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Why would anyone voluntarily take a pay cut? People usually only take a lower salary offer when they want to switch careers or industries. But for Jeremiah* (27), it was because his mental health was at stake.
In this story, he shares how he realised he had to leave his dream-job-turned-toxic-nightmare after a few weeks, why taking a pay cut was necessary for him to survive and why he’s now scared of moving ahead in his career.
The unwritten rule for children in most Nigerian households is that you get an education, land a good-paying job and start taking care of your parents. It’s the whole idea behind black tax.
It’s also the main reason why I knew I wouldn’t use my economics degree even before I graduated from the university. I only studied the course because I wanted admission, and it seemed less competitive. I wanted a job that’d pay balling levels of money and allow me to give back to my struggling parents like firstborns should, but I couldn’t see a clear path to that with my degree. So, when someone introduced me to web and product design in my final year, I decided that was it: my hustle.
It didn’t take much for me to land a junior product design role at a tech startup soon after NYSC in 2020. While I didn’t have work experience, I made up for that with a portfolio of test projects. The job paid ₦100k/month, and it looked like things would only get better. I was finally on the path to making good money.
I sent my entire first salary to my parents. It’s a fairly common Yoruba practice to give your parents your first salary, they pray for you and then give you some of the salary back. My parents returned the full amount to me, touched that I decided to honour them in that way. But my new status as a salary earner signalled that they could start pushing some responsibilities to me.
And push, they did. I still lived with them, so it only made sense for me to handle some recurrent home expenses: NEPA bills, fuel for the generator or ₦10k cash gifts here and there. Of course, there was also the occasional billing from my younger siblings. It wasn’t an issue for me. I was simply playing my part.
In 2022, I got a promotion and raise to ₦200k, but by then, I was already itching to find another job. My workplace was nice, but I thought I could get paid better for my skills. A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn around that time and offered me a ₦350k product design team lead role at another startup. I was more excited about the fact that I would be in a senior role, so I didn’t bother to check if ₦350k was great for a non-remote one.
To me, a senior role meant my subsequent jobs would be even more senior and would consistently increase my earning potential. It was like my dream job.
I got the job in June 2022 and was to resume in July. At that point, I had about ₦300k in my savings. I’d been thinking about renting my own place for some time, and I thought I could afford it with my new salary. So, I took my savings, plus a ₦150k loan from a friend, and rented a ₦250k/year apartment that wasn’t too far from my new office. I thought moving would be a great way to start this new phase of my life.
From the very first week, I started having second thoughts about the job. There was only one other person on the product design “team”, and they’d already sent in their resignation notice.
One of the primary reasons I was hired was to make sure their mobile app was designed and ready to ship in three months. When they explained this during the interview, it sounded like I’d be part of something “life-changing” and all those motivational bullshit that make you feel gingered about going above and beyond.
But I resumed and saw that they were also in the middle of a rebrand, and I was to oversee the website redesign. What they really meant was to do it myself because where was the team I was hired to lead? How was I supposed to do both projects by myself in three months?
As if that wasn’t enough, I reported directly to the CEO, and he’d make last-minute design changes and then say, “You didn’t quite catch my vision. How hard is it to do XYZ?”
He was also verbally abusive with a horrible temper. Every Monday like clockwork, he’d scream at the sales team for not delivering revenue for a product that hadn’t even been launched. If he wasn’t screaming at them, he was berating me for not carrying out my tasks faster, even though I had no support and was almost always revising designs.
It wasn’t strange to hear people crying in toilets or resigning every week. By the third month, I was well and truly miserable. I started to have panic attacks anytime I heard a notification from my phone or laptop. No one told me before I silenced all my devices. I still do till today.
But I couldn’t just resign. I needed to stay for at least a year to finish repaying the loan and have something saved up for my rent and other living expenses. I started aggressively applying for jobs and counting down the days till I could resign.
Five months in, a ₦250k/month position opened up at my former workplace. I got to know because I was still friends with someone there, and they knew all about my struggles at the toxic job.
I didn’t want to apply at first. It was a significant pay cut and wasn’t a managerial role — essentially, a demotion. But then, the very next day, my toxic CEO slapped a female member of staff for trying to walk out as he screamed as usual, and I decided I was done.
I applied for the job at my former workplace, and since I’d worked there before, I didn’t have to go through many hoops. I resumed in a week.
I still remember the intense satisfaction I felt after clicking “send” on my resignation letter to the toxic job. I didn’t even wait for a response before logging out of all company platforms and dropping my laptop with the security guard.
Sometimes, I wonder if I should’ve stuck through for that year or waited for a higher-paying job. Maybe I should’ve used the experience to build a thicker skin. But then, I remind myself that it’s not until I die that I’ll have proven myself. It was either I left that job or it took my life.
My standard of living hasn’t reduced, but I spend more now. I’d gotten the apartment with the toxic job in mind. Now that I’m back at my former job, I’ve had to spend more on transportation even though I work hybrid.
I also started sending ₦50k to my parents every month when I started the toxic job. And I haven’t reduced it even though I earn less now. With inflation the way it is right now, it feels like I’m struggling at best.
I’ve been working at my current job for a year and really want to try my chances at finding a better job. But I’m scared and also a bit ashamed. What if I land another terrible job and have to return with my tail between my legs like before?
I remember how weird it was to leave the first time only to return six months later. It’s possible no one else thought it weird, but I kept thinking about it on their behalf. Like, “This one thought the grass was greener somewhere else, but he has run back.”
I don’t regret my choices, though. I just need to get comfortable with wanting better for myself and not being too scared to take risks.
Psst! Have you seen our Valentine Special yet? We brought back three couples – one now with kids, one now married and the last, still best friends – to share how their relationships have evolved in the last five years. Watch the first episode below:
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
My parents would give me ₦20 or ₦50 for food in primary school, and I’d spend everything before I got to school.
Wait… how?
I walked to school with my siblings and neighbours, and we bought anything we saw on the road — puff puff, popcorn, sweets, you name it. The money never followed me to school, and I’d power through the day and trek home after school.
Would you say there was money at home growing up?
We were a basic middle-class family. School fees were paid on time, at least. My mum’s a banker, and my dad did everything he could for money. When I was younger, he sold cars. He’d bring in cars from Benin Republic and Cotonou and sell them to buyers in Nigeria. It wasn’t fayawo [illegal importation], sha. He also did some construction and cleaning gigs at different points in time.
I had a comfortable childhood, so making money wasn’t top of mind for me as a child.
So, when was the first time you made your own money?
It would’ve been during my fourth year in the university, around 2016. My ₦20k monthly allowance always finished within two weeks. So, I decided to start a business to make extra income and worked on a whole plan. But I told my mum, and she refused to give me money for it.
Why? What was the business idea?
I was going to buy shirts at ₦300 each and sell them to law students at ₦500 so I could use the profit to hold body and soul together. I think I asked her to give me ₦20k – ₦50k to start.
She insisted I focus on school instead.
Did you?
Sort of. At least, I didn’t try anything for money again till after university in 2018. That was theactual first time I made my own money, and I made it by grooming a dog.
How did dogs get in the picture?
Well, I grew an interest in dogs in uni. A schoolmate and I became friends because he had a dog I grew fond of. I tried to convince my parents to get a dog too, but my dad said, “In my family, we don’t keep dogs because the dogs always die.”
Ah
But after my dad passed in 2017, we were robbed. I was away at school, so I only heard that my mum eventually decided to get a security dog.
After I left university, my mum and siblings stopped giving me free money. I noticed many of our neighbours had dogs too, so I approached one of them and offered to groom their dog.
I bathed the dog, cleaned its space, and took it for a walk. When I returned, the owner gave me about ₦3k.
Interesting. Did that happen often?
I did a few other grooming gigs here and there. Then I convinced my mum to sell the dog she’d gotten — a German Shepherd and Boerboel mix that was more fearful than protective — for a fiercer purebred Rottweiler. I’d take the dog for walks regularly and meet other dog owners. People soon knew me as the guy who was always with one dog or the other.
I’d also get fellow dog people’s numbers, with the intention of contacting them when my dog had puppies. Sadly, I never really had a successful litter myself — most of the puppies died — but I became a middleman for people who wanted to sell puppies and those who wanted to buy.
How much did this usually bring you?
At first, I made ₦5k – ₦10k on each purchase I helped facilitate. The buyer or seller would give me something small, or I’d add something on top. I got like two or three of these deals monthly. My mum was so supportive; she’d occasionally pitch in with money to buy dog food.
2020 was my big break — the lockdown, specifically. That was when I got my first major payout. Over the years, I’d made myself something of a dog breeding expert on Twitter by researching and sharing long Twitter threads about caring for different dog breeds and all that stuff.
So, this person reached out to me for help. He wanted to buy a purebred Boerboel. I mentioned one random price, and he didn’t even negotiate. I also said he’d need feed and a cage, and he sent me the money for it. The guy hadn’t even seen me before, but he sent me over ₦400k. I made ₦80k profit on that one deal alone.
If 2020 was your big break, it means you got other profitable gigs, yeah?
I did. I’m not sure why, but people bought so many dogs during the lockdown.
I became friends with a vet who had a medical pass to move around because of his job, so we’d go together to different people to groom, treat and sell dogs. I made about ₦100k/month in 2020 from clients I mostly met on Twitter. There’s a huge community of dog owners online o.
Did you know anything about this community before you started?
I didn’t. All I did was come online to talk about dogs, and they found me. Whenever I shared health and wellness tips for different breeds, random people would DM and be like, “Oh, my dog isn’t eating. What should I do?” or “My dog isn’t barking well. What do you advise?”
Those questions pushed me to research more on YouTube and Google search, so I could help them. In return, they recommended me to other dog owners. Others would come and ask me to recommend dog breeds they could buy.
I didn’t highly mark up my prices on dog sales at first. Someone could say they wanted to sell a puppy for ₦180k, and I’d just add ₦20k. The price would end up being more reasonable and sell faster than others who’d put up the same puppy for sale at ₦300k. So, people trusted me.
Can I tell you something?
Please do
Dog money is one of the easiest money you can make. Someone can just wake up and say they want a ₦500k puppy, and the seller agrees to sell at ₦300k. You easily make ₦200k on one single transaction.
Why did you increase your markup?
Omo. I got tired of making ₦5ks and ₦10ks in late 2020 and decided I only wanted to serve people who could pay premium prices. Plus, my low prices started to drive high-paying customers away. When we discussed prices, they always thought the dogs were too cheap to be purebred. No one told me before I gradually started charging well.
