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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by Busha. Thinking of starting your crypto journey and trading the most secure way? Try Busha.

Today’s subject on #NairaLife wanted to be a pilot until she had to study agric economics in university. Now, the seemingly unpopular career has taken her around Europe and Africa, and pays her much more than she imagined she’d be earning at 33. 

Let’s start with your earliest memory of money.

It’s closely tied to my dad’s accident in 1998. I was 9. He was coming back to Lagos after dropping my older brother in boarding school and a truck climbed over his car. There were broken ribs and damaged lungs. It was horrific. 

Before the accident, my dad was the breadwinner in the family. He first worked as an economist in a big food conglomerate and then left to start his own business branding and printing gift items for any company he could get contracts from. My mum’s role was to support him at his printing place whenever she could, but the accident changed things. She took full charge of his company for the year he took to recover just so we didn’t suffer too much financially. 

That didn’t mean we didn’t suffer though. We went from being an upper-middle-class family who could afford all their needs to a family that just managed to get by.

That must have been difficult for you. 

It was, but an advantage I had was that I was emotionally mature pretty early in life. I’m the second child out of five children and the only girl, so my parents did that African parent thing where they made me more involved in house affairs than my brothers. 

About two years after the accident, things started picking up again. My dad was back in full control of his business and my mum had started her own business buying huge bulks of crops and vegetables from the north and selling them to restaurants. I’d even say things got much better than they were before the accident because of my mum’s business.

On the holidays, I helped my mum sort out vegetables and followed her to deliver orders, and she paid me ₦500 for every day I helped her. That was like twice a week. 

Moving from poverty to comfort in a short time made me decide one thing: I never wanted to be poor in my life. 

What was your plan?

I heard pilots made good money, and I wanted to see the world, so I wanted to become a pilot. My parents, scared of plane crashes, decided they wanted me to be a doctor instead. But I was terrible at chemistry and physics, and I knew I was scared of blood, so medicine was out of the door. 

What I was good at, was economics, so I decided to go for it. My dad agreed, but on one condition — I had to go to the school he went to. University of Ibadan (UI).

I ended up not going to UI. I applied to UI in 2004, but they were delaying admissions. An inside source told my dad the delays would linger, so we picked up a change of school form. This time, I applied to Michael Okpara University of Agriculture. But they didn’t have economics as a course. The closest thing they had was agric economics, so I just decided to go with it.

Interesting. What was studying agric economics like?

I fell in love with agric economics pretty quickly. The course talked a lot about food insecurity in Africa and how to help developing countries avoid food shortages. That was really interesting for me.  

I also learnt that although it wasn’t a popular course to study, there were a lot of opportunities on a global scale. After my first year, my dad wanted me to try to study economics again, but at that point, I was already too invested in agric economics to stop. 

I pretty much focused on my education throughout university, except for the time I tried to do business — which was a disaster. 

I finished university in early 2011 and was deployed to Ibadan for NYSC. For the entire year, I worked at the agric and economics department of a research institute. My supervisor was a professor who did a lot of research work so I spent the entire year doing heavy research and writing papers. The job paid  ₦10k and NYSC paid ₦19k, but it was enough for me because I didn’t really have a social life outside of work. 

At the time, what were the career opportunities for you?

I was aiming to work at places like Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Food Programme, World Bank, Nestle, and International Fund for Agricultural Development. Those organisations hire agric economists for their work. 

After NYSC though, my dad insisted I did a master’s in agric economics in UI, so I picked up a form, wrote the exams and passed. Right when I was about to start, my older brother who had gone to the UK to study reached out to tell me I had to drop my UI admission to chase something bigger for my master’s. At first, I resisted, but he kept talking about how brilliant I was and how he was sure I was going to get in, so I just applied. It was the 2013 European Union Erasmus Mundus scholarship. 

During my first semester exams in UI, I got a call from the programme director saying I had gotten in. Amidst all my screaming, he was able to tell me to send a mail saying I accepted the scholarship, and just like that, I was in. 

UI in the mud once again. What’s this Erasmus stuff about?

LMAO. It was a two-year fully funded scholarship spread across four universities in four different countries. My first year was in Belgium, then I did summer school in Germany, my second year in Hungary, and summer school was in Spain. 

At the beginning of each year, the scholarship paid €4,000 for us to settle in, and then €1,000 every month after for upkeep. 

In my first year, we weren’t allowed to work while on the scholarship, but people complained, and they permitted us to work in the second year. I still couldn’t work sha, because I was now in Hungary and I couldn’t speak Hungarian. 

From the €1,000 I received every month, I averaged €300 on rent and utilities, €100 on savings and €200 to send home. At home, things were getting bad again. My dad had gotten cancer and treatment was taking a lot of money. 

On months when I didn’t send money home, I sent €200 to my brother in the UK. He was on a Nigerian government-funded scholarship that was supposed to pay him monthly, but they defaulted payments sometimes, so he needed money. With the rest of the money, I toured Europe because I had a Schengen Visa. Flights weren’t so expensive — I once took a €10 flight from Belgium to Hungary — but I was also staying in hostels and feeding myself. 

So tell me, did you return to Nigeria after your master’s?

Yep. I applied and got in for an internship with an agricultural research organisation in Nairobi before my master’s ended, so I returned to Nigeria to stay for a few months before going there. In early 2016, I moved to Nairobi for the six-month internship. It paid $1,200 per month. After the first six months, they renewed the contract and hired me as a research assistant. The pay was $1,500. 

For that 14-month period, I sent home $300, spent about $250 on rent, $100 on feeding, and saved whatever was left after miscellaneous spending. I also brought my mum to stay with me for a month so she could relax from the stress of taking care of my dad and holding down the fort at home. 

By 2017, I was done with my contract, and the organisation told me we were going to do the same thing in Mali in three months. The plan was to go back to Nigeria and rest for two or three months, then travel to Mali. But on my layover at Addis Ababa, my hand luggage was stolen.

Damn. What was in it?

My passport, wallet, university certificate, master’s certificate, amongst other important documents. 

Ehn?

The only thing I had with me was my phone. No money. I had to miss my flight, and then sleep at the airport for a night. The next day, after begging the airport officials for hours, they finally let me show them a scanned copy of my passport on my phone. After that, they called the Nigerian embassy to confirm I was in the system. I was, but that wasn’t enough for them to let me enter the country. They asked for my dad’s number and called him to wait to pick me up at the airport with documents that proved he was Nigerian and that he was my father. When they were able to reach my dad, they told the Addis airport to let me come home. 

Chai. Did you get your stuff back?

Nope. Never. I reported to the Nigerian police and to Ethiopian Airlines, but nobody could help. Then I tried to get a new passport to at least make the Mali trip, but immigration said they ran out of passport paper. So I was just stuck at home, crying every day. 

Thankfully, I had $3,000 saved from Nairobi, so that’s what I survived on. I kept applying for agric economist roles in Nigeria, but they were hard to come by. When I eventually found one, they made me go through hours of testing and multiple phases of interviews, only to offer me ₦120k… 

First of all, the pay was small. Then the place was far from my house, so I was going to be spending no less than ₦30k a month on transportation. I accepted it and told them to increase the pay to ₦150k but they didn’t, so I dropped it. It wasn’t good enough for me. 

After seven months at home, my savings had gone down to $1,000, and I was getting frustrated from being home and unemployed. My dad spoke with his friend who had an NGO, and she gave me a job. Guess how much it paid?

How much?

₦40k. 

LMAO!

I took it o. I was tired of doing nothing. I was at the job until December 2017 when I got a new job in Abuja. I saw the ad online and applied for it: a programme officer for agriculture and rural development in a development organisation. They were working on a project to help rural farmers in five Nigerian states have better roads to transport their goods and to connect them with markets that would buy their goods. 

The job paid ₦160k for the first six months and ₦185k after. Luckily for me, my younger brother worked in Abuja as well, so I just moved in with him. After a few months, his ₦400k rent expired, so we split it evenly. Every month, we contributed ₦15k each for food and paid utility bills together. I sent ₦30k home from the rest of my salary and saved the rest. 

I was at the job until April 2019 when I got a similar job at another development agency. 

How much did this one pay?

₦320k. My brother and I moved to a new apartment. This time, the rent was ₦600k. I paid ₦350k and he paid ₦250k. I also increased my monthly givings to my parents to ₦50k. By 2020, I’d saved up to ₦1.2 million and used it to buy a car. That one emptied my savings. After that, I started saving ₦50k monthly. 

At this job, we worked in the same office complex with a big development organisation, and we even did some work for the agriculture division of the organisation. 

In late 2020, some of the managers from the agricultural division of the organisation came from their head office in Abidjan to do some work and somehow I got in a conversation where I was aggressively pitching myself to them for a job. My boss was friends with one of them, so when he overheard me, he joined the conversation and told them I was great at my job and pleasant to work with. They seemed impressed, so they told me to apply for a consultant role. By January 2021, I got the job and moved to Abidjan. The pay was $5,500 monthly. 

*faints*

LMAO! It’s good money, I can’t lie. I didn’t think my salary would jump that much in such a short time. I’ve worked there since then. We help African governments design agricultural projects, loan them money to do the projects and monitor the execution of the projects. The reason I’ve stuck with agric economics is that I enjoy working on projects like this. I enjoy knowing that I’m creating solutions so that Nigerians, Africans, can eat. 

I love it. What did the huge raise change?

The major thing was that I was able to give my parents more money, save more and start investing in shares and crypto. It’s been over a year since my salary increased, so right now, I’m hoping for a raise and another big break in my career. 

From time to time, I also get calls from other development agencies to help them work on agricultural projects. For those ones, I charge $250 a day for however long the project takes. 

If you had to do life again, would you do agric economics?

I really wanted to become a pilot, so I think it would still be my first choice. But agric economics would be a very close second.

Let’s look at your monthly financial breakdown.

What are your savings and investments like?

I bought land in Abuja in 2021 for ₦1.5 million. Then I have about $3,000 in shares in Trove, $4,000 in crypto, ₦1.8 million in Piggyvest and about $9,000 in the bank. 

What’s something you want but can’t afford right now?

It costs $150k to get a passport by investment in Grenada, and that’s what I want right now.  My Nigerian passport doesn’t do me so many favours. I’ve been denied visas to multiple countries. I also want my children to have a better passport than the Nigeran one so they can have better life opportunities and travel more. 

And your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

It’s a 7. I’m in a good place right now, but we both know humans are insatiable. I can’t afford my Grenada passport right now, so that’s a need. I also know there’s better opportunities for me in the future, so I’m excited. 

Mad—

I forgot to add, I also have ₦4 million in credit from people owing me. 

₦4 MILLION? Are you a loan shark?

LMAO! When people ask, I find it hard to say no, or “I don’t have”. The problem after is that I don’t know how to meet people to say I want to collect my money back. After I remind them once, it feels like harassment to remind them again, so most times, I just count it as a loss. 

My brother says people know that it’s a weakness and are taking advantage of me. He might be on to something.

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Now that you’ve made it to the end of the article, here’s exciting news: If you want to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more, deposit and withdraw instantly and securely, and manage your crypto portfolio, click here to download Busha.

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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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by Busha. Thinking of starting your crypto journey and trading the most secure way? Try Busha.

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The lecturer in this Naira Life wanted to be a tech bro as early as 2002, but he watched a few marketing strategy sessions in 2005 and decided to follow a marketing career instead. Along the way, he also learnt photography. Now, he uses his media skills to support his family because his lecturing salary can’t cut it.

Tell me about your earliest memory of money. 

The freshest memory I have of money was hearing that my mum had been scammed of millions and was in trouble. 

Ah.

My mum was 17 when she had me. My dad was 23. They were not married. Her parents didn’t want them to get married after I was born, so she single-handedly raised me. She sold gold and jewellery for a living. We lived in western Nigeria, but she’d go to the north to buy gold, sell it in Niger and Burkina Faso, and then buy jewellery to sell at home. 

We were pretty comfortable. I had all the toys I wanted, the latest shoes, and I went to a good school. 

That was until the year I turned 9, in 1995.

One of her business partners who was supposed to collect money from customers, give her the money and then she’d deliver the goods collected the money and vanished. Nobody ever heard from him again. At the peak of the drama, my mum got arrested, taken to a police station and she came back with a swollen face. Things changed quickly for us. 

From a private school, I was shipped to a public school. I didn’t get shoes and toys anymore, I saw my mum sell off her property one by one, and eventually, we had to move in with her parents. 

Damn. What did this switch do to you?

It didn’t hit me at first. At my new public school,  students had to wear brown sandals, but my mum couldn’t afford them. I kept wearing the fine shoes I had until the school seized them and had me walk home barefooted. Ah! It was only after then my mum struggled to get me the brown sandals. 

The older I grew, the more the gravity of the situation dawned on me. Before the incident, my mum taught me to be generous at every chance I got, so if a friend came visiting and liked one of my toys or shoes, she encouraged me to give them. After the incident, someone came visiting and told me they liked my shoes and I gave them. If you see the scolding I got after. 

It was also really hard watching her take on multiple odd jobs to make ends meet. She bought used jeans and dyed them blue to resell, she worked at a restaurant that barely paid so she could get food to bring home at night. 

Did things get better?

Gradually, with my dad’s help and with all the work she was doing, she was able to pay off the debt. By the time I turned 14, she had started working as a hairdresser and had a business centre for people to make calls on the side.

Even though things were getting better, my requests for money were mostly met with rejection because we now had to be cautious about the way we lived. But I was a teenager and I had wants — the most pressing was the need to always be in cybercafés, around computers — so I found a way to start making money at 16. 

My first job was helping people take their phones to Computer Village to fix them and helping other people browse and fill forms online. I helped one man fill his USA immigration visa lottery form and he won and moved to the US. These were people that lived around us, so I didn’t charge them. They gave me small ₦1k or ₦2k tokens, and I used the money to go to cybercafé. 

A tech bro in 2002?

I was so amused by the concept of computers and how they worked. I even got a certificate in computer appreciation, where I learnt the fundamentals of computers and programmes like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. At that stage, what I wanted to do was be an IT guy. I finished secondary school in 2002, but I failed physics in WAEC, so I couldn’t get into uni. We couldn’t afford WAEC in 2003, so I stayed at home and kept doing what I was doing.

That year, my interest in computers grew and I got another certificate in information technology in 2004 instead of trying WAEC again. In late 2004, a church member who saw I was home and largely idle linked me with a job as an operations assistant at a haulage company. The pay was ₦12k and my job was to track inventory, ensure the trucks were well-serviced, confirm that the items the customers said they wanted to ship were actually there and take drivers’ complaints to the bosses. 

I became an instant favourite at the job because I saved them a lot of costs. Mechanics were scamming them by double-charging on invoices. If they needed one thing, they’d write it in two different ways, so I pointed it out to the bosses. I wasn’t loved by the artisans, but the bosses loved me. There was no week I didn’t get a ₦2k or ₦3k tip, but not long after I started the job, they increased my pay to ₦15k. I was making no less than ₦20k monthly. 

By the end of 2005, I had saved enough money to buy my mum a ₦70k generator. She loved it. The rest of the money was going to transportation and my own upkeep. The job was too far from my home, so I moved in with an uncle. 

How long were you at the job for?

Just over two years. But in late 2005, I had an experience that changed me from a tech bro to a marketing bro. The haulage company I worked with had another company that created and marketed tech solutions. Someone in that company was on leave, so they called me to assist in whatever ways they needed me to for some time. 

Cloud backups didn’t exist at the time, so they created a solution for people to backup their sim card contacts and retrieve them if they ever lost their phones. When I got there, they were at the stage where they were talking about marketing the product to their customers, and I found the thinking and process that went into getting a product in front of people extremely amusing. I even occasionally dropped some good ideas. 

That experience made me want to go to school again, but this time, not to study anything computer-related. I was going to study mass communication and major in public relations and advertising. 

Didn’t you go to science class?

I entered study mode to get a grasp of government, literature-in-English, and CRK so I could write a different WAEC that would qualify me to study mass communication. I wrote it in 2006. I failed ehn. 

LMAO!

I studied hard again and wrote GCE exams later that year. This time,I passed, but school was already in session, so I opted to get in through diploma instead because I didn’t want to wait an extra year. I picked up the diploma form for ₦15k, wrote the exam and got in. Guess how much was the school fees?

₦365k.

I had only ₦200k in savings, so I told my mum I needed an extra ₦165k. She didn’t have it, but she went and asked her church if they could pay my fees, and they did. For free. 

Mad, you finally got into school. How was your uni experience?

In my first semester as a diploma student, I got into a situation that got me expelled. 

Don’t kill me, please. 

One of the members of my four-man clique was running late for a test, so in my naivety, I collected an extra question paper, wrote his name on it and kept it for him. Right before the test started, I called him again and he said he couldn’t make it, so I called one of the test invigilators to return the question paper, and right there I got accused of writing a test for someone. My explanation fell on deaf ears.

The expulsion process took two semesters, so I kept going to classes and writing tests and exams, but at the end of the second semester, the panel decided I had committed malpractice and expelled me. I had a 4.8 CGPA. 

That must have hurt.

I didn’t tell my mum. I just stayed in the school hostel studying for another JAMB and POST UTME. In that period, I started helping computer science final year students do their projects for ₦15k and assignments for ₦3k because I knew a lot about computer stuff and even some programming. That’s how I survived. 

I also learnt photography.  A friend who lived in a different state called me one day to say he wanted to stay with me for a night in the hostel because he had an event to shoot the next day. Because I had some free time, I told him to teach me photography so that whenever he had jobs, he wouldn’t have to travel. He’d just send me and give me a cut from the deal. He agreed. 

After passing JAMB and POST UTME, I resumed 100 level in mass communication in 2009, aged 23. That’s when I told my mum about the expulsion incident. She was first angry, but she calmed down and appreciated me for trying again and getting back to school. 

 Because I’d been in the university environment since 2007, I became popular pretty quickly and got elected to be class rep. At this time, my mates who I started diploma with were already in their third year. But I pretty much studied with them since their first year, so I was acing all my courses and organising tutorials for people from year 1 to year 3. 

Were you doing anything on the side?

I started doing photography professionally. I took matriculation pictures, got some wedding gigs.

In my second year, I had another business idea. It wasn’t new — people used to do it in 2007 when I was in diploma — but nobody was doing it on campus anymore. Basically, I reached out to cinemas around and got them to discount ticket prices for students once a month, and then got a university staff bus driver to pick the students from school and drop them off at the cinemas. After the movie, the bus took the students to nightclubs and then back to school. The entire thing cost each student ₦3k, but my profit was ₦700 on each student. From that money, I fuelled the buses, paid the driver and kept the rest.

Starting the cinema thing was my first major opportunity to use my marketing skills. I got babes from my department to wear branded t-shirts and carry banners to hostels to make noise about it. As it became more popular, so did I, and my popularity brought me more assignments, projects and photography jobs. I even got club photography gigs where I took pictures of people having fun in clubs for ₦5k a night.

Things you love to see.

Absolutely. Doing things that made me money was a huge source of confidence in my ability to make money in the long run. In October 2012, in my third year, my friend and I went for a three-month internship in the media arm of a government parastatal. The pay was ₦15k, but then in December, they organised an event and told us to handle social media. A lot of the event’s huge success came from social media and the parastatal was happy with us, so they gave us ₦200k each.  After the internship, they kept reaching out to give us work. For example, a few months later, we got a big contract to do the scripting and copywriting of an animated video and I made ₦500k from the gig. From these monies, I paid rent, got a laptop, a camera and settled my mum. 

In 2013, I graduated as the best student in my department and got about ₦200k in prize money from school. When my boss from the government parastatal heard, he sent me $1,000. I bought a car. It cost over a million, but I paid only ₦600k. My dad, who I was reconnecting with, covered the rest. 

Also, my mum got married when I was in university and her fashion business was much more stable, so things were going good for her. 

Nice! What happened after university?

I went back to work at the parastatal doing comms and design work. They paid ₦30k for about five months, and then I had to go for NYSC camp. When I got back from camp, they increased my salary to ₦45k. I was on a steady ₦45k monthly with photography jobs here and there until 2015 when elections came, and through connections, I got copywriting jobs to work on politicians’ campaigns and made about ₦3 million. 

In May 2015, I left the parastatal and got a job at a company that wanted to reach young entrepreneurs and help them get funding. They made me the project lead and paid me ₦70k in the first month, and ₦80k afterwards. 

In August, through someone I’d worked for, I pitched to a top Nigerian bank to use WhatsApp as a channel for customer care, and they liked the pitch, so they took me on as a consultant on a three-month partnership that I made ₦1.8 million from. Most of this money was going into savings because I was planning to get married, but I was excited to be making so much money. 

Fundssss.

In November 2015, I Ieft the job I started in May because my university poached me. They’d just started a thing where they hired the best graduating student from various departments to work as graduate assistants, and they wanted to start hiring from the 2013 set, so they reached out to me. The pay was ₦108k, and one of my lecturers gave me a long talk about how I’d find fulfilment in the job and still have plenty time to do other things on the side — the latter part has turned out to be not so true.

To be honest, since I started doing tutorials in school, I saw myself becoming a lecturer much later in life, but since the opportunity to start early came, I decided to take it. 

I wasn’t happy with the pay because I’d just had a brilliant year financially, but I couldn’t do anything about it. 

What happened next?

Life has moved fast since then. I started my job as a graduate assistant while I got my master’s in the same department. In 2016, I finished my master’s with a distinction, my role changed to assistant lecturer, and my salary changed to ₦166k gross monthly and about ₦140k after tax. My salary hasn’t changed since then. 

On the side, I still do photography, but only for corporate events. When I see copywriting and advertising jobs I can handle, I take them on. Most times, I get them from friends, acquaintances and referrals. I also do content writing for websites, and at some point, I managed an influencer and got percentages when we got deals. 

I also married in 2016, and all the money I’d saved over the years came handy when we had to rent an apartment and when our son came in 2017. In 2017, I also started my PhD in my department and had to go to the UK for six months for a semester.

Are you done with your PhD?

I’ll hopefully be done this year. 

Let’s talk about your current finances. 

On an average month, I make about ₦400k in total. It can be much more in months when I get big deals, but it hardly goes below ₦350k. 

What do you spend money on in an average month?

That’s more than you make in a month!

Yes o. I have to keep going into my savings every month. I have two savings accounts — one with a cooperative that takes ₦60k from my salary every month, and the other with a bank that I transfer to. I try to transfer at least ₦50k monthly to the account, but on months when I make big money, I save a lot. That’s how my family survives. Right now, I have about ₦500k saved. On some months, they can be as low as ₦10k, on others, they can be in millions. 

My wife only just started her business as a fashion designer, so I’m looking forward to having support from her for the family when the business picks up. 

Is there something you want right now but can’t afford?

My own house. I’m not a fan of building houses from scratch, so a 3-bedroom house would be great right now. 

How happy are you financially on a scale of 1-10?

Let’s put it at a 4. When I was in the UK, I got a £1,200 monthly stipend from the school and made another £400 monthly from helping one of my lecturers do some graphic work. It was good money for almost nothing. 

I want to get to a stage where I don’t have to work too much to increase my income. Right now, my plan is to finish my PhD first. That would move me from assistant lecturer to lecturer and add between ₦50k to ₦100k to my salary. Then I’ll have time to do more high-level media consulting, and more money to invest in my wife’s business so she can expand and be more profitable.  

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Now that you’ve made it to the end of the article, here’s exciting news: If you want to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more, deposit and withdraw instantly and securely, and manage your crypto portfolio, click here to download Busha.

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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by Busha. Thinking of starting your crypto journey and trading the most secure way? Try Busha.

Today’s subject on Naira Life started out wanting to become one of the youngest embryologists in Nigeria, then suddenly switched to genetics, but after a rough year, she’s decided to quit her job and focus on data science and becoming a chef. 

Let’s start with your first memory of money.

When I was eight years old, my school had a trade fair and my mum gave me ₦3,000 to buy whatever my little sister and I wanted — ₦1,500 each. At the trade fair, I had a bright idea: I would buy stuff for my sister and me with ₦1,500, and take the other half of the money back home to my mum. ₦1,500 could buy a lot of snacks, children’s books and tiny toys in 2007, so I splurged, and then got my friends to buy me even more stuff. I even got my mum a gold-plated pen. 

Back home, my mum couldn’t contain her excitement. Her eight-year-old daughter had gone out and not only made a great financial decision to save but also brought a lot of stuff home and even got her a gift. She was so proud of me. I was happy she was happy, but I was also a little confused because I didn’t realise that saving was such a big deal. 

I only have memories of uncles and aunties giving me money after that incident because I remember saving those gift monies in a kolo I kept with my mum. Whenever I needed some cash to buy snacks, I asked her and she gave me. This continued until I went to secondary school and started making my own money. 

What were things like at home?

I’d say we’ve always been a little above average financially. We could afford to eat well at home, get gifts, and go to restaurants occasionally. Nothing extravagant, but we weren’t suffering. My mum is a public servant and my dad is a nuclear physicist who’s always done his practice and research by himself.

Let’s talk about the money you made in secondary school.

LMAO. I went to a boarding school that didn’t allow provisions, so in SS 2, I saw an opportunity to sell drinks and snacks to hungry students in hostels after lights out. My best friend and I partnered and sold ₦100 drinks for ₦150 and added a small markup to biscuits too. During siestas, we washed and ironed clothes for people who didn’t want to do it themselves. Washing was ₦50 per piece of clothing and ironing was ₦100, but washing and ironing together cost ₦100. On an average day, we made ₦1,200 — ₦600 from drinks and another ₦600 from laundry — and split it 50/50. 

But you know the painful part? Money wasn’t allowed in school because people could steal it, so we transacted in school-issued tickets. Because we couldn’t use the tickets outside school, we spent all the “money” we were making on the only thing we could — snacks. Sometimes, we had more tickets than we needed at the end of a school term, so we took them home and brought them back the next term. 

In SS 3, we stopped to focus on exams, but because I had tasted what it felt like to make money, I knew I was going to continue business in university.

Did you?

Ah, yes. My monthly allowance throughout university was ₦50k — ₦20k from my dad because he thought it would be enough to survive and ₦30k from my mum because she knew I couldn’t survive on ₦20k monthly. We kept the ₦30k a secret from him. 

I started looking for business opportunities after one semester in school. People were doing business left, right and centre, so I knew there was money to be made. The first thing I did was sell press-on nails. I bought a set of 24 nails for ₦2,400 and sold 10 pieces for ₦1,500, so I made about ₦600 per pack. Then I started marketing clothing items for students who wanted to sell but didn’t know how to. I took my cut on every sale. 

By the time I got to my second year, I was making a steady ₦5,000 monthly from business, and spending it all, plus my allowance, on food, personal items and data. Zero savings. 

In year three, I stopped selling things because school was getting stressful and pivoted into hair care. People, including me, were going crazy about natural hair and general hair care, so with my products, I helped people wash their hair, do twists, and even create regimens to follow. My monthly business income increased to ₦8,000, and the only thing that changed with my expenses was that I bought more hair products.

First nails, then hair. What did you do in final year?

Hair x100. In my final year, the school moved our hostels far away from where people usually made hair and wigs, so I expanded my hairdressing business to accommodate wig-making. For every wig I made, I charged ₦1,800. If they said it was too expensive, I broke it down for them this way: “Going to the salon will cost you ₦400 on transportation and ₦2,000 to make the wig. That’s ₦2,200. Why do you want to spend that when you can spend ₦1,800 and get it in right here in the hostel?”

It took me four hours to make a wig, and wig caps cost ₦500, so my profit on each wig was ₦1,300. I was getting about 8-10 orders a month, and between wig-making and hairdressing, I made about ₦20k a month. I think I started saving in my final year because I remember having over ₦100k when I graduated. 

All this business talk is making me wonder what was happening with your studies.

I studied anatomy because I couldn’t make it into medicine, so I spent my entire university stay wondering what I would do with my life career-wise. That fear constantly put me on my feet and made me study extra hard in school so I could be in the best position to get whatever jobs came my way. 

While researching one day in my final year, I stumbled on embryology. The more I read, the more amusing I found it that you could work on embryos to create new life, and the more I realised that I could make a career out of it. I did a bit more googling and saw that the fertility and IVF space isn’t so saturated in Nigeria, especially for young people, so I decided I was going to focus my career on being an embryologist.

How did that go?

Immediately I graduated in June 2019, I stopped my businesses and started going to fertility clinics to drop my resume and tell them I was willing to work for free until NYSC called me up, and then I would serve in their company for the service year. All of them rejected me. Eventually, NYSC came, I went to camp, and they posted me to a school to teach. That’s when I went to meet my parents to beg them for two things: to find someone who would hire me as an embryologist at a fertility clinic and to find someone who would help me arrange for the school I was posted to reject me. 

After a month of running around and meeting a few people my parents connected me to, I was able to get both done, and I resumed as a trainee embryologist in a fertility hospital in December 2019. The pay was ₦40,000 — except from March to June 2020 when I didn’t work because of lockdown and they paid ₦16,000 — and NYSC was giving me ₦33,000. I carried my bad university spending habits into real life, so the money finished every month on data, eating out and transportation to work. 

What was the job like?

I put my all into it because I had a five-year plan to become one of the youngest certified embryologists in Nigeria. Even when they needed me to come to work on Saturdays, I went. It was a lot of work, but it was work I was willing to do. 

I finished NYSC in October and worked one extra month before I quit the job. 

Why?

God told me to. I hadn’t taken my spirituality seriously in a while until November that year when I had the sudden urge to go to a church one Sunday morning. Shortly after I started attending the church and rekindling my relationship with God, he told me to quit my job. He didn’t say why. Two days after I heard the message, I got a job offer. It was from the child company of the hospital I worked for, and the role had nothing to do with embryology. It was a geneticist role — something I knew nothing about. The current geneticist was leaving for her PhD in two weeks, and they needed a replacement ASAP. My boss recommended me on the basis that I was a fast learner, a dedicated worker, and I’d fit into the role in no time. I took the job in mid-December 2020 and resumed fully in January 2021. The pay was ₦130,000. 

Mad. 

When I started earning more, I realised I needed therapy. I was struggling with anxiety, crippling fear and an addiction as a result of a recent traumatic event, and I needed to do something about it. 

Care to share what happened?

Remember how in 2019 I was going up and down looking for a fertility clinic to work at and trying to get NYSC to cancel my teaching job? On one of those days, I was sexually assaulted by an NYSC official. It was through therapy I realised my extreme diligence and commitment to my job was me channelling my hurt into something. I had a six-week session with a therapist I found on Instagram. It cost ₦45,000. 

I’m so sorry you went through that. How was the geneticist job going?

Difficult. My job description was to assist my boss and learn from him, but that’s not how it turned out. At the company, there were only two of us — it’s difficult to find an expert geneticist in Nigeria and people we tried to hire as expatriates were charging too much, so I wore many hats. I was the one putting on the gen, working all the excel sheets, creating presentations for my boss, maintaining records, being my boss’ PA, and still working alongside him on procedures — we work with IVF clinics to test for abnormalities in embryos.

That’s a lot. 

My salary increased to ₦160,000 in June 2021, and that’s when a conversation with a friend prompted me to start saving ₦20,000 a month, paying tithe, investing in crypto and saving in dollars. The rest of my money went to transportation, data, regular eating and stress eating. 

Stress eating?

In the one year I’d spent there, the job became much more tasking. I had to be at the office at 5 a.m. from time to time and would get home pretty late too. 

To top it all, my boss was a tough man to work with.  I couldn’t have regular conversations with him. I was so used to getting shouted at and talked down by him that my confidence had gotten low, and my self-worth was depleted. I started thinking nothing of myself because I was used to being treated like that. In the one year I had worked there, I was a totally different person. By December 2021, I realised I needed to leave.

What did you do after? 

When I told him I wanted to leave in December, he tried to convince me to stay and increased my salary to ₦170,000 the next month, but I sent my resignation letter at the beginning of March 2022, and I’m leaving when the month ends. I stayed for two extra months because I want to train the person taking over from me, so they have an easier time than me. 

I love it. What are your plans for the future?

Because I was doing a lot of excel work in this company where I work, I thought to myself, “Why don’t I try out data science?” When I discussed it with my friends, they encouraged me, so I recently started data science classes online. I’m excited about it because I know data is the future. Even in genetics, there’s data. 

Apart from data science, I’m also looking to start a culinary career. I’ve always been a great cook, but I never thought about cooking professionally. Last month, a friend got me a job to cook for a family of six for a day’s meal, and they paid me ₦30,000. It was like scales fell off my eyes, and I saw my true earning potential in cuisine. People had been telling me that I’d make a great chef all my life and I hadn’t listened. But not anymore. 

My goal is to balance both data science and cuisine and make a ton of money from them, and I’m excited about my prospects. I even got a job offer to work as an embryologist again, but this time, the pay was ₦100k. I rejected it because my eyes are on the future; I don’t want to go back. 

What are your finances like right now?

I have a total of ₦723k that’s broken down into $800 saved in a finance app, ₦133k in BTC, and ₦150k in the bank. 

Let’s look at your monthly expenses.

Is there an uncertainty that comes with leaving employment to try something new?

Absolutely. But I just tell myself that other people have done it, so I can too. 

Is there something you want right now but can’t afford?

I want to go to Le Cordon Bleu or The Culinary Institute of America so I can become a top chef, but a more realistic alternative is a culinary school in Nigeria whose programme is ₦1.4 million. I’ll start saving towards it when I start making money again. 

And your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

I’d say a 7 because I’ve made money at multiple points in my life and been able to afford the things I want. I have a lot more money to make and a lot more things to do, but for now, I’m satisfied. 

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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.

If we had to describe today’s Naira Life subject in one word, it would be “Hustler”. From selling handmade greeting cards in secondary school to running six concurrent businesses in university, then juggling design with everything he could find, this man does a lot, and still wants to do more. 

Tell me about your first memory of money. 

I was eight years old when I stole ₦10 from my dad’s pocket to buy sweets. This was 2002, so ₦10 could get me something decent. 

The concept of getting pocket money didn’t exist for me or my two younger siblings. Whenever I asked my parents for money, they said no. They were only responsible for paying fees, buying books and feeding us. 

Nobody caught me stealing, and I continued for about a month before I heard a message in church about stealing being a sin and repented.

Is it that things were hard at home?

Yep. Money wasn’t easy to come by in my house. My dad was a pastor and my mum was a teacher. My mum brought more money because apart from her teaching job, she also sold items like second-hand clothes, belts and cufflinks whenever she saw the chance. I remember helping her hawk puff puff briefly. 

Her businesses weren’t for long-term profit-making though; she did them to help us survive when things were very bad. Watching my mum do all that to keep us afloat simplified my idea of making money — I had to do business to survive. I didn’t have dreams of becoming a banker or an astronaut. It was just business. And that’s what I did when I got to boarding school.

Tell me. 

In JSS 3, we were given an assignment where we made greeting cards, and somehow, mine was better than everyone else’s. I was so good, my classmates started enquiring if I had any more cards for sale. A few weeks later, I sold my first card: an apology card from a girl to her boyfriend, and I charged ₦50. From there, word spread that I was doing cards, so I kept getting orders here and there. Making that money was exciting.

By the time I got to SS 2, I found another business opportunity — people were always hungry at night in the hostels. My solution was to buy lots of biscuits from the tuck shop and sell them for double the price once it was lights out. It worked like magic. I sold out every single night and used the money I was making to buy snacks for myself. It was also from that money I started to pay offering for myself for the first time. 

By the time I was going into university, I knew I had to do business on a larger scale, not just because I wanted to, but I didn’t have a choice. My parents had struggled to put me in a private school and didn’t have the means to give me pocket money, so I was on my own. 

What’d you do?

One thing I realised quickly in university was that there were a lot of rich kids who had money to spend. I continued my card making business, but this time, the cards weren’t handmade. They were printed. I was printing so many cards, I decided to get into the printing business too.

Two whole businesses in your hands. Bezos is shaking.

Ordinary two businesses? LMAO. I hadn’t even started. 

My room in the hostel turned into a shop. One half of my locker was for provisions, biscuits and gala, the other half was for my personal belongings. One time, my friends started talking about how good my noodles were, so I decided to start selling cooked noodles too. People would come to my room, order noodles and come back to get their food. 

One more thing — because I studied architecture, I always needed to buy new practical materials like drawing boards and other types of stationery. Luckily for the entrepreneur in me, they didn’t sell these things in school, so people had to take exeats to go and buy them. I quickly announced that if people needed stuff, I could help them get it, so whenever people needed materials they’d send me. I even sold toast bread in classes too.

How did all of this affect your finances?

By my second year when business was moving steadily, I was making about ₦40,000 weekly. Immediately I started making money, I became the one in charge of taking care of my younger siblings, so I sent them weekly allowances and paid school fees when I had to. I even started paying my own school fees at some point. My parents were super happy. They made it my official duty to cater for my siblings. 

I was also expanding my business, so I went from having one small printer to having three big ones. Those cost ₦120k each. Amidst all of this, I became the friend people came to when they needed money. So, I had zero savings, but money was coming in, and that was nice.  

Wait, were you even facing your studies at all?

Not really, no. I didn’t have time to study, but I’ve always had a magnetic memory, so I made sure I attended every class and then read just a bit before the exams. I managed to come out with a second class upper. 

One thing I did struggle with was self-esteem. I was a bit embarrassed to sell I had to sell things to survive in a school full of rich kids, but a conversation I had with a friend in my first year changed the way I saw things. We were walking from the place I’d gone to buy a new carton of noodles to sell and had to walk past a few female classmates that stayed near my hostel. When we passed them, I told him about how humiliating it was that they probably knew I was buying not to eat but to sell. When I was done speaking, he smiled, looked at me and said, “Owó ìgbẹ́ ò kín rùn”, which is a Yoruba proverb that roughly translates to, “The money you make from packing faeces doesn’t smell.” 

As long as it was legal and I was making a profit, nothing else mattered. 

In my final year in 2014, I picked up an interest in graphic design and decided that instead of architecture, I wanted to focus on design, so I started watching design tutorials on YouTube. 

How did that go?

I learnt fast because I was practising everything I was learning in my free time. Because I knew people who were making money from design, I expected to start cashing out soon. At the beginning of the three-month break between when I finished my bachelor’s and when I started my master’s, I got a design job at the place where I did my school internship. It was my first job, so I didn’t know I was meant to agree on salaries before I started. I believed we’d pick it up at the end of the month. After a month, they offered me ₦40,000. I felt insulted. I didn’t collect the money, I just left.

 The next week, I sent them a proposal saying I was going to redesign their logo and give them a new brand identity. I billed them ₦285,000, and they accepted it. That’s when I realised that as a designer, I could make way more money from commissions than from a 9-5. I used the money to pay for my master’s, went back to school and continued business as usual. 

Master’s was supposed to be between 2014 and 2015, but I had an extra year that meant I had to stay till 2016. Thankfully, I didn’t have to stay in school, so I got another job as a brand designer. We negotiated ₦150,000, but two weeks after I started the job, they sent me my offer letter and it was ₦105,000. After some back and forth, they increased it to ₦125,000. I left after three months because it was both a toxic place to work, and I found a new job that was paying ₦150,000 monthly on a one year contract.

Were you still doing your other side jobs?

I was still printing and making cards, and in 2016, I started a new business. A friend was getting married, and I offered to make props for her wedding. I designed them, got someone to print them and they turned out great, so I decided to start making props for events too. 

I opened an Instagram account and posted pictures of her wedding props and then some other mockups I’d done in the hopes that I’d get more people reaching out to do props. In two weeks, I got a DM for my first design gig worth about ₦50,000. A year later, I was making ₦200,000 on an average month. My design job was the main thing, but card making, printing and props making were also bringing small cash here and there. I started taking care of not just myself and my siblings, but my parents too. 

By December 2017, I got another job that paid ₦200,000, but I quit after a month because I had to move from Lagos to Abuja — I was chasing a babe who moved to Abuja in January 2018, and I followed her. 

So you caught flights for… feelings? 

LMAO. Moving to Abuja ended up being a great decision. First of all, the city is cheaper than Lagos. Then I didn’t have to pay rent because I lived with my aunt for almost a year. I started printing and selling cards here too, but I didn’t completely stop Lagos operations. If an order came in, I sent someone to help me and we shared the profits. 

Shortly after I moved, somebody contacted me for designs for their social media. It was ₦10,000 per post, and they were doing 10 posts in a month. That was my first ever online client, and that experience opened my eyes to the opportunity in freelancing for individuals, so I started telling people to refer me to anyone who needed a personal freelance designer. The next one I found paid me ₦100,000 to design two pages of a brochure. 

As time went by, I got many more referrals and my workload became so heavy, I needed an office space to be able to work efficiently. I had two friends who had a startup in Abuja, so I reached out to them and told them to allow me work from their office in exchange for free designs for their social media. They agreed, and I worked from their office until October 2018 when they offered me the head of marketing role at their company. They didn’t have a head of marketing and thought I would be a great fit because of the communication and design skills I had. I took the job but quit after one month. I can’t remember how much they paid me, but it wasn’t great. 

What was your plan at this point?

I just wanted to keep doing design as a freelancer. My finances weren’t great, so I was hoping to land a big client. The next month, a friend who was also a designer got a consultancy job he couldn’t take because he had too much doing already, so he passed it to me. It was for an NGO, and I needed to travel to different states to be in meetings. I spent eight days on the job, but it paid over ₦400,000 minus hotel and feeding. These people didn’t stress me, and they paid well. I’d heard about NGOs paying good money in Abuja and here I was, eating their money. The next month, they came again and we did the same thing. It was sweet money. 

Mad. 

By 2019, I knew what I was going to focus on — NGO jobs and personal clients. I still did my other hustles but on a more professional level — I had built a website for people who wanted to order stuff. In 2019, I also got married to the woman I followed to Abuja, so we paid rent for ₦1 million, bought a car for ₦1.6 million, and did some back and forth between Lagos and Abuja for the wedding. My wedding was small so I spent ₦674,000 in total. 

During the pandemic in 2020, I was a bit more settled and had some free time, so I went hard on getting clients, NGO commissions, bulk printing orders, e.t.c. Things were going great, but they were about to get better because, by October 2020, I got a part-time job with the Nigerian arm of an international NGO. The pay was ₦52,000 per day that I worked, and I worked for three days a week. My salary was typically around ₦650,000 a month. 

Smooth.

The contract was for three months, but they kept renewing it until December 2021. Now, I don’t work for them anymore, but whenever they need a designer for a small project, they reach out. The rates have changed to ₦84,000 per day. 

What’s your average monthly income right now?

Maybe about ₦500,000, from design jobs, printing, selling cards, props and a customised t-shirt business I started with my wife last year. 

What’s something doing business has taught you?

Most recently, I’ve learnt that I need to optimise my business to work even in my absence. I do the major running around for my businesses, but going forward, I need to make a few hires and set up a few models for the businesses to run without me so I can focus on doing other things. 

Can I get a breakdown of your monthly expenses?

What are your target savings for the house?

There’s a 45 million naira house we’re eyeing, but we’re still a long way from there. Maybe if I get a big contract, I can allocate some funds for it. Right now, our rent is ₦1 million and we’re okay with it. 

What’s one thing you want but can’t afford right now?

My wife wants to travel abroad to enjoy her life. I want to bankroll her. 

And your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

I’ll put it at a 10. It’s ironic because my finances right now are pretty bad. I barely have any savings, the only major investments I have are in my business — machines and inventory — and I don’t have a steady income, but I’m happy because I have everything I need, I have my family, and I know that I’ll do more business and make much more money in the future. 

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.

Today’s subject on Naira Life made one promise to himself since he was young — he would never sell anything to make money. After breaking the promise three times, he’s finally found that selling is his calling, and his monthly income is a testament to this. 

Tell me about your first memory of money.

The earliest idea I had revolved around not wanting any efforts I made for money affect my time with my loved ones the way it affected my parents. 

My mum worked as a high-ranking officer at a bank. She left home before we woke up and came back after we’d slept. I remember being a frustrated nine-year-old thinking, “When I grow up, I won’t let my job come between me and my family.”

And your dad?

He did anything his hands could find — from producing soap to selling car parts. His businesses weren’t always successful, so my mum was the major breadwinner. My siblings and I quickly learnt that if we needed money, we went to her to because whenever we went to my dad, he would say he didn’t have it or we should go to my mum. 

But my mum wasn’t taking care of only my two siblings and me — some extended family also lived with us. So she hardly gave us when we asked. In my teens, her response to my money requests became that I needed to go and make my own. She would tell me to go and look at kids selling things on the streets and emulate them. I absolutely hated it whenever she said that. The idea of selling things was irritating to me. 

Why?

In my early teenage years, I was once recruited along with other young people in church by my pastor to sell newspapers. He was going to pay us for our services, but we had to make profits. Omo, that day was hot and nobody bought from me no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t even sell enough to make any profits. That day, I swore I didn’t want to have anything to do with selling again in my life. 

