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I kid you not, I’m writing this article with about 20% battery power left on my laptop.
For about a week now, the queues have resumed at petrol stations across Nigeria due to another fuel scarcity situation. To make it even worse, the power supply seems to have worsened. No light, no fuel. I asked some remote workers how they were coping because, to be honest, I wanted to steal hacks from them.
“Work every time you see light” — Dotun, 28
The truth is, even if you drop your laptop somewhere to charge, the battery will still go down when you pick it up and start working. So, if you don’t have money for a coworking space, carry your work with you wherever you see electricity.
NEPA has been doing a thing where they bring light for 30 minutes around 2 a.m. Once I feel the breeze from the fan, I immediately stand up and do the work I can do. That way, I can save a full battery for when my actual workday starts.
“Guard your fuel jealously” — Funmi, 26
I divide my tasks according to how much time I think it’ll take to complete them, then I try to do as much as possible without using my devices. Of course, that doesn’t always work because I still need to turn on my generator.
But I guard my fuel jealously. I only turn on the generator for 30 minutes at a time when it’s absolutely necessary. Even then, I only pour small fuel into the generator to somehow trick it into consuming less fuel. What kind of life is this?
“Bribe someone to stand in fuel queues for you” — Josiah, 30
I don’t have time to leave work and hustle for fuel, so I bribe my brother to stand in queues for me. I think he charges me five times more than what I should actually pay, but I’m happy to pay. He’s saving me stress and getting me fuel, which is heroic in these times.
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“Befriend your neighbours” — Toke, 24
I’m the type who likes to keep to myself. I’ve lived in my compound for about a year and have never entered my neighbour’s house — at least until this recent scarcity started. They tend to turn on their generator more because they have kids and their apartment has become my second office. Thankfully, they’re nice about it but I try to only go there when absolutely necessary so I don’t take up too much of their space.
“Communicate with your employers” — Detola, 22
I always tell my employers when I have to be unavoidably absent because I don’t have fuel or power. They can’t say they don’t understand because we’re all in this country together. I try to limit the instances when that happens, but will I turn myself into fuel?
“Invest in an alternative source of power supply” — Fred, 27
I had to angrily drop almost ₦1m to install a solar panel system last week when the fuel situation wanted to kill me. Of course, this was only possible because I had the money. But it was my emergency savings and I’m not happy about spending it on something that shouldn’t even be a problem. But I had no choice. My employers aren’t Nigerians and definitely wouldn’t understand. It was either that or losing my job.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’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.
Every week, Zikoko will share the hustle stories of Nigerians making it big in and out of the country. With each story, we’ll ask one crucial question in several ways: “How you do am?”
Chisom’s hustle story triggered our “God, when?” button mercilessly, but it taught us anything is possible with determination and the right dose of knowledge and planning.
If, like us, you’ve ever wondered how to start a career in software engineering, keep reading.
Remember how in primary school, our teachers told us computers have hardware and software? If you didn’t waste your parents’ money, you’ll remember that software refers to the programs and operating systems of the computer.
Remember now?
So, the software engineer is the professional in charge of designing, developing, testing and maintaining software, web and mobile applications, operating systems and everything that powers our modern tech world. You’re reading this article without any hassle because of a software engineer.
But like, is it the same as being a software developer?
There’s a slight difference. While software developers typically design specific applications or computer systems, software engineers work on a larger scale to design, develop and test entire systems — they’re involved in the entire software development life cycle.
Also, software engineers take on more collaborative roles in the workplace, working with a range of developers, engineers and members of the product team. Software developers, on the other hand, work more independently as they typically focus on implementing software solutions according to specifications provided by the software engineer or other stakeholders.
In Nigeria though, some people just use both titles interchangeably (maybe because they think “engineer” presents them as a legit coder?)
What qualifies you to be a software engineer?
A degree in computer science or engineering should be a great starting point for this career, but we’re in Nigeria. No shade to our educational system, but you probably won’t get the practical skills needed for this career path. Whether you have a computer science degree or not, you’d need to attend coding bootcamps and take the relevant courses to develop programming skills and knowledge.
Some of the programming languages required for software engineering include: Python, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, C++ and HTML/CSS. It’s advisable to learn at least three programming languages as the work may require engineers to combine multiple languages.