Nigerians spend good money on dogs o. In 2022, I facilitated my most expensive single sale yet. It was an adult female Boerboel which I helped transport from Ghana. It cost ₦1.5m, and I didn’t add anything to the price because I wanted to build a relationship with that client. He gave me ₦50k for my stress, though. The dog’s owner also gave me ₦20k.
₦1.5m…
Around Christmas 2020, I added dog boarding to my services. Money from dog sales was good, but it was also unpredictable. So, I told people they could bring their dogs to stay with mine whenever they travelled and just drop money for food. The first client brought his three dogs for the holidays and dropped ₦100k for food.
At first, I didn’t have a fixed price. I charged based on the dog’s size — to determine how much they needed for food — and how long they intended to stay. Now, I charge ₦3k per day. I board dogs all year round, in addition to helping to facilitate dog sales.
How much does this typically bring you in a month?
In a bad month, I make approximately ₦200k from everything dog-related. January, June, July and December are my best months. I think it’s due to a combination of people travelling and 9-5ers getting mid-year bonuses. In those months, I can make up to ₦1m. That’s minus my bank job.
I was coming to that. When did a bank job enter the picture?
In 2022. You know how I said dog money can be unpredictable? Add that to the fact that I’m not a saver — seeing money in my account is reason enough to spend it — so I can be really broke if nothing comes from dog sales in a while. There was a month I didn’t make any sales, and only earned ₦10k from a dog I boarded. I had to sell my TV to supplement my income.
I first tried to get a bank job in 2021 through my uncle, but I failed the interview. Then, I took up a small marketing job at an e-commerce company. My salary was ₦80k/month. In 2022, I applied to the bank again, passed and got the job. It pays ₦165k/month, and an additional ₦165k every quarter. But I like to tell people I’m not a banker. I’m a dog dealer and breeder who happens to work in a bank.
LOL
I do love my bank job, though. I’m a marketer, but it isn’t stressful because I have a chill boss. However, I can easily double my salary with just a few dog transactions.
I feel you. Let’s talk about your relationship with money
I’m not afraid of money. I feel like money will always come. It’s why I can sleep comfortably with ₦1k in my account. I can wake up the following day, and something will bring ₦100k to me.
However, I know I spend a lot. So, I’ve resorted to writing down every single thing I spend on so I know where my money is going, at least. I’ve done this for a few years now, and it’s helped me keep track of my expenses. That way, I know I spent 10% of my income this month on airtime, for example. Or that I spent 50% of it giving it away to people.
Speaking of, dashing people money is a big problem. In 2023, I gave out a total of ₦1m to people, and I made ₦9.3m that year. That’s about 11% of my income, and I don’t even pay tithe in church. I want to learn how to say “no” to people in 2024.
What else takes your money? Let’s break it down for a typical month
I live with my parents, so I don’t have to pay rent. What I spend on dog food depends on how many dogs I have in my house that month. Sometimes, I spend up to ₦50k.
Up until December 2023, I was in a ₦100k/month ajo contribution to save for my car. I started in January, but it hadn’t amounted to much in August when I bought the car. The car cost ₦2m, and I took a ₦400k loan from a neighbour to complete it. Even the loan, I had to sell one of my dogs to repay it because some money I was expecting didn’t come through.
Out of interest, what do your finances look like at the moment?
I currently have zero savings, but I plan to save ₦1m this year. That means I’ll need to take out ₦80k every month and leave it in a savings app.
What’s something you bought recently that improved the quality of your life?
I was going to say the car, but it didn’t improve anything. I’m always fixing one thing or the other. I recently had to pay ₦90k to fix something. Yesterday, the mechanic said I should bring another ₦140k.
But I plan to do something for myself this year. Before the end of the first quarter, I intend to use my leave allowance, which is ₦100k, for a staycation weekend. I’m considering a neighbouring state, so I can spend about ₦75k on transportation and hotel fees. Then, I can use the remaining ₦25k for food.
Is there something you want right now but can’t afford?
I’d like to own a house. It feels like the next sensible step after buying a car. I’ve made some enquiries about a mortgage arrangement in an estate in my city. Buyers need to pay ₦3m upfront for a two or three-bedroom bungalow, and you can spread the payment annually over 15 – 20 years. The houses are worth ₦15m – ₦25m on outright payment. I can’t start the mortgage this year, though. Maybe next year.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?
7. Apart from the house, I don’t think there’s anything I want that I can’t get. It may just take a while. But I want to be rich-rich so I can buy a ₦30k shirt without thinking too much about it or feeling like I’m spending too much on myself. My dogs even enjoy my money more than I do.
What do the next few years look like for you? Will you stay in banking?
I should. I see myself getting promoted this year, and that could bring my salary to ₦400k.
Honestly, I don’t think I will ever be broke again. If I lose my job today, I can go into cab driving. If that doesn’t work, I can become a POS agent or go and be bathing someone’s dog every week. I just know I can’t go back to urgent ₦2k levels of broke with the amount of things I can do.
Plus, like I said, I’m not afraid of money. I have less than ₦5k in my account right now, but I know there will always be something. Things can be bad for one week, but it can never be bad for one month.
Is there something else you’d like to share that I didn’t ask?
There’s plenty of money in this dog business, but I’ve also lost a lot too. I once brought in a dog from Ukraine that cost about ₦1m, and it died after it got to Nigeria. I’m still not sure what killed it because there was no money for an autopsy. Obviously, I didn’t get anything from that sale.
There was another one from Serbia that accidentally got hit by a keke while I took it for a walk. I paid ₦70k for surgery and treatment, but it still died. Or is it when I’d just wake up and find one of my dogs dead? Now, I try not to put myself under undue pressure. Dog wey go die go die.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
It has to be my mum paying me ₦10 – ₦20 weekly to work in her ice water nylon factory. Before pure water became a thing, there was ice water — cold water in clear nylons. We made those nylons in the factory, and I handled the cutter.
This was in the late 80s, and I was nine years old. ₦20 was the highest denomination, and I could buy Vip — a fruit drink — every day for five days and still have enough left to save in my kolo. Later, I’d give my mum what I’d saved to buy me Christmas clothes.
Sometimes, I’d buy about 20 pieces of puff-puff and share with my brothers. I’m the only girl among five siblings, so I had a sense of responsibility towards them.
Tell me more about your childhood
My dad died when I was almost 10, and there was no financial support from my dad’s family, so I was raised by my mum. My mum was so hardworking. She’d supply her nylons to markets in neighbouring states and do everything else she could lay her hands on — she sold everything from clothes to fashion accessories at different points. She wasn’t the type to wait for handouts, and she instilled those values in me.
She put me in charge of the house even before I was 9. A typical day in my life included waking up super early to sweep, do other house chores, and go to school or work at the factory if it was during the holidays.
My brothers also got to work. My mum would send them to farms to work and make money; she just wanted all her children to be as industrious as she was.
How long did you work at the factory?
About seven years. After finishing secondary school in 1995, my mum encouraged me to get a teaching job at a local private school, and my salary was ₦800/monthly. I barely got the salary because the school’s proprietress kept owing me. Thankfully, I didn’t have to stay there for long: I left for the polytechnic the following year.
While I was in school, my mum supported me by sending me earrings and other fashion accessories to sell and use the money for what I needed. Sometimes, I’d send part of the money I made back to her to get more goods through buses — there was no online banking then. I did that till I finished my National Diploma in 1999.
What happened after?
I studied banking, so I started a one-year internship at a bank. My salary was ₦5k monthly. The following year, I became a contract staff at the same bank, and my salary increased to ₦19k/month. I was the only one among my siblings with a stable income, so I’d usually send money to my siblings who were still in school.
I tried to return to school too. I needed to further my education to progress in my banking career and become a permanent staff member. I paid around ₦3k to register at the Chartered Institute of Bankers in 2001. The way the institute worked, you could attend classes for about six months before taking the exams. There were two exam diets annually, but I couldn’t focus because of work.
So, whenever I missed an exam, I’d re-enroll and try to prepare for the next exams. That happened at least twice. I still hadn’t figured it out when marriage jumped at me.
What do you mean “jumped”?
My husband and I were dating when I was at the institute. He’d regularly come to pick me up after classes. He was in a rush to get married, and somehow, I started rushing too. We got married in 2003.
I wish I hadn’t rushed because balancing school, career and the home was a struggle. I also supported the home financially because my husband didn’t make much. As a result, I abandoned the institute for a more flexible distance-learning university degree programme in 2004.
Was it any easier?
It wasn’t. It took me seven years to complete the four-year degree; I kept deferring semesters due to pregnancies, child care — I have two children — and work.
I was also running an imported fabrics and jewellery business on the side. I’d go to Cotonou with about ₦300k and convert it to 1m CFA. The exchange rate was still good then. I’d sell my goods to my co-workers and use whatever I made to supplement my salary. It was from both incomes I paid my school fees and took care of the home.
Was your husband contributing financially at all?
He did, a little. But there’s one thing to know about men: once they know you have work that’s bringing you money, they’d just leave some things to you. They know you won’t leave your children to go hungry.
It wasn’t an issue for me at first. I’ve worked all my life, and providing was just something I did. I didn’t see a need to ask for money for food or any other joint need. It was my mum who’d tell me to make sure I collected money for food and diapers so he’d feel a sense of responsibility.
I eventually left the marriage in 2009 for reasons I don’t want to get into. It was also the same year my bank started having problems.
What kind of problems?
The kind banks don’t recover from and are forced to close down. I didn’t even get a chance to use the degree I worked so hard for, as I only graduated a year after I left the bank.
By this time, my salary had increased over the years to ₦125k/month. The bank paid off the staff and officially closed in 2010. I got a ₦3m payout.
So sorry. But the ₦3m payout must have been a lifeline
It was. I put everything into my fabrics business and even got a shop. Everything was fine in the beginning.
But the thing about running a business while you have a stable job is that you can use your salary as a capital source if your money is tied up somewhere because of credit buyers. I even took loans to run the business and pay back with my salary. All of this ended when I lost my job.
I had a major setback in 2011 when some of my major debtors lost their jobs. They worked in a bank that also closed up, but we thought they’d get a settlement. The bank never paid them, and my debtors — all 16 of them — had no way of paying me the ₦1m+ they owed me. I didn’t even see them again.
Ah. Did they buy from you in bulk for their debt to be that high?
My goods were pretty high-end. Before you buy one lace, an Italian bag or some expensive watches, the cost starts to pile up.
That particular incident affected my business badly. But my second name is jama-jama (hustler), and I somehow stuck through it for the next nine years.
While running the business, I also learned about home design and decoration services in 2012. A friend introduced me to an interior designer who taught me the basics, and I started supplying bedsheets, picking curtains, and whatever furniture needs my clients had.