That’s fair. 

One time in secondary school after the newspaper event, one of those con artists who scammed people into thinking they could turn money into paper came to our school. They showed us a few demos and then brought a ghana-must-go full of those special papers. My friends and I weren’t convinced to buy, instead one of us swore he knew how the thing worked — the first step was putting paper over a fire so that the smoke darkened it, I can’t remember the next. While I was trying it out, my mum caught me and gave me the scolding of my life. She made it clear that if I wanted to make money, I had to do it legally. After that, I didn’t try to make money again till university. 

What did you do?

In the early years of university, I connected students who wanted to sell phones with buyers. I handled the conversation, so I added my own profits. After a few deals, I stopped. It wasn’t easy finding people who wanted to deal that way and handling the conversations was stressful. I didn’t do business again until 2017 when I had an extra year in university. I studied statistics and I didn’t really enjoy it or take it seriously. 

What business was it?

I sold popcorn on campus. A friend convinced me that it was the next best thing, and we would make at least ₦2,000 daily. This was in 2017 and I was 23. I got ₦30,000 from my mum and my friend contributed ₦20,000. The business crashed after three months of losses. We bought the wrong corn, expensive milk, didn’t track money, it was terrible. 

Now, you’ve sold two things after promising to never sell again.

And both times, I got frustrated by the concept of selling. I only did these because I wanted to have my own money, and not because I wanted to sell.

What happened next?

I started NYSC in late 2018. At first, I didn’t find a job I liked. I was attending to customers at an event planning centre just so they could sign my monthly clearance form. Five months into NYSC, my friend linked me with a job at the front desk of a gym that paid ₦40,000. It was on Lagos Island, and I lived on the mainland, so my transportation to work every day was ₦1,000. I only survived because NYSC was also paying ₦19,800. 

By 2020, I turned 25 and my finances were in shambles. The gym job that had retained me after NYSC cut salaries to half when lockdown hit in April, so I only got ₦20,000 from them. On a few occasions, some of my friends abroad reached out to tell me they needed someone to write school essays for them. I wasn’t a writer, but I took the jobs. That paid between ₦18,000 and ₦36,000. My saving grace was that I didn’t have any responsibilities. My mum wasn’t in Nigeria, but she sent money to feed the family regularly, so I was fending for only myself. 

Because I was home and doing nothing, by May 2020, I decided to learn Data Science and Data Analysis. Everyone was talking about how it was the next best thing, and I needed skills to be more valuable so I could get a job and make money. I got a few courses online, some free and some paid, and started learning. 

How did that go?

It was going smoothly until I was on my way to church one morning in July and someone snatched my phone from the bus window. I was devastated. That was the third time my phone was being stolen in two years. If I was going to buy a new phone, I would need to save my salary for about 10 months without touching it. That couldn’t work, so I started talking to my friends about opportunities for making money fast. 

What did you find?

One friend introduced me to internet marketing.

Selling again?

I was too desperate and frustrated to turn down the suggestion. He showed me a course that taught how to sell online, target ads, write powerful copy, put products in front of people who would buy them and all that. The course was ₦40,000. I paid half and another friend paid half. Buying the course also gave me access to a platform where I could become an affiliate marketer — I could sell courses and get commissions from the sales whenever someone purchased with a link I shared. That link was connected to my account.  

After my first week, I decided to sell a course on working from home because we were in the middle of a lockdown and people would be interested. I put the link on my WhatsApp story and made two sales. My commission was a total of ₦4,500. It was sweet, easy money. After that, I started talking about the course I was doing to see if people would be interested in wanting to learn how to sell. 

How much was the commission on that one?

50%. ₦20,000. In my first month, I sold 50 copies and made ₦1,000,000 in commissions, and I hadn’t even finished taking the course. I was just posting the link everywhere on social media and talking about how that course would help them sell and make millions. I wasn’t using the knowledge from the course to sell products, I was using it to sell the course itself. 

Mad. 

Luckily for me, I joined the platform when they started a three-month challenge for who would sell the most books. I did similar numbers on my second and third months, and by the end of my third month, I won the challenge. They gave me a car. That’s when it hit me that the past three months hadn’t been a fluke. I was actually selling and making money online. 3 million naira in three months.

What did you use the money for?

It was hard for me to keep track of my finances. I was new to making money, so I spent it anyhow. The only good financially progressive thing I did with the money was buy crypto. The rest, I bought a phone, stopped entering buses from the first month, ate out a lot and gave out money. Whenever people asked, I gave. 

Were you still at your gym job?

They gave me a one-month notice in August 2020, and I left. Business was bad because of the pandemic. 

My third month doing affiliate marketing coincided with me getting a Data Analysis job at a tech startup that paid ₦100,000. I still had some knowledge from when I started learning, so I applied because somewhere deep down, I still needed security. What if the affiliate marketing job stopped working? 

Did it stop working? 

I doubled down and started running ads to reach more people. I also added a new strategy — if you bought the course from me, I would coach you by showing a few tips and tricks for free. It made more people refer me, so sales kept coming in at an impressive rate.

By 2021, the volume of my sales slightly reduced because I wasn’t putting as much effort into selling. 

Data analysis caught up?

LOL, no. My attention became divided. I was struggling with balancing my Data analysis job, and then I started coaching a lot more because people who didn’t buy the book from me had started reaching out for me to coach them for a fee. The more people I accepted, the more people came, so I split them into general students, cohorts and one-on-one mentees. 

Wait, how much do you make on an average month?

Since 2021, I’d say over ₦1 million. I quit the data analysis job in October 2021, because I wasn’t giving it as much attention.

What’s your monthly spend breakdown like?

I’ve been terrible with my finances since I started this business. Because the money doesn’t come in bulk, keeping track of where it goes has been a problem for me. Last month, I met with a mentor who shared an excel spreadsheet for me to track my spending so I can be more financially responsible. Before last month though, I spent most of my money heavily investing in crypto. The rest was for eating out, paying for workstations, running ads fixing car issues, and giving in church.

And last month?

What kinds of software do you pay for?

Some are for email marketing, others are for hosting and selling courses. 

How has making this much money changed your view on selling?

Immediately I started making money, I realised that selling isn’t about making people buy a product but making a product so attractive people believe they need it. I don’t say, “Come and do this course. It’ll teach you how to sell.” Rather, I say, “See how much this course has given me. You should absolutely do it.”

Nice—

Oh, and in October last year, I published my own course. It started at ₦5,500 for pre-order, then went to ₦7,500, then ₦19,500, and now it’s at ₦22,000. I’ve sold over 600 copies and made over ₦5 million in sales. 

Maybe I should consider sales. What do you want but can’t afford right now?

Maybe a house. My own house. 

And your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

I’d put it at a 9 — not because I’m making good money, but because I’m doing it on my own time and terms. I have sales skills I can never lose, I have a sizeable audience of people who trust me online, I can drive traffic and can make people buy things. If I stop selling courses, I’ll always be able to sell other things that’ll make me good money online. Always. My goal is to make $1 million in the next three years. 

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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.

On #NairaLife today, the 21-year-old subject tells us about how her dad’s spending habits affected her relationship with money. To her, money is meant to be spent on people you love without hesitation, and she applies this rule to her romantic relationships — she currently has six partners. 

What’s your earliest memory of money? 

When I was eight years old, I won a book during a school competition . It was about a rabbit who had to write letters to his family because he got on the wrong flight and was now far away from them. The book had an envelope at the end of each chapter, for whoever reading to put a letter in. Instead of a letter, I put money gifts from my relatives in there.

A few months after I started saving, armed robbers came to our house. They put a gun to my dad’s head, threatening to kill him if he didn’t give them any money. As my mum and I watched him beg that he had no money, I had a bright idea — I would give them the money I’d been saving so they could leave my dad. I spoke up and they asked for the book. They took the money, some jewellery in the house, and left. 

Whoa. What were things like at home? 

Things were good on some days and terrible on others. My mum was a tailor who mostly made money from bulk school uniform contracts, so she only had a lot of money once a year, and my dad did business. Till today, I don’t know what business it was. 

My dad’s business wasn’t always profitable, so he didn’t always have a lot of money. When he did, he spent it badly. Everybody knew when he’d just made money; one time he bought a car on a whim even though we already had one, another time, a plasma TV, or he’d go out drinking and womanising, and then go broke again. But with all his money-related flaws, he made sure he gave me money and got me gifts whenever he had the chance. To me, it became the perfect way of showing love. 

How did all of this affect your view of money?

I promised myself I was always going to have a fixed minimum monthly income so I wouldn’t ever be in a situation where I didn’t have money. When you go from poor to rich and back to poor in a matter of days, it messes with your mind.

I hated seeing money go in and out of our lives, but we couldn’t do anything about it. For instance, we ate rice and turkey every Wednesday for years, and I got home from school one day and saw fish instead of turkey. I asked my mum why we were eating fish, and she said turkey was too expensive. On some other weeks, we had boiled eggs. When things got better again, we went back to eating turkey. This was the cycle. 

I became obsessed with hoarding money once I got into secondary school. My mates would talk about their trips abroad and the things their parents bought for them, and it made me feel poor. I thought if I hoarded enough, I could afford those trips by the time I was done with school. I specifically wanted to go to Paris.  

How did you do it?

Whenever my relatives gave me money, I kept it. From time to time, I bought Barbie CDs, but I mostly kept the money to feel good about myself. When my parents noticed how invested I’d gotten in money, they started using money to make me do things like brushing my teeth or doing house chores. 

How many millions did you make?

As you can see, not enough. 

I hoarded money until I started making money myself at age 12. I learnt how to make beads in JSS 3 and started selling to people who came to my mum’s store whenever I was on holidays. In a month, I sold about five beads for ₦8,500 each and made ₦30,000 profit. 

When I turned 15, I stopped making beads because of some health challenges and school exams. That same year, immediately after school, I got a job. 

What was that like?

I worked as a cashier at a family friend’s pharmacy. The pay was ₦15,000 monthly, but I preferred it to selling beads because it was a fixed income.

I stayed at the job for six months and left when I got into university at 16. By the time I was resuming, I had over ₦100,000 in savings from all the salary and business income I’d kept. I spent ₦50,000 on a new phone. The rest of the money was what I took to school.

Your parents didn’t give you money? 

Not at all. I moved in with my aunt who lived close to my university, so everything I needed was catered for. Also, my parents knew I had an account with money in it so they expected me to fend for myself. Whenever I needed money for snacks or just to hold, I withdrew from my savings. 

Luckily for me, my ATM card went missing sometime in the second semester of my first year, and my bank account was a kids’ account that only my mum had control over, so I couldn’t get a new one. When I asked the bank what I would need to transfer ownership to me, the process was super complicated and my mum didn’t want to be stressed, so I opened a student account in a different bank. Because my parents knew I had no access to my old account and no money in the new one, they put me on a ₦20,000 monthly allowance. 

Baller. 

LOL. I didn’t ball anything. The money didn’t come at once. It was ₦5,000 weekly, and after spending ₦1,000 on transportation and ₦1,500 on data, I had only ₦2,500 to spend every week. Most of the money went to buying stuff for my friends. Having money plus freedom for the first time made me realise I liked spending money on people I liked. 

It didn’t take long for my allowance to become insufficient. I started asking my parents for more money. When my requests were met with resistance, I told them the money I needed was for books. It worked like magic. My parents were big on education, so if their daughter needed money to buy books, they were going to provide.

I smell fraud. 

I started small. My dad had gotten a job that seemed to pay well; it became solely his responsibility to pay for my books. I was inflating prices and making as high as ₦20,000 multiple times a semester. Between 2017 and 2019, the scams got bigger. At some point, I was collecting as much as ₦50,000 per semester and my dad didn’t seem to have a problem with it.

What were you using the money for? 

I was just balling, taking care of my friends and going out to eat. Until I started dating.

By February 2020, I was dating someone, and because I wanted to be a good partner, I went from Benin where my school is to Ibadan to see them for Valentine’s Day. I had about ₦60,000 before that trip. Three days later, I came back with ₦2,000. We went out multiple times, and I paid for everything. Two days after I got back to Benin, they called me and broke up with me.

Ouch. 

By April 2020, I was talking to someone that lived in another state. He was also a student and didn’t have as much money as I did, so I’d buy him meals, send him ₦5k from time to time and pay for his stuff. Seeing him happy made me happy. We got in an open relationship in July, and shortly after, I got a writing internship that paid ₦50,000. 

You were making your own money again.

Oh yes. I was getting ₦50,000 salary, ₦20,000 monthly allowance, and anything else I collected from my dad. The money went into my head. My gestures to my partner became even more frequent. Then I started dating someone else and also spending on them.

On your 50k salary?

Not really. In October that year, I was promoted to a full-time staff and my salary increased to ₦100,000. I increased my savings with my mum to ₦20,000. The rest of the money went to food and my partners. 

Interesting. Were your partners gifting you as well?

They were. If I needed money or indicated that I liked something online, they got it for me. 

Later that year, you could say I got a raise at home too. I didn’t have to scam my dad to collect money from him anymore. He had gotten a few promotions and was willing to give me money. 

2021 must have been huge. 

Oh yes it was. My average monthly income in 2021 became ₦300,000. On some months, it went as high as ₦500,000.

Ah. How did this happen?

Being my dad’s baby girl became my main hustle. He gave me at least ₦100,000 every month for no reason at all. All I needed to do was call him and ask. I also got another raise at work:  ₦200,000. 

And your lovers?

They had increased to four by the end of 2021. I started living with one of them. The others, I visited from time to time and sent stuff to. 

How many are they now?

Six. 

Are you ever concerned about how much you spend?

Never. My rule with my partners is simple: my money is your money. I don’t like it when I’m with them and they ask me for money. Take my card and spend. Spending is my way of showing love, and it’s worth every penny because they get to smile, and I’d do anything to make them smile.

I’m curious about what your savings look like.

When I started earning ₦100,000, my savings with my mum increased to ₦50,000 monthly, and it’s continued ever since. Now, I have about ₦500,000 with her. On my savings app, I have about ₦16,000. 

Can you break down your monthly expenses?

I spend whatever’s left on food and outings. 

What’s something you want but can’t afford right now? 

A new laptop. A Mac. I like the aesthetics of a Mac, and I need a new laptop. 

Also, what’s something you want to get your partners but can’t afford?

A house for all of them to live in so I can be with them at the same time. It’s very unrealistic though because apart from houses being expensive, my partners are scattered all over Nigeria. 

Rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10. 

It’s at a 7. I’m not dissatisfied, but I want to earn more money. My end goal in life is to make all my partners stay-at-homes and spoil them all. 

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.

Today’s subject on #NairaLife grew up seeing her parents struggle and borrow to keep up in the wealthy society they lived in. At 22, she decided to start her own business. Now at 27, she makes millions selling hair and doing comms side jobs. You want to know her biggest fear? Losing it all. 

Let’s start with your first memory of money.

I remember overhearing my parents complain about not having a lot of it. We weren’t broke, but we lived above our means in a few ways. The school we went to was the most expensive in the area, but they sent us there just because they wanted us to get a good education. They did it even at the risk of embarrassment for themselves because when they couldn’t afford the fees, we got sent out of school. They had to resort to borrowing. 

What did they do for a living?

My dad had his own practice as a medical lab scientist, and my mum worked in the medical field for an oil company. She brought more money into the family, and she was in charge of making sure we had money saved. If it was up to my dad, we wouldn’t have the life we did. He was a spender. He’d get money and think of all the ways to spend it immediately. 

So you were living among people that were much richer than you.

Yes, and as a child, stuff like that messed with my head. I constantly daydreamed about being rich like my school friends and getting picked up by drivers after school. Even now,  I can’t bring myself to owe anybody money. The fact that my parents owed and struggled to pay makes me scared the same thing might happen to me. 

How long did they have to borrow for?

By the time my siblings and I were going into secondary school, they couldn’t keep up with the finances anymore, so they decided to send us to public school. Public school wasn’t terrible. I made friends and had fun. I had a best friend whose dad sold electronics, and somehow I partnered with her to sell phone chargers and make small money to buy boli and okrika clothes. 

After secondary school, I tried to get into a federal university to study medicine and failed on my first try. The next year, I got in, but somehow, they cancelled my results. I was home crying and miserable when my dad came to me and said, “Do you really want to study medicine?” My answer was yes, and two days later, I was off to study medicine in a private school in Edo. 

At private schools in Nigeria, once you have money, you can get in, and that’s what my dad did for me.

Interesting.

I met more people from wealthier homes in that school. People who travelled abroad for holidays and lived more luxurious lifestyles than I’d ever seen before.

In my first year, my mum called me one day and told me to write JAMB again and POST UTME to a federal university, just to have as a backup. I had made friends and was enjoying my life, so I didn’t understand why she was telling me to do that, but because I had no choice, I did and got admitted to study plant biology and biotechnology in UNIBEN.

In my second year, I woke up one day and found out that the school didn’t have the accreditation to teach medicine, so there was a notice board with our names assigning us to other departments. They moved me to physiology. 

Whoa.

There was no point staying in the expensive school anymore because the reason I was there was to study medicine, so we decided that at the end of the semester, I would go to UNIBEN. In the final semester before I left, I baked a cake for my roommates, and they loved it so much they swore I had to start selling it, so that’s what I did. Ingredients worth ₦1,200 were enough to make a few cakes that I sold in slices of 10 each. Each slice was ₦100, so I was making good profit. I partnered with a friend who knew how to decorate cakes and we split the profit 50/50 when I left the school.

What was UNIBEN like?

I lived a soft life. My parents didn’t have to spend so much money to send me to school anymore, so they could afford to increase my monthly allowance from ₦25,000 to ₦30,000 and eventually ₦35,000. The only attempt I made at saving was doing ajo with my boyfriend and his friends. We contributed ₦5,000 each month and whoever’s turn it was took ₦25,000. We were only able to do it for one round because it lacked structure.  

I got a place and spent all my money on whatever I wanted — hair especially. Whenever I got a new wig or hair done, I would get endless comments about how I had great taste. People asked me where I got my hair from, and I told them the particular shop in Ring Road Market. 

Now the thing is, the shop was popular for not having great hair, so people always wondered how I was able to get good stuff from them. The more I got compliments, the more it dawned on me that I could be making money from my ability to find good stuff. Around this period too, I overheard my parents talking about how immediately I graduated, they would stop sending me money. So I decided to start selling hair. 

How did you go about it?

In 2016, my third year in university, I found about MMM through a friend and put ₦25,000 in it. After a few months, I had gotten  ₦125,000 as interest.

I got an extra ₦40,000 from my boyfriend who was doing IT, got on a bus to Lagos, stayed in a hotel and went to Eko Market the next day. The cost for transportation, feeding and accommodation in Lagos took the ₦190,000 I had to ₦160,000, and that’s how much I started my business with. 

In one day, I went to multiple shops until I found a vendor and bought hair from them. When I took my stock back to Edo, the first place I thought of going to was the university I’d left because I knew the people there could afford wigs worth ₦10,000 to ₦20,000. In two weeks, I sold off my stock and made an extra ₦50,000. I was speechless. I didn’t expect business to move that fast.  

What happened next?

I went fully into business mode. I put my profits into MMM and used the returns to get more stock. Things kept going smoothly until MMM crashed with ₦250,000 of my money in December 2016. 

Whoa. 

It was devastating. I wasn’t saving, so that was all the money I had. By January 2017, I decided to take a break from doing business that way and instead started dropshipping. I received orders, got paid, sent the money to the vendors, the vendors sent the goods to the customer, and I kept my profit.  I was in my final year and doing projects so I didn’t have time to make those frequent trips. By July 2017, I had made some profits, and had a bit more free time on my hands, so I started my business as usual again, but this time, I focused on selling online. 

How did that affect your business?

It was amazing. All I had to do was post on Instagram, and I was sure to make sales. This continued into 2018 when I moved to Lagos for NYSC. I was making sales of at least ₦50,000 monthly in addition to the ₦20,000 I was making at my NYSC job and the ₦19,500 alawee. 

By November 2018, I calculated my finances for the year and had a shocking revelation. I had made ₦1.2 million in profit from the business that year and only had ₦30,000 in total savings. 

You’re killing me. 

That’s when I decided to start saving. I saved the ₦20,000 I got from my PPA every month, used the ₦19,500 alawee to run my daily life and saved my business profits too. By the end of 2019, I had gotten a new job that paid ₦80,000 monthly, made ₦1.7 million in business profits and had about ₦900k in savings. 

How did the pandemic year affect your business?

It started slow, then became the year that I made the most money in my life. Business went normally for the first few months until lockdown happened. In my head, there wasn’t going to be any business until lockdown was over, so I took three remote jobs. One paid ₦250,000 monthly as a corporate communications lead at a home automation company, the other paid ₦100,000 as a content and social media manager at a fintech company, and the last paid ₦150,000 as content and social media manager for a fashion brand.  From time to time, I also got random graphic design gigs that paid the odd ₦10,000 or ₦20,000.

How did you get these skills?

I did social media work, graphic design and corporate communication every day in the running of my business, so I got really good at them.

How did you survive having three jobs?

I was on my phone every freaking time. Even when I was asleep, I was waking up at intervals to check my phone. 

Sometime in the middle of the lockdown, I got a call. Someone wanted a wig for her birthday shoot. I was confused. People were still using beauty items in a lockdown? Quickly, I reached out to my vendor, got materials, made her wig and sent it to her. That’s how business started again. The orders were pouring in, and I didn’t have to do too much running around like going to the market to pick up stock. My dispatch rider did all of it for me. 

2020 made me realise one thing: There will always be a market for beauty products. I can never run out of customers as long as I provide high-quality goods. To standardise the quality of my goods, I started ordering hair from Vietnam. 

How did you balance business with three jobs? 

As the year went on, I dropped the jobs one by one because I was getting overwhelmed. By October, I was doing only my hair business, but it was okay because business was booming. You know what made 2020 the perfect year?

Tell me.

The bone straight craze of December 2020. It was insane. Before then, I didn’t stock bone straight hair because people didn’t really like it. All of a sudden, people started ordering for bone straight wigs like that was the only hair available. I was making orders for hair that overwhelmed my vendors so badly, they started taking shortcuts to fulfil them faster. This led to people returning goods and some losses, so I found another vendor in Vietnam and ordered from them. Those ones did a better job. 

The bone straight thing lasted only a few months, but it was the best run I’ve ever had in my business. By the end of 2020, I had about ₦2.7 million in savings. 

Business continued as usual, and by the end of 2021, I was able to invest ₦4.8 million in buying stock in bulk. Although it hasn’t moved as fast as I expected it to I expect 2022 to be another great year.

What’s your average monthly income now? 

I recently got a community manager job that pays ₦350,000 monthly. In addition to that, business brings ₦500,000 and other content jobs bring between ₦100,000 and ₦200,000

Let’s look at your average monthly expenditure.

Whatever’s left after saving and paying bills is for enjoyment.

How do festive periods affect your business?

They’re the absolute best times for business — Christmas and Valentine’s especially. I have to work double hard in this period because orders come in like no man’s business. 

How has your money journey affected your view of money?

My view of money hasn’t changed a lot since I was child. I’m still very scared of poverty, but now I can let money go because I know I’ll always make it back.

What would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

7. I’m very content with my finances right now. There’s stuff I still want, like an apartment of my own, but I know those things will come with time. 

What’s one thing you want but can’t afford?

I want to go to Europe for a month, just to live in and explore another country. 

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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.

Today’s #NairaLife subject decided at 8 that he wasn’t going to ask his parents for money if it wasn’t an absolute necessity. 20 years later, he’s mastered the art of job-hopping and gotten himself to $7,000 monthly.

Let’s start with your first memory of money.

I was five years old, and I’d just discovered the art of finding loose change around the house and spending it on sweets. This was 1998. I didn’t think I was stealing, but nobody knew I was taking these monies. It didn’t last long though, because one day my mum saw me eating a snack she didn’t buy for me, and when I told her how I could afford it, she beat me. That was how I started having opinions about money. 

What were these opinions?

I figured, if you needed money, you had to make it yourself. I had to ask my parents for money if I needed to buy anything like snacks or a ball, and most of the time, I was told no. Being told no when I asked for money was super frustrating for me, so I decided that I wasn’t going to ask anymore. My goal was to grow up and make a lot of money so I would never have to ask anyone for money again. In retrospect, I realise that things were not so great at home at the time. My mum was a stay-at-home mum, and my dad worked in construction, so they couldn’t always afford everything I wanted. 

So what did you do? 

By the time I got into secondary school at eight, I stopped asking for money if it wasn’t for an absolute necessity like school supplies and my standard pocket money. This went on until I finished university. 

In university, I got between ₦15k and ₦30k monthly from my parents, and that was enough for me. Because I’m introverted, not having extra money didn’t affect me badly because I wasn’t trying to go out or buy something to impress anyone. To make my own money, I tried business but quit after two months. 

What kind of business?

Food selling. I had a friend that lived off-campus who would buy packs of food from a restaurant and bring them into school for me to resell at a profit every day. The business was doing pretty well. We bought packs at ₦300 and sold them at ₦500, and we did about 100 packs every day. 

Why did you stop?

I got tired because I wasn’t super enthusiastic about business in the first place. Also, the business got popular in school, so competition was fierce. And with food business, if you don’t find buyers, you have to sell at extremely low prices to make sure the food doesn’t go to waste. 

What happened after university?

NYSC. I stayed in Lagos and got a “job” at a photography studio where I paid them to teach me photography. Once in a while, I’d follow them to events and get ₦10k, but that was it. After NYSC, I went to the UK for my master’s. At this point, my parents’ finances had gotten better, so they sponsored me through my master’s. 

I should probably have started asking them for extra money at this point, but I stuck with my decision to be independent. To make some extra bucks in the UK, I took a sales job that had me go from door to door advertising and selling products like window cleaning services. 

What was that like? 

It was terrible. I had little to no interpersonal skills, so I was bad at the job. Also, the area where I schooled and worked was very white, so if I was knocking on a white man’s door, that was probably the first time he was seeing a black person in weeks and you could see the confusion on their faces. 

Having to go past that awkwardness in the first place was hard enough, but convincing them to spend money on stuff they probably didn’t need? I was making £100 a week on average, and it was a terrible wage for the amount of work I was doing. Towards the end of my master’s programme, I got on a run of sales that was so unyielding, I got frustrated and quit.

What was your plan?

Right after I finished my master’s in 2017, I started applying for bank jobs and I got a job in the customer service department of a bank in the UK. It paid £1,500 a month. I didn’t stay there for long though, because I returned to Nigeria. Shortly after I returned to Nigeria another bank in the UK reached out to me for a much better role, but it was already too late. 

Why did you return?

I wanted to be with my family. A lot of the foreigners that were my colleagues in school were also returning to their countries, so it seemed like a good idea. 

What did you do once you got back?

A friend introduced me to Coursera and data science, and I went fully into learning mode. Because I didn’t want my dad to think I was just at home doing nothing, I applied for the graduate training programme for one of the Nigerian banks. I got a callback, and they were offering ₦250k, but I rejected it and explained to my dad that I wanted to learn data science instead. Afterwards, all I did was sit at home and watch data science videos online. 

By the end of 2017, I got a data science-related job that offered ₦72k for the first three months and then ₦120k afterwards. It was less than the ₦250k I could have been earning at a bank, but I knew getting a job in data science would be good entrance into the field. The salary was the sacrifice I had to pay. With my ₦120k, I fuelled my car, bought data and bought online courses. I saved whatever was left, and when issues came up with the car, I used my savings to fix them. 

My role at the job was data solutions architect, but because it was a trainee role, I had a lot of free time, so I clocked into work on most days and just kept watching data science videos online. I earned ₦120k until December 2018 when I got a new job.

What was the job?

It was a similar role to the one I’d just left, but this time, at a bigger tech company. They found me on LinkedIn. This might be a good time to say that every job I’ve had since I moved back to Nigeria came through LinkedIn. I don’t post anything on there, but somehow, companies keep sending me DMs. The pay for the role was ₦400k. Because this job brought more money, I could afford to move out of my parents’. I got an apartment close to work that cost me ₦120k monthly, ate out every day, and that cost about ₦100k monthly, paid utilities which cost about ₦40k monthly and had a gym subscription which was ₦10k monthly. I saved the rest of the money. 

Later in 2019, I realised eating out was too expensive, so I hired someone to cook in bulk for me. This reduced my expenses for feeding to about ₦50k monthly. 

How were things at work?

I was growing and realising that I needed to earn more. I tried to discuss a raise with my boss, but I was just hearing stories, so I dropped the issue. At that point, I’d made a rule for myself — never spend more than two years at a job because there’s always someone willing to pay you more out there. By April 2020, lockdown happened and my pay was cut to ₦320k. I earned ₦320k until July 2020 when I got another job that paid ₦750k.

That’s double your previous pay.

Yup! It was a bit overwhelming. I’d interviewed with the company a few months earlier, and they didn’t pick me because their priority was to hire someone outside Nigeria. When they reached out, they said they were now hiring from within the country, and I’d done well on my tests. After my probation period, they increased my pay to ₦800k. It took some time to get used to earning that much money at a job where I was doing much less work. I didn’t know what to do with the money. Even if I tried, I couldn’t spend all of it in a month because my lifestyle didn’t change. 

What were your finances like in this period?

I decided to keep my monthly spendings at ₦300k at the maximum like I did at my last job, so nothing really changed. I stayed in the same apartment, worked from home and did everything almost the same. The remaining ₦500k was going into investments. 

After a few months earning ₦800k, I started thinking about how I could increase my earnings even more. I was enjoying my job, but I knew there were opportunities for more money out there. 

Did you find anything?

Companies kept reaching out to me on LinkedIn, and I kept doing interviews. There was a promising job offer from Dubai in July 2021, which was about ₦4m monthly, but when we got into talking about details, I got scared. They said they were having problems sponsoring visas for Africans, so I needed to sponsor myself to their country first before we made any final agreements. I didn’t like how it sounded, so I rejected the job offer. 

The next day, another company I’d interviewed for reached out and offered me a job. It was in another African country, so when they asked what I wanted for salary, I asked for $4,000. They negotiated and we agreed on $3,000, but with bonuses, it went up to $3,500. I took the job. 

Best in job-hopping. 

When I told my former employer I got a different job and would be moving outside the country to take the role, they told me they still wanted my services. They didn’t mind hiring me as a contract employee, so I gave them a few conditions — I would work from abroad, we would renegotiate my salary, and I would earn in dollars. They agreed, and by the time we were done negotiating, my new pay was $3,500. That brings a total of my current earnings to $7,000 monthly. 

Let’s do a breakdown of your expenses.

The rest of the money is split between cash savings and investments. 

How about a breakdown of the investments?

30% cash, 20% crypto and 50% stock and real estate, but I’m switching all of this to a fund with a private banker soon. I’m not good at managing money, so it’s best if I have the pros do it. 

How has your income journey affected your view on money?

My view on money hasn’t changed a lot over the years. I just see it as a tool to purchase things. Amidst all of this, I’m learning to live with self-doubt, anxiety, and the irrational worry that I could lose my job at any time even if my results at work are excellent. Sometimes, the anxiety gets so bad my productivity drops to zero. But I’m looking to go to therapy.

Is there something you want but can’t afford right now?

I found a house here for about $500k, and I’m working towards buying it. I’m considering taking a mortgage and not paying up-front cash. 

Let’s talk about your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10.

It’s at a 7. I’m currently satisfied right now, but in a few months, I’m sure I’ll desire an upscale job and leave these two jobs for one that pays more than both of them combined. Getting that and improving my total savings and investments over the next year will get me to an 8.5.

---

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.

For almost 10 years, the 30-year-old writer in this #NairaLife saw every job as a hustle he could wing. Sometimes, it worked out. At other times, it didn’t. Interestingly, he’s grown his income by more than 5x in the past two years. What changed?

What’s your oldest memory of money?

My mum used to work as a contractor for a multinational and helped them push their products, mostly electronics to the customers. This meant a lot of market runs and sometimes, she dragged me to the market with her to help. To incentivise me, she’d go, “If you do this, I will give you X and Y.” I was less than 10 years old.

Helping my mum out with her job shaped my thoughts around what it meant to make money. My mum was always calculating money or talking about the cost of something, and this experience taught me that business is marginal. Very quickly, I started to see everything as a hustle. 

Fascinating. What was the first thing you did for money?

Right before I went for NYSC in 2011, I worked as a marketer for a microfinance bank for a few months and earned ₦23k/month before I quit to go for NYSC. When my service year ended, I returned home and started looking for a job. After two months of consistently sending out job applications without any success, I decided to do something I’d helped my mum do at some point when I was younger — selling and refilling gas cylinders. I had built relationships with gas plants when I worked with mum, so I figured it shouldn’t be difficult. 

What were the next steps you took?

I spoke to a couple of friends who confirmed that it made sense. One of them even loaned me ₦60k to use as capital. I kicked things off and went to a business centre to print a couple of cheap business cards, and I just started sharing with people around the area. Boom, I was in business. I used to do about 12 refills a week and try to sell at least four brand new cylinders weekly. 

I made more money from cylinder sales. My margin from refilling a 12.5 kg cylinder was ₦1200. But I could easily make ₦5k from helping someone buy a cylinder. Although this paid more, it was through refills that I got most of my customers. On average, I made about ₦12k per week after settling all expenses. 

Nice. 

Three months after I started this, someone sent me a DM on Twitter and was like he liked my writing — I had published a couple of articles on the internet earlier that year. He came with an offer to write for a blog. ₦30k/month, and I took it. 

The deal was five articles per day, which wasn’t a problem for me. It was an additional source of income to complement what I made from the gas hustle. Down the line, I got a teaching job that paid ₦35k. 

You were working three jobs?

Yes, I had to work three jobs to make ₦80k – ₦100k per month. But the money was good — this was 2013, and naira had more value. Also, I wasn’t paying rent or for food. 

Another thing that gave me context about money was that I met teachers who had been teaching for three to four years at the school and were making ₦50k. In a way, I felt like I had it easier than those people. 

Fair enough. 

The person I was writing for came to see me as dependable and bumped my pay to ₦40k, then to ₦50k. The teaching job also increased my salary to ₦40k. However, between both responsibilities, I didn’t have enough time to sell gas like that anymore. So, I settled for the lucrative deals that would come from time to time and faced the writing and teaching jobs squarely. Life was decent. I didn’t have a lot of expenses except hanging out with my friends every weekend. 

I kept the teaching job until the end of 2015 when I got a promotion at my writing gig and figured that it was time to drop teaching. 

Could you walk me through how it happened?

The owner of the blog called me one day and said that they wanted me to be an editor at the blog. They were also going to hire a bunch of writers they wanted me to supervise. The pay was ₦110k. I resigned from my teaching job on the same day I got the offer.

Haha. 

I should say this — I took the job even though I knew next to nothing about digital publishing. The way I saw it, I could do any job as long as someone else had done it before me. I wanted to commit to it, but after my salary was delayed for no reason in the first two months, I knew it would be a miracle if I did three months there. So, I started looking for other jobs like my life depended on it. 

How did that go?

I don’t remember the number of jobs I applied to, but I interviewed for a social media role at a publication that just started operations. The CEO was impressed by me and offered me a job, and the pay was ₦120k. One week after I got this offer, I was sacked at the blog I was writing for. 

Wiun. 

See, I saw it coming. I had stopped going to work for a while after they didn’t pay my second-month salary on time. They weren’t going to let that go. 

Anyway, I already had a backup. But it turns out I’d get another job before my start date.

Oh. How did this happen?

A friend who had been helping me put the word out reached out with news of an open role at another publication. At first, I didn’t want to go ahead with the process, but he convinced me that I had nothing to lose. I took the interview and got the job. When I heard the offer, I knew I had to drop the other job, which was what I did.

How much?

₦160k. My role was to supervise a team of other writers and the mandate was to move the publication from a content mill that republished articles from other publications to one that would tell original stories. This was June 2016.

The problem was that the other writers weren’t very open to the idea of producing original content, even though we had long conversations about it. The arrangement didn’t work out the way the owner hoped, and he didn’t have the patience to see it through. On my own part, I didn’t have enough skills or experience to explain to him what was happening. Fast forward to December 2016, they sent me a termination notice on New Year’s Eve. 

Mad. 

Yes, it was mad. It was the first time I didn’t go for crossover service. In January 2017, I hit the job market again with a vengeance. You know, I was coming from a job that paid ₦160k/month, so I assumed I’d easily get another job easily. This didn’t happen. By February, I had become so desperate that when someone at a digital out-of-home advertising agency offered me ₦85k/month to write ad copy, I took it. However, I spent only five weeks there.

You really were bouncing from job to job. 

I was. The new job was also content-related and my salary was ₦220k. A month after I started there, I was named the lead in a project that had 40 people. This was an interesting opportunity but no real learning happened. To me, it was just another hustle and I was still thinking, “Shebi someone don do am before, I go run am.”

During my whole time there, I sensed that I wasn’t very good at the job, but I wasn’t horrible either. That wasn’t the reason I quit though. 

Why did you quit?

The boss was a bit of a hothead, and he used to insult the staff a lot. I mean, he drove grown-ups to tears. I always knew it was a matter of time before I left. One day, he came to the office and started screaming and cursing everyone out. At the end of it all, I was like, “I’m not doing this. I can’t work here anymore.”

People do this when they have a safety net. Did you?

I had saved about ₦500k, which I thought was enough to live on for a while. Then I had this idea to go set up my own media business — a football blog. I raised ₦300k from a friend and sunk more than half of my savings into it. 

 How did that work out?

Lmao. It ran for four to five months but didn’t quite take off. I thought writing good content was where it was at and didn’t think too deeply about distribution. And because of this, it was hard to attract or retain users. When I and my investor’s money finished, I started looking for another job. 

Brutal. 

This was now 2018. I was watching the money in my bank account reduce from ₦60k to ₦30k, then to ₦20k without any lead. Luckily, I got an offer to sell a product before the money ran out. 

It was one of these “Go to school abroad” solutions. I knew even before I joined that they didn’t have tight processes to deliver on their promises, but I was too desperate to care. They offered me ₦40k at first, including commissions on sales. I refused and negotiated ₦150k/month plus commission.

During my first month, I closed six leads. In my second month, I started manning the phones and at the end of the month, I closed 26 leads by myself. I was both a digital marketer and telesales agent. They had never seen that level of performance before. 

Energy. 

Two months after I joined, I struck a deal with the company. I’d hire two people and train them. But I was also going to get a commission on every deal they closed. They agreed to it. As I said, they hadn’t seen that level of performance before I joined. 

How much were you making now?

My base salary was ₦150k/month, but I was taking home benefits of up to ₦300k every month. The thrill wore off after a couple of months and I couldn’t in good conscience continue working there — they were making too many basic mistakes for supposed experts. I quit at the end of my seventh month.

I’m not sure how much I had in my savings, but it was over ₦1.5m. I took a major step and got my own apartment, which set me back by ₦700k. 

What happened after?

I looked at what the last guys I worked for were doing and saw that it was a simple service. People just wanted to pay to have their applications sent to schools abroad. I decided to set up a similar business. 

I got two partners, and we struck a deal with a union that was representing six schools in Europe — they agreed to pay us $1k for every successful applicant that paid tuition. My partners and I dropped ₦400k each, got an office space for ₦250k/month, hired three people and business was on. Omo, it was harder than I thought. 

I’m listening. 

We assumed that the process would be straightforward because we had important relationships with a couple of people. I’m not even joking, it’s still hands-down one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life. We didn’t close a single sale in our first month and money had nearly dried up. We borrowed money to cover rent for that month and salary for the staff. My partners and I couldn’t pay ourselves a salary for the first two months. 

Fortunately, things started to go fairly well in the second month. By the fourth month, we could afford to pay ourselves a small salary. We would go on to do this for a little over a year, but it never seemed like we were really out of the trenches. We were always fighting for our lives every month. 

I feel you. 

That was the reason I took the next job offer I got. Again, I got the lead on Twitter and it was an ad for a reporter at a publication. I didn’t even think much of it: I just applied and went for the interview. I didn’t expect to get a callback. 

Why not?

I could tell that I was bullshitting people who were used to hearing a lot of bullshit, so they weren’t falling for my act. But they called me back and offered me the job. I started working there in October 2019, and the salary was ₦200k/month, which was less than what I typically made at the last gig. However, I just wanted to work and let someone else worry about finding the money to pay me. 

My KPI was two articles per week, and it wasn’t bad. One thing I didn’t count on that happened was that I cared about the job, unlike the other places I had worked. 

Growth. Why do you think this happened?

Prior to the job, I had worked in places that had shitty employment practices or bosses. But this was a change. For the first time, I was in a place where I could look around the room and there were always intelligent people around. That does something to you. 

My first year was a learning curve. Mid-way into my second year, a conversation I had with a colleague about the impact of our work changed how I thought about it. For the first time, I stopped thinking about my tasks as KPIs and started to go for stories people cared about. It signalled a very interesting change for me because I wrote a strong article that month and someone reached out to me on Linkedin just because of that article.

What did they want?

They liked the analysis in the story and wanted to offer me a part-time job as their technical assistant. ₦150k. This gig and my 9-5 redefined what rigour meant. Subsequently, I started reading about things particular to both jobs and taking online courses. 

The thing about upskilling is that you start to get all of these opportunities. On the side, I was doing one-off content side gigs that were bringing in extra money. I was barely touching my salary in this period — I was living on what I was making from the side gigs. 

Great. How was it going at your 9-5?

That place made me sit up. However, I always got the feeling that they didn’t think I was particularly valuable. From my own end, I saw myself as important to the company.

To them, I was just another person in the room. When it was time for a raise, it didn’t happen. I was mad at first, but I reasoned that it wasn’t that deep. If I didn’t think I was being valued, I could easily hit the job market again. 

Let me guess, that’s what you did. 

Yup. I started throwing applications left, right and centre. In between all of that, they gave me a ₦50k raise. My salary at the technical assistant job paid ₦150k and another small business I was working with paid ₦150k, bringing my combined income to ₦550k/month.

Finally, I got an offer from a financial situation to work in their comms department in June 2021. The salary was ₦550k. 

What was it like there?

It was a change of pace for me. The job was different — I turned from a journalist to a PR person. But for me, the framework was the same. I’d gotten to a point in my life where I set out to be very good at whatever I did. 

I stan. How much was your combined income at this point?

About ₦700k to ₦800k/month. I still had the technical assistant job that was paying ₦150k and an extra ₦100k was guaranteed to come in every month. 

Great. Back to the job?

In my first two weeks, I realised going to work there was probably a bad idea.

Uh-oh.

I was coming from a startup where the set-up was to do more with less. On the other hand, this was a big organisation that could afford to hire 10 people to do the same thing. I went from being perpetually busy to being bored all the time. One month in, and I was already thinking of working somewhere else. Later that month, I started a half-spirited job hunt. Fortunately, more people had started to know me and were reaching out to talk to me about open roles. But when I heard how much I wanted, they would run. 

Haha. How much were you asking for?

₦1m. In September 2021, someone slid into my DMs and asked for my number. During our first conversation, they were like, “Look, I’m going to cut straight to it. I know you’re bored where you work. There’s this thing I’m creating, and I think you should come and join.” We had a series of conversations after that. At the end of it, I knew I wanted to join the team. At the end of September, I joined the startup. 

What was your role here?

Content strategy and brand storytelling. The salary was ₦800k/month, but there were other perks — they moved me to another country on the continent and paid for my living costs, including rent. There’s also a $400 allowance per month for feeding and stuff. Also, we agreed that we would review the salary in a few months. This happened in November, and I got a raise to ₦1m.

Whoop Whoop!

Nothing much has happened between then and now. 

The thing about getting to this level is that I now get to pick and choose what I want to work on for my side projects. I still work with the small business that pays ₦150k/month, even though the money has almost stopped mattering to me. I like the work and the fact that I helped them build the business to what it is now.

God when? What does your combined income look like now?

It’s very hard to keep track these days. I’d say about ₦1.3m comes in every month from three regular income sources.

Well done. I’m curious about how your experiences shaped your thinking about work and money?

Up until 2019, I was just trying to survive. The problem with survival mode is that there is hardly an overarching goal. You’re just living without a plan, and if you don’t have one, you just keep bouncing from one job to the other. 

I started to think long term in 2019, which in turn made me intentional about the kind of jobs I wanted to do and how much I’d like to make.

One major thing that has helped how I see money is my friends. As time went on, I started to have successful friends. It wasn’t just that they were earning more, they were also managing money better and taking more chances. Having ambitious friends rubbed off on me and expanded my thinking of what earning well means. With them in my corner, I know my finances can always be better.

That makes sense. A segue: what do your monthly expenses look like at the moment?

