive, and it looked like my TTC journey was finally ending. But it disappeared again, and I just wanted to die.
It also didn’t help that our families knew we were trying IVF. I stopped picking up calls at a point because the amount of “Sorry. God will do it” I heard that period threatened to drive me insane.
I’m so sorry you went through that
Thank you. I’m not sure how I survived that period; the days were a blur. I just know that in 2017, I decided I needed another job to take my mind off things.
My husband’s friend helped me get a job at a finance company in August 2017. The role was customer retention and it paid ₦180k/month. Most of my salary went into retail therapy. Whenever I felt bad after seeing pictures of pregnant women on Instagram, I’d go to the mall to buy baby clothes and toys so I’d hug them to sleep.
It became a regular thing. I’d buy baby stuff, and when they began to pile up in the house, my husband would complain, and I’d give them out. Whenever I felt sad again, I’d buy more stuff. It was the only way I could cope.
In 2020, I tried another IVF cycle. That one cost about ₦3m.
How did it go?
I don’t know whether to say it was better than the previous attempt. I got pregnant, then had a miscarriage at the six-week mark. It was heartbreaking. The only thing that saved me from entering another depressive episode was the fact that I got a few more embryos from that cycle. We have them frozen for whenever we want to try again. Preserving each embryo at my clinic costs ₦600k/year.
Have you considered when you’d want to try again?
The plan was to try again in 2022, but we moved to our new house, and I didn’t want to risk doing that while stressing about moving to a new place.
We revisited the conversation in 2023, but I discovered some fibroids had regrown. They weren’t huge, but they posed a slight risk to embryo implantation and had to go. My doctor had already told me that the fibroids could grow back, so while I was disappointed, I just saw it as another hurdle to overcome.
I had another surgery around August. It cost about ₦750k for the procedure, tests and medication. The recovery period was basically the same as last time. I was allowed to work from home for a few months after, so I had time to heal.
I was just about to ask how work was going
Oh. I’m still at the same finance company. I’ve been promoted twice and my salary is now ₦450k. I’d probably earn more if I changed companies, but it’s easier for me to stay. I love the people I work with, and I’m already stressed about the challenges that come with being on a TTC journey to add career progression to my worries.
What are some of these challenges?
Where do I even start? There’s the emotional aspect. I know my hormonal imbalance isn’t the primary reason why we don’t have kids, but it still doesn’t stop me from crying or feeling a sharp pain in my heart when I see a pregnant woman.
There are also external factors. I’ve been married for over 10 years, so everyone knows there’s a problem in the baby-making process. You can’t imagine how often a harmless greeting from me turns into a prayer session. A former church member — we had no prior relationship — walked up to me one time, held my hands and told me she noticed I wasn’t smiling and that I needed to stay strong because infertility isn’t the end of the world.
Ah
It was the audacity for me. I’m part of a few TTC support groups online and when I share these experiences, they say it’s because I’m very friendly and approachable. Maybe I need to start frowning my face everywhere so people think twice about giving me unsolicited advice. But it’s still frowning that made that one show “concern”.
Also, several friends have hidden their pregnancies from me because they didn’t know how I’d feel. But the fact that I’m hurting doesn’t mean I can’t be happy for people. In fact, it hurts worse when I notice they’re avoiding me. Then there are the friends who stop associating with you after they get married because they somehow believe that infertility is communicable.
Really?
You have no idea. I’ve also made some fellow TTC friends who stopped talking to me after they had babies. Maybe they felt I’d be too sad to hear stories about their babies or they just didn’t want to make me uncomfortable.
See, I used to have a bunch of friends from uni. But infertility is lonely, and most people don’t know how to address it or even support their TTC friends, so they avoid you and the friendship suffers. Now, I don’t think I have up to three people I can consider close friends. I’ve made peace with the fact that my husband is my only true best friend.
Is there any pressure from your families?
Not really. My mum’s own is to pray for me daily and ask me to test for pregnancy if I do so much as complain about a headache. My in-laws basically mind their business and offer prayers occasionally. There was one time in the sixth year when my mother-in-law called me to ask if I’d just sit down and watch as the years went by. That hurt me so much — I was running from hospital to hospital and she felt I was “sitting down”. Was I going to magically grow a baby?
She hasn’t said anything along those lines again sha. I think my husband warned her never to interfere. I’m not sure if he had similar talks with his sisters, but no one disturbs me and I’m grateful for that small mercy.
How has infertility shaped your perspective on money?
I’ve learned that saving is very important. I used to spend anyhow, but TTC is expensive and almost impossible without an emergency fund. I save almost 60% of my salary these days just in case there’s a test to do or a new supplement to try. My husband’s business hasn’t been doing so great these days, so I can’t expect him to cover all my medical bills.
But it’s a two-way thing. Money is very important while battling infertility, but it can also feel useless. I’ve done IVF twice, with no baby to show for it. So, money can’t end my suffering. It only makes it better. At least, when I cry small, I can shop for baby clothes to make myself feel better.
What are your typical expenses in a good month?
My husband handles the household bills. I have about ₦1m in savings now, and that’s because I now handle most of the medical bills to support my husband. Did I mention he takes supplements too? The doctor said drugs might not necessarily boost sperm levels, but we still try. What if a miracle decides to happen?
Is there something you wish you could be better at financially?
Investments. I don’t know how it works. I can’t do that until I’m done with this TTC business as I can’t afford to tie money down anywhere. But I’m hoping to do an embryo transfer this year. Hopefully, it ends up in a full-term pregnancy. Maybe then I can look into investing my money somewhere.
How would you rate your happiness levels?
6. I have a gut feeling that this is the year I finally put infertility and TTC behind me. I’m trying not to raise my hopes, but hope is the only thing I have. I just need to get past this stage in my life so I can focus on new things.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
There was a time when my mum would throw money on the floor to keep me busy, and I’d pick them up and arrange them. I was a toddler, so I don’t remember much. The first money memory that stuck happened when I was 13 years old.
What happened?
My mum gave me ₦200k cash to deposit at the bank, and the bank staff took me to an inner room to sort out the transaction. They even asked if I wasn’t too young to handle that kind of money.
I was just about to ask that, too
It was normal for me. My parents started sending me on similar errands early. With my mum‘s egg depot business and my dad’s lecturing job, they had very little time and these errands fell to me as the firstborn.
What was the financial situation like growing up?
Money wasn’t a problem. By that, I mean, my siblings and I went to good schools — not like we were travelling abroad for vacation every year.
Haha. Do you remember the first time you made money?
I sold recharge cards in JSS 1 because I wanted to make my own money. My mum gave me the ₦3k capital, and I sold them at her shop after school. But I didn’t realise I wasn’t supposed to eat both the revenue and profit. So after selling off the first set of cards and using the money to buy snacks, there was nothing left to buy more cards. The business lasted two weeks.
The next thing I tried to sell was zobo in JSS 2; I’d use ₦1k to make 30 bottles of zobo and sell each bottle for ₦50. My customers were on my street and I used all my profit to buy Lemon Plus sweets, Nutri-C and Noreos biscuits.
How long did this business last?
I can’t remember now. I think I just got tired after I made enough money. That’s one thing about me: I start businesses on a whim when I’m broke and stop following through when my finances are better. I had a few other zobo-selling stints across the six years I spent in secondary school. My mum is a businesswoman, so she was happy to provide the capital whenever I wanted to start again.
I got admitted into the university in 2018 and stopped thinking about business for a while because I had a ₦50k /allowance. Unfortunately, my allowance progressively reduced by at least ₦5k every new semester in school.
Why did it reduce?
Buhari happened and my parents’ finances took a hit. I began looking for ways to make extra money again. In 200 level, I took a receptionist job at an import/export firm during a three-month school break. I also did some proposal writing and co-anchored radio programs on behalf of the firm.
My employer was supposed to pay me ₦10k/month, but I thought it was too small. We eventually agreed on ₦50k spread out over a couple of months. He completed the payments in 10 months after I left the job to resume school.
Did you try to make extra money in school?
COVID and ASUU struck, and I had to return home for most of my 400 level. My bank account had ₦10k in it when I returned home, but it didn’t take long to hit zero. One day, I wanted to buy a bottle of coca-cola, and I didn’t have ₦70 to buy one. It felt like I had hit rock bottom. How come I didn’t have ₦70?
On the same day, my dad returned home with a 5-litre keg of liquid soap. I liked how it smelled and asked him where he got it; I was already thinking about how to make it too. I got the person’s number — she was a church member — from his phone and she graciously offered to teach me at home. That was how I started a business making soap.
How did that work?
I spent ₦2,500 on chemicals to make 25 litres of soap. That quantity gave me about 13 kegs of soap, which I then sold to my neighbours at ₦1k each. I usually made a profit of almost ₦13k on each 25-litre batch.
The batches sold quickly because of how intentional I was with distribution. I’d take my kegs to every door in our quarters, introduce myself and talk about my product. I was quite persistent. Once someone bought from me, they became repeat customers because the soap was good quality. By August 2020, I’d saved about ₦65k.
Nice
Around that time, I stumbled on essential oils at the shops where I bought chemicals for my soap. They were quite popular — people began talking about tea tree oil to treat pimples — and I assumed they were expensive. Imagine my surprise when I found out you could buy a small bottle between ₦500 and ₦800. Just like that, I saw another business opportunity.
Haha
I have a reasonably good following on Twitter, so I took my business online. I started creating content and advertising my products. The business took off. I’d buy the oil for ₦550 and resell it for ₦1,500 or ₦2k.
However, the liquid soap sales had begun to slow down. My customers could only buy a new bottle after running out of the old one, and I noticed I had more and more bottles of liquid soap tying down my money. I abandoned it when I resumed school in 2021.
Oh, wait. I did something else before school resumed.
What was that?
My dad connected me to an edtech company that produced past questions for JAMB, WAEC and other examinations. My job was to type the questions into their application, and the payment was based on how much I worked. I think it was ₦50 per question I input into the application. The faster you type, the more you make. I got paid ₦35k after the first project, then another paid me ₦50k. The last one I did before returning to school paid me ₦20k.
By this time, I’d also abandoned the essential oils business. It wasn’t moving again. If I’m being honest though, I stopped putting in as much effort because I was getting money elsewhere.
So you resumed school as a rich kid
Somewhat. I had ₦150k saved up, but I bought a new Samsung phone for ₦86,500.
I still had some money, so I wasn’t in a hurry to make more. I also had access to my dad’s friends and occasionally called them for money, using my project as a reason. My dad already gave me ₦90k for my project, but I still needed money for other school things.
After I graduated in 2021, I returned to the edtech company to see if they had anything for me while I waited for NYSC. It took a while because it wasn’t JAMB season and it was a downtime for the business, but I finally got an admin/receptionist role at their office. The salary was ₦60k/month.
I was going to work there for three months before NYSC, but I was there for a year. I had clearance issues at school and ASUU went on strike before they fixed it.
Did this bother you?
I wasn’t bothered about the delay because I was making money. For example, in April 2022, I got a lump bonus payment of ₦150k plus my salary.
I finally left after I got my NYSC call-up a few months later. My PPA was at a tech company and I was paid ₦50k/month. My role was project management associate, but I did everything there — from project management to graphic design.
With NYSC’s ₦33k allowance, my monthly income came to ₦83k. I saved about ₦22k of that monthly.
What were your expenses like?
Mostly transportation and personal needs. I didn’t pay rent because I lived with a friend. At one point though, I was almost homeless when my friend moved houses. But luckily, my aunt lived in the same city, so I moved in with her. She left the city shortly after and left me alone in her three-bedroom apartment.
The city I served in was quite expensive, though. Between trying to save money and transportation costs, I got broke again.
Time for another business?
Yep. But I wasn’t motivated until my birthday in 2023. I got an influx of money, and I thought, “Omo. Having money is nice o”. I didn’t want to go back to living hand-to-mouth.
So, I felt it was time to start selling zobo again. I’d been taking a bottle to work to curb my coca-cola addiction and my colleagues always complimented the drinks. I discussed my idea with some bosses at work — who were like mentors — and they helped me do a cost analysis. I bought bottles, branded them and made 50 bottles of zobo, fruit juice and tigernut drink. Everything cost me about ₦10k to produce.
Just ₦10k?
I even had ₦700 change left. I bought one mudu (bowl) of zobo for ₦500, five pineapples at ₦300 each and two watermelons for about ₦1k. The 50 bottles cost ₦3k. I can’t remember how much I printed the stickers for branding, but I didn’t spend more than ₦10k for everything.
I sold each zobo bottle for ₦500, and the other drinks for ₦700. The first batch finished in two days, and I made a profit of ₦30k. Subsequently, I was making about ₦60k in profits weekly. I also took the drinks to my CDS meetings, so that increased my customer base.
After a while, I started selling at trade fairs too. My colleague introduced me to the first one I sold at. I paid ₦30k for the stall and made about ₦77k in total. My profit was only about ₦25k, but it was a good start. The second time I sold at a fair, I sold all 150 bottles I went with — easy ₦150k. I was so excited.
Love it for you
My next plan was to buy a heavy-duty blender or a freezer for the business. My aunt’s house had a fridge, but it could only take 50 bottles at once. But in June, I stumbled on a post that promised to give ₦250k to a struggling business owner. I just had to comment and make sure I got the highest number of likes. Ah. I sent that post to everybody.
I gave up after I got 450 likes because others were getting up to 2000 likes. However, I found out that they were buying likes after the organisers reached out to me to tell me I had the highest organic likes. It was so unexpected.
That wasn’t all. Someone on Twitter had seen my post asking for likes, so they DM’ed me and said God told them to send me money. They also sent me ₦250k.
Mad
I screamed so much that day. I took ₦26k to register my business with the CAC. I called my aunt and told her I’d won some money and wanted to buy a freezer in the house. Remember I said I was staying alone in her apartment, right? Well, she told me to hold on because she wasn’t sure when she’d return to the city.
Apparently, the rent had expired and her husband had been paying it just because I was there. She didn’t want me to buy the freezer and then get stranded if it turned out that I had to move out.
Did you?
Not immediately, but this was the beginning of my business’ problems. I was getting a lot of drink orders, but I couldn’t store them.
In October 2023, my aunt and her family returned to the city. A cockroach infestation happened around the same time, and I had to move production to the boys’ quarters. It was a smaller space and it meant my production was reduced drastically.
Plus, they’d also started using the fridge so I had almost nowhere to store the drinks. I was down to making 30 bottles weekly and about ₦17k in profits.
Did you have another income source?
I’d finished NYSC earlier and was retained at the tech company. My salary was increased to ₦140k, so at least, I had a 9-5 to fall back on.
However, I became tired of the job in January 2024. I felt I should be doing better. So, I started sending out applications. It felt like I was sending my CV out into the air because I didn’t get any word back for a long time. The one time I got an invitation for a bank’s assessment, I didn’t see the email until the date had passed.
Ouch. Sorry about that
It was a beacon of hope — at least someone saw my CV. I got another bank’s assessment and passed the first stage. To celebrate, I walked into a mall to buy myself some snacks. That’s when I noticed a flower store. It was close to Valentine’s Day, and it was the period when Nigerian Twitter was dragging someone for selling a bouquet for ₦350k.
I asked the store assistants how much a mini stem of rose cost, and they said it was ₦1,100. I saw another business opportunity there. I put a flyer together and told people around me I was selling flowers. My cheapest bouquet was ₦25k — which originally cost me ₦11,500 to assemble. I got 12 orders for Valentine’s Day.
The amazing thing was that I didn’t even need capital. Once my clients paid, I just had to go to the mall on Valentine’s Day and assemble the flowers there. I was just the middle-man. Although the price of the stem had increased to ₦2k, I still made ₦150k in profit.
Sweet
I also took flower orders for Mother’s Day in March. I think I made about ₦70k from three orders. Then there was one time my boss at work bought a ₦250k bouquet. I made about ₦145k profit from that sale alone. It’s a seasonal business, but there’s a lot of profit there.
How’s the drink business going these days?
Quite slowly. There are weeks I don’t make them at all. But it’s a situation where I know I can make the drinks if I’m ever broke and need to make quick money. That’s the point I am at right now. I might not have money in my account at some point, but I have the skills to make sure I’m not entirely broke.
So, right now, you have two businesses and a 9-5?
One, actually. I’ve paused the drinks business because I recently landed a bank job. I should be going to training school in a few weeks. I heard I’d be paid ₦75k/month for the three-month training, then about ₦285k after confirmation. I’m still actively pursuing other offers, though.
The flower business is off-season right now, but I get approximately ₦50k/month from it. I have about ₦800k saved up just for savings’ sake — I like knowing I have money somewhere.
Let’s talk about your monthly expenses
How would you describe your relationship with money?
I think I chased money a lot before, which is the reason I tried so many things. But I think I’m comfortable in my own skin now. I don’t have to pursue money. When I need it, I can always do something or offer a service that’ll bring it my way.
Is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?
I’d like to go to Lebanon on vacation — I like that it snows there. But I don’t want to wipe out all my savings on one trip. It costs about ₦2m to go on vacation there. I may just start small and visit Benin Republic first. Last I checked, ₦500k – ₦600k can take me there.
Is there an ideal amount you think you should be earning?
I’d like to earn ₦500k/month from a 9-5. I’m not counting business money because I think it should support my primary earnings. I don’t want to feel like I have to run businesses before I earn well. It should just be because I want to do it. Not because I want to supplement my income.
Is there anything you wish you could be better at financially?
Yes. Investments. The only thing I do right now is save in savings apps. But I feel I should be doing better.
I also have this bad habit of depriving myself of things for a while. Then I break and spend so much money at once.
A recent example happened when I was interviewing for jobs. One interview was in a different state, and I decided to use the opportunity to visit my parents. It was a long series of trips and I went by road to save money. But when I had to return, I was tired and just spent ₦105k on a flight back. My plan to save money just scattered like that.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
5. I’m comfortable now, but I feel in my bones that I’m going to be a rich person. I still have a lot to do to get there.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Romoke* (32) has been her home’s primary breadwinner since she got married in 2018. At first, she didn’t think much of it, but over the years, she’s come to realise this dynamic isn’t normal.
She shares why she can’t leave and how she’s made it a priority to advise other women not to tow the same path.
Love can push you to do foolish things. Now, when I get the opportunity to talk to single ladies about relationships, I tell them to shine their eyes. Love won’t feed you; is there money? But the truth is, I didn’t take to advice either.
Let me tell you my story so you know what I mean. My mum was the sole breadwinner when I was growing up. My dad was what you’d call a sperm donor with audacity. He was a mechanic who hardly dropped money at home, but he’d come home at night to demand two pieces of meat in his food. My mum paid rent, school fees and bought clothes for all her four children with the money she made as a fabric trader.
My family’s dynamic didn’t seem strange to me. I never saw or heard my mum complain about providing for almost everything, including my dad’s demands. I grew up in a neighbourhood where most of the mothers had their shops and different hustles to take care of their children. This meant that I didn’t have anything else to compare my mum’s situation to. It was my normal.
As a child, whenever I went to my mum to ask for money to buy something, she’d say, “When you start making money, you’ll know that they don’t just spend money anyhow”. It always confused me. I want to buy sweets, and you’re saying I’m spending money anyhow. It made me start dreaming of making my own money, so I wouldn’t have to answer to anyone.
Of course, I became entrepreneurial early. I’d take my elder sister’s pictures to my secondary school to show my seniors and charge them ₦30 for our home’s landline so they could speak with her. My sister and I used to share the money equally.
There’s almost nothing I’ve not tried to make a business out of — selling recharge cards, writing notes for classmates in uni, braiding hair for my friends in the hostel and during NYSC camp and even selling baby clothes at a nearby primary health centre.
It was during one of my many hustles that I met Dare*, the man who eventually became my husband. It was 2016, and I was selling male clothes and watches on Facebook and WhatsApp, in addition to my 9-5 as an admin officer.
He was a friend on Facebook, but we never interacted before he slid into my DM to ask about a wristwatch I’d posted earlier that day. He wanted to buy it for someone but wanted it delivered to him first. That’s how we discovered that we lived in the same neighbourhood. We got talking and started dating after we met up at his church.
There were warning signs.
Dare didn’t have a job. He spent all his time at church where he served — still does — as the choirmaster. He also went to sing at other churches, and they’d pay him an honorarium. He didn’t tell me how much, but I guessed it was enough to survive on. He also lived with his parents.
We didn’t really talk about money. I didn’t care that he’d ask to borrow ₦10k on random occasions or that we hardly went out on dates. I didn’t depend on guys’ money in my previous relationships, so it wasn’t a big deal.
When I asked Dare about the job thing, he said he was applying but hoping to get something that wouldn’t affect his gospel ministry. Just before we started making wedding plans in 2017, he got a job as a supermarket supervisor. He didn’t tell me his salary, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t think it was my place.
After our parents agreed on a wedding date, we went to visit his pastor to inform him. The man called me aside and asked if I was sure I knew what I was doing. He said, “Dare doesn’t have a proper job. Why not wait a bit?”
I defended my husband-to-be. Sure, I wanted him to get better than the supervisor job, but I was also selling clothes and making good money — at least ₦25k weekly. Together, we could pull resources and build a home. But Dare and I hadn’t actually clarified how money would work in our home. I was too in love to care. In my mind, we’d get married and live happily ever after.
A few weeks after we got married in 2018, Dare quit his supervisor job. They’d refused to permit him to leave work for a week so he could travel to another state for a gospel ministration. So, he chose to leave.
The same scenario played out a couple more times over the first two years of marriage. He’d get a job and then leave after a few months because he was either tired or felt like it interfered with his passion. Did I mention I paid the rent for the house we lived in? In fact, I paid for everything we needed daily. But I still thought I was being a virtuous wife and didn’t harass him to stick to a job.
In 2020, Dare said he wanted to start a business selling musical instruments. He knew I had almost ₦1m in savings and convinced me to give him because we could make double that. So, I gave him. He never started that business.
We also had our first child around the time I gave him all my savings. I was so broke I couldn’t even buy clothes for my baby. After about six months, I began to ask him about the business. I mean, he’d taken all that money and wasn’t even telling me anything. That caused our biggest fight to date. It was like, how dare I have the audacity to question him? His parents came to settle the matter and I had to apologise to him.
I think it was then my eyes started to “clear”. Dare stopped trying to get jobs entirely and would just sit at home watching TV when he wasn’t singing at one church or the other.
I reported him to his pastor several times, and he’d call Dare — without telling him I’d talked — and ask him for updates about his job. Dare just gave excuses and the pastor would in turn tell me to be patient with him and pray. I’m sure the man was thinking, “Shebi I told you?”
We had our second child in 2022, the year I finally admitted to myself that there was nothing normal about our marriage. I listen to sermons and see other couples in our church. The women aren’t the breadwinners. Dare has no intention of earning anything to provide for his family. He has never bought clothes for me and our children. I don’t know if he still gets honorariums from ministering at churches, but I don’t get anything. I still feed him.
I’ve complained about him not dropping money several times, but it always turns into a huge fight, and I end up apologising. Church leaders can do nothing except advise me to be submissive. My pastor’s wife secretly advised me to save money in an account without my husband’s knowledge.
But how much can I save from a clothes business when I still handle all the bills? I can’t let my children starve, right? I’m honestly tired. I now avoid most of my friends at church because how many times will I say I can’t afford aso-ebi or monthly contributions that the married women in church do? Am I even married, in the real sense of the word?
I feel like everyone in church knows our situation — the choirmaster who does nothing but sings while his wife feeds him — but none of them can call him out because they want to keep up the appearances of a godly home. But what kind of home is this?
I didn’t know better when I was younger, but I do now. Even the Bible says the man should provide. I’m a woman, I shouldn’t be the breadwinner. But I can’t leave my marriage — that’s a sin. I can only pray that God will touch Dare’s heart and give him a job that allows him to take his place as the head of the house.
Until then, the most I can do is advise young single ladies. Love won’t feed you.
In the most recent episode of “Renewed Shege”, Nigerians have woken up to yet another thing to worry about. This time, it’s a new cybersecurity levy that’ll have citizens paying 0.5% on every electronic money transfer as “cybersecurity tax”. Meaning, you’ll need to pay ₦50 to send ₦10,000, separate from the normal stamp duty and other bank charges.
That’s a whole lot, so we had to figure out ways to avoid this billing.
Babalawo spiritual transfers
That’s a terrible name, but hear me out. If babalawos can make money appear out of thin air during money rituals, what’s stopping them from taking it a step further by helping a client “spiritually transfer” money to someone else?
Bring back bus transfers
Are you even a Nigerian student if your parents didn’t send money to you through an interstate driver? Of course, they hid the money inside garri so it wouldn’t grow wings. If you deep it, you’re killing two birds with one stone. Sending an item to someone and transferring money free of charge.
And bank deposits
According to CBN, the levy doesn’t apply to transfers done over the counter at physical banks. We shouldn’t need to make bank deposits in 2024, but it is what is.
Send the money as data
So they can sell it to get cash. And just like that, you’ve opened a business for them too. We rise by lifting others.
Or as fuel
Fuel scarcity happens every market day in Nigeria, so they can even make a profit. How will it get to them, you ask? We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
POS agents
At this point, there’s no difference between doing it yourself and paying someone else to do it — you’ll pay extra for both. At least, with POS agents, there are fewer cases of your bank app disgracing you.
Stop transferring money altogether
Where did you even see the money you want to give out? It only means you have enough to spare and the federal government is right to tax you more.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
I hawked okpa from morning till noon. When I got home, the money in my money bag was ₦100. All the okpa I sold that day should’ve been like ₦500. Maale — my mother — beat me that day, ehn. I was around 9 years old at that time. I already had small sense. I don’t know how I miscalculated the money.
Why did you hawk okpa, though?
Na hustle o. My father died when I was four years old and maale was the only one providing for me and my younger brother.
On that day, my school sent me home because I owed school fees, and I went to maale’s okpa stand to cry and complain. I don’t even know why I was crying. I didn’t like school like that. Maybe I had plans with my friends that day.
Maale vexed and packed okpa on a tray and put it on my head. She said I should also go and see what it’s like to make money. I sold everything at a nearby motor park, but those wicked people cheated me. After that, maale didn’t allow me to sell her okpa again.
I still helped with her other hustles, though. She also washed clothes for people and cooked sometimes. So, after school, I’d help her fetch water, rinse clothes and even go to the market.
What other things did you do to make money?
In JSS 3, I started pounding fufu with some other guys at a restaurant every morning before school. This was 2014. I’d start work around 7 a.m. and then rush off to school. Highest, one hour and I was done with the fufu. The restaurant owner used to pay me ₦200 every day I worked.
When I first started, I used to pound the fufu with my uniform so I could just rush to school. But I tried to talk to a girl I liked in school one day and she started squeezing her nose like I was smelling. I went to the back of the class and smelled my armpit. Omo, I was smelling like one-week-old fufu. Nobody taught me before I started wearing a singlet to pound the fufu before changing into my uniform.
Haha. What were you spending the money you made on?
Mostly school. Maale stopped giving me transport and food money because I was working, so I was providing for myself. I also bought food and clothes for my brother sometimes. Other times, maale would ask me to drop money for us to eat at night. The money was just going like that.
When I entered SS 1, I started helping the restaurant owner to transport drinks from their supplier twice a week. She had a big wheelbarrow I used to move the drinks, and she paid me ₦1k per week. That one only lasted for two months before I got into an accident and broke her drinks.
What happened?
The wheelbarrow and the load in it were too big for me; I was 14 years old. One aboki used to help the restaurant owner push the wheelbarrow, but they fought and he left. When I heard she was looking for someone else, I made mouth that I could do it.
But I lost control of the wheelbarrow while trying to avoid water on the road. Wahala. I didn’t even go back to the restaurant because she’d have asked me to pay. I think she later settled with maale.
What did you do next?
I started hanging around with the area boys at the motor park. I’d befriended one during my days at the restaurant and he sometimes dashed me ₦500. He used to help the transport buses load passengers, and I thought he was a big boy. Only big boys can be dashing people money like that.
I’d go to the park during the weekends and help to load passengers, too. You know all those boys who stand some distance from the bus to ask people walking around with bags where they’re going? That’s what I was doing. I was mostly helping my friend, so he used to share his money with me. Sometimes, I’d make like ₦2k daily.
When I finished secondary school in 2017, I started going to the park every day. Maale didn’t like it. She said I was becoming rough like the other boys. But if I didn’t act rough, the other boys would drag my passengers.
How much were you making this time?
Between ₦4k – ₦5k daily, depending on how hard I hustled for passengers. There were many boys in the park, so the drivers just dropped money after their bus filled up, and we’d all share it.
But that job no easy o. You have to stand for hours and shout up and down. You also have to fight a lot with everybody: The drivers when they don’t want to pay after loading, the other boys who try to drag your passengers, and even the passengers sef.