My first gig was in 2014. I procured curtains and a bar for the client’s home and made ₦80k in profit. I loved how the business didn’t require any capital. I’d just give my clients a quote, and they’d pay a percentage upfront and complete it after I delivered the job.
How often did the home decor gigs come?
Usually once every few months. But when they came, I’d take small loans from microfinance banks and travel to Aba to get materials.
Why Aba?
Fabrics were cheaper there, and I could save up to ₦500 per yard of fabric. That accumulated to a lot, considering I could buy up to 1000 yards of fabric depending on how big the job was.
I made an average of ₦200k – ₦500k from these gigs, and they supplemented whatever I made from the shop. But the shop itself wasn’t making sales. People could only look at expensive fabrics or fashion accessories after they had eaten na. So, I decided to close the shop in 2019.
What did you do next?
I still sold my goods to some clients from home and occasionally got decoration gigs. Everything I made went into providing for my children and sending them to school. Of course, this forced me to live within my means. My family was also supportive and eager to step in when I needed help with the kids.
My ex-husband supports the children in his own way. They keep in touch with him, and he sometimes sends them ₦30k once a year. What does that want to do in the life of an undergraduate student in school?
Anyway, my search for a stable income led me to the transportation business in 2022, and I ended up as a cab driver on an e-hailing cab service.
How did that happen?
The initial plan was to give my car to someone to use as a taxi and remit money to me weekly. I took out a ₦200k loan from a microfinance bank to repair the car and paint it. I was supposed to repay the loan over five weeks.
The agreement between me and the guy I found was that he would remit ₦25k every week, so I’d use the money to repay the loan I took. Then I could start making a profit after the loan had been paid off. I was the one to fix the car if it had any issues o. All he had to do was bring money weekly for as long as he drove my car.
But the guy kept giving excuses. It was by fire by force that he could even pay ₦80k in those five weeks.
Wahala
When I realised I was struggling to repay the microfinance loan, I collected my car back and told someone to help me register as a driver on the e-hailing app. My second child had just gotten admitted to study medicine, so it was all the more reason for me to double my hustle. How else would I afford the big big textbooks he’d inevitably start buying?
That’s how I started o. I didn’t even know these drivers were making big money. I still drive the cab, and I don’t intend to stop soon. It’s better than all the jobs I’ve done. By the Grace of God, there’s no day I drive that I don’t make good money.
How good is the money?
When I first started, I made ₦30k – ₦40k daily on weekdays and ₦40k – ₦50k during the weekend. The e-hailing app takes a 25% fee on rides, but there is also a ₦9k – ₦10k bonus if you complete a certain number of rides per day.
I used to push myself to get those bonuses and work every day so I’d earn even more. But when I started having high blood pressure, I told myself, “Your children are still young. Better calm down.”
Now, I work four days a week. I still earn within the ₦40k range daily, but fuel takes about 30% – 40% of that. Then, after the app removes its commission too, what’s left of my profit is about 40%-50% of my total earnings. It’s still good money, even though car repairs and maintenance take a chunk of it. I don’t make as much as the men sha.
Why’s that?
They have the strength to do longer rides and ultimately make more money. I spoke to a male driver once, and he shared how he makes ₦50k – ₦100k on Sundays because he lives in Ikorodu and takes trips from there to Ajah.
I’ve done a similar trip once when I was in Lekki and got an Ikorodu trip. That single trip paid ₦17k. Do only three trips like that in a day, and you’re easily making ₦50k+.
What’s a typical day in your life like?
I start driving at 6:30 a.m. and close at 4 p.m. Sometimes, if the traffic is a lot by late afternoon, I take two hours off driving and then work till 8 p.m. Working as a cab driver allows me to determine my own work hours, but I still take it like I’m working for someone. I don’t just go home by 1 p.m. just because I want to.
What would you say is the most difficult aspect of your job?
It gets stressful sometimes. I also have to maintain the car regularly, but I see that as taking care of my office.
I’ve heard stories about young female drivers being harassed, but I haven’t experienced it. Who wants to harass me at this age? I’ve not had any bad experiences with riders or fellow drivers. I believe respect is reciprocal. I always approach everyone calmly and respectfully, and they instinctively respond the same way. No one has been rude to me, and it’s because I’ve never been rude to anyone either.
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What do the next few years look like for you?
I’m still enjoying driving my cab. It’s a ready-made market. I don’t need to wake up and start looking for passengers. All I do is open my app, and they come.
I’ll look into returning to business when my children graduate from uni in 3-4 years so I can rest a bit. I might go back to fabrics or discuss with my children and find something else. But even if I have a shop, I’d still like to drive my cab three times a week.
I also have monthly pension payments from my time at the bank to look forward to. It’ll start coming in when I’m 50. It might not even be up to ₦100k, but it’ll be something.
What are your monthly expenses like?
To be honest, I can’t explain it. It’s just God, because how do I explain that I don’t have money in my account and I still buy ₦20k fuel daily?
But I make sure I meet up with my ajo contribution monthly. I contribute ₦50k every Sunday, and then ₦100k on the last Sunday of the month, bringing it to ₦300k monthly. When I collect the ajo, I transfer it to an account I don’t touch. It’s that money I use to sort out rent, school and hostel fees for my children, and anything else that comes up.
I have about ₦200k stashed somewhere as emergency savings for urgent repairs I need to do on my car. My car is my major expense. In 2023, I spent up to ₦1m fixing and maintaining it. Just last week, I spent ₦73k on tokunbo tyres and plugs.
What’s something you want right now but can’t afford?
I need a new car. My car is about seven years old and takes all my money with repairs. I’d like to buy a 2010 Toyota Corolla, but it costs ₦7m. I can’t afford that.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
7. I don’t have everything I want, but I have what I need to provide a good life for myself and my children. God has been faithful. We don’t go hungry, and God just has a way of covering our secrets.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
It’s crystal clear we have a problem in Nigeria. Inflation has reached 28.92% — the highest in 27 years — and things are going from bad to worse.
Since all of us can’t just japa and leave this country empty, we might as well figure out how to live through it. I spoke to some millennials, and they shared the hacks they’re holding onto in these trying times.
Prioritise essential expenses
If you know you typically finish a bag of rice in a month, it’s better to buy that bag when you have money rather than buy it small small because that rice can double in price in two days.
I like to also buy things in twos or threes. At least, I get to delay buying the same thing at an (inevitably) higher price for a little while. I can stay broke happily, knowing I already have most of what I need till the next paycheck comes.
— Kelvin
Take loans if you have to
Gathering money over a couple of months to make a big purchase doesn’t work in this economy again. Before you finish saving the money, the item has doubled in price.
So, if it’s an item you absolutely can’t do without, consider taking a loan to buy it. I do this regularly and advise anyone else to do the same. It works even better when you can get informal loans with little or no interest. But pay back your loans o. Let’s not be unfortunate.
— Opeyemi
Comfort is good, but survival is better
This might sound like advice to reduce your quality of life, but if you don’t want that quality of life to reduce by force, you need to start making sensible cuts.
I used to run my generator all day whenever NEPA did their thing, but now, I do most of my work within the three hours that my generator is turned on daily, so I can be on my laptop while it’s connected to electricity. That way, my battery is still charged when the generator is turned off, and I can still squeeze out a couple of hours before the battery dies.
Think about what you can cut sensibly. Do you need to take an Uber for the entire trip, or can you take public transportation to a point first?
— Peace
Nobody will beat you if you haggle
Our mothers knew what they were doing when they priced things at the market. I used to be ashamed to haggle, but now, I have to do it.
Pro tip: Start the haggling process by dividing the initial price into three. For instance, if the seller says something costs ₦1k, start pricing from ₦300 or ₦350. You’d be surprised how much you save when you and the seller eventually settle on a price.
— Christy
Avoid billing like your life depends on it
I now do a thing where I refuse to open or respond to WhatsApp messages until the sender reveals why they’re messaging me.
Messages with only “Hi” or “Hello” go unanswered unless you follow it up with “My name is XYZ, and I’m reaching out for ABC reasons”. For not-too-close family members, I make sure to start conversations with my own problems. Everywhere is hard, and this is not the time to make any unnecessary expenses.
I’m big on budgeting, but I recently noticed that my budgets weren’t adding up. For instance, I could budget ₦5k for gas and suddenly hear that they’ve increased the price.
I still budget, though. If not for anything, it helps me track my expenses and have something to look at when I start wondering where all my money disappeared to. So, have a budget but still have it at the back of your mind that things can change. At least, if it doesn’t work out, you know it’s Nigeria, not you making poor financial decisions.
— Ola
Make money
It’s easier said than done, but at the end of the day, money is what will still save you from totally erasing your quality of life due to inflation.
I’m constantly on the lookout for side gigs and better job opportunities to increase my income. If you like, be feeling guilty or thinking you want to be loyal to any company. Even your oga is looking for a better-paying job.
Legal wills may always be a controversial subject in a conservative country like Nigeria. Like, why are you writing a will when you’re not married, old or bastardly rich? Or, are you planning to die?
The recent conversations around the late singer, Mohbad, having a will at 26-year-old inspired me to ask other young people who have (or are planning to have) wills why they wrote one, including their general thoughts about it.
Tobi, 26
I wrote a will after I bought my first landed property at 25, and it was because of what I experienced from home.
My mum saw plenty shege after my dad’s death because he didn’t have a will. He only had the deed to his house. After he died, his siblings stole the deed and sold the house. We couldn’t fight it because we had no proof of ownership.
I promised myself a thing like that would never happen again. Hence, the will. I also have a notarised document stating who gets my pension from work in the event of my death.
I’ll keep updating my will as I get more assets. I don’t want to hear story when I’m supposed to be resting on the other side.
Zee, 21
I plan to write my will this year. I have €10k in savings, and €15k in stocks. I also save €2k every month. I live in the Netherlands and intend to buy a house via mortgage this year. I’ll write my will afterwards.
I believe a will is necessary once you start having assets. To be honest, I just got the conviction to create one as soon as possible. A friend tweeted about writing their own will, and I decided I needed to write mine too. I think I would’ve still considered it sometime this year, though.
I haven’t actively started the process, but all I need is to draft the document with a lawyer and then notarise it to make it legal. I can also draw up the will in Nigeria, as long as it aligns with Dutch law since my assets are here.
Isa, 32
I wrote my will at 30, and I think it’s brilliant to know who is getting what after you’re gone.
I’m unmarried without kids, but I know life is transient. Anything can happen at any time. So, even though I didn’t exactly have a reason to do it, I felt I had to. I spoke with a lawyer friend, and we drafted the document. The writing, corrections and confirmation process took about three weeks. Then we signed it with witnesses present.