I don’t spend much of my salary at the moment. I live on my allowance from work, so I spend about $400 on food and an extra $200 the few times I go out in a month. Most of my other expenses are family-related and swing between ₦150k – ₦250k per month.  

I’m curious to know where your salary goes these days.

For the first time in my life, I have money I don’t always need. The question I ask myself now is “What do I do with this money?” Thankfully, I have friends who give me investment advice. So far, I’ve not invested in anything they advised me to and regretted it. Of course, I do my own research as well. They’ve been really big on crypto recently and have been trying to get me into decentralised finance. We’ll see how that goes. 

Fingers crossed on that. Let’s come back to your income. How much do you think you should be earning now?

Combined income? I honestly think I should be doing like ₦2.5m. That’s a medium-term goal.

Love to see it. Back to the present though: what part of your finances do you think you could be better at?

I could do better at tracking what I make from my side gigs. It’s very easy to forget. I’ve been meaning to open another account and only use it for my side gigs, but I’ve never followed through.

Is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?

Off the top of my head, there’s nothing. I don’t have a lot of wants. 

That’s interesting. 

The last major thing I bought was a TV, and that was because a friend pressed me to buy it. I almost always need people to make me purchase things.

There’s something you spent money on recently that improved the quality of your life though, isn’t there?

I would say moving into a new country, but that wasn’t even my money. The only thing close was a phone I bought in December 2019 — a Pixel 5, which I bought after my old phone broke. 

LMAO. What would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 0-10?

7.5. I think I can afford most things I want, and I know how much of a privilege that is. Perhaps the only reason I’m not at a 9 or a 10 yet is that my income is still largely in naira. Also, it’d be great to earn enough to make a big investment once a quarter rather than saving for it per month.

 I think I can do some of this now, but maybe I just need the security of earning well for six months before I 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.

I published my first Naira Life story on the 4th of January this year. Frankly, it feels like a lifetime ago. Since that time, I’ve talked to a lot more people, listening to them talk about their finances and the personal journeys that brought them to the point where I interview them. 

It’s also amazing how much can happen from people talking about their relationship with money. In the past year, a lot of these stories have sparked important conversations and propelled people to action. Some may have even changed the lives of the subjects. 

To kick off the new year, we’ve curated a list of Naira Life stories that you should definitely consider reading again.

1. The Rollercoaster #NairaLife Of A TV Producer

This ranks high on the list of deeply moving Naira Life stories published in 2021. Why? For the better part of her adult life, the lady in this story has been navigating highs and lows, and boy, what a journey it’s been. Her first structured salary was ₦21k/month and she slowly built on that through the years until she hit $4k/month. That was her biggest break, but there were still fires to put out.

2. The #NairaLife Of A Lawyer Who Just Can’t Spend Money

I like this story because it was a “crash course” in managing lifestyle creep for me. How does the lawyer here earn ₦750k and manage to keep her monthly expenses to as low as ₦150k? 

3. The #Nairalife Of The Local Politician Living On Privilege And Donations

 I was very excited to write this story. It’s not every day you meet a politician who isn’t reticent about talking about their finances. While this story is quite revealing, I imagine that we haven’t even scratched the surface of figuring out and documenting how the average politician makes and spend money. Nevertheless, this is a good start. 

4. The Struggling #NairaLife Of A Widow Who’s Raising Four Kids

This one is a stark reminder of how much life events can completely change the course of one’s life, especially if they involve the death of breadwinners. For the lady in this story, it means constantly figuring out how to raise four kids on a salary of ₦14k. 

5. #NairaLife: The Factory Worker Who Went From ₦220k To ₦35k/Month

My favourite thing about this one is how strategic and intentional the guy in the story is. One thing about him is that he will always do the work. Perhaps, the most fascinating thing I found about him is his grit and his constant desire to be more. I was rooting for him when I first wrote the story. As I write this, I’m still rooting for him.

6. #NairaLife: How Did She Grow Her Income By 400% In 2 Years? Networking

We talk a lot about how the combination of skills and the right network could be the master key to unlocking the best opportunities. This story epitomises this school of thought on a grand level, and that’s why I think it deserves to be read again.

7. #NairaLife: She’s A Civil Servant On Grade Level Nine, And Her Salary Is ₦65k/Month

More often than not, working in the civil service means sacrificing rapid income growth for stability. It’s why the subject of this story earns ₦65k/month after more than two decades of service. 

One question I kept thinking about before I talked to this lady was: “How do civil servants raise families on their salaries, and how do they survive months of salary delays?”  Well, omo. 

8. The #NairaLife Of A Talent Specialist Moonlighting As A Tech Babe

There are some things to note about the 25-year-old in this #NairaLife: she’s the breadwinner and was in about ₦2m debt. Three months ago, she got a big break, and her life changed — possibly forever.

9. The #Nairalife Of Crippling Debt

The subject of this story works with small businesses. But before this, he tried to build two businesses from the ground up. The first one landed him in debt. The second one ended with some more dire consequences: legal troubles and debt.

10. #NairaLife: This Product Manager Was Down Zero In 2019. How Did He Turn It Around?

The first time the guy in this story tried to make money, he was beaten for it. Years later, he became a product manager and was slowly building up his wealth until a work mishap sent him out of a job and wiped out his life savings. Two years later, he’s building it back up and at $9800/month; it’s never been easier. 

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.

I published my first Naira Life story on the 4th of January this year. Frankly, it feels like a lifetime ago. Since that time, I’ve talked to a lot more people, listening to them talk about their finances and the personal journeys that brought them to the point where I interview them. 

It’s also amazing how much can happen from people talking about their relationship with money. In the past year, a lot of these stories have sparked important conversations and propelled people to action. Some may have even changed the lives of the subjects. 

As this year comes to an end, we thought it would be great to take another look at the 10 Naira Life stories you couldn’t get enough of.

1. The #NairaLife Of A Gambling Addiction

“The 29-year-old guy in this story placed his first bet over a decade ago as a university student. At first, it was for the thrill. It quickly became a coping mechanism. Then an addiction. He thought he was in control but his debt profile and troubled relationships proved something else: He was not.”

When people talk about hope, I sometimes think about gamblers and how their entire value system is built around hope. For most of them, they are one lucky stake away from fixing most of their money problems. Unfortunately, it hardly ever works out this way.

2. The Medical Student Who Went From Nothing To $2000/Month

“This #NairaLife is the story of a medical student stuck in a loop that is the Nigerian education system. One day, he got some information that changed his life forever, and he went from being a dependent to a provider.”

This story holds some sentimental value for me partly because it was one of the first Naira Life interviews I did. Beyond that, my favourite thing about this story is how one skill and credible information transformed the life of this medical student.

3. #NairaLife: The Project Manager Still Figuring Life Out At $110,000 Per Year

“This #NairaLife is a little strange. She earns enough to meet her needs. The only problem is, she’s dealing with some regrets, especially with her financial decisions in the past 10 years.”

A personal favourite. Why does someone who earns $110k/year feel like they’re not in a good place yet? If you read this story, you will see the chain of events that led to this discontent.
This story is also dear to me because of the moves the lady in it has made since it was published. For starters, she’s fixed her biggest worry — her debt profile.

4. The #NairaLife Of A Hustler Working Three Product Management Jobs

“This product manager may be only 30 years old, but he’s lived many lives. First as a small-time plug, then he ran the club scene in his university. Tech is his most recent stop. For him, this means working three jobs and living on less than half his monthly income. He isn’t looking back.”

I like this story because you could see how accountability and open conversations helped this subject form his opinions about money very early. It also set him on a path to financial freedom and has guided a lot of his decisions. What do I like most about this story though? The subject has been on an upward trajectory since the early 2000s.

5. The Optimistic #NairaLife Of The Security Guard Earning ₦35k/Month

“The 29-year-old in this story lives on ₦35k/month, but that’s not everything there is to him. It’s also about how he’s trying to make things work for his family. His biggest challenge though? Job security.”

This Naira Life is a big reality check, and it’s another personal favourite. A lot of it has to do with the process that led to this story and a couple of things that happened after.
Also, I remember details of my conversation with this subject — the constant fear of losing his job, the pride in his voice when he talked about his wife and kid and kid and how optimistic he is about the future.

6. #NairaLife: How Could This Tech Bro Afford A Year Break From Work? Equity And Stocks

“The 30-year-old in this #NairaLife got his big break in 2016 when he started working in tech. When was the last time he worked though? 2020. Does this bother him? No. A lot of it has to do with a $70k equity payout he got at his last place of work.”

This story looked me straight in the eye and called me poor. I can’t be mad at that because it’s so wholesome. Beyond basic compensation, i.e. salaries, other job perks can completely change the course of people’s lives, and this Naira Life proves it. Totally recommended.

7. The Remarkable #NairaLife Of A Design Rebel

“The guy in this story has two things going on for him: developing new skills and taking a leap of faith. The ultimate gamechanger for him, though, is a tech hub he joined at uni and a DM he got in 2020.”

8. The Privileged #NairaLife Of An Investment Banker With Multiple Side Businesses

“This 23-year-old has an investment banking job and a couple of side hustles, but that’s not the most interesting thing about him. It’s how he makes much more money from his side businesses than he does at his 9-5, and how leveraging his privilege and connections got him there. “

9. #NairaLife: “I’m 28, Earn ₦420k/Month But I’m Not There Yet”

“The 28-year-old in this story was at her last job for three years and didn’t get a raise once. Two years into her new job, she got a raise. She’s built her wealth to ₦7m within two years.”

10. The #NairaLife Of A Journalist Who Is The Breadwinner At 21 Years

“You will find many fascinating things about the 21-year-old in this #NairaLife — his fear of poverty and his struggles with being the sole breadwinner of his family are two big ones. Another thing you should note? His growth in the past four years.”

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.

As much as the 24-year-old in this #NairaLife is a big fan of financial literacy, she’s also made her fair share of money mistakes, culminating in a loss of more than ₦2m in 2020. If there’s anything she’d like to hack, it’s how to grow her wealth.

What’s your oldest memory of money?

My mum had a thing against borrowing money or relying on anyone for finance, so she saved religiously. The way she saw it, if you weren’t saving money, then you were wasting it. I took that habit from her at a very young age. 

At eight years old, I started putting some structure to saving money. I bought a piggy bank and most of the money I got — usually my pocket money and money gifts from relatives — went into it. My mum was also involved and opened a joint bank account for both of us. She deposited money from my piggy bank and her own money into the account. 

That’s so cool. Did you have something you were saving money towards at the time though?

Not exactly. I just thought it was proper to save money. We still save money into the account to date. At the right time, we will figure out what we want to do with it.

I did start saving money for a purpose when I got into senior secondary school and moved to the school hostel. My monthly allowance was ₦10k and the thrill of having that much money made me develop a taste for luxury, especially wristwatches. I always put money aside so I could buy any wristwatch that caught my fancy. Nothing major happened until I got into uni. 

What happened in uni?

I studied communication studies at a private university in the southwest. 2013 was the year I got in and my monthly allowance was ₦30k. I was still in my first year at university when I tried to invest money for the first time. It was one of those things where they’d tell you to put in a certain amount of money, bring five people in, then get your money and interest back. 

A pyramid scheme?

Yes, those. I put in ₦10k and got about ₦15k back. In my head, I’d cashed out. I doubled my investment, told my friends about it and convinced them to try it out. We all lost our money. That was when I learned that it’s not wise to put money in any investment opportunity that doesn’t have a well-defined structure. That didn’t stop me from putting money in the next thing I found though. 

What was that?

A friend’s business. In my defence, I thought I was supporting a friend and making money while at it. They were going to organise an event in school, and I put ₦100k in it. The plan was that I’d get my capital back and an extra 30% in profit. Unfortunately, the event flopped. My money hung in the air for two years, and I had to fight before I got some of it back. This time, I was done with anything that didn’t involve banks or financial institutions, a rule I stuck with for a while.

What do you mean?

In my third year, I talked to an uncle about investment opportunities and he told me about mutual funds. He knew someone at a bank who could help me open an account, so he hooked us up. My first deposit into the account was ₦50k. From there, I started putting in small amounts — anything between ₦2k and ₦10k. I stuck with it until I graduated from university in 2017. Sadly, I had to liquidate the account shortly before I graduated. 

Why?

I was driving a friend’s car when I ran into someone else’s car, and the damage to both cars was extensive. It happened at the wrongest time. There I was, about to finish school and start my life properly. I freaked out and didn’t tell my mum. I liquidated my mutual funds account and other savings I had — about ₦200k — and used everything to fix the situation. In the end, I had to come clean to my mum because what I had wasn’t enough to fix the cars. It wasn’t the best time of my life. 

I’m sorry about that. 

I felt like I was back to square one. The only thing that comforted me was that I had just gotten a job at a PR company, which meant I could easily start all over. 

That’s exciting. How did you get the job?

I met the owner of the company at an event in 2017, and I was eager to talk to him because they had worked on a project that piqued my interest. We had a conversation, he gave me his email address, then I sent him my CV. I interviewed with the company a day before my final exam. Before the month was over, I got an email from them — it was an offer to start as an intern. I took it. The pay was ₦20k.

I was earning less than my allowance in the university, so there was no major change in my lifestyle. I did manage to find another source of income. 

I’m listening. 

My uncle — the same one that helped me open my mutual funds account — had opened a family account on Uber and added me to it. I’m not sure where the idea came from, but I thought it would be great to book Uber for people in my office and charge them for it. It was almost like my uncle was dashing me money. The only thing was that he didn’t know about it. 

Wild. I’m curious about how much you were making from this. 

About ₦10k – ₦15k every week. Add that to my salary and I was netting ₦60k to ₦70k every month and saving about 70% every month. My savings strategy changed when I was mobilised for NYSC later in 2017. 

How so?

I decided to save the entire ₦19,800 for the whole year and live on my salary and the Uber thing for the next couple of months. I had a few responsibilities: tithe and send money to a  second cousin every month, so I still had enough left to cover my monthly costs and do something nice for myself. 

I got my first promotion in July 2018, and my salary increased to ₦80k. Shortly after I got the raise, my uncle stopped paying for the Uber family plan — he couldn’t figure out why he had to pay so much for it. I didn’t need the money anymore, so nothing changed. 

Nice. What happened after?

Well, I finished NYSC with about ₦237k in savings. I had opened a PiggyVest account at that point, so I put the money in it. Subsequently, I started putting ₦1k in PiggyVest every week, which I increased to ₦2k at some point.

Then in 2019, I travelled to the UK to study for my masters. 

Interesting. How much did it cost to do this?

My tuition was £18k and my monthly living allowance was £600. I lived with my cousin for the entire time, so I didn’t pay for rent. 

Gotcha. How did it go in the UK?

It wasn’t bad. I continued saving whatever I could. Somewhere down the line, I did some jobs to make extra money. I bartended for a while. I also took up some menial jobs I don’t like to talk about. The money wasn’t great either — £1.50 an hour, and I worked a minimum of seven hours on the days I worked. 

So yeah, there wasn’t much to do in the UK. I just focused on saving money until it was time to return to Nigeria in October 2020. 

How much had you saved up until that point? 

More than £3k. One of the first things I did after I returned was to open a mutual fund account with another bank. My first deposit was ₦1m.

Why did you return to mutual funds?

It was just about balancing my portfolio and putting money into some long-term investment. I wasn’t in a rush, and that’s exactly why my next moves didn’t make sense. 

Oh?

A childhood friend approached me in June 2020, asking me to invest in forex with her. In her words, she wanted us to make money together. I wasn’t sold, but I took out of my pounds savings and gave her the equivalent of $1k. She promised that my investment would increase by 10% every month. At the end of the month, she showed me my portfolio, and I liked what I saw. In July, I gave her another $1k. Then another $1k in August. The plan was to keep the funds locked away with her until February 2021. I got pretty excited about it and told a friend about it. He wasn’t convinced but decided to go along with it because he saw how invested I was about the whole thing. He dropped $1k after a stern warning — he would hold me responsible for whatever happened to his money. 

Ah. And you went through with it?

I did o. Nothing funny happened for the first few months. He opted to collect his ROI every month, and it happened until December — which was the last month he signed up for. The friend I was investing with was living in Russia and came into Nigeria on December 16 and cut communication lines for the rest of the month. On January 1, 2021, I eventually heard from her but it was to tell me that she was having troubles accessing the funds. 

Did you believe her?

Strangely enough, I did. I couldn’t call my friend who I convinced to put money into the scheme though. And I couldn’t pay him off either because I didn’t have enough liquid cash. By February, I still hadn’t gotten my money or his. I wasn’t comfortable owing him money anymore, so I sold my iPad and got a loan from a loan company to pay him. 

That sucks. 

Oh, that’s not all of it. I had also put money into another scheme in 2020. I guess I had not truly learned my lesson about money doubling arrangements. 

You were running two FX schemes concurrently?

Yes oh. I started the second one with ₦200k when I returned in October 2020. It was supposed to run for 12 months with monthly returns of ₦26k. I had no idea something was wrong with that one too. 

Back to my friend: she stopped answering my calls in March. I was frustrated and told my mum. Somehow, I got her home address, which was somewhere in the south-south and my mum travelled there. Unfortunately, she didn’t live there but the house belongs to her dad. My mum managed to get the dad’s number, and we reached out to him. After a series of back and forth, the dad paid me the money — $4k, which was about ₦1.9 million. 

Phew. 

That was just my capital. I didn’t get any of the returns I had been promised. 

Omo. We move. What about the second investment scheme you were in?

Oh. By May 2021, I had put in  ₦2,070,000, which included some of the money I got back from my friend’s dad. The cycle was also supposed to end in October 2021. They went cold in June 2021 and I haven’t heard from them since that time. 

I’m curious about something, how were you funding all of this?

I went back to my old job when I returned to Nigeria because they had given me a study leave. My salary jumped from ₦80k to ₦180k, then to ₦300k in December 2020. Also, I had a couple of side hustles I was getting from people in the UK. That was creative work, and it brought in £100 here, £600 there at least once a month. I didn’t keep a handle on these, so I didn’t track how the money was coming in. But it always came. 

Must be nice. Back to June 2020?

Well, my money was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. It was just best to move on. I went back to mutual funds and started buying some stocks on Bamboo. The major thing I’ve been into since that time is crypto. Here’s the thing: as much as I like to put money into many things, I don’t know what I’m doing sometimes. And the way I navigate is constantly reminding myself that I need to take risks to grow my finances. 

Interesting stuff. 

I mean, I believe that crypto is the future but I have to mostly rely on conversations about crypto on the internet before I figure out what coin to put money in. Somehow, it has paid off. I bought my first coin in August 2020 when Ethereum was about £300 — I think about money in pounds these days. Now, the value of one Ethereum is over £3k. A little over a year later, I’m holding 18 coins and my portfolio is worth £9,479.

That’s impressive. 

Oh, and I still have some naira savings — about ₦1.9m. That’s about it. 

How do you manage all of this on a ₦300k salary?

The side jobs I got after I returned to Nigeria helped a lot, especially because I wasn’t getting paid in naira. I don’t make as much money from side hustle anymore. On average, I make between ₦150k – ₦200k monthly these days. But it’s still nice because my monthly bills wipe out my entire salary. 

Wait, how?

Let me break it down.

I also sponsor a child in an East African country, and I pay ₦18,700 into the foundation’s account every month. So yeah, I don’t live on my salary. It’s a good thing something also pops up on the side. 

I agree. I want to know how someone like you thinks about money.

Money is like water to me. I know that I’m always going to want more. I have big plans for the future. I don’t want to just leave something for my kids and grandkids; I want my great-grandkids to benefit from the moves I’m making now and the ones I’ll make in the future. 

I also believe money is hard to come by, and that’s why I don’t look down on it. I think I try too hard to look for money sometimes. My mum thinks I’m running faster than my age. I don’t think it’s that deep; I don’t want to suffer. I can’t afford to suffer. 

Amen. How much do you feel like you should be earning now?

₦750k is the first number that comes to mind, so I’m going to stick to it. I feel like I’ve put in a lot of effort at work and should have grown more than I have. I deserve that money. I know I do. 

I mean, that’s very relatable. Based on what you currently earn and your investment portfolio, is there anything you want but can’t afford?

A car. My transportation budget every month is ₦40k, and it’s always a struggle not to go above it. I feel like a car would make it cheaper. I can scrape enough money together to buy a car, but it’s not a priority right now and that tells me that I don’t have enough money for it. 

What part of your finances do you think you could be better at?

Investments. For example, I’m putting money into crypto even though I don’t understand it. The same thing happens with stocks — I buy companies whose names I like. It would be great to actually have an in-depth knowledge of these things and not just go in blindly. 

Rooting for you there. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

I would give it a four. If I lose my job today and don’t get anything in three to four months, I might be back to square one. I’m not satisfied with what I have across the board because it’s simply not enough. I believe it could be more. If my crypto portfolio explodes, this number will go up. But until then, I’ll continue to try and improve my financial knowledge and hopefully achieve financial savviness at some point. I’d love to stop making mistakes and falling for silly schemes. That would be growth in my books. 

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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.

The 35-year-old in this story was forced out of his home after a Boko Haram attack in 2016. Subsequently, he came to Lagos to start over, and he was getting back on his feet until a government decision set him back.

When was the first time you knew what money meant?

In the early 90s, I used to hawk pepper with my mum every afternoon after school. It was from whatever we made she took ₦2 or ₦3 to give me every morning to take to school. This was how I knew that you had to work to make money. I was 10 years old. 

Could you paint me a picture of what things were like growing up?

My mum was a farmer who sold things on the side, and she was all my younger sister and I had. My dad wasn’t in the picture — he was in Chibok, my hometown. I don’t have the details but they had issues they couldn’t get past after my sister was born. Eventually, my mum left him and took us with her to Toto in Nasarawa State where her family was. 

Things were a little rough for the first few years, but she tried her best to provide for us. But I had to get involved as soon as I could to help, and that’s why I started hawking with her. When I was in JSS 3 in 2001, my mum stopped me from hawking because she thought I was getting too old for it. Things had gotten better too — she had raised money to set up a small store where she sold foodstuff. We were doing better than ever. 

Sadly, my mum passed away a year later in 2002.

I’m so sorry. 

My sister and I moved in with my mum’s sister, who was also a farmer. However, money was always a problem and she struggled to raise us with her own kids. After living with her for two years, I made a decision. 

What was that?

I would go to Chibok to look for my dad. I convinced my aunt to let me go, and she even gave me ₦6k. After two days on the road, I arrived at Chibok. I didn’t have a lot of trouble finding my family home, and for the first time in years, I saw my dad.

Do you remember what that felt like?

I don’t know but I’ll tell you what he did: he embraced me for a long time, then he took me to the rest of the family and introduced me as the son he had been talking about. At that moment, I knew my sister and I were coming home and we would be okay. 

A week or two after I arrived, he sent money to my sister in Nasarawa and she joined us in Chibok.

Sweet. What happened after?

Nothing much happened in the first four years except helping him on his rice farm. In 2008,  he asked me about my plans for the future. I was in SS 1 when my mum died, but going back to school wasn’t an option anymore. First, he didn’t have enough money to send me to school. Also, the quality of the government-owned schools there were bad, so I didn’t see a point in going to one of them. 

What did you decide on then?

I was interested in cars and wanted to know how they work. I told him I’d like to learn how to be a mechanic. He knew someone who had a workshop in Maiduguri and asked him if I could be one of his apprentices. In September 2008, I moved to Maiduguri to start my apprenticeship. I was with my boss until 2014.

Six years?

Yes. My boss liked to do everything well. So he didn’t talk about my graduation until he was sure I could work on any petrol or diesel engine. 

Omo. What were things like during those years?

I was comfortable. I lived with him for the entire time and he fed me and the other apprentices. In return, we helped around the house and took care of the workshop. I was making some money here and there too — customers who came to the workshop sometimes tipped us money when we worked on their cars and it was anything from ₦100 to ₦300. In a month, I made an average of ₦3k from tips, which I always sent to my sister in Chibok because I didn’t have much need for money.

When I finally graduated in 2014, my boss gave me a space in his workshop because he knew I didn’t have enough money to set out on my own. He even sent some of his clients my way. 

Your boss sounds like a nice person. 

He was. I started working on cars and keeping all the money I made. In the first few months after my graduation, I was making between ₦6k and ₦8k monthly. One of the first things I did was move out of my boss’s home to rent my own space, and I got a room for ₦250/month. I was starting my life.

Later in 2014, my dad died after a short illness. There was nothing for my sister in Chibok anymore, so I brought her to live with me in Maiduguri. She lived with me for only a year though.

Why, what happened?

She got married in 2015 and moved in with her husband.  I thought it was time for me to finally settle down too. I had someone I was interested in already, so it took only a few months after my sister’s wedding before I did mine too. It was a small one, and I’m not sure I spent up to ₦5k. 

What were things like financially after you got married?

I was still at my boss’s workshop, making about ₦1k every day. After sorting out transportation and lunch, I’d bring about ₦600 home, and that would go to my wife. On the good days, there was extra to save. 

It wasn’t a lot but things were easy, at least until Boko Haram became a problem. 

Tell me about that.

The attacks had started small-small since 2010. But it became more serious in 2013 after the Chibok kidnappings. Soldiers took over the whole state, and we had to adjust to a new life. There were checkpoints everywhere, curfews everywhere. The sad thing about this was that people weren’t going out as much, which meant that there weren’t cars to repair anymore.

My son was born in 2015, in the middle of all this. In 2016, I moved the family to Mule — a small town in Maiduguri. I thought we would be safer there. I was wrong. 

Ah.

I cannot forget the day Boko Haram attacked my community. The gunshots started around 4 a.m. Then bombs followed. I hid my family in our room because there was nowhere else to hide. We laid there until soldiers came later in the morning and said we could come out. I looked at my five-month-old son and realised that he could have died. I decided to leave Maiduguri that morning. Three days later, I returned to my aunt in Nasarawa. I didn’t have to worry about my sister — she and her husband had gotten out of Maiduguri.

How did you manage to get out?

It was a struggle. We didn’t have enough money for the journey — my wife and I had ₦4k between us,  which couldn’t get us far. Thankfully, we found a truck carrying watermelons to Damaturu. From Damaturu, we joined a vehicle going to Nasawara. It was a difficult journey, but we were safe at last. 

I can’t imagine how tough that was. 

I had to start all over again. I stayed in Nasarawa for a month before I left my wife and son and came to Lagos. This was November 2016. 

Why did you come to Lagos?

I had an uncle who worked as a driver for a company, and he said he would accommodate me and help me find work in the city. And he did. I got my first job in February 2017. 

Tell me about the job. 

It was at a security company, and I was hired as a mechanic to work on their trucks. The pay was ₦15k. 

Your first official salary. 

Yes. I was living with my uncle, so rent and feeding wasn’t a problem. Because of that, I could send ₦10k to my wife every month. The rest went mostly towards my transportation expenses. There was hardly anything left to save after that. 

However, I wasn’t enjoying the job. I was working long hours without extra pay. After a few months, I realised that the money wasn’t worth the stress. I left the job in December 2017. 

Did you find something else before you quit?

Something like that. Someone gave me a fairly-used okada on a hire-purchase agreement. I was supposed to pay him ₦200k for it, and the plan was that I would deliver ₦7k to him every week. 

How did this go?

It took me a year before I could complete the payment, and it felt like I was working for him the whole time.

I was making about ₦2k – ₦2500 every day, but the policemen, area and union boys would harass me and take from what I’d made.  After everything, I would have only about ₦1200 left, and some of it would still go into buying fuel.

It broke my heart to do this, but I had to reduce the money I sent home to my wife to ₦7k per month. Whatever else I made went into paying the guy who gave me the okada. Still, I couldn’t meet the December deadline he gave me to complete the payment, and he threatened to take the bike away from me. I had ₦25k left to pay o. Thankfully, my uncle stepped in and gave me the money.

 But he also asked me to stop the bike work one month later.

Why?

I had an accident, and I spent a few days in the hospital because of it. When I came out of the hospital, I started looking for a new job and found one as a mechanic in a workshop. The salary was ₦25k/month. I was managing that until I was robbed on my way back from work one night. I quit the job the following day. 

I decided that I had no choice but to return to riding okada. In April 2020,  I sold my old bike for ₦70k and added it to the ₦60k I had in my savings and used the money to buy a new okada. 

How did it go this time?

It was much better because everything I made was mine. I only worked early in the morning and late at night because I didn’t want anybody to harass or arrest me. On average, I made between ₦2500 and ₦3k every day. I made sure that I saved ₦2k from whatever I made in a day — ₦1k went to a daily contribution I was in and ₦1k went into my own savings. 

You were saving about ₦60k every month.

Yes. My main concern was sending money to my wife every month, and I was able to send at least ₦20k. Things were good and I was very happy about it.

In December 2020, I thought it was time to bring my family to Lagos, and I did that. I moved out of my uncle’s place and rented a small room that cost ₦1500/month.

I imagine it was great finally having your family with you.

I was so happy, and I promised myself to work harder. Unfortunately, the Lagos state government banned okadas in February 2020, and that started to affect me. I couldn’t stop it totally because it was all I had to take care of my family.  

How did the ban affect your earnings?

I had to stay off the main roads, so I wasn’t making as much. It was a struggle to make up to ₦1500 per day in the first few months of the ban. The police started harassing me more for money too. But the biggest people to worry about were Task Force — those ones would take your bikes away. 

Things started to calm down after a few months, and I thought it was over. After the lockdown, all of us started returning to the major roads. Nothing else happened until March this year. 

What happened in March?

I only work within the mainland because of Task Force, but a customer begged me to take them to the island. He said he was late for an interview and promised to pay me ₦1500, so I decided to risk it. The moment I dropped him and wanted to turn back, a Task Force vehicle pulled up and their officers jumped out. It was too close and there was no way for me to drive away. They grabbed me, pulled me off my bike and took it away. Till today, I haven’t seen my bike. 

I went to their office a few times, but the people I met there said there was nothing I could do to get it back and advised me to let it go. 

Ah.

I had about ₦60k in savings at the time. I took the money to the market and bought foodstuff for the house. My wife said she would use some of the beans I bought to start a small akara business. This happened for some time, and it brought some money in. Unfortunately, a paint of beans that used to cost between  ₦1200 and ₦1500 went up to ₦2500 – ₦3000. When we realised that she couldn’t sell akara anymore, we raised ₦10k and she switched to selling pap. 

Do you have an idea how much this brings in?

₦1700 – ₦2000 on a very good day, and that’s everything we live on. I think about this, and I feel so sad. But there’s nothing I can do about it until I find a new job. 

How much do you think would be great for you right now?

I want to say ₦60k/month, but I also know that I’ll take whatever I see now — it will get me to my plan faster. I want to return home to Maiduguri because it would be cheaper to open a workshop. Life is better there, and I feel like my family will be happier first. But I need money to do all this.

How would you say your experiences have shaped the way you see money?

For me, I think there are some things you shouldn’t do when you don’t have money and one of them is giving birth to a child. Sometimes, I look at my son and feel so guilty. It’s like I brought him here to suffer. He’s almost six now and is not in school. He stopped going to school after they took my okada. I feel like I’ve failed him.

I’m sorry you feel that way. Do you remember the last thing you spent money on that made you happy?

I don’t know how much I spent bringing my family to Lagos, but that would be it. I felt complete when they came here. My wife and I would share stories about the past every night and we would laugh about them. I was truly happy.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

3. I’ve always tried my best to provide for my family, and now it feels like I’ve failed them. I’m only happy when they are and even though my wife doesn’t complain and my son is still young,  I don’t think they are happy. And every day, I feel like it’s my fault. This number can only go up when I start earning again.

UPDATE: Upon request from readers, we’ve added a payment link for people interested in sending him some love and light here.

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.

Want a career in tech? Get a headstart by enrolling for a diploma in software engineering at AltSchool Africa. You pay no tuition until you get hired. Start Now.

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In 2018, the 20-year-old in this #NairaLife randomly applied for a coding training course and didn’t look back. Three years and a couple of courses later, she works as a front-end developer. How much does the job pay her per month? ₦470k.

What’s your oldest memory of money?

When I was four years old, my sister and I frequented my grandparents’ house because my grandmother was ill. Our visits usually coincided with my granduncle’s, and he would dash every kid in the house ₦5. I knew the money could buy me biscuits or sweets, so I looked forward to the drop. But my sister always complained that she couldn’t do a lot with the money. This was how I learnt that more money meant more sweets.

The biggest awareness of money came when I was in JSS 3 when I was stuck at home because I owed school fees. It shocked me because I always thought my parents were doing well. 

Do you remember why you thought so?

I never heard them complain about money. I knew we weren’t rich-rich, but things were just always done. Our school fees were paid on time, and we didn’t lack any basic needs. It wasn’t until much later that I found out that my dad was in-between jobs, and my mum worked as an instructor at a catering school and occasionally worked some catering gigs. 

Anyway, the school fees thing opened my eyes, and I had more appreciation for money. Deep down too, I wanted to start making money as soon as possible because I thought it was up to me to assist my parents. I quickly realised that the only thing I could do then was to go to school and become one of the best in my class and that’s what I did. 

I got two opportunities to make some money while I was still in secondary school though. 

I’m listening. 

When I was in SSS 1, I helped about 15 guys in my class buy roses and greeting cards for their crushes during Valentine. I made about ₦1500 in profit. God, it made me so confident in myself and gave me the ginger to do the second thing two years later.

What was it?

During our final exams, 50 people in my class gave me ₦1k each to get exam dubs for them — I knew a guy, and I paid him about ₦20k and kept the rest. Because of this, I had a bit of money on me when I finished secondary school. This was July 2018. 

Interesting. What happened after you left secondary school?

I started trying to figure out what to study in university, but I wasn’t particularly interested in any course. In the end, I went for what my folks liked: electrical engineering.

I had time to kill when I started my application process. In July, I found a one-month computer coding training sponsored by the state government, and I applied for it. 

Was coding something you had always been interested in? 

I learned some of the basics at a summer camp I went to when I was in SS 1. While I liked the experience, I didn’t give it much thought or do anything with it after the camp ended. The training I found felt like a good opportunity to return to it. Besides, it also felt like something I could do to make money. 

When the training ended in August 2018, I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I knew I didn’t know enough about coding to make money off it yet. Luckily, I got another training opportunity with a tech company to learn python programming, and I went for it. I applied and wrote the test in August and got accepted in September. It was a 3-month course with an option to apply to their internship programme upon completion.

How much was the internship, and did you apply to it?

₦25k/month. I was 17 years old, and the money felt like a lot. But no, I didn’t apply because they needed me to stay for a year, which wasn’t possible since I was in the middle of my university application. I was a little sad about it, but we move.

Unfortunately, my university application wasn’t successful. In December 2018, I signed up for the state-sponsored coding again. I was there for about two or three months and learned about HTML and CSS. 

The first few months of 2019 was about applying to the university again, writing the exams. I was also registering for every training programme for young developers I could find — this felt like the easiest route to improve my skills. It was a good thing I did this because one of them moved the needle. 

Tell me about it. 

I had developed an interest in front-end engineering. In July, I applied to a three-month programme at DevCareer and was accepted the following month. By November, I could tell that I was ready to start taking on jobs. 

Nice. When did you get your first job?

July 2020. It took nine months to get my first job. A couple of things happened between that time too: I got admitted into the university and started classes in January 2020. Then Covid happened and academic activities just stopped. There was nothing much to do, and I threw myself into finding my first job. 

So you got your first job in July 2020. How did it happen?

A referral. One of the guys at DevCareer knew someone who needed a front-end engineer for an e-commerce website. The pay was about ₦210k. However, the project ran for a few months, and I was paid in instalments. I got ₦75k at the beginning of the project, then another ₦75k a month later. The balance came at the end of the project, which was in February this year. 

Ah, I see. How did the project go?

Omo, it wasn’t the best. They kept asking for specifications and features I didn’t agree to when I came on board. Unfortunately, I didn’t know enough to ask for a contract renegotiation. I cared too much about adding the job to my CV, so I stuck with it. In hindsight, that was a mistake. But lesson learnt. 

I got a couple of little projects in the months that followed, which paid between ₦100k and ₦150k. In December 2020, I got my next major gig with a fintech company. I worked with them for three months, and I was paid ₦350k.

 

 

Neat. I’m curious about what your expenses were at the time.

I was living with my parents and didn’t have many expenses. The only thing on my mind was saving money to buy myself a MacBook so the bulk of my earnings went straight into my savings. A gig I got in March 2021 and finished up in April got me to my goal. I got ₦400k from it. I bought the laptop the following month, and it cost ₦560k. 

Well done. A segue: what would you say your relationship with money was like after you got your first couple of gigs?

I became quite generous with money for other people. I would ask my mum what she wanted and get it for her and randomly send my dad some money. My friends would ask for loans, and I wouldn’t think too much before I made it happen. To make sure my savings wasn’t affected though, I didn’t do a lot of things for myself in the first couple of months. I had money somewhere and that was the most important thing.

That sense of security. What does it do to someone?

 I became a little proud, and rightfully so. I was 19 years old and making small moves. I could handle my most basic needs.

Sounds nice o. Back to your gigs. 

The last guys I worked for decided to put me on retainer in May for three months at ₦160k/month. I liked the structure that came with getting money every month, so I started looking for a full-time job and threw myself into job applications.

I heard about how TalentQL helps programmers in Nigeria find jobs from some people I knew from my time at DevCareers. I applied to their talent pool in April and wrote a test the same day. A few days later, I had an interview with their recruiter. In May, I did another batch of interviews and wrote another test. By the end of the month, I was accepted into the programme and they sent my CV to a couple of tech companies. 

Two months later, I got my first offer. ₦200k/month. 

Did you take it?

No. I told them that it didn’t work for me and they increased it to ₦250k/month. I would have jumped straight at it then, but they said it was going to be a while before I would be up for renegotiation. Sounded like bad vibes.

I was interviewing with another company I had a good feeling about. I reached out to them and told them that I had an offer I was considering. That must have woken them up because they sent their offer before the week was over. 

Haha. How much?

₦470k + equity options and health insurance. The email came in around 11 p.m, and I returned the signed copy of the offer letter the following morning. I started the job the same month.

I deeply respect money, and that’s why I save as if my life depends on it. My salary is paid in USDT and for the most part, I leave it in my crypto wallet untouched. I have a small gig that pays me ₦35k/month, and that’s what I mostly live on every month. When I have to touch my salary, I don’t take more than ₦50k/month.

Omo. This is the part where I ask you to break down your monthly running costs.

I know that this is only possible because I live with my parents and we live very close to the university. I don’t always have to worry about food. I don’t worry at all about rent. I help with money at home now and then. The fact that I do this even used to be a problem — my parents feared that I was so bent on working because I felt Iike I had to support them. But we’ve had a series of conversations about it, and everyone is now on the same page. 

Wholesome. If you live on ₦35k/month, I wonder what your savings look like.

Right now? I have about $4k, which is in USDT. I used to save in Naira, but when I realised that it didn’t make much sense, I moved my money out of my Nigerian accounts. 

Fair enough. Are investments your thing?

Not really. I have some stocks here and there on Bamboo, but nothing major. I started with $25 and put money in it whenever I can. Also, I have some crypto assets that are worth about ₦80k at the moment, and that’s it. My primary strategy at the moment is savings and increasing my income. 

Interesting you mentioned that. How much do you feel you should be earning right now?

Anything between $2k and $2500 sounds great. I’ve grown as a developer and should easily get a job that pays that much. But the fact that I’m still in my second year of university is affecting my earning potential. That said, I’m good at what I do and I deserve all the dollars. 

Preach! You should be out of school in five years. How much do you imagine you will be earning then?

If everything goes well, that number should be between $12k and $15k. In five years, I would have about seven years of work experience. And I’m pretty sure I would have left front-end engineering and dived into something else. I guess that it would be the blockchain or web3. That knowledge should come with a big paycheck. 

Besides, I would very much like to retire by 30 if I can help it. I need to figure out how to consistently increase my income if I want to save more and invest in the right opportunities.

Sounds like a plan. Back to the present. What’s something you want right now but can’t afford?

The new M1 Max MacBook. It’s so fast, but it also costs more than $4k. I’m not rich enough to splurge on it right now. I don’t think it’s something I’m getting next year either. It’s going to be a fun fantasy for a while until something else replaces it. 

Is there something you bought recently that improved the quality of your life though?

That should be my iPhone. In August, I traded my iPhone 8 for an 11 pro and added ₦350K. Now, I don’t have to worry about my phone dying on me every time. It’s bliss.

How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

I’d say 6. I think I could be earning more, and I’d feel a lot better if I am. At the moment, I can’t help thinking that things could still go south, which is crazy because I save almost everything I earn. The best way to deal with this is to save more and the best way to save more is to earn more. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself, but I can’t wait for that $2500/month job. 

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A golden opportunity to get your hands on some of that tech money. Apply to earn a Diploma in Software Engineering at no cost. Apply Here

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.

It’s not every time someone turns their life around at their first job, but that’s what happened for the guy in this week’s story. From being unemployed at the beginning of 2020 to earning ₦327k/month by the middle of 2021. This is how it happened.

What’s your oldest memory of money?

My dad — before he passed — used to have a lot of his friends over at our house, and they would dash me money when they were leaving. This was anything from ₦20 to ₦50. My mum collected the money, and I knew enough to forget about it the moment she “kept” it for me. 

Haha. I know this racket. 

You know. I started getting money I could keep when I got older. I spent the first two years of secondary school in the hostel and the bulk of my monthly allowance was with my housemaster. He would give me between ₦20 and ₦50 every day during break time. 

You mentioned that your dad passed earlier. When did this happen?

2002. Subsequently, we had to rely on what my mum earned as a teacher. This came with a couple of changes. We moved from a 3-bedroom apartment to a room and parlour and my mum sold her car. 

I realised quickly that my mum had good financial management. Before she got her salary at the end of the month, she would draw up a budget of what the money was going into. I didn’t understand at the time, but I knew it had to be important if she did it every month. In 2004, she saved enough money to buy a piece of land. Two years later, we moved into the building.  

Nice.

It still puzzles me how she managed to do it all because she also made sure my younger brother and I remained in private schools when my dad died. I imagine she took some loans to make sure things didn’t break. It was a lot for her, but she made it work. She’s also big on education, so I had only one job: do well at school and go to university. She wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Fair enough. When did you get into uni?

2012. I studied biological sciences. A few weeks after I started classes, I saw an opportunity to make money. 

Tell me about it. 

I was taking a course that had lots of technical drawing assignments. I was good at this, but I didn’t think much of it until someone who had failed the course the previous year asked me to help them with an assignment. I agreed and they paid me ₦1500 for my troubles. I thought that was it until they referred someone else to me, and that person paid me too. I had nothing to lose, so I started taking more of these assignments. As the topics became more complex, I charged more. At the peak of it, I was getting between ₦10k and ₦15k from this. Unfortunately, it was only a semester course and the money stopped coming in when I resumed for the second semester. 

What did that mean for you?

I had to start living on my monthly allowance, which was ₦5k. It was consistent at first, but when I got to 200 level, things changed a bit. The government wasn’t paying my mum her salary regularly, so she didn’t have much money to send me. Sometimes, I could go close to two months without getting anything from home, and when it came, it might not be up to ₦5k. 

That would have taken some getting used to. How did you navigate this?

There was always food at home. I went to school in the same town we lived in, so all I had to do was find my way home and get food supplies. Most of my expenses were tied to transportation. If I didn’t have enough money to board a cab to school, I trekked the distance using a shortcut. 

It also helped that I was a conservative spender. Before I made a decision to spend money on anything, I would think about it for some time. If I couldn’t justify the need, I wouldn’t spend the money. 

Do you want to talk about what your finances looked like when you graduated from university?

Vibes and Insha Allah. There were hardly any job opportunities for students or even graduates where I lived. When I graduated from university in 2017, I returned to the house and stayed there until it was time to go for NYSC. This was April 2018. 

I was posted to the north, but I relocated to the southwest. My place of primary assignment was a government-owned school. Now, I had two income sources.

What were they?

The federal government allowance and the state allowance — the state government paid corps members working in government organisations 4k. 

And this brought your monthly earnings to ₦23,800?

Exactly. I lived on the state government allowance and saved the federal government allowance. It helped that the city I served had a low cost of living. My major expenses were transportation and feeding, and the ₦4k was enough to take care of this. I have to mention that I cooked my meals though. 

At first, I was saving for a phone, which I bought after three months. Then my savings goal changed. The plan was to save towards japa. I had my eyes on a country in Europe for my master’s, and I wanted to have something to start the process before I involved my mum.

At the end of my service year in March 2019, I had about ₦150,000 in my savings. The first thing I did was to get my passport. Then I started applying to schools. 

Something else happened: my mum sent a broadcast message on WhatsApp to me. It was a job vacancy at an oil company. My first instinct was to ignore it, but she persuaded me to apply. Although I did this, my focus was on my masters’ applications. 