One time, one lady slapped me because I tried to drag her bag to the bus I was loading. It’s not her fault sha. Na condition make crayfish bend.
How long did you work at the park?
I worked there till 2019. By then, I was already thinking if that was what I wanted to use my life to do. My brother was already in the polytechnic. My head doesn’t carry book like that, so I didn’t want to go to school. But I couldn’t be loading passengers forever.
Thankfully, I knew a mechanic who trained people, so I went to him and he said I should bring ₦80k to learn for a year. He told me this in 2018, so I started saving money for it. By 2019, I had the money but it got stolen in the same week I wanted to pay the mechanic.
Damn. How did that happen?
It was my fault. I saved the money in a kolo, but I didn’t hide the kolo at home because I didn’t want maale to know I had money, so she wouldn’t ask me to borrow her. I hid the kolo in my friend’s room because I usually slept there sometimes. He must’ve found it because the kolo disappeared.
He denied it, but there was no one else who could’ve taken it. I couldn’t fight him because he moved with cultists and I didn’t want wahala.
Sorry about that. What did you do next?
I just stopped going to the park. My mind was out of there because I thought I’d soon learn mechanic work.
After staying home for two months, maale suggested I should learn a trade under someone instead. At least that way, I wouldn’t have to pay money to learn, and my oga would settle me after I finished learning.
So, in 2020, I moved to Lagos to serve my oga who sells imported furniture. Maale had discussed it with him, I think he’s a relative of one of her friends. I’ve been learning the trade since then.
What’s the arrangement like?
We arranged that I’d serve him as an apprentice for seven years and then he’d settle me with ₦5m and a shop, so I can start my own business.
It’s not in every case that your oga tells you how much he’ll settle you with, though. Some just settle you based on how you work. But I think that happens to people who become apprentices as small boys. I was already 19 years old, so I wasn’t a small boy.
I’ve done almost four years out of the seven. But honestly, I don’t know if I want to stay till the end.
Why not?
I’m not sure my oga will keep to our agreement. In the time I’ve been here, he’s settled only one person after the apprentice reported to his family in the village. The guy had served for almost 13 years, and my oga didn’t show any sign of releasing him. He eventually settled him with ₦3m. When he rents a shop, how much will remain?
I currently serve with four other apprentices, and two of them have been here longer than the initially agreed period. According to them, oga is blaming the economy as the reason why he hasn’t settled them.
It’s not just the economy; the man is stingy on his own. He doesn’t pay any of us a salary. Yes, that’s normal in this system, but he barely feeds us, too. We’re only sure of breakfast because we live in his house. The apprentices get home late at night because we have to close the warehouse, and by then, every other person has eaten dinner. Sometimes you see food, sometimes you don’t see anything.
But how do you survive without a salary?
The other apprentices and I usually “pad” the price of items in the shop to make a profit. For example, my oga can say we should sell a centre table for ₦500k, and we add ₦20k to it and share the gain among ourselves. Sometimes I can make ₦50k/month, depending on how well the market moves.
Oga doesn’t really care how much you sell the furniture as long as his money is complete. We don’t do that when he’s in the warehouse sha. But he’s been around a lot lately, and I’ve not really been making money. Now I struggle to get ₦20k in a month.
Do you know why your oga is around more now?
Market has been really bad since Tinubu became president, especially with how the dollar has been going up and down. Before, my oga regularly travelled to China and Turkey for goods, but in 2023, he only travelled twice. People don’t have money to buy imported furniture again. I think my oga even wants to branch into local furniture.
Another reason why I want to leave is I don’t even think I’m learning anything. My oga keeps details of how he imports the goods to himself. I somehow understand him sha. I heard that one of his former apprentices stole some of his China contacts and customers and went on to start his own business. But how come I’ve been here for four years and I only know how to check for high-quality pieces and price them?
Do you have any plans for if you eventually leave?
I’ll probably drive keke for some years to gather money. I know many keke drivers and some of them make up to ₦30k a day. When I’m ready, I can contact any of them to link me up with someone who wants to give out their keke on hire purchase. That’s when someone buys a keke and gives it to a driver to use. Then the driver pays the keke owner every week till they pay the full price (and interest) for the keke.
After I’ve saved enough money, I can think of starting a business — maybe a tyre business or electronics. I hear there’s money there. I just need something that’ll give me money. My brother doesn’t have a stable job even though he has graduated since. I usually send money home to him and maale, but it doesn’t even reach anywhere. I need to make money so maale will rest small.
How do you break down your expenses in a typical month?
I try to save at least ₦5k monthly in case they call me for emergency at home. I have a bank account now, sha. I can’t save in kolo again. Right now, my savings is around ₦70k.
What’s a recent emergency need you had to settle?
One part of the roof of our house in the village collapsed around April. The roof wasn’t too okay before, but it finally scattered after one small rain. I had to send ₦50k home so they could patch it small.
How would you describe your relationship with money?
Ah. That one is still far. I need to make the money before we start to know each other. But with the plans I have, I feel like I’ll touch money soon.
I’m also trying not to compare myself to other young people who are making it. I’m in a hurry to make money, but I’m also trying not to rush too much before I’m tempted to do foolish things.
What’s something you wish you could be better at financially?
Taking risks. One of my friends recently bet ₦1k on a betting platform and won like ₦100k. I’m too afraid of losing my money to try that type of thing.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?
2. My journey is still far but I thank God for life.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
I kid you not, I’m writing this article with about 20% battery power left on my laptop.
For about a week now, the queues have resumed at petrol stations across Nigeria due to another fuel scarcity situation. To make it even worse, the power supply seems to have worsened. No light, no fuel. I asked some remote workers how they were coping because, to be honest, I wanted to steal hacks from them.
“Work every time you see light” — Dotun, 28
The truth is, even if you drop your laptop somewhere to charge, the battery will still go down when you pick it up and start working. So, if you don’t have money for a coworking space, carry your work with you wherever you see electricity.
NEPA has been doing a thing where they bring light for 30 minutes around 2 a.m. Once I feel the breeze from the fan, I immediately stand up and do the work I can do. That way, I can save a full battery for when my actual workday starts.
“Guard your fuel jealously” — Funmi, 26
I divide my tasks according to how much time I think it’ll take to complete them, then I try to do as much as possible without using my devices. Of course, that doesn’t always work because I still need to turn on my generator.
But I guard my fuel jealously. I only turn on the generator for 30 minutes at a time when it’s absolutely necessary. Even then, I only pour small fuel into the generator to somehow trick it into consuming less fuel. What kind of life is this?
“Bribe someone to stand in fuel queues for you” — Josiah, 30
I don’t have time to leave work and hustle for fuel, so I bribe my brother to stand in queues for me. I think he charges me five times more than what I should actually pay, but I’m happy to pay. He’s saving me stress and getting me fuel, which is heroic in these times.
[ad]
“Befriend your neighbours” — Toke, 24
I’m the type who likes to keep to myself. I’ve lived in my compound for about a year and have never entered my neighbour’s house — at least until this recent scarcity started. They tend to turn on their generator more because they have kids and their apartment has become my second office. Thankfully, they’re nice about it but I try to only go there when absolutely necessary so I don’t take up too much of their space.
“Communicate with your employers” — Detola, 22
I always tell my employers when I have to be unavoidably absent because I don’t have fuel or power. They can’t say they don’t understand because we’re all in this country together. I try to limit the instances when that happens, but will I turn myself into fuel?
“Invest in an alternative source of power supply” — Fred, 27
I had to angrily drop almost ₦1m to install a solar panel system last week when the fuel situation wanted to kill me. Of course, this was only possible because I had the money. But it was my emergency savings and I’m not happy about spending it on something that shouldn’t even be a problem. But I had no choice. My employers aren’t Nigerians and definitely wouldn’t understand. It was either that or losing my job.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What was your first introduction to money?
Getting into university at 16 was my introduction to financial responsibility — or my lack of it. I started receiving a ₦15k monthly allowance and finishing it on food before the 19th of the month. Then I realised money wasn’t just there. I had to use it wisely if I didn’t want to go broke before I got my next allowance. Before that time, I never thought about money because my parents shielded me from it.
What do you mean by “shielded”?
I attended schools that were above my parents’ means. They’re civil servants, but my dad happily took loans to send me to expensive schools. Of course, I didn’t know this, so I had this illusion that we had all we needed.
It started to show we didn’t have much money when my dad would wait until the last minute to pay my tuition. One minute, he’s like I don’t know if I’ll be able to pay tuition. The next minute, he’d bring the money. It was obvious he had to take loans.
Interesting. When did you first make money for yourself?
My second year in uni. I helped a student faculty union political aspirant write campaign speeches for ₦2k. The thing is, there was no structure to the payment arrangement. He could just remember me randomly and send me ₦2k today and another ₦2k three weeks later. That lasted for only one semester. The guy lost the election; the last thing I wrote for him was an appreciation announcement.
But the experience taught me that I could get paid for writing. I’d been writing for fun since primary school, and I didn’t imagine I could get paid for it. So, I decided to pursue it further.
How did you get the next gig?
In 2019, a friend introduced me to some people who needed a writer to work on a white paper for a crypto token. I had no idea what a white paper was, and I went ahead to overpromise and undercharge. I charged them ₦50k and said it’d be ready in two days. Something that should’ve been around $500 – $1k.
I got it done though, but it has to be the worst piece of writing I’ve ever done. I downloaded several other white papers and just combined them. Thankfully, my employers didn’t know what a standard white paper looked like, and they thought it was acceptable. They put me on a retainer and paid me ₦30k – ₦40k/monthly to write promotional articles and employee agreement forms. The internet helped me a lot here. I just needed to search for templates and tweak for what I needed.
By the way, they gave me three million crypto tokens as a founding member— I still have them even though they’re practically worth $0 now. I stopped working with them after four months. The project wasn’t really taking off and there wasn’t much for me to do.
What did you do next?
I got a few opportunities to write for crypto companies. I also dabbled into trading crypto, and it was a lot of trial and error: I’d compete for airdrops and trade the token I got.
A few friends also introduced me to forex trading. The first day I tried it, I traded $10 on synthetic indices and turned it into $700. I guess it was beginner’s luck, but I was sold. I immediately called a friend and asked him to bring money so I could trade for him. He gave me $100, but I lost it. Thankfully I was able to pay back with the money I’d won.
That was a close one
Heh. It wasn’t the last time I lost someone’s money while trading. Towards the end of 2021, I lost $8k of my and other people’s money. I’d gained some trading experience and my portfolio was worth $5k, so I was comfortable trading with more money. I didn’t expect the loss.
How did it happen?
So, about $3k of that money was for me and a friend. We were collaboratively trading, so our money was together. The remaining $5k belonged to three lecturers and another friend.
How my lecturers got involved was so random. One day, I was on my phone in class, and the lecturer seized my phone. He saw I was on a trading platform and asked me about it when I went to pick up my phone. Apparently, he’d heard about the platform and wanted me to teach him. I convinced him to give me his money instead because my friend and I had a strategy to make about $100k from $8k. He brought in two more lecturer friends and they raised about $4k between themselves. The plan was to trade for three months and pay them back with 300% interest.
Why were you sure you’d make $100k?
My friend and I constantly explored ways to game the system and we came up with an arbitrage strategy for futures trading. It required us to trade simultaneously on two devices. We’d open a “buy position” on one device and a “sell position” on the other. If the market went up, we’d close the sell position and wait for it to balance out. It felt like a safe gamble since we were trying both ways.
When we were successful, we could make $10 every five minutes. So we thought — rather foolishly — that if we did that 100 times, we could make $10k daily. It didn’t happen like that; we made $300 on the first day.
Then a few days later, I left my room to watch a football game and dropped my tablet with my friend so he could trade with two devices as usual. When the match was over, I saw that my friend had called me several times. I called back and he said he’d lost the money. His phone had gone off before he could close a position and the only thing left of the $8k was $500.
Ah
I didn’t understand it. But I was very audacious and arrogant about my skills. I believed I’d trade the remaining $500 and make the money we lost back. I don’t need to tell you I failed miserably.
I had two months to pay back $5k and I couldn’t tell the people involved what had happened to their money. When the time elapsed, I called one of the lecturers and asked for three more weeks because the money was locked up in a trade. He called me a scammer and said I had used their money to buy clothes. The lecturer I discussed the opportunity with initially was more cool-headed.
But then the three weeks came, and still no money. I had to come clean. The cool-headed lecturer — who was a senior lecturer — told me I wouldn’t graduate if I didn’t pay him his money.
Damn
It was a chaotic situation. They were all on my neck and it seemed like the two other lecturers were willing to harm me physically. Thankfully, ASUU went on strike in February 2022, which gave me some breathing space. I stopped taking most of their calls so I could think about how to make money. I didn’t know how long the strike would last, and I needed to make the most of it.
I decided to go back to the basics: writing. I got ₦6k from my dad and paid for a “How to use Upwork” course. I was added to a group with the other course participants.
Within a week, someone in the group got a gig. I’m very competitive, and suddenly I didn’t just want any gig, I wanted to catch up with that person. So, I started studying like my life depended on it.
I believe that helped
It did. But I had to send proposals every day for a month before I landed a video transcription gig that paid me $15. I got another writing gig that was supposed to pay $1k, but after they made the first milestone payment of $10, they never got back to me again. After that, I regularly got random $20 gigs here and there.
I got my big break a few weeks after. I landed a $25 gig to write an edition of a daily crypto newsletter. They liked my work and paid me $125 weekly to write the newsletter daily. I did that for three weeks before they offered to take the gigs off Upwork so I’d join the team full-time.
On the same pay?
Somewhat. They offered $500/month. I took the meeting in my dad’s room, and after the call, I told him I’d turn down the offer. He thought I was mad, but I felt I could get more. I was basically keeping the newsletter running.
So, I made a list of the things I’d do on the job, requested another meeting with my employer, and successfully negotiated an increase to $750. My dad was shocked. Honestly, I wasn’t completely sure it’d work, but I had to try. This was in July 2022.
In September, I got another Upwork gig to create a tutorial for an edtech company. I had to walk a friend through the process over the phone so he’d do it for me on his laptop — I didn’t have one, and it was necessary for the tutorial. The employer liked the work and I became a regular tutorial content creator for them. The hourly pay usually came to $1,500/month.
By the time ASUU called off the strike in October, I had enough to pay everyone with interest as agreed. I even had to beg one of the lecturers with extra $200 because he was really pissed and insisted I wouldn’t graduate. I paid back $8,100 in total.
Phew
I kept working like crazy after school resumed. My boss at the edtech company was pleased and gave me $1k for a new laptop after I complained about the one I was managing. The money was enough to get me a laptop, a headset, keyboard, and a mouse.
Two months later, I got laid off from the newsletter job because of funding issues. I had the edtech job, so I wasn’t bothered. I’d also somehow transitioned into their marketing guy, so I was doing more strategy than creating.
My salary increased to $2500 in 2023. On average, I was spending ₦200k/month. I wanted something stable to put my money in, so I started thinking of starting a business.
What kind of business were you considering?
A lot. At first, I thought about building a restaurant. Later, I considered a gym. But in 2023, I finally settled on a co-working space after my friends and I visited one during a trip. I had $4k — about ₦2m — in savings which was nowhere near the ₦8 million I projected I’d need to start. I got two more friends who also earned quite well on board and we got started.
We leased land somewhere and worked on the building project for six months. All our savings and salaries went into it, and we eventually spent about ₦50m on that project. We’ve been in business for about three months and have made about ₦8m in revenue. Most of the money still goes back into the business because our dream now is to build co-working spaces in multiple locations.
That’s audacious
It is, but we have a roadmap for how we hope to achieve that. It’s transformed from just a means for me to invest and make passive income. It’s now the crux of my life’s work.
I should add that I also formed a digital services agency with two other friends in 2023. They’re badass designers and software developers. We pitched handling marketing and product development to a startup, and they accepted.
So, we gave ourselves a name, pitched more people and kept a portfolio of clients. We’re now a 10-person team and currently have one retainer that pays us ₦900k/month. We also get other bigger clients from time to time. I get about 40% – 50% of whatever we make monthly because I fund the upfront costs of running the projects. However, profit sharing is dependent on the project and terms. The highest payout I’ve gotten is ₦5m. There’s no standard amount, but it’s naira income and I like that it helps me save my dollar earnings.
What’s your monthly income like right now?
My 9-5 pays me around $3,500 these days. It slightly differs sometimes based on the number of hours I work. I make an additional average of $600 – $1200 from the agency. I earned more here in 2023, but I’ve not been as active this year because of school work.
Wait. Are you still in school?
I wrote my final exams a few weeks ago, so I like to say I’m done with school. But there’s still clearance and a few more steps before I’m officially done.
How would you describe your relationship with money?
I’m not shy about spending money. I don’t necessarily live above my means— my quality of life is pretty modest — but I spend aggressively on things that can improve the quality of my life, like my businesses.
Right now, I’m super confident that I have what it takes to make money at any time. So, I’m willing to take more risks and put my money into possible income opportunities because I know I can get it back.
Let’s break down your typical monthly expenses
Black tax is mostly self-imposed. I just send money to my parents and siblings because I want to. I live in a two-bedroom apartment that I share with a flatmate, and that sets me back about ₦300k in rent yearly.
What are your savings like right now?
Absolutely non-existent. I mentioned my partners and I are pursuing the expansion of our co-working facility, and most of my money goes into that. I recently made an additional ₦750k investment a few weeks ago.
What might the next few years look like?
I think I want a PhD, which is ironic because I didn’t take my undergraduate years seriously. However, working on my final year project resurrected an interest in school. But I’ll focus on my 9-5 and business for the next two to three years because I need to leave Nigeria before 2027.
Why 2027?
I feel like our president will contest for a second term, and it’s my personal responsibility to be out of here before he wins.
Haha. What would that mean for your businesses, though?
I’ll spend the next few years building them to become self-sufficient. The goal is to build systems and structures that move them from mere businesses to proper organisations.
What’s a recent unplanned expense you made?
I bought two phones in the last three months for frivolous reasons. I replaced my iPhone 13 with the same model in January because it had a scratch. That cost ₦800k. In March, I decided I needed a new phone for another sim and spontaneously bought a ₦500k Google Pixel. I only needed the phone to make calls. Thinking about it now, those weren’t smart decisions.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?
6.5. I’m earning reasonably well, but I think I’m still leaving money on the table. I’m not earning as much as I should because being in school hasn’t helped me explore all the opportunities available to me. Now that I’m nearing graduation, I intend to fix that.
What’s an ideal amount you think you should be earning?
At least $10k/month. It’s audacious, but I have a mental picture of how to get there. I’ll definitely need to pursue entrepreneurship on a larger scale. I have ideas for businesses I can start, as well as how I can increase cash flow to my digital services agency. I’ll also need to find a way to reduce time spent at my 9-5 to give more time to these ideas.
I’m curious. Have you ever thought about when you’d like to retire?
I think about that every day. I want at least a million dollars in liquidity so I can retire at 30 — even if it’s pseudo-retirement. I may not stop working totally, but it should be reduced to the barest minimum so I can pursue fun projects. I’ll be 22 in a few weeks, so I have eight years to achieve that goal.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
“Do crypto with Quidax and win from a $60K QDX prize pool!” Bayo, a 28-year-old Lagosian tells Jide, his Ibadan friend seeking the most secure way to trade crypto in Nigeria after a major exchange he trades with announced its plans to leave the country. Find out more here.
When did you first clock the importance of money?
When I was about 8 years old, I noticed the kids in my neighbourhood came out to play with their bicycles every evening. I felt out of place because I didn’t have one, and the kids didn’t let me play with them. I asked my mum to buy me one, and she said, “You’ve not even seen money to eat, you’re thinking about a bicycle”.
Me, I wanted to play and make friends, and I thought I could only do that when I had money to buy my own bicycle.
What was the financial situation at home like?
My dad was a welder for offshore companies, but the early 2000s Warri Crisis forced some of these companies to leave the country. Then he didn’t get regular jobs anymore.
Plus, my dad wasn’t good with money. Whenever he got a temporary offshore job and got paid well, he’d spend it on electronic gadgets rather than follow my mum’s suggestion and invest in a business. I’d come home from school to find a new television when the old one was still working. Or he’d do some repairs on his car or buy a new freezer. So, my parents always fought about money.
I’m the firstborn, so I noticed how his financial habits contributed to the tension at home.
How did your family navigate the periods when he didn’t have a job?
My mum used to be a stay-at-home mum until things got tough. Then, she tried many things; from selling fabrics and hawking food to taking cleaning jobs, daycare and catering gigs. Her businesses hardly took off because my dad always came to borrow money, but at least she made sure we weren’t homeless and always brought food home whenever she went for catering gigs.
Watching her try several things for money, coupled with my dad’s financial habits made me think a lot about money. There was a limit to what I could get because of money, and I just wanted to make my own.
When did you first act on this need to make money?
In SS 1. My mum used to cook for a neighbour occasionally. One day, she had a small get-together and came looking for my mum to cook for her. My mum wasn’t home, and this lady said I should follow her. She assumed I could cook since my mum was a good cook. I didn’t tell her I’d never cooked in my mother’s house. I followed her home and cooked fried rice. I went from never cooking at all to cooking fried rice at 13 years old.
Please tell me it ended well
Surprisingly, it did. My heart was in my mouth when she tasted it, but she said, “This is nice. Your mother taught you well.” She even said I’d cook for her the next time my mum wasn’t around. She paid me ₦3k, which I used to buy foodstuff and cook for my siblings before my mum returned. I was feeling like a small mummy. My mum was pleasantly surprised when I told her what happened.
Did the cooking gigs become regular?
Somewhat. My mum started passing down jobs to me during the weekends. All the money I made was for the house: I never really thought of it as mine. Besides, the only thing on my mind was finishing secondary school at 16 and doing what was expected of me: studying medicine so I could become a doctor and turn the family’s fortune around.
Nigerian millennials everywhere can relate
Well, I failed two core subjects in WAEC in 2011 and couldn’t get university admission that year. Even worse, it had taken serious convincing for my dad to add to what my mum had scraped together for my WAEC fees. When I failed, he said I was useless and concluded I’d get married because he had washed his hands off my education.
Since school wasn’t on the horizon, I got a teaching job at a nearby secondary school.
How much did it pay?
₦4k/month. I did the job for a few months till some family members convinced my parents to let me write NECO and JAMB. I got into university in 2013. It wasn’t medicine sha.
But my dad refused to pay my fees, and my mum had to do a lot of running around to raise my fees. He later chipped in, but it was mostly my mum. It was clear from that moment that I’d have to take care of myself in school. They’d settled school fees. Everything else would be on me.
How did you manage this?
I had a stint serving drinks at a bar three times a week for ₦4,500/month. But I stopped after a few months because the male customers kept touching me, and the bar owner was only interested in keeping his customers.
Then, I worked as an attendant at a fuel station for ₦7k/month. Since I was still in school, I shared a shift with someone else and only worked half days. I hated the job because I had to stand for hours. I left after about three months.
Also, I had a much older boyfriend — I was 19, and he was in his 40s — who used to give me ₦10k – ₦15k every other week. He also paid for my hostel accommodation once.
My boyfriend kept saying he wanted to marry me. I didn’t mind because he had a two-bedroom apartment, a car, and seemed rich. At least, I’d be comfortable. Anyway, I saved up most of the money he gave me and began selling beaded items in school.
Did you make them yourself?
Yes, I did. I’d make the beads and post them on Facebook. A bead set went for ₦2k – ₦2,500. My profit on each sale was about ₦1k.
On the side, I was making ₦5k or ₦7k cooking for some Yahoo boys I’d befriended in my apartment building. They liked my food, so the money was regular.
While that was going on, the guys noticed I was well-spoken and started asking me to check for typos in the messages they wanted to send to “clients” to confirm there weren’t any typos. Sometimes, I’d edit; other times, I’d help them write the messages. Anytime they got paid, they’d give me between ₦30k – ₦50k as appreciation. The highest I ever got was ₦100k.
Those were my major income sources between first year and second year of uni. I was making money — approximately ₦40k weekly — and even sending some home. Because of that, I stopped paying attention to school. I hardly attended classes because I couldn’t leave someone calling me to cook for one rubbish class.
That must’ve affected your grades
It did. I had F parallel during the second semester of my 200 level. I had so many carryovers to write. But I was focused on making money. So, I started selling essential oils, too. I was also trying to raise money to start a hair business. The plan was to get hair from a distributor and resell them. It was lucrative at the time, so I saved everything I made so I could invest in it.
Around this time, my relationship with the older guy had ended, and I met another one online. The new guy was in his 30s and lived in a different city. I think he was the first person who told me he loved me. I told him about my plan to start a hair business and he seemed proud that I was so hardworking. I had saved ₦300k+ by that time.
A few weeks after I told him about my plan, he called and said he’d been in an accident. Then he ended the call.
An accident?
I was confused too. He was unreachable for the next couple of hours, and I was worried. When he eventually called back, he said he was in the police station. Apparently, he’d hit a woman and her child with his car, and the police held him, asking for about ₦600k. He said his bank app wasn’t working and asked me to lend him the money, promising to pay back as soon as he was released.
I didn’t stop to think. I just thought, “Well, he’s my boyfriend” and sent him my entire savings. He encouraged me to borrow the remaining ₦200k from people, and I did. After he got the money, I didn’t hear from him again.
Damn
I didn’t suspect anything at first. I thought he was still in danger. After three days, I borrowed more money to travel to his city to check on him. I met an empty house, and it was obvious someone had just packed out. I asked a neighbour, and they said they saw him leave a few days ago, and it looked like he was relocating.
At that point, my whole world shattered. I have no idea how I returned home that day. I was walking on the road, and tears were falling down my face. How could I have been so stupid?
I’m so sorry
I had lost everything I’d ever worked for and was about ₦300k in debt. I couldn’t tell anyone what happened. I stopped attending classes and didn’t even go out. I honestly wanted to die.
I started to “borrow from Peter to pay Paul” when my creditors started calling for their money. I’d take new loans to pay my old ones. I even used loan apps to fund a gambling habit I developed.
I picked it up from a neighbour. I desperately needed money and I asked him to teach me how to play but he refused because “babes no dey do this kind thing”. Instead, he suggested I give him money so he’d play for me. If he won anything with my money, he’d take a small percentage and give me the rest. I thought it was a good idea, so I agreed.
I started giving him ₦500 – ₦1k here and there for him to place bets. I don’t even know if he was placing the bets or using my money to smoke weed. But every time he’d come and say the game “cut”, and I’d give him more money for another “sure game”. I don’t know if it was desperation, but I just believed I’d win big one day and clear all my debts.
Did you win big?
I didn’t win anything. I was still getting cooking gigs, but they didn’t come as frequently, and everything I made went into paying loans and feeding. At one point, I dropped out of school completely. I was keeping to myself a lot and my friends just thought I was going through heartbreak. They didn’t know about the loans. I didn’t want to ask for help because I felt like I needed to solve everything myself.
I became homeless because I couldn’t pay rent. I started moving from one friend’s house to the other. They didn’t know I was homeless. I’d just be like, “I want to come and stay with you for one week,” and then I’d move to the next friend. I ended up staying with some of them for up to a month at a stretch.
It was crazy. I sank into a bad depression and was in limbo from 2015 to 2017. In 2017, I had to open up to my friends because the compounding loans were killing me. They pulled funds together, and I started to clear the loans. But then I saw an investment opportunity that promised to triple my money in two weeks.
Hmmm
See, I was at the mercy of people giving me ₦10k – ₦20k, and I didn’t want to rely on that. I wanted to make my own money, too. So, I took ₦100k that people had gathered for me and put it in the firm, expecting to make ₦300k. That ended terribly. I never saw one kobo.
At that point, it felt like there was no end in sight to the series of bad financial decisions I was making.
Thankfully, my friends helped me clear my debts completely in 2018. That’s also when my parents realised I’d dropped out of school.
How?
My mates were already going for NYSC, so they obviously had questions. I told them, and they were so disappointed. I couldn’t even go back home because I was ashamed. By this time, I’d rented another apartment with a friend’s help, so I just stayed back around school.
But I didn’t have a job or business. My mates had finished school and moved on with their lives, and I was still there.
I had nothing to my name and didn’t even know who I was. I sank into another depressive period that lasted until 2020. This time, it came with suicidal tendencies. I’d constantly overdose on drugs, and my neighbours would break down my door and rush me to the hospital.
When I wasn’t trying to kill myself, I was just existing. I’d go for days without eating until my friends sent me money. The last time I attempted suicide in 2020, someone told me, “Maybe you should just die so everyone will rest”.