Now, there’s a sense of relief knowing that that’s out of the way. If I leave Earth today, I can still put smiles on people’s faces. It’s my gift to the universe.
Ayo, 24
I don’t have a will yet, but I have a password-encrypted document that has all my asset information— bank accounts, crypto wallet passwords and shares.
I’ve also scheduled an automated email to send this document to my sister next year, with a reminder on my calendar to reschedule two days prior to sending time. If I’m still alive by then, I’ll reschedule the send date. If not, the email is sent.
I’ll eventually write a legal will when I start amassing concrete assets like landed property or when I get married. For now, the document suffices because most of my assets are password-based, and I want my sister to have everything.
Arin, 25
All my assets are currently in my bank account, and my immediate siblings have the details. I come from a polygamous family and know people whose families started fighting battles among each other when their father died.
I don’t know if my dad has a will, and I’m not putting my mind there. My own goal is to make money and write a will to clearly outline who I want it to go to when the time comes. I’m hoping I do this before 35.
At the moment, my other focus is to find a legal way to dictate who gets my pension. I always thought just having a “Next of kin” sufficed, but I recently learned it doesn’t. So, I plan to find a legal solution to it this year.
Zoey, 23
I don’t have a will because I don’t have assets, but I think anyone above 18 with assets should have a will. At the latest, you should have one by 45. Life expectancy in Nigeria is 55 — with other things being equal — so one needs to put their affairs in order around this age.
You also read about the potential challenges involved with not having a will:
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
Making ₦200 – ₦300 from braiding hair when I was 15. I was in secondary school, and I taught myself how to make hair by plaiting the grass stalks in my boarding school’s compound. I also practised on a senior student’s hair. Then I started making simple braid hairstyles for people in my area whenever I was home from school.
I also tried my hand at making braided wigs and sold a few to neighbours at ₦1k – ₦1,500. I remember feeling so excited that I was making my own money. It’s funny because it’s not like I didn’t have parents to give me money, I just wanted to make mine.
Why do you think that was? This desire to make your own money?
I’m the first child of a large polygamous home. My dad had a cocoa farm that wasn’t doing great, and we had several members of our extended family living with us at different points. So even though my dad did his best, many people depended on him for money.
I grew up knowing I couldn’t always wait for my dad. I had to work for whatever money I wanted.
Where was your mum in all of this?
I was the only child on my mum’s side, and she mostly depended on my dad too. He once gave my mum money to start a provisions business, but she was forced to close it after a few months. My dad would take money from the business to help these same family members, and my mum also had to feed them with the business proceeds. At one point, my mum opened another shop in a different location without my dad’s financial input so she could have a say in how the finances were managed.
Back to hairdressing. Did it help you become somewhat independent?
The jobs weren’t consistent, so I just did it to get the usual ₦1k every other week. I took a break in 2015 when I got admitted into a polytechnic.
I didn’t make hair or do anything for money because I was focused on leaving the school.
Why?
I decided I didn’t like the school from the first day I stepped foot there. You won’t believe they welcomed me to school with a cult fight.
I spent all my time there writing JAMB and applying to other schools. I finally got admitted into a university and started classes in 2017.
I had a sister in the same uni too, and she told me the students loved to look fashionable. So, I decided I could make a fortune by offering them nail services.
What did this involve?
I took some money from my ₦10k monthly allowance and went to the market to get the materials. A bottle of nail polish cost ₦100, and I got nine colours and a hardener for ₦1k. I also bought nail polish remover for ₦150 and a couple of nail files, buffers and artificial nails. I put all my tools in a basket and started moving from room to room in the hostel, looking for clients.
I charged ₦500 for both hands (with artificial nails) and ₦200 if it was just normal painting. I charged an additional ₦200 to paint both sets of toes.
Sounds affordable
It was, and it made the business an instant hit. The students in my uni typically held many events, and when these happened, I’d have as many as six clients and make about ₦3k daily.
By 200 level, I had to move off-campus — only first-year and final-year students were guaranteed hostel space. Staying in an off-campus apartment with my sister was a big blow to my nail business. I could no longer move from room to room to find clients. It was time to find something else.
What did you find?
Makeup. Just before the end of the session, an entrepreneurship class in school tasked us with learning a skill during the three-month break so we could present what we learned when we returned to school. I’ve been interested in makeup since childhood, so I decided to learn it.
What was learning it like?
I found a professional at home and paid ₦30k for a one-month class. I’d drag a friend along to practise on her face. I also regularly followed YouTube tutorials. When school resumed in 2019, I began telling everyone I was now a makeup artist.
At first, I charged ₦2k for a face beat, but when the cost of products started to choke me the following semester, I increased my price to ₦3,500. I usually had three to four clients daily across different hostels.
In final year, I moved back to the school hostel and restarted my nail business. This time, I charged between ₦1k – ₦1,500 to fix nails. I also increased my makeup rates to ₦5k – ₦6k. I was constantly booked and made about ₦20k weekly from both businesses.
The money was good, but my partner introduced me to UI/UX design in 2020. I saw yet another opportunity to make money.
Let me guess, you grabbed it
I procrastinated for a bit sha. My partner was in the Google Developer Students Club, and I joined in 2021. The training was free, but omo, it was hard.
My beauty industry experience helped me quickly understand the user interface bit because I was already dealing with colours every day. However, it took me about three months to get a hang of the user experience part.
Did you get any UI/UX gigs while in school?
I didn’t prioritise getting any. I was already making money with makeup, so I decided to focus on learning and mastering my UI/UX skills.
When I graduated in 2021, I got two small UI design gigs on Twitter. I got these gigs because I was already vocal about my skills on the app, and someone reached out to me to redesign a website for ₦20k. The second gig was a simple landing page website design that paid ₦40k.
When NYSC came in 2022, I was posted to a school, but I paid someone ₦25k to change my PPA to a fintech startup because I wanted to do more UI design. I don’t even know if he worked with NYSC; someone just introduced me to him. Thank God they didn’t scam me.
LOL. Tell me about the job
I was supporting a UI/UX designer on the team. For some reason, I didn’t ask if they’d pay a stipend in addition to NYSC’s ₦33k monthly allowance. But the job came with a free room in the office, so my accommodation was sorted.
The designer I was supporting was redesigning a product, but she was preparing to leave the team and was distracted. So, I decided to do the work myself and did three different redesign variations within a week. I later learned they planned to pay me ₦10k/month, but the MD was impressed with my work and decided to give me a ₦20k bonus that month.
I got ₦30k in my first month and expected only ₦10k the next month. But I got ₦30k again. I asked HR, and they said the increase was because I was the only designer they had at the time, and they hoped to retain me after my service year. In my head, I was like, “Wow, nice one.”
Were you still offering makeup services on the side?
Not really. NYSC was in a different state where I didn’t know anyone. Two months into the job, I got a part-time design job on Twitter. It paid ₦50k, and only required me to work on the product for two hours every weekday.
The project ended five months later, but then they asked if I could manage social media for their sister company as they didn’t have a manager. By now, you should know I can say yes to anything as long as there’s money in it.
Screaming. So you took the job?
The job was onsite in a different state, as I’d need to take videos and create content. I told them I’d take the job if they gave me accommodation. They agreed, and I moved to the state in December 2022. The pay was ₦150k/month.
But you weren’t done with NYSC
I was going to round up NYSC in February 2023, but my PPA was already having money issues. They’d offered to retain me at ₦70k/month (including the free accommodation). But they started laying people off in December. We even closed for the year in the second week of December because of the money issues. I couldn’t wait around to find out, so I told them I was leaving and would return for my final clearance. They were okay with it.
So, I moved states for the second job. It was an event video coverage company, and I had to follow them to events to create content. It was crazy stressful. I’d never experienced something like that in my life. We could go out all day, return at 6 a.m. the next day and still go out again in the afternoon. I suffered.
Did the pay help the suffering, at least?
If anything, it allowed me to save more. During my service year, I regularly saved the ₦30k from my PPA and lived on the ₦33k allowance from NYSC. When I got the ₦50k side gig, I also saved part of it and spent the rest on random shopping or sending money home to my mum.
I had about ₦200k in savings when I started the social media job and saved an additional ₦100k from my first salary. Subsequently, I tried to save at least half of my salary monthly.
But I wasn’t enjoying the job at all. In January 2023, I got another UI/UX design side gig at ₦50k/month. Then I was referred for and landed another ₦50k/month social media management gig for a US client the following month.
You were juggling three jobs?
Yes, and it triggered a mental breakdown. My primary 9-5 was stressful and extremely toxic. Our MD used most of the company’s funds to relocate, and we were left with the HR officer who was a bully. I was planning to resign in June when they called me in March 2023 to tell me they no longer needed my services.
The crazy thing is, I resigned from the US job only two weeks earlier because my head wasn’t in the right place, and I needed to reduce my workload. I had no idea I’d lose my 9-5 so soon. I was left with only the ₦50k/month UI/UX job.
But I’d saved up ₦600k from my earnings, and I used it to buy a MacBook so I could focus on design. I didn’t want to do anything social media-related again.
How were you surviving on ₦50k/month?
I told my employer I could now work full-time with them, and they increased the salary to ₦70k. I also moved in with a family member to reduce my running costs. I tried getting side gigs again, but nothing came.
Then I thought, if a job won’t work, why not school? So, in July, I told my parents I wanted to apply for a master’s abroad. They agreed, and I began the process of getting my transcript from uni for the application process. I took permission from work for this, but one day, they felt I was asking for too much permission and asked me to leave the company.
Just like that?
Just like that. They also complained that I was delaying tasks, but I was severely burnt out. It felt like I was just learning how to work afresh. That’s how I sha became jobless.
For the next two weeks, I cried daily. I lost my confidence and questioned my abilities. Like, wasn’t it this same me that was hyped at my PPA then? Had I gotten so bad?
When I was finally done crying, I told my parents I was now unemployed, and my dad demanded I start a business. I considered my options and told him I wanted to sell thrift clothes. He gave me ₦500k. I used half of that to buy stock and launched the business online in August. Within a month, I had 30 orders and made ₦36k in profit.
Not a bad start
However, I was still interested in UI/UX design, so I decided to start afresh. I paid ₦40k for an online three-month design course to rebuild my confidence. I’d create content for my business in the mornings and then study after.
In October 2023, I thought about returning to makeup but going at it differently. I opened a YouTube channel and started doing makeup looks and sharing via YouTube Shorts.
Why YouTube Shorts?