Software engineers also need good communication skills, creative problem solving skills and an eagerness to grow and learn, because like Chisom’s story shows, these will come in handy as you work on software development projects. You’ll also need to continually practice your programming. Remember what they say about practice making perfect?
Is software engineering difficult?
Unless you were born with code in your brain, software engineering may be a bit difficult to learn, especially if you don’t have a technical background, but like a Nigerian mother would say:
Do the people learning it have two heads?
So, how long does it take to become a software engineer?
This depends a lot on your affinity for the required programming and coding skills, as well as your readiness to practice on as many personal projects as possible. It’s also important to build a network of fellow techies as feedback on your practice projects might just be what you need to become better at your craft.
Of course, tech organisations are the first places on the list. We’re trying to help you secure your tech bag, after all. But software engineers can also work in financial services, media, education, information technology, practically anywhere that requires software solutions to achieve business objectives. You can even decide to be an independent contractor.
How much do software engineers earn in Nigeria?
Depending on your level of experience and the industry, software engineers can earn as much as ₦600k to ₦1.5m per month.
How do you start making the big bucks?
At the risk of sounding like a motivational speaker, the key to earning even more as a software engineer is consistency. Make deliberate effort to grow your skills and you might just be the next person we pull in for a Hustleprint conversation.
Working from home is cool and all, but sometimes, you get tired of staring at the four walls of your house every day. To add a little spice to your work life, try working from any of these locations instead.
The beach
Sometimes, work makes you doubt why you’re alive. So go to the beach and observe the ocean and sunset. It’ll remind you there’s more to life than work, and you have things to live for.
Bukka
The bukka not only provides a change of scenery but a change of smell too. Aren’t you tired of smelling yourself 24/7? Try hot amala, jollof rice and sweat. Sure, you might also add a little weight, but all of that won’t matter in heaven.
When your manager sends you a foolish message, you can just mute your laptop and put their name on the altar. Fire for fire.
Forest
If you always feel sleepy because you’re working from home, this would cure it. Between killing mosquitoes and watching for wild animal that want to eat you, you’ll be very alert.
I love my job (don’t worry, I’m not being threatened to say this); it gives me the freedom to express myself and my creativity while also working with the best colleagues. But even as much as I love my job, I hate having to wake up every day to sit in front of a desk.
My company pays me to create funny, ridiculous TikToks — TikToks where I get to slander my colleagues — and I still hate working. I hate that enduring capitalism will be my life for the next 15 – 20 years. Doesn’t matter if it’s answering to an employer or working for myself. In an ideal world, I’d wake up every day and do whatever I want, whenever I wanted, without any financial pressure.
I asked the seven other young Nigerians how they felt about working. Their opinions:
Ibrahim*, 23, Writer and Content Creator
For some people, the fact that they have the opportunity to work is a blessing. Also, people say they hate work until they stop working. I know a few people who quit their jobs, and after a few months, they got bored. As for me, I hate work. I don’t want to work ever again in my life. I just want to have enough money to travel once in a while and live a happy life with my family.
Even if I liked painting. I would still hate waking up and picking up a brush to paint instead of watching series on Netflix.
Amanda*, 23, Banker
I love working. My dislike for work started when I began working a 9–5. Before then, I was making and selling different types of braided wigs, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing that. I don’t mind having a ton of work to do, as long as I get to do it on my own time. A 9–5 doesn’t give you that, and that’s the major problem I have with work.
Fred*, 26, Architect
What I hate about work mostly is the commute. The fact that I have to get up, leave my house and enter traffic every day makes me not want to work. Also, I hate work when it becomes monotonous and begins to feel like a chore. Other than that, I actually enjoy working.
Amina*, 28, Director, Writer and Producer
I don’t mind working, but does it have to be every day? I want to work when I feel like it. For me, that’s like twice a year; I spend six months writing a script and use the other six to shoot and edit. There’s a lot less pressure on me this way. The pressure is what I hate the most about working.
Nnamdi*, 35, Entrepreneur
Everything gets stressful to do at some point. Athletes have some days when they just don’t feel like playing. Artists sometimes hate that they have to perform, and even actors sometimes hate that they have to wake up early and go on set. You love it o, but some days, it’ll be wahala. The love for it is what keeps you going. But even sleeping can get stressful once it becomes a job.