I spent hours on Nairaland researching how to apply to schools abroad. I applied to more than 20 schools. By July, I had six admission offers. Tuition is free in Germany, but I still needed to show that I could afford to take care of myself when I got there. That’s how I started looking for proof of funds money, which was ₦4m at that time. By August, I had only ₦1m —  a loan my mum took for me. Six months later, I still hadn’t gotten the rest of the money. The embassy eventually rejected my application in January 2020. I had put my heart into it, so naturally, I was crushed. 

I’m sorry about that.

It lasted for a short time. When I got the visa denial mail, I started looking for scholarship opportunities in Europe and Asia. But I didn’t have to do this for long. 

Why, what happened?

Remember the job I applied for in March 2019? I wrote the exam in June and went for an interview in July. The trail went cold after that, and I didn’t bother about it. Out of the blue, I got an email from them in February with an offer letter. It was a complete surprise. Immediately I saw it, I was like “I’m ditching study plans for now.”

LMAO. How much did they offer to pay you?

My monthly basic net was ₦114k. I had never earned a six-figure salary and that made it so exciting.  I resumed the job in May. We worked remotely until December when I was posted to one of the facilities in the south. Now, a couple of interesting things happened during that time. 

Tell me.  

I knew the greatest perk of the job was the allowances, but I didn’t know how much it would be. They paid the first one in July, and my take-home that month was about ₦300k.

Do you know what it was for?

It was for some allowances they paid in arrears. When I was confirmed three months later, my monthly pay increased to about ₦200k — basic pay and monthly allowances, minus the deductions — which are mostly taxes and dues. 

Also, I learned something about the salary structure. Every staff on the payroll gets a lump sum at the beginning of the year: the management holds off on paying some allowances until the beginning of each year. Since I joined in May, they were going to pay the lump sum allowances for 2020 in arrears at the end of the year. There were some delays but they came in January.

How much?

About ₦2m — it’s money for rent, security, home appliances and a couple of other things. I remember thinking “So I’m a millionaire like this. The lump sum allowances for 2021 came a few days later. Sha, I had more than ₦ 5m in my account before the week was over.

Omo. I’m curious about what you do for them

Ah, I’m still an entry-level staff, and I haven’t been fully posted to a department yet. That won’t happen until December this year. At the moment, I work in operations where I ensure proper maintenance of equipment and facilities and other safety responsibilities.

Anyway, at the beginning of the year, I knew what my financial plan for the rest of the year would look like.

What did your plan look like?

First, save in dollars, and I decided to use PiggyVest dollar wallet for this. Secondly, invest in dollars — RiseVest plans covered this. Thirdly, set some money aside for personal development. 

How much did you put into all of this at that point?

PiggyVest dollar wallet: ₦500k

Risevest: ₦1m

Personal development: ₦1m.

Also, I made a downpayment of ₦250k for a real estate investment. I bought three plots of land, and it costs ₦3m. I spread the balance over 24 months. I’ll finish paying that in June 2022. 

Lit. Let’s talk about 2021. 

My net salary changed in January. There was an increase in tax, so an extra ₦5k was deducted from my salary. In the same month, they started paying me a hazard allowance, and this brought my take-home to ₦236k. Nothing else happened until July. 

What happened in July?

The staff union had been negotiating a new pay with the management. They reached an agreement in March, and it went into effect the same month. But they didn’t start paying until July, so they had to pay us the outstanding amount in arrears.

What did this mean for you?

My gross salary increased by ₦120k, subject to the usual deductions. Since that time, my monthly net has been ₦327k.

Rooting for you oh. What do you do when your salary comes in?

I receive ₦287k every month because I’m in cooperative savings at work, and they deduct ₦40k from my salary before it gets to me. I have this trick I use, which I learned from a Naira Life story from last year — the 30:30:30:10 formula. 

An OG. 

30% — savings

30% — living expenses 

30% — disposable income 

10% — benevolence 

Basically, ₦86k goes into my core savings, I send another ₦86k to my rent target savings account, and I live on ₦86k for the rest of the month. 

Sweet. Can we attempt a breakdown of your disposable income?

What do your savings and investments currently look like?

I have ₦2.6m in core savings at the moment. I recently liquidated my dollar savings for an investment opportunity.

Tell me about it?

I bought a 2004 Honda vehicle for hire-purchase, and it cost ₦1m. I expect to get ₦1.8m back when the repayment cycle is over.

Ah, I see. What about your other investments?

That’s about ₦7m at the moment. 

RiseVest portfolio: ₦1.23m

Real estate value: ₦4m

Personal development: ₦1m

 I joined a couple of people to invest in some startups at the beginning of the year and put ₦500k in it. My investment is worth ₦800k now. 

Man, a lot has definitely happened in less than two years. How has this shaped your perspective about money?

The most important realisation, for me, is that money unlocks the potential to make more money. But this doesn’t happen in isolation — it has a lot to do with sound financial management. I know that as long as I can put the little money I have to good use, I’ll be fine. 

How much do you feel you should be earning?

I believe I’m well paid, considering where I am in my career. It’s rare to find an entry-level job that pays this much. Of course, I earn less than the people who work with some other oil companies, but if there’s anything I’ve learned to be in the past couple of years, it’s content. 

Word. What was the last thing you bought that improved the quality of your life?

I bought a couple of electronics and gadgets for my apartment in January, but my favourite purchase is my washing machine. The value I’m getting for the ₦130k I spent on it is unbelievable.

What about something you want right now but can’t afford?

A second nationality. If I have $150k to invest in the Bahamas now, I can get their passport. The thing is, after Germany didn’t work and I got this job, I decided to see what I could achieve here. As I earn more, my interest in travelling is increasing, but the Nigerian passport is a drawback. I aspire for a life where I can work in Nigeria during the week, travel to the UK to see Liverpool play at Anfield Stadium during the weekend, make a quick stop at France and get back to Nigeria in time for the new week. 

Sounds lit tbh. What part of your finances do you think you could be better at?

I don’t spend enough money on myself. It’s like I get paid and the only thing on my mind is how much I can save and invest. I know life is short and it wouldn’t hurt to relax and enjoy my life as much as I can, but I also have long term goals I’d like to achieve, and I’d rather sacrifice for a bit if it means I’d get to them sooner. 

Fair enough. How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 0-10?

8. I’m content with what I have. I believe I’m navigating my finances just right, and it can only get better from here. There is also no crippling family obligations, and this gladdens my heart so much. My mum is still working and earning a salary. While I send some money to her every now and then, I’m happy to do it and I know that she can live without it. My brother is currently in university, and he’s balling because my mum and I can afford to send him money. It doesn’t get better than this. 

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.

Inside this #NairaLife is a 30-year-old actress and screenwriter whose biggest struggle is income stability. Does her line of work have something to do with this? Yes, but it runs a little deeper than that.

Let’s start with your earliest memory of money.

It was watching my mum carry most of the financial weight of the family. My dad is a full-time pastor and my mum is a civil servant. Although her civil service salary wasn’t much, it was better than what my dad earned at the church. I was 10  years old when I became aware of this. But that wasn’t the most important realisation. 

What was it?

I found out we were living on faith. For every major project my parents wanted to do and couldn’t afford, they prayed for the money. Somehow, the money always showed up. It could be a loan from my mum’s place of work or a gift to my dad. This wasn’t very healthy. My parents — my dad especially — started making decisions because he hoped that we would find the money, not necessarily because we could afford it.

Tell me about a time this happened.

When I finished secondary school in 2007, my dad insisted that I go to a private university and study economics. We could barely afford a public university o. We settled on a university in the south-south, and when we found out how much it would cost, it became a prayer point. The tuition was about ₦230k.

The family started gathering the money little by little. A week before resumption, we needed ₦50k to complete the fees, and it didn’t seem like we would find the balance. Then on the night before I was supposed to leave, someone my dad knew showed up at our house with an envelope. There was ₦50k in it. 

The exact amount you needed?

The exact amount. There were other cases like that when things came through at the last minute. In the long run, this made me complacent with my finances. The financial education I got from my parents was pretty much “pray for the money and it would come”. 

How did uni go?

I switched to another private university in the southwest in my second year because my grandmother wanted me to be closer to her.  My mother covered my tuition until I graduated, and she took a lot of loans for it. I didn’t have a steady allowance because tuition took most of our budget. On average, I was getting between ₦3k and ₦5k at a time, but I didn’t know when it would come.

I didn’t have a lot of needs. It didn’t matter that a lot of the people in my school drove cars and everyone I knew had a BlackBerry phone. As long as I had food, I was fine. I also had a thing for spending money on my friends when my parents sent money even though it meant I’d go back to being broke within a week. For someone who liked to give money away, I didn’t care about getting extra income. Until the time I graduated in 2011, I had never done anything for money. 

When did this change?

2012. I served in a state in the north central. Nothing much happened in my Place of Primary Assignment (PPA), which gave me time to get a front desk officer job at a hotel. The pay was ₦15k/month. Add this to the ₦19,800 I got from the federal government and my total monthly earning was ₦34,800. Most of the monthly running costs went into transportation and chipping in at home. The way my family worked, whatever one person earned is everyone’s money. I spent six months at the job.

Why did you leave?

I got bored. In the same month I quit, I got another job as a receptionist at a real estate company. ₦30k/month. However, I had to work at least 12 hours every day in unfavourable conditions. I had a bar stool for a chair, and I’d sit there from 8 a.m to 8 p.m, trying my best to smile at customers because that was what I was expected to do. 

A month after I started the job, one of my aunts noticed how much weight I had lost and asked me to quit, promising to send me ₦30k every month until I finished my service year. I thought it was a good deal and quit. 

Did she come through?

Haha. She did for a month, and that was it. I decided to live on my monthly stipend from the government until I finished NYSC. My service year ended in 2013. 

Post-NYSC?

I had always wanted to do something creative for work, never mind that it’s a pivot from what I studied in university. I found a school in Lagos that offered a 3-month certificate course on screenwriting. The tuition was ₦165k. My mum gathered the money for me, and I moved to Lagos in February 2013. 

Something else happened in the same month. 

What was that?

My mum won a scholarship sponsored by the Australian government, and they said she could bring her husband and her children under 18 with her. Everyone in the family, except me, was eligible to travel with her, so I remained in Nigeria. I didn’t mind this because I had my screenwriting course. 

How did it go?

Very well. As soon as I completed the programme, I got an offer to write scripts for a cable network. They paid $1k per script. 

Baller. How did this work?

I pitched my ideas to them and wrote the ones they liked. I got paid a month or two after the script was approved. Between 2014 and 2015, I wrote four scripts. The exchange rate of dollar to naira at the time was $1 to ₦200, so I earned ₦800k from the job. The bulk of the payments went into settling debt.

Oh?

I couldn’t turn to my family for help much because they were out of the country. And because they were living on the stipend my mum got from her scholarship, I thought they needed money more than I did. The next best thing was to turn to friends and ask for loans, so I was borrowing money from friends. I have to point out that I didn’t think I was living from hand to mouth. For some reason, I was in a bubble where I thought I only needed to have faith, persevere a little and everything good would come. That bubble burst in 2014. 

What happened?

My younger brother won a football scholarship to study in the US. However, the scholarship only covered 60% of his tuition. As usual, the family believed that God would do it. I think my parents raised some of the balance and sent him on his way, hoping to find the rest. My brother started to struggle in the US and nobody could come through for him. My mum had only her stipend, my dad had no income, and I was in Nigeria living from hand to mouth. In the end, my brother failed to meet the multiple payment deadlines and extensions, and he lost the admission offer. It broke all of us. 

Damn. That must hurt so bad.

See, my mindset shifted immediately, and I started to realise that I may need to start looking for ways to get money and not trusting that it would just show up. 

What came after this realisation?

I became interested in money and how to make it. Later in 2014, I got another job in the writing room of an indie TV show, and I got paid ₦20k per episode. From  2014 to 2016, I wrote 23 episodes of the show. 

Were you still borrowing money from your friends?

Oh, I was. Small loans from multiple sources helped me survive the period. I would borrow money, return it when I get paid, and borrow from someone else. It was a never-ending cycle. 

I spread my wings a little after 2014. I got my first acting job in 2015. It was a small role in a TV show, and I was paid ₦25k for it. I was written back into the show during the second season, and that brought in ₦40k. While I was shooting this show, a TV network reached out. 

What did they want?

They wanted me to voice a character for a show they were translating into Yoruba. I got hired, and that gig paid me ₦250k. 

That must have felt like a big break.

It would have felt like that if I got a couple more roles that paid that much. Now, I was a little more interested in money, and I decided to act on it. 

What did you do?

I started a drama company of sorts and worked on my first stage play. I had always been active in the drama unit of my church, so people volunteered as cast and crew members. Someone even sponsored and dropped ₦250k. I got an additional ₦100k from individual contributors. In December 2015, we showed my first stage play. 

Yay. How did it go?

 A ticket to the show cost ₦1k and we had 250 people in the audience. But we made about ₦220k in ticket sales because not everyone bought a ticket. Regardless, everyone thought it was a success. 

My mum came home from Australia to support me, and she pushed for me to take the show to Abuja. I put the money we made from the Lagos show and some extra money I got from my mum and showed the play to an Abuja audience in January 2016. Bruv, everything went down the drain. 

What happened?

To be honest, we did the Lagos show based on vibes and spent nothing on marketing. I thought we could ride on the same wave in Abuja. Only 50 people came to see the show, and just about 15 people bought tickets. Most of them were even family and friends.

That’s rough. 

That taught me I wasn’t special, but I continued working on more shows. Nothing much happened until August 2017 when I got another job. 

Where was this?

A children’s clothing store, and I was hired as an e-commerce officer. The pay was ₦45k/month. After three months, a new chief operations officer came in and moved me to the brand and marketing department. I quit four months later because there was hardly any space for expression and the owner thought they owned us because they paid us a salary. When I couldn’t deal with it anymore, I turned in my resignation letter. This was February 2018.

What came after?

My focus returned to writing and producing stage plays —  all of them faith-based stories. By 2019, I had written six plays and done 15 productions in Lagos and Abuja. None of them was as successful as the first one I showed in 2015. Whatever little money I made from a show went into paying a vendor I was owing or planning the next one. I wasn’t even paying my cast or crew — they were there because they volunteered. But I had to care of all the logistics. I borrowed money to make it work.  By December 2019, there was a problem —  I was neck-deep in debt.

Omo. How much?

About ₦500k. My team understood when I told them I could no longer run the organisation, and most of them raised money for me to settle the debt —  ₦500 here, ₦1000k there. With what they raised for me and some additional money my mum got, I cleared half of the debt.

With that settled, I knew I had to go back to full-time employment.  It didn’t make sense to continue producing plays no one was coming to watch. I started looking for a job. 

When did you find one?

February 2020. A bank had just started a creative unit to create ads, and they needed a screenwriter. Someone referred me, and I got the job. My salary was ₦230k. 

Nice. 

This was the first time in a long time I got paid every month. My priority was clearing my debt, and I did that within the first few months. Then I figured it was time to start saving, but that just didn’t work.

Why not?

I returned to being an impulsive giver. 2020 was tough for a lot of people I know. I couldn’t see my people constantly in need without stepping in. Whenever people hit me up, I sent whatever I had, even if it was money I had intended to save. My partner at the time also had a major financial challenge, so my money was going out almost as quickly as it was coming in. 

Things move fast when you have a little money to spend. Soon, it was January 2021, and it came with a feeling. 

What was it?

I was going to lose my job. Since after the lockdown, they had been asking people what they were bringing to the table. They also let some people go in 2020, but I wasn’t touched because my department head was fighting to keep us. I knew she couldn’t do it for much longer, and I was right. From January to April, it was one issue or the other with HR. None of it was hardly my fault. The whole back and forth started to stress me. I figured it was time to leave in April.

Now that I think about it, I probably decided to leave because I had started another production company. I shot my short film in January, and it was released in April. I spent ₦450k on this — my mum dropped half of the money. Then I started to work on a series, which cost me ₦200k to produce.

Back to the job. I told them in April that I was going to leave. This happened in May. Like that, I didn’t have a monthly income anymore. Thankfully, I got an acting job, which paid me ₦220k in June. In the same month, I was hired to write a screenplay for a show, and I got ₦150k for that. One month later, I got another writing job that paid me ₦650k.

Man, you were on a streak. 

Haha. The payment was made in four instalments between July and September, so the money didn’t have as much impact as I imagine it would have if I had been paid everything at once. I worked on my second short film and released it in September. The production cost was about ₦120k.

I’ve been on a dry run since that time — I haven’t gotten another gig or worked on a project. I woke up one day in October and came to terms that I was back to being broke.

What steps did you take after this?

My parents had returned to the country in 2016, so I moved back in with them. That was the best decision I could make for myself at this point. 

Fair enough. 

I’m still figuring out what next to do, but I need to continue earning in the meantime. In October, I registered on Bigo, a live streaming platform where I have been hosting a show. I made ₦50k from that at the end of the month. The show continues this month, and I’m hoping to surpass that number. 

What’s a good number for you right now?

Oh my goodness, anything from ₦700k sounds great. I have a friend who makes about ₦800k/month from the same platform. Realistically, it will take a while before I hit that number on Bigo.

 I also believe that I should be earning as much from paid employment. I know what I can do, but I haven’t explored the possibilities of a full-time job that much. Although paid employment will give me the income stability I don’t have at the moment, I don’t think it’s for me. I can’t deal with the whole routine that comes with it.

I see. How do you navigate life without a steady income?

It’s the same way I’ve navigated everything else: contentedness. I make do with what I earn when I earn it. As long as it covers my feeding and other basic needs, I’m fine. Some people might argue that I’m not ambitious. While I don’t think that’s true, I’ve always struggled with making long terms plans. I have to find a way to fix this now that I’m back to filmmaking. 

What do your finances currently look like?

The only savings I have to my name is ₦28k locked in a Cowrywise plan. At the moment, most of my expenses go into data and food. I would say I spend about ₦50k every month, and a lot of it comes from money gifts from my mum and friends. 

How have your experiences over the past years shaped your perspective about money?

Having faith is great, but it won’t automatically put you on a path to financial independence. Financial education will. I feel like if I had been interested in how to make money earlier, I would have done better. I wish my parents had actual conversations about money when I was younger and didn’t always go down the “let’s pray and the money will come” route.

 My dad woke up one day in 2017 and realised that he didn’t have anything he could leave behind for his kids. The realisation and regret hit him deeply, and he struggled a lot with it. He talked about starting a couple of things but didn’t have the strength and knowledge to make it happen. More importantly, he had lost time. I’m 30 now, and while I feel like it’s not too late to turn it around, I also know I’m now in a race against time.

What parts of your finances do you think you could have been better at?

Impulsive giving. That was something I did consistently over the years even when I couldn’t afford it. I don’t think I’m very good at saving money either, but I didn’t give myself a chance to find out. 

I have a feeling that there’s something you want right now but can’t afford?

There is. Film equipment — camera, light and sound. All of this should run into about ₦3.5m. I can do more with them, but I don’t have that much money laying around at the moment. 

What about something you purchased recently that improved the quality of your life?

I bought a used iPhone XR in August for content creation, and it cost ₦185k. It’s the best investment I’ve made this year. The quality of my videos has greatly improved just because of that phone. 

Lit. How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

I’m at a 3 right now. I’m still super broke and nowhere close to where I could be. That said, I’m very grateful for the opportunities to tell stories, and I have told a couple. This — for me— means I’ve not lived very badly, and I’ll just focus on that.

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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.

Between 2020 and 2021, the 25-year-old doctor in this story increased her salary by at least 5x and now earns ₦900k. But the thing is, she’d feel more comfortable with half of her current income.

What’s your oldest memory of money?

When I was six, my father would send me to our neighbours’ during Sallah with pieces of meat to share with them. I loved this errand because the neighbours would dash me money. I’d divide the money into two parts and give each to my parents to save for me. The day I asked them for it, they said it wasn’t available. 

Haha. We’ve all been there.

Actually, my dad was saving the money for me. When I was in JSS 3, he told me he had opened a bank account with all the money deposited there. He eventually gave me access to the account when I finished secondary school in 2012, and there was a little over ₦50k in it. I suspect that he topped the money up from his pockets too. 

That’s thoughtful. What did your parents do for money?

They were both civil servants. My dad worked in a science research agency owned by the Federal Government and my mum worked in the state judiciary. I never lacked anything while growing up. My siblings were much older than me and were out of school, so most of my parents’ financial resources were spent on me. 

Up until 2014, I thought there was an endless supply of money my parents dipped into at will, and this shaped my relationship with money for the longest time. 

What happened in 2014?

For context, I should start from 2013 when I got into a university in North Africa. My tuition was $5k, accommodation was $2400/year, and my allowance was $300/month. Everything was fully paid for at once, and I also got my allowance for the entire year in advance. 

For a 16-year-old girl who had just left home for the first time, it was more than sufficient. It also meant that I could splurge on random things. At the end of my first year, I had nothing saved up.

Right when I was returning to school in 2014 for my second year, my dad got diagnosed with a terminal illness. Things got really bad after that.

How?

Both my parents had retired and had a plan to live on their pension and a couple of investments they put money in over the years. The diagnosis changed everything. Most of the money went into surgery, chemotherapy and other treatment options — and they weren’t cheap. Before long, we were selling our properties to raise money for treatment. 

As a result, it was difficult to find my school fees or pay in one installmenT. My allowance was also reduced to $200, and I got only four months worth in advance. The balance came when we sold some other properties. 

Then reality set in, and I went through a series of lifestyle changes. I stopped eating out, went for the cheapest transport options and gave a lot of thought to other expenses, especially if they were out of my budget. Thankfully, I had a community of Nigerian friends with whom I was close. We would contribute a portion of allowances and use it to buy food that could last us through the month. 

My dad got better when I was in my fourth year and they put me back on my original allowance. Like that, I went back to my old habits. I moved into a cheaper apartment where I paid $1800 a month only because I wanted to have more money to spend.

I’d argue that I was a little more disciplined with money than I was in my first year if I wasn’t getting broke before the end of each month and touching the following month’s allowance before I should. 

A familiar struggle. When did you graduate from university?

2018. I returned home with no savings. I wasn’t worried about this though. The plan was to write my Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) exam and start my house job immediately after I got back. The thing was, my dad got very sick again, and it was hard to raise the ₦180k I needed for the exam. Fortunately, I made the payment deadline and passed the exam. I was inducted into the profession in January 2019. I also got a house job position in a federal hospital in the same month. 

Lit. How much did this pay?

₦178k. They didn’t pay me anything in the first five months. It had something to do with the payment platform the government was using at the time.

Tough. How did you survive those months?

My dad sent me ₦80k every month, and that was what I lived on. Unfortunately, he passed away in March. The allowance stopped and by April, I had run out of money.

What other options did you have?

Nothing. My mum had only her pension, and I felt it would be selfish to ask her or any of my siblings for money. We were all grieving. 

As a last resort, I took a quick loan from a loan company. ₦20k. The interest rate was high, but I had no other choice. I also asked a few friends to loan me money. It was easy to convince them because it was the first time I asked. I got about ₦90k from all of these sources.

I managed to stretch the money through April and May. Thankfully, I finally got paid at the end of May. 

 How much?

It was close to ₦900k, which was exciting.  I was down to ₦100k within a week though. 

Ah, how?

I don’t remember most of what I did with the money, but these were the major expenses: I paid off my debt, sent some money to my mum, fixed the multiple issues my car had and bought a new phone. The phone alone cost ₦300k. 

I was back to thinking about how to survive until the end of the month. To be honest, this is how the rest of my house job went: I’d get my salary, send ₦70k to my mum and maybe ₦30k extra a month to some people in the family. The bulk of what remained went to feeding. I wasn’t saving either. 

The most jarring thing about that period was realising the role money played in relationships. 

Tell me more about this.

Some of my close friends cut ties with me. At first, I thought they were giving me space to grieve the death of my dad. But as the months passed, I realised that it was permanent. I don’t want to assume, but I felt like it was because I didn’t have much to offer financially anymore. My friends always knew when I had money because I splurged on them. My priorities shifted after my dad died, and I couldn’t do that anymore. I guess they couldn’t call or visit anymore either. 

That’s rough. 

If I learned anything from this, it would be that relationships are “give and take”. You become irrelevant when you don’t have anything to give anymore. It was a painful process coming into this realisation.

Moving on, I finished my house job in January 2020. I went for my NYSC three months later. Ten days into the orientation course at the camp, we were asked to vacate the camp and go home. 

COVID?

Yes. I was home for about five months and living on the ₦33k allowance the government paid. In August 2020, I reported to my PPA — a health facility in a federal government ministry. At the end of the month, I saw a credit alert of ₦170k from the ministry. That was my monthly stipend. 

Sweet.

Unfortunately, I really splurged this time. Up until today, I have no idea what I spent the money on. I had about ₦50k in my account when I resumed work in September. I wasn’t worried because I was expecting another payment at the end of the month. That didn’t happen. I didn’t get paid for two months after that. 

Why, what happened?

They skip monthly payments and pay bulk amounts in arrears.  I had a boyfriend now, and he supported me for the two months I didn’t get paid. The next payment came in November. ₦340k. 

I took ₦210k out of it and bought another phone. 

Whew. 

My old phone’s screen was bad, so I convinced myself that I needed a new phone. 

Fair enough. 

I didn’t get paid for three months after that, and I had to rely on my boyfriend — who was now my fiance —  to slug it out. I finished NYSC in February 2021. The payment arrears came at the end of March. That was ₦510k.

I got married in April and used all of the money for the wedding. At the end of the day, I still had nothing left.

I’m curious, how much did you spend on your wedding?

About ₦1.3m, and it went into the purchase of furniture for our home and paying the food vendor that catered our wedding dinner. The extra ₦800k I used for this came from the money I got off the sale of some of my late dad’s shares at a company.

I’m not sure how much my husband spent, but the boxes of things he bought for me per tradition was ₦1.5m. Our families took care of the rest. 

Gotcha. I suppose a couple of things changed after you got married. 

Not much changed in the first few months. For starters, I was unemployed, so it was only him making sure our finances were in order. Also, he gave me ₦50k at the end of the month, which I usually sent to my mum. If I needed anything else, he made it happen. 

That’s sweet.

 As nice as it was that he took care of things, not earning my own money was frustrating. I couldn’t rely on him forever.

 I guess you were looking for a job then?

Yes, I was applying to various jobs at hospitals. For three months, I didn’t get a single callback. I started getting invited to interviews in July, but they led nowhere. In the same month, I decided to try a public health organisation I thought was way out of my league. Surprise, surprise, they called me for an interview. 

By August, I had done three different interviews with them. Then they called me to come and get my appointment letter and start work. I’m not going to lie, I couldn’t believe it. 

Why not?

Well, the job pays ₦900k a month. My last salary before this was ₦170k. The thing I was most excited about when I started the job in August was how my relationship with money was going to change.

How has your relationship with money changed?

They pay in dollars into my domiciliary account. I feel lazy to go to the bank and go through the process of converting it into naira, so the bulk of the money remains in my account. Between the time I started the job and now, I’ve limited withdrawals to once a month, and I don’t take more than ₦300k out. ₦120k goes to my mum. The rest of the money goes to whatever I need to do that month. 

Could you attempt a breakdown of what your monthly expenses look like?

Got it. What plans do you have for the money in your account?

I have $3800 in savings just sitting in my account. I have no idea how to move forward with investments and all that. I feel like having the money saved up in dollars and not naira is enough security. 

Also, I might have a low-risk appetite. 

Where do you think this came from?

It’s definitely from my experiences in the past few years. At my lowest point, I had to beg people for money. I don’t want to be back in a similar situation because I made a bad investment. I know where to look if I need money for an emergency and tying my money up in investments puts that sense of security at risk. 

What other things have changed in your perspective about money in the last few years?

I think there’s nothing more important than having various forms of insurance when you can afford it — health and life insurance at the top of it. My dad’s wealth took a hit when he got ill, and good insurance coverage could have prevented that. I know I might be earning well now, but it’s not going to cover the cost of a terminal illness. 

So I think everyone should use their money to buy all the safety nets they can afford. Money without insurance amounts to nothing when things go south.

Word. I’m wondering, how much do you think you should be earning now?

₦400k.

I don’t understand.

I don’t feel like I should be earning this much. Medical doctors in Nigeria don’t earn as I do much until they become consultants. I have only three years of experience and earn as much as some people who have been working for the past 12 years. Somehow, I feel like I shouldn’t be here yet. There’s definitely some impostor syndrome there.

You are here though. So how do you deal with it?

I just work as hard as I can. It’s like if I’m earning this much, I have to prove to myself that I’m worth it. I do more at work than I’m supposed to. This doesn’t totally eliminate this feeling. There are millions of people who work harder and still don’t earn quite as much. 

Hmm. What do you imagine your next level of income will look like?

I work in the development sector and from the income trajectory of people in this space, I feel like I’d be earning 100% more than I currently do in my next job. 

What would get you that job?

I’m planning to go for my master’s degree in September 2022, and I’ve started applying to schools. If everything goes well, I might get a scholarship as well. With my new qualifications and experience in public health, I’ll have a better chance of getting a job at organisations that can pay me that much. 

Sounds like a plan. How much do you think your money management strategy will change as you earn more?

I don’t know. I have a feeling I’ll continue seeing saving money as a safety net in the near future. Maybe this will change when I start earning a lot more. But for now, I’m just happy to have something to fall back on. 

I get that. What do you want right now but can’t afford?

There’s this cool 2018 Camry I like so much. It cost ₦9m the last time I checked. Even if I could afford it, I don’t think I would buy it. I’ve realised that it’s okay to want something without getting it.

What’s your biggest financial regret?

Not saving earlier. I wouldn’t have gone through the things I went through when my dad died if I had built a buffer of sorts. I regret not saving when I could and splurging on things that had no serious value. 

What about the last thing you spent money on that made you happy?

A new compressor. I live in the north, and it’s hot this time of the year. The weather is about 40°C where I live. Earlier this month, the AC unit in my car spoiled, and I had to buy a new compressor to fix it. I spent ₦100k on a new compressor and other repairs. I go out a lot because of work, so it has definitely improved the quality of my life. 

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

6. I’ve saved a bit of money in the past few months, but I don’t think I’m doing the best I can do for myself with the resources I have. I’m always like, “Okay, how do I move forward now?” I don’t have that answer yet. 

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.

The 27-year-old in this #NairaLife started a shoe business in 2012 and slowly built it over the years, thanks to social media advertising and returning. However, a few financial decisions set him back. Now, he’s playing catch up.

What’s your oldest memory of money?

2006. When I was 12, I started stealing money out of my mum’s room. We always had cash at home because she ran a micro-lending business alongside her civil service job. She took loans from a cooperative she belonged to and gave the money out to small business owners where we lived at a higher interest rate. 

I took anything between ₦1k and ₦3k, and it was a lot more compared to my allowance. I’m not proud of what I did, but it did show me one thing: the more money you have, the more you can do for yourself. I was buying stuff for people in school, so I became popular really fast.

Hmm. What were things like growing up though?. 

We were comfortable. Both my parents worked and earned money. My dad was an officer in the navy and my mum worked for the government. My mum managed most of our family’s finances. At the end of each month, my dad brought his salary home in cash and gave it to my mum to take out what she needed for the house. Whatever remained after the bills had been sorted was returned to my dad. 

My dad died in 2006, but nothing much changed. By 2008, the navy had paid us his benefits. It came in three tranches, and I know the first payment was ₦1.1m. Not sure what the other two were, but it must have been a lot too because my mum finished building our house. 

Sweet. 

I was still stealing from my mum occasionally, and she had had enough. When I finished secondary school in 2010, she sent me to live with our pastor. 

Ah, how did that go?

Not bad. The pastor travelled a lot for church activities. His wife lived in a neighbouring city, and his children had also moved out of the house. Every time he went away, he gave me between ₦500 and ₦1k to hold. I also made money from running errands for him. I think this was the time I fully stopped stealing money. 

How long did you live with him?

About a year. During this time, I was writing entrance exams into universities. 

I started getting allowances from home when I got into uni. At first, my mum sent me ₦8k every month and my uncle chipped in at times too. However, I had gotten used to getting money every week, and it was hard to manage my ₦8k until the end of the month. I always ran through it in one or two weeks. 

How did you navigate that?

A childhood friend got into the university in the same year, so we decided to live together and combine our resources. We lived on his allowance — which was about ₦15k — for the first two weeks of the month and lived on mine for the remainder of the month. 

We were living well and had money at every point we needed it. Then towards the end of 2012, my friend started a business. 

Hmm. What was that?

Online sales of shoes. Here’s how it happened: someone linked him up with some retailers in Lagos. These guys sent pictures of pairs of shoes in their stock to him, and he was supposed to find buyers for them. For every sale, he was allowed to add his own profit to the original price as compensation. 

My friend used his BlackBerry Messenger contacts to find buyers and lived on the profit he made from these sales, which ran into ₦50k and ₦100k per month. Within a few months, he had gotten a hang of it, and he brought me into the fold too. 

How?

He showed me how it worked and introduced me to his contacts in Lagos. 

I also got the bulk of my buyers from BBM when I started. There were a couple of people we called PR guys. They had a large contact base and charged people to advertise on their BBM channels and statuses. I had one of these people and paid him ₦5k for every ad he ran for me. 

I didn’t always need to find buyers. Sometimes, people reached out to me with pictures of the pair of shoes they wanted, and I helped them find it in the market, make a deal with the retailer, deliver it and keep the profit. 

Sounds interesting. How much were you making on these deals?

At least ₦10k on every pair of shoes, and I sold between 10 and 20 pairs every week. It helped that the students in my school loved spending money on how they looked. On a good week, I made about ₦100k.

Balling. 

When the session break ended, I returned to school. I’d worked out a deal with my contacts in Lagos to ship the items I found buyers for to me. Sometimes, I travelled to Lagos too and kept it moving.  

However, in the middle of 2013, the volume of sales decreased. 

Why?

Finding new customers on BBM became more difficult. Usually, if I paid for an ad with the PR guys, up to 20 new prospective buyers would hit me up. But now, I barely got 10 new contacts on every ad. Thankfully, there were returning customers. So while income dropped, it didn’t go down to zero. On an average week, I managed to sell about five pairs of shoes. 

Ah, I see. Were you still getting an allowance from home?

No, I had become totally independent. Besides, things had become a little tough at home — my mum stopped her micro-lending business when we moved into our own home. My older sister and I were in the university, and she had to figure it out on her civil service salary. To make things easier, I asked her to stop sending me an allowance. 

In 2015, the business picked up again. This was actually where it peaked. 

What made the difference?

I started paying for Facebook ads, and it changed everything. The best part was that it wasn’t expensive. I could spend ₦5k on ads and get tens of orders. Now, I could sell up to 100 pairs of shoes in a very good month and make at least ₦10k in profit on each one. That was a lot of money. 

Agreed. What did that do to your standard of living?

Oh, I was a big boy in school. I lived in a furnished apartment and used the latest gadgets. There was almost nothing I wanted that I couldn’t afford. I started going to clubs almost every week. The way I saw it, I was working hard for the money and deserved to have fun.

Fair enough. Were you saving some of it though?

Just enough to run the business. 

I should add that it was now a struggle to run the business and keep up with school work, so school suffered. I didn’t mind though. At that point, my friend had dropped out of school. He got tired of the strikes, but I hung in there. 

Omo. When did you graduate from uni?

2018. When I returned to Lagos and reunited with my friend, I realised that he was miles ahead of me, and it wasn’t even because he had been making more sales — he was just better at saving money and reinvesting back into the business. 

What made you think so?

When he dropped out of school, he had enough money to get an apartment and live as large as I did, but he didn’t do that. He moved in with his grandmother and started saving for his own store, which he got in 2018. I think he spent about ₦3m on it. Then he moved into wholesales and started importing his own stock into the country. 

When I finished university, I joined him at his store even though I didn’t have any stock of my own. I was pretty much still a reseller, but he had no problem with me using his store as a base. Unfortunately, this wasn’t moving as fast as it did in 2017. Facebook and Instagram had become big hits in the online sales business, and almost everyone was selling the same thing on them. The competition was high, which meant that I couldn’t add a high markup on the products. For every shoe I wanted to sell for ₦30k, others had no problem selling it for ₦15k or ₦20k. 

How did that affect your earnings?

First, my customer base was mostly people I got off referrals and old customers. For the better part of 2018, I made less than ₦100k/month in profit. Unfortunately, my bills had increased.

What bills?

My younger sister got into university in 2015, and I started paying her tuition. She was still in school in 2018, and I was responsible for sending her an allowance and anything else she needed in school. It was a little challenging figuring that out. 

Fast forward to 2019, I finally realised if I’d done better with money earlier, I would have had a better chance of competing in the market. I thought it was time to fix that. 

What were the steps you took after that?

In January 2019, I joined a contribution scheme with 14 other people. Everyone dropped ₦100k per month and someone in the group took ₦1.5m home every month. I was the first person that got the money. 

I put it in my business and imported my first stock into the country. However, a lot of people knew me as a reseller, so it took some time to become popular in the market and have other resellers approach me for deals. 

My returning customers came through before this happened, and that’s how I survived. I was still selling online, but what I made from it was only enough to pay the ₦100k I needed for my monthly contributions. 

When resellers finally started approaching me, my monthly earnings increased. I started my own personal savings and put whatever I could aside. 

Yay. 

The contribution thing ended in May 2020 and covid had hit. Things came to a standstill again — everybody was fighting for their lives, so nobody was thinking about buying clothes or shoes. 

Tough times. I imagine you didn’t make a lot of sales then. How did you survive?

My friend and I were staying with his brother, so I didn’t have to spend a lot of money. I mean, I touched my savings to send some money home, but that was it — I sent my mum ₦50k at the beginning of the lockdown. Subsequently, I settled some of the little bills. For the most part, though, my friend’s brother took care of us while we were with him. 

When did things start to open up again?

In the last few months of 2020. By this time, I had about ₦1.5m in personal savings, and I used it to buy more stock. Not sure how much I made every month, but it was enough to hire a staff whom I paid ₦25k per month and save ₦100k every month. 

In January 2021, I raised ₦2m from the sale of my stock, my profit and my savings. I used the money to order new stock. They arrived in the third week of January, and I thought the year was off to a good start. Two weeks later, something happened.

What happened?

My friend called me and said he wasn’t interested in our friendship anymore, and I could no longer sell from his store.

Wow. Did he say why?

No. Our parents intervened, and he stood his ground. He told them that I didn’t do anything, but he was just done with our friendship.

Omo. 

All of my stock — which I bought with my entire savings — was still in his store, and I decided to leave it there. I haven’t seen him since that time, and I don’t know what eventually happened to my goods. I just decided to move on from it all. 

That’s interesting. But what did moving on look like?

It meant I had to return to being a reseller and focus on online sales. The only problem was that the competition was tougher than ever. If I was spending ₦20k on Facebook or Instagram ads, someone else spending ₦100k on it.

My earnings dropped too. My highest earning month so far this year was in July when I made ₦200k. That was also the month I decided to invest in new skills. 

What did you decide on?

Data science. I registered for a beginner course and paid ₦50k for it. But I was now so broke that I couldn’t even afford to go to class on some days.

 For the first time in forever, I had no choice but to live off my family. My younger sister, whom I saw through university, lived with me — I rented an apartment after the lockdown in 2020. Sometimes, she would leave ₦1k on the table when she left for work. My mum occasionally sent me money to buy data. It was tough. 

I’m sorry. 

I finished my data science course in August. The plan was to enrol for the intermediate course in September, but it was a rough month, and I didn’t make a single sale. 

Then October came with a lifeline. 

Tell me more.

The iPhone 13 release. I helped a retailer ship 10 phones into the country and got ₦300k for it. Let me break it down: the 128 Gb iPhone 13 Pro Max sells for $1099; plus shipping to Nigeria, it cost ₦750k. However, I told the retailer I could bring the phones in at ₦780k, and he agreed. He gave me ₦7.8m, I removed my profit and sent the cost price to a friend in the US who bought the phones and helped me ship them to Nigeria. Like that, I made ₦300k. 

Must have been a relief. 

Oh, it was. I paid ₦50k for my intermediate data science course and bought a new laptop to study with, which cost ₦180k. 

What are things looking like now?

 I have ₦100k in my savings right now, and the plan is to build up from it. 

How?

I’m hoping I can bring in another set of 10 phones this month. If I get ₦300k from that, that will bring my total savings to ₦400k. I intend to invest half of it into crypto and buy shares at a telecommunication company with the other half. 

Then after I finish my data science course, I’m going to look for a full-time job. Once I know how much I’ll be earning monthly, I can start the second phase of my plan and build from there.

Rooting for you. What has all of this done to your perspective of money?

I think that money is transient. If you have it and you don’t do the best with it, you lose it. I have made some money, and I have lost it all. I’m trying to build it back now, but it didn’t have to be this way. 

What’s your biggest financial regret?

I’d say not saving earlier, but I think that’s obvious. The biggest mistake I made recently was becoming too comfortable with selling from my friend’s store. Now that I think about it, I should have used the money I spent on the last order on setting up my own store. Things might have gone differently if I did. 

I hear you. What do your monthly running costs look like these days?

It depends on how much I make in a month. It looks something like this on a decent month. 

I’m also curious about what you want but can’t afford?

Ah, I got an admission offer to study data analytics in a private university in Europe, and tuition is €15k/year. I’ve talked to my mum and she can raise ₦2.5m for me. That’s not enough. And even if I manage to raise enough money for the first year’s tuition, I still have to figure out where to get €30k for the remaining two years, and this doesn’t include accommodation and other expenses. I’d like it if I can go — it’s a fresh start — but I can’t afford it at the moment. 

Oof. What was the last thing you spent money on that made you happy?

My laptop. A few months ago, I couldn’t practice everything I’m learning in data sciences. Now, I can. It feels so good.

This sounds like a good place to talk about your financial happiness. 

I agree. Two months ago, it was 0. At the moment, it’s 5. That said, I know I’ve been in a better financial situation and didn’t use it properly, so most of it is on me. If I knew everything I know now, I would have made different choices. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m moving on. 

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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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

For the 26-year-old content writer in this story, saving reigns supreme. She would know: her longest unemployment stretch was two years. Guess what gave her a soft landing?

What’s your oldest memory of money?

I started out saving a lot of the monetary gifts I got growing up. They went into my “kolo” — a wooden piggy bank. By the time I was 13, my family and the people from church knew they could trust me with money, and I was in charge of the church library. Not sure how much it was anymore, but I made quite a bit of money for the church from renting out books to the congregation. 

Although I have two older brothers, my mum trusted me with some things very early and her business was one of them. In 2009, she put me in charge of her store where she sold thrift clothes. I was 15. This could count as my first job because I made some money from it. 

How?

The goods were shipped in bulk and when we took stock of the inventory, I kept some of it for myself to sell. Also, if I thought a shoe or a bag was too good for the price my mum asked me to sell it, I added a markup price — usually ₦1k — and that was also mine. In the good months,  I made between ₦10k and ₦15k. December was my favourite month because people shopped more and I could make double that.

Eyes on the bag. What was it like growing up though?

My dad was a risk-taker. Probably more than he should have been, and this affected the family a lot. He was one to put his last penny to finance an idea he thought would do well. These projects always failed. My mum had more success in her business dealings, so things weren’t as bad as they probably would have been.

But there were periods when the family was barely getting by. My time in the university was a struggle because of this. 

Do you want to talk about it?

I got into university in 2011 and my mum borrowed money to raise my tuition. During my first two years in uni, my allowance was ₦2500 per week. Sometimes it was ₦4000 for two weeks, and I learned how to manage it. 

My third year and final year were the worst. I hardly got any money from home. And when it came, I couldn’t do a lot with it.  I had a boyfriend, and he was there whenever he could. But I learned to do a lot of things myself. 

Perhaps, the most important thing I learned was how to be frugal because I didn’t know when the next money would come. It’s a miracle I survived university. 

I’m sorry about that. 

It’s fine. When I graduated from university in 2015 and went for my service year, the only thing I was optimising for was income growth.  I kept rejecting the PPAs I was assigned to because they didn’t want to pay. I finally found a school that was open to paying me ₦10k per month to supplement the allowance I got from the government, and that was the offer I accepted. 

 However, I didn’t have access to the federal government allowance for six months. 

What happened?

BVN issues. Very frustrating, but I just chalked it up to me saving money.  I planned my expenses around the ₦10k I got at my PPA.  I should add that I earned some more money from teaching some kids during the holidays, and the total I made from this was ₦14k.

It was easier to plan my finances during my service year because I knew to expect something at the end of each month.  It worked out well, and at the end of my service year, I had about ₦200k saved up. It took some restraint to hit that number — I mostly lived on what I got from my PPA, but again, saving money has always been easy for me. 