Ah
I think, in the end, it was my friends’ encouragement that restored my will to live. They kept telling me things would get better, and I started to believe them. I was angry at this “things will get better” statement for a long time, though. I mean, I was a uni dropout in my 20s without a job, no relationship, and even my parents weren’t talking to me. Where was the “better”? But my friends didn’t let me give up.
Towards the end of 2020, I decided to return to cooking. It was the constant in my life, and I thought, if I could go to culinary school, I’d even be able to make a career out of it.
In early 2021, I got two steady clients. Between the two of them, I was sure of at least ₦100k/month.
Things were looking up
A little. But then my mum became hypertensive and had a stroke, and I had to start chipping in money for drugs. She was no longer with my dad, so I was also supporting my siblings in school. For every ₦100k I made, more than half went to my siblings and mum. So, that didn’t help with planning for my life or even culinary school.
What are things like these days?
Still pretty much the same. One of my siblings is waiting for NYSC and the other one is in final year at uni, and most of my money still goes back home. I really don’t think I’m living for myself. There’s always one need back home, and money is never enough. I have things bookmarked that I’d like to buy, but I can’t even think of buying them. I always think of home first.
Do you still rely on cooking gigs?
I learnt how to bake in 2022. Since culinary school wasn’t an option, I paid about ₦300k to learn to make cakes and small chops.
My plan was to set up a cute pastry shop, but I quickly realised it was capital intensive, so with the help of my friends again, I got a bigger ₦300k/year apartment with a big kitchen so I could bake in my kitchen and save on rent. It limits the number of cake orders I can get because some orders require storing products, which is a hassle without a freezer. The last time I priced a small freezer, it was ₦185k.
In a good month, I can earn between ₦100k – ₦150k from baking and cooking gigs. Sometimes, I don’t earn anything and have to rely on the grace and kindness of my friends. My financial life is very up and down.
You’ve mentioned your friends turning up for you a lot. Do you ever worry about relying on them too much?
All the time. I struggle with asking for help until things are falling apart. Anytime I have to pick my phone to ask for something, I feel regret and shame. These are my agemates, but I have to depend on them again and again.
My friends probably don’t feel the same, but I feel like a nuisance. It’s not great being the broke friend. No matter how kind people are, nothing beats the peace that comes with having my own money.
Plus, there’s a way people treat the broke friend. For instance, when my friends do things that piss me off, I can’t react or call them out because what if they choose to be vindictive and ignore me when I need help? It’s like I have to give away little parts of my dignity because I need them.
I’m also like the last person they think about for events or get-togethers. Like, why send an invite when I probably don’t even have money to attend? It hurts seeing the people I care about doing fun things and realising I’m the only one not there. But I can’t even be angry because if they invite me, I can’t afford it.
How many times will I say, “Sorry, I can’t make it”?
That’s relatable
But my friends are really good to me o. If not for them, I probably wouldn’t be alive to talk to you. I met most of them on social media, and they’ve helped my life. I just feel foolish that I can’t reciprocate. I’m the friend who writes long notes on birthdays because I can’t buy a gift. They love the notes, but I want to buy them gifts. I feel inadequate.
Sorry you feel that way. Let’s break down your monthly expenses
In a month that I earn ₦100k, my expenses typically go like this:
It involves a lot of manoeuvring to make it work. My toiletries are just sanitary pads and deodorant. That my savings figure is a delusional thing I like to do. I remove ₦10k and put it in a savings app, but then I collect it two days later when I need money. All my money goes into black tax and trying to survive. I honestly feel like I’m just existing.
How would you describe your relationship with money?
I always have anxiety no matter how much I have. I feel like there’s one bill coming that’ll take it all, so I always need more. Money is the only safety I know. I don’t want to return to the point I was years ago — gambling and in debt. I want to have so much money to the point where I never have to worry about it again.
How have your experiences shaped how you think about money?
Money gives you human dignity. Not having it can make you less than human. People can disagree and say, “But you can have a good quality of life without money”. It’s a lie. I’ve seen poverty, and I’ve seen how people treat me when they think I have money and when they know I’m completely broke.
It may be unintentional, but there’s this condescension towards poor people. People are always ready to advise me, like I’m completely clueless. They say, “Oh, why can’t you start a business?”. My darling, it’s money I’ll use to start it. Or “Why not learn a tech skill?” Sweetheart, it’s still money I’ll use to buy a laptop and data. People think I don’t have money because I’m stupid. Like all my problems would disappear if I only listened to their advice.
That’s a lot to think about. Are you still pursuing culinary school?
Oh yes. It’s still a dream. I want to become a chef so I can tell my mum I’ve taken her cooking gigs a step further. When this happens, I can confidently say I have a career. You can ask my friends what they do, and they quickly respond, “Software developer”. But I don’t have one straight answer. I have to start explaining how I bake, cook and write sometimes. That’s why I need this to happen.
But culinary school would require me to leave my state, move to Lagos, and spend a couple millions on school fees. I don’t have that yet. I’d also like to return to school one day and get my degree, but that feels like a far-fetched dream.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?
1. I can’t afford a good life. I’m always scraping the bottom. I can’t even afford to lose ₦100 from my account. I’m always anxious, and it’s not a great way to live. I feel like I’m failing at life.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
I grew up in a small town and thought I’d attend secondary school in the state capital with my friends. But my mum made it clear that we couldn’t afford it. The school fee was ₦65k, and books and uniforms would’ve added to that. I was 12 years old, and it was the first time it clicked that money makes things happen.
Tell me more about the financial situation at home
My parents both worked for the local government — which is the worst government job ever. They’re retired now, and my mum’s monthly pension is just ₦30k, and my dad’s is ₦47k. They spent almost 30 years in service.
But growing up, it wasn’t obvious things were bad until the secondary school incident. Most people in my small town didn’t have money, either. I settled for the run-down school in town, and when I asked for money to buy books — I love to read — my mum would be so confused. Like, why would I even think of using money to buy books when the money could take me to school or feed me for a week?
I’m also the first-born of three children, so I quickly learned to sacrifice my needs so my siblings could have nice things after I realised things weren’t great. For instance, my mum would buy Fanta, and I’d claim not to like it because of cramps, so she could give my siblings. If I said I wanted Fanta too, I knew she’d have to do mental calculations to see how we could afford to buy one more.
When was the first time you made money?
2017. I left my small town for the first time to write JAMB in a neighbouring town that was close to the state capital, and I remember being so excited. I was one step closer to the big city. I started thinking about what to do to make money and finally get to this city my friends had gone to.
So, with my mum’s help, I got a job in a small provisions store close to my house. My mum just wanted me to have something to pass time before uni.
The pay was ₦3k/month. The first time I got paid, I got the money in ₦500 notes, and it felt “bigger” in my hands. I was so excited.
I can relate
I used my salary to buy a book — Castles by Julia Garwood. When my mum asked about the money, I had only ₦500 left. My parents beat the shit out of me. After that, my mum collected my salary directly from my boss.
Well, uni admission didn’t work out, and my parents convinced me to try a polytechnic or college of education. But during Christmas, a friend visited from Abuja. She had a Tecno Android phone and a Facebook account. I didn’t have any of these.
She also had a job and lived in a rented apartment. I was fascinated by her stories about Abuja. At that point I was like, “What even is my state capital? I’m going to Abuja!”
Did your parents agree?
It took a couple of months and my grandmother to convince them, but they agreed. I told them I could get a job in Abuja and apply to a polytechnic in Nasarawa State.
In 2018, I landed in Abuja with ₦12k, moving in with my friend who lived on the outskirts of Abuja. My first culture shock was how expensive things were. What do you mean I had to pay ₦200 for a 10-minute bike ride? At home, ₦200 could take me from one town to another.
How did the job and school plan work out?
I focused on making money first. My friend helped me get a waitressing job at a bar. The salary was ₦15k/month. That was big money to me.
The male customers often tipped me ₦500 or bought me a plate of pepper soup. Of course, that involved flirting with them and rubbing their heads. One of them gave me ₦5k once, and I finally opened a bank account. In my head, I’d blown.
It was during this time I met the person who changed my view on life.
Who was that?
A free-spirited and loud fellow waitress at the bar. She encouraged me not to limit myself to the men in the bar who could only tip a maximum of ₦5k. Not when men in town could give me ₦50k.
At that point, my dad had retired and was dealing with blood pressure issues. My mum was also calling me frequently to complain about their needs and indirectly ask for money. So, I was more than ready to meet the ₦50k guys. If they liked me and wanted to sleep with me, no problem. As long as they brought money.
I started following this friend to clubs in town. Shortly after, I met a soldier. We started dating, and I quit my job at the bar.
Was he giving you an allowance?
Not exactly. But whenever I visited him, he gave me ₦10k – ₦20k. He also paid for my groceries and toiletries.
But I met someone else at a club four months after we started dating. The first time we had sex, he gave me ₦50k. He also wanted us to be exclusive because he wasn’t comfortable with me sleeping with other people. I weighed my options and decided soldier man could go. The new guy put me on a ₦50k monthly allowance, and he paid for my first apartment inside town. The rent was ₦105k. He also bought me a mattress and a standing fan.
Then, in 2019, I got a job at a spa.
How did that happen?
I’d become active on Facebook, and that’s how I met this babe who asked me to come be a masseuse at her spa. I hadn’t done it before, but the work schedule was on a one-week-on, one-week-off basis, and I figured I’d still have time to do other things. Plus, she offered ₦70k/month and the option to make more in tips from clients who wanted happy endings.
What do you mean by “Happy endings”?
The clients could request hand jobs or sex after the massage session. This brought me tips between ₦15k – ₦20k per client, and I could have up to eight clients in a day. The highest I ever got from one client was ₦50k.
My madam took a liking to me — maybe because she also came to Abuja to make it on her own. Three months into the job, she asked me to replace the manager, who was stealing and diverting her clients. My salary increased to ₦100k.
Managing client payments was one of my new duties, and it made me realise just how much the spa made. My madam would charge people ₦150k for a one-hour central massage session, and she was paying the people actually doing the work ₦70k/month. I thought it was unfair, but there was nothing I could do.
Interestingly, some of the clients continued to request for me even after I became the manager. My madam sent pictures of the girls available to the clients before their sessions, and they’d sometimes say they wanted me rather than the actual masseuses. I only accepted the requests if the tips were at least ₦50k. I was trying to gather as much money as possible.
Why was that?
My boyfriend had started dating someone else and misbehaving, so I ignored him. Now, I had to renew my rent myself, and I was saving for that.
Then, I met a senator at work. He told me he’d pay my salary so I wouldn’t have to work at the spa anymore. He knew about the happy endings and didn’t want me to do that while we were together. Apparently, people could “get to him” through me if I slept with other people.
The first night we slept together, he gave me $500. That was the first time I held foreign currency in my hand. When I got home that day, I had my bath and told myself I was washing away poverty.
Mad
It was a moment of realisation. So, I could earn that kind of money. Around that time, I was planning to leave my neighbourhood because of increased robberies. The senator suggested a place in an upscale part of Abuja, so we wouldn’t just be meeting at hotels.
I found an ₦800k apartment and told him the landlord requested a two-year payment upfront. This man sent me ₦4m. When I saw the alert, I just started crying and shouting. Like how? I immediately sent ₦700k to my mum and told her someone who wanted to marry me sent the money so she wouldn’t ask too many questions.
The COVID lockdown happened immediately after I moved in, but it was an amazing time for me. The senator’s wife was stuck in the UK, and I spent most of the time with him. He gave me ₦300k monthly and would sometimes send more when he wanted me to cook for him. He liked food, so that happened a lot.
What’s the highest amount of money he gave you?
₦9 million. I visited my parents for Christmas in 2020 and didn’t like the state of the house. So, I told him I wanted to build them a house, and he gave me the money a few months later.
Also, forget that thing he said about me not sleeping with other people. I occasionally had one-night stands with people I met in town or through friends I met at the salon or where I shopped. My friends would tell me about one actor or someone coming to town who needed girls, and those usually brought in $200 or about ₦100k.
The senator was my stable relationship and income source, though. But things fizzled out between us in 2021 when he started dating my friend.
Your friend?
Yeah. We met at a salon and became friends. They both met for the first time at my house. Sometime later, he asked about her and told me he was interested. To be fair, he asked if I didn’t mind, and I honestly didn’t. The girl asked me too, and I was like, “Girl, eat his money”.
The guy was married with kids. I wasn’t under any impression the relationship would go any further.
I think he felt guilty about “dumping” me, though. He sent me money more frequently towards the end of our relationship and even renewed my rent for two years. We still talk today, and I’m friends with both of them.
Did that affect your income stability?
There was no longer a particular amount guaranteed to come at the end of the month. So, I focused on getting one-off clients. I’d meet guys in clubs, we’d have sex, and they’d pay me. It wasn’t a great model, though. I didn’t discuss money with them before sleeping with them, and there were situations where I’d ride someone like a bicycle for hours and only get ₦50k after.
Why didn’t you talk about payment, though?
It was an awkward conversation for me. My friends always told me to discuss payment before the deed, but I just expected guys popping bottles in the club to have sense and do the right thing. By this time, my average income was about ₦200k – ₦300k/month.
I worked with this model for about two years, and it often didn’t turn out well. I even had a pregnancy scare in 2022. Technically, I only found out I was pregnant after I had a miscarriage. My period is never regular, and I’d missed it for about three months when I started getting really bad cramps. I was rushed to the hospital, and that’s how I found out. Ironically, I always use condoms. I got pregnant the one time I didn’t use one. It was crazy.
I’m sorry you went through that
Thanks. It’s not even the most unpleasant thing that’s happened to me in this job. One time, I was having sex with a guy, and his friend walked in. Then the guy I was with went, “Well, with the amount I plan to pay you, it makes sense if my friend gets a go, too. It’s the same one night.”
I was so pissed. I called my cab guy and left without collecting my money. See, having a cab guy is very necessary in this job. Online cabs don’t work all night, and sometimes I just need someone to come get me.
Anyway, my job became easier after a pimp approached me in 2023. He’d seen me hang out at a lounge a couple of times. He offered to hook me up with clients for 30% of whatever I make. It sounded good to me and we tried it for some time to see how it’d work. It worked out great and we still work together.
How does having a pimp make your job better?
He tells me how much I’d get before I even accept a job. So, I don’t have to worry about doing the work and receiving peanuts later. Also, he doesn’t demand for more money. For instance, we can agree he’d take ₦150k for a ₦500k weekend job. If, for whatever reason, I get paid ₦700k instead, he never asks for more. It also helps that I’m very transparent with him, so we just work well together.
Earlier this year, he hooked me up with two Arab guys who wanted to do intense BDSM with a black woman. He was clear they were going to beat me, but I’d get $20k. The money wasn’t bad at all, so I agreed to it and the conditions they set — getting tested for STIs.
I was with them for three days, and it was intense. That thing they did in “Fifty Shades of Grey” isn’t BDSM at all. These guys used real iron handcuffs and beat me ehn. I used a whole week to recover. I’ll never do it again.
Damn. That’s a lot
I’ve not done any major job since that time. Right now, I’m just resting and catching my breath. My pimp still hooks me up with ₦200k one-night jobs once in a while, but it’s nowhere close to the weekly jobs I’m used to.
What was your average weekly income when you were working regularly?
2023 was a good year for me. I had many clients who came into town because of the general elections. Plus, due to my pimp’s actual job, he was in close contact with a lot of them. Sometimes I could get up to ₦2m in a week. The weekend of democracy day, there was a private party and I went home with $1k.
Do you worry about running out of clients at some point?
I do. It’s why I’m focused on saving for my siblings’ education and my family. I fear becoming old and ugly and suddenly being unable to land clients. Everyone in my family depends on me now, and I subconsciously save almost everything I earn in a month. Before January, I used to save like ₦800k/month.
I have three savings accounts: one has ₦1.7m in it, and it’s for health bills and emergencies. Another has ₦610k for rent savings — it’s not much because I don’t have to worry about rent for another year — and I have ₦9.6m in the third one for savings sake. It’s usually where the money for groceries, food and flexing comes from. A large part of this money came from the January job. It brought me ₦18m after my pimp got his cut, and I used part of it to get some wigs, pay my rent in advance, got phones for my siblings and a generator for my parents. There were other expenses, too. When I was done, I was left with about ₦10m. But it’s the account I spend from, which is why it’s around ₦9m now.
Let’s break down these expenses in a typical month
My feeding expenses are high because my siblings moved in with me in 2022, and they’re teenagers who eat a lot. I’m glad they’re here, though. Every time I look at them, I’m reminded that I’m on the right track. Nothing I’m doing is in vain. They’re so intelligent, and I’m honestly in awe of them.
They’re still in secondary school, and the plan is to send them to the best universities possible. The schools I’m eyeing cost millions, so I need to get my money up. I’ve also thought about returning to school, but I don’t think it’ll work out. It’d be too awkward sitting with small children. So I’ll let my siblings do it.
You said something about black tax from extended family
Yes. There’s always one cousin asking me for money or one thing I need to pay for in the village. I just came back from a burial in my village in March because, apparently, it was an important person who died, and if we weren’t involved, they’d look down on my family. I had to buy a goat, crates of beer and even cook for people. I spent like ₦150k on that matter.
Just the other day, I got another call that another person died, and we had to buy another goat and crates of beer. As how?
How would you describe your relationship with money?
I feel like I’m at a point where I can finally breathe. I’m not tense about money anymore, because I have most of my responsibilities covered. Even if I don’t get a client in a month — which isn’t possible — I’ll be fine. I haven’t worked actively since January, and I still get ₦300k/month at the least.
Have you considered getting an additional income source?
The thought of starting a business has crossed my mind. The senator promised to give me money if I ever need to set up anything, but nothing concrete has come to mind yet.
I’m very comfortable where I am right now. I earn more than most civil servants, and I never get stranded; my pimp makes sure of that. I even reject clients sometimes when the requests get too bizarre.
What are some of the bizarre requests you’ve gotten?
Someone wanted me to eat his shit for ₦10m. Good money but omo, shit? Nah. Another one offered me ₦800k to wear a dildo and peg him, but I wasn’t comfortable with that. Then there are the ones who want to pee on you. People have weird fantasies. Maybe I’d have jumped at these requests in my early days when I was still trying to find my feet. But I’m comfortable enough to reject jobs now.
What’s one misconception about sex work that you’re tired of hearing?
People think sex workers always stand on the road. I’ve never had to do that to find a client. They’re also always shocked that I speak so well. It’s usually the first thing new clients say. Stuff like, “You’re so intelligent”. I don’t get it. Should I be stupid?
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?
7. It’ll be a complete 10 when I send my siblings to the universities I want them to go to and comfortably cover all their bills.
I’m curious. Do you have any financial regrets?
Yes. I opened a charging centre for a cousin in 2023 because his mum — my mum’s younger sister — came to me crying about how he wasn’t doing anything in the village. It cost me about ₦250k to set up the place and buy a generator.
Two months later, he left the shop unattended to go and drink, and all the phones were stolen. I had to pay about ₦450k to the customers who lost their phones and bail him from jail. I’ll never set up a business for a family member again. I’d rather give them money and keep it moving.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
“Do crypto with Quidax and win from a $60K QDX prize pool!” Bayo, a 28-year-old Lagosian tells Jide, his Ibadan friend seeking the most secure way to trade crypto in Nigeria after a major exchange he trades with announced its plans to leave the country. Find out more here.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
I must’ve been around three years old when my elder brother was resuming Nursery 3. He was reluctant to start the new class because everyone thought the class teacher was mean. So, my cousin promised to give him 50 kobo if he went to the class without making a fuss. It worked; my brother stopped complaining.
It was my first time realising money could insulate someone from certain experiences. Or at least, make the experience better. I became more convinced of that when I got into primary school.
How so?
My mum never gave me lunch money; I went to school with home-cooked meals. Other kids had money to buy stuff during break. They looked like they were balling, and I wanted that lifestyle. I knew I needed money to make that happen. So, I started a mini-rental business in Primary 3.
My elder brother was good at sketching storybooks. Whenever he made new ones, I’d lease them out to my classmates for ₦5 or ₦10. What I made went into sweets, sugar cane and snacks. I was finally balling like my mates, and I loved it.
What was the financial situation at home like?
It mostly depended on my dad’s job. He was a geologist who did several stints at private oil companies throughout my childhood. When he worked at a good place, there was money. But when he didn’t, we struggled. My mum’s tailor income couldn’t do much for five children.
One of the times we really struggled was when my dad lost a job as I was about to start SS 1. I had to stay home for weeks because he couldn’t pay my fees.
He got a new job a few months later, and things returned to normal. I never forgot that period, though. I noticed how trying to hold the family finances together stretched my mum. That’s when I started associating having good money with having a job. But interestingly, my parents didn’t allow us to work while in university — they were against whatever business my siblings tried their hands at. It was always, “Go to school and get a certificate”.
Did you try a business in uni too?
There was no point. I lived on allowances. I got into university in 2013 and was on a ₦40k monthly allowance right from the first year. In 2016 — my third year at uni — my allowance increased to ₦80k, then there was the extra ₦15k – ₦20k from my mum.
My dad lost his job that same year, thanks to Buhari. That man came and introduced policies that affected oil prospecting companies, and the whole sector became unstable. Even when my dad found another job, he had to take a nasty pay cut. I think he went from earning about ₦600k in allowances alone to an ₦100k salary. Of course, it meant he could no longer fund my lifestyle.
What were some of the changes you had to make?
I was a baller before my dad lost his job. I lived in a two-bedroom apartment my dad paid for and used to host house parties once a month. I also regularly bought food for my friends and splurged on gadgets and expensive shoes. In 2016, you could get good Nike shoes for like ₦20k.
However, when my dad lost his job, I became totally broke. In fact, the right word is poverty. I didn’t have any savings, and my allowance dropped from ₦80k to ₦12k to anything I got. I moved into a self-contained apartment and started missing meals. Obviously, the parties stopped. I suddenly became the “I don’t have money” friend.
Thankfully, this was close to a compulsory six-month internship period, so I left school for another town where the internship was.
Were you paid a stipend at the internship?
Nope. It was unpaid. I stayed with an uncle, so feeding and accommodation were sorted. But I wasn’t comfortable with not having money.
About three months into the internship, I was with a photographer friend’s phone when a ₦100k credit notification popped up. He saw the message and was like, “Oh, this person has paid their balance”. I asked what the balance was for, and he said a photoshoot. I was shocked. How much was the full amount if the “balance” was ₦100k? I decided there and then I could take pictures too.
LMAO
This was in 2017. My friend hooked me up with someone who owned a studio, and I started hanging around him to learn the photography business. After a month, I ditched my internship to focus on photography. I got a job at a studio — after forming like I knew what I was doing — and got paid ₦28k/month. I started as a photography assistant, but I was pretty much a full-time photographer.
At this point, I’d stopped calling home for money because the answer was always the same — there was no money. I was fully in hustle mode. I worked Sunday to Sunday — it was stressful as hell — but it felt good to earn my own money. I also made extra money on the side assisting other photographers and taking pictures on my own. These, plus my salary, usually brought my income to ₦50k monthly on average.
I should mention that I didn’t tell my boss I was still in school. I thought it’d spoil my chances. I only told him when I had to return to school in February 2018. I’d worked for about seven months in total and saved most of my income, so I used it to sort my school fees and the ₦90k rent for my self-contained apartment.
Did you continue with photography in school?
Yes. The friend who introduced me to photography was in my university too, and he had a studio in a nearby town. I’d gotten a number of clients from my time assisting photographers, so I still got gigs.
It was that time when everyone was doing model shoots and polaroids. Whenever I got clients, I’d use my friend’s studio and fuel his generator as appreciation for using his space. I usually made like ₦20k – ₦30k per shoot. I also set up an Instagram page for my pictures and became a mini-celebrity in school. I had photography jobs almost every weekend.
How much did that bring you in a month?
Between ₦30k – ₦50k.
I graduated uni in October 2018 and returned to the studio I worked at during IT. This time, my pay was ₦35k, and I worked for five months before I went for NYSC.
I chose a photography studio for my PPA, and they paid me ₦50k/month in addition to NYSC’s ₦19,800 allowance. I also joined the media department of a church and had access to their camera, which was useful for my side gigs, bringing in an extra ₦20k here and ₦30k there. During my NYSC year, I was averaging around ₦120k/month.
Not bad.
In January 2020, I got a ₦150k product shoot gig for someone’s website. Until that time, it was the most money I’d ever made from a single photography job, and I felt like I’d finally made it. It also sparked my interest in documentary photography. I love telling stories and had even written briefly at one point. I figured documentaries would let me combine storytelling with photography. I didn’t know many documentary photographers, but if I could learn it, I would stop taking portraits and covering events — I’ve always found the latter stressful.
Then, COVID lockdown happened immediately after I finished NYSC, and I couldn’t even find the events jobs I didn’t like. The studio I worked at also closed down, and they never reopened even after the lockdown was lifted.
Damn. So, no gigs and no salary
It was brutal. Thankfully, I went back to living with my uncle after university, so I wasn’t homeless. I didn’t have any savings, though. When people started coming out again after lockdown, I decided to focus on freelance photography rather than keeping a studio job. I realised I could make more money that way.
So, I started taking on a few jobs here and there, including corporate headshots for organisations. One thing I did was make sure to charge well — my rates were from ₦100k. I knew I did great work, and I wasn’t afraid to call money. At least, if I did only one job a month, it’d be something. Of course, there were months I didn’t see anything.
I also had a two-month stint teaching students at an academy. The organisers paid me ₦20k/month per student, and there were 10 students, making ₦400k for the two months.
Did you still pursue documentary photography?
Oh, yes. I applied to quite a number of brands, offering to make documentaries for them, but nothing came out of that.
Towards the end of 2020, I decided I’d lived with my uncle long enough. So, I moved into a two-bedroom apartment with a friend from school. The cost was ₦800k, and I contributed half of the bill.
In 2021, I partnered with a photographer friend who had an abandoned studio, and he allowed me to run it. There was equipment there and everything— I just had to sit down there. I even had an office like a proper big boy. It didn’t come with additional income sha. My clients were still mostly from my freelancing gigs, and I averaged around ₦200k – ₦400k monthly.
Then, in 2022, I got a job with an international NGO.
How did that happen?
A friend randomly shared the vacancy with me and asked if I was interested. It was a communications intern role, and I thought, “Well, let me try”. It was my first 9-5 job, and it paid ₦130k/month.
I didn’t stop photography, though. A few months into the job, a colleague noticed I took really good pictures for my reports and introduced me to a one-time project that involved covering photography for an NGO event. That paid ₦400k.
My job also involved a lot of travel, which translated to additional per diem allowances. That usually brought in an additional ₦100k every other month. There was also health insurance and other small benefits. I kept thinking, so this is what 9-5 people have been enjoying?
What was having two incomes like?
It was great. I was finally able to save up to buy my own camera. I’d been using my church’s camera and borrowing from friends until that point. It was a Sony Alpha 7 III, and it cost me ₦1.3m. I still use that camera today.
My roommate moved out at a point, and he owned most of the appliances. But I was able to re-furnish my apartment with a new TV, couch, air conditioner and a few other things. Generally, I felt like I was finally setting up my life. I hadn’t called home for money in forever, and I was living well.
I also finally landed a documentary gig in December 2020. An organisation I’d previously worked with said they wanted to produce infographic video content in five different languages. I randomly charged ₦1.8 million for a three-minute video, and they agreed. I bought myself a Macbook Pro after the project ended because why not?
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How was the internship at the NGO going?
It was initially for six months, but it got extended to a year. After the year ended, there was an opportunity for me to apply to become a regular communications officer, but I didn’t get the role. I could’ve renewed my internship, but I was angry that I didn’t get the regular role, so I left in March 2023.
Back to freelance photography?
Yes. However, I also became a subcontractor for the NGO. I’d left some projects unfinished and some decision-makers thought I should be the one to do it. I even made more money that way. I did about five gigs for them within seven months, and each paid between ₦100k and ₦200k.
However, I still wanted a 9-5. I’d tasted how the other side lived, and I liked it. So, I applied and got a communications officer role with another NGO in September 2023. My salary was ₦469k/month. I was back to balling levels.
Love to hear it.
It also involved a lot of travel. I could be on the road for three weeks in a month, and with per diem allowances, my monthly income came to around ₦800k. The only downside was I no longer had so much time for photography side gigs.
Interestingly, I found out after about four months of working at the NGO that I was like the least-paid person there. Someone else on my level was earning ₦1.4m.
AH. How did that happen?
I asked HR, and it turns out I wasn’t supposed to accept the first offer I was given. I had no idea I could negotiate. It really affected my morale, but shit happens. My salary was slightly reviewed to ₦600k, and I had to take it like that.
I’m still at the NGO. With travel allowances running into ₦350k – ₦400k, my income from my 9-5 runs into ₦1m monthly. Then, an added ₦350k – ₦400k approximately from photography — mostly portraits and documentaries.