Sometimes I like my job. Often enough to forget how much it sucks. But I hate the fact that I have to work. Knowing it’ll be my life for a couple more years is scary. It kills me that I’ll have to wake up every day before 8 a.m, and my life belongs to someone else until 6 p.m. I’ll always be tired, and it’s not going away anytime soon.
I hate my job. I genuinely do. Maybe it’s because I’m exhausted, but I don’t even care for what I do anymore. No matter how much you’re making or love your job, you’ll start to resent it if you don’t take breaks. It’s a “too much of a good thing turns into a major problem” kind of thing. We all just need to dissociate from work once in a while.
Living with your Nigerian parents is the trouble we’ve all had to put up with at some point in our lives. And the drama gets worse when you have to work from home while living with them.
Here are a few things you can relate to if you work from your Nigerian parents’ home:
They never believe you’re actually working
You can be having the most important meeting in the world, and they want to talk to you about how the police came to arrest the neighbour’s son in the middle of the night.
They send you on odd errands
It doesn’t matter that you’re now 25 and can be conscripted into the army when war comes. Nigerian parents will still send you to grind pepper on a week day.
When you try to explain what you do for a living
You can explain this to them a hundred times, and they’ll just keep nodding in agreement. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking they actually understand.
They think you’re lazy
Why will you be cooped up in your room all day and night if you’re not a lazy child? Your mates are out on the streets, hustling for their daily bread, and you’re here pressing your laptop.
And you don’t need anything from them anymore. If you’re lucky enough to get your parents to understand what you do, the next problem is convincing them you don’t have money for something. So you mean those Yankee people are not paying you big money?
When you finally tell them how much you earn
Sinzu! So you mean this is what you’ve been hiding? Here comes the random billing.
When your relatives think you’re unemployed
You know that nosy relative who comes to your house to eat food and act like they like you? Yes, the ones who never mind their business. Since you’re always at home, how won’t they think you’re unemployed?
How you look when you’re trying to get everyone to stop making noise
Having a meeting in a house full of people is a nightmare. You’re trying to get everyone to keep quiet, but you can’t just scream “shut up” because then, no one is going to keep quiet.
Jeremiah*, 30, worked non-stop 18 hours a day for 18 months until his health forced him to take a break, but his boss had other plans. From earning in dollars to living on vibes, read how the ting go.
I spent my NYSC in Abia State serving as a teacher in a public school. During that time, I saved up my monthly allowances to buy a laptop and learnt how to build websites through tutorials. In 2018, after my youth service, I saw an internship opportunity online. The company promised that after the internship, I would be offered employment. I took a leap of faith and left for Lagos.
The internship was a breeze because I already knew most of the things they taught. I was just there for networking and making connections. I was the first person to get a job from my set — I was hired even before the end of the internship. I’m still at that job to date. The company works with the government, so there are usually lengthy intervals (about four months) between projects where there is no work. I had to find a way to fill in those downtimes. Early 2019, I found an online software engineering peer-review cohort, applied and got accepted.
How I became a workaholic
I was the least experienced during the cohort, but I made the extra effort to upskill. I would spend up to 12 hours writing code. I desperately wanted to level up, and so I gave it my all and some extra. At the end of the cohort, I interviewed with a US-based startup and got a three-month internship contract.
The cohort facilitators would supervise the contract. The initial pay was $400 monthly. If I performed well after the internship, I would be offered a full-time position and my compensation, doubled. I couldn’t believe my luck.
I resumed my internship and found out that I was the only other person in the startup. The founder was a back-end engineer; I’m a front-end developer.
My internship contract stated that I was only meant to work a maximum of six hours daily, but I wanted to prove my worth and get more dollars at the end of the internship period. I ended up working twice longer than required. I built the whole front-end of the application from the ground up.
At the end of the internship, the founder refused to offer me a contract, but he did not let me go. He claimed he was still testing me and asked me to intern for another two months.
After the two months had elapsed, he wanted to extend the internship yet again. The cohort facilitators had to intervene. They demanded that he sign me on full-time and update my monthly payment or let me go. He eventually conceded. He was supposed to double my pay, but he only increased it by $200. He also delayed payments by weeks.
The situation wasn’t ideal, but I needed the money. I am the firstborn, and my family depends on me for finances. $600 a month wasn’t nearly enough for the amount and value of my work, but when converted to naira, it wasn’t so bad.
Here’s what my typical workday looked like:
Remember that I took this job to supplement my other job.