I noticed people preferred short-form content. My first video had 10k views because I used a trending sound. It motivated me, and I thought, “Maybe I can blow on YouTube”.
Remember the master’s admission I was pursuing? I got admission in October 2023 at a UK university. The deposit was about ₦4m after conversion. My dad sent it, but before I could make the payment, the exchange rate increased from ₦1k to a pound to ₦1,300, and the deposit was now about ₦5m.
Damn
My dad couldn’t afford it. Even the ₦4m was everything he’d made from selling a cocoa harvest. He hadn’t even paid his farm staff. So, we agreed to defer the admission to 2024, and I returned the money to him.
Since school was off the table, I focused my attention on YouTube, my design classes and business. By December 2023, I’d grown my subscribers to almost 200, using only YouTube Shorts. I intend to start vlogging properly in 2024 to cross the 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours threshold to get monetised.
What about your thrift business?
The business is no longer doing as well; I make an average of ₦50k/month from it. But it’s business money, so it goes back into the business. I still have about ₦200k left from the initial business capital saved up, and I might restock in a couple of weeks.
These days, I survive on the occasional design gigs I get through my partner, and that brings in an average of ₦100k in a good month.
What do your expenses look like in a good month?
I’m trying to live on a ₦50k monthly budget, so I can save anything else that comes in. This is possible because my parents and partner support me financially when I have nothing — they’re essentially my safety nets. I just moved into my own apartment in January 2024, and it cost me ₦270k, with some financial help from my parents.
Before moving into my apartment, I hardly spent on data and food because my partner took care of it.
It’s interesting you lost jobs twice in a year but didn’t exactly go broke
For me, being broke means not having a job that constantly brings money at the end of the month. Though it wasn’t consistent, I was still getting money.
I was broke — I still am — but my safety nets and savings have helped me survive. I believe your savings can save you. Also, don’t just spend money the way you see it. You should always plan how you intend to spend. I usually weigh my options and decide the importance of things per time to determine what should take my money in one period of time.
What do you see when you think about your financial future?
Ah. I always hope for the best o. I have my hands on so many things because I want to have different sources of income, but I’ll eventually need to streamline it to one source as I grow older. I can’t be jumping up and down in my old age. I’m still looking for a good-paying job. I really want to do user experience research and product design. I might just put the business aside if I find a job now.
How much is a good-paying job for you right now?
That’s tricky. What if I say a figure now, and Jesus says, “That salary you mentioned is exactly what you’ll get?” What if He has a bigger plan for me? If I have to share sha, I’d say a minimum of ₦200k/monthly or $1k if it’s a foreign company.
Curious. Do you have a retirement plan?
I plan to invest in a cocoa farm like my dad once I have enough money. This is how cocoa farming works: You rent a farm that already has cocoa seedlings — so you don’t have to start planting all over again. Renting one can cost as much as ₦100k annually, depending on the farm size. Then you hire people to care for the farm and harvest the ripe cocoa in December.
Right now, a kilo of cocoa is about ₦5,200 and a bag contains 66 kilos. That’s ₦343,200 from one bag of cocoa. You can harvest up to 10 – 12 bags and sell them to those who export to other places. You can also decide to pay the person you hired to take care of the farm with one-third of the harvest.
I also plan to go into the palm oil business. That one just involves buying multiple kegs of palm oil in January and storing them to sell in December when they’ve doubled or tripled in price.
That’s interesting. How much do you think you’ll need to start cocoa farming?
I’ll need about ₦300k to rent a farm and start operations. I can actually start any time and make that amount back fully in a year because the dollar-to-naira rate influences the price of a cocoa bag, and since that’s consistently increasing, the profit would increase too.
However, I intend to build my business to a point where it’s profitable enough for me to be able to remove that kind of money to invest somewhere else. I’ll also have financial support from my dad when that time comes.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
2. I still don’t have a job, so I’m not happy with my finances. I hope to get a job before March 2024 and possibly monetise my YouTube. Maybe by then, things will start looking up.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
My family had an open approach to money; we all knew when there was money and when there wasn’t. My dad always said, “If you return from school and there’s no food to eat, go to the bedroom. There’s probably money on the table”. If there was no money there, I’d check other places he kept money. If I checked everywhere and there was no money, it meant we had no money.
There was no such thing as “stealing” your parents’ money because you knew if you took the money for no good reason, it’d affect you since there was no other source. It also helped manage expectations. I’m the firstborn, and when my siblings whined about wanting sweets, it was easy for me to go, “Can’t you see there’s no money in the drawer?”
What did your parents do for money?
My dad’s a pastor, and our finances had a lot of no-money and faith moments. My mum’s a lawyer, but she was also a jack of all trades. She sold chin-chin, beads, hats, clothes, and even ran her own practice at some point. Another time, she was legal counsel at a microfinance bank.
It was a two-income household, but we mostly lived on my mum’s income because my dad wasn’t the rich-pastor type. He was more of the pastor-struggling-to-make-ends-meet type, and my mum held the family’s finances down.
Do you remember the first time you made your own money?
I first made money in junior secondary school by drawing maps of Nigeria and selling them to my classmates. For some reason, I was good at drawing them, so whenever we were given class assignments, they’d pay me ₦20 to draw for them.
It later progressed to drawing and labelling skeletons for biology class and selling them to my classmates for biscuits. Slowly, my customer base expanded to students from other classes. While I did this till senior secondary school, I didn’t have a standard price. My friends typically paid with snacks, and I’d charge others depending on how much I liked them.
Here for the nepotism. What about after secondary school?
In 2014, I got into university in Benin Republic to study law, but I didn’t do anything for money till my second year.
My parents moved to the US because my dad was transferred to a church there, and I realised I’d need to make money to support myself. This was because my dad was still getting paid in naira, which wasn’t much after the conversion to dollars. I knew they didn’t have much. So, when my parents sent my ₦15k – ₦20k monthly allowance, which was about CFA 30k – 34k, I’d lend it to people short-term for 10% – 20% interest.
What were you surviving on while you loaned people money?
My aunty usually sent me groceries, so I had minimal day-to-day spending needs.
The loan business worked until one guy refused to pay me back my money. He’d borrowed ₦30k and was supposed to pay me ₦35k after a month. I didn’t trust him from the beginning, so I had him sign a contract and use his laptop as collateral.
Month end came, and he didn’t pay. I told him I’d sell his laptop, but he thought I was joking. After the second-month grace elapsed and he still didn’t pay, I sold the laptop for ₦40k and told him I was keeping the ₦5k change. He couldn’t say anything because it was better than calling the Beninoise police, who didn’t even like Nigerians. He’d have slept in prison. That was the last time I gave out loans. I can do hard guy, but only so much.
I graduated in 2017 and relocated with my siblings to join my parents in the US. That’s when I got my first official job.
Tell me how that happened
Since my dad’s visa only allowed my parents to work, I could only get a job that paid me in cash. Our senior pastor introduced me to a lawyer who needed a paralegal and agreed to pay in cash. The pay was $10/hour, and I worked six hours thrice a week.
Someone else also offered me another job on the side. It was called medical coding, and my job was to change medical diagnoses to alphanumeric codes — like record keeping, but in codes. So, when he got the medical coding jobs, he’d outsource them to me and pay me around 30% of what he was actually getting paid. Payment was $1 per chart, but I was coding as many as 100 charts daily and 1000 charts weekly, and making $1k weekly.
I was 19, earning $1,200 a week from two jobs
That’s not bad at all
It was good money, and I hardly spent it. I was incredibly frugal and was only interested in saving. My sister was in high school, and I knew university would be expensive as an international student, so I was saving towards that. I was also saving towards a car and the medical coding exam to qualify as a professional because I expected we’d get the green card soon.
So after I got paid, I’d remove my tithe, set aside $100 for pizzas and McDonald’s — which was essentially my fuel for the long work days — and save the rest. The other bills that took my money were the few times my parents needed help with rent or groceries and my brother, who would randomly ask me to pay for sneakers, food and just random things.
Not spending enough of my money on myself is one of my biggest regrets today. I thought I’d finally start enjoying my money after I took the medical coding exam. The next step would have been an income boost since I’d be able to get the jobs myself. None of it happened because we had to leave the US in 2019.
What happened?
My dad was on an L-1 visa, which is mostly for executives. There’s a separate visa category for pastors, but my dad didn’t come in through that because it’s very difficult to get a green card with that visa category. So, his official job title was something like a financial advisor for the church, so he could apply for a green card after two years.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump started fighting against immigrants. My sister was just finishing her first year of uni, and my brother had just graduated from high school. I was studying really hard for the exams myself, and we were all hopeful. But we got denied and had to return to Nigeria.
I’m so sorry
Thanks. I couldn’t do any medical coding jobs in Nigeria because it was sensitive information you couldn’t even move houses with. I also couldn’t do the paralegal job anymore. So, I had to start from scratch. I converted my $2k savings into naira, and I don’t remember how much it was now, but it was quite a lot.
I eventually lost the money sef. I naively put about ₦300k in a ponzi scheme that promised 40% interest after six months. I didn’t get anything, of course. Then I used about ₦750k to buy some plots of land somewhere I’ve never seen before. Honestly, I just bought it so it’d be like I owned something.
Then someone who knew my dad introduced me to a real estate company for a job. They didn’t have an opening, but they just wanted to help out, so they put me in customer service. When I met the HR, she asked about my salary expectations. I just laughed and told her to tell me what the role paid. She was still insisting, asking what I earned before. When I said, “$1k/week”, she sat up in her chair in shock.
LMAO
She finally said the role paid ₦50k and explained they couldn’t pay more because I hadn’t done NYSC. I wasn’t expecting much before, so I took it. I was in customer service, but I did everything. If the lawyers weren’t around, I’d draft contracts. If the accountant were unavailable, I’d print receipts. I also did admin work, visited sites, and took videos.
I registered for NYSC in 2020 and was at the orientation camp when COVID hit, and we had to go home. I did the rest of my service year with the same company, even though they didn’t pay me for the three months I was home because of the lockdown. They also tried to reduce my salary to ₦20k because I had NYSC’s monthly ₦33k stipend, but I reported them to the person who brought me there, and they fixed up.
I started looking for a job as I approached the end of my service year in 2021, but I didn’t know what I could do. The only job I was really good at — medical coding — didn’t exist in Nigeria. I also wasn’t planning on going to law school, so I couldn’t practise. Then, a friend told me about a social media management position in an EdTech company. I’d been posting videos on my personal social media for the longest time, and I thought I could try social media management. So, I applied for the role. Honestly, I don’t know how they hired me because I’m not sure what I did in that interview. But they did, and I got my first social media job.