I’m actively on the job market, sha. I’m hoping to land a managerial role and make more money.
What’s an ideal amount you think you should be earning?
If I were to change jobs now, I’d hope to earn nothing less than ₦1.6m – ₦1.8m/month. But comfortable money for me right now would be $9k – $10k/month, and I think I should be able to achieve that within three to four years if I stay on my current career course or expand my photography clientele.
How would you describe your relationship with money?
Money is a means to an end. I want to live a life without stress, and I know money is what can give me that lifestyle. So, I don’t hoard money. The moment I get it, I’m thinking of things that money can facilitate for me or how it can make my life easier.
I hardly save these days. I once put about $2k in a cryptocurrency just to have something somewhere. But I lost $1,500 out of it earlier this year when I took someone’s idea to trade it. I just removed my remaining $500 and left it in a dollar account. I recently added $1,500 to it, so it’s back to $2k now.
I’m also not into investing because I think there’s a gap between what I’m earning now and what I want to earn, so I prefer to focus on that.
Let’s break down your typical monthly expenses
Tell me about a recent unplanned expense you made
Reebok sneakers. I move around different communities for my job regularly, and the sneakers are so comfy. I can walk around in those things all day. It cost ₦45k, and I still think it’s worth it.
I’m curious. Do you see yourself juggling a 9-5 and photography for much longer?
I even have construction in mind. That’s what I studied in school, and I might pivot into that when I’m around 40 years old. But I definitely plan to set up my own media organisation so I can do media and communication consultancies and work on more documentaries. That’ll probably cost around $15k.
For now, I like working in the development sector because it makes me feel like I’m making an impact. So, I’ll probably stick to it for a while. I also hope to japa soon, so I’m deliberately applying to foreign-based jobs.
Is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?
Maybe a car. But it’s more of something I have to wait for, rather than can’t afford. I have about ₦4.5m saved for it, but prices have increased, and the car I want now costs around ₦9m, so I have to gather money for that.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?
6. I’m not really happy with my finances, and I think I can do a lot better. My income seems like a lot of money because of where Nigeria is right now, but it’s really not. I’m not where I want to be financially. Maybe if I can bridge that gap and develop better money habits, that number could grow to an 8 or 9.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
“Do crypto with Quidax and win from a $60K QDX prize pool!” Bayo, a 28-year-old Lagosian tells Jide, his Ibadan friend seeking the most secure way to trade crypto in Nigeria after a major exchange he trades with announced its plans to leave the country. Find out more here.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
I don’t have a specific money memory apart from spending my pocket money on books and two-for-₦5 sweets. I grew up privileged, so I didn’t have to think about money. It was just there.
Tell me more about your privilege.
My dad owned a law firm, and my mum didn’t have to work, so that should give you an idea. My pocket money in secondary school was ₦1,500/week, and my school provided lunch, so I was just spending on books, snacks and whatever else I liked.
My dad was pretty strict with money, though. I have five siblings, and we used to spend every summer vacation in England. During those six-week trips, my dad would give me a £500 allowance I had to use to shop for outing clothes for the rest of the year. He’d occasionally give the extra £50 for cinema outings or to go on the bus, but I had to run him through everything I planned to do so he’d approve. He had a particular way of doing things, and my siblings and I had to do exactly like he said to remain in his good books.
Fast forward to 2007, I finished secondary school and went on to do two years of college in the UK — a prerequisite to study medicine at university. After college, my dad said I had to study law like him or return to Nigeria.
What did you choose?
Law in the UK. I didn’t want to lose the freedom I had in England. Even if he’d said I should do animal dentistry, I’d have done it.
My monthly allowance was £500 in my first year in 2009, which was enough to cover my phone bills, food and transportation. But there was hardly anything left at month’s end because I also liked spending on things that made my life easier — I still do. Small rain would fall, and I’d pick taxis instead of waiting for the bus.
Then, I’d manage whatever I had left till the month’s end because I couldn’t call home for more money.
Why not?
I’d have to explain to my dad where the money went, and I’m uncomfortable asking people for money. Maybe it’s pride, but I’d rather not do it.
By the time I left uni in 2012, my allowance had increased to £900, but I still had money problems. I’d also developed a taste for retail therapy, so that didn’t help. I returned to Nigeria with zero savings. Then I went to law school and started working for my dad at his law firm during NYSC in 2014.
Were you paid a salary at your dad’s firm?
Oh, yes. My dad treated me like a regular employee. I was paid ₦150k/month — the same amount he paid every entry-level lawyer. He got me a car so I could drive myself to the firm though.
The funny thing was that he didn’t show me any favouritism at work but expected so much from me. Other lawyers would go home after regular work hours, and I’d have to stay until 10 p.m. if he was still in the office. When we’d eventually leave, he’d drive with his police escort and leave me to drive alone at night. I didn’t have any free time; I was almost always working.
Then, I had to leave the firm in 2016.
What happened?
I got pregnant, and my dad wanted me to get an abortion. It wasn’t a teenage pregnancy o — I was 24, and he knew my boyfriend. He just wanted me to do things the way he wanted. He even promised to upgrade my car to an SUV and fully sponsor my wedding if I did as he said.
But I didn’t want to live like that for the rest of my life; always doing whatever he said. So, I refused, and he disowned me. I lost my job and car and had to leave the house. My dad and I haven’t spoken since. My siblings are also not allowed to contact me.
Damn. What did that mean for you?
I moved in with my boyfriend. He worked in construction — still does — but his contracts didn’t come every month. He could get a ₦5m job today and then nothing else for a while. We went through a rough patch because of that. We were also saving every income that came in for me to have the baby in America. I didn’t think the America thing was necessary, but I went with it.
Also, I was suddenly very aware that I didn’t have money. Money was always there, but now it wasn’t. I was almost always ill during pregnancy, and the electricity supply in his area was terrible. We had to sleep without light multiple times because there was no money to fuel the generator. I wasn’t used to that, and it was tough adapting. It was a depressing period.
Sorry you went through that.
Thank you. My boyfriend and I had a registry wedding, and I travelled to America to have my baby. We had family there, so it worked out.
We made the best decision choosing America because my child was born with genetic defects that required surgery. Obamacare was still effective in the state where I had my child, so we got the surgeries and other healthcare benefits for free. We only paid for the birth, and that saved us about $250,000 in medical bills. I stayed in America for about a year before returning to Nigeria in 2017.
Did you try returning to the workforce?
Yes. I started job-hunting immediately. But I ran into a couple of issues. Law was my only experience, so I inevitably applied to law firms. But my dad is quite known in legal circles because of some high-profile cases he’d worked on.
Once prospective employers connected the dots and realised I was related to him, they were no longer interested. One even said I was coming to spy for my dad. Of course, I couldn’t go around telling everyone he disowned me so they’d trust me. They just couldn’t understand why I’d leave my dad’s firm to work elsewhere. After a while, I told myself that pursuing a law career wasn’t possible. It’s a good thing it wasn’t even my passion.
That’s wild. What did you do?
I started looking for “any work”. Anything to put on my CV. In 2018, I got a ₦25k/month business development role at an insurance company. I was promoted within two months to business development manager, and my salary increased to ₦40k. I also had a 7.5% commission on sales, so sometimes I made up to ₦100k in salary and commissions. I left the job after nine months because I didn’t like sales. It’s like walking up to people to beg them to give you money.
I feel you.
In my next job, I worked as a user researcher at a bank for ₦100k/month. My goal was to cross the ₦150k salary I earned while at my dad’s law firm to prove I could earn it on my own. He’d said I wouldn’t survive without him, and I wanted to prove him wrong.
I figured the quickest way to earn more was by upskilling, so I began to invest in online courses around user experience. I spent almost two years at the bank before I moved to another job in 2021. This one paid ₦189k after taxes, and I used my first two salaries to pay for a ₦200k Udacity course. To me, investing in my career was a better decision than trying to save.
Why did you think so?
I wasn’t earning enough to save. If I saved ₦50k/month, for instance, I’d only have ₦600k at the end of the year. It still wouldn’t make sense even if I got a 15% interest. But I can take that same ₦50k to invest in a course and work on getting a new role that pays five times what I was earning.
I got that advice from someone on Twitter and ran with it. I got another UX research job in 2022; my salary was ₦350k/month. By the time I left the job in 2023, I’d been promoted a couple of times, and my salary was ₦500k. Between 2022 and 2023, I spent about ₦2m on an education program with an international business school.
That’s a long way beyond your ₦150k goal
I’d have been excited to earn ₦350k in 2012. I mean, that money could take you to Dubai. I should’ve felt like I could finally relax, but the fluctuating exchange rate meant I couldn’t even enjoy the fact that I was earning more. It’s even worse now.
It’s the reason I decided to work towards earning in dollars. Towards the end of 2023, I started writing and sharing what I’d learned from my multiple courses on LinkedIn. A content manager reached out, and I got a gig — $350 for every technical article I write for their blog.
I’ve written at least one article a month since then. I did two articles in March and hope to keep that up. But I started another full-time job in January, and I’m a mum of two now, so it’s a lot to juggle.
How much does the new job pay?
₦1.5m/month, which is great because I’ve finally started saving. Since January, I’ve saved my dollar earnings in a domiciliary account and one-third of my naira earnings in a fintech savings account. I’ve also considered saving my dollars in a fintech platform to earn interest, but my challenge is having to buy the dollars on their platform. Why can’t I just transfer from my domiciliary account? I might just open a dollar-denominated mutual fund account and leave my savings there. I’m open to suggestions from whoever reads this sha. What should I do with my dollars?
I’ll be sure to ask them. How much have you saved right now?
$1,500. I recently took $500 out of it to treat my husband on his birthday. I’m looking to start saving half of my salary monthly, but I’m currently running a part-time Master’s program and eyeing a ₦750k course, so the saving plan is still just a plan.
Do you have a saving goal?
I’m saving because spending the whole money wouldn’t make sense. My husband handles most of the bills. If I ever have to save for something big, it’ll probably be buying a house or my kids’ education.
Japa might be an option, but my husband’s business is here, so we’ll need to put a lot of thought into it before deciding to leave.
How would you describe your relationship with money?
I’m still learning. I want to say I have it all figured out, but I really don’t. I’m not frivolous, but I definitely need better money management skills. For instance, every time I get a salary bump, apart from thinking about courses, I’m also considering what I can do to appreciate the people around me. Like, how do I appreciate my husband? Or make my kids’ lives better? I even increased the salaries of my housekeepers and security guard.
I want to save more because I might not have a choice with how inflation is going. I can’t confidently say earning ₦1.5m will still be considered a good salary in the next three years. So, I need to improve my savings and investment portfolio even as I try to earn more. Again, I’m open to financial advice.
Apart from saving, what other lifestyle changes have come with earning more?
Not much. My kids are still my biggest expense. My husband handles most of the bills; I just pay for food and the random things my kids need. I also have two housekeepers — over 18 — who go to school and some other vocational training, so I give them pocket money and handle expenses like their clothes and hospital bills. My husband pays them salaries, but they save it.
Can we break down these expenses into a typical month?
Most of my black tax expenses are spent on my kids’ teachers, house staff, and in-laws. My husband and I also contribute about ₦30k – ₦50k each to purchase monthly welfare packages (mostly foodstuff) and share with underprivileged people in my neighbourhood. The economy is terrible, and it’s our way of easing other people’s burdens.
Talking about the economy, I’m always shocked by my food expenses. When I was earning ₦100k, grocery shopping was like ₦50k in a month. Why am I spending more than triple that for almost the same things now?
Omo. I can’t answer that. What’s an unplanned expense you made recently?
I renewed my car’s comprehensive insurance and passport in February. The renewal wasn’t unexpected; it was the increased fee, especially for the car insurance. When my husband bought the car two years ago, insurance was around ₦180k.
It moved to ₦350k in January 2023, and now it’s ₦430k. Usually, my husband pays, but I offered to do it because I’d just gotten my new salary. The passport renewal was for a 10-year validity period, and I paid to fast-track it. It cost ₦140k.
What’s an ideal salary you think you should be earning now?
$5k/month. I see it as something I need to work towards rather than something I’m owed. I’ll be set for life if I can earn a minimum of $5k/month for the next 10 – 20 years. I don’t need to become a billionaire or make it so my kids don’t have to work a day in their lives before I’ll be fulfilled.
In fact, I want my kids to work and know the value of money. I want them to enjoy, but they should also know what it takes to get what they enjoy and be responsible contributors to society.
Is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?
A number of things, actually. I want to own my own home someday and have enough money to take a family vacation every two years. I’d also like to be able to afford to put my house keepers through school till university comfortably. Same for my kids as well, preferably outside the country.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
6. I can afford my basic needs, but I don’t think there’s enough structure in place yet to give my children and family the life I want for them. There’s promise, though. I just need to keep going the way I am.
The funny thing is, if you’d asked me how happy I’d be earning ₦1.5m last year when I was still on ₦500k, I’d have said a 10. It’s good to have something else to look forward to, though.
I’m curious. Do you think you’ll ever reconcile with your dad?
A part of me wants us to, but I know he can be quite problematic and controlling, and I don’t want issues. I miss my siblings, but the only way I can have a relationship with them is if I get back on my dad’s good side. Maybe it’s better like this.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
“Do crypto with Quidax and win from a $60K QDX prize pool!” Bayo, a 28-year-old Lagosian tells Jide, his Ibadan friend seeking the most secure way to trade crypto in Nigeria after a major exchange he trades with announced its plans to leave the country. Find out more here.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
In Primary 1, I tore my ₦10 lunch money in front of a fellow student. I’m honestly not sure why I did that. Maybe I was trying to prove a point or was just being mischievous. The student was shocked and said I had cursed myself because tearing money equals a lifetime of poverty.
Ah.
I remember thinking, “What nonsense is this one saying?” I wasn’t living in poverty, so I wouldn’t just suddenly become poor.
Tell me more about that “not living in poverty” bit
My dad worked as an engineer with the ports authority, and my mum worked at a TV station. We weren’t wealthy, but we weren’t poor either. We lived in our own house with a couple of other tenants. I don’t remember us lacking anything even though we were a large family.
How large?
My parents have nine children. I’m the last born. My second eldest sister was already in university when I was born.
What was living with eight siblings like?
All nine of us were hardly at home at the same time because of the considerable age gap between us, but I had a good relationship with my siblings. I regularly made money from them, too.
By billing them?
Yup, and they were happy to give me money. My eldest sibling paid my secondary school fees and gave me pocket money. I decided I could rotate the billing among my siblings, so I’d collect ₦1k from one brother, then go and meet another sister for more money. Getting money that easily meant I also learnt to spend it quickly on whatever caught my fancy.
I continued that way when I entered uni in 2010. I didn’t have a monthly allowance, and my parents were retired, but I could always call my siblings for money whenever I needed it. I abused that privilege a lot sha. I remember being disgusted about going to the bank to withdraw anything less than ₦20k. I was always shocked to see people withdraw ₦5k.
Rich kid
My siblings caught on to my rotational billing one day. I was still in 100 level, and I think I had ₦16k in my account — which, in my mind, meant I was broke. I called one of my siblings, and she said, “What happened to the money our other sibling gave you?” I didn’t expect that.
She asked me to give an account of how I spent the money, and when I couldn’t, she revealed that they’d noticed I had no value for money, was spending anyhow and asking them all for money at the same time. She refused to give me any money, and I felt betrayed. I called another sibling, and that one said the same thing. I was like, do these people hate me?
Screaming. Did they later give in?
No. But after a few days, I began to see their point. A friend in class told me he survives on ₦1k weekly, which made me really think about my money habits. I wasn’t spending money on clothes or girls; it was food. To be fair, I was squatting with someone for free and paid 100% of the food expenses to show my gratitude, but it didn’t mean my money management had to be that bad.
I moved into another hostel the following session, and my new roommates always managed very little money for weeks. They changed the trajectory of my relationship with money. I learnt to save and budget and even began to live on ₦2k – ₦3k weekly like they did. We also contributed money to buy foodstuff and handle other shared expenses on a monthly basis.
I also changed my billing strategy. Instead of calling all my siblings for money at once, I’d call one this month and another the next, so I never asked the same person for money twice in eight months. Till I finished university in 2014, my siblings believed I no longer billed them.
When was the first time you made your own money?
My NYSC service year in 2015. I was posted to a school that didn’t pay an extra allowance, so it was just the ₦19,800 stipend from the government. But I had free corpers’ accommodation at a fellowship house, so I didn’t have to worry about rent.
I ran into many issues at my PPA, though. It was my first work experience, and I didn’t have the “discipline” required for a workplace. I didn’t see the point of coming to school at 8 a.m. when I only had a 10 a.m. class or waiting till 2 p.m. when I wasn’t doing anything. I also never wrote lesson notes.
Thankfully, I befriended someone in the school who always helped me beg the headteacher at month’s end when it was time to sign my voucher.
It was also during this time that I became interested in a tech career.
How did that happen?
There was this ghost corps member in the fellowship house — only came around to sign important stuff — but we connected over finishing from the same university. It was obvious he had money — he regularly bought fuel and subscribed the cable TV at the fellowship house whenever he was around and regularly took us out to eat. I was always fascinated by him. One day, he told me he was a developer and earned ₦100k/month. I was blown away. I thought earning ₦100k/month was more than enough to solve any problem I’d ever have.
I immediately became interested in developing, but I studied linguistics in school and thought mathematics was necessary to learn how to code. He insisted I just needed logic. But I still thought it’d be too hard.
When did you eventually give it a try?
In 2016, I moved to another sister’s house after NYSC because the one I stayed with wanted me to apply for a Master’s Degree and pursue an academic career. I wasn’t feeling that.
I was just sleeping and waking up at the other sister’s house. Her husband even tried to help me get a bank job, but I deliberately failed the test because I wasn’t under any pressure to make money.
But after three months of doing nothing, I remembered my corper friend who was probably somewhere balling on his ₦100k salary, and I decided to take my life seriously. My sister had a spare laptop, so I applied for Coursera financial aid and began learning HTML, JavaScript, Python and other programming languages online. I did that for about three months and designed a basic web app with Python, which I showed my corper friend. He didn’t believe I’d learned it just by taking courses.
Did you try to make money from your new skills?
The same friend reached out to me in 2017, complaining about his hectic workload. He asked if I’d like to join his team to assist him. I said yes, of course.
The company he worked for used Angular2+, a web framework I wasn’t familiar with, so I spent two weeks learning it before I attended an interview with his boss in Lagos. I even made a demo application. But the interview was a formality; the man just wanted to see who my friend recommended. I was asked to resume immediately at ₦100k/month.
You finally got the ₦100k salary
It was about ₦91k after tax, but I was so excited. My sister said the money was too small and asked me to negotiate for more. In my head, I was like, “Does this one want to pour sand in my garri?” I was too scared to lose the opportunity.
She was right, though. I became a one-man software department. My friend worked remotely from another city, so I was the on-ground data analyst, web developer, desktop app developer and backend developer. But it was my first real job, and I enjoyed it.
I also began to save at least ₦50k/month and made my first big boy purchase after five months — a laptop at ₦250k.
Neat. Were you spending on anything else?
Not really. I didn’t have much of a social life — most I did was join tech groups online to network and ask questions. I also didn’t really have responsibilities, so I just went to the office and saved the rest of my money.
My salary was increased to ₦105k after a year, and around the same time, the company hired two new guys who changed my perspective on earning.
How so?
The new guys were also software engineers, and they once let it slip that they shared a ₦900k/year apartment. I was surprised, to say the least. How could they afford to live like that? I interacted with them and observed that they did a lot of side gigs and religiously hustled to upskill.
One of them was also a mobile developer who shared how he charged ₦600k for a gig. My initial reaction was, “This guy is greedy. Why do you need so much?” Me, I was satisfied with earning ₦105k and saving ₦50k for the next 20 years.
But after observing them some more, I thought it wouldn’t be bad to have the same financial privileges they did, so I decided I’d also learn mobile development.
What did that involve?
I procrastinated learning the skill for an entire year, but in 2019, I eventually took courses and began practising.
Interestingly, within a week of learning it, someone on a WhatsApp group I was part of mentioned they needed a mobile developer for a ₦200k gig. I reached out and got it. They paid ₦70k upfront. I should’ve asked for a 70% upfront payment because getting the balance became a problem after I delivered the job. It took a year of back and forth to get it.
Damn
I decided to still pursue a Master’s Degree in Linguistics in 2019. I was still working in Lagos, but they allowed me to go remote because my school was in Ibadan. Moving to Ibadan meant I somewhat became responsible for myself. I rented a ₦120k/year apartment and handled my fees too.
In Ibadan, I got an opportunity to take on a ₦600k job. The employer found me in one of the tech groups I belonged to and offered me the role. It was the biggest amount I’d ever been offered in my life. You’d expect that I’d jump at it, right?
You didn’t?
I didn’t. I felt I wasn’t good enough, so I recommended someone else — an undergraduate — and he got the job. And I was still earning ₦105k o.
The same employer offered me a one-time gig sometime later. I guess he felt I did an honourable thing recommending someone else for that job. The gig was to build a fintech app. I charged ₦300k; he said it was too small and he’d pay ₦700k instead. He also paid 70% upfront.
I was still so doubtful of my skills that I didn’t touch that 70% until I completed the job, so he wouldn’t use police to arrest me if he didn’t like it. I completed the job in two weeks instead of the stipulated two months. I was that anxious. The guy thought it was because I was extremely fast.
LMAO
He recommended me for a job at a telecommunications company. I did the interview, and they gave me a ₦5 million/year offer. But imposter syndrome struck again, and I lied that I couldn’t take the job because of my Master’s Degree.
Fortunately for me, they couldn’t find anyone else for the role, and they contracted it to the same guy who referred me. That one subcontracted it to me and put me on a ₦600k salary for a five-month contract. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I took the contract position in addition to my regular ₦105k 9-5.
After the contract ended in 2020, a former co-worker told me about an open mobile engineer position with a UK company. I applied and got employed for a one-year contract. It paid ₦400k/month.
Did you still juggle this with your 9-5?
I resigned after getting the UK job. But I didn’t even stay at the job for the complete year. It was so toxic; my boss desperately wanted to be the centre of attention. A 30-minute meeting could last for hours because he’d just keep talking. Plus, I noticed my foreign colleagues were earning as much as $8k/month, and I only got ₦400k.
So, I started job hunting again after eight months and got a ₦500k/month mobile developer role at a Nigerian company in 2021. By this time, I’d abandoned my postgraduate studies. The lockdown in 2020 had paused school for too long, and I just got tired.
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How long did you stay at the new job?
I stayed for about a year and a half. My salary was increased to ₦750k/month at a point. Then I got another opportunity with a US company via LinkedIn. That one paid $35/hour and approximately $3,500 per month, depending on my hours. So, I basically had two incomes from 2021 to 2022.
I felt financially comfortable enough to get married, so I did in 2022. Fun fact: I interviewed for another job the night before my wedding.
How did that happen?
I’d helped some of my friends get jobs at the US company I worked for, and one of them left to join another US company. So, I jokingly said I was open to opportunities at his new job. They were hiring, and I applied.
I didn’t even think I’d get the job because I was in my wife’s village the night of the interview, and there was no light. But they gave me a couple of tasks and an offer of employment a month later. They offered $5k, but I negotiated, and we eventually settled for $5,500.
This is the first time you’ve mentioned negotiating
Right? I was deliberate about it, too. I’d always been scared to negotiate because I felt I wasn’t good enough and didn’t want to chase people willing to “give me a chance” away. But I had nothing to lose this time. I had two jobs, and I’d become comfortable acknowledging that I was good at what I did.
I accepted the offer, quit the Nigerian job and focused on my two US jobs. I felt like the biggest boy in the world. There were some months I earned close to $12k.
What lifestyle changes came with your increased earnings?
I still wasn’t much of a social person, so it was just small home and personal changes. I bought my sister’s old car for ₦1m and started regularly sending my parents at least ₦40k/month. My wife and I moved to a new ₦2m/year house in 2022. I paid for two years upfront and made extensive renovations, bringing the total bill to around ₦10m.
The major change was in how much I saved. I started saving 80% of my monthly income and only lived on 20%. For instance, in the months I earned $12k, I’d leave $10k in my domiciliary account. I get a 6% APY dollar investment from my bank, so it’s my primary savings and investment option.
However, around September 2022, I got laid off from the company paying me by the hour.
Oh my. Why?
Business wasn’t doing great, and my role became obsolete. My income was reduced to $5,500/month, so I reduced my savings to $4k.
Something else that helped during that period was my good relationship with the CTO at the company that laid me off. I didn’t tell him I had another job, so he thought I was jobless. I’d also mentioned that my wife was pregnant, so he felt he had to help me find another job.
And he did. Two months later, he landed me a €40/hour role with a European company. That’s about €4,000/month, depending on hours worked. I didn’t think much of the job because I had another one, but it turned out to be a lifesaver.
How so?
I got laid off from my second US job in April 2023 due to clashes with colleagues. I lowkey think a lot of it was racism because the Black staff members were always treated differently, but I sha lost the job.
Again, having a second job saved me from total unemployment. I’ve been job-hunting since, but it hasn’t been successful. My quality of life hasn’t exactly reduced because I’ve always saved more than I spent. In total, I have saved about $80k so far.
Do you have a saving goal?
I’m honestly just saving for saving sake. I might buy a house down the line, but I’m concerned about building a healthy safety net for my family in case anything happens to me.
Does the high probability of layoffs in tech bother you?
Always. There’s huge insecurity in this industry, and it’s always on my mind. But I try to focus on making myself indispensable. Layoffs will always happen. That’s why I’m very interested in upskilling.
How would you describe your relationship with money?
Growing up, I had this laissez-faire attitude to it; it was always there to spend as I liked. Then I got a reality check in university and suddenly became a conservative spender. It’s been like a full-circle journey, and I like that I’m intentional with spending and budgeting. I think I’ve become even more conservative since I became a husband and father. I just want to give my family a good life whether I’m here or not.
Let’s break down your typical monthly expenses
What was the last thing you bought that significantly improved your quality of life?
I like being in the kitchen, so a food processor and blender that cost about $500 and a new fridge that cost a little above ₦1m. These purchases have made cooking much faster, and I make smoothies all day.
You said something about still looking for opportunities. What’s your ideal salary?
I’d be thrilled to get a job that pays $10k/month. I’m upskilling in preparation for that. In 2023, I spent about $550 on courses and scrum master certifications.
What’s something you want right now but can’t afford?
A house. A good one will cost around ₦60 million, and I wouldn’t want to spend all my savings on one thing, so that’s still a future want.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?
9. I’ve lost income, but it could’ve easily been worse. I’m in a better financial position than most, and I’m grateful for the fact that I can give back to my parents and even siblings, if necessary. I only need to keep upskilling to increase my earning potential.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
I grew up believing we had money— I never lacked anything — so it was quite shocking for me when, in 300 level, I asked my parents for ₦50k for textbooks and some personal effects, and they said they didn’t have money.
They’d never turned down a request for money before?
Nope. It made me realise that money wasn’t something that was just there. It actually took my parents working hard and pulling resources together to cover any financial gaps.
My dad was an accountant, and my mum was a lecturer. So, combining their resources meant my siblings and I were well provided for. But at the time of the textbook incident, two of my younger siblings were also at university, so our finances weren’t what they used to be. I’d make a list of school supplies, and my parents would slash the amount by more than half. I understood why that had to happen, but I also realised I couldn’t rely on my parents for all my needs. I had to make my own money.
What was the first thing you did that fetched you money?
Dancing. I danced a lot in school, so I started taking occasional gigs with a dance ministry. I made ₦3k – ₦5k per gig. This was in 2013.
I also had a friend in final year who sold jewellery, so we started a reselling arrangement where I marketed her jewellery in my hostel and added between ₦300 – ₦700 to the cost price. The additional cost was my profit after selling.
I did that until 400 level when I decided to sell shawarma in school.
Why shawarma?
I like cooking for people, and I like to think I have an eye for business opportunities. Shawarma was newly popular in my school in 2014. Every other shawarma stand sold one for ₦500 – ₦1k, and I thought I could make a profit if I took advantage of the demand and sold mine cheaper.
So, I started learning how to make shawarmas. I watched videos and reached out to a friend who used to sell shawarma before he came to school. I went to his lodge every day for a week, and he taught me what I needed to know.
The next thing I needed was money. I reached out to a cousin, who used to live with my family, with the business idea, and he agreed to invest. I got a space in my school’s market area, and my cousin paid for the container we used as the kiosk, a fridge and some other equipment. The whole setup cost him about ₦300k. I also had about ₦70k, which I’d saved from an unpaid six-month internship I did just before 400 level.