I finished NYSC in February 2017 and started job hunting immediately. 

When did you get a job?

In the same month, and it was for this guy who had a website. I’d always known that I liked to write, so I figured I had nothing to lose if I applied for the job. I did, and I got it.  The salary was ₦30k.

How did the job go?

Not well. For starters, my KPI was 15 articles daily. I had to leave home at 5:15 a.m. every day to beat the traffic and get to work before 6 a.m. to start working. When my boss saw how fast I worked, he asked me to start writing for another website he owned, promising to compensate me for the extra work. He didn’t. 

It was a struggle before he even paid my salary. When he didn’t pay my first salary at the end of the month, I stopped going to work in March. After some back and forth, he paid me ₦15k, and that was it. I was out of a job again. 

I wouldn’t find another job until October 2017. 

What happened in between?

In April 2017, I took a loan of ₦80k from a microfinance bank, bought female clothes and travelled to a federal university in the southwest. I had a friend there who took me in. The plan seemed simple: university ladies loved good clothes, and I had an eye for them, so there had to be a market for me. 

At the end of my first week, I had sold nothing and had only ₦100 left on me. I sold a blouse for ₦1400 — ₦300 less than the cost price in the second week. Later that week, I sold something worth ₦6500. The lady paid ₦3k and promised to send the rest later. She didn’t. 

I realised that the business wasn’t going to work. I used the money I made to transport myself back home to Lagos.

With a loan hanging around your neck…

This didn’t hit me until I returned home. I cried my eyes out. I had agreed to a weekly repayment plan: ₦2700 every week, I think. My mum took it up and started paying it off gradually. Also, My boyfriend from university had travelled out of the country but we were still in touch. He sent some money so I could offset the debt too. Eventually, I paid about ₦42k myself spread over a couple of months. 

How did this happen?

I got a freelance writing gig in May 2017. I was writing five articles a day for ₦10k monthly. 

Omo. 

I was desperate for a job and had a loan to pay off, so I took it. I did that for only two months though — I realised that the money was too little for the effort and the lady I worked for never paid on time. If it wasn’t a token issue, it was some network problem. 

I got another job in August at a women-focused website. The pay was ₦50k plus a ₦5k internet allowance. After my first three months, my basic salary was increased to ₦60k. Around the same time, I got a writing gig on the side that paid me ₦25k. 

Now you were averaging ₦85k monthly, what did that mean for you?

See, I started thinking about getting my own apartment. I had wanted to move out of my parents’ since 2017 but I didn’t have the means. I found a mini-flat in February 2018 and it cost ₦265k, which I split with a friend. 

Ah, nice. Back to your job. How long did you spend there?

Nine months. I left for purely sentimental reasons. In May 2018, another website I had always liked and had even done some free work reached out to me and asked if I was interested in a full-time position. I took a ₦5k pay cut to join them. Not the best decision. During negotiations,  my boss said that she couldn’t pay me the ₦80k I asked for because the company wasn’t making money. I joined and found out that the company was indeed making money. 

Ouch.

Also, we agreed that my closing time would be 4 p.m. if I resumed work at 6 a.m. I kept my end of the deal but my boss didn’t. After five months, I decided the job wasn’t worth it anymore, so I resigned. I didn’t even have any plan. I just knew I would lose my mind if I continued working at the job. My safety net was my savings — I had gotten it up to ₦220k.

Sweet. When did you get your next job?

About two months later. In January 2019, I casually applied for another content job, and I got it. The offer was ₦100k. Omo, it felt like a big break but all the excitement went into the air after I was owed salaries at a stretch. My editor was also hard to work with. 

It was easy to resign from this one when I got another offer in May. I hadn’t even been paid for two months at the time, but I was determined to get it. I went to the office one day and informed HR that I wouldn’t leave until I got my paycheck. They paid a month’s salary that day. The balance was paid three months later. 

Energy. What about the new role?

I was hired as a creative writer at an enterprise business. The company had a couple of brands under its name, and I wrote for all of them. The salary was ₦160k and I loved the work I did here. 

My salary was a big deal to me. I saw money in a new light and even started giving my parents an allowance. I was also saving a lot more than I had ever saved up until that point. ₦40k went into my savings every month. This was non-negotiable. After settling my bills and savings, I still had quite a bit left to spend on clothes.

However, the work culture was toxic. People were fined or fired for the most basic reasons. I knew it was a matter of time before I got fired too. 

And that happened?

It did. On September 1 2019, I was handed a sack letter. I didn’t even do anything, but they said the company needed to downsize. 

That’s brutal. I’m sorry. 

I was relieved they let me go.  I had started thinking about leaving too. My savings, again,  gave me a soft landing. I had about ₦500k and wasn’t in debt, so I figured I could live on it until I got a new job. I had some interviews lined up, and I was confident that I’d get an offer from one of them. I didn’t find another job for two years.

Hay God!

See, I didn’t see that coming. I aced the interviews but for some reason, they didn’t go with me. Two months after I got fired from my last job, I started getting restless. I decided to start a clothing business again and opened an Instagram store. The focus this time was on corporate clothing items, and all my clients came from Instagram. I didn’t make any sales until December 2019 though.

Omo. 

Thankfully, it started picking up after that. It got me through the pandemic in 2020, and I saved my first million before the year was over. God, I saved like crazy. 

In the first three months of 2021, I saved another million. At this time, I was averaging at least ₦300k monthly in profit. I probably would have saved more if there wasn’t one bill or the other I had to settle at home. The last bill within that period was this ₦350k I loaned my mum.

Ah, I see. I’m curious: Were you still looking for a job?

I never stopped job hunting, although the momentum dropped at some point. I didn’t see the need to rush since I had my clothing business. 

Fast forward to October, I finally got another offer as content lead at a startup.

Yay. 

The salary was ₦140k. Less than what I earned at my last job. 

But you took it. Why?

I needed to start leaving my house. I won’t lie, it was a relief. Shortly after I started working there, I got another offer. It was double my current pay, but I turned it down. 

Oh?

I felt bad about leaving the place I’m currently at without a replacement. So yes, I stayed. 

 Sales are bad this time of the year, so I’m currently making between ₦60k and ₦80k from my business. 

Fascinating. So, what’s eating your money these days

You’ve always been big on savings, how do you approach it these days?

The thought of being broke throws me into a panic.  ₦50k goes into my savings every month. No compromises. Whatever I have left after settling my monthly bills goes into a separate savings account. So do the occasional money gifts I get. 

I know one thing: I’m on my own and there may be no one to run to if I run into trouble, so saving money makes me feel safe. I save as little as ₦200 sometimes. A trickle eventually becomes a lot. But I’ve also realised that saving money is not always enough, so I started some investments in April.

What investment options are you in?

I started with crypto. I’m still learning how this works, but I haven’t made any significant losses. Also, I have a RiseVest account and they invest in stocks for me. That works for me. 

What’s the value of your savings and investments the last time you checked?

Core savings — ₦427k

Crypto — ₦660k

RiseVest — ₦360k

I’m glad I have developed a savings habit, but I wish I could save more every month. ₦150k would be great and I know I can do it if I’m earning more. 

This feels like a good place for a segue: how much do you think you should be earning?

₦600k from all my income streams would be great right now. ₦400k from a 9-5 job and the rest from my business. I have a feeling this will happen next year. 

Energy. How would you say your experiences over the years have shaped your perception of money?

Money makes me safe, which is why I take savings seriously. My worst fear is having to rely on people for money. I saw my parents go broke a number of times, and it scared me. I never want my children to go through that or have to depend on others. 

I also know that saving religiously is not enough, and that’s why I’m trying to figure out a way around making the right investments. 

Fair enough. What was the last thing you bought that required serious planning?

My MacBook. In August 2020, I realised I needed a computer, so I started saving heavily for a Mac. Luckily, someone I know wanted to sell theirs and what I had saved for five months was enough to buy it off them. It cost ₦325k. 

Nice. But I wonder if there’s anything you want right now but can’t afford?

A car. I move around a lot but I’d probably spend less if I had my own car. I imagine I’ll need ₦2.5m for a Camry that works.

I started saving for a car already but I’m nowhere close. Rent is coming up, and I need ₦600k for that. After I make rent, I’ll restructure my savings to accommodate my car needs. 

What part of your finances do you think you could be better at?

Investments! I need to figure that out as soon as I can. Sticking to a budget is something else I need to start doing. I made an impulse purchase recently and splurged ₦80k on some skincare products. They stopped working after a month. I’m still very upset about it. 

Sorry. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

It’s 3 at the moment. 

I didn’t see this coming. 

Let me explain. I know my finances are in much better shape than it was two years ago, and I wouldn’t call myself broke. However, I’m not close to where I want to be. I have a high taste. I’d rather not have an item than spend less and compromise on quality. This means I have to continuously earn more than I could spend. This hasn’t happened yet. 

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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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

What’s your oldest memory of money

It was realising that not having a lot of money didn’t mean I couldn’t be comfortable. I grew up with my mum and my grandparents in a state in the east. My mum was a teacher employed by the government and my grandfather was a worker at the Anglican church —  they weren’t earning much, however, they provided everything we needed. 

Do you have an idea what your grandfather and your mum earned at the time?

My grandfather retired from the mission in 1987, and his pension was ₦47. Before his retirement, his salary was about ₦44 per month. My mum joined the civil service in 1981, but I didn’t know how much she earned until the late 80s or early 90s.  She got into the university and couldn’t always make it to work on salary day. Whenever I was at home, she’d inform her boss,  the headmaster, that I was coming to get it on her behalf. I found out her salary was a little over ₦1000. 

Around this time, I was also in secondary school and lived in an Anglican boarding school. My pocket money was ₦2 per term. The school provided feeding and almost everything else, so there wasn’t a lot of reason to spend money. 

What could the money get you though?

Mostly snacks, especially 10 kobo worth of buns or groundnuts at a time. There was barely enough money left to save when the school closed for the term. 

I left secondary school in 1992. 

What happened after?

My mum wanted me to go to the Teacher’s Training College. I bluntly refused. 

Why?

I didn’t want to become a teacher. I wanted to go to university and try something else. I wrote JAMB once or twice and didn’t get into any, so I started looking for a job. 

When did you find a job?

1993. I worked as a salesgirl in a shop at a filling station, and it paid ₦80/month. There was no need to keep the money because I still lived with my family, so I always handed my salary to my grandmother the moment I got it. I was at the job for about 11 or 12 months. My uncles and aunts asked me to quit. 

Did they give you a reason?

A lot of it was because we were active members of our church community They said I couldn’t be serving people who were not one of us. It wasn’t a big deal. 

I applied for more jobs and got a few interviews. I wasn’t earning, but money wasn’t a problem. There was always food on the table. There was still a plan to return to school, but that didn’t happen immediately. At least, not until after I got married and had a child in 1996.

I was married to my ex-husband for about a year before we dissolved the marriage for reasons I don’t want to share. By 1997, I was out with my one-year-old daughter. Thankfully, I got a job in the civil service with my SSCE certificate less than a year later. I was hired as a forest attendant in the agriculture unit in a local government. 

Yay! How did it happen?

They put out a job advertisement and I applied. I was put on Grade Level two and my starting salary was ₦1200. 

I don’t know what would have happened if I wasn’t earning something because my daughter was about to start pre-nursery school. My salary went into paying for rent, which was ₦500 per month and her school fees. Whatever remained went into feeding and transportation. There was nothing left by the end of the month. 

Fortunately, an increment happened a year after I joined the civil service. 

What happened?

The government of General Abdulsalami Abubakar increased the minimum wage to ₦3k, and this brought my salary to ₦3200. 

The year 2000 was tough though. The local government owed salaries for 13 months.

That’s a whole year. Did they explain why?

They said they were getting zero allocation from the state government. This is what they did: If they paid 50% of our salaries in one month, they wouldn’t pay anything for two or three months, then pay another 50%

That’s hectic. How did you survive this period?

My appointment at the local government had been confirmed, and that meant I was eligible for a state-government-sponsored diploma in public administration at a university in Enugu. The government was paying me a stipend every month, and the money was a bit higher than my salary. 

My mum was also earning more than I did, and she was consistently supportive. 

I finished the diploma in 2002. By this time, President Obasanjo had come into the office and increased the minimum wage to ₦5500, bringing my salary to ₦6500. I also got promoted that year. I moved from Grade Level Two to level four, and my salary was revised to ₦7k. 

This was probably when I realised that a minimum wage review was the only way civil servants could get a significant increase in salary. Moving between grade levels only added some little change to what you were previously earning. Even though those little changes can do something. 

What did these increments mean for your standard of living?

It was a big relief. It meant I could afford to pay for a better school for my daughter. Before this, she was in a school owned and managed by the church. Subsequently, I transferred her to another school. Although the school fees per term were close to ₦10k, it was totally worth it. 

My next promotion happened in 2003, and my salary grew to ₦7400. By 2007, I was in Grade Level seven and earning ₦36k.

Were you still the only one raising your daughter?

I remarried in 2008. I met my husband in the local government where I worked, and he was earning a little less than I did. However, he had a couple of side hustle that brought in extra money for the family — at least enough to cater for my daughter who was now in secondary school and afford some other things. 

Three years later, I gave birth to my youngest daughter. My husband passed a month after her birth. 

I’m so sorry. 

Thank you. He was ill for a while. At the time of his death, we had some debt, which I now had to figure how to sort out. I took a loan of ₦350k from the bank to repay the debt. I paid the bank back for three years.

I also had two daughters to take care of and was barely making enough. Thank God my mum was there to share some of the load with me. Her salary was ₦76k at the time, which was significantly more than what I was earning. 

Ah, the support system. 

On the work front, I couldn’t go higher than Grade Level seven if I didn’t get additional qualifications. Subsequently, I went for a six-month diploma, which cost me ₦50k. My next promotion came in 2013, and I moved to grade-level eight. But it didn’t go into effect until 2014. The minimum wage had also been increased to ₦18k. My salary was ₦43k. 

I realised later that there had been a mistake. I was supposed to be promoted to Grade Level nine. It took a year before they corrected this and two years before it became official. Eventually, my salary grew to ₦47k in 2016. 

Must have been a relief.

Oh, it was. However, my bills had also risen. My eldest daughter had just gotten into a polytechnic and my youngest had started primary school — their tuition was about ₦60k and ₦25k per semester/term. 

How did you navigate this?

Hm. It wasn’t easy. Once I got my salary, I’d take out the rent first then pay part-payment fees of one of my daughters, depending on the one that’s more urgent. By the time I cleared everything, a new semester or term would have started. Rinse and repeat. 

My eldest daughter took a lot of the load off me. During her IT at the end of her ND programme, she learned how to sew clothes, and that brought in money for her when she started her programme. The only thing I had to worry about was paying her tuition. She has since graduated from the polytechnic and gotten a job. That makes me happy. 

That’s so great. What else has happened between 2016 and now?

I got my next promotion in 2019, which increased my salary to ₦65k. Although the new minimum wage is ₦30k, it hasn’t been implemented yet in the local government — only state government workers currently receive it in my state.

Also, I had enrolled in an ND programme in 2018 because I needed additional qualifications to move up from Grade Level nine. Once I finish this by the end of the year, I will get to at least grade level 14.

What do your monthly expenses currently look like then?

My eldest daughter also supports me a lot, especially with feeding and her sister’s school fees. It depends on which is more important at the moment. 

Sweet. Do you have enough left to save after all of this?

Right now, what I have kept aside should be about ₦20k. I save whatever I can in the months I can. Typically, this is between ₦5k and ₦10k. However, I can’t help but touch my savings sometimes. 

How much do you think would be great for you right now?

About ₦200k/month. I’ve been working in the civil service for more than 20 years. I don’t have a problem with the career path — it’s only that the money is not much. The local government is even owing us three months salary at the moment. 

Wow. When did this start?

Last year. They didn’t pay in November and December. They resumed payments from January 2021 until July. August salaries came in September. Now, I’m looking forward to getting paid for September. Coping with this hasn’t been that bad though. My daughter makes sure of that. 

You’ve spent more than two decades in the civil service now. Do you ever think about retirement?

Yes, I do. I’ll retire in 2033, and I’ve started thinking about what I could do after that. I think I may go down that academic route after all. I do some part-time teaching already, and I enjoy it. I could find work in a private school after I stop working for the government. Or if God permits, I can start my own school. 

That sounds good. What about a retirement fund?

I have a retirement account with a bank, but I stopped putting money in it in 2016 — I changed my salary account. At the time, I had less than ₦200k in it. 

It would be great to have about ₦4m or ₦5m in it before I retire. But with this inflation, that probably won’t be a lot of money in 2033. 

Hmm. Is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?

I’m tired of paying rent. A piece of land where I can build a house and farm will be nice. But a plot of land in the township where I live in Abia state costs about ₦3m and is close to ₦2m in neighbouring villages. 

Oof. I’m curious about how these years have shaped your perspective about money?

It’s important to know that you can’t kill yourself for what other people think. Not having enough money can make you look selfish, especially to people around you who think you have it. And it’s not even like you don’t want to help; you just can’t afford to. 

I try as much as possible to be transparent. When the money comes, I extend a hand of fellowship to the people I can. It’s not how I’d have liked this to work, but it’s the best I can do. 

I get that. How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

It’s a 5. I’m really happy that I’ve raised my eldest daughter to this point where she has a job, can take care of herself and even offer help sometimes. This makes me happy so much.

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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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

The 27-year-old sales manager in this #NairaLife has been investing in a couple of high-risk businesses since 2018. In 2020 alone, he made more than ₦5m in profits. But things took a dark turn in 2021 and now, he’s in debt of ₦11m.

Let’s take it back to the beginning, what’s your oldest memory of money?

When I was five, My mum let me keep the monetary gifts from guests who visited us. It was 1999. It was also the first time I paid attention to the value of money. One of my earliest purchases were toy soldiers and balloons, and I learnt that X amount of money could get me Y. 

Lit. Tell me about what it was like growing up?

My mum was a contractor and my dad was a businessman. Between the time I was born and the time I clocked six years old, we were comfortable. Afterwards, I started to get the feeling that we might be broke. On the outside, things looked good — we lived in a big house, a car drove me and my three sisters to school, and we went to good schools. But we were living on the benevolence of relatives abroad. We didn’t have conversations about money, so I figured it out myself. 

How?

In 2003, my mum opened a shop to sell snacks and soft drinks alongside her contracting business. I was nine years old at the time. 

It wasn’t that bad, though. And staying at the shop to help my mum out was my first introduction to how to exchange value for money. I would use that knowledge to make money for the first time in secondary school.

What do you mean?

I was a boarding student, and my allowance was between ₦500 and ₦1k per term. In a good term, I could get up to ₦2k. When I was in JSS 3, I noticed that there was a gap between the demand and supply of garri in the hostel though the locals in the town my secondary school was in were major producers.

I laid out my plan and figured out a way to sneak out of the school during closing time, buy some garri in town, sneak back into school and sell my proceeds at a markup. When I started, I’d buy garri at about ₦160/congo and sell for ₦20/cup. 

Each congo had about 16 – 20 cups. I was balling, man 

Sweet.

I was living primarily on what I could get at the tuck shop, and this was how I ate into my capital.. Before the term ended, I couldn’t make the town runs anymore. I lost interest and went back to living on my allowance. 

You could have picked it up again the following term… 

I could have, but I thought about the risks involved and decided it wasn’t worth it. I had been caught sneaking into school once or twice, so suspension or expulsion could be on the table if I was caught again.

Fair enough. What happened after?

My allowance wasn’t a lot of money, but it always came. Nothing much happened until I went to the east for university in 2011. 

My allowance became ₦10k per month. I wasn’t pressed for money, but my itch to make my own money kicked in again in the second semester of my first year in uni.

What did you do this time?

It was post-UTME time, so there were lots of people who didn’t know how to navigate the school. I saw an opportunity here and printed copies of the school map, which I sold for ₦20 each. I made about ₦2k from this.

Importer, Exporter.

I was studying engineering, so there were lots of drawing assignments. I wasn’t particularly good at this, but one of my friends was. I got another idea. I’d find people who needed help and charge them ₦1500 to sort it out for them. Then I’d bring it to my friend and give him ₦1k. I was pretty much making money for him and myself. 

In 2013, I tried to punch above my weight. I was in Lagos with ₦20k I wasn’t using with me. Before I left, I used the money to buy shirts to resell in school. Each shirt cost between ₦1k and ₦1500, but I sold them for anything between ₦1200 and ₦2500 when I got back to school. I made some money, but it wasn’t enough to cover my cost of returning to Lagos to restock, so I let it go. While I was trying to figure out what to do, a scholarship I had applied to in 2012 came through and I was going to receive ₦100k per year. The first time the scholarship money entered my account, I bought myself a new phone, and it cost me ₦32,500.

I was back on the road to Lagos on some other business the following year. This time, I bought five fake Movado wristwatches when I was returning to school and each one cost ₦2k. 

How much did you sell them for?

₦5k each. But again, the profit I made wasn’t enough to sponsor another trip to Lagos. Not much happened after that and I finished university in November 2016.

Post-uni?

I moved in with my eldest sister in Lagos. In February 2017, someone at her church connected me with someone at a data agency — they were working on an ease of doing business survey and were looking for hands to help them. My job was to walk up to the CEOs of some top companies and get them to participate in the survey. 

How much did this pay?

₦15k at the beginning of the exercise as mobilisation fees and ₦1500 for every successful response after that. Here was the deal: they could only pay me if I returned with a filled questionnaire and the business card of the CEO in question. The exercise lasted for two weeks, and at the end of it, I made an extra ₦15k — I managed to get 10 questionnaires filled. 

As soon as the exercise ended, I got a call from someone, inviting me to an interview. Although fake job interviews were very popular at the time, I went anyway, CV in hand. It turned out that it was a legitimate job opportunity with a tech company. Two more interviews followed and they hired me as a support staff. What sold me was a WordPress website I had built some months back.

Whoop!

I resumed in March 2017, and my starting salary was ₦50k. In August 2017, I pitched myself to one of the co-founders and asked if I could join the business development team. 

Why?

My thinking was that I could work anywhere that needed sales and business development skills. Also, if I could make money for a company, chances are that I’ll learn how to make money for myself in the process. 

Right!

The man was impressed and agreed to let me join the team. Before the year ended, my salary was revised to ₦100k. By this time, I had developed an interest in investments, but I couldn’t do a lot because I didn’t have a lot of liquid cash. This changed in December 2017. 

Ghen ghen. How?

The company I was with shared the profit they made during the year among employees, and I got ₦1.5m. I almost ran mad when the money hit my account. 

The excitement died down after a few days, and I realised that it was the perfect opportunity to put some money away. I had been paying a lot of attention to the Nigerian stock market and Exchange-Traded Funds — treasury bills were giving between 17% and 24% returns per year. I opened a mutual fund account with a bank and put ₦1m in it. I don’t know what I did with the remaining ₦500k but most of it was spent on lau-lau. 

In February 2018, a friend who was starting an agribusiness reached out to me to invest in his business. We ran the numbers and I negotiated a 22% ROI deal in six months. I liquidated my mutual fund account and gave him ₦1m. I also spoke to a few friends who had money and convinced them to drop some. I got ₦1m each from three people and gave it to the guy. However, I told my friends who dropped the money that their investment was going to return 20% after six months. 

So you get a 2% profit from each of them.

Exactly. The investments matured after six months, and I returned their capital and ROI. I made ₦60k in total from the three of them and an extra ₦200k from my own investment. It went so smoothly, I was like, “Wow. You mean I can go around making money like this?”

Guess what I did next?

What?

I started researching how asset management worked and acted on it. The plan was to look for businesses I could invest in, evaluate the risk structure of the business and convince some of my friends to invest in them. At the end of each cycle, I would get a percentage of the ROI they make. My friends respected my knowledge of investments already, so I thought that it was best to leverage it. 

How did it go?

Nothing much happened until June 2018. I bought a phone from someone I knew from uni, and he told me about how he imported the phones into the country after buying them on Amazon. He promised me an ROI of 30% every three months if I gave him some money, and I was sold. I told my guys and raised ₦500k. In September, he paid back the capital and ROI. Now, I had two investment options I was running — agribusiness and phone importation. I stuck with them until 2019 when I found something else to invest in.

Tell me about it?

Real estate and rental properties. The lady who told me about it was renting a couple of houses every year and furnishing them. She had a relationship with people who had expatriates coming into the country and she shortlet the apartments to them. It was very capital intensive, but the numbers looked good. 

What were the numbers?

25% every three months. 

Hmm. Omo. 

I liquidated my investments in the agribusiness, raised ₦1.5m and gave it to her. Exactly three months later, she came through and I got my capital and ₦375k. It felt so great. 

It was still the middle of the year, so I figured I could make more before the year ended. The lady and I spoke at length and she explained the value chain to me. Subsequently, I wrote a proper proposal and sent it to everyone I knew would be interested. Before December 2019,  I’d raised about ₦7.7m from 15 clients. And my personal chest had grown from ₦1.5m to ₦3.6m.

2020?

A couple of things happened on the work front. I left my job at the tech company — I was earning ₦200k at this point — and got another sales job in edutech, which increased my monthly income to ₦300k. In July, I moved jobs again and started earning ₦350k/month. 

My asset management hustle had grown too. At this point, I was managing more than ₦20m broken down into bits and pieces in different investments, but the two prominent ones were the rental properties deal and the agribusiness. 

Break it down for me, please. How did you move from managing ₦7.7m to ₦20m in less than a year?

Word of mouth marketing. The people I was making money for were referring me to other people. 

That reminds me, I was also buying investments off the people whose money I was managing. Let’s say someone invested some money at 20% for three months and they wanted to liquidate after a month, they would have to forfeit some percentage of their ROI. I’d pay them with my own money and get it back when their investment matured. This was the drill in 2020 and by December, I’d made more than ₦5m in profit. My personal wealth was about ₦8m.

However, I ran into my first set of problems in January 2021. 

What happened?

I began to suspect that the rental property hustle wasn’t as good as it was anymore. Payments had started coming in late, so I liquidated the money I had with the lady — about $11k. The next question I had was: “What else can I invest in?”

When did you find an answer?

The same month. I was in contact with some guy in the north. He was an aggregator who had relationships with farmers. He helped them facilitate the sale of their products — mostly maize and rice —  to big companies. He pitched what he did to me, gave me the projections and we negotiated a 50/50 profit-sharing agreement. This was the riskiest investment opportunity I was in yet, but I had previously invested a token with him as proof of trust and he came through. 

 I raised ₦14m from nine people, promising them 1.2% ROI per week, but the money would be locked in for a quarter.  The agreement I had with the guy was that he’d pay me about ₦18m in April, so I could use it as proof to raise more money. April came, and nothing came in.

Did he say why he couldn’t make the payment?

He claimed he had run into some problems with law enforcement. And for some reason, I believed him. My primary problem was that I had to pay two people back their money in the same month— ₦4.2m and ₦700k respectively. I settled that with my personal money, which brought my savings down to ₦100k. I wasn’t bothered because I still thought money was coming in.

By June, more people’s investments had matured and they had started calling me. I came clean and told them the guy was in some trouble, but I promised that I’d get their money out in two weeks.  

 It eventually turned out that there was no issue with law enforcement — this guy had diverted the money somewhere else and now, I had a debt of ₦9m on my head. 

OMO.

For the first time ever, I clocked that my salary was ₦350k.

I had to think fast. In the short term, I took out a loan of ₦1m from a loan company and another ₦2m from two friends to offset some of the debt,. Anyway, my debt profile is about ₦11m now.

One good thing happened in July though. 

What was that?

I got a new job which brought my monthly earnings to ₦500k/month. I’ve been using most of it to service my debt. 

Let’s take a look at your monthly running costs. 

Debt repayment — ₦350k

Tithe — ₦50k

Ajo — ₦50k

So you live on ₦50k/month now?

Pretty much. I started doing this in September, and it didn’t work out. The only reason I survived was because someone gifted me ₦500k. I don’t know how it will go in October. This is what my budget looks like now:

It’s just so interesting how things could turn in one moment. Last year, I was balling. This year, I’m in debt. 

I’m so sorry, man. How do you hope to recover your investments and settle your debts?

I’ve started the legal proceedings, and that can only end in two ways — I get the money back or not. The other option I’m working on is finding someone to buy the debt off me. 

How does that work?

Whoever it is will write off my debt, and I’d pay them back over a period of time. I haven’t found anyone willing to do this, but man can hope. 

I’m curious about how all this hustling has shaped your perspective about money?

Money management is all about courage and risk. I took a big risk, and it burned me a little. When all of this is over, the next risk I’m going to take will be bigger. I think I have some more understanding of how to properly insulate myself from the downsides of high-risk investments now. It’s okay to have an appetite for risk as long as you’re calculative about the places you put your money into. 

I’m rooting for you. When was the last time you felt really broke?

A couple of weeks ago. I had to borrow ₦2k from a friend to buy airtime. The week before that, I  borrowed ₦3k from another friend to buy fuel. I haven’t been this broke since 2014. 

I imagine there’s a part of your finances you think you could be better at now?

Saving. I never quite learned how to save for a rainy day or have an emergency fund. With everything that’s happened the past few months, it wasn’t the smartest decision. Saving takes more discipline than investing, but it’s equally worth it. 

I hear you. On a scale of 1-10 now, where does your financial happiness?

3. Having to plan how to clear my debt is a big drag on my life, and I shouldn’t be dealing with it. But you see, once it’s cleared, I’m moving straight up to 9. I don’t even want to know. 

I’m curious, do you have a clear timeline of when this will happen?

No, but man can hope.

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Great! You got to the end of this article. Know what’s even better? You can get QuickCredit faster than the time it took you to read this article. With Quickcredit, GTBank customers can get N2million in less than 2 minutes and pay back over 12 months at an interest rate of 1.5%. No forms. No collateral. No hidden charges. Get Your Quick Credit on GTWorld

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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

The 26-year-old in this #NairaLife YOLO’ed her way through some years of her adult life until eight months of unemployment stopped her in her tracks. Now, she’s all about financial security. How does she navigate this when her 9-5 pays her ₦70k?

What’s your oldest memory of money?

This would be in the early 2000s. My dad used to give me and my siblings some money to take to school at the beginning of the week — I don’t remember how much, but we would end up not spending it. Whoever saved the most money scored some bragging rights. At the end of each week, we pooled our money together to make a big purchase. 

My dad was an accountant, and I think his job influenced his relationship with money. He’d never give us the money he didn’t believe we needed. He always said children who were exposed to too much money had a tendency to steal. But as we grew older, he started giving us our allowances based on the classes we were in. In 2006, when I was in JSS 1, my allowance was ₦10. This increased to ₦20 when I got to JSS 3  three years later. The money was barely enough to do anything. Guess what I decided to do?

What?

I went to a boarding school for my senior secondary education to force my dad to give me a lump sum amount every term. My allowance at the beginning of the term was ₦1k. My dad would also keep ₦500 with one of my teachers. I would live on ₦1k for the whole term and at the end of the term, I’d collect the extra ₦500 to take home. 

Interesting. 

When I got to SS 2, my parents separated and that translated into more money for me. 

How?

My dad got custody of us. My mum was no longer physically present and she tried as much as possible to make up for it with money gifts. Whenever she visited me at school, I got ₦10k. When I graduated from secondary school and got into university in 2011, the ₦10k became my monthly allowance. 

But that stopped in my second year — my mum was relocating, so she resigned from her job and didn’t have as much money anymore. I wasn’t getting any allowance from my dad because the university was a short distance from my house, so I didn’t live in a hostel. Once my mum moved, I knew I had to figure out what to do to make money.

What was the first thing you did for money?

Does working on my dad’s fish farm count? My dad ran into problems at work in 2012 and quit his job. Subsequently, he started a fish farm and put us four kids to work. When we made big sales, he paid us about ₦2k at least once a month.

Simultaneously, I was working with a friend’s dad. He owned a lottery kiosk and he hired me to work on Saturdays. Typically, I worked from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and got paid between ₦1500 and ₦2k. Later in 2012, I started ushering and making between ₦5k and ₦10k every two months. 

The biggest lumpsum amount I’d make in uni came in 2014. 

Tell me about it. 

It was the buildup to the 2015 general elections. Some campaign organiser hired me and some other girls to work on their campaign train. The job paid ₦10k per week, and I got ₦40k in the first month. In the second month, I got ₦70k — I worked an extra three weeks before the project was cancelled. bought a second-hand Samsung phone for ₦35k. I’m not sure what I did with the rest. 

How was your relationship with money at this point?

I wasn’t big on saving anymore because there were things to use money for this time. I struggled to find a balance between earning and managing money and thought I could always make more. 

So what happened after?

I wrote my final exams in December 2014 but didn’t graduate until a year later. ASUU strike happened. During the time I was at home, I worked on my dad’s fish farm. In 2016, I was finally mobilised and moved to Abuja to serve. My PPA paid me ₦7500/month and the federal government paid ₦19,800. I had a constant source of income now. But I made a money decision that could have gone wrong.

What was it?

MMM. Some of my co-workers introduced me to it. I put ₦15k in the first time and got ₦33k. Afterwards, I invested ₦10k. The thing casted on my third try, but I got my capital back. However, I’d introduced my mum and my brother to the scheme and they lost their investments. It was my first reality check about putting money into things I didn’t understand. 

Anyway, my service year ended in May 2017. Hello, unemployment. This was when it first struck me that I could have done better with my finances. 

Omo. How long were you unemployed?

Eight months. Those months were horrible. My mum came through whenever she could, but the frequency was far and in between. I was living with my brother and living off him. He didn’t mind that I couldn’t pull any weight, but the guilt ate at me. It’s one thing to be broke, but it’s another to be broke and knowing that your choices got you there. 

I got my first job post-NYSC in January 2018 as a content developer. ₦40k a month. But I only got paid ₦10k once. 

Ah.

All I heard was “Sorry.” or “Don’t worry, take this small change for transport.” Nobody could have prepared me for the helplessness I felt. After three months, I quit the job. I didn’t even turn in a resignation letter — I just stopped going to work. 

Phew. 

Two weeks after I quit the job, I had to travel home. My dad had fallen ill. Cancer. 

Oh wow. I’m so sorry. 

I won’t lie, it was one of the toughest periods I’ve had to deal with. My eldest brother wasn’t making a lot of money. My younger sister had just finished her youth service. My youngest brother was still in school. And there was me, unemployed as well. The family had only one source of income, and we were dealing with a terminal illness. 

What was it like navigating that?

Tough. I stayed home from March until September 2018 to work on my dad’s fish farm, so we could get money to buy his drugs. There’s no nice way to say it; we were at ground zero. 

Thankfully, a graduate trainee job I had applied for at a bank came through in September, and I started making money again.

How much did the job pay?

₦100k and I worked as a bank teller. For the first three months, more than 80% of my salary went into my monthly running costs, including the money I sent home for my dad’s medication. But I was making sure I saved ₦10k every month. Things got a little better in December because I started making more money at the bank, but it wasn’t from a raise. 

What was it?

Tips from the bank customers I had built a relationship with. On average, I was getting between ₦1k and ₦3k daily in tips from people who had business to do in the bank. This took care of my feeding and transportation expenses for the day.

I had more money to save now, so I joined a contribution scheme with nine other people, and we saved ₦50k every month and took turns to cart away the money. 

I also had my personal savings — ₦10k per month. I’d seen what not having money could do and saving  money seemed like the best way to avoid it. 

For the first time in forever, things were looking up. Then my dad passed away in December 2019. Cancer finally got him. 

I’m so sorry. 

Thank you. Funerals are expensive. The whole thing cost me about ₦800k, and I think the whole family spent up to ₦5m. We were broke oh. 

How did you raise the money?

A lot of it was cash gifts. I had to take a break from work for a few days when he passed, and the bank customers with whom I had a rapport noticed. They found out the reason I wasn’t at work and started sending me money. ₦20k here. ₦50k there. Also, I got my ₦500k from the contribution scheme. It was in January 2020, in time for his funeral. 

After the funeral rites had been completed, I had about ₦250k left. More money gifts came in when I returned to work, which shot my savings to ₦450k. The contribution scheme cycle had passed, so I was back to earning my full salary. But I was still channelling most of it into my savings. 

Fast forward to March 2021, I lost ₦250k in some investment scheme.

What happened?

My contract with the bank was going to expire in September 2020, and I knew I didn’t want a promotion to full staff.  I wanted a stronger safety net. Someone told me about the investment opportunity and I went in. The term was that I’d get 10% of my investment in the first month and subsequently receive 20% for six months. The first payment came through right before the lockdown. Then the whole thing came crashing down. That was the last payment I got. 

Omo. 

I was in worse shape than before, and I had only a few months to spend at work. I doubled down on my savings and made it ₦20k/month. When my contract with the bank expired in September, I had ₦300k in savings. 

But you were out of a job again. What was that like?

It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. I got a gig as a freelance content writer with someone I know. Then I got similar jobs with two other people. The rates were ₦1.20k per word. On average, I was making between ₦10k and ₦18k per week from each person I was working with. But it was also a lot of work for little reward. I did this for two months, then I got another job.

I was hired as an executive secretary at a forex management company for ₦50k/month. It wasn’t a hectic job, so I had time to continue freelance writing and making money on the side. 

What has happened between then and now?

I got tired of writing for people and earning so little money in return. In February this year, I turned my sights to Fiverr. Later that month, I got a job on the platform, which paid me $20. Subsequently, the client put me on a retainer — $100 per month to create content for their Instagram page. 

By this time, I had spent up to six months at my job, and they reviewed my salary to ₦70k. In May 2021, another client put me on a retainer, paying me $5 per hour. I was making $80 per week. 

And how has your relationship with money evolved?

I’ve been saving most of what I got from my 9-5 and my side gigs. It’s been easier to do this because I always get money gifts from men these days. It’s hard to put a number to it but a ballpark amount would be ₦50k – ₦60k, and I put most of it into my savings. 

I’m open to taking more risks too. In April this year, I took ₦300k out and put in an investment opportunity at my place of work. The terms are that I’ll get 15% of my investment every month, so it’s been bringing in an extra ₦45k/month. 

Hmm. What does your savings chest look like at the moment?

₦800k sitting in my PiggyVest and $1200 in my dollar account. My goal was to have ₦1m savings goal by the end of the year, and it looks like I’ve surpassed it already.

Yay. This sounds like a good place to talk about your monthly running expenses.

I get ₦115k from my salary and my investment. The first thing I do is to save ₦30k – ₦35k. The other running costs look something like this:

What have your experiences done to your perspective about money?

I’m a lot more responsible with money now. I know what it feels like to be stuck as an adult, and I know that a constant source of income brought me out of it.  So it makes sense to respect money and be responsible with it. Money has also become a safety tool for me. Knowing that I have it saved up somewhere is enough for me to have a good day. 

Fair enough. How much do you feel you should be earning right now?

From my 9-5? ₦180k seems like a fair amount, but I stand a higher chance of making that from freelancing than from my day job. And that’s how I plan to increase my income. 

How?

The plan is to double down on freelancing and figure out how to get better-paying gigs. I recently paid $120 for a course that should help me leverage freelancing platforms. The plan is to make enough dollar earnings by January next year, so I can quit this job. 

Rooting for you. I imagine there’s something you want right now but can’t afford. 

I don’t know. Maybe a car. It would definitely make moving around easier, but I don’t have ₦1.8m – ₦2m to splash on that right now. 

What about something you bought that significantly improved the quality of your life?

I recently splurged on some human hair, and it cost me ₦80k. Not sure if it improved the quality of my life, but it made me feel really good. 

Fair enough. On a scale of 0-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

6 ½. I’m not making enough and it makes me anxious. It’d be great to unlock more streams of income. That’s why I need this freelancing to work. My target is to make between $1k and $2k per month. When this happens, I can move up to an eight. 

Great! You got to the end of this article. Know what’s even better? You can get QuickCredit faster than the time it took you to read this article. With Quickcredit, GTBank customers can get N2million in less than 2 minutes and pay back over 12 months at an interest rate of 1.5%. No forms. No collateral. No hidden charges. Get Your Quick Credit on GTWorld

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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

The 34-year-old engineer in this #NairaLife made a career switch into oil and gas in 2014. Since that time, his basic salary has grown to ₦1.7m/month. Now, he wants to retire in six years with  $1m in liquid assets. How does he hope to get there?

What’s your oldest memory of money?

My parents worked in the civil service and most of the people I grew up with were in a similar economic class, so I didn’t think there were rich people or poor people.  I went to a government-owned school for my first three years of secondary school before switching to a private school for my senior secondary education in 2001. There, I learnt of my social standing. The first thing I noticed was that my school fees jumped from ₦200 to ₦14k per term. 

My allowance was ₦50, which was little compared to what others had. What this meant for me was that I had to save for days to afford things some of my classmates could buy in an afternoon.

There was also some anxiety that came with this discovery. I  avoided school parties as much as I could because I didn’t think I had the right clothes or shoes to wear. My three years at the school made it clear I had to make money in the future to bridge the gap.

Did you do anything for money during this time?

No, not really. I may have done one or two things for my family that fetched me money, but that wasn’t my objective and they were also far and in-between. 

I left secondary school in 2003 and enrolled for my A-Levels programme, and the tuition was ₦100k. This experience was also a reality check. While there were people who were taking the classes and writing the exam to apply to schools abroad, there was me who knew I was going to a university in Nigeria. I didn’t even finish the programme. 

Oh, why not?

I applied for and got into a diploma programme at a university in the southwest before the year ended, so I decided to go for it. It cost ₦210k, and my parents took a loan from their cooperative society to pay for it. A year later, I was offered provisional admission to study electrical engineering at the same university. 

How did uni go?

I lived mostly on the allowance I got from my parents. It was ₦5k and came once a month. I also had family friends in the city I was studying in and got some money from them at intervals too. However, I wasn’t saving or keeping money aside because it was barely enough. But I survived university and won’t say I had a tough time with money. I graduated in 2009.

I was mobilised for NYSC in June 2010 and posted to a state in the south-south. I worked in a secondary school owned by the state government. I lived on less than ₦13k/month for the entire year — the federal government paid ₦9,775 and the state government paid ₦3k. Luckily, food was also ridiculously cheap in the village I was posted to. I could make a pot of soup with about ₦320. I wasn’t exactly saving because I wasn’t earning enough, but by the end of my service year, I had about ₦50k in my savings account. 

How?

The 2011 election was the game-changer. I worked as an ad-hoc staff for INEC during the voter registration exercise and got about ₦30k from it. I also got about the same amount of money from working during the general election. 

This wasn’t the last sum of money I made off NYSC. 

I’m listening. 

After my service year, the federal government increased the allowance from ₦9775 to ₦19,800. My batch was eligible to receive payment arrears. I think they paid about six months arrears, which was good money to me, especially considering that I was at home and without a job.

Man, how long were you unemployed?

About three months. I got my first job in September 2011, as an engineer in an authorised repair centre for Nokia phones. My salary was ₦45k, which I thought was decent. I spent only four months there though. 

Why did you leave?

One of my mum’s friends had a son who worked with a contractor that handled marketing for Nokia phones in Nigeria, and I was encouraged to apply for a job there. I did, and I got the job. Nokia was a flagship phone at the time, so there were lots of roles. I was hired as an in-store experience marketer. I was posted to a phone store to serve as a Nokia representative and market the phones to potential buyers. The job paid ₦90k. 

That was twice what you earned as a phone engineer.

Yes, it was. At the end of my first month there, they transferred me to a North-central state, which was a bit of an inconvenience. There were no accommodation arrangements, and I had to figure that out myself. Guess what happened on the first night I got to my new station?

What?

I got a text from a bank I had applied to months earlier, inviting me to come for medicals. Man, I jumped on the first bus the following morning and left the town. I sent in my resignation on the same day. 

I had to go to the bank’s training school first. This started in February 2012 and lasted for four months. They paid trainees ₦50k. However, my time at the training school was some of the best of my life. Unfortunately, my time as a confirmed staff of the bank wasn’t half as pleasant. 

Why not?

Let me start with the good: I got a raise when I was absorbed into the bank’s workforce and my salary jumped to ₦208k. Subsequently, I was posted to the marketing department and had to find new customers for the bank. My department had an annual target of ₦4bn, and this was a drag on my life. In between finding new customers and retaining existing customers, my quality of life took a dip. At the height of it, my job satisfaction was low but the money was decent. Everything only made sense when my salary came in at the end of the month. 

Thankfully, two months after I started work as a full-staff, a consulting company I had applied to months earlier reached out, inviting me to the final round of interviews. I got an offer letter from them in August 2012.

How much?

₦128k. Another pay cut, but I was only too happy to accept it. I was like, “If I’m not going to chase customers, pay me whatever you want.”

Haha. Fair enough. 