How much did it pay?
₦100k/month. It was remote, and I also got side gigs once in a while from a lawyer in the US who needed me to speak to Nigerian clients and get documents. That paid $10 per hour worked, and I worked two to three hours per week, so that was an extra ₦10k/month.
I lived with my parents, had no expenses and even started saving again. I saved ₦20k monthly with my colleagues through an ajo contribution arrangement and another ₦10k on a savings app. I was in a relationship and thought I’d get married that year, so I was saving because everyone says you need to have money to do a wedding. But I later decided I was too young to get married, so I used my savings to buy my dad a new iPhone 11. It cost about ₦350k.
In December 2021, I had a severe mental breakdown and decided I couldn’t do the job anymore. My team lead and I were the only people in the marketing team. I was hired for social media, but I was drafting copy to drive “leads” and meet “OKRs”. I had no idea what I was doing.
So, I left and told my parents I wanted to pursue a postgraduate degree. Really, I just wanted to leave the job, but I needed to give them a plausible reason for quitting, so I chose academic advancement.
Did you have any source of income while in school?
I survived on the generosity of my parents and boyfriend for the entire year I spent in school. I lost the paralegal side gig because school wasn’t in the same state I lived in, and most of the errands I did for the lawyer were back home.
After graduation in November 2022, I landed two social media management jobs, one for a startup and the other for a homeware store. They paid ₦100k and ₦150k/month respectively, bringing my total income to ₦250k/month.
I also started planning for my wedding. So, some of my salary went into getting my clothes and jewellery. I think that cost about ₦300k. We also had to pay rent for our new place, which cost ₦700k, but my husband mostly handled that. The wedding itself was in February 2023 and was paid for by our parents. They wanted 500 guests, so they might as well pay for it. My husband and I just showed up.
Were you still working both jobs?
It’s funny you ask because I kinda lost both jobs at the same time in September. To be fair, I quit the ₦100k job because handling both full-time was too stressful, and it felt like I was no longer doing anything impactful there. The second job is a lot funnier. When I started, there was a whole content creation team, but then they sacked everyone one by one and left me to be the videographer, photographer, editor and social media manager all in one. Then a few weeks after I quit the other job, they sacked me and hired another team because they wanted “quality”.
Thankfully, I applied and got my current job as a content specialist with a startup in October. This one pays ₦300k/month, better than my two previous jobs combined. However, it feels like I’m still struggling. If I earned this kind of money two years ago, I’d have felt incredibly happy. But with how the economy is, and the fact that my husband had to drop a job recently and is down to a ₦180k/month income, it doesn’t feel like much.
What are your expenses like?
My husband and I operate a joint money system, so our expenses are made together based on our joint ₦480k monthly income. To break it down:
The ajo contribution is towards the rent when it expires. Black tax isn’t regular because our parents don’t really disturb us, we just send money randomly. My brother, on the other hand, calls regularly to ask for one thing or the other
Your income has gone from a sharp drop to a gradual increase. How has this impacted your perspective on money?
When you start a career with that much money, you don’t really think of it going away. I always thought it was just going to get better. It’s why I hardly spent on myself. I thought I was sacrificing my right now for a better tomorrow. But it didn’t turn out like that. Honestly, it was so depressing.
Now, I try to consciously spend on myself and buy things I like. Because who did all that saving help? I don’t have anything to show for all my hard work. On top of that, I had to start my career again, pretending like I hadn’t made good money before. It is what it is. I just have to keep moving forward and keep finding better opportunities.
Is there something you wish you could be better at financially?
Balancing side gigs. I’ve realised that I’m not very good with splitting my focus, but that’s what most people are doing to augment their incomes. On the other hand, maybe I just need to get my money up by finding a job that pays really well. Business isn’t an option, because I’m not good at it. I just need to find better opportunities; I can’t do anything else for money.
What’s an ideal figure you think you should be earning?
₦750k/month. I want my one-month salary to comfortably pay my rent without thinking about what’s happening next, or how to plan to make it happen.
Is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?
Definitely a car. I’m a soft babe, and jumping buses make my life miserable. If I take public transport two days in a row, I’ll fall ill. When I first started considering it last year, it was around ₦1.8m for a simple Corolla. Obviously, ₦1.8m can’t buy anything now, so let me just focus on getting my money up.
What’s one thing you bought recently that’s improved the quality of your life?
We got an inverter as a wedding gift and paid ₦20k for installations a few months after we got married, and it’s made our lives easier. We hardly spend on fuel.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
2. I’m not happy. I think about all the things I want to do, but I can’t afford them. If I wasn’t thinking about them, it’d probably be a 6. My day-to-day life is pretty good, and I have the essentials. But there’s still a lot I need to make my life easier. If I want to leave the country now, ₦300k salary can’t do that, so I don’t even think about it.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Don’t get me wrong. Advising people to live below their means isn’t bad financial advice. Spending less than you earn is a good way to manage your expenses.
But giving that advice in 2023 Nigeria may very well be a privileged take. What do I mean?
First, let’s understand what this advice means
To live below your means implies that if you earn ₦18k/month, you shouldn’t be spending all that ₦18k every month — you need to keep some aside for emergencies, savings, or investments by cutting out unnecessary expenses. But that’s where the problem starts.
How many people have this “means” to start with?
According to the World Poverty Clock in 2023, 71 million Nigerians live in extreme poverty. 828 million people wake up every day having no idea when or where their next meal will come from. By definition, these people don’t have any excesses or expenses to cut off. Food is essential, but most can’t even afford it. You might argue that these aren’t the target audience for the “live below your means” advice, so let’s move forward.
A minimum wage earner has no means to live below
The minimum wage in Nigeria is ₦30k/month. Now, with the constantly rising cost of food and literally everything else, the minimum wage earner is already forced to cut out additional expenses. Some even have to resort to loans to pay rent and medical emergencies — all essential expenses, by the way.
The advice only works from a place of privilege
If you can afford your basic needs and still have a little to flex, you’re the one we’re referring to. Technically, you can live below your means because you can already afford your basic necessities. The others are just jara.
If most people live lower than they already do, they’d be in the gutter
If your means are barely meeting your basic needs in the first place, how you wan do am? Except, of course, you choose to follow this genius advice. After all, is it every month you want to be eating?
The most effective way to live below your means is to earn more
Because how will you have money to spare when the money you currently make isn’t sparing you from inflation? You can’t even do delayed gratification again because what you planned to buy for ₦5k today can increase to ₦30k tomorrow.
In conclusion, do the one you can do
Don’t say you want to live below your means and start eating once a week. Hunger will finish you.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
When I was seven years old, an egbon adugbo (older street guy) would come to our one-room apartment every other day after I returned from primary school and give me ₦20 to buy whatever I wanted. When I got older, I realised he was actually coming to see my 15-year-old sister, and the money was so I’d give them some privacy.
I didn’t even like staying indoors after school, so I’d have happily left to play with friends without the money.
Were your parents aware of this?
If they knew, they didn’t care. My late dad was an interstate driver and was hardly around. My mum was a sweeper in the civil service. We weren’t really a close family; my parents didn’t even have a relationship. In fact, I think my birth was due to an unplanned pregnancy because I have two older sisters, and my immediate elder sister is eight years older than me.
When I was eight, my dad stopped coming home, and even though the financial burden was already on my mum, it became heavier. My mum hustled to help us live as comfortably as possible, but her mothering stopped at providing money. Nothing else mattered. I usually joke that I was raised as an orphan.
Why do you think so?
My mum didn’t care where you were or what you did as long as you found something to eat, so she’d only have to worry about school fees and house rent. My sisters sheltered me from this for as long as they could, but when dad left, they also had to leave to hustle.
They had graduated from secondary school. For my mum, it meant it was time for them to start bringing money home. My eldest sister moved in with a boyfriend, and my other sister lived at the amala spot where she worked.
What did your sisters’ leaving mean for you?
They — especially my eldest sister — were the closest thing to a mother figure I had. Their leaving made it obvious I’d soon need to start providing for myself. And I started the moment I entered secondary school. My mum, because of her job, always left home before I woke up. But she wouldn’t drop money, so I had to sort out transport and feeding costs by myself.
One of the first things I did for money was to help a woman who had a buka nearby to set up and fetch water in the morning before going to school. She usually gave me ₦200 or ₦500 every day, depending on how fast people came to buy food.
After school, I’d go to a neighbour who sold screen guards and phone accessories in his shop. I’d help him arrange the screen guards into packs because they came disassembled, and he’d pay me ₦500 for every 100 screen guards I completed. Sometimes, I stole some screen guards to resell for anything between ₦200 – ₦250 to the guys who sold from wheelbarrows.
So, you were hustling
But I wasn’t making much at the end of the day. After removing what I needed for food and transport, the rest went to my mum. However, she still always grumbled about how there was no money, and she was sweeping all day to survive. After graduating from secondary school in 2016, I left home too.
Why?
I didn’t know what to do with my life, and I couldn’t think about that at home. Left to my mum, I just needed to continue hustling, which wasn’t a problem. But I wanted something that matched the stress I was going through.
Where did you go?
At first, I moved in with an older friend. He rode an okada for a living, and it seemed profitable, so I decided I was going to do it too. He introduced me to someone who’d bought an okada and needed a rider for a hire purchase arrangement, but the man refused to give it to me. I don’t blame him sha. I was just 16, and he must’ve been sceptical about trusting a small boy who could either crash it or run away with it.
I spent two weeks at my friend’s before I became uncomfortable because the guy was managing too. I decided to visit my eldest sister and see if she could find me a job. Instead, she sent me to school.
Sounds like it isn’t what you wanted
I was looking for quick money, but she argued school would give me a better opportunity to make money. So, I took JAMB and got into a polytechnic in 2018. She paid the ₦58k/session tuition but made it clear I’d need to sort myself out in school.
In school, I attached myself to one guy who had a computer business centre. I helped with literally everything; from making photocopies, student registrations, to taking passport photographs. My salary was ₦10k/month.
What was surviving on ₦10k like?
School took most of it. It was a very low period for me. Other students had social lives, but I could only afford to attend class and go to work. I even had to squat in the hostel.
Then I noticed this guy who always came to the business centre. He was in my department and was a baller. I heard he was generous, so I decided to try to be his friend. Maybe he’d also ball and reach my side.
How did that go?
The next time he came to the business centre, he was with friends, and they were gisting about football. I chipped in, and we just vibed. That was also the day I realised why he came there so often. A co-worker at the business centre told me the guy was a yahoo boy, and my boss was his picker.
What’s a picker?