How were you able to save from an unpaid internship?
My internship was at a lab popular among politicians and big men. They’d dash the lab staff money when they came with their girlfriends to run tests before “the show”. The free money came regularly. I lived with a relative during the internship, so I didn’t need money for anything. I just kept depositing my windfall in the bank.
I eventually used the money to buy two shawarma machines and contributed the rest to set up the space. I wanted my money in the business so we’d be like partners rather than have him pay for everything.
Did you start making a profit soon like you imagined?
I can’t say for sure because while the business was immediately lucrative, most of what I made either went to my cousin or back into the business. So, I made between ₦8k – ₦25k in sales every day — The highest amount I ever sold in a day was ₦55k because I sold at one of my school’s all-night events.
I sent ₦10k to my cousin weekly as his returns on the business. I was supposed to pay him ₦500k in total for his ₦300k investment. I wasn’t paying myself anything.
At one point, I spent ₦60k trying to add ice cream to my list of products, but after I bought them, we didn’t have light for the next couple of days and the whole thing spoiled. That’s how that money went.
Damn. Sorry about that
Thanks. I graduated in 2015 and had to shut down the business because there was no one else to manage it. I had only paid my cousin about ₦350k out of ₦500k, so he kept the fridge and sold the container for ₦70k. I kept the equipment I bought.
What did you do next?
I waited a year before going for service. I lost my dad in 2015 too, so it was a tough time for me. I was hoping to get dance contracts to make money in the meantime, but I stumbled on detergent distribution.
Stumbled?
A relative visited our house and came with a very nice-smelling detergent. I asked where he got it from, and he said his brother was a distributor. My mum and I were interested, so I went to the detergent factory in a different town to make enquiries. I got in touch with the CEO and pitched my idea of becoming a distributor in my state. He liked my energy and allowed me to buy a few bags to start. That initial purchase cost around ₦150k.
My mum was also part of the business, and we went from carrying a few bags per time to filling 14-seater buses with bags of soap — We did at least one bus-filled consignment monthly. We made payments to the factory only after selling the product. We’d sell to supermarkets and retailers for three weeks, then make payment by the fourth week. We made between ₦150k – ₦200k profit on each bus trip.
It was all going well until I introduced the person I was dating at the time to the business.
What happened?
He lived in another state where the detergent wasn’t being sold. I thought it’d be a way to help him get extra money, so I gave him goods worth ₦150k with the promise that he’d pay back the capital after he sold the goods. I even paid for the bus delivery of the detergents to his state.
That’s how this guy started telling me story when it was time to pay. I had to scrap my savings together to pay back the debt to the company. I couldn’t even tell my mum because it was so embarrassing after what happened the last time.
What do you mean?
I’d loaned him ₦300k a year before — basically an investment. He was into movie production and said he needed it for a movie. I borrowed the money through an ajo contribution I was doing with my friends.
When he defaulted, my friends started disturbing me about it, and I had to involve my mum. She was the one who helped me settle the money. So, I couldn’t even tell her when he did the same thing again.
Yikes. Did he ever repay any of the debts?
Never. The relationship ended shortly after — not because of the money; I just realised he was malicious. He’s tried to beg me from afar, but anytime I see him, he’ll enter prison until he pays me back every kobo.
The soap debt affected the business because it took a while for me to pay the company back, and it almost became an issue. Fortunately, NYSC came right after, and I left my state for service in 2016.
What was your service year like?
I was posted to a rural area, but the main town had a dance studio. I worked at the studio during the weekends, teaching dance workout classes. I was paid on a commission basis — ₦5k per every person who signed up for my class at the end of the month.
I still continued taking the classes after my service year ended. I also had a stint managing the studio’s social media and organising dance festivals. I loved the work and dancing, but I couldn’t live on commissions for the rest of my life. Plus, my mum didn’t think dancing was a real job. You know how Nigerian mums are.
Oh. I do. So, what did you do?
In 2018, I got a brand activation gig — Those ones where you follow the truck around and try to get stores to buy — with a noodle brand. It paid ₦17k/month, which wasn’t much of an upgrade. I also did small social media management for them.
I stopped after four months because the job stressed me out. Imagine jumping up and down from trucks all day. The constant body pain was terrible. I returned to dancing for a bit till a friend helped me land a ₦150k/month business development job at a company in Lagos in 2019. It was even the same friend who sent me the ₦15k I used as transport fare to relocate to Lagos.
I squatted with some people for a month until I rented a room and parlour apartment for ₦350k/year. The full rent package was around ₦550k, and I took a salary advance from work to settle it.
Sounds like things were looking up
I wish. The job was on the Island, and I lived on the mainland. I woke up at 4 a.m. and returned at 11 p.m every weekday. There was a time when I got home at 12.30 a.m. because of terrible traffic, slept for three hours and went right back to the road. I was so frustrated. I’d get to work most mornings, enter the toilet and cry.
I didn’t stay at the job for longer than six months. I couldn’t deal. Within that time, I entered one-chance buses twice and had my office laptop stolen. I had to pay ₦190k for that laptop from my salary.
Fortunately, I got another business development role at an agricultural firm almost immediately. The salary here was also ₦150k. But six months later, COVID hit, and I was laid off. They didn’t mind that I’d raised ₦10m for the company in that short time.
Damn
I was also in another relationship then, and my partner had moved in with me. We were living on the little savings I had left. I’d gotten experience working at the agric firm, and decided I could focus on building my own.
My plan was to deal with grains. So, I’d work with farmers and northern traders to grow and supply corn, rice, beans, soya beans and millet to production companies. I made my partner a co-owner even though she brought in zero capital and wasn’t business-inclined. She handled the admin front, though.
Did you bring in all the capital? How much was it?
I needed ₦10m to start, which I didn’t have. So, I pitched to five investors and raised the money through them. We started in late 2020, and that period was crazy. I did 90% of the heavy lifting and interfaced with the farmers and clients.
I made a mistake, though. I agreed to pay the investors 70% of the monthly profit for six months. Looking back now, that was too much to promise for a new business. My partner and I shared 10% and put the remaining 20% back into the business. In a good month, I made between ₦70k – ₦100k.
Why was the 70% plan a mistake?
It should have been spread over a year, rather than monthly. I could only afford to pay them for four months. The business started to fall apart; the 20% we were putting back in wasn’t enough to cover the logistics cost. So, I paused the investor payments and started brainstorming ways to revive a dying business.
Around the same time, my partner began complaining that she didn’t feel like a part of the business, that sharing 10% was nothing, and that she only held a ceremonial position. I was baffled, but I briefly increased her percentage to 40% to satisfy them.
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How did the investors react to the suspended payments?
I tried to explain the situation, but it definitely caused a strain. Some of them were known people, and there was just a period of long silence. I was still trying to make small payments here and there, but it wasn’t regular. My focus was on making the business work. I also stopped paying me and my partner a salary.
I was able to stretch the business till 2022 by getting grains on credit and paying later, but the economy became too unfavourable. The grain merchants refused to sell on credit, and it just wasn’t working anymore. By then, the investors had gotten back their capital, and it was just about ₦13m in profits and ROI left.
But some of them grew tired of waiting and arrested me. I slept in the cell for a day before my family came to release me. They had to pay ₦1m to one investor so they’d let me go. My partner didn’t contribute anything financially. I felt bad, but she said her family asked her not to get involved.
That’s a lot. Sorry you went through that
Thank you. I had to pause the business and take up random dancing and script-writing gigs to make money so I could repay the debt. So far, I’ve settled about ₦7m out of the ₦13m. That also included support from my family.
Around this time, my partner started making plans to japa. To support her, I gave her ₦90k to add to what was needed for a passport.
Were you bothered that she wasn’t there for you during the arrest, though?
I was bothered, but I believed that she did everything she could at the time. I didn’t use that as a yardstick to withdraw support for her travel plans. But then she relocated in 2023 and broke up with me after a few months, leaving me to handle the debt.
Omo…
I should mention that I couldn’t renew my house rent when the debt and arrest issue happened in 2022. My landlord was kind and allowed me to stay for free for a whole year. After my partner left in 2023, the landlord asked me to leave. He actually tried for me, waiting that long. That’s how I became homeless in 2023.
Damn. That’s a string of bad things happening all at once
It was a lot. I sold most of my properties and for five months, I was moving between the houses of multiple friends. I held onto my sanity by attending dance workshops.
In October 2023, I eventually got a job as a personal assistant. My salary was ₦120k/month.
Phew. How did that feel?
It felt like a lifeline. Landing that job after an uncertain five months was a relief. Though I wanted ₦250k because of the workload, I had to take what I was offered.
By November, I’d moved into my own apartment. I unexpectedly got ₦500k as a birthday gift from a friend, and it went into getting a place. Things were starting to take shape again. But I left the job in February 2024.
Why?
The work environment became toxic, and my workload was what four people should ideally have to share. It wasn’t worth it, so I left.
Before I left, I’d already begun to take my art seriously and had started to paint commercially.
Wait, when did art come into the picture?
I was introduced to painting in secondary school, but then I stopped to face adulting. I took it up again briefly during the pandemic. I’m mostly self-taught, really.
How do you make money as an artist?
Mostly through commissions. People reach out to me to paint them something. Other times, I paint and sell. I’m somewhat active on social media, and there’s also word-of-mouth marketing. In a really good month, I can make between ₦50k – ₦100k, but clients’ budgets aren’t fixed, so that figure changes a lot. If I can get more people to commission me for paintings, I’ll honestly have nothing to worry about again.
Fingers crossed. How have your experiences impacted your perspective of money?
Money comes and goes. Even when I don’t have physical cash, I tell myself I have everything in me to create cash. Going through what I did and coming out of them has convinced me of that.
I also think saving is crucial. My savings have helped me out a good number of times, and if I weren’t trying to set up a home studio, I’d be setting aside 30% of whatever I make into a savings account.
You’re setting up a studio?
Yes, for my painting. I deliberately rented an apartment with space for a future studio, so I’m working on that now. I’ve spent about ₦250k designing murals, painting and construction work. I do most of the manual labour myself.
Let’s break down your typical monthly expenses
What’s the last thing you bought that significantly improved your quality of life
₦40k worth of art materials. That’s how I stay away from depression. If I can find Arolake’s money bag now, the quality of my life will skyrocket sharp-sharp.
How are you thinking of future plans?
I hope to own a creative haven for artists one day; where they can stay away from the hustle and bustle of the city and just create. I also hope to raise capital to revive my agric business. With the state of the economy now, I’ll probably need like ₦50m – ₦100m to even consider rice, but it’s a lucrative business. I believe I’ve gotten the business experience I need to not repeat the mistakes I made again.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
4. I’m literally rebuilding from scratch, but I know it will get better. If I hadn’t experienced all I have, I wouldn’t have the confidence and tenacity I have now to try new things and just keep going even when they don’t work out.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
In a February 2024 interview, the Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun stated that about 5% of Nigerians have more than ₦500k in their bank accounts. It’s also been widely reported that only about 3.6 million Nigerians can afford to spend more than $10/day, suggesting that most of the population are low-income earners.
So, what’s the starting point of being a middle-income earner in the country? The answer depends on whom you ask. But we asked five people, each earning north of ₦700k/month, to talk about what they can do with their income.
Jasmine, 26
Income:₦850k/month
Occupation: Data Analyst
What can you afford on your salary? My salary accommodates the cost of most of my essentials: fuelling and maintaining my car, spoiling my boyfriend with about ₦100k every month, giving in to food cravings, and paying my bills and subscriptions. That’s it. I don’t splurge on anything else— I haven’t bought a new device in years, and I don’t pay black tax.
I try to save ₦500k/month, but that’s where the trouble starts. When the ₦350k I budget around finishes, I dip into my savings. So before the end of the month, I’m struggling a little and borrowing money from my boyfriend. That’s my life right now.
Paint a picture of the quality of life you thought your salary would give you before you started earning it? Now that you are there, what does it look like? Let me start with this: at the beginning of last year, I was earning ₦360k, and I had dollar and naira savings worth ₦1.5m. I also went on a ₦1.5m vacation with my boyfriend, which I paid for.
The thing is, I thought I’d be able to do more if I earned more, but that hasn’t been the case. I started earning ₦850k in February 2023, and was on top of the world. I had a very clear plan — keep lifestyle creep at bay, save ₦2m in the first few months and start a business. None of these have happened. What’s more? I can’t do any of the things I did then. I’m a bit responsible for this. Though I’m not a big spender, I also am not very intentional about tracking my spending. ₦2k here and there; dash another person ₦10k here, and the salary has finished.
Do you feel like you belong to the Nigerian middle class? I should be, but I don’t think I am. And I feel bad saying this — I’m a top earner in the country and know most people aren’t earning as much as I do. But I can’t afford anything else that isn’t tied to surviving the month. My most significant expense in years is my apartment — I lived with family until a few months ago when I moved into a ₦2.5m two-bedroom apartment.
Two years ago, I had a better quality of life. Now, not so much. It’s okay to argue that inflation has ruined many things; I’ve been very concerned about the increasing costs of things. That said, I also acknowledge my fault here. Not tracking my spending enough did a lot to bring me here.
What safety nets have you built? Do they feel commensurate with your income? I currently have ₦400k in savings and no investment. That’s all my safety net at the moment. Someone owes me ₦1.2m, but I owe another person the same amount. So yeah, I have a decent quality of life, but I’ve never been more unsatisfied with my finances than I am right now.
What should you be able to afford but can’t? A trip to an African country at least once every year. Devices, too. I haven’t changed my phone in more than two years and I’m using a work computer — if they collect it from me, I don’t know when I’ll be able to get another one.
Would you say you’re living below, within or above your means relative to your income? Above my means, for sure. I don’t know how or why, but it is what it is.
Nnamdi, 25
Income: Between $1200 and $2000 — a combination of my 9-5 and a side gig. Depending on the exchange rate, I make between ₦1m and ₦1.6m every month.
Occupation: Content writer
What can you afford on your salary? I barely check the price of things under ₦50k. I can pay black tax and give my partner money — about ₦100k – ₦150k/month without flinching , and indulge in pleasures like eating out and ordering in, and even getting tattoos. I need to cut down on my feeding spend though; my food budget currently sits at about ₦400k/month.
Paint a picture of the quality of life you thought your salary would give you before you started earning it? Now that you are there, what does it look like? I thought it’d be enough to put me in a place where I can comfortably afford high-end wants: A very good phone and a car at the top of that list. But I’ve realised that I can’t really afford the phone I want, so I’m stuck with the same phone I’ve been using since 2020. It will also take me a year to save for an old Corolla, which starts at about ₦5m. It’s not a worthy goal at this earning stage.
Do you feel like you belong to the Nigerian middle class? Absolutely. I’m educated, earn a lot of money, and upwardly mobile. Besides, there’s no basic need I can’t afford right now.
What safety nets have you built? Do they feel commensurate with your income? If you asked me this a year ago, I’d tell you that earning this much would eliminate my financial anxiety. But no, the anxiety hasn’t left. No matter how much I save, I don’t feel safe. At the moment, I save 50% of my income, and my savings are about ₦5m, enough to get me through six months of rainy days if I reduce my burn rate. But I can’t classify the money as a safety net. I’m contemplating getting another degree I might have to pay for, so there’s that.
What should you be able to afford but can’t? A car.
Would you say you’re living below, within or above your means relative to your income?
I’m living within my means, but it can be lower.
Seyi, 30
Income: ₦800k. Side gigs bring this to over a million.
Occupation: Ad executive
What can you afford on your salary? For a start, a decent apartment in most parts of mainland Lagos. I have a car I can easily afford to fuel and maintain. I can also order takeout or subscribe to meal plans, and refresh my wardrobe when I feel the need to. Then there’s still enough to cover nightlife costs, and also take at least one or two international trips a year if I want to.
Paint a picture of the quality of life you thought your salary would give you before you started earning it? Now that you are there, what does it look like? My ballpark sum has always been a million, and I didn’t picture it any different from what it is now.
Do you feel like you belong to the Nigerian middle class? With rising inflation, I don’t think I’m quite middle class yet. The way I see it, the current middle class person should earn at least ₦5m monthly.
What safety nets have you built? Do they feel commensurate with your income? Thankfully, I have a rainy day fund and a few investment portfolios. It’s commensurate with my income, but can obviously be more solid.
What should you be able to afford but can’t? More international trips. Why? Exchange rate is doing its thing.
Would you say you’re living below, within or above your means relative to your income? Right now, living just within my means.
Ibrahim, 27
Income: ₦1m/month + ₦150k side gig
Occupation: Product Designer
What can you afford on your salary? I can afford to be impulsive. Some context: I started looking for a new apartment in November 2023, but the places I saw weren’t up to my taste. So when I saw one I liked but was above my budget, I paid immediately. I couldn’t have done that two years ago.
Paint a picture of the quality of life you thought your salary would give you before you started earning it? Now that you are there, what does it look like? Interestingly, it was always about living in a nice apartment in a decent neighbourhood. Also, I always wanted to pay black tax to my family even if they didn’t ask for it. I’m definitely there. Now I’m heading towards getting a car to commute and going on road trips to African countries — flight tickets are expensive.
Do you feel like you belong to the Nigerian middle class? It’s still early days, so it’s hard to say. Instead, I’ll say I’m in a transition phase and all things being equal, I should be able to say I’m middle class in a year.
What safety nets have you built? Do they feel commensurate with your income? My savings and investments are currently worth ₦500k. Considering the scale of the capital projects I’ve embarked on in the past six months — I recently spent ₦3.5m – ₦4m on moving to and furnishing my apartment and setting up my workspace — it’s commensurate with my income. Now, I’m looking at building a safety net of ₦5m – ₦7m before the year ends.
What should you be able to afford but can’t? A car. I feel like I need 2x my current income before considering getting one.
Would you say you’re living below, within or above your means relative to your income? I lived within my means for the past six months. For the most part, my expenses equals my income. A few life(style) changes happened within this period that also set me back a bit. Now that those have been sorted out, I can figure out a process to live below my means to grow my savings and investments.
Jessicca, 28
Income: ₦720k/month
Occupation: Business Growth Manager
What can you afford on your salary? Omo, the life I’m living right now is not it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s decent. However, I feel like my quality of life was much better last year even though I was earning less money. Inflation has sucked out all the gains because I spend so much more on basic expenses. I’m living from paycheck to paycheck.
Paint a picture of the quality of life you thought your salary would give you before you started earning it? Now that you are there, what does it look like? I was pretty certain that I’d been balling, but it was before this government took over. My savings and investments were growing, which was the goal. But I’ve had to dip into my savings in the past few months to meet (un)expected expenses.
Do you feel like you belong to the Nigerian middle class? I guess I do, but I feel poor. On most days, I can’t afford everything I want. An example: My inverter batteries recently got bad, but I can’t afford to change them if I intend to make my upcoming rent. Now, I’m always comparing supermarket prices, and I even buy generic products because the brands I use I’ve gotten ridiculously. The most telling development is that I barely eat out anymore because I just can’t afford to.
What safety nets have you built? Do they feel commensurate with your income? There’s no safety net — only God. It might seem funny, but in February, I was reciting “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” because I had to renew my car papers, my passport, and apply for a visa.
What should you be able to afford but can’t? OMG, Grapes and Clementines. Imagine not being able to comfortably afford your favourite fruits every day? It’s doing my head in, and I hate it so much.
Would you say you’re living below, within or above your means relative to your income? I genuinely don’t think I’m living above my means, but it appears I am every time I look at my account balance. I never have money for anything. It’s crazy.
Nenye* (26) talks about her three-year relationship with her ex, the several money-related issues they had, and why that experience has turned her off dating men with less money than her.
I’m used to men ghosting me. They toast me, we enter into the talking stage, and they disappear after a few days. I’d be lying if I claimed not to know it’s because of my insistence on evaluating their financial situation.
I always ask questions like, “How much do you earn?” “Would you classify yourself as middle class?” or “What are your thoughts on sharing finances in the home?” My friends think those questions are too much for the talking stage, but I’m trying to avoid getting bitten twice.
I was young and foolish when I dated Ola*. It started in 2020, but I still think about what he put me through and wonder why I let it go on for three years.
We met in one of those online speed dating sessions that were common during the pandemic — Popular Instagram pages held live broadcasts and invited followers to come and toast themselves on live.
I worked with an NGO, and when we went remote, I was bored — so I DM’ed Ola after meeting him in one of the online sessions. We hit it off quickly and started chatting regularly. He was a graphics designer, but I wasn’t really concerned about his job or salary. Two weeks after we started talking, we became official.
I still wasn’t concerned when he didn’t get me a birthday gift two months into our relationship. I was one of those “Love doesn’t cost a thing” girls. He designed a birthday flyer for me, and that counted at the time.
After the lockdown was lifted, I developed a habit of going to his self-contained apartment after work and only returning home to sleep. I lived with a roommate, and he lived alone. After some time, I started sleeping over and going to work from his place.
On one such visit, he saw my salary come in as a credit alert and said, “You’re a rich babe o. You’re earning double my salary”. My salary was ₦100k. That was the first time we talked about salaries. Before then, I’d noticed he always told me to buy food for us on my way from work, but never gave me money for it. We also hardly went out. I didn’t ask why because I didn’t want it to be awkward, but finding out about his salary clarified things.
As a good girlfriend, it was only right for me to support him since I made more money.
I’d branch at the market on my way from work to buy foodstuff, get to his place and cook up a storm. I even regularly paid for his data subscription because he needed it for work. I even paid for a couple of his design courses.
In 2021, he decided he wanted to learn software engineering and told me he was saving up to pay for a ₦70k course.
Now, I understand how he extorted money from me. He’d tell me about something he wanted then complain about it until I felt bad enough to help him. I had no responsibilities. I’m the last born, and my parents still paid for the apartment I shared with my roommate at the time. So, it was easy for me to foolishly bring out money for what he needed.
I paid the ₦70k for that course.
Then he started policing how I spent money. If he noticed me wearing a new pair of shoes, he’d remark about how I needed to be disciplined with my spending. One time, I responded, “But I’m working. I should be able to buy what I like,” and he twisted it to seem like I didn’t want to take his corrections because I earned more than him.
Money became a sensitive issue between us. If I complained about how we hardly went on dates, he’d say I wasn’t satisfied with what he could afford. When I talked about wanting him to reciprocate with random gifts like I did, he said I was rubbing my money in his face.
By 2023, my salary had increased to ₦200k, and he’d become a freelancer, AKA no salary. The next thing he did was imply that I put him on a monthly allowance. According to him, waiting till he complained about needing help made him feel like a beggar, and no “man” wanted to feel like that.
We broke up in 2023 because he didn’t “see a future with us”, and I was heartbroken for weeks. But after a year, I can’t explain why I put up with him for so long. Maybe I was dickmatised or just foolishly in love.
Maybe it’s linked to my frontal lobe finally developing at 25, but I can never be in that position again. Since the breakup, I’ve read and heard different stories of women who earn more than their partners, and it rarely ends well.
Let people call me a gold digger; I don’t care. All I know is I don’t want to be with someone who makes less than me. It’s not like rich men are perfect, but at least, I wouldn’t have to massage someone’s fragile ego because they think the money in my account isn’t allowing me to be submissive.
I’ve tried broke love, and I’m not doing it again.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
When I was in primary six, there was this woman who regularly sold snacks in my class during break time. I’d heard that her doughnuts were really good, but they cost around ₦10 – ₦20, which I couldn’t afford with my ₦5 lunch money, so my friends — who also brought ₦5 to school — and I never bought her snacks.
One day, she came into the class as usual. Then, some of my classmates formed a queue, and she gave each of them a snack — even my fellow ₦5-lunch-money classmates. I thought she was giving the snacks away, so I also queued and collected doughnuts and meat pie without asking questions. When I finished eating, the woman started asking me for money.
LOL. What did you do?
I told her I thought it was free, and she changed it for me. She made a scene and my classmates laughed at me. Apparently, the “giveaway” was meant for some pupils as directed by a teacher, and I wasn’t among them.
I couldn’t tell my parents, so I had to pay for the ₦30 worth of snacks I ate using my lunch money for the next six days. I didn’t eat anything during break time for those six days.
Why couldn’t you tell your parents?
My parents were disciplinarians, so I didn’t know what to expect. They’d either flog me silly or pay for it.
Plus, money wasn’t always great at home. My dad worked in construction and had frequent periods when there were no projects.
My mum, a nurse, helped out during those dry spells by working double shifts and treating people in the neighbourhood for extra cash. But there were still times when I got sent home from school for not paying fees on time.
Those experiences sort of made me grow up early. By the time I turned 9 years old, I’d realised my mum couldn’t always be home because of work. I started cooking at that age, too. I’m the third of four children, but the cooking responsibility fell on me because my elder brothers were in boarding school.
How early did you start making money?
Not until I finished secondary school in 2003. I hit a delay with university because I wanted to study medicine, but JAMB kept jamming me. So I started typing at cyber cafes. It was still the early days of the internet, and I was curious about it. I stole ₦100 from my mum to pay for 30 minutes on the computer and tinker around. That’s how I stumbled on the Mavis Beacon typing tutorial and got good at it really fast.
The other guys at the cafe noticed and began asking me to help them send emails and stuff so they could buy less time on the computers, and I charged each person ₦50.
I had a regular customer who was trying to travel abroad and so was in constant communication with embassies. He usually paid me ₦200 per day. He’d come to pick me up from my house at 6 a.m. because browsing was cheaper till 9 a.m. at a particular cyber cafe.
I saved most of what I made from the typing gigs — My mum was big on saving and made sure we all did it. I think most of the money went into Christmas clothes.
How long did the typing gigs last?
About three years. I wrote JAMB every year during those three years, but I didn’t get medicine. I also learnt graphic design during that time — it was called desktop publishing then — at a computer school. The graphic design lessons lasted three months, but the cafe kept me around to help them type when they noticed I learned fast. I left after six months when I noticed they had no plans of paying me.
I applied to another computer school and got a job as an instructor for ₦2,500/month. This was in 2005. I’d also taken a break from seeking university admission because I was tired.
So you were fully working class
Yes. In 2006, I became curious about how publishers get books and magazines to look so much better and glossier, and I took an interest in printing. I found a printing school and applied for a two-year programme. It was subsidised because I applied through a Christian fellowship and paid ₦20k for the full programme.
I was juggling the programme with work. The classes were held in a training centre, so I used their computers to take on typing, design and any other gigs I got. All of this was bringing in around ₦10k- ₦15k in monthly income.
Then, in 2008, an uncle advised me to apply for a university’s distance learning program. I did, and got an admission offer to study Psychology.
I didn’t work for my first two years in school and relied solely on my parents because I wanted to make a first class. But in 300 level, I found a job opportunity and decided to let first class rest small.
What job opportunity was that?
Art director — what you’d call a graphic designer — at an advertising agency in Lagos. The salary offer was ₦65k/month.
The only thing was school was in Ibadan, and I’d have to go to Lagos for the job. But I had a hunch that the job could be my big break, so I took it. It was my introduction to advertising, and I don’t regret taking the job even though it was stressful shuttling between both cities. My grades suffered, but I graduated with a 2-1, so nothing spoil.
In 2015, I moved to another agency for a ₦100k/month salary. At this point, I was largely responsible for myself, even though I lived with an uncle in Lagos. Nine months after joining the agency, I was promoted to head the creative department because of my printing knowledge, and my salary jumped to ₦150k. I moved out of my uncle’s place to a ₦350k/year mini flat to start my life as a semi-big Lagos boy.
What was that like?
Things were good. The economy wasn’t as terrible as it is now, and I could easily provide for myself. In 2017, I became bored of agency life. Also, tech startups were beginning to gain ground, and I decided a tech job was going to be my next challenge. I applied and got a brand lead role with a tech startup and took a salary cut to ₦120k/month. As expected with startups, I did more than branding. My role quickly morphed into product and digital marketing.
Sadly, the startup went belly up after a year because the founders couldn’t raise funding. By the time I left in 2018, they were owing me three months’ salary. Fortunately for me, I had a steady stream of side gigs — from printing to graphic design and even taking small small gigs from my previous agency — which brought my income to between ₦150k – ₦400k monthly, so I didn’t go broke while unemployed.
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How many months did you spend unemployed?
Two months. My previous agency offered me ₦250k/month to return to lead the creative department. One thing about me, I don’t skimp on accommodation. I know a lot of my productivity and even job opportunities are tied to how close I am to the commercial parts of Lagos.
So, I got a bigger two-bedroom apartment at ₦800k/year — which was just one quick Uber away from work. I should mention I regularly had friends staying with me at different points, so it made sense to get a bigger place. But I didn’t last long at the job.
Why?