After my induction, I was posted to management consulting. After my first year, my salary was increased to ₦150k. This was also around the time I delved into my first side hustle.

Tell me about that.

I started saving ₦50k from my salary every month because I wanted to buy a car. I saved ₦400k in eight months. One of my friends had an uncle who did Cotonou runs and shipped cars into Nigeria. We went to Cotonou together, but my ₦400k couldn’t buy me any of the cars I wanted. The best deal I got that was within my budget was a 1993 Toyota Camry, and they were going to sell it for ₦600k.

I eventually bought a 2001 Mazda, and it cost ₦700k. Two of my friends loaned me ₦150k each to buy the car. But the trip opened my eyes to the possibilities of shipping cars in and selling them in the country. The opportunity to act on this came a few months later when a friend wanted to buy a car and I told him I’d handle it. I went to Cotonou myself and brought the car in. On that trip alone, I made ₦75k in profit. For context, I was earning ₦150k per month. 

You made half your monthly salary in a day. 

Exactly. Omo, I started telling everybody I knew that I was selling cars. When this side business caught on, I was doing an average of two trips per month and making between ₦50k and ₦75k on each trip. 

Interesting. How was it going with your day job?

I was now in my second year at the consulting company. One day, a former colleague who had left for an oil company called me and informed me that his company was recruiting. I didn’t put a lot of thought into it, but I applied and went through the entire process. I got an offer to start work in May 2014. 

Whoop!

My basic salary was ₦650k, minus allowances. It would take me about six years to hit that number at the consulting company I was with. It was an easy decision.

I was hired as an instrumentation engineer. Basically, we automate the process used in bringing out oil and gas from the sub-surface.

The first payment I received from the company was an accommodation allowance. ₦22k per day for 90 days. And guess what? They paid everything at once. ₦1.98m landed in my account, and I hadn’t even done any work. It was the biggest lump sum payment I had ever received up until that point. 

Subsequently, I was put on a trainee programme, moving around different on-shore facilities to work and learn about the job. Mostly, I was working for two weeks and taking the following two weeks off. My basic salary was ₦650k, but there was also some form of allowance payment every month. On average. I was earning up to ₦1m every month as a trainee. 

Baller. 

I also saw an opportunity for my side business there. I told everyone I could that I sold cars, and the orders came in. They had a higher purchasing power than the guys at my former workplace, so they went for higher-end cars — mostly vehicles around the region of ₦4m – ₦5m. My profit on these deals were about ₦1m. 

Interesting.

I graduated from my trainee programme in 2017 and was transferred to my first facility. I got a raise and started earning ₦1.2m. The constant allowance I remember from that time was my accommodation allowance. The facility I was working out of didn’t have great accommodation options, so the company paid me ₦250k every two weeks to make up for that. 

And how has your salary evolved since that time? 

My salary has increased by at least 5% every year. At the moment, I earn ₦1.7m/month. But there are also a couple of allowances and bonus payments that come in during the course of the year. Everything I earn, including bonuses,  stacks up to ₦25m – ₦30m per annum.

On the side, I invest heavily in cryptocurrency. 

How did you get into crypto?

I grew out of the car business, so I started looking for something else I could do. I became interested in crypto in the early parts of 2020. I finally took the plunge in July when I bought one bitcoin for ₦4.5m. By the time I sold it,  it was ₦4.9m. I made a profit of ₦400k on one trade. 

Information is important when dealing with cryptocurrency, so I subscribed to every crypto subreddit I could find. And started doubling on my investments as much as I could. The more I got into crypto, the more I saw the possibilities. It’s been a game-changer, and it’s part of my retirement plan. 

What’s your retirement plan?

I want to retire at 40 with $1m in liquid assets. I’ve decided that crypto could get me there, so it’s pretty much my side hustle now. At the height of the bull run earlier this year, I had about $210k in my portfolio. But the dip happened and I held on. The last time I checked, I had $90k, and I’m building it back up. 

Man, how do you decide what coins to bet on?

Research. I do a lot of technical and fundamental analysis. With the fundamental analysis, I look at the coin, what problem it solves, and who the backers are. I’m not good at technical analysis, so I follow a lot of people who are. I look at their research and decide whether to invest in a coin or not. 

I know cryptocurrency is volatile, so I’m not putting all my hopes on it. 

What are your other investments?

I started investing in Eurobonds in 2018. I started with about $20k, and the ROI is 12% per annum. When Covid hit last year, I wanted to put more money in it, so I took a loan of ₦14m from work and topped the account up at ₦440/$1. The total value of my Eurobond investment now is about $60k. 

There’s also my company stock. Employees get a 15% employee discount, and I’ve been putting some of the money I get into that too. My stock in the company is currently valued at $30k. 

I have some landed properties in two states in the country, but I don’t put a lot of thought into this. I believe landed properties are not the best investment choice in Nigeria —  inflation eats at every profit you can ever hope to make. But I have a 3-bedroom project I’ve been working on since 2014 and is valued at ₦40m and another piece of land that’s worth ₦8m. 

All of this should bring my total investments across my portfolios to at least $180k. 

That’s impressive. Let’s talk about your monthly running costs. What do they look like?

I’m not married, but I have a live-in partner and we have two kids together, hence the housekeeping expenses. I took a loan from work last year to invest in Eurobond, and it’s spread over four years. I’m not mad about it — I’m repaying the loan in naira and earning my ROI in dollars. 

I also don’t save or invest in naira anymore. When I get paid at the end of the month, I take out my monthly running costs, convert the rest into dollars and put it into my range of investment. 

I really want to know how your perspective about money has changed over the years. 

It has largely remained the same — money is a tool to get things. I acknowledge that and also understand that I need to stay hungry to make more. 

Also, I don’t feel validation from owning things or splashing money on things I don’t need. I currently drive a 2004 European model car I bought for ₦1.5m. My annual rent is ₦500k. The plan is to keep expenses as low as possible and stack my bag up the best way I can. I’ve learned that money is like working out to grow muscles — you don’t get what you want in a day, so intentionality is key.

Looking at where you are in your career, how much do you feel like you should be earning?

For starters, I don’t feel underpaid. The next role I’m going into in my place of work should see my salary grow to ₦1.8m – ₦2m/month. I feel like I’m right where I should be. 

Great. Is there anything you want but can’t afford then?

A Tesla maybe. I don’t think I can’t afford it, but it wouldn’t make sense to buy it when I’m living in Nigeria. 

What about something you bought recently that required some planning?

I used my last phone  — a OnePlus — for five years. The newest model came out earlier this year and I just decided to go for it. It cost me $1054. It didn’t require a lot of planning; I just had to think about it for a bit before I liquidated some of my investments in crypto. 

I’m curious, when was the last time you felt really broke?

I can’t remember. I feel like I’m broke when the money in my account goes below ₦100k, and this hasn’t happened in a hot minute. Also, I know some money is available if I need to access it. I try as much as possible not to do it, but I could liquidate some of my assets if I badly need money. There’s some sense of security that comes with that. 

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

8. There’s no great need in front of me that I can’t afford. I’m also excited about my potential earnings and the strategy I’m putting in place to hit them. Life couldn’t be better, really. If I hit my $1m target by 40, this might increase to a 10. 

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Great! You got to the end of this article. Know what’s even better? You can get QuickCredit faster than the time it took you to read this article. With Quickcredit, GTBank customers can get N2million in less than 2 minutes and pay back over 12 months at an interest rate of 1.5%. No forms. No collateral. No hidden charges. Get Your Quick Credit on GTWorld

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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

The 43-year-old producer in this #NairaLife has had her fair share of highs and lows. Between 2001 and 2017, she worked her way up from ₦21k/month to $4k/month. 2021? She’s at ground zero. Now, she thinks success is a lot of luck before anything else. 

What’s your earliest memory of money?

It was the late 80s, and I was a 10-year-old JSS 1 student in a boarding school. The food at the dining hall was never enough because some senior student or greedy classmate always cleared it all. Small, defenceless students like me lived on food from the tuck shop, and this cost money. My allowance was between ₦5 and ₦20. 

What was life like pre-boarding school?

My mum was a school principal and my dad was a senior officer in the army. He was in charge of the engineering works the army did across the country. My dad retired when I was 12 or 13, and he found work as an engineer and quantity surveyor. Unfortunately, the economy had started crumbling under Sani Abacha. I can’t tell what the direct effect on him was, but I can tell you the changes I noticed at home. 

Please. 

It started materialising with the small things — we switched from using the gas stove to the kerosene stove. There were periods that there were no pieces of meat in our meals. Then my dad began selling his houses. This affected relationships within the family too.  My parents started fighting about everything, and the effect of this trickled down to us kids. It began to feel like me and my three siblings were a bother to them. 

I started forming my opinion about money at this point. I knew I needed to have my own money so I wouldn’t need to depend on a man or marriage. 

What was the first thing you did for money?

I took a job at a video club. This was 1994, and I had just finished secondary school. Memory fails me, but I think I was paid ₦100 or ₦200. Then I worked as a salesgirl at a trade fair, and I was paid about ₦800. 

I took up these jobs because I didn’t want to keep asking my dad for money, but it was also because ASUU was on strike. In 1995, I went off to school. Nothing prepared me for university.

What do you mean?

I was in uni during the peak of the 419 scams and cultism. The cults were usually linked to 419, and my dad used to give me about ₦3k – ₦5k every month. There were times my allowance was slashed without explanation, so I had to figure out a way to earn some extra money on the side. 

What did you do?

A couple of things between my third year and my final year.  I sold used clothes and shoes and for each one I sold, I made between ₦200 and ₦500 in profit. However, people didn’t always pay on time or at all —  and it affected my profit —  so I dropped it. After that, I worked as a salesgirl for a consumer goods company.  Not much happened after that until I finished university in 2000 and went for youth service. In 2001, I got my first job at a TV station.

The salary was about ₦21k, but I was shown the ugly side of unemployment in Nigeria from the get-go. 

How?

I found out that the company was notorious for owing their workers salaries for months. A friend of mine believes that your first job sets the tone for your career. He may be right because I think that job jinxed me. I worked there for six months and wasn’t paid once. I lived on money from my parents and friends. 

I tried to get another job after I quit, but it didn’t work out. After a couple of months, I returned to work at the station. 

Omo. 

Here’s what happened: a colleague who had also resigned decided to become an independent producer and produce a show for the station with a revenue-sharing agreement. He brought me on board to present. After two episodes, he threw in the towel and walked away. I decided to produce and present the show myself. I wrote a proposal, which the management of the TV station agreed to.

What were the terms?

They were going to pay me what they owed me in salaries, which I would use as a production fee. Also, they would give me an extra ₦5k – ₦10k every two weeks for my production. In return, I would bring in advert revenue and be entitled to 5% of whatever I brought. I had no idea what I was promising. 

Uh-oh.

The show was a lot of work. I covered events for free and made excellent reports out of them. I would sleep in the office at night to edit my show. But I never brought in ad revenue, so I didn’t get much respect from the admin. They gave me the old cameras and studio equipment and tossed my show to whatever time slot they could spare if there was a revenue-generating show. 

The good thing was that this show brought me my next job. A colleague saw me working overnight and proposed that we produce another show together. The project was for a foundation, and it ran for several months from 2002 to 2003. By the end of production, I’d earned at least ₦400k. 

Must have been huge. 

It was. It was even enough to buy a car. 

I was sure that the independent producer life was the one for me. My partner and I purchased some production equipment, and I thought I was set. However, we fell out later that year. He had the equipment and never returned them. My dreams began to die again. 

A couple of things happened here that also set me back: I‘d paid ₦160k for a new apartment. It turned out that the agent rented the same space to about 39 other people. The police were involved, and the agent was detained. Long story short, we realised that the police were in on it too and the guy had duped about 50 people the year earlier. The last straw was when the police told us to let him go so he could dupe others to pay us. 

I don’t even know what to say. 

As I was returning from the police station one night, some guy ran into my car from behind, destroying the rear windscreen, tail lights, bumper and paint job. He gave me his vehicle particulars, which contained his address. I found out later that none of it was real. I was set back a bit trying to fix all this mess. 

Guess what I did.

What did you do?

I went back to the TV station. I worked there into 2004, struggling to make ends meet. Eventually, I took a long look at myself, decided that I couldn’t do it anymore and resigned. 

After I quit, I interned with a couple of filmmakers for a brief period of time. One of them co-opted me into their show and paid me ₦15k per month to produce short documentaries. All of this happened between 2005 and 2006.

  I got another big break in 2006. 

Tell me about it. 

I was introduced to the head of a production company who was in charge of two big international shows and was looking for a runner for one of them. After interviewing for the gig, they decided I couldn’t be a runner. They made me a production manager instead. 

Whoop!

The salary was ₦180k/month. Imagine moving from ₦15k to this. The second show was running concurrently with the production I was on, and I worked on it when they needed someone with some local expertise. Working on both shows built my reputation, so when the production I was actually working on was cancelled, I was asked to come work on the second production. 

Wait, why was your show cancelled?

The production house was into some shady stuff. They wrote off personal expenses as show expenses and altered the contract of the production team. I noticed the several discrepancies and raised an alarm, not knowing it was an “official” instruction. The showrunners loved me for that, but people in the production house hated my guts. Gradually, I was building a reputation as being “uncooperative and difficult to work with”. 

I’ve seen this movie before.

It didn’t matter at the time because I was asked to work on the second show. I was paid an allowance, not a salary because I wasn’t a part of the original crew. My pay was ₦10k for each day I was on set and I worked there for four weeks. By the time I was leaving, I had made about ₦100k in direct payments excluding what I got in lunch and fuel allowances. 

Ah, I see. What were your finances looking like at this point?

It was definitely better than the previous year. My main expense was my rent, even though I was rarely at home. I think my apartment cost ₦100k or ₦120k. That was it.  Most of the money I was earning at the time went into food, hair and clothes. 

Moving on. Shortly after my time on the show, a girl I had helped get a job on the same show told me about another TV station that was hiring. I applied, and they brought me on as a producer and presenter. My salary was ₦100k.

Was it better than the last TV station you worked at?

It was. They paid salaries and were keen on innovation and growth. I was out by the end of 2006 though.

Ah, why?

The TV station was bought over by a church. Next thing, there were restrictions on what we could talk about or broadcast on-air. There was also a compulsory prayer service every morning, which I thought was ridiculous. 

I was an idealistic person who thought everything must be done a certain way, and these changes were spoilt that. With mounting responsibilities, building frustration and my immense ego from being the “teachers’ pet” at the station, I began acting out. During one night working overtime, I got into an argument with someone in senior management. He hit me, and I insulted him. An investigation was set up and I was asked to resign. I wasn’t sad about losing the job, but I was enraged by the obvious bias. I took the lesson and moved on. 

What was moving on like?

I was in between jobs for a while. In March 2007, I was headhunted for the role of a creative head in an experiential marketing agency. The pay was ₦140k but by the time I was leaving a year after, it had increased to ₦155k. Also, there were many avenues to make money outside of office work because I was meeting new people and working with them. In the best months, I took home about ₦400k – ₦500k.

So why did I leave?

Hmm. Why did you leave?

Short answer: my mental health took a hit. We had a major client whose account I was in charge of. I loved the work, but those people were so unpleasant to work with. They blamed us for their errors and turned their nose up at everything we did. I constantly had nightmares about them. I had to leave. 

Fair enough. What happened after?

I had already negotiated with a tech company that wanted me to join them in a creative role. The offer was ₦250k per month and a car. By the way, tech at this time meant selling ringtones to GSM networks. 

I didn’t work there for more than two months. There was a lot of unnecessary power play, which got irritating and boring. Luckily for me, a producer I had worked with on the two shows from 2006 reached out to me to work as a fixer on a production he was working on. I accepted the offer. 

How much did this pay?

₦23k per day, and it ran for 12 days. 

By some stroke of luck and diligence on my side, the cable channel that the show was produced for made me a work offer. The pay was $2k per month. This was 2008.

Fast forward to 2009, the landlord of the house I had been living in since 2004 and paying ₦140k in rent decided to sell his house. When the eviction notice came in June 2009, I stalled on moving out because I wanted to see if I could get a loan from the office to pay for a new place to live. In July, they cut off electricity and started demolishing parts of the house. For some reason, my boss refused to have a conversation with me about a house loan. I moved my things to a friend’s house.  In August, I started staying in a hotel, which wasn’t sustainable. I left in two weeks. But it was long enough for me to sleep with my then on-and-off boyfriend and get pregnant.

Omo.

My boyfriend didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I later found out that he had had his traditional wedding two weeks before he came to visit. 

Toh. 

Here I was, pregnant and homeless. I was 32-years-old and had health complications, so abortion wasn’t an option. A friend took me in, which was a big relief. While registering for antenatal classes, the third bomb dropped.

What was it?

They tested my blood for HIV, STDs and other significant things. My HIV test came back positive. It was done again and again, and it returned positive every time. I was homeless, pregnant and now, HIV-positive. My village people had finally caught me in a dark alley. 

I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how that must have felt.

Oh, it’s fine. This meant that I had to pay for antenatal services and HIV treatment. My doctor provided the antiretroviral drugs, which cost $100 per month — one dollar was ₦116 at the time. On the other hand, the antenatal expenses were about ₦5k – ₦10k per week. I had to figure all of these expenses out on a monthly salary of $2k.

Whew. How was it going on the work front?

Around the time, they brought in a new Head of Talent who seemed to have a problem with me being pregnant. December 2009 came, and it was time to renew my contract. Usually, this was just a routine thing. 

The new Head of Talent reached out to me and asked if I would like him to sort it out. I thought that would make things faster, so I said yes. 

He asked if there was anything I’d like to see changed, and I was like I could use more money or fewer work hours. 

After this, he sent me an email that went, “Hey. Would $2000 a month and working 5 days a week be a dealbreaker?” I wrote back: “Yes. This is what I’m currently earning. They can do better to increase the salary or reduce my workdays.”

At this point, I thought I was still having a friendly conversation with the HR guy. But the next thing he said was, “It was nice working with you.”

Hay God!

In retrospect, I think he wanted written confirmation that he had asked me and I had said no, so he could present the email to the HR department as proof that I was no longer interested in the job. I was shocked and blindsided. More importantly, I was 6 ½ months pregnant.

Deep sigh.

I received $500 at the end of that month. Afterwards, I had several issues that complicated my situation, including being kicked out of the places I was putting up. Also, being out of a job meant I couldn’t pay for my medical services. 

Shortly after I had my baby in 2010, I left the city I was in and went home to my parents. I was there until 2012 before I returned.

Why did you return this time?

A friend from my last job made me an offer to manage his company — a record label cum media company. The basic pay was ₦250k but he also promised me accommodation and a car. 

How did it go there?

It was the most abusive job I’ve had to date. I never got the car. It took eight months before I got money to pay for my accommodation — I was sleeping on a mattress in a room in the office. I moved on from that job in 2013. 

I stayed for as long as I did because of my daughter. My lifestyle and decision-making had to change when she came along. Not sure the decision to stay at the job was entirely bad because I could afford to put her in a great school and meet my needs.

2013 to 2015 was characterised by small jobs, mostly event and project management. Each job I got paid between ₦200k to ₦300k, which saw me through the years. In 2016, I travelled out of the country for a year — a foundation I worked with sponsored it. I got my next job when I returned to Nigeria in 2017. 

Where?

An international media company. I was hired as the country manager and my salary was $4k per month. After a few months of business, the board saw the money-making potential the Nigerian office had and they brought in a new CEO. This guy was ruthless. He questioned the purpose of every staff that had been previously employed and fired some. 

My salary was even stopped for two months. I had to pass an assessment before he reinstated me and resumed payment. It didn’t help much that the evaluator at my assessment spoke highly of me, the new CEO had other plans. He brought in his people to fill every position available. Gradually, he began firing people until it came to my turn. On the last day of September 2018, I received an email from the CEO that I had been relieved of my appointment. It could have been the stress or the shock of the news, but I fell critically ill shortly after. I had managed to stash away about ₦1.7m in savings. By December 2018, my income and savings were down to 0.

Damn. 

I struggled a bit with work and my health in 2019. The jobs I got were far and in-between and paid nothing more than ₦200k. 2019 was also the year my family house got burnt, killing my dad. What I had managed to save up to that point went into everything that came with this. 

I’m so sorry.

2020 was a blur. But I suffered significant health challenges. I think the stress of not having a regular income got to me. The only reason I could afford my rent was because I got a ₦1m gig.

2021?

I thought it was time for a new start.  I decided to pack it all in and move from the city I had been living in since my first job. The cost of moving cross-country was also something I had to deal with.

What was it like?

Ah, moving property across the country isn’t easy or cheap these days. When they took a survey of my property, I got quotes between ₦300k and ₦500k. They mentioned insecurity as one of the reasons for their charges. They also had to bribe security officials along the way. I didn’t have all that money, so I had to raise money from friends and family, and I supplemented what I got by selling off property. At the end of it, everything I spent came close to ₦210k.

Now, to the real reason why I moved.

I’m listening. 

My daughter. In the last three years, she had to see me deal with anxiety and depression from the moment she woke up till she slept. She saw it all — the tears, outbursts, and the helplessness of it all. I decided that had to stop this year.

You’re living with your family now. How’s that been going?

So far so good. There’s staff to watch my child and I feel less reluctant to get out of bed these days. I’m hopeful for the future. 

I have a feeling that your perspective about money would have changed a lot over the years. 

My view on the acquisition of material things has changed a bit. When I moved in with my parents in 2010, I kept my property with a friend in their home storage. By the time I had a home to take it to three years later, most of my things were gone. Yet, I replaced a lot of it a few months later. When I travelled out of the country in 2016, I gave my things out. In 2017, I acquired much more. When I was moving this year, the dance happened again — I sold stuff off and gave others away. All of these things are replaceable. 

Over the years, I have learned that holding on to possessions is a futile task. They are tools and they should be used because one of two things will happen: you go or they go. Now, I have no value for any material possession.

What has significantly changed is how I view success. 

I’m listening. 

When people talk about a path to success or berate others for not working hard enough, I laugh. I believed that too, but not anymore. Success is a lot of luck before anything else. 

I hear that. So what are things looking like now financially?

I only just got here recently, so my income is still 0. I’m living off my relative here, and they honestly don’t mind. I’m using this time to make a plan and pursue it. 

No current income means no expense, but I could give you a ballpark figure of my monthly expenses in the last three years.

Please.

I never bought new clothes for either my daughter or me. Our money went to feeding. Or health.

I imagine there’s something you want now but can’t afford.

Oh my! There are so many things. Shoes for my daughter whose feet stretch by an inch every night. A paid-off year for her school. But a little thing would be a JBL Bluetooth speaker. During the last few years, music was therapeutic to me and my daughter. But I had to hold my device close to our ears. Also, because of my background, I’m particular about sound, and this speaker does the job. 

What about a part of your finances you wish you would be better at?

Maybe spinning money from nothing. Some people have the uncanny ability to make money anywhere they are from whatever they do. I don’t know how else I can do this except to work at a job or offer a service I’m skilled at. 

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness at the moment?

It’s a -2.  I can’t be happy until my daughter’s future is assured, no matter how good it seems I’m doing. The right scenario would be that if I die today, my child can continue and finish her education at the level and standard she became accustomed to.

Your daughter’s dad is not in her life, is he?

No. He walked away. 

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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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

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What’s your oldest memory of money?

When I was 13 years old, my dad came home with a bag. When he called me into a room and opened the bag, I saw a lot of ₦5, ₦10, and ₦20 notes inside. We counted the money together and everything was about ₦120k. This was in the mid-90s. My dad worked in a government-owned tertiary institution, and the money was his students’ payment for an exam. He brought it home because they couldn’t take it to the bank that day. 

We kept the money at home for a night, but it was such a scary experience. 

Why?

I watched my dad struggle to raise me and my two siblings on his civil service salary. Let me put that into perspective: we ate rice and bread during holidays, but we drank pap every day. The first place I saw a colour TV and a VHS player was at a neighbour’s.

So, I was at a loss when my dad brought the money home. It was the biggest amount of money I’d seen at that point. I was pretty sure we were going to get robbed before daybreak.

Where was your mum in all of this?

My parents had a misunderstanding they couldn’t get past when I was younger, so my mum left. 

Ah, I see. 

Anyway, my view of money at the time was that only big people could have it. I didn’t understand how money worked, but it felt like you had to be born rich to make money. This perspective shifted when I made money for the first time. 

Tell me how it happened.

When I was in SS 2, a lady in my compound pitched the idea of selling fruits to me. I didn’t have a full grasp of what she meant but I dropped a small capital and followed her to the market. We brought ₦20 worth of oranges and added our own markup. By the end of the day, we made about ₦50. I think this was my first lesson in the economics of money. Now, I knew I could make it if I worked hard enough. 

Nice. What happened after?

Nothing significant until I finished secondary school. But before that happened, my dad became the head of his department, and things improved a bit at home. We could finally afford some things we had thought were luxuries. A memorable purchase was a VCD player because it meant that we didn’t have to go to our neighbours to watch TV anymore. 

But there was still a lot to aspire to, and I had started thinking of what my life would look like after secondary school.

When I finished secondary school in 2001, I applied to a university in my state but didn’t get in. I had to wait until the following year to try again. During my gap year, I worked on an aunt’s poultry farm. She wasn’t paying me a salary, but I made some money for myself from selling cracked eggs. It wasn’t a lot but it was enough to hold myself together.

How long did you spend on the farm?

About eight months. In 2002, I got into a pre-degree program at the same university. I left home with some foodstuff and ₦1500. Not sure I would have been able to afford accommodation if a friend from secondary school didn’t house me. 

Subsequently, my monthly allowance remained ₦1500. But things took a turn for the worse in my second year. 

What happened?

The government restructured my dad’s place of work, and it affected him. He tried as much as he could to make sure I got something every month, but sometimes the money came late or didn’t come at all. I knew I had to find a way to survive. 

What did you decide to do?

I can only speak about this now because so much time has passed. I was good at science subjects, so I started writing external exams for people. On average, I charged ₦1500 per paper. The exams were seasonal, so the money wasn’t even constant. 

I was almost caught once, and it put things in perspective for me. The decision was easy: I quit. 

I didn’t do anything for money until 2005, during the trial census. Someone I knew helped me get on the census team. The whole thing lasted for three weeks, and at the end of it, I got paid ₦13,500. This was the biggest lump sum payment I’d received at that point. 

Do you remember what you did with it?

Haha, I bought a phone. The GSM buzz had hit and I felt inferior because I couldn’t afford one. When the money came in, it seemed like an important purchase. I went for an Alcatel phone, which cost ₦9900 and bought a sim card for ₦3500. Like that, the money was gone. 

But hey, you had a phone. 

See, I know it seemed like an important purchase at the time but looking back now, I don’t think it was. The money could have gone into other things I needed. 

Ah, the power of hindsight. When did you leave uni?

October 2006. I was mobilised for NYSC in February 2007 and posted to a state in the south-south. My dad gave me ₦8k when I was leaving — and he struggled to get that money. 

I spent about ₦4k on travelling to my state of deployment and had ₦4k left when I got to camp. The three weeks that followed were all about figuring out how to save the money I had left — I ate from the camp kitchen and didn’t visit mammy market once. 

The federal government paid the first allawee at the end of the third week — it was ₦8500 at first, but it increased to ₦9775 before I finished my service year. I was posted to a secondary school in a small village on the outskirts of the state, and that was where I spent the rest of my service year. 

The thing about the village was that there were no banks or ATMs. Every month, the corps members in the community would gather their ATM cards together and send someone to go to the state capital to withdraw money. If you finished your money before the end of the month, you had to go to the capital by yourself, and that was expensive. 

Sounds hectic. 

It was. Fast forward to 2008, I finished NYSC and started making moves to get a job. I would buy the Tuesday edition of a Nigerian newspaper and go through the published job opportunities. I don’t know how many companies I applied to, but one of them invited me for an interview, and I got the job. 

Yay. What did the company do?

They distributed healthcare products, and I was hired as a marketer. My salary was ₦30k. My quality of life took a hit while at the job though. For starters, I was spending up to ₦8k monthly on transportation expenses. I knew I wasn’t going to be there for long. Luckily, I got another job at a bank six months later. 

I had applied to a bank, written their tests, and attended aninterview months earlier but I didn’t hear from them, so I moved on. Next thing, the bank called me to come in for my medicals. I resumed at  as a graduate trainee in October 2008. 

What was remuneration like?

I was earning ₦107k when I joined. The highest amount to hit my bank account prior to this was ₦50k, and now I hit the ₦100k mark. It felt like a breakthrough. When I got my first salary, I bought a Nokia phone for ₦77k. The following month, I bought a laptop. 

Balling!

Haha. At the end of my trainee programme, I was posted to the internal control department. Three years and three branches later, I was transferred to the head office. That changed my career forever.

How?

The transfer came with a role change, and I started working in the regulatory compliance department. After a few months, I decided that’s what I wanted to do for the rest of my career. What remained was mapping my trajectory and I got started. But first, I had to leave the bank although my salary had increased to ₦200k.

Why did you leave?

It was time. I  realised that the best way to grow in the industry was through job hopping. 

I started interviewing for a new job in 2013 but I didn’t get the offer until 2014, which worked for me. When I finally resigned, they paid me my gratuity — about ₦1.7m — because I’d spent up to five years at the bank. I started my new job in February 2014. 

How did that go?

My gross salary was ₦4.5m per year when I started working there, but my monthly net was ₦250k. At the end of my first year, I got a 30% raise. 

In 2016, it felt like it was time to leave again. But before I quit, I started looking at certifications that would give me an edge — the industry is big on those too. I found one that was in hot demand and went for it. It cost $1500 and I was broke for three months after I wrote the exam. 

After I got the certification, doors began to open. Someone recommended me to a payment company looking to set up a functional compliance unit, and they brought me on to head the department. The offer was ₦10.4m gross per year. My monthly take-home pay was ₦450k, excluding the bonuses. 

Lit. 

A couple of life events had happened by this time. I got married in 2013 and by February 2015, I had two kids already. So, I was doing a lot more long term thinking. Getting a property ranked high on the things I wanted, but I didn’t have enough money to buy a house. It was cheaper to build from the ground up. I started saving a minimum of ₦50k every month towards the project in 2015. As my salary increased, I put more money into it. Also, a portion of my bonuses and other lump-sum payments went into the account. 

Back to my job. I spent less than a year at the payment company because I got an offer to head the regulatory compliance unit of a bank, and it was a senior role. So I resigned from the payment company and joined the bank. My gross annual pay was ₦14m per year, excluding bonuses and other lump-sum payments. And my monthly salary was ₦660k. I spent two years there before I moved again. 

Where did you move to this time?

A telecommunications company. When I saw the job advert, I thought it might be a refreshing change for me. I applied, and I was hired as a manager in their risk and compliance department. I accepted their offer and my monthly salary grew from ₦660k to ₦1.1m. Between the time I started working there and now, I’ve gotten a few raises which has increased my monthly gross salary to ₦1.8m and my net salary to ₦1.3m. This doesn’t include the bonuses and other benefits. With benefits and bonuses, the number rises to about ₦30m per year.

Bonuses: ~₦4m

13th-month salary: ₦1.2m

Leave allowance: ₦1.3m

HMO: ₦600K

You’ve come a long way in the past 13 years, how do you move money around now?

Well, I’m a family man with three kids now — two of whom have started going to school — so my recurrent expenses have grown over the past five years or so. Let’s start with the monthly running costs, which is ₦400k.

Can we break it down, please?

About the salaries: I hired an after-school teacher for my kids, and I pay them ₦20k. There’s also someone who comes in to teach them Arabic and whom I pay ₦20k. 

I have two domestic staff on my payroll: a gateman and a lady who helps my wife, and they earn ₦25k and ₦15k respectively.

Got it. Where does the remaining ₦900k go?

I divide it into two parts: ₦400k goes into things like my kids’ school fees and other small projects I’d like to take care of. The remaining ₦500k is for my savings and investments. Thankfully, I don’t pay rent anymore. I completed my building project last year. Do you want me to talk about it?

Yes, please. 

I started saving for it in 2015, but I didn’t really act on it until 2018 when I bought a plot of land, which cost ₦550k. But I didn’t like the area it was in. Then I started having ownership issues, so I sold the land for ₦900k.

I had been putting the money I was saving towards the project in my mutual funds account and by 2018, it had accumulated to ₦8m. Later that year, I bought a half plot of land in another part of the city for ₦6m. Now, I had ₦2.9m to start the project —  a four-bedroom duplex. Between the time I laid the foundation and the time we moved in, I’d spent more than ₦30m. 

Whoa. Let’s break it down. 

I’m still not sure how I did it, but let’s attempt to break it down.

I laid the foundation in March 2019, and the first phase of the project gulped about ₦5m. That bit was easy because I’d raised about ₦8m, thanks to my savings and a huge bonus I got at work. After we raised the building to the lintel level, I took a three months break to raise more money. In August 2019, I returned to the project and spent about ₦7.8m to raise it to the decking and roof level, then took another six months break. 

I went back to it in February 2020. A month later, Covid struck, so it was suspended for a while. But I really wanted to complete it last year, so I asked the contractor to give me an estimate of how much I’d need to finish the house. The number they gave me was ₦15m, which I didn’t have. 

How did you eventually raise it?

I approached my bank for a ₦10m loan, and they approved it. I gathered every other resource I could find to raise the remaining ₦5m. My wife and I agreed to cut down on non-essential expenses, so we could save more. I even sold one of my cars to hit the ₦5m target. Inflation affected the price of things, and I had to borrow an extra ₦2.9m from close associates to pump into the site. That was mostly it. 

It took a bit of work and perseverance but we moved into our home in August last year. 

Yay! Well done. 

Thank you. Now, I have a bank loan to repay. The tenure is for four years, but I’m not a big fan of taking loans unless I absolutely have to. So I’ve been paying it off as fast as I can. I got a bonus at work at the end of last year and most of it went into servicing the loan. Right now, I still have a balance of ₦5m to pay. The plan is to clear it all by the middle of next year. 

Man. You talked about savings and investments earlier. What do they look like at the moment? 

It’s mostly investments, really. I also do a bit of mutual funds. The ROI is not as attractive as it was a few years ago anymore, but it’s a low-risk investment. I have about ₦4m in my mutual funds account at the moment, and that’s about it. 

So how much do you think you should be earning?

I think my earnings are fair. I try not to live in a bubble, so I know it could be a lot worse. Millions of people in the country are not earning as much, and that puts things in perspective for me. I mean, I want more but I’m also content with what I currently earn.

This is a good place to ask how your experiences have shaped your perspective about money. 

First, I believe the value of money is in how you use it. Second, growing your income is mostly about how you decide to take on and leverage opportunities. I grew up with nothing and worked my way up here. I won’t deny that I’ve had a lot of help and support, but I also did the work and knew when it was time to move away from a job. Privilege and luck are great, but they don’t work in isolation.

Is there anything you want but can’t afford?

I’m looking to get Canadian or Australian citizenship for my kids but I don’t want to do it via the migration route — it’s too stressful. Citizenship by investment is more straightforward although it’s more expensive. I’d really like that right now, but I can’t afford it. 

Fair. What about something you spent money on recently that improved the quality of your life?

My house. The quality of my life has gone up in many ways since my family moved in. The peace of mind I have now is unbeatable. 

That makes sense. How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 0-10 then?

7. I have all the things I wanted to have at this age — a family and a home to house them. Also, we can afford to do anything we want, which is a departure from my childhood. Canadian or Australian citizenship will shoot this number to a 9. But even if it doesn’t happen, I’m in a good place already. 

Great! You got to the end of this article. Know what’s even better? You can get QuickCredit faster than the time it took you to read this article. With Quickcredit, GTBank customers can get N2million in less than 2 minutes and pay back over 12 months at an interest rate of 1.5%. No forms. No collateral. No hidden charges. Get Your Quick Credit on GTWorld

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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

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A consistent pattern in this #NairaLife is how this 25-year-old lawyer’s black tax increases as her income increases. But she doesn’t mind a lot. So how does she balance her black tax obligations with her hopes and aspirations?

What’s your oldest memory of money?

Primary school. Besides my allowance, my parents used to pay my siblings and me anything from ₦5 to ₦10 to wash plates, usually when there was a big pile in the kitchen. My parents also had an ice block business run by my mum. Whenever we helped out, they’d pay us between ₦30 and ₦50 naira. This was in the late 90s through the early 2000s, and my relationship with money then was “earn and spend”.

Would you say you were rich?

I won’t say we were rich, but we were comfortable. We had a grass to grace story. When my dad first started working in the civil service, things were a little hard at home. By the time I was born, he had gotten a few promotions and a flat. 

The ice block business was the first side business my parents started.  When I was in JSS 1 or JSS 2, my mum opened a bookshop. So we had multiple income streams. The only tricky thing was that a lot of people in our extended family depended on my dad, and navigating that was a bit of a challenge.

Tell me about how it worked. 

A lot of people on my dad’s side of the family saw him as a big man. That meant paying school fees for their kids. During the holidays, about three or four cousins would come to our place, and he’d pay for their summer lessons. Asides from that, when someone wanted to start a business, my dad was the first person they’d call. Every month, he always had a new list of family expenses to worry about. At one point, his black tax was even larger than our home’s expenses. My mum wasn’t a fan of that.

How did she handle it?

My mum understood that my dad was generous to a fault, so she advised him to do something for himself and his kids. 

It’s funny but my dad didn’t have a lot of assets to his name, and it was because of all the money he was giving out. Even the house we lived in was owned by the government. Eventually, my mum convinced him to buy land and build a house in our village and another land on the outskirts of the city we lived in.

They still had constant arguments about how much money he was giving out. Since this caused friction between them, my mum was particular about managing the ice block and bookshop businesses by herself, so she could have her own security. If she had left the businesses to my dad, I’m not sure we would have seen one profit from them. 

I should add that I was still young when this started and wasn’t always at home because I went to boarding school. The only thing I knew was that they paid my school fees and gave us an allowance. It wasn’t until SSS 1 or SSS 2 that I started knowing the true affairs of things. 

Got it. Enough about your parents, what was boarding school like for you?

I went to a state school, so there were people from different walks of life. At the start of secondary school, my monthly allowance was ₦1k or ₦1500. It increased over time to ₦2500.  

Boarding school taught me how to save. It was there I realised that I didn’t like not having the safety of money, so I took saving seriously in JSS 3. 

During the holidays after I wrote my Junior WAEC, an opportunity to make more money presented itself. 

What was it?

My mum had my younger sister, so she was at home for a while. She put me and my older sister in charge of the bookshop, and she gave us ₦1k – ₦2k when she could. But we figured out that we could make more if we added a markup on some products. For example, if the selling price of a book was ₦200, we would add ₦50 naira to it. By the time school resumed, I had made about ₦10k from the shop. It opened my eyes, and I was like “Wow. So this is how people make money.”

Do you remember what you spent the money on?

I spent the money on myself to the fullest. I got a wristwatch, a pair of slippers and other things I had always wanted to buy. When I returned to school, I felt like a big girl.

Lmao. I guess you continued helping out at the shop during the holidays.

Yes. This continued even after I left secondary school in 2011. The shop really came through for me and my siblings. We even started stocking the shop with books my mum didn’t sell, especially Harlequin books.

I got into the university in 2011 to study law. My allowance was ₦5k per month, which was hardly enough for a uni student. I augmented my allowance with whatever I made at the shop during the semester and session breaks — I was always back at the shop during the holidays. On average, I was making ₦20k every month from the markup and sales of books I bought and put on the shelves.

I lived within my means while in school — I cooked my meals and rarely ate outside and bought thrift clothes. So the money I made at the shop during the previous semester and my allowance were always enough for me to live on until the next semester break when I’d return to the bookshop. While my classmates were going for internships, I was at the shop trying to make as much as I could. That place really saved my life. 

I bet. 

Things changed a bit during the session break in 2017. I was going into my final year in school at the time. 

What happened?

I had an accident, which caused some damage to one of my legs. 

I’m so sorry. 

Thank you. My dad was retiring, and my eldest sister was going to a school abroad. He also had to figure out how to settle my medical bills. Both expenses ran into millions of naira. That was a lot of money for a civil servant.

Do you have an idea how he raised this?

His savings. He had money in his domiciliary account, but the events wiped most of it. When he retired the following year, he used his severance pay to complete building a house on the land my mum convinced him to buy a couple of years back. Now, we were essentially surviving on my mum’s bookshop, which wasn’t as profitable as it used to be. The economy was hard, and that impacted everything. 

Omo. Tell me, what changed after the accident?

My life as I knew it. I couldn’t go to the shop for the longest time because I was recovering. Although, people gave me money gifts during this time — I got about ₦50k — I would have preferred to be able to make my own money. I needed some things when I was going back to school and that brought all the money I had down to ₦20k.

I resumed school a month before the first semester exams, so there was a lot to catch up on. After my father’s retirement, I got my first reality check about what it meant for us. He sent me ₦90k for my rent as opposed to the usual ₦120k. One of my sisters and I used our money to complete the rent.

My finances were non-existent at this point. I wasn’t doing anything for money and was pretty much depending on the goodwill of people. And I had to worry about my final year project too. Thankfully, my mum and my sister funded it but I had to do a lot of things I would ordinarily outsource myself to save money. Anyway, I graduated from university in 2017. 

Well done. What came after uni?

Thank you. There was a short wait before I went to law school. I had recovered by then, so I returned to the shop. However, the economy was on a fast decline and customers weren’t coming as they used to. Whatever little money I made there, I used it to get things I needed for law school. I had ₦5k on me when I was going to school. 

Law school wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. My family came through for me. I could go home during weekends if I wanted to get stuff. The shop was there for me to make urgent ₦2k too. Also, I had a boyfriend — we started dating right before law school and he was there for me all the way through.

Thank God for the best support systems.

Fast forward to post-law school. While I was waiting for my call to the bar, I was making some money from the shop. I also started giving legal advice to small businesses which fetched between ₦3k and ₦5k. I saved ₦50k doing these things from August to November 2018. I was called to the bar and mobilised for NYSC in October. 

Where did you work during your service year?

I was posted to a law firm and the pay was ₦40k. The federal government was also paying ₦19800. The primary problem during my service year was the amount of money I spent on transportation. I was earning ₦59800 and spending up to ₦30k on transportation.

Why was that?

My parents lived on the outskirts of the city and my office was in the city centre. It was a struggle to move around on days my boyfriend didn’t call me a cab. Sometimes, I slept at a friend’s place. Despite this, I was always tired and frustrated, which makes sense — I was spending about half of my earnings on moving around and didn’t have enough money to save. My quality of life was pretty much non-existent. 

The best thing I could do was to find a place closer to work. 

That makes sense. Did it happen?

Yes. I got a one-room apartment in February or March 2018. The basic rent was ₦300k but the total package was ₦500k.  My sister — the one studying abroad — had promised to support me with rent, but when I got a space, she was figuring out how to pay for her PhD. Thankfully, my boyfriend came through.

Nice.

Although the space I got was small, it was worth it. I was now spending about 45 minutes to one hour on my commute and spending about ₦15k on transport in an average month. Let me even give a breakdown of my monthly expenses during my service year. 

After the end of my service year, I quit the law firm. The pay was too little for the trouble. I had been applying for jobs and attending interviews before I finished NYSC. Shortly after my service year, I was hired at a law firm. My salary was ₦120k.

You went from earning ₦40k to ₦120k. How did that feel?

I was so excited. It seemed like I was earning a lot of money. But do you know what it means when they say someone earns their living? I earned that money. I worked long hours repeatedly. Sometimes I was at the office until 11 p.m.

It was while I was at this job that I started paying black tax. Omo, e choke. My parents didn’t ask but I knew things were not as good at home. Every month, I was saving between ₦20k and ₦25k. After paying other bills, I had enough left to send ₦20k home. I wouldn’t say it didn’t affect me because, by the middle of each month, I’d be down to ₦5k. Afterwards, I’d be forced to take out of my savings. The monthly cycle was to save money, take out of my savings, return whatever I took after I got paid, take out of the savings again. 

Sounds hectic.

Oh, it was. I almost forgot about this. I started a legal business during NYSC, helping people establish businesses. I made ₦20k in profit from the first company I got as a client. A lot wasn’t coming in from it, so I dropped it. 

While I was at my second job, I picked the business up again because a colleague was also doing it, and he was gracious enough to show me the ropes. This was in February 2020 and I started making ₦40k – ₦50k from each client I worked with. Before long, I had about ₦150k in my savings. It didn’t take long before I had to use it. 

Why?

Something came up with my health, and it was related to the accident I had in 2017. The medical bill I incurred was ₦200k.  My mum gave me ₦50k to complete the payment. A couple of weeks later, the pandemic hit and I had to deal with a 50% pay cut. 

Ah, that breakfast. 

Lmao. Nothing came from my side hustle either. 