Someone who collects money on behalf of a yahoo boy. I’m not sure what their arrangement was, but the guy — let’s call him Bobo — always came to collect money or discuss their operations with my boss.
I didn’t mind what he did. I just wanted to get close to Bobo. I started moving with the people he moved with and was always around him in school. I’d occasionally visit him at his off-campus apartment, where he lived with a few guys, for the food and drinks. Sometimes, he’d randomly dash me ₦5k. These gifts and the earnings from the business centre carried me through school until he graduated in 2019.
Did you get involved with his “yahoo” work, though?
Not while he was in school. But it wasn’t due to a lack of interest on my part. I wanted to make money too, and not have to wait for hand-outs.
Bobo’s place was what guys call HK — a headquarters for yahoo boys. Even though I visited occasionally, they hardly talked about their operations with me. I only know they ran several scams: bank, international romance and phishing — where they’d steal accounts after people click and share passwords via fake links.
But Bobo asked me to speak with someone once. It was one of those bank scams where they send you an SMS saying something is wrong, and you need to call them. When the victim called, the person who was supposed to speak to them wasn’t around. Bobo was like, “You speak good English. Just tell them so and so”. It worked, and he gave me ₦5k after but didn’t ask me to do anything again. This happened just before he left school. I figured he didn’t trust me, and decided to just let him be.
How was work at the business centre going?
I got a salary increase to ₦15k in 2019. My boss also started allowing me to take the laptop home because of some student project gigs we got. This allowed me to also take on other gigs on the side, earning an average of ₦15k extra per month.
I finished my ND in late 2020 and had to leave the school hostel. I’d saved up about ₦70k, so I used it to buy the old laptop I used for work from my boss. My thinking was, at least I’d have something to work with if I had to continue writing projects for students.
I was still in touch with Bobo, so I moved in with him temporarily. He’d just gotten a Benz, and when I saw it, I was like, “Omo. How many projects do I want to write that will give me Benz?” So, I started disturbing him to show me the way. Maybe it was because I now had a laptop, but he agreed. That’s how I almost became a yahoo boy.
Almost?
I pulled out at the last minute. Bobo said I’d need to swear a loyalty oath with an Alfa before officially joining them. I was ready to do it, but a few days before the oath-swearing, one white-garment lady stopped me on the road and basically said I’d die if I went on with my weekend plans. I’m not religious, but I was scared o.
I couldn’t tell Bobo I wasn’t doing again. I just quietly left his place the next day and went to my eldest sister’s house. He never called me till this day.
I’m curious. How does one become a yahoo boy? Are oaths always involved?
It depends on how the HK is run. When I moved in with Bobo, the HK was no longer at his place. It was somewhere else, though he still ran it. Their group was closed to most people, and they didn’t allow just anyone to get into the circle. But I’ve heard that other HKs freely recruit young smart boys in one place and just do the work.
When Bobo’s group “cashed out”, they split the money among themselves, but the major players took the biggest cuts. While I was with them, they never had any issues with the EFCC. Bobo used to leave his phones in the house, but was held a few times by police because of his cars. He always settled them sha.
I see. What did you do after returning to your sister’s house?
I didn’t do anything for two months. Then she convinced her husband to employ me at his car parts store. He brought me on to supervise the guys who worked for him and make sure they didn’t cheat him or exchange the parts with fakes. That paid ₦20k/month.
What were your expenses like?
I wasn’t spending much because I didn’t pay rent or worry about feeding. But my mum would occasionally call for money, so I usually sent her ₦8k – ₦10k every month. That said, I made it a point to save at least ₦5k every month. I saved the money in a kolo I stored inside the ceiling.
That was my pattern for about two years till I left my sister’s place in January 2023.
Why did you leave?
If I didn’t leave, her husband and I would’ve exchanged blows at some point. The man was verbally abusive and treated me like a houseboy. I only put up with it because I needed to save to rent an apartment and get a POS machine.
I’d decided to start a POS business because a friend was making ₦10k – ₦15k daily from it. Plus, it didn’t need much capital to start. I’d already spoken to a woman in the market who agreed to have me put a stool in front of her shop. All I needed was about ₦30k to apply for the machine, ₦100k in the wallet and another ₦100k in cash to start. I also used ₦10k to print a banner.
Did all that come from your savings?
I had only about ₦200k in my savings, so I started a ₦15k monthly ajo contribution. I packed the ₦165k contribution in February and added it to my savings. I used ₦250k to start the POS business, and ₦80k to pay my half of the rent for the one-room apartment I currently share with a friend. The balance went back into my savings.
But the moment I started the business, the cash scarcity due to the naira redesign started.
Yikes. What did that mean for business?
It was tough in the beginning because I had mostly old notes, and people were scared of collecting them. But I partnered with the market women so they could give my notes as change, and I’d collect whatever new notes they had. Sometimes they sold it. I’d exchange one old ₦1k note for ₦700 or ₦800.
I’d also wake up early to queue at ATMs to collect cash or buy new notes at ₦1k per ₦10k from interstate drivers. But I also made a lot of profit. Withdrawal charges were as much as ₦200 for every ₦1k, and I made around ₦20k – ₦25k each day, depending on how much cash I was able to get. When I didn’t get new notes, I sat down at home.
The cash situation got better in April, and now I make an average of ₦8k daily and about ₦270k monthly.
Would you say it’s sufficient to meet your needs?
It is for now. I know there are guys my age who make more money, and sometimes, I’m tempted to feel ashamed of myself for being an ordinary POS agent, but I try to be grateful. I can meet my essential needs without running around or doing “yes sir” for anybody.
Of course, I don’t intend to do this business forever, but comparing myself to people driving Venzas and Benzs right now would just be greed.
Where do you imagine you’ll be in five years?
Ah. Five years is too far. I don’t even know what tomorrow holds. But I may either return to school for my HND or find a way into tech. I signed up for a free web design course just last month and have been practising on my laptop at night. So far, it’s been very confusing, so I don’t know if it will work. If it doesn’t, I’ll look for another thing to try.
Rooting for you. What do your recurring monthly expenses look like?
I imagine you’ve grown past the kolo savings stage
I still save small change in my kolo from time to time, but the bulk of my savings is in the bank. I currently have about ₦500k saved. I’m considering saving some in those apps that allow you to save in dollars because of the way the naira is falling. But I’m scared of the app shutting down and carrying my money with it.
LOL. Valid. How would you describe your relationship with money?
I’m learning self-control. I’ve never really been a heavy spender — I never even had money — but I was fascinated with people who had it and was ready to do anything to make it. If I hadn’t had that encounter with the white garment lady now, it’d probably be a different story today.
In a way, I’m grateful I didn’t start yahoo yahoo. I’m making a little money now, but I’m not spending like I thought I would. Maybe it’s because I know the struggle I go through every day to make money. You won’t catch me using my hard-earned money to dorime for anyone. The opposite would’ve been the case if I made money from internet fraud.
Is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?
Anything? Maybe a house so I can rent it out and collect money while I sleep. Won’t you ask me about my financial happiness?
LOL. Oya, rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10
7. I don’t know what I’ll do if I stop the POS business today, but I think I’m doing pretty well for myself right now.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
Let’s start from the beginning. What’s your earliest memory of money?
During the festive season in the north, where I grew up in the 90s, kids would go on yawo — a Hausa term meaning to walk around. I started going on these walks with my siblings and other kids when I was five years old. We’d dress in our Christmas and Sallah bests, and go to neighbour’s houses to get food and ₦10 or ₦20, which we’d then spend on sweets.
I have memories of falling asleep at random houses, thoroughly exhausted from the long walks. Then, one of my many older siblings would come and pick me up.
You came from a large family. What was that like financially?
My dad was educated and had a business. My mum was a stay-at-home mum who dabbled in businesses once in a while. We had everything we needed. We also had two cars and lived in a nice neighbourhood.
We weren’t super rich, though, and I knew that because most of my older siblings went to top primary and secondary schools. But when it got to the last three kids — I’m the lastborn — we had to go to cheaper schools. Plus, at some point, we stopped having cornflakes for breakfast. I think it was a combination of the economy and my dad getting older.
But my parents made sure we developed a sense of self that wasn’t tied to money.
How so?
My parents discouraged anything that was overly money-centric. We weren’t allowed to sell or exchange stuff for money. If they heard one of us exchanged a banana for ₦20, they’d scold the culprit like they did blood rituals.
They encouraged us to come to them for what we needed and not worry about making money. If you went to them with an outrageously expensive want, my dad would trick you into not wanting it anymore so he wouldn’t have to buy it. It worked most of the time. So, I never worried about money and just relied on what they and my older siblings could give me.
When did you first earn money for yourself then?
2009. I was 16 and had just finished secondary school when I joined a modelling/ushering agency through my older sister. People always stopped me on the road to ask me if I wanted to model because I was tall. So I thought, “why not?”
All I had to do was dress nicely and stand at events, and I made roughly ₦15k – ₦20k per month. It was mostly fun. I met celebrities all the time, but it also had its downsides.
What downsides?
I once worked with an event organiser who called me and the other ladies riff-raffs and fought with the agency because, according to her, we didn’t look good enough for the event. There were also the men who kept trying to date me. But I was just there for the vibes.
The money was a nice-to-have, and no one at home asked me for it. I was still at it when I resumed uni in a different state. But then, I only took the gigs when I was home for holidays. At school, I relied on foodstuff and the monthly ₦10k – ₦20k allowance from home. I also got random cash from my big sister and a lecturer who was like a sugar daddy without the sugar.
Wait, what?
My sister sort of introduced me to him. He took a liking to me, but all we did was talk in his office every other day. After our chats, he’d give me ₦5k for lunch.
My first and second years at uni were pretty chill because I always had money, but I always spent it as fast as it entered. If I ran out of money, there was always an older sibling to ask.
What were you spending money on, though?
I had an appetite — still do — for nice things: clothes, human hair, food and phones. By this time, though, I’d learnt that taking all my needs to my parents would only end up in, “Why do you need this thing?” So I had to sort the money by myself.
I’d also learnt how to be friendly with men for money, especially since I stopped the ushering gigs in my third year.
Why did you stop?
I gained weight. Plus, I was schooling in a different state and wasn’t always available when they called, and they soon stopped calling me. I stopped and started writing for money instead.
How did writing come into the picture?
I’ve always been an avid reader, but I didn’t really write anything until 2013. Someone I liked ghosted me, so I started using it as an avenue to rant.
Then, I began to explore creative nonfiction and found out I liked it. Later, I stumbled on an article by an engineer-turned-writer who had a blog and a reasonable following. I was studying engineering, so I thought we had that in common.