The higher salary came with more responsibilities than I thought. The CEO took a backseat, and I was acting as the COO, even managing the agency’s profit and loss statements. I was also designing and managing designers. It was too much, so I left towards the end of 2018. I didn’t have another job lined up, but I had my side gigs to fall back on.
What did you do next?
I became interested in brand and marketing strategy, so I used the free time to take online courses. I decided I wanted to transition to that, so I started joining Strategy communities and connecting with people on LinkedIn.
Meanwhile, I was also applying to several jobs. I got a couple of offers, but I was either unhappy about the proposed salary or the distance from my house. This went on for about a year.
How were you surviving?
I had about ₦2m saved up from my side gigs in a money market account with an asset management company. It’s like a savings account that gives between 14% – 17% interest yearly, so I just left all my savings there.
Plus, my brother introduced me to a business opportunity. We went around Lagos secondary schools printing yearbooks for them. We made as much as ₦1.5m in profits per yearbook project. We put back half of our earnings into our running costs and split the rest.
In 2019, I finally got a strategy job that paid ₦300k/month. It was an agency job, but I enjoyed speaking to several brands to proffer solutions — I wasn’t just a designer.
During this time, I was the only one in my family with a stable income. My dad had passed, my elder brothers were struggling with their careers, and my younger brother was in uni, so black tax fell on me.
Tell me more about that
I was 100% responsible for my younger brother, who was in 300 level, paying his university tuition and hostel accommodation fees. I also started sending my mum ₦40k monthly and regularly loaned my elder brothers money to get by.
I can look back and say now that I was looking out for my family and building them up because I was in the position to do so, but it was crazy. I was working, but I couldn’t see any evidence of my hard work. All my colleagues had cars, but I couldn’t afford one because of black tax.
In a way, it taught me delayed gratification. But in the moment, I lowkey resented it. There were times I’d call my mum or siblings, and we’d scream at each other, but at the end of the day, I had to provide for them. At one point in 2021, I took a ₦1.5m loan from a microfinance bank for my brother, but he defaulted on repayment. I had to complete it with my salary.
Damn
Thankfully, I also got a better-paying job in 2021. It paid ₦400k/month, and things started looking up from there. I moved to a senior management role at another agency the following year, and my income increased to ₦700k/month. The job also came with an official car.
In 2023, I switched jobs again and got my current role, which also came with an official car. My salary also doubled to ₦1.5m/month.
I’m more stable financially now. My younger brother is done with uni, and one of my elder brothers has relocated abroad, so the load has slightly reduced. But there’s still black tax, especially since I’m married now.
When did you get married?
Right when I was in the thick of family responsibilities in 2020. I had like ₦3m in my money market account, so I emptied the account and divided the money into two. Half went into my wedding expenses, and the other half went into renting and setting up our new home. One helpful thing I did was to pay for most things in advance. So, I bought food and paid for electricity and internet to last us three months. Lockdown happened right after the wedding, so that helped.
How would you describe your relationship with money now?
Money and I were in a situationship before, but now I can say money has put a ring on my finger, and we’re heading to the altar. It’s a stable relationship. I can make plans now and know what I need to make those plans happen. It’s just that inflation puts us at odds sometimes. I earn far more now than I ever did, but I can’t make major lifestyle changes.
Why’s that?
Everything is so expensive. I should be living a good life with what I earn, but I don’t. For one, I’d like to move to areas like Ogudu GRA, but I can’t even think of that even though I earn an additional ₦750k – ₦1m monthly from side gigs.
I’d love to travel, but I can only afford to visit African countries. I visited Ghana last year with a tour guide, and the five-day trip cost ₦1.2m. I’d also like to buy my dream car — a Toyota Venza — but last I checked, a Tokunbo 2018 model cost ₦19m. I can’t afford that, and I should be able to.
Let’s break down your monthly expenses
Right now, I have about ₦7m in savings, but I regret not saving most of it in dollars. If I’d started saving in dollars earlier, I’d be in a better financial position. Now, I try to buy $100 every now and then. I have $400 in my domiciliary account.
Do you have a savings goal?
My wife and I are considering relocating to Canada, so the savings will come in handy whenever we decide.
If ₦1.5m isn’t giving you a good life, how much will?
At least ₦5m/month. I’m currently studying for an MBA to improve my career and earning opportunities. Hopefully, I’ll transition to a Chief Marketing Officer role soon. The MBA has cost me about ₦900k so far, but I see it as investing in my career.
I’d also like to be able to provide more for my extended family. I haven’t always been happy with black tax, but I see it as a responsibility now. There are cultural nuances to it, so I can’t shy away from the fact that it’s my duty to my mum, in-laws and people I consider family. It’s just something I owe them to help them get by. If I’m able to help my brothers become even more financially stable, everyone gets to do their part in caring for our mum.
I know young people today like to ignore black tax, but a family raised you to the point where you are currently. I think that same family deserves your support, too. If anything ever happens to me, it’s still my family I’ll run back to. So why not build them up?
Makes sense. How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
6.5. I’m okay, but I can’t upgrade my life the way I want to. Inflation is really spoiling things.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Nigeria’s annual inflation rate has climbed to 29.9%, its highest in almost 28 years. The cost of living is choking the living, and it’s touching every aspect of our lives, including relationships.
I spoke to some Nigerians about how inflation has changed their relationship dynamic, and here’s what they said.
Rotimi, 27
My friends and I have this weekly tradition. We hang out at bars every Friday to drink and just talk about our week. We also rotate payment, so if I pay for the whole group’s drinks this week, someone else will do it next week.
When I paid for the group in December 2023, it cost me about ₦80k. That was even with Detty December price hikes. But when it was my turn in February 2024, it was over ₦100k for the same drinks and chops for five people. I’ve avoided the last two hangouts because spending that kind of money isn’t sustainable on a ₦350k salary. I still have bills.
My friends are considerably richer, so they probably haven’t noticed how sick the increase is. But I intend to tell them soon that I can’t keep up. We’ll have to consider other ways to hang out.
Chioma, 31
Since the first time my best friend and I went on a girl’s trip in January 2022, it’s been like an unofficial rule to do it every year. We went again in January 2023. Things are typically cheaper in January.
But we didn’t even talk about a girl’s trip this year. We sent a couple Instagram links of resort locations to each other, but we didn’t discuss logistics because we knew we couldn’t afford it. Between local flight costs — because the roads are too dangerous to even consider — accommodation and feeding, you’re already budgeting ₦500k. We’ll just make do with our imagination for now.
Tobi, 26
I used to fill my boyfriend’s car tank once a month to show love. But what used to cost me ₦40k increased to over ₦100k when the fuel subsidy was removed in 2023. I still sent the ₦40k monthly for a while because at all at all na im bad pass.
But now, I only send ₦20k occasionally because I have other bills, and things double in price every day. He understands and even sends me money occasionally. It’s just sad that I can’t be as intentional as I want to.
My siblings and I always go all out for my mum’s birthday. Our father is dead, so we do everything to make sure she doesn’t feel lonely on that day. In 2023, we contributed ₦150k to pay her shop rent and do a small celebration.
Her 2024 birthday is a few weeks away, but my siblings haven’t mentioned anything about contribution. We’ve talked about birthday plans but haven’t billed ourselves yet. I understand because everywhere is dry.
We want to get her a phone, but it costs over ₦200k. Something that was just about ₦100k in 2023. It’s just somehow.
Femi, 27
My girlfriend likes receiving flowers, but she specifically told me not to buy her flowers on Valentine’s Day 2024. She said I should send her the money or buy something else. I fully understand her point. Flowers used to cost ₦15k – ₦18k, but now, you hear ₦30k – ₦50k for the smallest bouquet. When it’s not like the flower will live forever.
Glory, 32
My husband and I go on fancy dates every weekend to spend time together away from the children. This typically costs ₦20k maximum, but inflation has made restaurants charge higher. When we considered the increased cost of fuel and foodstuff, we had to think twice about spending up to ₦35k on dates.
We’ve reduced the frequency to once per month since late 2023. Sometimes sef, we do indoor dates to save money. It does the same work.
Iyanu, 28
I’ve made it a habit to bring bags of foodstuff with me when I visit my mum because she always has family members staying with her. But I haven’t been able to meet up with that since 2023. When I visited her last month with only five tubers of yam and a paint bucket of garri, she called me aside to ask if all was well. It won’t be well with this government.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
One morning, when I was five years old, my family and I returned home from church, and there was no money or food to eat. I asked my mum what we’d eat, and she said, “Jesus will provide”.
Then, she told my siblings and I to dance and praise God. We did that, and she went out and came back with food. I really thought an angel dropped the money for the food on our doorstep, and I was so excited that my prayers worked. Money was a frequent topic in our house, and situations like this food incident were regular.
Why was money a frequent topic?
We didn’t always have the money we needed, so we used a scale of preference approach to spending. Whatever wasn’t important had to wait until there was money to spare. My late dad was a lecturer, my mum was an accountant — she built a school later on — and with five children, money was never enough.
Inevitably, I grew up believing that money could never be enough, which manifested as a constant urge to make money.
When was the first time you acted on this urge?
2009. I was in my second year in uni when I started taking ushering gigs. The first one I ever did paid ₦5k instead of the ₦10k I was promised. I didn’t even mind. The organisers had covered our transportation, so I had nothing to lose.
I also did some market promotion gigs for a beer brand trying to re-enter the market. I’d never been in a bar before because of my background, but the ₦30k/month was pay I couldn’t pass up.
I should mention that I had a monthly allowance of ₦10k, and I augmented this with the ushering and market promotion gigs. In my third year in uni, I decided I could take a break from pursuing money.
What happened?
Three of my siblings graduated from uni, easing the financial pressure at home. It was just my younger brother and I in school. Plus, my eldest sister got a job at a bank immediately. She also started helping out with the occasional pocket money.
The improved financial situation gave me time to pursue other interests. I’d realised I didn’t want to practise my engineering course. I only studied it because my family decided I’d be an engineer since I was good at maths. But I didn’t like it and couldn’t drop out.
Thankfully, I found a lifeline when I discovered AIESEC on campus. I finally found something I was interested in, and I focused on the activities: conference planning, talent management and marketing. It wasn’t bringing me money, though, at least not while I was still in school.
What about after school?
I landed a three-month AIESEC internship with an entertainment company in Nairobi in 2014 — a year after I left uni. The salary was 140,000 Kenyan shillings, which was about ₦70k then.
I returned to Nigeria after the internship and got another six-month internship through AIESEC at a logistics company. This time, it was a ₦90k/month role. At that point, I wasn’t sure what I wanted with my career. I was just working to earn money. Then, I got married four months into the internship. I was 24 years old.
How did that happen?
I still ask myself the same question. My mum regularly sent my sisters and me broadcast messages about the qualities of a good wife, and I subconsciously felt I had to get married. It felt like the next logical step.
So, when I started hanging out with a long-time friend who returned to Nigeria from the UK and he brought up marriage, I went with it too. We got married in 2014.
What did that mean for your career?
I got pregnant almost immediately, and I quit my job because it seemed too stressful to juggle with a pregnancy. Also, I married into a rich family that didn’t shy away from spending money, and I thought I didn’t have to bother about making money anymore.
Before we go on, is being married to a man from a rich family anything like Nollywood depicts?
We lived in my husband’s family home with his mother and siblings. Let me explain how the house worked: my husband and his siblings all dropped an amount with their mother for our monthly needs: from food to toiletries and my child’s diapers. I didn’t even know how much a cup of rice cost. It meant I never had cash for anything.
Some months into my marriage, I became uncomfortable with depending on someone else for money. I felt strange having to ask for small things like money to do my hair or get toiletries. So, immediately after I had my child in 2015, I started job-hunting and got a ₦30k/month teaching job the following year. My child was barely a year old.
What was that like? Juggling childcare with a job?
My mother-in-law helped look after my child. My husband and in-laws didn’t understand why I had to work, though. They thought I just wanted to stress myself. But I wanted to have control of my finances.
My ₦30k salary was only enough for transporting myself to work. I even trekked sometimes so the salary would last a month. I didn’t get any financial support, but I didn’t care.
How long did this go on for?
I taught at the school for two years before I left to help my mother-in-law manage her new school. That was a mistake; I never should’ve done that.
Hmm. Why?
I served as the school’s administrator for four years and didn’t get paid once. The funny thing is, people thought I was living my best life. Like, “Wow, she married a rich man. They set up a school for her, and she even has a driver.”
But I was truly broke. I couldn’t buy anything for myself or my mum during those four years. I gave my mum excuses about how we were still trying to get the school functional. In reality, I was being used, and I couldn’t leave without causing family issues, so I took it as an opportunity to gain work experience and build myself.
Did you try to do other things to earn money?
I tried my hands at tailoring when I noticed I wasn’t going to get paid. I’d learnt the craft during my first school job. I took some savings I’d gathered when I had a salary and used it to buy tailoring materials. I had two sewing machines — my wedding gifts — and I set them up in an abandoned store belonging to my in-law’s family.
Since I didn’t pay rent, they made it look as if it was their way of paying me for my work at the school. But I was barely making anything from the shop because I didn’t have a steady clientele due to my spending long hours at the school.
In 2019, I finally found an opportunity to leave the school. I was pregnant, and we’d moved out of the family house because we wanted space — my mother-in-law had issues with my husband spending late nights, and it led to a few arguments. The school was far from our new place, so I took the opportunity to leave.
What did you do next?
After I had my second child, I began paying more attention to my business. Leaving the family house opened my eyes to the fact that we didn’t really have money, and I couldn’t afford to be financially dependent.
I also registered for NYSC that year because I thought no one would employ me without a certificate. The government started paying corps members ₦33k in my second month of service. It was like heaven to me. I’d worked for so long and didn’t even know what it was like to have ₦33k.
Damn. What was running a business while serving like?
I served in the state I lived in, so it worked. I got two commission-based assistants and included fabric sales and home-based tailoring classes in my list of services. The latter was a hit. Most people interested in my classes were middle-aged housewives who didn’t want to attend fashion schools. I made ₦50k monthly from the business on average, but most of it went back to the business.
I should mention I still didn’t have my husband’s support. He wanted to keep the illusion of us being wealthy, and my working meant he didn’t have money to take care of his home. He actually didn’t have money but didn’t want people to know. I was supposed to get glammed and look the role of an “odogwu’s wife” when, in reality, I was taking care of most of the home’s expenses.
That must have been tough
It was. I kept hustling because my kids had to eat. While I was still serving, I applied for a social media manager role at an NGO. I was a 30-year-old dragging social media work with 22-year-olds. But I got the job.
The salary was ₦90k/month. My job also included scheduling therapy appointments, and I enjoyed what I did. It didn’t mean I wasn’t applying for other jobs and looking for money, sha.
LOL. Did the job search yield results?
It did. I got another school administrator role for ₦45k/month towards the end of 2020. I juggled this with the social media job and my business.
My marriage began to nosedive during this period. My husband started leaving home for days. I told him plainly that I couldn’t leave my work to be chasing him around because I had children to feed.
I knew the whole thing would crash soon, and I focused on becoming financially independent.
How were you managing three jobs?
I had been without money for too long, and I couldn’t return to that. It was a swim-or-sink situation. I’d return from school and stay up at night to do my social media job. My assistants mostly handled my tailoring business.
It was a stressful period, but I was looking ahead. If I left my husband, I’d have to sort out rent and school fees myself, and I needed something sustainable. I mean, I was already suffering, but this time, I had a goal.
Did you leave?
I left in 2021 when he became violent. I moved back with my children to my family house, and we stayed there for six months.
In 2022, I left the school and got an office admin job, which also paid ₦45k. The plan was to gather admin experience to work in a standard organisation.
To sort out accommodation, I took a housing loan from work to rent a ₦300k/year one-bedroom apartment and moved in with my kids. Then, I quit my social media role to focus on the admin job. It paid more, but it wasn’t my desired career path. I also closed down my business because my ex kept going there to cause a scene. It was too much.
Sorry about that. You went from three income sources to one. What did that mean for you?
I think I walked everywhere I went in 2022. I lost so much weight that my mum had to intervene. She took my kids for three months to give me time and space to get a grip on myself. I struggled with that because I used my children as a shield to grieve the end of my marriage. You can’t cry with kids around. They don’t give you room to be depressed.
Being alone meant I had to confront my emotions and go through all the phases of grief. After I was done with that, I took pen to paper to map out my career. I’d gotten admin experience already. The next thing to do was get a better-paying job.
How did that go?
I enrolled in a bunch of free online admin and Excel courses to upskill, and I applied to jobs like someone was pursuing me. I must have applied to 500 jobs in two months. I’d also been “promoted” to admin team lead at my workplace by this time. There was no salary increase — just the fancy name change.
In September 2022, I eventually landed my current job as an admin officer in an oil company. The funny thing is, I didn’t exactly apply for it. A recruitment agency contacted me on LinkedIn to ask if I was interested in the role. I shared my CV and did the interviews. In my head, if they asked about salary expectations, I’d say ₦150k, so I could afford to save ₦50k monthly.
I got the offer via a phone call, and the recruiter said my salary would be about ₦700k — ₦500k basic salary plus allowances.
Wow. Paint me a picture of how you reacted to this
I was speechless for a full minute. The recruiter kept asking if I was there. I thought, “How is this possible? Will I have to kill people at this company to earn that much?”
A colleague was with me at the office when the call came in, and I put the phone on speaker so they could confirm I wasn’t hearing things. Who goes from ₦45k to ₦700k just like that?
My mum thought I was being scammed and couldn’t be convinced otherwise till I received my first salary. I cried the day I got that alert. I was so overwhelmed. It was just God.
That kind of income jump probably came with some lifestyle changes as well
Not immediately. I stayed in my one-bedroom apartment for another full year, but I renovated my family house and gave my mum ₦1m to expand her school. She was there for me through my marriage wahala, and it felt so good to finally be able to give back to her.
I wasn’t in a hurry to make major lifestyle changes. I didn’t change my children’s school until I noticed I could pay two terms’ fees at once. I moved to a ₦500k/year two-bedroom apartment in September 2023 and got a car for ₦2.7m in December because the new apartment is quite a distance from my workplace.
How’s your savings goal going?
I can definitely save more than ₦50k monthly now. Specifically, I save ₦200k/month now. I’ve also built a ₦3m emergency fund. Owning land is another future investment option I’m considering.
Let’s do a breakdown of your typical monthly expenses
I get sizable allowances from work every two months, which I use for major expenses. For instance, I get a ₦2.4m housing allowance every January, and it sorts my children’s school fees and rent for the year.
How would you describe your relationship with money now?
I’m learning how to relax. I’ve had an “I need to get money” mindset for so long, and it’s a conscious effort to remind myself I’m not broke anymore. I can afford to buy ₦200k hair, but it still feels like an outrageous expense. Like, ₦200k hair when that kind of money can help ten other people?
I think I also internalised some of the things my ex said. He often accused me of being extravagant because I wanted to have my own money and not depend on him. So, maybe I’ve been subconsciously trying to prove him wrong. I thought if I bought a new bag, people would say, “Oh, no wonder she left. She probably has someone else”. But I’m deliberately moving on from that.
I want to get to a point where I don’t overthink spending on myself. Oh, I’m also finally processing my divorce.
What’s that like?
When I began the divorce proceedings in October 2023, we’d been separated for two years. My lawyer advised me to wait for two years post-separation so the courts wouldn’t delay the process by trying to give us time to sort out our differences. I’m paying ₦200k in legal fees and another ₦15k to my lawyer every time we appear in court. I’ve been in court every month since then, and it’s been quite messy. But hopefully, it’ll be sorted soon.
Rooting for you. What do you think the future looks like for you?
I’m currently studying for an MBA in Human Resources. I’m in my second semester (out of five) and have spent ₦400k on it so far.
I’d also like to take classes to become a licensed therapist in the next four years. It’s why I chose an HR-focused MBA because I’ll need to know how to understand people to help them. I needed therapy during my separation, but I couldn’t afford it. You’d hear therapists charge ₦100k per hour. I want to be able to provide affordable therapy for divorced and abused women and children.
In addition, I hope to build something like a healing shelter in the long term. I keep thinking about what would’ve happened to me if I didn’t have my family house to run to when things went south. Housing is a major reason why people stay in abusive situations.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
8. I’m happy with my finances and even happier with the person I am right now. I know where I’m going, and I’m willing to do the work to get there. I could lose the ₦3m in my account and still be happy. I’m no longer afraid of not having money or starting over. The worst has happened, and I came out of it.
What would make that number a 10?
When I eventually become a therapist and build a shelter. I like my job — it pays my bills — but it’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life.
Is there anything else you’d like to add that I haven’t asked?
I’d just like my fellow women to know that we do ourselves a disservice when we don’t have anything that brings us money. Having your own money is better than being perceived to be rich. It’s good to get free ₦500k, but earning ₦500k will boost your confidence — knowing you can produce value. When the chips are down, that’s what you can call your own.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
I started getting pocket money in JSS 1. It was the early 90s, so I don’t remember the exact amount now. I always gave the money to my uncle — who was in SSS 3 — for safekeeping because the students in my boarding school were notorious for stealing.
But my uncle was the one I should’ve been careful of. He started spending my money and would lie to me that it had finished. Somehow, I believed I spent it all.
How did you find out?
My dad noticed I was constantly writing to him for more money every few days. He asked, “Why is your money always finishing?” And I responded, “My uncle said the money has finished.” My dad figured he was tampering with the money and asked him. My uncle was mad at me for not covering him.
I changed schools in JSS 2 when I kept getting bullied for my accent and started keeping my pocket money myself.
What accent?
I spent some of my early years in the UK with my parents, who were studying for postgraduate degrees. I was in primary two when they were done, and we moved back to Nigeria in 1991. I remember because my parents were really disturbed by the fact that a dollar exchanged at ₦14 on the black market.
If only they knew now
When we returned to Nigeria, my dad worked in agribusiness for a bit with the company that sent him to the UK while my mum found work as a teacher. There was a bit more money, and I was the boy with comic books in primary school. I had them all — Superman, Batman, Guardians of the Galaxy, you name it.
But my dad left his job to become a missionary around the time I entered secondary school, and we had to tighten our belts. No more comic books, and we moved to a smaller town.
What did your mum think about your dad’s decision?
If there was any pushback, my siblings and I weren’t aware. My parents always presented a united front, and they cushioned us from whatever our financial situation was as best as they could.
I entered university in 2001, and they placed me on a ₦20k/month allowance, which was a reasonably good amount. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to handle money, so I spent it on music CDs and books and was always broke before the next allowance came in.
We’ve all been there. When was the first time you made your own money?
2002. I was studying engineering in school but didn’t like the course. So, I put my energy into learning programming. I found this book called “Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days” and another called “Cryptonomicon” by Neal Stephenson and decided I wanted to be a cryptologist. But I started with programming. I spent hours in the library learning how to code on the computers.
My first gig was to build a website for a church, and they were supposed to pay me ₦10k, but I never got anything. In fact, I didn’t get paid for the first three gigs I did. One was even my dad’s friend who promised ₦50k for a website gig but never paid. Funny enough, he saw me regularly after that and always said, “I have a job for you to help me do.” Yeah, right.
LOL
I quit engineering and moved to Ghana in 2004 to start my first degree afresh. I had started getting depressed because I wasn’t doing great academically, and I desperately wanted to move to the US to study. However, my parents couldn’t afford the tuition, and scholarships didn’t work out, so I settled for Ghana to study mathematics because of my cryptologist goal.
Did you get more gigs while in Ghana?
Yes, but they were mostly from Nigeria. At one point, I worked with about four companies simultaneously, which meant I was in Nigeria almost every weekend. The clients paid for my flights to Nigeria on Friday and then back on Sunday. I had so many airline miles I was giving it out.
How much were you making from the gigs, though?
Anything between ₦100k to $5k per project, depending on what I was working on. Some clients — mostly the big ones — also didn’t complete payment. But I was making money. I also had a friend from a freelance agency who regularly threw work my way.
In my second year in Ghana, I became responsible for myself and stopped calling home for money. My parents had also gone full-time into the ministry, which affected the family’s finances, so I occasionally supported my siblings too. I didn’t really spend on anything else apart from books and music. By the time I finished school in 2009, I had saved about €20k.
That’s huge. Were you saving towards a particular goal?
Yes, a postgraduate degree. I got admitted to an English-speaking German university to study for a one-year Master’s degree in Computational Mathematics. About €15k from my savings went into covering my fees, rent and living expenses for the year.
After one year in Germany, I moved to India in 2010 for another Master’s degree in Computer Science. I chose India because it was cheaper. It only cost me $2k to cover fees and living expenses for the one-year program.
I’m curious. Why the double Master’s degrees?
I just wanted to expand my knowledge. I’ve wanted to get a PhD since I was seven; I consider it one of the highest intellectual awards one could get. It’s not even to become a professor; I’m not one to teach. But that PhD? I still plan to have it before I die. Even if it means doing it at 70 with my grandkids.
Did you do anything for money while in these countries?
I lived on my savings for the most part. My student visa didn’t allow me to work in India. The only job I managed to do in Germany was to assist at a local food mart, where I sat behind a register. This paid like €10 or €15 per hour. It was good money for almost no work, but it wasn’t my thing.
I also did a website for one hair salon lady for €100. I also tried bartending, but I was more interested in drinking than actually serving the drinks.
I left India after my Master’s and returned to Nigeria. Then, I tried to go to Poland for my PhD, but it didn’t work out. So, I decided to stay back and work for a year before returning to school. It wasn’t that easy.
What happened?
Applying to jobs in Nigeria with two Master’s degrees on my CV was destroying my chances. Recruiters said they couldn’t afford to pay me. So, I drafted two CVs: one with all my degrees for foreign jobs and the other without them for local jobs.
Did that help?
It did. I got a ₦150k/month job at a web development studio, but I only stayed for seven months because my boss was more interested in politics than paying us for our work. At the point I left, I was being owed two months’ salary.
After that, I worked freelance between 2012 and 2013. I didn’t get as many exciting gigs as I did in university, but it paid the bills. That said, the thing about freelancing is that you can make ₦3 million today and make nothing for the next couple of months. It wasn’t sustainable.
Plus, my tastes had changed. As a uni student, I didn’t need to spend much. But as an upwardly mobile tech bro, I started hanging out with other tech bros, and my expenses increased. At some point, I reduced how frequently I hung out because I couldn’t always afford the drinks. When your friend buys you drinks twice, by the third time, it’s already looking awkward.
Real. Did you try applying for 9-5 jobs again?
Yes. Fortunately, I landed a ₦200k/month job towards the end of 2013. I stayed there for only a few months before moving to another role that paid three times more. After nine months, I also left the new job because I got bored and returned to freelancing. Nine months is the longest I’ve spent at a job.
In 2017, I returned to 9-5 for ₦450k/month and quit after four months — the boss was terrible. Shortly after, I took up another ₦300k/month job with one of the early Nigerian blockchain companies, but they crashed around March or April 2018.
I then moved to Maiduguri to work with an NGO. It was almost like I did it for charity because the job was below my skills and only paid ₦130k. But after two or three incidents where I ran from Boko Haram attacks, I decided I was done. ₦130k wasn’t enough for that.
What did you do next?
I did another four-month stint at a company I later discovered scammed its customers. They paid their developers, though, and my $500/month salary was never delayed. I left the job for another that paid me $1k/month. I was just moving like that and increasing my income.
My savings increased with my salary too. By the time I started earning $3k/month in 2020, I was saving and investing 80% of it. Mostly because I was living with my parents and had side gigs that brought money in occasionally.
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What were some of the things you invested in?
Stocks: tech, pharmaceutical, and metals through foreign investment platforms. I invested in Tesla when it was $30 per stock. When I sold most of it in 2022, it had grown to $290.
I also had 50 Bitcoins, which I got as a gift in 2012 when it was still around $12. I tried to access them in 2018 and realised I’d forgotten my private key to the wallet.
Excuse me. WHAT?
Yeah. I haven’t been able to crack it since, even though I’ve been doing blockchain bounty hunting since 2021.
What does that mean?
I go around different blockchain projects to find security bugs or build something for them. Bounty hunting is all in — you either make so much money or nothing at all. I once lost an $80k reward because I stepped out in the middle of solving the problem to grab drinks with a friend. By the time I returned, someone else had submitted a solution.
Damn.
I landed a more stable job to handle a project’s developer relations shortly after, though. It paid $7k/month with bonuses up to $5k. I did that for about four months. During that time, I took a small break from working on multiple blockchain projects to focus on the job.
I saved and invested aggressively, living only on $1k/month. This time, my savings goal was to get a Golden Visa.
Why did you want a golden visa?
I want to travel the world, which isn’t the easiest thing to do with a Nigerian passport. I wanted a passport that’d give me access to pretty much everywhere. So, I learned about the golden visa, and the most affordable option I found was the Portugal Golden Visa. It cost €350k and involved buying property, which would give me a five-year residency. Last last, I could rent out the property and make money from it. I only needed to visit Portugal for one week every year for those five years, after which I’d get citizenship.