You were now earning ₦60k with no side hustle. What did that mean for you?

It was figuring out how to live on ₦40k after sending ₦20k home to my parents because my mum’s shop was locked up. It also meant that I couldn’t save. To be honest, I didn’t try to.

Fair enough. When did you return to receiving your full salary?

July 2020. My boss also paid me a ₦100k bonus in July 2020. I put ₦60k in my savings, sent ₦20k and used ₦20k to buy stuff for myself. Let’s be honest, I deserve it. 

Haha. I mean, I agree. 

After that, I was trying to rebuild my savings. I knew my salary at my job wasn’t going to do it for me, so I started looking for a new job. To be fair, they increased my salary to ₦140k in august, but I didn’t think it was enough to make me stay. I eventually quit the job in November and resumed my new job in December. 

What’s the new job about?

I got an offer to work in the legal department of a financial services company. My salary? ₦200k. It was a major bump for me, even though my friends in other firms were earning between ₦350k and ₦400k. Sha, everybody dey run their race. 

I’m still at the company and aside from my basic pay, they pay for my internet and give me another ₦25k stipend every month. So really, I’m earning ₦225k.

What’s happened between the time you got the job and now?

I got serious with my business establishment hustle in January 2021, so I set it up properly. I leveraged social media, and it’s been very helpful for referrals. Sometimes, I make up to ₦250k from my side hustle in a month.

That’s lit.

However, my black tax has also increased to about ₦50k per month. The major family expenses are sorted by me and my older sisters, then some by my mum. Nobody disturbs my dad for money now. 

It’s not been that bad. My standard of living has also increased over time. Can I break down my monthly expenses now?

Yes, please. 

My core savings goes into my PiggyVest account. My mum manages the ajo thing, so I send the money to her every month. Most of the money I use to manage myself during the month is from my side hustle. 

I see you have money in mutual funds. What do you think about investments?

I only put money in it because my company offers a mutual funds service. I’m not interested in investments like that. I’ve realised that you need to invest a reasonable amount of money to get decent returns. I’m looking forward to getting my capital back by the end of the year.

Would you say you have a fear of investments?

I know that I have a low-risk appetite. My mum was always careful with money so I think that’s where the fear came from. I’m always thinking, what if something happens to the money. I like financial security and at the moment, my savings give me that. I know I have access to the money whenever I need it. 

How much do you have in savings right now?

About ₦700k in my PiggyVest and ₦200k in my mutual funds.

What have your current earnings meant for your standard of living? 

I moved into a bigger apartment recently. The rent is ₦1m but I’m sharing it with a roommate. My boyfriend paid my share of the rent, so I didn’t have to worry about it. I have stopped buying thrift clothes because I can now afford to buy new clothes every other month. Also, I spent ₦120k on a wig this year although I had to save for three months to afford it. I had been spending money on wigs that didn’t last long, so I wanted to invest in a good one. 

My standard of living has improved but my parents’ haven’t. And since I centre my life around my family, I can’t enjoy myself too much without thinking about them. 

I’m curious, do you have a plan for medical emergencies?

My sister pays for premium health insurance for my parents, and it puts me at ease. I don’t have up to ₦1m to my name, which isn’t enough for big emergencies. But I have  HMO at work, which should cover a few things. For the most part, my boyfriend is my safety cushion. And maybe my sister who is abroad. 

A segue. How much do you think you should be earning now?

Oh, I have been promoted at work and will start earning ₦250k at work from next month. People I went to law school with and got jobs in top law firms are earning about ₦400k – ₦500k. I think I should be earning within that range too, but things don’t work out that way in this country. I truly appreciate my salary. I’m content with this for now. 

What will get you to your next level of income?

I don’t plan to leave my current job any time soon but I hope I get another promotion. Ultimately, the plan is to leave Nigeria for school next year, so I need to earn more to save more. I’ve been applying for scholarships and if one of them comes through, I want to have enough money to sort out the other bills that come with it. The only thing I can do is work hard and hope that promotion comes through. 

I want to ask, is there anything you would like now but can’t afford?

A car! I really want one. However, I’m saving for school. At the moment, the option is choosing between a car and an education. I’m going with the obvious choice.

On the flip side, what was the last thing you spent money on that improved the quality of your life?

My AirPods. I got it for ₦75k, and it’s made my life so much better. Now, I can be in a meeting and doing chores at the same time. I love it so much. 

What part of your finances do you think you could be better at? 

I don’t want to say managing my black tax better, but that’s it. I’m always thinking about sending more money home. It’s not easy to navigate. 

Going forward, what do you imagine your black tax will look like?

I don’t think it’s going to completely go away. As it stands, I have four siblings. Two of them are older than me, so I don’t have to worry about them. But the last two — a sister and a brother —  are still in school, and they need us. The only option is for myself and my older sisters to get our money up and assist my mum. The black tax isn’t going anywhere.

How has your perspective about money evolved over time?

I’ve grown from earning money and spending it. I still think money is meant to be spent but I’m more responsible with money now.  I do YOLO in a while because I believe there has to be a balance between making money and spending money. The point is, I don’t spend more than I can handle. 

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

6. I’m not earning as much as I want, and I can’t afford to spend money on a couple of important things. I shouldn’t have to choose between going to school and buying a car. I want to be able to spend money without looking at a list for too long. Also, the black tax is tiring — it worries me all the time. 

What would get you to an 8, a 9 or maybe even a 10?

A significant salary raise and growing my side business to scale. For starters, I won’t feel the black tax a lot, and that’s half of my troubles solved already. 

Great! You got to the end of this article. Know what’s even better? You can get QuickCredit faster than the time it took you to read this article. With Quickcredit, GTBank customers can get N2million in less than 2 minutes and pay back over 12 months at an interest rate of 1.5%. No forms. No collateral. No hidden charges. Get Your Quick Credit on GTWorld

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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

On this week’s #NairaLife, this 30-year-old lady’s quality of life nosedived after the death of her husband in 2020. Her current biggest worry? Raising her four kids on an average monthly income of ₦14k.

When did you first realise the importance of money?

That would be after my father died in 2003. We lived in a village in Ankpa in Kogi state and didn’t have much. But we didn’t suffer because my father took care of us. He made furniture and was also a farmer. 

When he died, my mother had to mourn him for two years. This meant she had to stay at home, so someone had to take care of our family. 

And that person was you?

Yes. I was 12 years old and the eldest of five children. The first thing I sold was oranges. A basin of oranges cost ₦700, and I made a profit of ₦800 after each sale. Any money I brought home was what we used to buy food. 

After a while, I started going into the bush to gather firewood to sell. One bundle went for ₦300, and that paid for my school fees. 

How much was your school fees?

₦1200. 

How long did you do this for?

About two years. In 2005, one of my aunts who live in Lagos came to the village and asked me to come with her. She said we were suffering too much, and she wanted to help us. My mother’s mourning period had ended, so I didn’t have to stay in the village if I didn’t want to. I agreed and followed my aunt to Lagos.

What did you do when you got to Lagos?

I helped my aunt with her soft drinks business. She showed me how it worked, and I started selling on the streets. At the end of every month, she paid me ₦5k. She also put me in a tutorial centre. I sold drinks during the day and went to my classes in the evening. 

It didn’t reach two years after I came to Lagos when I got married.

Tell me about how it happened.

A soldier took an interest in me. Whenever he bought drinks from me, he gave me something extra. That was all at first. Later, he said he wanted to marry me. I looked at him, and I looked at myself. I thought if someone like me could marry a soldier, maybe our suffering would be reduced. So I agreed to marry him.

I introduced him to my aunt and her husband. From there, we went home to my village to meet the rest of my family. We got married later in 2006. I think the whole thing cost him like ₦50k. My people don’t collect a bride price, but my uncle took ₦50 and my mother took ₦20 out of the money to show that they supported the marriage. The remaining money was used to entertain our guests. 

Ah, I see. 

He was a lance-corporal in the army and his salary was about ₦48k when we got married. We gave birth to our first child — a daughter —  in 2007. 

Things were good: I won’t lie. He took good care of me. From his salary, he’d give me ₦10k to send home to my mother and give me extra money to buy food in the house and take care of myself. 

In 2009, we gave birth to our second child. That was also when I decided to start making some money on my own. I started selling fruits — oranges, pineapples and watermelons. For every ₦5k market I bought, I made ₦7500. 

I did this until 2011 before my husband asked me to stop. The market wasn’t selling very well anymore, and I was also pregnant with our third child. 

What made me stop was what he promised me. 

What did he promise you?

A shop where I could start a better business. At some point, he wanted to take a loan to start me up, but I told him not to — I fear loans. 

Now that I wasn’t working or selling anything, my children and I relied on him, and he didn’t fail. Not even when our last child came in 2015. He had started earning ₦60k and was close to being promoted to a corporal. 

Every month, he sent us ₦20k for our feeding. It was enough because things were still cheap at the time. I’d spend ₦5k on baby food and diapers, ₦10k for foodstuff and save the remaining ₦5k so we could have something to spend before the month was over. 

My husband also took care of the children’s school fees. When it was time to pay, he’d send his whole salary for that month. That’s how our family worked — I stayed home to take care of the children and he did the rest. 

Then in 2017, they said he should go to Maiduguri to fight Boko Haram. My last child wasn’t even up to two years at the time. Nothing much happened until March last year. 

What happened?

One night, I got a call around 9:30 p.m. The person introduced himself as a major and said that he was sorry, but they lost my husband in combat. I wanted to run mad. We had spoken the previous day, and he talked about coming back home in three months. 

Oh my God. I’m so sorry. 

Thank you. They buried him there and sent his things home. I couldn’t even go for his burial because it was during the lockdown, and they said everybody should stay at home. 

I’m very sorry. He passed on active duty. Did you get any of his benefits?

That’s where the problem is. His brother was his next of kin, so his name was on paper. After they got the money, his family turned their back on me. Now they don’t even remember me or the children. I don’t know how much they gave them, but nothing got to me or the children. 

Ah!

That wasn’t all. We were living in the barracks before my husband passed. After the army paid my husband’s people, they asked us to leave the barracks. I moved in with one of my cousins and that’s where I’m squatting now. 

What are you doing these days?

Since June, I’ve worked at the barracks. I sweep two blocks in the barracks every morning for ₦14k at the end of the month. I have no money in my bank account or my savings. I use everything to buy food and take care of my children.

How do you manage it?

The first thing I do is to take ₦4k out every month. From that, I give my children ₦50 each every morning when they go to school so they won’t be looking at other children. The rest of what I make is for food. Thank God for the neighbours that bring something from time to time. My aunt sends me money when she can and my younger ones send foodstuffs. 

My biggest headache is their school fees. 

How much is their school fees?

My first child is 14 years old and is in JSS 2. I withdrew her from the private school after my husband died and took her to a government school. They don’t collect school fees there even though I pay ₦5k for PTA and other things. The second child is 12 years old and in Primary 5, and the school fees is about ₦25k. I also pay about that amount for the third child who is 10 years old and in Primary 3. My last born is six years old and in primary one. His own school fee is ₦20k.

How do you raise the money?

Ah, when it’s time to pay their school fees, I start to disturb my people. Some of my husband’s friends also send me money for this. I gather the money from everywhere I can find. I fear that people will stop helping me soon. That’s why I want to start my own business.

What business do you have in mind?

I want to get a shop and start selling provisions and drinks. I don’t even know how much I need because I’ve not started asking around. I want to have some money in my hand first. 

But I know it’s the next thing for me. It’s my prayer request every day. I even drop something when I go to church — even if it’s ₦100. I just want to have enough money to take care of my children. 

As you are now, how do you see life and money?

If you’re alive and you don’t have money, you’re nothing and nobody. But if you have money, you will be okay and happy. The people around you will also be happy and proud of you because they know you can help them. 

Hmm. What was the last thing that made you happy?

When my husband was alive, he would send us extra money during holidays so I could take the children out. That used to make me happy. Now, it’s their school fees. Once I pay it like this, I’m happy. 

It’s been a difficult year, but how would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 0-10?

2. But I know that nothing is hard for God. I’ll be happy very soon, and people will know that I’m happy.

Update: Upon request from readers, we added a payment link for people to donate to the subject of this story. Find it here.

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Great! You got to the end of this article. Know what’s even better? You can get QuickCredit faster than the time it took you to read this article. With Quickcredit, GTBank customers can get N2million in less than 2 minutes and pay back over 12 months at an interest rate of 1.5%. No forms. No collateral. No hidden charges. Get Your Quick Credit on GTWorld

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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

This 23-year-old has an investment banking job and a couple of side hustles, but that’s not the most interesting thing about him. It’s how he makes much more money from his side businesses than he does at his 9-5, and how leveraging his privilege and connections got him there. 

What’s your oldest memory of money?

I can’t think of a specific memory but growing up, my cousins and I danced for my uncles and aunts at weddings and other family events, and they sprayed us money. I liked balloons, and I understood that I needed money to buy balloons. I had to dance to get the money. It was that simple. 

Haha. That makes sense. Can you tell me what growing up was like, financially?

My dad works in financial services and is a senior employee at a company he has worked at for decades. My mum did and still does a lot of business. I grew up comfortable although I didn’t understand how well the family was doing until I was older. A part of it was because I was too young to understand how money works. Also, I was exposed to a lot of kids who came from wealthier families, and that skewed my perception of money. At some point, I may have developed a bit of an inferiority complex. 

For context: I went to a private secondary school and the kids there could spend $500 on an item when they go on vacation without blinking. There was no way my parents would sign off on such purchases. 

However, once I started to get a wider perspective, I understood that my family was indeed doing well.

When did you come to this realisation?

That would be around 2014. I was 15 and about to leave Nigeria for uni. My dad had planned for me and my sister’s education and had a university fund for us. I had to go for my A-Levels first and I decided on a private college in Canada. The tuition was C$50k and my dad told me he couldn’t afford it at the time. Subsequently, I got a partial scholarship at the college and my dad still paid about C$30k. That was a lot of money, but he made it happen. Later that year, I moved to Canada. 

Lit.

At first, I was living on a C$100 allowance every month, but my dad always ended up sending more money before the month ended. When he realised that it was more expensive sending smaller sums of money to me, he started sending C$2k at a time. Now, it wasn’t a monthly thing. The money was supposed to last me for a few months before I could request more. On average, C$2k lasted me for three to four months.

I finished my A-Levels in March 2016 and got into a university in the US to study Economics. I moved there in May 2016

How did it go in the US?

Nigeria was in a recession in 2016, so I knew that my dad must have been stressed having huge expenses in dollars. He was sending $200 every month, and I was determined to make do with it. 

In my first year, I lived in school housing and was on a meal plan which had been paid for. I wasn’t saving money or working, so the $200 was everything I lived on. I finally picked up a job at a call centre on campus in my second year but I wasn’t completely committed to it. Thankfully, the minimum wage was $14 in the state I lived in. On average, I worked 20 hours in a month, which brought in an extra $200-$300. At that point, I’d say that at least half of my income went into feeding. I managed to save some $100 a month if I didn’t party a lot in the month, but those were far and between. I partied a lot when I was in uni. 

Haha. 

2018 was when I became intentional about making money. 

How?

I saw what was happening in the financial market in Nigeria, and I was like “Wait, this could be a gold mine.” Here’s what happened: the CBN decided that they were going to start a “promo” and would be giving between 13% and 15% returns on short-term government securities. I thought that was a sweet deal and went in. 

With ₦100k, I started buying and trading treasury bills. The returns weren’t a lot but I started to understand how money compounds over time. I did the math and the ₦100k would compound into millions of naira in 30 years, and I wouldn’t even have turned 50 years by that time. 

However, in the short term. I realised that to scale, I needed to increase my capital. The way I saw it, it could happen in two ways: I could work more hours to earn more money or I could convince people to let me manage their money for them and charge them a small commission. I went with the second option. 

Mad. Tell me how it went.

I started with my dad. I pitched the idea to him and managed to get ₦1m from him. I bought a few equities and invested most of the money in treasury bills, and it did very well. I made about ₦200k in fees I charged him. 

I managed to convince a couple of other people in my family to help me invest for them and I got small sums of money here and there. I put whatever money I made from them into my portfolio and by the end of the year, I had about ₦500k in it. 

That’s interesting. 

I had been coming to Nigeria every summer since my first year in uni to intern at investment companies, so I was plugged into the climate. This came in handy in 2020 when COVID hit. Prices of assets all around the world dropped like crazy. I reacted quickly and sold as many treasury bills as I could and started putting money in the Nigerian stock market, which was also pretty risky at that point. But when I was returning to Nigeria in August 2020, my investment portfolio was worth about ₦2m and I had another ₦250k in cash.

You want to know why I returned to Nigeria, don’t you?

Now that you mention it, please. 

I’d been thinking about it since my second year at uni. For the most part, I got my summer internships in Nigeria through my dad’s connection. My privilege became clearer and I thought it wouldn’t make sense not to take advantage of it.

Also, something happened when I was in the US that solidified this decision.

What was it?

I tried to get into an internship program at a big investment bank. During one of the interview stages, I met a girl I knew from school and her dad was one of the managing directors at the bank. We were in the interview room when one of the analysts came and was like “This is so and so daughter.” They took her from the interview room and gave her a tour of the facility. It was very clear that she was going to get the internship. I felt like I had this in Nigeria, so it made perfect sense to return and explore the opportunities I have here. 

That makes sense. 

I knew getting a job here wouldn’t be a problem. I had an understanding with one of the investment banks I had worked with to return to work for them when I graduated. I reached out to them, took a few tests, and that was sorted. In October 2020, I resumed work. My salary was ₦100k. 

That didn’t make all the difference though. What I did between August and October did. 

What did you do?

A couple of my old friends had returned to Nigeria before I did, so they had their feet on the ground already. When I got back, one of the first things I did was reconnect with them. I realised how much money they were spending when we went out.

We could go to the club and by the end of the night, they would have spent ₦1m on drinks. They split the bill but each person chipped in at least ₦150k. For the first few times we went out together, they didn’t ask me to chip in but I knew it was only a matter of time. The first time I dropped ₦50k, I knew my cash savings couldn’t possibly sustain that kind of lifestyle. I figured that they must be making a lot of money if they could afford to spend like that, which was interesting because they weren’t working 9-5 jobs — they had businesses. 

What kind of businesses?

They did everything they thought could work. Eventually, I spoke to a couple of my friends and asked about businesses I could do with little capital. They gave me a couple of ideas but the most viable one was pushing large volumes of commodities. In my case, it was finding a rice supplier who needed to sell their trucks of rice and a buyer who was willing to buy. 

A truck takes 600 bags of rice. Now, if the supplier sells a bag for ₦24500, I could add my markup, sell a bag for ₦25,500 and make a profit of ₦600k. The good part was that I didn’t need capital to start — I was just a middleman. The hard part was finding a buyer, but I committed to it. 

The easiest way to find the right buyer was by leveraging my contacts. I asked everyone in my family and someone linked me to another person who knew the right person to call. Ultimately, it was about my connections. Between August and December 2020, I was able to sell three trucks of rice,  and I made about ₦1.8m from these deals. 

Sweet! 

This was also the period my perspective started to shift away from my job. It would have taken me 18 months to make ₦1.8m at my day job. Naturally, I started looking out for more business opportunities. The next one happened in January 2021. 

I’m listening. 

In December 2020, I met someone looking to sell two plots of land in an upscale neighbourhood on Lagos Island valued at ₦350m. I told them that for a commission, I would ask around and see if I could find a buyer, and they agreed to it. I was pretty confident about it because a few of my friends’ families are into real estate development and are constantly on the lookout for properties. Within a week, we found a buyer. Less than a month later, the deal closed and they bought the land for about ₦340m. I got the biggest lumpsum amount ever in commissions. 

How much?

₦20m. It was a complete dream. I mean, it was the kind of thing I envisioned would happen for me in Nigeria — being able to use my contacts for opportunities like that but I had no idea how it would materialise. Then this happened. 

I was just looking at my phone over and over again, trying to take it all in. Once I got over the excitement, I knew I wanted to keep grinding. Now that I had some cash, I could afford to join a few of my friends in one of the businesses they were so big on — importing cars. 

These moves. Inject it!

I wanted to see how it would work out, so I dropped ₦1m the first time when the total cost of bringing the car in was ₦4m. My cut on that was ₦100k when the car arrived and we found a buyer for it. Afterwards, I started increasing the amount of money I had in the business. 

What types of cars were you bringing in?

At first, it was the old 2008/2009 Lexus RX and Toyota cars. We have a car dealer in the US who finds these cars at auctions and ships them to us. On average, it cost ₦3m or ₦4m to bring one of such cars in and we typically added a 30% markup, but it’s not set in stone. 

Later, we noticed an uptick in demand for higher-end cars, so our focus shifted to the Highlanders, the newer Lexus RX, and Mercedes C-300 cars. We could make a profit of about ₦2m each on these cars. It’s only been a couple of months but we are growing and expanding the business. 

I put ₦18m in the last batch of cars we imported from the US. They should arrive soon, and I expect to make about ₦4m in profit, which I think is very fair. Fingers crossed on their arrival. 

Fingers crossed. I’m curious about what your earnings look like now.

Well, I still make ₦100k from my day job. But I make anything from ₦3m-₦4m every quarter from importing cars. Usually, I re-invest whatever I make back into the business and only take money out once every quarter. 

What about your investment portfolios, how much are they worth now?

Most of my money is tied up in physical businesses, mostly car importation. The total value should be about ₦30m now. My other major investment is primarily in the Nigerian stock market and my brokerage account has about ₦10m in it. Because my portfolio is liquid and I can take money out any time, I don’t feel the need to save a lot of money in Naira. I have less than ₦500k in cash at the moment.

I’m very focused on opportunity cost and returns. If I think that I can make more money from my portfolio in the period it would take to ship and sell a car, I will pull money out of the business and put it into the portfolio.

Interesting. Let’s break down your monthly running costs, please.

How much do you think you should be earning now?

At least ₦600k at my 9-5. I’m underpaid at my day job, and that’s mostly because I haven’t done my NYSC yet. I love my job but I’m starting to value my time more than I value the work and the experience. The original plan was to work in the capital market for five years, then branch out on my own to start a business in fund management. Now, I’m not even interested in managing money for other people. I’m all about generating money from multiple businesses and pumping it into my investment portfolio. That’s always been the end game. 

Nice. How have all your experiences shaped your perspective about money?

Working in the capital market where my job is to bring people who need money and the people who have it together has shown me that the best way to make money is to have money. It gets exponentially easier to grow wealth when you have some of it. 

Also, the people around me have always been wealthy, and the more I see the way they spend and make money, the more confident I am to take risks. 

Do you think there’s a part of your finances you could be better at?

Ah, yes. My investments are not as diversified as I’d like them to be. Most of my money is currently tied up in the car importation business. If something goes wrong — like if a ship sinks — it will wipe out most of my net worth. 

I could be better with budgeting as well. Sometimes I need to make a purchase but can’t because I don’t have liquid cash around. For the most part, this wouldn’t happen if I’d budgeted better. 

Speaking of purchases, is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?

It’s not a pressing need but I’d like a new car. I only started thinking about it when our focus shifted to higher-end cars. A Mercedes GLE-63 will be great but I need around ₦20m for it.  As much as I want it, I can’t spend that much money on a car right now. My net worth has to be at least 10x what it is now before I consider it. 

What about a purchase that significantly improved the quality of your life?

I paid for a one-year subscription to an online service that provides data in financial markets across Africa. It cost only $300, which was such a good deal and since I paid for it, it’s been way easier to do research. The quality of my life has improved because of it. 

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

7. I’m not doing badly for a 23-year-old, and I acknowledge that I had a lot of help to get here. I know the role my privilege has played, and I’m proud of the ways I have leveraged it. My salary from my day job is only enough for my baseline expenses, and I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have people to help me get into these side businesses. I’m definitely in a better place than I was a year ago. However, there’s a lot of things I want but can’t afford yet but I’m taking it one day at a time.

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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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

What’s your oldest memory of money?

When I was eight years old, I found a big bar of soap at home and dissolved it in water. The younger kids in the compound were fascinated by the bubbles it formed, and they wanted it. I told them they had to pay ₦5 for a handful. They all went to their apartments and brought the money. However, their mums found out and confronted me. I had to return the money.

I liked how I felt when I thought I was going to make some money, and I wanted to feel that way again. I told my mum, and she said I could sell something tangible and she would help me get it started. During the next holiday, she helped me set up my first business — selling homemade zobo drinks. A cup went for ₦10, and I sold it in a neighbour’s shop. I don’t remember how much I made at the end of the holiday period, but I gave everything to my mum.

I sold a couple more stuff when I was in secondary school. My mum owns a primary school and during the summer lessons, I’d make snacks and sell them to her students.

However, I got my first real job at my mum’s school after I finished secondary school in 2008. 

Tell me about it. 

I wrote an application letter to my mum, asking to work as a staff, and she agreed to bring me on as a teaching assistant. My salary was ₦6k and I stayed for two months. Then I got into a pre-university programme in a state in the north-central and moved in with a family friend living in the state. My parents put me on a ₦10k monthly allowance.

The programme lasted for seven months, and I returned to my parents after that. When I didn’t get into uni that year, I returned to working at my mum’s school. My salary was now ₦10k. On the side, I was making and supplying snacks to the school and some of my mum’s friends and making a monthly profit of ₦5k and ₦8k.

Baller.

Hehe. In 2010, I quit my job and went for a diploma programme in another university, which meant I had to go back to being on a ₦10k allowance. The family friend I lived with gave me an additional ₦5k every month. 

A year later, I finally got an offer to study biochemistry at the university where I did my diploma. I moved out of the family friend’s home and into the hostel. 

I renegotiated a new allowance with my parents, and they started sending me ₦10k every two weeks. This was what I was on until I finished university. When I settled into school, I looked for ways I could make extra money but that happened only once.  I constantly had to figure out the best way to manage my allowance. Funny story. . .

Yes? 

Sometime in 2012, a friend introduced me to a lady who was looking for students to help sell her magazines. A copy of the magazine sold for ₦300, but she said we could add a markup and keep the extra money. It sounded easy, so I signed up for it and I took some copies off her. I walked the length and breadth of the city and couldn’t sell one. As I was returning home, tired and frustrated, I met a group of people and one of them was like, “Fine girl, what are you doing out so late?” I told them that I was out selling magazines and hadn’t sold any all day. They asked for the price and for some reason, I said it was ₦5k. They took one magazine and paid.

Oh wow. 

There’s more. I decided to make one last stop at a country club close to where I was. I approached two guys who were leaving and told them about the magazines. When they asked for the price, I told them it was ₦10k, and they also paid. They didn’t even take the magazine with them. On some level, I think they just felt some pity for me. Anyway, I made close to ₦15k that day.

Mad. 

I didn’t do anything else for money until I left university in 2015. 

NYSC was next?

I took a gap year before I went for NYSC. My parents had started a publishing company when I was in uni, and they needed someone to manage the place. I took it up since I was available, and I was put on a ₦30k salary. Also, I started selling hair products by the side and made about ₦20k in profit every month. I was saving my salary and living on what I made from the hair business. 

Towards the end of 2016, I was mobilised for NYSC and went on to serve in the north.  My Place of Primary Assignment (PPA) was a health centre, and they paid a monthly stipend of ₦5k. There was also the federal government ₦19,800 allowance. But I thought I could do better than that, so I started looking for a new job. I got a part-time job at a primary school where I taught two days a week, and they paid ₦7k. A few months later, I got a better paying offer at another school — ₦12k per month, but I had to go in every day. Not long after, I found another job in a spa as an attendant. This paid ₦15k.

Interesting. How did you juggle three jobs?

I had stopped going to my PPA because there was hardly any work to do. I worked at the school from morning until afternoon and resumed at the spa afterwards. 

It worked for me, and I was able to save as much money as I could. When NYSC ended in 2017, I returned home with about ₦240k in savings. 

Lit. 

My parents still wanted me to work at their publishing company. My starting salary was ₦50k, but it was going to increase to ₦100k after my first six months. I agreed, but I didn’t spend up to six months there. 

Why?

I got restless after five months and wanted to do something else. My parents weren’t happy with it because they thought I was abandoning the family business, but they respected my decision. I actively started looking for a job in FMCG companies and banks. I applied to a few places and landed some interviews. I joined a bank in 2018. In their training school, I was paid ₦30k. After training school, my salary increased to ₦80k.

A few months later, I realised that the money wasn’t a lot. But it was fair in comparison to what a lot of my friends were earning. 

I was spending a lot on transportation too, and the best thing to do was move closer to my workplace. I found a mini-flat and the total package was ₦600k. I got ₦240k from a monthly contribution scheme I was a part of. My parents took care of the rest and I moved into the apartment. 

What’s happened between then and now?

I was promoted for the first time in 2019 and my salary was bumped up to ₦100k. My standards of living remained the same, and I started saving ₦20k every month. In January 2020, I got another promotion and my salary increased to ₦195k.  This meant I could save more, so I joined another contribution scheme with a few people and started putting ₦50k away every month. Three months after my promotion, the pandemic hit. 

How did that affect you?

It didn’t affect me directly, but my parents felt the heat. Shortly before the lockdown started, they had invested heavily into publishing some new books, hoping to recoup their investment when schools opened, but that didn’t happen and they had salaries to pay. 

My parents are proud people, and I knew they would never ask me for money even though they needed help. During the height of the pandemic when they were out of business, I sent about ₦300k home to them. 

I don’t think my savings took a big hit because, at the end of the year, I had ₦1.2m in savings. 

That’s lit. 

Then I blew everything away. 

What happened?

I got married and the wedding wiped out my savings.

Lmao. How much did your wedding cost?

About ₦4m. It’s weird it cost that much because it was a small wedding, and we invited only 100 guests. My parents were recovering from the effect of the pandemic and couldn’t do a lot. My husband’s family did what they had to do, but I had to chip in something too. 

Fast forward to January 2021. I started the year with nothing. I tried to save more but realised that it was going to take some time before I recovered. So I did something different. 

What was that?

I took a ₦700k small interest loan from work and I invested in a mutual fund, which yields anything between 7% and 14%. Now, you’d expect me to have more than ₦700k in my mutual funds account, but I have ₦500k in it. I have access to the account and can liquidate it at any time. This has happened a few times in the last couple of months. 

I’m curious about how you approach savings and investments.

At the moment, I only have investments in mutual funds. I like to have emergency funds too, so I used to take ₦30k out of my salary and save somewhere. But I kept dipping into that because I needed to do something before my salary came in. Recently, I started another ₦50k a month contribution scheme with a few people, and that money will probably go into starting a new business. I’ve been thinking about starting one because I’m not making as much money as I’d like to.

How much do you think you should be earning now?

The number I have in mind is ₦400k, but it’s tricky. On one hand, I feel like I can’t ask for that much because I have only my BSc certificate. I have a couple of skills, but there’s no certification to back them up, and I work a job where certification is important. 

What do you need to do to unlock your next level of income?

For starters, I need to upskill. I was going to start getting the certifications I needed a few weeks ago, but my laptop gave up on me. Can you believe it?

Also, I need to return to having a side business. Working in the banking industry has shown me that having one source of income can be dangerous. Last year, I saw people with families and responsibilities come into work in the morning and before the day ended, they lost their jobs. It was horrible. I’m sick and tired of my job and thinking strongly about returning to my family business. I feel like I will be better appreciated there, and it wouldn’t even affect my finances. My parents have agreed to pay me what I currently earn, and I’ll have more time to focus on starting and running my side business. However, it’s not an easy decision to make.

I get that. What part of your finances do you think you could be better at?

Making more money. I don’t have a bad savings habit, but I end up dipping into my savings because I’m not making enough. I could do better with following a strict budget, but the priority is to get my earnings up. 

This feels like a good point to talk about your monthly running costs. 

There’s not a lot left after all of this, so I’m mostly surviving on vibes. Thankfully, my husband comes through when I’m almost out of money and salary day is still some time away. 

How have your experiences shaped your perspective about money?

As a kid, I didn’t have a reason to worry about money but now I think about it all the time. While money is not the most important thing in the world, it’s central to the quality of life you can afford. I like to see money in my account at all times because it’s security for me. I always want to know that I have something to fall back on if push comes to shove. It’s stressful, but it’s what it is. 

I’m wondering if there’s anything you want right now but can’t afford?

I’d love to get a car. Public transportation in this country is killing me. But I imagine that I’d need about ₦3m to get me something that works, and I don’t have it right now. 

What about something you bought recently that improved the quality of your life?

A pair of ear buds. I talk to more than 50 people on the phone every day, and I’m doing other things while I’m on the phone. The ear buds have made the experience better, and it cost only ₦28k. Great value for the money. 

Love that for you. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

2. There’s a lot of things I currently don’t like about my finances — my paltry savings and the fact that my salary is not enough to get me through the month sometimes. I don’t like that I don’t have an extra source of income even though I’m working on it. It’s stressful crunching numbers every time I need to buy something. 

Great! You got to the end of this article. Know what’s even better? You can get QuickCredit faster than the time it took you to read this article. With Quickcredit, GTBank customers can get N2million in less than 2 minutes and pay back over 12 months at an interest rate of 1.5%. No forms. No collateral. No hidden charges. Get Your Quick Credit on GTWorld

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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

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What’s your earliest memory of money?

I’m not sure I remember. I never thought about money while growing up because there wasn’t any need to. I was an ajebo who lived a very sheltered life. My parents were lawyers who were doing quite well, and we didn’t lack anything. 

It wasn’t until I went to secondary school in 2000 that I began to understand what money and wealth meant. 

How?

I went to a federal government secondary school and lived in the hostel. It was a melting pot of social classes. The quantity and the brand of the provisions everyone brought to school determined where they belonged. I never felt inadequate, so secondary school made me realised how privileged I was. 

I graduated from secondary school and got into university to study law in 2007. At first, my dad sent me ₦10k every month, which was more than okay — you could make a pot of soup with ₦200 in 2007. After the first year, he got tired of the monthly deposits. So he changed the way he sent me money. He started sending me ₦100k in the first semester to cover my tuition fees, accommodation fees and monthly allowance. During the second semester, he sent ₦60k. Now, it was up to me to manage the money and make sure it lasted the three months I stayed in school for every semester. But even if it didn’t last,  I could call him to ask for more money. 

I won’t lie, my dad spoiled me. But my mum? Left to her, ₦5k was enough.

Haha. Do you remember the first thing you did that fetched you money?

Yes. I was in 300 level when I felt the need to hustle because I had friends who were working to make money. I got an ushering job for a wedding, and the pay was ₦2k. I was so excited.  In my head, it was free money. Guess what happened at the event?

What?

I fainted. 

My God!

I had low blood sugar. The lady who hired me was frantic and said things like, “If you knew you couldn’t do the job, why did you come here? Do you want to spoil my business?”

Luckily, a doctor was at the wedding and attended to me. After resting for a couple of minutes and drinking a bottle of soda, I was ready to continue. I did the job and got my ₦2k at the end of the event. 

You earned your ₦2k.

You get. After that, I said to myself, “I did not come to this life to suffer,” I returned to my ajebo life and didn’t make another attempt to work for money until after university. 

Tell me about that.

I was mobilised for NYSC in November 2013 and left the north central where I grew up for the south-south. My dad paid my house rent, which was ₦120k. After that, he gave me a stern warning. I don’t remember his exact words, but it was along the lines of:  “I’m not going to give you one kobo, and I expect you to save ₦10k monthly.” 

I had to survive on the ₦19800 the federal government paid and ₦10k I got from the law firm I worked at. I cut down on a lot of things or went for cheaper alternatives in my service year. Not like it was hard, but I wasn’t used to it.

I managed to have ₦40k in my account at the end of my service year. I felt on top of the world. But I was also like, “Freedom is overrated. I’m going back to my father’s house.”

What did you do after NYSC?

I chilled at home for a bit because I didn’t want to work at my dad’s law practice. While I was at home, I started helping people incorporate their companies with the Corporate Affairs Commission, and I got a lot of these clients through my dad. I was getting about ₦15k and ₦50k from these businesses depending on the size of the company I helped register.

A year later,  I got a job at a family friend’s law firm. The salary was ₦40k, but I was allowed to continue my CAC runs. My earnings on most months were between ₦60k and ₦80k.  Six months after, one of my aunts reached out to me and told me that one of her former bosses, who had just started a new job at a high-ranking government office, was looking for a lawyer to be his executive assistant. I interviewed for the job, and I got it.

The office didn’t have a budget at the time and asked if I could work for free for a few months, but they would pay me a monthly allowance of ₦60k. I would have accepted the offer even if they didn’t offer to pay me anything because of the kind of people that worked there. Nothing much happened until December when I took a break to get married. 

That came out of nowhere.

Haha. We were family friends and had known each other for years. Our parents sent the ball rolling, and we started dating officially in March 2015. A few months later, we got married and moved into one of his dad’s houses. 

Ah, I see. 

By the time I returned to work in January 2016, my workplace finally had a budget and could pay me an actual salary. 

How much was it?

₦315k. 

That’s a significant improvement from ₦60k.

It was. The good thing was that aside from the occasional shopping I did on ASOS, I  had no major expenses, so I was saving most of my salary. In less than four months, I had more than ₦1m in the account.

However, I started to get restless. 

Why?

The structure of the office where I worked meant that there was no job security. A change in government could mean I’d lose my job. I started looking for opportunities to change my workplace. One came in August 2016 when a senior colleague was appointed as the managing director of a government agency. He wanted me to come with him, and I agreed. My starting salary at the government agency was ₦382k gross. My net salary was ₦250k.

This was less than your earnings at your previous job. 

Yes, I took a pay cut on paper. However, there was no health insurance or pension scheme at my previous job. Also, the agency where I now worked pay me a cut of my annual salary at the beginning of the year, and It was ₦900k at the time. I really liked that.

Fair enough. 

I had job security locked down, so I thought it was time to focus on something I had always wanted. 

What was that?

Investments. My dad always said that he regretted not investing more when he was younger and hoped his kids would do better. By the end of 2016, I started to give investments a go. 

What was the first thing you invested in?

Two hectares of farmland in the outskirts of the city. The whole thing cost ₦3.2m, but I paid an advance payment of ₦1.7m. Subsequently, I paid ₦100k every month until I finished paying for it. I missed a couple of months, so it wasn’t until earlier this year that I completed the payment. 

After buying the farmland, my sights turned to crypto. I heard about bitcoin for the first time in 2016 and thought I should get into it. One bitcoin was trading at $800 – $1000 at the time, and I bought one bitcoin. This cost me about ₦450k. A couple of months later, there was a bull run. When the price of bitcoin hit $3k, I sold half of it and held on to the rest. 

At the height of the bull run, one bitcoin was trading for more than $20k. Then the bull run ended sometime in 2017, but I decided not to sell. The price of bitcoin started dropping but I still held on to it, hoping it would go back up. I panicked when it dropped to $10k, sold the remaining half, and got $5k from it. 

What did you do with the money?

I put it in a mutual fund account. The total amount I had in the mutual funds was $10k. I had put in my 13th-month salary the previous year, the ₦900k lump sum payment I got at the beginning of the year and some of my savings into it. 

Things were rough for a couple of months after that. 

What happened?

I had a few health challenges. My health insurance package couldn’t cover the service I needed, so I upgraded my plan. My salary took a hit and was reduced to ₦210k. 

I got pregnant in October 2017 and gave birth to my son in June 2018. Thankfully, we spent almost nothing on that because of my health insurance. My husband and I had also been saving ₦50k every month from the moment we found out that I was pregnant, so that took care of all the kid’s supplies and stuff. 

I was on maternity leave for four months and returned to work towards the end of 2018. There was only one thing on my mind when I returned. 

What was that?

Getting promoted. I was due for promotion after three years, and I was looking forward to it. That didn’t happen in 2019, but something else did. I realised that my marriage wasn’t going to work. 

Uh-oh. 

I started thinking about my options — to move into a new apartment or not. I couldn’t afford rent on my salary, so I decided to stay at the house. My ex-husband and I had an agreement that we were only cohabitating, and it worked. I contemplated taking a federal housing loan, but my dad advised me to buy land and start building my own house. 

We found a plot of land for ₦6m. I liquidated some money from my mutual fund account, my dad loaned me ₦3m, and I paid for the land. 

Here’s the thing: I bought the land because I was banking on my promotion. I planned all my finances around it. I was finally promoted in October 2020 after months of lobbying and politicking. My gross salary increased to ₦600k but my net was ₦420k. Now, I thought I could start building on the land I bought, but then the Lekki shooting happened. Like that, I couldn’t see myself raising my son in Nigeria anymore. I shelved the plan to build the house and started investing in relocating to Canada.

Two other interesting things happened in 2020: a colleague who knew I liked to invest money gave me an idea to build a student hostel in a neighbourhood close to a university. I got a plot of land for ₦500k, which was pretty cheap. By the end of 2020, I had spent an additional ₦1.7m on early foundation work for the building.

Also, I got a remote job with a law firm in the US. 

Yay. How did that happen?

It became clear that I needed an extra job when they wouldn’t promote me at work. I told my friends that I needed help finding a new job. A friend who went to law school in New York recommended me to the law firm he was working for. Luckily, they were expanding at the time. I did the interview and was offered employment in September 2020. $15/hour. I did 66 hours in my first month. 

Mad. What about the hostel you were building?

My mum came to me in January 2021 and told me that I wouldn’t finish building it on time at the pace I was working with. She offered to come in and take over the project. I agreed to it and both of us started injecting money into it. We finished building it in May 2021, and it ended up being a 16-room building. When I calculated how much money we spent on it, I realised that my mum had spent ₦7m and I had spent more than  ₦4m. The budget was less than that, but inflation affected everything.

How did you raise the money you needed?

From different savings and investments sources. Remember I said my workplace pays me a lump sum at the beginning of each year? The money increased to ₦1.8m after my promotion. It went straight into my savings when I got it, and I didn’t use it until the project. 

When I got my remote job in September 2020 and started earning in October, I was saving the money into my domiciliary account for my proof of funds. After I submitted my relocation application in March 2021, I took $3k out of the account and channelled it into the building project. Also, I added my remote job salaries for April and May.

I got some more money from another investment, although it was very risky. In 2020, I took a ₦750k loan from the bank. The dollar was trading at about ₦380, and I converted the money into dollars and invested it in a forex scheme. For six months, they paid me $300 — 15% of the $2k I put in it, and I saved each payout. I was supposed to get my capital back at the end of the 6-month cycle, but it didn’t happen. At the end of the cycle, I had $1800. Luckily, a dollar was trading at ₦400+ already, so I didn’t really make a loss.  What I made from this also went into finishing the hostel. 

We finished the project in May, and I had to figure out how to pay my mum back the money she spent. We rented each room out for ₦150k, and we agreed that the money we make from rent will go to my mum for two years. Also, I’d be paying her ₦200k for 11 months.d I’ve started doing that already.

Interesting. What has happened between then and now?

The law firm I’m working for in the US increased my wages from $16 to $20 per hour. On average, I work 80 hours per month, so I earn about $1600 extra every month. However, I don’t touch the money — it goes straight into my proof of funds account. My dad loaned me ₦5m for that too. I have $11k in it right now, so I guess that’s covered. 

I moved out of my ex-husband’s house in May. We had a fight, and I decided that I couldn’t live with him anymore. I called my parents and told them that I was coming back home, and that was it. 

Speaking of, what does your monthly running cost currently look like?

 I returned to investing in crypto earlier this year and took a ₦1m QuickCredit loan from GTB. I invested all of it in crypto and have been paying the bank ₦100k every month. I know the market is still as volatile as ever. During the height of the recent bull run, I had about $6k in my wallet, now it’s $4500. I don’t care what happens to it in the short term. I’ve been here before, so I’m going to hold my position. 

Hoping it works out.  So what are all your real estate investments worth now?

I haven’t valued the properties recently, so I only know about how much I put into them.

Two hectares farmland: ₦3.2m

One plot of land: ₦6.5m

16-room student hostel: ₦15m

How have all of your experiences with investment shaped your perspective about money?

It’s extremely important to have money, but it should be seen as a tool to shape your life and your legacy. Money should always have a goal. My parents have done and are still doing their best to give me a soft landing. I want to build on that and give my son a softer landing. 

My goal is to build something for my son and ensure that he has things that will always bring him money. That’s the way I think about what I earn and what I invest in. I also think I punch above my weight a lot, but it’s going to be worth it in the end. 

I get that. Is there something you want but can’t afford?

A house. I don’t have a problem living with my parents, but sometimes, I want to have my own space. I don’t want to rent a house in Nigeria before I leave for Canada. I have land I can start a building project on, but I can’t afford to start that right now. I’m doing too much already. 

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

6. I wish I didn’t have to put so much time into working and making money. Also, most of my investments haven’t brought me money yet. But I understand that they are long-term investments, so I’m not in a rush. When the returns start coming in, I can expect to move to an 8. 