I emailed him, telling him I was an engineering student who recently started writing and wanted his thoughts on my writing. He responded, and I started to guest-publish on his website for free. Then he started a company in 2014 and gave me small admin tasks, paying me a ₦5k monthly data stipend.
Was that all you were doing at that time?
I also did a six-month industrial training for school. I got paid ₦15k/month, which was exciting until I removed transport money and realised ₦15k didn’t cover anything. Luckily, I stayed with my sister during my IT, so she usually filled the gaps.
I graduated in 2015, and while waiting for NYSC, I kept on with the ₦5k admin task. Sometimes, he paid more, especially when he needed my help with extra operational tasks. But I needed more money, so I got a technical sales job at an inverter company. The offer was ₦15k/month, but two weeks in, they noticed I was smart and familiar with the technical concepts, so they decided to make it ₦25k instead. Me, I just wanted any additional income, so I didn’t even mind the ₦15k.
But I resigned after six months because of NYSC. My PPA was in the civil service, where I got paid ₦15k/month in addition to the ₦19,800 allowance. I also still had the ₦5k admin gig.
My brother and writer boss both helped out with my ₦90k house rent, so I just spent on transportation and food.
Did you have any savings?
To be honest, I’ve never been good at saving money. I know how to spend, and also know how to manage when there’s little, but saving just isn’t my thing.
I took another writing gig in May 2016 for a travel blog, writing 40 – 50 short SEO articles a month for ₦15k. I only did it for three months, though — I ran out of content to write on.
Yikes
I continued with my boring civil service job till service ended in September 2016. I was too proud to stay unemployed, so I’d been sending out applications since July. I interviewed with a startup media company, but they asked me to return after NYSC.
So, I hit them up again in September and got hired as a junior writer. The salary was ₦80k/month. I had to move to Lagos, so I moved in with a cousin. The commute was hell, though — the cousin lived at Argungi, and the office was at Yaba. It was probably for the best that I got laid off after two months.
Ah. What happened?
They were downsizing. So, I officially entered unemployment, but still hellbent on working for a startup. Working with cool young people was a breath of fresh air, and I didn’t want to go back to the civil service.
Although I moved back in with my parents, I was very picky with the jobs I applied to and stayed unemployed for about seven months. I still had the ₦5k admin job, though.
In July 2017, a friend introduced me to a tech hub, and I got employed to do PR, communications and social media for ₦100k/month. I was still staying with my parents, so I had no bills. But I left the job in December.
Another job?
I was told to resign. It was a chaotic husband and wife business, and a really toxic work environment. One day, I was just like, “Fuck this” and was rude to my manager. So they asked me to resign.
I was unemployed again, but this time, I wasn’t just looking to work at a startup; I was looking for structure and a clear career path.
Did you find one?
Luckily, I did. I resumed a marketing role in January 2018. My salary was ₦137k/month, and I had to move back to Lagos to stay with my cousin again. It felt like good money because I could afford to go out for drinks and buy myself nice things. I also stopped the ₦5k admin tasks to focus on my job.
Two months into the job, I moved out of my cousin’s house because I wanted independence. I rented a ₦20k/month room in a colleague’s house. I also chipped in ₦10k each month for other household expenses. It was my first major “billing” as an adult.
After sorting out rent, internet and maybe transportation, I’d blow the rest of my salary on drinks, then run to my siblings for money when I became broke. Even when my salary increased to ₦150k in August, I still always asked my siblings for money.
Did you ever think this was a problem?
I didn’t realise it was until one of my siblings visited me in Lagos and saw where I was living. She was like, “It’s better you come back home instead of just getting by.” It forced me to think about my life and realise I was actually tired of not having money.
So, I started to look for financial advice. I learned how to use Excel and started tracking my expenses on a spreadsheet, but I continued to struggle with saving. A friend told me something I can’t forget. She said, “You can only try to earn more, not squeeze what you already have to live the life you want. You just need to make more money.” But I was following passion and wanted to stay in tech startups that couldn’t pay me those big salaries.
By the end of 2018, I started to want better for myself financially and decided it was time to start earning more. I went back to my spreadsheet tracker and calculated that I’d have some financial leeway if I earned ₦40k extra. So, I went looking for side gigs and found one writing copy for a tech founder who paid that exact amount.
Nice. How was work going?
I got promoted to the head of my team in 2019, and my salary increased to ₦250k. With that, I could afford to move to a bigger three-bedroom flat that I shared with two other people.
The rent was flexible. I paid ₦195k/quarter for my room and didn’t have to spend anything else because it came furnished.
I had to stop the ₦40k side gig after a couple of months because of my increased responsibilities at work, and my job became my only source of income. But I started getting restless about earning more again. I looked at my spreadsheet and decided I needed to earn ₦400k per month.
So, I started job hunting. I put in my three-month notice in January 2020 and left in March. I was interviewing for a ₦450k job, and I had it in the bag, but COVID happened, and everyone froze hiring. Unemployment again.
Oh no. What did you do?
I thought COVID would be gone in a month, so I cut down my expenses to survive while I waited it out. Two months passed, and nothing had changed. Also, I had no savings.
I was violently job hunting and taking as many side gigs as I could. I was probably running on like ₦50k/month. I also relied heavily on my siblings and the goodwill of my friends.
I had to leave my apartment in July when no job came, and returned to live with my parents. I kept applying for jobs, and in September 2020, I landed a job in Ghana for $1,400.
Whoosh. Did you have to move to Ghana?
Not immediately. I worked remotely for two months, so they sent my salary in naira. It was around ₦600k — no thanks to CBN’s rubbish rate. But the job was a lifesaver. To finally earn money after five months of unemployment and enduring scrutiny from Nigerian parents was such a relief.
As usual, I blew the money. I used to work out of cafes just because, and went to brunch every week. But it was the first time I’d spend like that and still have money in my account at the end of the month. My brain clicked on the fact that I’m earning more now, and should keep a better eye on my spending. So, I began attempting to save.
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Was the attempt successful?
Uhmm, not exactly. I did some lifestyle upgrades because I’d been practically suffering for the past two years. So, I upgraded my wardrobe, bought wigs and started contributing about ₦50k monthly to the food expenses at home. I also started buying gifts for friends to reciprocate how they came through for me when I was broke.
I eventually moved to Ghana in 2021 to work at the office, and my finances became a bit tighter. Living in Ghana was expensive, and $1,400 per month didn’t do so much. I should mention, though, that I travelled a lot within Ghana and stayed in resorts on mini-vacations, so that took a lot of my money. I also became a prolific Instagram shopper. I didn’t pay for accommodation or feeding because the company provided it. But by September, I decided I needed more money again.
And you started job hunting again
Yup. A friend founded a startup and offered me ₦1m/month and stock options to lead influencer marketing. I moved back to Nigeria to live with my parents — for free, as usual — in 2022.
I thought getting a car would be nice, so I saved ₦500k from my salary for three months. But when I got ₦1.5m, I decided the job was stressing me out, so I quit on a whim and decided to survive on the money while I found something else.
It looks like you were no longer scared of unemployment
I’d gotten used to it, so what was the worst that could happen? I got a ₦960k offer a month later, but the money wasn’t enough to afford the lifestyle I was used to, and wasn’t commensurate with the level of work I’d have to do. So, I turned it down.
I eventually landed my current job about three months later as a sales operations specialist.
₦1.2m/month isn’t exactly a jump from my previous role, but I work with it. I moved to Lagos again and stayed with a boyfriend, and then another friend for the rest of the year. In January 2023, I took a ₦4m loan from work, got an ₦800k/year apartment, and used about ₦2.5m to renovate and furnish it.
How has going through several phases of unemployment and income growth impacted your perspective on money?
Working hard doesn’t guarantee having money — people can have money just by virtue of who their parents are. You can work hard, but the value you’ll get for your labour is typically tied to your socio-economic status in life. For instance, a poor carpenter will have poor clients and might never make enough to be rich.
However, I think being extremely rich borders on immoral. That kind of wealth is usually a result of the capitalist ideology where you mostly have to take from people or not care how anyone else fares as long as you maximise personal gain. Everyone could make do with less. So, I just want to be comfortable. I don’t want to be very very rich.
Right now, my life is a mix of gratitude and guilt. I feel extremely lucky to be able to have the life I have, where my major responsibility is myself. But there’s also guilt because I know what bare minimum is, and I don’t think humans should have to survive on bare minimum.
Also, all the clichés about money are true. You need money to make money, and we’re often never satisfied. I remember when I thought a ₦400k job would make me happy, but look at me now, I’m still passively looking for something that pays more.
Curious. Do you think you live above your means?
Oh definitely. I don’t have any money left over at the end of the month because I spend on a lot of things I don’t need. Take my princessing budget, for example. I know how to do my hair and lashes. But I want to go to a nice place so someone else can do them for me.
I also don’t have to go out for drinks or buy stuff from Instagram as often as I do. It just feels really nice to make these unnecessary expenses. The self-awareness is there, but the self-improvement is still coming.
Do you ever worry about not having savings?
I am. I’m trying to optimise my financial lifestyle to fix that, but it’s not easy. Right now, a chunk of my money goes into renovating my apartment and getting more furniture.
I have about $150 in savings, and that’s just about it. I try to save ₦150k per month, but I always end up spending what I manage to save.
Can you break down your typical monthly expenses?
The loan repayment is towards the ₦4m loan I took from work earlier this year. I pay back 30% each month and will pay it all off by January 2024. My princessing budget is essentially what I spend on my nails, hair, lashes and all that stuff. It gets higher in a month when I have an event to attend.
In some great months, I usually have ₦70k extra after all my expenses as a buffer till salary enters. In the months I don’t, I turn back to my siblings. They’re my safety net. I usually support them too, though. So, I’m not just taking.
Is there something you want right now but can’t afford?
I’d like to get breast reduction surgery. I got a ₦2.8m quote last year but haven’t gotten around to it. I’d also like to get a car. My budget is ₦4.5m. Who knows what that’d get with the current exchange rate?
How would you describe your relationship with money?
It’s very weird. I monitor my expenses, but my savings and investments are non-existent. I don’t think I’ve ever downloaded an investment app. I guess I’m just indifferent to trying to control my money, so I just track it.
I record every amount I spend and know where the leakages come from, but I’ve just been unable to stop the extra expenses. Maybe after this conversation, I’d be embarrassed enough to actually do something about it. I work in a Fintech, and I’m learning more about how people manage their finances, so let’s hope something comes out of that.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
7. It could be so much worse. I think you get better at making money the older you get. I believe that I can make more money if I want to and put in the work needed. In summary, I just try to maintain gratitude for where I am.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