Plus, they don’t pay tax on crypto-based earnings in Portugal, they speak a lot of English, and there’s a relatively big Black community there. It was the perfect option, and I was going to get it. But then I lost all my savings — over $500k in total.
Wait. How did that happen?
I’d invested about $80k in Terra in 2021. By April 2022, it had grown to $150k. Then the Luna/Terra coin crash happened, and took my money with it. Honestly, I should’ve known the returns were too good to be true, but shit happens. It was painful, but I still had about $400k in other savings and investments. So, it was like, “Damn, I lost money. Well, I still have money.”
I just fell to my knees
The plan was to finalise my Golden Visa in November 2022. So, I liquidated the rest of my crypto and stocks in late October and put it all — about $380k — in a crypto exchange, FTX. I didn’t put the money in the bank because I didn’t want anyone asking too many questions or forcing me to fill out forms.
It was supposed to be there for a week. Unfortunately, FTX crashed on November 2. I didn’t even know until November 9 because I was busy with work and was ignoring my emails. By the time I found out, my money was gone. If I had heard the news earlier, I could’ve withdrawn some of it.
Oh my God. I’m so sorry
I was devastated. I couldn’t take a bath, eat or step outside for a whole week. My security guard even came into the house to make sure I wasn’t dead. I usually struggle with depressive episodes. I’m very sure that if I’d been in one of my low periods when this happened, I’d have killed myself.
It wasn’t exactly the money I lost that bothered me; it was the freedom it was supposed to bring.
Ironically, I’d quit my job earlier that year to start my own software development company in February 2022. I was supposed to get a $200k investment grant but got $50k in funding. I also only got 30% of the $50k upfront. The rest was going to come only after we delivered a particular project, so I had to put much of my money into the startup. We had more than 20 staff, and I had to pay almost ₦10m in salaries and other expenditure every month.
By the time I lost my savings, we’d already depleted our initial funds, and I had to take a ₦20m loan to pay salaries in November and December. We finished the funding-backed project in December, and I had to tell my staff we were taking an indefinite break till we got back on our feet.
Phew. That’s a lot. How did you pay back the loan?
The 70% balance came in, and fortunately for me, the naira had fallen against the dollar. It was now about ₦700 to $1 from about ₦300 at the beginning of the year. It meant the naira value I got was far more than when we got the first 30%. I was able to use the money to settle the loans I took and still had about ₦26m.
I still have a few freelance developers on the payroll for another major project we’re working on, but progress is slow — we haven’t gotten to the point where we have paying customers. Maybe if the investment grant had come in and I hadn’t lost my money, we’d have a working product in the market now.
What are you up to now?
I’m definitely more broke than I was in 2022, and I pay more attention to how I spend money. After moping around for months, I went back to bounty hunting for a bit in 2023. Another way I make money now is by participating in crypto communities on Discord.
How does that work?
Once you show you’re active by helping to solve problems in the group, the owners reach out and offer you a stipend to continue giving value.
One group pays me $1k/month. Another group gave me some Joystream coins because I was an early member, and I can always sell them if I absolutely need money. I explore communities to see where I can pitch in and make random $2k occasionally.
Usually, I’m sure of earning $1,800 – $2,500 monthly from bounty hunting and the crypto communities. It’s often higher. I’ve made about $8k once. The only downside is that if something goes wrong in the communities, you’re the first person people will yell at since you’re the one answering their questions.
Out of interest, did you tell friends and family about the money you lost?
I told my family and some close friends, but weirdly, it didn’t stop people from asking me for money. I’m usually the first person people think about when they need money, and it’s gotten worse since September 2023. Maybe I’ll blame Tinubu for it, but everyone suddenly became broke.
In a day, I’d get like 2-3 calls from people seeking financial assistance. It got so bad I had to change my number. I gave a few friends the new number, and now I’m even considering changing it again. Almost every day, someone asks for ₦20k or a ₦100k loan.
What are your monthly expenses like?
I still save 50% – 70% of my earnings monthly. Most of the crypto I got from the community is vested and worth about $40k today, but it’s imaginary money. I can’t access it yet, and crypto prices fluctuate wildly to say this is the definite amount I have. I should have access to it in 2025, and I plan to take 50% out to invest in stocks and metals. I’ll also probably invest in local property.
You’ve been on quite a financial journey. How have your experiences impacted your perspective on money?
It’s a two-way thing. On one hand, I’m trying to spend more conservatively. I haven’t changed my iPhone in almost two years, and I love having the latest gadgets.
On the other hand, I’m very aware of how fickle money is. It’s like, I better enjoy this money now because it may not be there tomorrow. I feel like I didn’t enjoy my money the first time around. So, I find myself constantly trying to strike a balance. I still intend to travel the world, so that’s still on my bucket list.
What do you imagine the next few years might look like for you?
My current target is a startup visa to Portugal, France or Denmark. People aren’t really going through the golden visa route anymore, and this is one of the best ways to get a stronger passport as an entrepreneur. It means I’ll need to pay more attention to building my startup. I plan to do that with the help of accelerator programs later this year, provided I remember to apply before the deadlines.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?
4. I need to get to the point where I’m making a million dollars a month. You know, to be able to buy things and travel without worrying about how to fund it or get stopped because of my passport. I’d also like to set up education trust funds for my nieces and nephews.
Have you considered where the $1 million/month would come from?
Income from work projects and investments, plus savings. I’m also talking to several business partners, and I’m hoping that the law of averages alone will ensure at least a few of the projects go my way.
I’ll be able to diversify my investments once my startup starts making money. I believe that’ll happen soon because I’m serving a growing market and offering solutions for a need that has been underutilised. I’m also looking to become an angel investor for startups or maybe even venture capital within the next three to five years.
Interesting
Earning $1 million isn’t just for spending sake, though. It’ll be a great financial security for me and my family, but I’m also looking to invest in lessening the effects of climate change and food and water insecurity.
I believe we’re on the brink of a major food and environmental problem in Africa. If Niger or Mali decide to block River Niger, our water supply is cut off. We must figure out ways to trap water from the environment, reforest our semi-arid areas and even consider renewable energy. I’m interested in these issues, and making that kind of money would mean I can contribute to solving them.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What was the first money conversation you both had?
Phoebe: Three months after we started dating in 2011, he asked me to come over to cook coconut rice and chicken for four friends he was hosting that weekend. He’d boasted about my coconut rice. When he asked how much I needed for the foodstuff, I said ₦20k, and he got angry.
Joe: Yes na. When it wasn’t like I was throwing a party. I immediately started having second thoughts about her — ₦20k was a big chunk of my ₦70k office manager salary, and spending it on that small amount of food seemed wasteful to me. We had a big disagreement and didn’t talk to each other for two days. Of course, the cooking didn’t happen again.
How did you get past that?
Phoebe: He came and begged me when I didn’t reach out. We talked through it, and he understood that I wasn’t just calling one amount for the sake of it. I’d planned to cook one more dish so the food could carry him into the following week. Plus, I don’t like to manage things. If I’m doing something, I want to do it well.
Joe: You should be able to tell that she was the child of a rich man already. Not like us who were born with wooden spoons.
Were you really a rich kid, Phoebe?
Phoebe: I won’t say rich. We were comfortable, though. My dad worked with Nigeria Airways when it was still in operation, and we lived in our own house and had some cars. My mum didn’t even have to work.
I had an allowance in secondary school, although I can’t remember how much it was now. It increased to ₦15k/month when I entered uni in 2005. The money didn’t see the end of the month, sha. I constantly spent it on food, clothes and make-up.
I guess growing up was different for you, Joe?
Joe: It was. We struggled a lot financially due to my dad’s poor financial habits. He was a furniture maker who loved gambling. Whenever he gambled away his money — which was often — he’d collect money from my mum’s provisions business. She had to close the business to take up a cleaning job when I was 10 because the business wasn’t going anywhere.
I’m the first child, so I had front-row access to the whole thing — the days when my mum had to hide money under my bed so we could afford food the next day. Or when she’d beg a neighbour to allow their kid “lap” me on the bus to school, so I wouldn’t have to pay for transport.
I think seeing that taught me financial responsibility, even though I didn’t see it like that then. I just always thought, “Why must this man always spend money like this?” I didn’t want to be like him, so I subconsciously learnt to keep any little money that came my way right from childhood.
Let’s talk about you guys. Where were you financially when you met?
Phoebe: I’d just left a toxic HR intern job and was very broke. It’s not like the ₦50k/month salary they paid did anything, but it was nice to have something at the end of the month. Thankfully, my family and siblings were always there to support me financially. I think it was even the money that one of them sent me I went to withdraw the day I met Joe at the ATM.
Joe: It was an instant attraction, at least on my part. I had to drop all the “toasting” lyrics in my arsenal that day before she gave me her number. I was at the ₦70k job at the time, and I felt I’d gotten to the point where I could afford a relationship.
What do you mean by “afford”?
Joe: I believe finances play a big role in relationships, especially as a man. I should be able to take care of my woman to a reasonable degree. My mum wouldn’t have had to go through all that if my dad had done his duty. It’s why I didn’t really pursue long-term relationships when I was in uni. I had the boldness to pursue Phoebe because I had a fairly good job and lived in a modest ₦150k/year apartment. I wasn’t doing too badly.
So only one of you had an income. What was that like?
Phoebe: We had some clashes in the beginning. He always insisted on paying during dates and encouraged me to come to him when I needed money, but then he’d complain that I was spending too much or getting too much of everything on dates.
Joe: We didn’t see eye to eye on money matters. Every other aspect of the relationship was fine, except that. I was torn between wanting to provide and this madam trying to choke me with expenses.
Did you both have conversations about this?
Phoebe: We did, several times. But I only started to fully understand his issues with my spending when we moved in together in 2012.
What changed?
Phoebe: Living together made our financial situation more transparent — I knew what he had in his account. Since that was essentially what we lived on, I learnt to manage my expectations and spending.
We also started a system where he had to approve financial decisions. We agreed that he was better with money, so it made sense for him to manage it. I couldn’t just use the money he gave me to cook to buy bags. Plus, he’d even see it sef.
Joe: As if that always stopped you.
Screaming. Did this approval dynamic continue after marriage?
Joe: Yes. We dated for two years and got married in 2013. Our alignment on money matters helped make the decision to start a family much easier, so we just continued that way.
Phoebe: I worked as a school administrator for two years after we got married. During that time, we agreed that I’d be sending my ₦75k salary to his account for transparency. I resigned from the job when I got pregnant because I kept falling sick. I haven’t worked at a 9-5 since then. We have two kids now, and I take care of them full-time.
What’s a one-income household like?
Joe: It is a lot of planning and transparency. She knows what I earn, and she also helps me to manage it. I currently earn ₦250k, and 90% of that goes into the home. I give her a ₦90k monthly allowance that covers feeding, the kids’ clothing and any home emergencies and ₦30k for her personal needs. Then I pay for things like fuel and electricity and save ₦50k monthly with ajo contributions to cover the children’s school fees and our ₦300k/year rent.
Phoebe: I almost always go back to him for feeding money before month’s end because of how expensive things have gotten. It usually lasts three weeks max. Can you imagine that the feeding allowance was ₦50k in 2019, and I hardly spent it all in a month? If you think about it too much, you’ll just start crying.
I feel you. What’s the most difficult thing about a one-income household?
Joe: Definitely the flow of money. It won’t hurt to have extra income. We’ve been considering business ideas for her that could help but also not take her attention away from the home too much.
Phoebe: We’ve actually agreed on wholesaling and retailing bags online, but I’ll need like ₦150k to start. We don’t have that kind of disposable income right now, so we’re just making do with what we have.
Joe, you mentioned you’re a first child. What’s black tax like?
Joe: Phoebe, oya answer. You’re the one always promising money to our family members.
Phoebe: Fortunately, our families don’t ask for money like that, and there’s no monthly obligation. But I think it’s our responsibility to also offer financial help sometimes, especially during joint events which don’t even happen often. The only other expenses are random ₦10ks here and there. Do you want them to think I’m the only one spending your money?
How would you describe each other’s relationship with money?
Joe: She’s clearly the spender, but it’s interesting how she’s evolved from almost reckless spending to weighing the importance of things before spending on them. She also allows me to lead in everything, especially money, and I appreciate that.
Phoebe: I owe my improved spending habits to his insistence on transparency. He’s very open and analytical about his finances, and I have no choice but to be the same. He’s also very big on providing. I can’t relate to all those Facebook and Twitter discussions that keep asking what women bring to the table. My man doesn’t care. He’s thinking about how to fill the table.
Energy. What’s one thing you want that’d make your relationship even better?
Joe: A house and a better job. If I had a ₦500k/month salary and didn’t have to think about rent, we’d have some extra income to do some of the things she likes. She’s been complaining about how we never go on dates anymore. Plus, our children will enter secondary school in the next three years. So, even more school fees to think about.
Phoebe: Money to start a business. If not for anything, but to have some cash to surprise him once in a while. It’s difficult to surprise him with gifts because he knows how much I have at every point, and if the money reduces, he can immediately tell I’m planning something.
Out of interest, would you ever go back to the 9-5 life?
Phoebe: I want to say maybe when my kids are older, but let’s face it. Young graduates hardly get jobs. What chances would a mother with more than a decade-long career gap have?
Joe: Honestly, I don’t want her to have to worry about that. Let her just be chopping my money.
God, when? Is there anything you wish you could be better at financially?
Joe: Side hustles. Nigeria is too expensive to have one income source. I’m already into real estate on the side — I work as a part-time agent, facilitating land sales with a family friend’s real estate company — but I haven’t made much in commissions from it because I haven’t had time to go for site visits and network with potential clients. But I plan to be more intentional this year.
Phoebe: I think I just want to be better at contributing something to our income. Anything.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
Joe: 5. We can only afford the necessities right now. I dread the day an emergency comes and wipes out everything we have. Phoebe: God forbid, please. Mine is also 5. We aren’t begging, but we need to earn more to be able to afford a reasonably good life for our kids.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Why would anyone voluntarily take a pay cut? People usually only take a lower salary offer when they want to switch careers or industries. But for Jeremiah* (27), it was because his mental health was at stake.
In this story, he shares how he realised he had to leave his dream-job-turned-toxic-nightmare after a few weeks, why taking a pay cut was necessary for him to survive and why he’s now scared of moving ahead in his career.
The unwritten rule for children in most Nigerian households is that you get an education, land a good-paying job and start taking care of your parents. It’s the whole idea behind black tax.
It’s also the main reason why I knew I wouldn’t use my economics degree even before I graduated from the university. I only studied the course because I wanted admission, and it seemed less competitive. I wanted a job that’d pay balling levels of money and allow me to give back to my struggling parents like firstborns should, but I couldn’t see a clear path to that with my degree. So, when someone introduced me to web and product design in my final year, I decided that was it: my hustle.
It didn’t take much for me to land a junior product design role at a tech startup soon after NYSC in 2020. While I didn’t have work experience, I made up for that with a portfolio of test projects. The job paid ₦100k/month, and it looked like things would only get better. I was finally on the path to making good money.
I sent my entire first salary to my parents. It’s a fairly common Yoruba practice to give your parents your first salary, they pray for you and then give you some of the salary back. My parents returned the full amount to me, touched that I decided to honour them in that way. But my new status as a salary earner signalled that they could start pushing some responsibilities to me.
And push, they did. I still lived with them, so it only made sense for me to handle some recurrent home expenses: NEPA bills, fuel for the generator or ₦10k cash gifts here and there. Of course, there was also the occasional billing from my younger siblings. It wasn’t an issue for me. I was simply playing my part.
In 2022, I got a promotion and raise to ₦200k, but by then, I was already itching to find another job. My workplace was nice, but I thought I could get paid better for my skills. A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn around that time and offered me a ₦350k product design team lead role at another startup. I was more excited about the fact that I would be in a senior role, so I didn’t bother to check if ₦350k was great for a non-remote one.
To me, a senior role meant my subsequent jobs would be even more senior and would consistently increase my earning potential. It was like my dream job.
I got the job in June 2022 and was to resume in July. At that point, I had about ₦300k in my savings. I’d been thinking about renting my own place for some time, and I thought I could afford it with my new salary. So, I took my savings, plus a ₦150k loan from a friend, and rented a ₦250k/year apartment that wasn’t too far from my new office. I thought moving would be a great way to start this new phase of my life.
From the very first week, I started having second thoughts about the job. There was only one other person on the product design “team”, and they’d already sent in their resignation notice.
One of the primary reasons I was hired was to make sure their mobile app was designed and ready to ship in three months. When they explained this during the interview, it sounded like I’d be part of something “life-changing” and all those motivational bullshit that make you feel gingered about going above and beyond.
But I resumed and saw that they were also in the middle of a rebrand, and I was to oversee the website redesign. What they really meant was to do it myself because where was the team I was hired to lead? How was I supposed to do both projects by myself in three months?
As if that wasn’t enough, I reported directly to the CEO, and he’d make last-minute design changes and then say, “You didn’t quite catch my vision. How hard is it to do XYZ?”
He was also verbally abusive with a horrible temper. Every Monday like clockwork, he’d scream at the sales team for not delivering revenue for a product that hadn’t even been launched. If he wasn’t screaming at them, he was berating me for not carrying out my tasks faster, even though I had no support and was almost always revising designs.
It wasn’t strange to hear people crying in toilets or resigning every week. By the third month, I was well and truly miserable. I started to have panic attacks anytime I heard a notification from my phone or laptop. No one told me before I silenced all my devices. I still do till today.
But I couldn’t just resign. I needed to stay for at least a year to finish repaying the loan and have something saved up for my rent and other living expenses. I started aggressively applying for jobs and counting down the days till I could resign.
Five months in, a ₦250k/month position opened up at my former workplace. I got to know because I was still friends with someone there, and they knew all about my struggles at the toxic job.
I didn’t want to apply at first. It was a significant pay cut and wasn’t a managerial role — essentially, a demotion. But then, the very next day, my toxic CEO slapped a female member of staff for trying to walk out as he screamed as usual, and I decided I was done.
I applied for the job at my former workplace, and since I’d worked there before, I didn’t have to go through many hoops. I resumed in a week.
I still remember the intense satisfaction I felt after clicking “send” on my resignation letter to the toxic job. I didn’t even wait for a response before logging out of all company platforms and dropping my laptop with the security guard.
Sometimes, I wonder if I should’ve stuck through for that year or waited for a higher-paying job. Maybe I should’ve used the experience to build a thicker skin. But then, I remind myself that it’s not until I die that I’ll have proven myself. It was either I left that job or it took my life.
My standard of living hasn’t reduced, but I spend more now. I’d gotten the apartment with the toxic job in mind. Now that I’m back at my former job, I’ve had to spend more on transportation even though I work hybrid.
I also started sending ₦50k to my parents every month when I started the toxic job. And I haven’t reduced it even though I earn less now. With inflation the way it is right now, it feels like I’m struggling at best.
I’ve been working at my current job for a year and really want to try my chances at finding a better job. But I’m scared and also a bit ashamed. What if I land another terrible job and have to return with my tail between my legs like before?
I remember how weird it was to leave the first time only to return six months later. It’s possible no one else thought it weird, but I kept thinking about it on their behalf. Like, “This one thought the grass was greener somewhere else, but he has run back.”
I don’t regret my choices, though. I just need to get comfortable with wanting better for myself and not being too scared to take risks.
Psst! Have you seen our Valentine Special yet? We brought back three couples – one now with kids, one now married and the last, still best friends – to share how their relationships have evolved in the last five years. Watch the first episode below:
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What was the first money conversation you both had?
Michelle: Shortly after we started dating in October 2021, I took ₦14k out of the ₦60k I had saved up to replace my phone to buy him a surprise gift for his coming birthday. He knew I was saving for a phone and would have objected to my plan. Honestly, it wasn’t exactly a conversation. I used my strong head to decide on my own.
LOL. What was the surprise?
Michelle: I wanted to send him a pair of sneakers since we’re quite a distance apart. He lives in Aba, while I live in Keffi. But I had issues finding vendors, so I told him to find me one.
JC: I found a vendor, and she paid for it. That was the first birthday gift I ever received from anyone.
That’s sweet. You guys were long-distance right from the start?
Michelle: Yes. We met on a mutual friend’s Facebook group. JC and I were both admins of the group, and we progressed from exchanging banter on the timeline to talking every day. We’ve been talking every day since.
What’s navigating a long-distance relationship like?
JC: To anyone reading this: Don’t do it. Sometimes you just want to be with your person, but they’re several miles away. We have to rely on video calls, emails and virtual dates to keep the romance going. It’s tough.
Michelle: We’ve only seen each other physically twice since we started dating. The last time was in 2023. I visited, and we stayed together for about two months before I returned home to Nasarawa.
Who pays for these trips?
JC: We both do. When she visited for the first time in 2022, I was running a part-time university program which was taking the little money I had. We were both terribly broke, but she insisted on coming. She’s really the type to sacrifice everything she has — or doesn’t have — for me. So, we just ended up gathering what we had to cover the roughly ₦30k travel cost.
What about dates during these physical visits? Do you both pay for it too?
Michelle: We always have big plans about where to go when I visit. But we’re both introverted, so we end up not going anywhere. Plus, we hardly see each other, so spending all the available time together makes sense.
JC: Most of the time, we cook and have indoor dates. I’m the host, so I take up the cost for those. But we make up for our few dates by celebrating our anniversary every month.
How does that work?
Michelle: Sometimes, we exchange love letters and emails. At other times, we do virtual dates. We choose a meal and cook it on both our ends. Then we do a video call and chat about the past month. He once published a chapbook of 30 poems and dedicated it to me. It was so romantic. We’re just spontaneous like that.
I’m curious. Is it work keeping you both in your respective cities?
JC: Kinda. I moved here in 2017 to work as a graphic designer at a pharmaceutical company, but I quit in September 2023 because I kept getting owed salaries — which was just ₦50k/month. When they didn’t owe me, they’d deduct up to half of it for flimsy reasons.
I now offer freelance graphic and web design plus writing services. I have two consistent clients and a few occasional ones, bringing an average of ₦180k – ₦350k in a good month.
It’s not my first time in Aba, though. I first moved here when I was 10 years old. My family was forced to leave Kano in 2001— run is the correct word here — because of increased religious violence that became widespread following the infamous Reinhard Bonnke-Kano crisis of 1991. I’d experienced violent riots before and even lost friends to them, but I think another one happened in 2001, and my pastor dad decided enough was enough.
Oh my. What was it like starting afresh?
JC: Quite traumatic. We left with no properties and stayed in our family house in the village for seven months to figure things out. Fortunately, my mum worked in NIPOST, so she resumed work after her formal transfer request to a city nearby was approved. My dad also got transferred to a branch of the church there. We soon became financially stable and got our own place.
I’m glad there was a happy ending. How about you, Michelle?
Michelle: I’m a freelance writer, but I’ve been living in Nasarawa since 2016. Actually, let me start from the top. I lost my dad at five years old, and this affected the family’s finances. My mum was going to hold it down, though. She was a big-time seamstress in Lagos and had a huge foodstuff store, but she died nine months after my dad.
I’m terribly sorry to hear that
Michelle: Thank you. After her death, my siblings and I were passed around different relatives’ homes till I travelled to Zaria to write post-UTME in 2016.
It turned out that I had the wrong information and had travelled far ahead of the exam. So, I decided to stay with my elder brother who lived in Nasarawa with a relative in the meantime.
My brother had a sickle cell crisis shortly after I arrived, and I picked up a ₦6k/month restaurant waitressing job so I could care for him. I didn’t even write the post-UTME because the university eventually used JAMB and WAEC grades to decide the cut-off aggregate.
When I got the admission, I couldn’t go because I’d used all my money to take care of my brother. I tried JAMB again a couple of times, but my brother’s health problems always came up, and I’d have to pause the process. He eventually passed away in 2018.
Damn. I’m so sorry
Michelle: I should’ve given an “emotional story ahead” warning. After his death, I did several things for money. I was once a sales girl for ₦5k/month, then I worked at a cyber cafe serving chicken and chips. I learnt how to use a computer there. Then I had stints as a receptionist, admin officer and front desk officer. My town is pretty underdeveloped, so there’s nothing here.
I got my first real job in 2019. I started working as a secretary/paralegal in a law firm for ₦10k/month. In 2021, I moved to another law firm in Abuja for ₦30k/month in the same role. It was the same year I discovered I could get paid to write, and I started getting small gigs writing guides for a software product blog. That brought in an average of ₦100k extra monthly.
In December 2022, I took a risk and quit my law firm job to start my freelance business when the stress of moving from Nasarawa to Abuja every week became too much. I’ve worked freelance since.
How has that been?
Michelle: Really tough. I feel like I should’ve found my footing in the freelancing world before I left my 9-5. Right now, I’d say my income is zero. I haven’t had a constant gig in about seven months.
You’re both freelancers with somewhat unstable incomes. How do you manage bad financial periods?
Michelle: We don’t have bad financial periods at the same time, so we come through for each other. There’s no month that goes by that we don’t send each other money. I haven’t had a steady income in a while, but whenever I get anything from favours or random gigs, I send a token with a narration like, “I’m grateful that I’m able to love you with my money”. I get a sense of fulfilment from it.
Is there an average amount for this per month?
JC: No month is the same, really. It depends on how the month goes. I don’t even keep records. However, our bank did something like a 2023 summary of who you send money to the most, and we were each other’s.
Love to see it
Michelle: JC, I’ve been thinking we need to budget an amount every month for each other. Of course, we can go higher or lower depending on how much money comes in that month. But it’d also help us keep our expenses in check.
JC: Sounds good to me.
What does the future look like for you both? Say, the next five years?
Michelle & JC: Oh, we’ll definitely be married.
Michelle: I feel like our financial future is bright. I want to get into data analysis, and I’m currently taking Udemy courses. So, in the next five years, I should be working remotely full-time and contributing more to our finances. We’d have upped our game financially by that time.
Have you both thought about how money will work in your home? How will the bills be managed?
JC: We haven’t discussed this, but sharing responsibilities, depending on who has money at the time, has always worked for us, so we may continue that way.
Michelle: There will definitely be more structure to how we plan our expenses. Like if we’ll need to save for our kids, or how much goes into taking care of the home. I think the major change will be creating a joint account. I’m the lavish spender in the relationship — I mostly spend on gifts — and a joint account will help keep my spending in check. We actually tried to open a joint account in 2023, but it didn’t work because JC had BVN issues.
Psst! Have you seen our Valentine Special yet? We brought back three couples – one now with kids, one now married and the last, still best friends – to share how their relationships have evolved in the last five years. Watch the first episode below:
How was the joint account supposed to work?
Michelle: The plan was to send whatever we made there, and the goal was to use it to monitor our spending. He was still working his 9-5, and transportation was taking a huge chunk of his money, which bothered him. He wanted to clearly track how the money was spent. Plus, I mentioned I tend to overspend, so we thought it’d be better if he was the only signatory to the account. That way, I’d think twice before asking for money to buy something unimportant.
JC: So before anyone withdrew money, we’d have to discuss and agree on why that particular expense is necessary. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, but it’s still something we intend to do when we get married so we can use it to handle bills together.
When you eventually do, would it still be a “send everything to the account” arrangement?
Michelle: I think it’ll depend ultimately on our earning power. For instance, if this person earns more, they contribute more and vice versa.
JC: Also, I started learning about finance intelligence in September 2023 from one of the companies I freelance for. It’s the 50-30-20 method, where you spend 50% of your income on personal needs, 30% on savings and 20% on investment. I’ve been trying the savings and investment bit with a savings app, and I think it’s a good blueprint for how we’ll likely plan our joint expenses when the time comes.
How would you describe each other’s relationship with money?
JC: She already confessed hers. She’s a lavish spender. It’s not that she spends on herself; she’s just generous to a fault. She always goes out of her way to do things for people who don’t even value her.
Michelle: Because the Scriptures say don’t pay evil for evil!
I’m dying
JC: She’s very accountable, though. She keeps track of every expense and shares them, no matter how excessive it is. I struggle with that degree of attention to detail, and I really admire that in her.
Michelle: JC thinks twice before spending money. He evaluates everything; Is this important right now? Can we get a cheaper alternative? I’m not like that. Once a need arises and there’s money, I spend it on the spot before thinking of how I could have gone at it in a better way.
Have these differences ever caused a fight, though?
Michelle: Ironically, we had a slight disagreement about money earlier today.
Do share
Michelle: You know how I mentioned I haven’t really had an income for a while? Well, I still get random money from my friends and siblings occasionally. As a Christian, I’m quite big on tithing. I’ve tithed since I was a child.