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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.

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Between 2016 and 2020, the biggest flex for the 25-year-old in this #NairaLife was rising to the top of the ladder at the factory where he worked, and he did it. But he quit the job in 2021. While this has affected his finances, it’s all part of a grand plan.

Do you remember your earliest memory of money?

Yes. In 2001 or 2002, I found a Biafran bank note in my dad’s diary. I was fascinated because it was different from the naira notes I was familiar with. I asked my parents, and they told me about the history of the currency. They also showed me some coins we used pre-independence. It was quite an experience. 

I bet. What was it like growing up though?

My parents were on the shorter end of the financial ladder. They were farmers although my dad did some trading on the side. Money was not easy to come by. As I grew, I began to understand what it meant to have money and what you could miss out on when you didn’t. I realised early that my parents couldn’t do everything for me even if they wanted to. I had to hustle on my own and make money. I’ve been on that journey since that time. 

When did the hustle start for you?

The moment I got into secondary school in 2008. I grew up in the south south, and most of the people I knew on the streets worked on people’s farms to get money. Farming wasn’t my thing, so I went for a job at a sawmill. I did everything there was to do there — from clearing sawdust from the mills, taking stock of the inventory and sorting out the wood when they arrived. I worked from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays because of school and earned between ₦500 and ₦700. But I worked full time on weekends and a very good day at work fetched me ₦1500.

How long did you work at the sawmill for?

From 2008 to 2015 when I left secondary school. After I graduated from secondary school, I got another job to manage a cold room and the salary was ₦15k. I won’t lie, it was big money for me. For context, one of my friends got a job as a teacher a little earlier than I did and his salary was ₦5k.

However, I knew that I didn’t want to manage a cold room forever. I wanted to go to university. In 2015, I bought a JAMB form and applied to study law at a university in the south south. I scored 297 in the UTME examination and 71 in post-UTME. I thought that was going to be enough. The first admission list was released, and I didn’t find my name on it. The second and third lists were followed, my name wasn’t on those either. The last list was a supplementary list and people said I needed to pay or have connections at the university to make that list. I didn’t have the money or the connection, so I let it go. 

My second plan was to move to Lagos to find work. I was talking with a friend, and he told me that his older brother was working in Lagos and earning ₦50k per month, which seemed like a lot of money. So I left home for Lagos.

After a few months in Lagos, I checked the portal again and found out that I had been offered French Education. I didn’t accept it. I should have been in the merit list. 

I’m sorry about that. When did you move to Lagos?

February 2016. I knew nobody in Lagos and arrived on a Friday with ₦7k in my pocket. For the first week, I was on the streets looking for a factory to work in. I slept in bus parks at night and freshened up in public bathrooms in the mornings. After three days of looking for work, I did something funny. 

What?

My money had run down to ₦3k. I was beginning to get scared and thinking about going back home. So I spent the remaining money on food. Now, I couldn’t go home even if I wanted to. 

Wild. 

One of my sisters called me the following day and when she found out that I had gone to Lagos without an accommodation arrangement, she was mad at me. But she contacted someone. The person introduced me to one of his friends and told him about what brought me to Lagos. Luckily, the person agreed that I could stay with him. I lived with him for two years, and he helped me find my first job. 

Lit. Tell me about the job.

He fixed me with some people who drilled boreholes. They paid me ₦2k for each day I worked with them, but the problem was that the jobs weren’t regular. After working with them for a month, I was anxious about getting a proper job and told the guy who took me in about it. He introduced me to someone in a sachet water factory where I was offered a job as a stacker. This was March 2016.

What does a stacker do?

A stacker moves the bags of water from the production room to the loading point and also loads the bags into the trucks for distribution. Every new person who joins the factory starts as a stacker. The job paid  ₦800 per day and I got paid once every two weeks. The working hours weren’t fixed, though. Once we started working at 7 a.m, we could be there until 8 or 9 p.m or later depending on sales that day. 

Omo. 

Three weeks after I started working at the factory, I came to work earlier than usual one morning and saw some guy I hadn’t met working one of the machines and packing the sachet water into bags at the same time. It wasn’t my job, but I felt the need to help him. I joined him and started packing the water into the bags while he operated the machine. I struggled with it for a while but I got the hang of it. When we finished, he asked me, “Do you want to be a packer?”

Wait, who was he?

It turned out that he was the section head and managed my production unit. A packer is a step above a stacker, and what the packer does is to fit the sachets of water into the bag. 20 sachets of water go into one bag. They earn ₦2 for every bag they pack and the slowest person packs at least 1000 bags daily. That’s more money than I was earning as a stacker. 

I guess you said yes to the job.

I did. I told him I’d like to and he asked me to start the following day. However, I wasn’t going to be paid for the first three days. 

Why was that?

I had to undergo training and show that I knew how to do the work. It turned out that I was good at it. Within four days, I was doing 2000 bags of water per day. I made ₦17400 in my first week as a packer. 

I had just joined the factory and moved up a ladder. Most people spend a year or more working as a stacker.  Can you imagine how that felt? I called my mum and told her to go and open a bank account so I could send money to her. 

Aww. 

The work continued. I made more money during the dry season when there was more demand for water. I could make up to ₦25k in two weeks or ₦60k in a month. But during the rainy season, my earnings dropped to an average of ₦11k- ₦12k every two weeks and ₦24k in a month. 

That’s interesting. How long did you do this for?

I was a packer for one year and six months. I was still living with the guy who took me in. My original plan was to save aggressively for three months and find my own apartment. But I realised how expensive living in Lagos was. But when he started preparing to get married in 2018, I knew it was time to leave. 

What did you do?

I joined a contribution scheme with nine other people at work. Each person dropped ₦10k every two weeks and one person took it all. I was the first person to get paid, and I used the money to rent my first apartment which cost ₦42k.  The next four months was me paying everyone back their money. 

Phew. How was work going during this time?

After I rented the apartment, I thought it was time to move a step up in the factory and become an operator. The operators work the machines and fix minor issues. I approached a senior operator in my department and told him my plans. We agreed that he would pay me ₦5k for however long I stayed with him, but I had to stop working as a packer in the factory and work with him all the time. I spent one year with him and he didn’t pay me ₦5k every month like he promised.

Tough. How did you survive that?

At the end of each day at the factory, I helped the truck drivers load bags of water into their trucks and followed them around for distribution. This brought in between ₦200 and ₦500 per day, and that was what I lived on.

I finished my training in June 2019. The next step was getting a machine to operate, but I would find out that there was a lot of politics involved. When I didn’t get a machine immediately, I returned to being a packer. But I was calm about it. I knew I had upgraded my skills, and it was only a matter of time before I would be offered a machine to operate. 

The confidence. But did it happen?

In August, the production manager called me and said there was an available machine I could operate. An operator earns more than double what a packer does. My monthly earnings rose to ₦100k – ₦120k. Six months later, something big happened.

Tell me.

The section head of my unit resigned and someone else replaced him. But one day,  he made a terrible mistake that could have put us all in danger, so he was asked to resign. Guess who they asked to become the new section head? Me. This was June 2020.

Whoop Whoop!

Within four years, I went from being a stacker, to a packer, to an operator, then to the section head.  I still had to operate machines in my new role but I was now operating two machines instead of one. Also, all ten machines in my unit were under my management. I’d climbed to the top of the ladder.

Well done. How did this affect your income?

It increased to an average of ₦220k a month. But nothing much changed in the way I spent money. I was never used to luxurious things, and I didn’t intend to start then. The only thing that changed was the amount of money I sent home. I started sending about ₦70k – ₦80k home every month after the promotion.

What about your plans to return to school?

I enrolled in a long-distance programme at a university in 2020. I was promoted three months after I started classes, and it changed everything. I would leave my house by 4 a.m and return by 11 p.m. from Monday to Sunday. There wasn’t any time to study. After trying and failing to make both things work, I made the rational decision and suspended my studentship. 

Oof. 

A year later, I quit my job. 

Ah!

See, I was spending a lot of money on medical expenses. It was as high as ₦20k in some weeks. My body kept breaking down because of how stressful the job was, and I started to realise that it wasn’t worth it. I decided to leave in April.

What was your finances looking like at the time?

I had bought a half-plot of land for ₦450k in February, so I could point to something I got from my years at the factory. It affected my savings, though. I had ₦300k saved up when I left.

I see. What came after you quit.

For the first two weeks after I quit, I was going around Lagos trying to figure out what next I could do. Then I went to this rich neighbourhood on the Island and the first thing I noticed was how bad their water system was. I was like, “There is an opportunity here if I could provide a solution to this problem.” An idea of what I could do next came immediately: plumbing and water system management. 

I had experience with water treatment because of my years working in a water production company but to really stand a chance of  selling my services, I needed additional skills and a certificate to show for it. I went back home and started researching technical institutes I could go to to learn plumbing. I found one in a state in the southwest. I enrolled for a year diploma course in May and tuition was ₦250k. I used the rest of my savings to pay for this.  That’s where I’m studying right now.

Man! You aren’t earning at the moment?

I’m still working here and there. I travel to Lagos every weekend to work at factories where I know people, and this brings about ₦10k every weekend. It’s a lot less than what I was earning three months ago, but I don’t spend a lot of money in school. I live in a hostel and cook my meals. The only problem is that I can’t send money home anymore. But they will be alright. It’s just for a year. 

What does your running costs currently look like?

At the moment, I earn an average of ₦35k every month.

I’m not saving at the moment because there is no money left to keep. But I have an emergency fund of  ₦10k for when I fall sick. If I use it, I return the money. 

What part of your finances do you think you could be better at?

I’m always tempted to do more than I can handle. Small money enters like this, and a thousand ideas follow. That’s when I’ll be thinking of buying a refinery and competing with Dangote. Then I end up doing nothing. It’s a habit I’m trying to outgrow. 

Haha. What are your next steps after you get your diploma?

First things first, I’d work with a plumbing firm for six months. I don’t even mind if they pay me or not, but I need the experience. After that, I can now start thinking about setting up my own business. I’ll probably need to sell the land to get the money I need for that. 

How much do you imagine will set you up?

₦3m should get me started on the kind of business I have in mind. But I’ll probably have to start with less than that. 

Rooting for you. Where do you see all of this in five years?

By that time, I expect to be making at least ₦5m in a year. There’s the opportunity to do so in Lagos but if it doesn’t work, I’ll move to my plan B.

I’m listening.

 I have people in Dubai, and while it’s not very easy to get in anymore, it’s still one of the most accessible places to migrate to, and they always need skilled workers. The last time I inquired about the cost, they said ₦800k will get me there. If I ever need to move, that’s something to consider.

Back to the present, have you spent money on anything that made you feel good recently?

Yes, my phone. I bought it in December 2020 for ₦80k. After the land and my school fees, this is the most money I have spent on anything. But the experience so far has been amazing. The money is worth it. 

Nice. What about something you want but can’t afford?

I don’t think there’s anything I want right now. I’m only praying that everything clicks when the time comes to start my plumbing business. Aside from this, I’m good.

I’m curious about how your experiences have shaped your perspective about money.

I’ve moved from seeing money as a piece of paper with a fascinating history to an important part of human existence. I know what money can buy and the things it can change. In my line of work, I’ve had to put up with a lot of people who talk down on me because I don’t have as much money as they do. So yes, I see money as an instrument. Also, I know money is not coming in at the moment, but I’m not scared. I’ve built a reputation I can bank on over the years, and if I get into a tight spot now, I know the people I can call to help me. That’s very important too.

Word. How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?

5. I know I deserve more money, but I can’t kill myself as it hasn’t come yet. I don’t feel too bad about it because I’m trying my best. I can’t wait to have my diploma and start working on  my plans. Even if it doesn’t pick up immediately, I’d be confident that something good is about to happen to me. Just starting that business will take me to a 9.

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Great! You got to the end of this article. Know what’s even better? You can get QuickCredit faster than the time it took you to read this article. With Quickcredit, GTBank customers can get N2million in less than 2 minutes and pay back over 12 months at an interest rate of 1.5%. No forms. No collateral. No hidden charges. Get Your Quick Credit on GTWorld

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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

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The 28-year-old makeup artist in this #NairaLife  has had multiple experiences with low-paying jobs. In 2020, she went in on a plan B and moved to a new city. She hasn’t figured everything out yet, but she’s also not where she was two years ago.

What’s your oldest memory of money?

The memory that comes to mind right now happened in 2007 when I was in secondary school. I found some ₦2k I had saved and forgotten about in a Danish butter cookies container. Unfortunately, the central bank had issued new designs of the naira, so the money I had was useless.

I feel a sharp pain, and it’s not even my money.

Do you get? It wasn’t much of a big deal though. Things were good at home at the time, so it was something I could let go without much fuss. 

Baller. 

You’d think so. Things were really good for the most part when I was growing up. It wasn’t until 2008 or 2009 that things started to take a different turn. 

How?

Let’s just say that my dad had really big dreams and tasted money earlier on, but he wasn’t on top of his finances. He started out as a lawyer and went on to become a local government chairman in the south south. I think the idea of going back to being a lawyer and hustling for measly amounts of money didn’t appeal to him after his tenure ended. He thought he was going to get another big break and he hung onto that hope and forgot about everything else. This decision affected the family’s finances. Subsequently, most of the responsibilities fell solely to my mum, but there was only so much my mum could do with what she earned from teaching.

I got into university in 2008, and by my second year, things had gotten so bad that it was a struggle to get my parents to come through for anything I needed. The money always came late, and when it did, it was never enough to do anything. Being broke was my default setting.

Tough. So you had to figure things out yourself.

Pretty much. A part of figuring things out was realising that I may have to live off my friends in school. A couple of friends understood that I didn’t have much, and they did the best they could for me. The other part was living with the shame that came with it.

What was that like?

Not fun. I didn’t even want to ask my friends for help. I tried as much as possible to stretch whatever resources I had, but it simply wasn’t enough. Having friends who came through was good for a while, but it also affected our friendship dynamics. A couple of people switched up on me before we left school because I had become a bit of a burden, which was understandable. 

My last year in school was the toughest ever. First, it was an extra year. I tried to get tuition and rent from my dad. When he eventually sent some money, it was not enough to sort out both. I tried to talk my landlady into giving me a deal, but she didn’t agree to it. I eventually squatted with a friend who was kind enough to take me in, but the arrangement deteriorated into something else before the year was over. I finished uni in 2014. 

Nice. Well done.

The next thing was NYSC. I served in the south south and taught in a catholic secondary school. There was the ₦19,800 federal government allawee. The school where I worked paid ₦5k per month. There was also an extra ₦3k that came once every two months as compensation for the additional lesson hours I worked. The year wasn’t bad. The school provided free accommodation. Most of my monthly earnings went to feeding and travelling to a neighbouring state where my boyfriend at the time was serving. 

I had no money saved up at the end of my service year in July 2015, though. I was pretty much winging it. 

No more allawee. What did you do next?

Nothing for the first six months. I moved back home and  got really antsy about finding work. My dad’s income was still non-existent, and he was taking my mum’s salary from her. When it didn’t seem like I was going to get a job, I asked my mum for help and she got me an interview at a school. I couldn’t  mask my desperation during the interview, and the man who interviewed me took advantage of it. I don’t remember what he said word-for-word, but it was something along the lines of “Pay this small girl ₦15k.”

What?

I took the job. It was better than nothing. I resumed work In January 2016.

I respect that.

The workload was crazy. I was teaching all six classes in the school — two subjects for each class. With every month that passed, I hoped that they would see how hard I worked and give me a raise. But nothing came. I sent in my resignation the moment the school went on third term break. This was July 2016.

Three months after I quit, a beauty queen, who was a friend to one of my sisters, was looking for a personal assistant.I applied for the job and got it. The salary was ₦20k per month but I didn’t get paid once, and I spent four months working for her. She covered some of the logistics, but at the end of each month, she complained that she hadn’t made money from “beauty-queening”.

Omo.

My desperation was at an all-time high, and I made some ill-informed decisions and fell victim to one or two job scams. I knew something wasn’t right with the vacancies, but I went along because I was just looking for a means of survival.

After four months of working with the beauty queen, I quit. Let me even talk about the event that triggered this decision. 

I’m listening. 

I needed money badly that month and asked for my salary. Again, she said she had no money.  But she asked if I was interested in a “Thanks for coming” gig.

Thanks for what?

Thanks for coming. This is how it works: Party organisers invite girls to a party to light things up. At the end of the party, they pay each girl between ₦20k and ₦30k. Some got more than that too. It depends on the deal you get. 

Oh, I see. 

I didn’t even have clothes to wear because I was broke. The beauty queen gave me one of her dresses and did my hair and makeup. We got to the location where we would get cleared to go to the venue of the party. When it was my turn, the person who was assigned to clear me said I didn’t fit the bill of whom they were looking for and should return home. 

It broke me. I had bills to pay and I clocked that I wouldn’t even have gone there if I was getting paid for my job. I texted her the next day and told her I was done.

Whew. 

MMM was the rave around this time and I put about ₦20k in it from the money I didn’t have. I made some money from it and it sustained me for a while before it crashed in 2017. 

Fast forward to  September 2017, an old friend whom I had just reconnected with reached out to me to ask if I was interested in a front desk secretary position that had opened in his brother’s office. I applied for the job and got it. They offered me ₦35k, promising to bump the salary to ₦50k after my appointment was confirmed. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to accept it. 

Was there a reason?

The job was in the heart of town and my parents were living on the outskirts.  I had gotten another job at a school close to home. The basic salary was ₦20k but I could be earning up to ₦50k every month from after-school lessons. 

A few days after the interview, my friend reached out again and asked me to take the job. The offer had been reviewed to ₦50k. So I took it. 

Did you get a raise after?

No. But they gave me free accommodation after a couple of months with them. While I was at the job, I made more friends in the city and met one or two glucose guardians here and there, and this helped my finances a bit. My monthly earnings grew from ₦50k to ₦100k. In very good months, I got up to ₦150k. I had a bigger purchasing power. However, I couldn’t plan around the money so much because it wasn’t stable. The only money I could count on was my ₦50k salary.

I worked here till February 2019. I thought I was giving more value than they were willing to pay for. It was only when I told them that I was leaving they started talking about a raise. But my mind was already made up.

I tried looking for another job but nothing came up from the search. I was like, “It’s time to try something new.”

What was that?

I’d been looking at the possibility of moving to Lagos and trying my hand at being a makeup artist. I needed training and money for that, so it didn’t seem like it was going to happen until a friend offered to sponsor my training. 

In March 2020, I moved to Lagos and enrolled at the school. 

How much did this cost?

The tuition was ₦200k and I spent an extra ₦100k on buying the products I needed. My friend paid for this and also sent me a monthly  stipend of ₦50k from March 2020 to December 2020.

I finished at the school in May  2020. Then came the question of what to do next again. I didn’t want to do the traditional beauty makeup where I’d have a studio and make people up for events. I wanted to do editorial and production makeup. The problem was, I didn’t have a portfolio. I did the next thing I could do. 

What was that?

I started reaching out to editorial makeup artists on Instagram and offering to assist them on their projects. I slid into a lot of DMs. No reply. No call back. Thankfully, I was still receiving ₦50k from my friend so that got me through that period. 

Someone eventually replied in June 2020.

Whoop Whoop!

I worked with her until September although she didn’t pay me. While I was still assisting her, another person reached out to me. She paid me ₦10k the first time we worked together.It wasn’t a lot but it was the first time I was making money off this thing, so I was convinced that it could actually work.

A big signal.

It was. My first big break came in May 2021 when a friend helped me get my first solo job on a movie set and I was paid ₦80k. Omo, I was so proud of myself, and very much relieved. I hadn’t made any money from January till March. 

I’m mostly assisting people on their projects these days, and I get  between ₦10k and ₦20k for each day I spend on a set with them. 

How much do you make in a month now?

It’s tricky to put a handle on that. But anything between ₦50k and ₦100k seems accurate.

What’s been your best performing month so far?

June. I made about ₦100k from all the jobs I got. I’m not good at keeping track of all the money that comes in, so it may have been more than that. Also, I’ve earned more money in each of the past three months than I did at my 9-5 while doing lesser work. For context, working for four or five days in a month will fetch me more than ₦50k.

 But the jobs don’t come in every time, do they?

No, they don’t. But this is peak season, so I’m enjoying it. I’ve made ₦65k so far this month. This is a big deal for me.

Let’s segue into your running costs every month.

I plan my expenses around ₦50k every month.

How much do you imagine will be enough money for you right now?

₦200-₦300k per month. I have a couple things I want to do right now but can’t afford. On top of the list is getting an apartment. I live with my sister and her boyfriend, and they’ve been super nice. I feel like it’s time to leave but I can’t and it’s killing me.

Also, I have black tax to worry about. My dad and I used to quarrel a lot about that because he thought I wasn’t doing enough. There was a time he said to me, “I put it to you that you’re stingy.” After that fight, I started sending between ₦2k and ₦5k home every month. But I’ve not been able to do that since I moved to Lagos.

I’m curious, how have your experiences shaped your perspective about money?

I’m still in a place where I obsess about money, although the intensity has reduced over time.I’m beginning to realise that it’s not a do or die affair. I suspect it’s because I’m currently making more money than ever. I have a laid back approach to finances now and am focusing on how to expand my streams of income. 

Sounds like there’s a plan B. 

Yes. I have friends who have digital skills and friends who work in tech. They’ve recommended courses I could take, and I spend my days off on these courses. I’m currently crazy about community management, and I think it will be the next thing I try my hands at. 

Nice. So How much do you have in your bank account now?

I have ₦40k saved up. It’s something, and I’m proud of it. I don’t save a specific amount every month because of the structure of my finances. When I get paid for a job and can afford to save something from it, I do it. 

What part of your finances do you think you could be better at?

 I could do better at keeping track of what I currently earn and possibly saving more. I should be able to have a better grip on saving in a few months though. However, it’s almost impossible to be more prudent than I already am. 

Tell me about the last thing you spent money on that made you feel good.

After I got paid for my first solo job in May, I spent ₦50k on a new set of makeup products, and man, the joy I felt! Recently, I spent ₦20k on a dress, a pair of shoes and a bag for a wedding I was invited to. I hadn’t bought anything for myself in a minute so that also felt really good. 

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

4.5. People say that financial happiness is a state of mind, and I agree. I’ve been stressing over money all my life and I just want more out of this whole thing. I’m tired but I’m also happy about the progress I’ve made in the past couple months. Am I 100% content? No. But there are no regrets. My financial situation is still a work in progress, and I’m doing the best I can. That will do for now. 

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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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

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The 30-year-old in this story was born into a low-income family. The constant struggle was a lack of money. When he got his first 9 to 5 in 2014, his salary was ₦40k. In 2021, his monthly earnings stand at ₦800k. This is his #NairaLife.

Let’s go down the memory lane for a bit. What’s your oldest memory of money?

I’d say knowing money from a distance. My parents struggled to raise four kids and most of the problems were money-related.  My dad was a businessman and my mum was a petty trader, who sold anything she thought she could sell. The default mood around the house was always ‘Where will the next meal come from?”

The first time I held money that felt like my own was in 1992. I was in nursery school and my parents gave me an allowance of 50 kobo. I don’t remember what that could buy at the time,but it wasn’t a lot of money.

When you think about your childhood, what comes to your mind?

Two things: being sent out of school and not hanging out with some of my mates because I didn’t have clothes to wear. I grew up in a large compound full of neighbours, so both were a struggle. Whenever I was sent home from school, because I hadn’t paid my school fees for the term, I would sneak into the house through a bush path at the back of our building because I was embarrassed to walk through the main road. I was mostly indoors when kids my age were out playing because there was no point going out to join them when I didn’t have clothes to wear. 

I like to think that our neighbours were praying to God to bless my family first before blessing theirs. That’s how bad things were.

And you know what? Things got better for a while in 2002 – 2003. My dad started working with some oil and construction company and that came with a steady stream of income. 

But something happened?

Yeah. I can’t say a lot about it because I was still young and it isn’t my story to tell. But I know my dad made some terrible financial decisions and some of his business plans went south. Along the line, some key business relationships broke down, so the oil and construction money stopped coming in. This phase hit deeply because we had gone from having nothing to eat to having a fridge stocked with food, then back to nothing. The promise of a new life was snatched from us before we could get used to it. 

What did this do to you?

I wanted some level of control or anything that looked like it, and this drove me to looking for ways to earn money.

Do you remember the first thing you did that fetched you money?

Yes. I was good with computers, so I started working out of my dad’s office and helping people type letters and do basic graphic design. This  was in 2003 when I was in JSS 3. I was making between ₦50 and ₦500 from this. Also, I used to go to a cyber cafe in my street to work for a stipend. 

Phones were also beginning to be mainstream but the older folks didn’t know how to work it. I had become popular as the computer guy, and I leveraged it, helping people perform simple tasks on their phones even though I didn’t have one.

I stuck with all of this until I went to uni in 2008.

What was uni like? 

My parents worried about paying tuition and that was it. I had to fend for myself for the most part. Some money came from my older siblings sometimes, but it was few and far between. I grew up loving fashion and had always wanted to do something with it. In uni, I met a tailor and we decided to work together. I was  a striker — people who belong in this category don’t own shops.  My job was to get the job and the materials the tailor needed. I was getting deals and bringing them to the guy and making between ₦500 and ₦1000 on a deal. This accumulated into lump sums when the business caught on.

What was the biggest money you made from a single job?

₦30k. I met this guy when I was in my second year of uni.  He asked me for the price of a shirt and I told him ₦18k because I knew he could afford it. He brought it down to ₦15k and paid for two shirts. I went home with ₦30k when all I needed to make a shirt was ₦5k. 

Omo. 

My earnings saw me through uni. I don’t remember how many deals I got or how much I typically made in a month, but I was never hungry. I graduated from uni in 2012.

What came after?

I almost got a big break. One day, a hotelier I had made some clothes asked to see me.When I got to his office, he introduced me to a man who came from a state in the south south. Apparently, the man was rich and managed a large music band. He wanted me to handle the project of making new uniforms for his band members. 

He put me on a plane — my first time in one —  to meet the members of the band and take their measurement. I met the guys — about 100 of them and the initial deal was that I would make three shirts and trousers for each one of them. The total job was ₦2m. I got an advance fee of ₦800k on that trip.

Whoop!

I returned home with so much excitement. The only problem was that my go-to tailor had travelled and I thought I couldn’t wait for him. I decided to go for another guy I’d used for a small job a few months earlier, and I briefed him. He agreed to it and got a few more people to work on the project. But I put him in charge of the project and deposited the ₦800k advance I got. It was supposed to be spread among all of the guys who signed up on the project.

It was time for NYSC and I travelled to camp and was following up on the project. 

When I got back and went to check on the status, I found out that this guy hadn’t done anything. He used all the money I gave him to fund his wedding and rent an apartment. 

Wait, what?

For real. It was a bad situation. You know what this guy said to me? “You can’t do anything to me. The worst you can do is arrest me and I’ll get out eventually.”

Ah!

I was under pressure because my deadline had passed and I had nothing. The man who gave me the job had also started threatening me. During one of our conversations, he called out my NYSC state code and said he could make service year and life hell for me. 

He wasn’t someone I could afford to totally piss off.

What did you do? 

I used about ₦500k in my savings to try to salvage the situation. I contracted the job to another tailor and managed to deliver the first batch of clothes. But the man didn’t pay me the ₦1.2m balance because I was way past the deadline. Also, It wasn’t supposed to be a one-off job but after everything that happened, the man cut me off. He was like he had so many expectations and I let him down.

Damn. I’m sorry. 

Thank you. I think my access to the man and the kind of  jobs he would have brought to me would have changed the trajectory of my life. I was back at zero and the bulk of my savings had been wiped out. There was nothing I could do about it. After the deal crashed, I stayed away from fashion designing but I returned to it sometime during my service year because it was my primary source of income. 

I finished NYSC in 2013 and started job hunting. After several interviews, I got a job offer. It was a personal assistant role to a managing partner of an oil and gas consulting company. The pay was ₦40k per month. Guess how long I spent on the job? Two months. 

Why did you leave?

I had problems with my boss. At the peak of it, I was always looking forward to the end of the day, so I could leave the office. There was no point in staying there. 

What happened after you left?

I didn’t get another job until 2014, but my side hustle kept me together. My next job was at a consulting firm and I was hired as a client relationship officer. My net salary was ₦47k when I started the job. After four months, I was promoted and my salary rose to ₦84k. However, I had taken a loan  of ₦500k from work for some family needs and was repaying ₦41k per month. This put my monthly earnings to ₦43k until I finished paying off the loan. 

How did this affect your finances?

I’m not sure it did. First, I was sharing an apartment with my sister and  was making money on the side from fashion designing. Also, I consulted for some small marketing firms. I was running my day to day costs with my salary and saving whatever I made from the side gigs. I should add that I got another promotion and a salary increase. My salary was ₦90k when I left the company in 2017. By that time, I had about ₦1.5m in savings. 

Why did you leave this job?

There was nothing to aspire to there anymore and I didn’t think I was going to get another raise. The ginger to leave really came when I got a marketing job at a sixth form college — a school that offers foundation and pre-university courses to Nigerians looking to study abroad.  The salary was ₦250k. That was about 3x my salary at the time and I had to move to a new city for the job.

That’s a significant raise, but you had to move to a new city. What was that like?

Haha. It felt like I was being thrown into the wild but I took it in good faith. The money erased every doubt I had. 

Haha.

I was at the job from 2017 and got a few raises there. My salary was  ₦290k in 2020. Later in the year, a friend told me about a vacant position as the head of a department at  an international NGO. I applied for the job, went through a couple of interview stages before I got an offer and it was a very good one for me. 

I’m listening!

It’s a remote job. The offer was $1650 a month. That’s about ₦800k. I dropped my resignation letter at my previous job and resumed at my current job in February 2021. 

You are currently earning almost 3x your old salary, what has this jump shaped spending habits?

I’m still living on my old salary. My spending is still at a minimum and it doesn’t really reflect how much I earn. It helps that I don’t really go out except when I have plans with my girlfriend and other close friends. In addition, I don’t pay a lot in black tax, and that’s because my siblings and I pool our resources together. However, my savings habits have definitely changed. I was saving ₦100k on my old salary. Now, I’m saving ₦500k every month. 

Lit. Lit. This feels like a good place to break down your monthly running expenses.

I pay ₦500k for my rent per year. I used to save a portion of my salary every month to make rent but I’ve not been doing that this year. 

You’ve come a long way, how have your experiences shaped you?

My view of money is that it’s a reward for a service rendered. And financial success is what happens when opportunity meets proper preparation. People like me don’t get life on a platter of gold. We have to grab and make the most of every little opportunity we get. 

Back to your savings, what does it look like at the moment?

I have about ₦5m from money I’ve saved over the years from salaries and whatever extra money I get. Saving money comes naturally to me, but I’ll admit that it got easier to save more as I earned more. Also, a savings app has been keeping me grounded. 

Are investments your thing?

I invest in small businesses. Some of my friends have a couple of these, and I have a stake in their businesses. My investments there  should be worth between ₦2m and ₦3m, and I’m sure they are going to grow. I’m not into or interested in crypto because I don’t know how it works yet. 

In the near future, I’m looking at putting some money into setting up a food truck and hopefully grow it into a restaurant. I’m excited about that. 

You’ve come a long way, but how much do you think you should be earning right now?

Hmm. I don’t think I’m grossly underpaid, but I imagine I’ll always want more. Anything from ₦1.2m to ₦1.5 is a good number for where I’m at right now.

Have you ever thought about what you need to unlock your next level of income?

The thing about working at an international NGO is that it opens to a lot of opportunities and contacts. If I can leverage this properly, I should be able to triple or quadruple my income in the next two to three years. 

And in five years?

That’s more about my investments. I want to have a couple of food trucks and a restaurant by that time. I really love the whole culinary thing, so I’m geared towards it. This plan to own a food business is probably one of the reasons I went for my MBA.

I’m curious about this interest in the culinary business.

Haha. Let me paint a picture: I see a new recipe and I get excited. I’ve always loved to cook. I did go to a culinary school for a while and when I have the time, I teach cooking classes. Also, I watch food channels a lot. So yeah, it wouldn’t be the worst idea to go all in and make some money off it. 

Back to the present, what’s something you bought recently that improved the quality of your life?

A Macbook. I got a good deal on it and it cost ₦400k. The synergy between my iPhone and the Macbook has been making my life a whole lot better. It’s out of this world. 

Anything you spent money on recently that required proper planning?

I’m still thinking about it. I want to move to another apartment. Rent and furnishing will cost me about ₦2m. This definitely requires a lot of thinking and planning because it’s going to take a lot of money out of my savings. 

Let’s talk about financial happiness, where is it on a scale of 1-10?

I’d say 6. Do I think that the quality of my life is significantly better than what it was a decade ago? Yes. Do I think I’ve made it? No. I want to build my wealth around my investments and get to a point where the dividends are enough to fund my lifestyle. This will take me to an 8. It’s almost impossible to hit a 9 or a 10 in my opinion, and that’s fine. But I want to look back in a couple of years, see the work I’ve put in and where I’m at and be happy about it. 

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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.

This week’s Naira Life is brought to you by QuickCredit. With QuickCredit, you not only get the funds you need instantly, but you also get to pay back at the lowest interest rate in Nigeria.

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What’s your oldest memory of money?

In 2000, when I was in Primary Three, my dad came home with two bundles of ₦50 notes. We counted it together and everything was ₦10k. I had never seen that much money. I was so excited I couldn’t stop talking about it to my friends the following day at school. 

Flex. What was it like growing up though?

My dad used to work in a bank, but he resigned when I was about five years old to set up a consulting practice. This period was tough for the family though we kids didn’t really understand that there were money issues.  My mum was a full-time housewife who did some petty trading on the side. On a few occasions, when my dad didn’t have money to go to work, my brothers and I were asked to break open our piggy banks and give him whatever we had saved so he could go to work. 

Things weren’t rosy, but we never got to the point where we didn’t have food to eat. However, it was difficult to pay school fees. 

Tell me about that. 

One of my brothers was on a scholarship, but it was still difficult for my parents to raise school fees money for me and my other sibling. For the most part of my junior secondary school, I was always sent out of school. I didn’t realise how hard and embarrassing it must have been for my parents until a few weeks ago. I was at my daughter’s school and saw some students being sent back home because they owed school fees. That broke my heart.

Back then, though, I didn’t care very much. Being sent out of school meant having the whole day to play. My dad’s business picked up between 2007 and 2008, and this stopped being a thing. For my senior secondary school, I was enrolled in a boarding school in 2006. My allowance was ₦1k per month. 

Do you remember the first thing you did for money?

This was 2008. I came home for the holidays from boarding school one time and my dad asked me to work for him. I did for three days, and he paid me ₦5k. He said that I did a great job and saved him time, so he insisted on paying me. 

Haha. What happened after?

University. I left home in 2010 to live with a family member while preparing for my university entrance examination, and my allowance at the time was ₦10k. When I got into university in the following year, it increased to ₦15k. From there, it got to 20k. At the time I was leaving university, I was getting ₦20k–₦30k at the beginning of the month and ₦10k in the middle of the month. 

Because both my parents were running businesses when I was growing up, I grew up with an entrepreneurial spirit. I hadn’t seen my parents work for anybody, so I was determined not to do that either. I decided to start a small business in my second year in university. 

How did you get started?

My savings. I had been saving ₦10k from my monthly allowance. My capital was ₦20k when I started off selling hair attachments. Then I did other things at different points — I ran a printing outlet for a while, then I sold sunglasses, frames and makeup.

I was making about ₦10k–₦15k extra every month from these businesses. I stopped everything at the end of my fourth year and concentrated on academics in my final year.

Interesting. What did your finances look like at the end of university?

I had about ₦200k in my account. It should have been more than that, but I had loaned my mum some money when I was in 500 level. She was running a poultry business at the time. I don’t remember if I ever got the money back. 

Somehow, my dad caught a whiff of how much I had in my account and stopped sending me all the extra flex money he used to. 

Men.

Hahaha. I was home for about a year before I went for NYSC. During this time, I helped my mum with her poultry; I raised some birds and sold them. I also started writing to document my experiences with agribusiness. 

I was mobilised for NYSC in 2016. I wanted to work in a government agency, but they rejected me. My dad helped me find a job in another government agency.  Just as I was about to start work there, I received a text from a private health management consulting company, inviting me to a test and an interview. I passed both and was offered a job as an intern. I had to go back to beg the people at the job my dad got for me to reject me. 

Whoop. How much did this company offer to pay?

₦75k. I was also getting ₦19,800 from the federal government, so my total monthly income was close to ₦100k. I was saving ₦50k every month and making do with the rest. I limited myself to spending ₦1k per day. 

At the end of my service year, the company asked me to stay and offered me an entry-level position as a full staff. I declined the offer. 

Why was that?

A couple of factors. My family didn’t think it was the right career move for me at the time. My mind wasn’t made up either. I felt I needed to do something in agriculture because that was what I studied at uni.

Also, I was going to get married. 

Oh. 

My husband and I had been dating for five years and he had been working for almost two years when we decided to get married. We got married in March 2018.

You hadn’t found a new job when you got married, had you?

No. But I had some of my savings from my service year. Then I went into my agribusinesses. 

I started a fish pond in March 2018. I put in ₦300k and made about ₦150k in profit when I sold them six months later. In between this, I got a job that paid ₦50k per month. I quit after two months because my farm investment was beginning to suffer. Also, I was five months pregnant with my daughter. 

The day after I quit my job, I drew an estimate for a snail farm and realised that I needed about ₦300k for it, which I didn’t have at the time. I tried to get investors, but they wanted up to 60% in ROI. From my experience, small scale agriculture doesn’t work that way. An outbreak, for example, could wipe out all your stock in one go.

After trying so hard to raise the money I needed without much progress, I put out a request on Twitter and raised about ₦200k. After that, a friend reached out to invest ₦100k in the business. Also, I borrowed ₦100k from another friend. The snail pen I  built cost about ₦400k, and I bought stock worth ₦175k. But guess what happened?

What?

More than half of the snails died before they got to me. 

Omo. 

The driver who transported them was careless handling them. I had lost almost half of my investment before I started. 

The snails were breeders and the plan was that when they mated and hatched new snails, I’d start selling them. It was a long term investment that wouldn’t turn in a decent profit until a year and six months. Then came June of 2019 with other plans. Heavy rain started and one night, a storm blew off the roof of the pen. I couldn’t keep snails without a roof — they were going to drown and die. 

Ah. 

There was no other choice. I had to sell off what remained at a massive loss. I think I sold them for about ₦50k. For six months the farm ran, I was spending about ₦3k per week on their feed and paying salaries. At the end of it all, I had lost over ₦800k.

I’m so sorry. 

Moving on. I returned to fish farming and invested ₦50k in it. I bought 4000 fingerlings, but they were a bad stock and almost all of them died. Only about 300 survived. I let them grow for a few months before I sold them — that brought ₦15k – ₦18k. 

Now, I told my friend who invested in the snail business what had happened, and we agreed that I’d return his capital. I paid him back the ₦100k he put into the business.

Brutal. 

This was the end of 2019 I had run out of my savings. Things were beginning to get tight. My daughter had arrived in December of the previous year. We were living on what my husband made from his job and boy, was it tough. Let me paint a picture of what that looked like: we had to substitute almost everything for baby food. Every time we wanted to do something for ourselves, baby food or diaper expenses would spring up. Neither of us bought any personal items in 2019. Every resource went into taking care of our daughter. 

It dawned on us that we couldn’t possibly raise a family on one source of income. I realised that I may have made a mistake turning down the job I got after NYSC. I didn’t enjoy agribusiness the way I thought I would.

Man. What were the next steps?

My husband started a side business. I started looking for a job too, although my mum fought me on this one. She was a stay at home mum and she believes every woman who has a family should be at home, raising the kids instead of chasing a career. In her words, “Your children will thank you for it”.

Anyway, I started applying for jobs again in 2019. I even sent an application to the people I turned down in 2017. I passed their interview, and they put me on a waitlist. I haven’t heard from them since that time. 

While looking for a job, I was surviving and paying for basic things like data from what I made from booking flights for members of my family. Also, I started freelance writing in October 2018. My friend, who invested in the snail business, reached out and asked if I was interested in writing for him. He outsourced some writing gigs to me. This brought in between ₦5k and ₦20k per gig.

I finally got a job at my dad’s company in November 2019. At first, he was skeptical about hiring me, but he came around and offered me a job and an annual salary of ₦480k. He also topped up my salary with an extra ₦10k every month. 

Aw. 

I worked there for less than a year. I quit in September 2020 when I got a better paying job.

Lit. How much?

₦150k. My dad was upset that I was leaving though. He offered to increase my salary. But I had to leave — the new job was a role in management consulting in agriculture, and that was kind of my dream job. 

I resumed work in September. 

Yay. 

A month later, I found out that I was pregnant. 

Man. Was that a problem?

It wasn’t to me. But it was a new job, and the Nigerian workplace culture is not the best for women because of things like this. I didn’t want it to become a problem, so I worked as hard as I could. I avoided taking sick leaves. The two times I had to go to the hospital on a workday, I showed up at the office first. 

I was supposed to get confirmed in March — six months after I started working there — but my appointment wasn’t confirmed. 

Everything happened so fast. I got notified that my appointment wouldn’t be confirmed on Friday. By Sunday, the owner of the company was calling me, asking me to resign. I was so upset. Like even if my appointment wasn’t going to be confirmed yet, is a termination of appointment or asking for my resignation the next step? 

I’m so sorry. That must have been tough. 

I was heartbroken. That was one of the hardest things that has happened to me, and I cried for days. They did let me keep my health insurance for a few months; I guess that was to cushion the blow.

Now that I was out of a job again, I returned to freelancing for my friend. I did one very small gig in May and got paid ₦10k. That’s been it so far. I gave birth to my son in June. 

Congratulations!

Thank you. Thankfully, the health insurance covered that, so we didn’t spend anything on hospital bills. 

What about your emergency funds?

While I was at the last company I worked at, I was saving ₦50k per month. I still have the ₦300k I saved in the six months I spent there. Half of it is in a PiggyVest investment and the other half is in cash. 

What do your monthly expenses look like now?

My cost of living is low. I pay ₦5k for my internet and ₦5k to the lady that helps me around the house. My husband covers the rest. We spend ₦40k on groceries per month and about ₦80k–₦20k a week for the other things and house utilities.

When I was still at my job, I contributed to this and my husband and I split the bills in half. But he’s taking care of everything for now. 

I’m wondering, how much would be good money to you right now? 

₦200k+. I’ve done a lot of things–data analysis, programme management and operations. Now I need to stick to one and build a career around it. I know if I get a new job now, I’ll probably have to start at an entry-level position though I’ve been working since 2017. I should be earning above ₦300k, but I’ll most likely have to settle for lower pay. 

Do you have any financial regret?

Maybe not taking that job in 2017. The entry-level salary was ₦250k. Asides from that, I don’t regret any of the subsequent decisions I made. There were losses, but these things happen. 

Do you have plans to return to running your farm?

I don’t think so. At least not any time soon. I’ve realised that I don’t like the uncertainty and the lack of structure that come with entrepreneurship. The farm is still running, but I don’t make anything from it at the moment. My mum handles the operations. I provide technical help where necessary. Maybe there’s a version of the future where I return to running it by myself. 

What parts of your finances do you think you could be better at?

Investing. I have a low-risk appetite. I don’t want anything to happen to my money and I want good returns. That kind of combination is hard to find. If I could up my risk appetite and make bolder investment decisions, that would be nice. 

What do you want now but can’t afford?

I don’t have a lot of wants. At the moment, there’s really nothing I want. A new job would be great, though, now that I’m done having kids. It’s time to build a career. That’s why I’m being very selective about the kind of jobs I apply to these days. If I don’t see myself doing something similar in 10 years, I won’t apply for it. 

What was the last thing you bought that improved the quality of your life?

My laptop, but my dad bought it for me. It cost ₦180k. My last laptop was stolen, and subsequently, I had to use office computers. I had nothing to use for a while after I left that job in March, and it wasn’t a great experience.

How have your experiences shaped your perspective about money?

My family and friends call me frugal as I am almost always living below my means. Also, I place a heavy premium on saving and having emergency funds. My savings have come through for me during times I needed them the most. I’m grateful I learned the habit at a young age.

One more thing I have learnt over the years is not to put money first. A lot of my decisions are not driven by money but by my value for relationships. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but I think the greatest asset anyone can have is the people in their corner. I know that if I’m ever in a fix, I have people who will help me out. 

I feel you. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

5. I don’t have any pressing needs at the moment. However, at this point, I need to start earning again. If I could get a job that would pay me about ₦250k a month, this number will definitely jump to an 8. 

I’m rooting so much for you. 

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