So, recently someone sent me ₦20k, and JC knew about it. The plan was for me to take some time away from home and travel to spend some time with my big sister in Abuja. But this past Sunday, I used most of it to pay tithe — I accumulate my tithe and pay when it’s gotten to a tangible amount — and announced to him today that I no longer had money to travel. He was like, “I thought it’s money you earn you pay tithe with, and not money you’re given?”
Haha. I see his point
Michelle: It wasn’t a big issue, though. We talked through it, and he understood why I did it. I’ve tithed for years. It’s not just something I can just stop.
We’re gradually embracing the fact that we’re different people. So even though we don’t always have the same attitudes to money, we know to talk through the faults we notice and accept that our differences complement us.
Do you both plan to shorten the distance between you soon?
JC: We plan to move together to a new state in the second half of 2024.
Have you thought about how much it’d cost?
JC: With how the Nigerian economy is going, it’s difficult to be decisive on a budget. But we started a joint savings plan on a savings app this January so we can have something saved up when we’re ready. We didn’t set a specific amount to save monthly, though.
Michelle: He has a more stable income and will probably move first to prepare for me to join him at the end of the year. Hopefully, my income will be better by then too. But we have to bridge the gap somehow this year. We both can’t deal with the distance again. This year is our year.
Amen to that. How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
Michelle: 2. And that is me being kind to myself. It should be below zero. Not having an income in this economy is crazy. JC: 5. My finances improved this year, which I’m grateful for. I’m looking to lock in two more consistent clients soon, and that could increase my income significantly. The future is bright.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What are your earliest memories of money?
Francis: I visited my cousin when I was around seven and was shocked to see he had money saved in a kolo. The money must’ve been like ₦50, but it was a huge discovery because it just clicked in my head that children could have money.
Helen: It’s funny how kolo is my earliest money memory, too. I was about nine years old when I watched my mum break her kolo after I complained about my teacher flogging me for not paying school fees. She gathered the money and dragged me to school to cuss out the teacher.
You didn’t know children could have money?
Francis: It wasn’t a thing in my house. My siblings and I were never given money for snacks in primary and secondary school because there was always home-cooked food. My mum was something of a “money police.” If any of us were found with money, we’d have to explain where it came from. So, anytime relatives dashed us money, we immediately gave it to our mum out of habit.
On the other hand, my dad didn’t take things seriously like that. When I entered secondary school, he let me keep the small change from the errands I ran for him.
I’m now curious about what money was like growing up
Helen: There wasn’t a lot. I lost my dad at 6. My mum said he was a banker, and we were ballers when he was alive. But I have no memory of this.
When he died, his siblings grabbed his properties and pushed my mum aside because she “only had one girl”.
My mum — who was previously a stay-at-home mum — had to start selling clothes to survive. I remember she fasted a lot, but I realised later that it may have been because there wasn’t enough food for us. She was the OG independent babe, though: I never saw her ask for help or handouts from anyone. She taught me how to hustle and not wait for no man to use ₦2k to shakara me.
Preach it
Francis: Things were different for me. Both parents worked in the civil service, so we didn’t struggle. My mum was just stingy. You had to present a dissertation to convince her that you needed to buy a bicycle.
Screaming
Francis: My dad was the lau lau spender, and this caused clashes between him and my mum. He once bought two of those big DSTV satellite dishes for the two TVs in the house without telling anyone and paid for the premium subscription. These things just came out and were crazy expensive.
My mum felt vindicated when he had issues at work in 2006 and was transferred out of spite to another department where he wasn’t getting as much money.
Wait. Tell me about that
Francis: There’s a lot of “chop, make I chop” in civil service, and everyone is involved in it somehow. My dad worked in procurement and handled contractor bids. He didn’t have the authority to accept or reject a bid — that came from the higher-ups. But it was obvious the contractors either “settled” the bosses or inflated the cost so they could use the excess to “show appreciation”.
No one will come and tell you directly, but you can hear that Oga is sharing ₦10k with everyone in the department for the weekend. So, he always had extra money apart from his salary.
Interesting
Francis: I think my dad started discussing with his colleagues how one contractor was doing rubbish but kept getting renewed. I don’t have the full story, but his comments may have rubbed some people off the wrong way. He got transferred, and the cash flow stopped. We didn’t go broke, but there was no more calling Daddy to buy ice cream when returning from work.
I think I got the lau lau spending from him, though. In 2009, I started writing notes and doing assignments for people in uni for random ₦1ks and ₦2ks just because I’d finish my ₦10k monthly allowance in a week buying suya for babes or buying them food, as per baba for the girls.
Helen: Wow. But me I didn’t see your money to chop o.
Wait. You both met in university?
Helen: Yes. In 2013. He was a final-year student, and I was a hustling second-year student. I’d just started selling chiffon shirts in the hostel to supplement my ₦5k allowance. We met through a mutual friend and started dating soon after.
Where were you both financially at this time? How come you didn’t see his money to chop?
Helen: I was making approximately ₦10k monthly from my business. I sold far more than that every month, but the profits weren’t all mine because I bought the shirts from an okrika vendor and added a small amount of money on top, so it’d still be affordable.
About not seeing his money to chop, I wasn’t looking for his money, TBH.
Francis: She’s the one Neyo talked about in ‘Miss Independent’. I was broke then, though. My dad had just retired, so money from home wasn’t regular. Any money I made from doing assignments or billing any of my older siblings went into my project and trying to stay afloat.
But you had time to get into a relationship. Love it
Francis: Wetin man go do? Looking back, I realise it wasn’t a great time to start a relationship. In 2014, I went for NYSC in a different state, and my income was ₦24,800 — NYSC allowance + a ₦5k stipend from my PPA. We had to navigate long-distance, which was hard. And then she lost her mum and decided she didn’t want to be in the relationship anymore.
Helen: Ah ah. It wasn’t like that.
So sorry about your loss. What was it like, though?
Helen: It was tough because I had to become solely responsible for myself. My aunt from my mum’s side who could help was also struggling, so I was basically on my own. I remember looking for ₦50k to sort out something at school, which seriously bothered me.
Whenever we talked on the phone, he’d ask several times what was wrong with me, but I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t want it to look like I expected him to start giving me money. So, I just told him we needed to take a break.
Why did you think sharing your problems meant you were asking for money?
Helen: It was something I subconsciously picked up from my mum. Growing up, she was very particular about me not depending on guys. We could be watching movies together, and she’d point out how the actress felt indebted to the guy because he helped her. Or how the guy thought the babe was billing him simply because she was sharing her issues.
I had a similar experience with a previous “toaster”. We were talking on the phone, and I randomly mentioned that I needed to end the call because my charger had issues; I couldn’t charge the phone and stay on the call. He said something like, “We haven’t even started dating, and you’re already telling me your problems.”
Ah.
So, it was like a reflex reaction to lock up and solve my problems myself. I wanted to be in a better place financially before focusing on relationships. It was time to double my hustle.
How did that go?
Helen: I did all sorts. I sold perfume oils, plantain chips and chin-chin at different points until my final year in 2016. Then, a friend introduced me to social media management, and it was like my big break. My first job paid ₦60k/month. When NYSC came around in 2017, my monthly income had grown to ₦90k.
Coincidentally, NYSC posted me to the state he lived and worked in, and we picked up the relationship again.
Who made the first move to pick things back up?
Helen: I did. It wasn’t like we broke up and became enemies; we were still in touch. He was hurt, but we still talked, and I knew he wasn’t seeing anyone. So, I told him we needed to see, and we just talked it through.
Was this because you were in a better place financially?
Helen: Exactly.
Francis: We didn’t get back together until we properly discussed what went wrong the first time. And that’s how I understood that she needed to do it for herself because of where she was coming from.
To be honest, a part of me initially thought she wanted to give us a try again because I’d become something of a big boy. I’d gotten into product design and had a ₦100k/month job. But if there’s anything she chases, it’s how to make her own money. We’ve been married for three years now, and she’s still the same independent, strong head.
What was dating like the second time? Were there other money clashes?
Helen: Oh, there were. We didn’t have money conversations the first time. Add that to the fact that we became long-distance shortly after we started dating; we didn’t navigate situations like who pays during the date or stuff like that.
But then we started dating again, and he’d take me for dates weekly and insist on paying. He’d also buy gifts when coming to visit me. I thought it was too much and told him so.
Francis: Me, I was confused. I thought I was doing what was expected, but she didn’t like it. It caused some arguments because I thought she wasn’t being appreciative. I told my friends, and some of them thought I was a lucky bastard. Others suggested she had someone else giving her more money.
How did you both navigate this?
Helen: It took a while, but I got better at letting him know that I appreciated him wanting to take care of me, but I didn’t want to feel too relaxed or dependent. More importantly, I wanted to chip in too.
Francis: So, we developed a turn-by-turn approach to our dates. I’d pay today, and she’d pay the next time we went out. I didn’t compromise on gifting, though. I still bought them as regularly as I wanted.
What’s the most expensive gift you ever got her?
Francis: A piece of land just before our wedding in 2020. I knew she wanted to own land one day and had saved up about ₦200k for it. A friend told me about a really good real estate deal, and I thought it was perfect for her. The cost was about ₦1m.
So I told her about it and said I’d pay the balance. The ₦800k was money I’d gathered from a work bonus and other monies towards the wedding. But it was COVID year, and no one was doing big parties anyway, so it all worked out.
Helen: It’ll always be the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me.
That’s really sweet. How does money work in your home now?
Helen: We go 50/50 on everything. It sounds like we see finances as an individual thing, but it’s a joint feature in our lives.
Please explain
Helen: We have a joint account, and once we get our salaries, we send half of it to that account. We use the money in that account to settle our ₦650k/year rent, utility bills, food and other home expenses. The other half of our salaries is for each person to handle personal savings or other needs, including buying each other gifts.
Francis: Sometimes, if the joint expense is more than what we have in our joint account, we contribute equally from our savings to take care of it.
How did you decide this was what worked for you guys?
Helen: I’ve always struggled with depending totally on people. So, if he isn’t handling all the expenses, how do we decide who handles what? 50/50 seemed straightforward, and it’s worked well for us so far.
Does “so far” mean it could change in the future?
Helen: Maybe. Especially if we have kids. Right now, the plan is to get nannies so I can work. But if, for any reason, having kids reduces my earning power, we’ll have to revisit our 50/50 strategy to fit our new reality.
You mentioned personal savings. How much do you both have saved right now?
Francis: I don’t have savings. I still have a spending problem, and sometimes I run to my wife to borrow money till the month’s end. But to be fair, I mostly spend it buying gifts for her. She doesn’t ask, but gift-giving is what I do for people I care about.
There’s also black tax. I send ₦60k to my parents in a good month. Sometimes more. They’re old and always need one medicine or the other.
Helen: I have about ₦500k in my savings. It’d be more if this uncle regularly repays what he borrows with actual money rather than payments “in kind”.
I’m dying. It looks like saving comes easier to you
Helen: It does. Most of my interests aren’t capital-intensive. My idea of enjoyment is staying home alone and watching movies. Plus, there’s no black tax anywhere.
What do joint expenses in a typical month look like for you?
How would you describe each other’s relationship with money?
Helen: He has an “it’s for spending” mindset about money. I know it is for spending, but how you spend it also matters. I’ve tried to get him to use an expense tracker, but he says it’s too much work.
Francis: On the other hand, I think she needs to take money less seriously. Her scarcity mindset sometimes makes her forget that we aren’t doing too badly for ourselves.
How do you both reconcile these differences?
Helen: I went into our marriage expecting I’d be able to influence his spending behaviours directly. But that was a recipe for disaster. He thought I was nagging, and we had a bit of friction. But I’ve learned to leave him to it. He contributes his part to the home expenses, so I try not to overthink what he does with his money. I know his intentions are from a good place.
Francis: I jokingly call her the family accountant. I try to convince her to live a little, but her money habits don’t really hurt anyone, so we just take it a day at a time.
What’s something you wish you could be better at financially?
Francis: Investments. Saving doesn’t work for me because looking at the money is enough reason to spend it. But if it’s locked somewhere, I have no choice but to wait it out. I’m also wary of investments that will carry my money away, so I’m still carefully considering my options.
Helen: I’ll say investments too — specifically foreign investments. The way the naira is falling these days is enough to tell anyone that keeping money in naira won’t do any good.
Is there something you want, but can’t afford?
Helen: A house.
Francis: We have yet to make any concrete plans, but it’ll definitely be our next big project within the next five years.
How much do you think you should both be earning by then?
Helen: At least $1,500/month. I know several colleagues who work with international organisations, so that’s my next career goal. There’s a limit to how much a content strategist can make with Nigerian companies; I don’t want that to limit me. I’m focused on building a personal brand to pitch myself to my international startups.
Francis: Any amount in dollars is okay for me, really. The naira is terrible, and I feel like I could be earning ₦600k tomorrow, but my earning power would be the same as my current salary because of inflation. I plan to keep changing jobs till I get there.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
Helen: 6. I’m doing okay, but I need to earn in dollars before I feel like I’m being adequately compensated for my work.
Francis: Also a 6. But my score is because I know I still have a long way to go to achieve financial discipline.
Editor’s note: Names have been changed for anonymity.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
On January 13, 2024, the 2023 campaign of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) kicked off in Cote d’Ivoire. Every two years, 24 countries gather in a host country and, for one month, compete against one another with one goal: Becoming the champions of African football.
Since AFCON’s opening weekend, I’ve been curious about the costs of travelling to Cote d’Ivoire. Two reasons here: A West African country is hosting it. Also, I couldn’t help but notice, as did many others, the low supporter turnout in the first few matches of the tournament. One question everyone asked was how only a few Nigerians could travel to support the Nigerian Super Eagles in a tournament happening a few countries away.
We know why, don’t we?
Out of interest, I talked to three people who made the trip and asked them to explain how much they spent on their AFCON 2023 experience.
The cost of flight tickets
On a 1000 km stretch of road, three countries, border and immigration agents stand between Lagos and Abidjan, so there is no surprise that the people I spoke with travelled by air. “I paid ₦828k for a return flight ticket with Air Cote D’Ivoire from Lagos 11 days before my departure date,” said Suraj Oyewale, a businessman, who was in the country for a week to watch Nigeria’s first two group games — the 1-1 draw against Equatorial Guinea and the 1-nil victory over the hosts.
This wasn’t Suraj’s first time travelling across West Africa, and he remembers paying a fraction of the current prices for his previous trips. “In May 2022, I booked a return flight ticket for Lagos-Abidjan-Dakar three weeks in advance and paid ₦378k. Less than two years later, the price has doubled.”
Phatill, a sports journalist, got her Confederation of African Football (CAF) media accreditation for AFCON 2023 three weeks before the competition and booked her return flight immediately, paying ₦900k for the tickets. However, she briefly considered the thought of travelling by road with friends but decided what she’d save with this option wasn’t worth the potential stress. Why spend more than 20 hours on the road when you can spend two? “I wasn’t ready for the stress,” she said.
Ayoola, a filmmaker, booked his tickets on December 5, 2023, against his January 14 departure date and paid $705. While he didn’t make the trip by road, he notes that public transport is the most economical solution to navigating West African countries. Two years ago, he paid ₦120k for a seat in a 4-seater on a trip to Cotonou.
The cost of accommodation
During his week-long stay in the host country, Suraj lodged in a 2-star hotel in Cocody, an upscale area in Abidjan, and paid 54 286 CFA per night. One critical thing to note: ₦1 currently exchanges for 1.5 CFA on the official market and 2 CFA on the black market. Suraj couldn’t get official rates, so he ended up paying over ₦100k/night for a hotel accommodation that should have cost ₦82k/night.
Phatill and Ayoola, on the other hand, got better deals. They have family and friends in Abidjan who took them in for free. But Phatill notes that Cocody is one of the best locations for visitors in the city.
“Cocody is close to everywhere. But the cheapest hotel you might find in Cocody won’t be less than 40,000 CFA (₦80k) per night.
The cost of feeding
Suraj’s hotel bill didn’t include complimentary breakfasts. Instead, the hotel offered him a 4000 CFA (₦8k) per breakfast service, which he didn’t take. “When I arrived in Abidjan, I shopped at a mall and spent 20000 CFA (₦40k) for bread, biscuits, yoghurt, cashew nuts, butter, juices and apples. These were my breakfast during my stay. “
This hack sustained him through most of the days, but there was still the tiny matter of dinners, and he sorted them with visits to a restaurant close to his hotel. “My chicken meal with sides, juices and water cost an average of 8000 CFA (₦16k) per meal,” he said.
Suraj believes several factors affect restaurant food prices, but he estimates the cost of decent meals in the city to be around 4000 CFA (₦8k) and 10000 CFA (₦20k). Although Phatill has had to eat out several times, living with family has helped her reduce her feeding spend. She also agrees that the type of food and restaurant determines the cost and puts the number at least 3000 CFA (₦6k).
The cost of intra-city transportation
Cocody may be a location of choice for visitors in Abidjan, but the AFCON stadiums are spread across five cities: Abidjan, Yamoussoukro, Bouake, Korhogo and San Pedro. Everyone I spoke to confirmed that it’s relatively easy to move within the city with taxis, Uber and Yango, another ride-hailing service operating in the country.
One of the biggest perks of Phatill’s media pass is the access to media buses travelling to the stadiums across the country. She only needs to make her way to the media centre in Abidjan, which serves as the rendezvous point. She’s found taxis and ride-hailing services useful for these short trips.
“I use Yango to move from my house to the media centre in Treichville Centre, and the average fare is around CFA 3000 (₦6k) – CFA 4000 (₦8k),” she said.
Similarly, Ayoola moved around with Uber and Yango, and the average cost of his trips hovered around CFA 6000 (₦12k). “I used Yango to get to the stadium for the Nigeria vs Ivory Coast match. It was a 39-minute trip, and I was charged 6600 (₦13200) CFAS for it. For my ride back to town, I jumped on a bus conveying people from the stadium to the city centre. It was free of charge,” he said.
Suraj, however, opted for the more traditional method of flagging down roadside taxis in the city. “I spent CFA 8000 (₦16k) for an hour taxi ride to the Allasane Outtara stadium to watch the Nigeria vs Equatorial Guinea game. I made the trip back to my hotel on one of the free buses.”
The Super Eagles technically have three more AFCON 2023 matches to play, but they’ll need to win each to advance to the next rounds and emerge as champions. Even if we can’t all make it to Cote d’Ivoire, millions of Nigerians will enjoy seeing the national football team go all the way.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
My parents would give me ₦20 or ₦50 for food in primary school, and I’d spend everything before I got to school.
Wait… how?
I walked to school with my siblings and neighbours, and we bought anything we saw on the road — puff puff, popcorn, sweets, you name it. The money never followed me to school, and I’d power through the day and trek home after school.
Would you say there was money at home growing up?
We were a basic middle-class family. School fees were paid on time, at least. My mum’s a banker, and my dad did everything he could for money. When I was younger, he sold cars. He’d bring in cars from Benin Republic and Cotonou and sell them to buyers in Nigeria. It wasn’t fayawo [illegal importation], sha. He also did some construction and cleaning gigs at different points in time.
I had a comfortable childhood, so making money wasn’t top of mind for me as a child.
So, when was the first time you made your own money?
It would’ve been during my fourth year in the university, around 2016. My ₦20k monthly allowance always finished within two weeks. So, I decided to start a business to make extra income and worked on a whole plan. But I told my mum, and she refused to give me money for it.
Why? What was the business idea?
I was going to buy shirts at ₦300 each and sell them to law students at ₦500 so I could use the profit to hold body and soul together. I think I asked her to give me ₦20k – ₦50k to start.
She insisted I focus on school instead.
Did you?
Sort of. At least, I didn’t try anything for money again till after university in 2018. That was theactual first time I made my own money, and I made it by grooming a dog.
How did dogs get in the picture?
Well, I grew an interest in dogs in uni. A schoolmate and I became friends because he had a dog I grew fond of. I tried to convince my parents to get a dog too, but my dad said, “In my family, we don’t keep dogs because the dogs always die.”
Ah
But after my dad passed in 2017, we were robbed. I was away at school, so I only heard that my mum eventually decided to get a security dog.
After I left university, my mum and siblings stopped giving me free money. I noticed many of our neighbours had dogs too, so I approached one of them and offered to groom their dog.
I bathed the dog, cleaned its space, and took it for a walk. When I returned, the owner gave me about ₦3k.
Interesting. Did that happen often?
I did a few other grooming gigs here and there. Then I convinced my mum to sell the dog she’d gotten — a German Shepherd and Boerboel mix that was more fearful than protective — for a fiercer purebred Rottweiler. I’d take the dog for walks regularly and meet other dog owners. People soon knew me as the guy who was always with one dog or the other.
I’d also get fellow dog people’s numbers, with the intention of contacting them when my dog had puppies. Sadly, I never really had a successful litter myself — most of the puppies died — but I became a middleman for people who wanted to sell puppies and those who wanted to buy.
How much did this usually bring you?
At first, I made ₦5k – ₦10k on each purchase I helped facilitate. The buyer or seller would give me something small, or I’d add something on top. I got like two or three of these deals monthly. My mum was so supportive; she’d occasionally pitch in with money to buy dog food.
2020 was my big break — the lockdown, specifically. That was when I got my first major payout. Over the years, I’d made myself something of a dog breeding expert on Twitter by researching and sharing long Twitter threads about caring for different dog breeds and all that stuff.
So, this person reached out to me for help. He wanted to buy a purebred Boerboel. I mentioned one random price, and he didn’t even negotiate. I also said he’d need feed and a cage, and he sent me the money for it. The guy hadn’t even seen me before, but he sent me over ₦400k. I made ₦80k profit on that one deal alone.
If 2020 was your big break, it means you got other profitable gigs, yeah?
I did. I’m not sure why, but people bought so many dogs during the lockdown.
I became friends with a vet who had a medical pass to move around because of his job, so we’d go together to different people to groom, treat and sell dogs. I made about ₦100k/month in 2020 from clients I mostly met on Twitter. There’s a huge community of dog owners online o.
Did you know anything about this community before you started?
I didn’t. All I did was come online to talk about dogs, and they found me. Whenever I shared health and wellness tips for different breeds, random people would DM and be like, “Oh, my dog isn’t eating. What should I do?” or “My dog isn’t barking well. What do you advise?”
Those questions pushed me to research more on YouTube and Google search, so I could help them. In return, they recommended me to other dog owners. Others would come and ask me to recommend dog breeds they could buy.
I didn’t highly mark up my prices on dog sales at first. Someone could say they wanted to sell a puppy for ₦180k, and I’d just add ₦20k. The price would end up being more reasonable and sell faster than others who’d put up the same puppy for sale at ₦300k. So, people trusted me.
Can I tell you something?
Please do
Dog money is one of the easiest money you can make. Someone can just wake up and say they want a ₦500k puppy, and the seller agrees to sell at ₦300k. You easily make ₦200k on one single transaction.
Why did you increase your markup?
Omo. I got tired of making ₦5ks and ₦10ks in late 2020 and decided I only wanted to serve people who could pay premium prices. Plus, my low prices started to drive high-paying customers away. When we discussed prices, they always thought the dogs were too cheap to be purebred. No one told me before I gradually started charging well.
Nigerians spend good money on dogs o. In 2022, I facilitated my most expensive single sale yet. It was an adult female Boerboel which I helped transport from Ghana. It cost ₦1.5m, and I didn’t add anything to the price because I wanted to build a relationship with that client. He gave me ₦50k for my stress, though. The dog’s owner also gave me ₦20k.
₦1.5m…
Around Christmas 2020, I added dog boarding to my services. Money from dog sales was good, but it was also unpredictable. So, I told people they could bring their dogs to stay with mine whenever they travelled and just drop money for food. The first client brought his three dogs for the holidays and dropped ₦100k for food.
At first, I didn’t have a fixed price. I charged based on the dog’s size — to determine how much they needed for food — and how long they intended to stay. Now, I charge ₦3k per day. I board dogs all year round, in addition to helping to facilitate dog sales.
How much does this typically bring you in a month?
In a bad month, I make approximately ₦200k from everything dog-related. January, June, July and December are my best months. I think it’s due to a combination of people travelling and 9-5ers getting mid-year bonuses. In those months, I can make up to ₦1m. That’s minus my bank job.
I was coming to that. When did a bank job enter the picture?
In 2022. You know how I said dog money can be unpredictable? Add that to the fact that I’m not a saver — seeing money in my account is reason enough to spend it — so I can be really broke if nothing comes from dog sales in a while. There was a month I didn’t make any sales, and only earned ₦10k from a dog I boarded. I had to sell my TV to supplement my income.
I first tried to get a bank job in 2021 through my uncle, but I failed the interview. Then, I took up a small marketing job at an e-commerce company. My salary was ₦80k/month. In 2022, I applied to the bank again, passed and got the job. It pays ₦165k/month, and an additional ₦165k every quarter. But I like to tell people I’m not a banker. I’m a dog dealer and breeder who happens to work in a bank.
LOL
I do love my bank job, though. I’m a marketer, but it isn’t stressful because I have a chill boss. However, I can easily double my salary with just a few dog transactions.
I feel you. Let’s talk about your relationship with money
I’m not afraid of money. I feel like money will always come. It’s why I can sleep comfortably with ₦1k in my account. I can wake up the following day, and something will bring ₦100k to me.
However, I know I spend a lot. So, I’ve resorted to writing down every single thing I spend on so I know where my money is going, at least. I’ve done this for a few years now, and it’s helped me keep track of my expenses. That way, I know I spent 10% of my income this month on airtime, for example. Or that I spent 50% of it giving it away to people.
Speaking of, dashing people money is a big problem. In 2023, I gave out a total of ₦1m to people, and I made ₦9.3m that year. That’s about 11% of my income, and I don’t even pay tithe in church. I want to learn how to say “no” to people in 2024.
What else takes your money? Let’s break it down for a typical month
I live with my parents, so I don’t have to pay rent. What I spend on dog food depends on how many dogs I have in my house that month. Sometimes, I spend up to ₦50k.
Up until December 2023, I was in a ₦100k/month ajo contribution to save for my car. I started in January, but it hadn’t amounted to much in August when I bought the car. The car cost ₦2m, and I took a ₦400k loan from a neighbour to complete it. Even the loan, I had to sell one of my dogs to repay it because some money I was expecting didn’t come through.
Out of interest, what do your finances look like at the moment?
I currently have zero savings, but I plan to save ₦1m this year. That means I’ll need to take out ₦80k every month and leave it in a savings app.
What’s something you bought recently that improved the quality of your life?
I was going to say the car, but it didn’t improve anything. I’m always fixing one thing or the other. I recently had to pay ₦90k to fix something. Yesterday, the mechanic said I should bring another ₦140k.
But I plan to do something for myself this year. Before the end of the first quarter, I intend to use my leave allowance, which is ₦100k, for a staycation weekend. I’m considering a neighbouring state, so I can spend about ₦75k on transportation and hotel fees. Then, I can use the remaining ₦25k for food.
Is there something you want right now but can’t afford?
I’d like to own a house. It feels like the next sensible step after buying a car. I’ve made some enquiries about a mortgage arrangement in an estate in my city. Buyers need to pay ₦3m upfront for a two or three-bedroom bungalow, and you can spread the payment annually over 15 – 20 years. The houses are worth ₦15m – ₦25m on outright payment. I can’t start the mortgage this year, though. Maybe next year.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?
7. Apart from the house, I don’t think there’s anything I want that I can’t get. It may just take a while. But I want to be rich-rich so I can buy a ₦30k shirt without thinking too much about it or feeling like I’m spending too much on myself. My dogs even enjoy my money more than I do.
What do the next few years look like for you? Will you stay in banking?
I should. I see myself getting promoted this year, and that could bring my salary to ₦400k.
Honestly, I don’t think I will ever be broke again. If I lose my job today, I can go into cab driving. If that doesn’t work, I can become a POS agent or go and be bathing someone’s dog every week. I just know I can’t go back to urgent ₦2k levels of broke with the amount of things I can do.
Plus, like I said, I’m not afraid of money. I have less than ₦5k in my account right now, but I know there will always be something. Things can be bad for one week, but it can never be bad for one month.
Is there something else you’d like to share that I didn’t ask?
There’s plenty of money in this dog business, but I’ve also lost a lot too. I once brought in a dog from Ukraine that cost about ₦1m, and it died after it got to Nigeria. I’m still not sure what killed it because there was no money for an autopsy. Obviously, I didn’t get anything from that sale.
There was another one from Serbia that accidentally got hit by a keke while I took it for a walk. I paid ₦70k for surgery and treatment, but it still died. Or is it when I’d just wake up and find one of my dogs dead? Now, I try not to put myself under undue pressure. Dog wey go die go die.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