I would wake by 7 a.m. and go to my day job by 9 a.m., working till 5 pm. Then I would rush back home to resume the remote job. Ideally, I was supposed to close for the day at 1 a.m., California time, but I often found myself working until 6 a.m. the next day.
I worked like this for another year. During that time, the startup launched and started getting customers and revenue. My workload quadrupled, but the founder refused to hire new hands. I’m a front-end developer, but he forced me into doing backend work as well. I wouldn’t have minded, but it was how he went about it. He never acknowledged his faults, always looking to blame me even when he was wrong. He also refused to hire a designer, so I was ideating designs as well as implementing them.
I worked like this until my body shut down
I didn’t get any paid leave; I worked during Christmas and the New Year. I was on my laptop 18 hours a day with no breaks and no time off.
Last year, when my father fell sick, I took a break from my Nigerian job and travelled to visit my family in the village, but I still had to work at the remote startup. The power supply is poor where my parents live, so I would go to a late-night restaurant to work and sometimes stay there till dawn.
There were days when I would break down in the middle of a workday (night) and weep. My physical and mental health fell off, and my productivity nosedived.
It was brutal.
One day, I explained to the founder that I needed a break. The work was taking its toll on me, and I feared I could fall sick or slump at any time. He refused. I begged and begged until he reluctantly agreed, but there was a catch: I had to complete a few more tasks before I went on leave.
I told him I could not handle anything new. At that point, my hands were trembling from stress and lack of sleep, and I couldn’t focus on anything.
[newsletter]
I got the sack on my second day of leave
Any developer who has ever worked at a startup knows that things need to move fast. Founders want to ship products and updates, and they typically don’t care about code quality. Many times, developers have to do lots of patchwork and sellotaping to keep up with demand.
I’m a workaholic, so I blocked out some time to clean up the codebase and make it more readable even while on leave. I also wanted the codebase to be easy to read for future hires as the company was expanding.
On the second day, I went to GitHub and discovered that the founder had removed me. He also deleted me from Slack and revoked my access to every other company channel.
I didn’t receive a termination notice or anything — I didn’t even get fired. I got dumped.
The aftermath
After the initial shock, I just went to sleep. I slept like my life depended on it (honestly, it did). For two weeks, I slept like it was the only thing I was born to do.
Two weeks later, I hadn’t heard from the founder. He fired me but was stalling on paying me. I reached out to the cohort facilitators to help demand my outstanding remuneration. He resisted at first but eventually paid up.
A month later, I got a recommendation to work for a startup in Nigeria. I’m also building this one from the ground up, but I like this one so far. My CTO is a designer, and his designs are delightful to implement.
What I learned
I now value my mental health more than anything else. I take care of myself and make efforts to be at peace. It’s a long, winding road, but I have made progress. My current income is not great, but I now have the semblance of a healthy work-life balance.
But it’s not been smooth at all
While I’m consciously rebuilding my life (and mental health), I’m not happy. As the first child, I’m the primary breadwinner. The startup I currently work at has run out of money, and I’m being owed for two months. I’m only staying put because I believe in the business, and I have stock options. They also rate me highly. However, I need money to sustain myself.
When I got fired, my father got into trouble. He lost a huge amount of money from the community esusu; I had to pull every last penny of my savings to get him out of trouble. Right now, I’m pretty much rebuilding my life from scratch.
Looking forward to something hooge
I‘m actively looking for a well-paying job. I constantly second-guessed myself at my previous job, but I’m great at what I do — I have built functional software from scratch at two startups. One year later, my code still powers the company whose founder dumped me; it is my work bringing them revenue, and I have nothing to show for it. I will not let another person make me feel small.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
The guy in this story has two things going on for him: developing new skills and taking a leap of faith. The ultimate gamechanger for him, though, is a tech hub he joined at uni and a DM he got in 2020.
What is your oldest memory of money?
My dad always did this thing for me and my siblings when we were growing up: at the end of each term, he would drive us with his motorcycle to a restaurant in the town we lived in to flex us. We would order yoghurt and meat pie, sometimes we threw ice cream into the mix. At other times, he would drive us to the zoo.
What did your dad do for a living?
He ran a computer business centre with my mum. At first, all they did was type and print documents for people. But it grew into a printing press. I should add that my dad has done everything — he used to be a barber and then an electrician. He still runs these businesses to date.
What was life like, though, growing up?
The family was never hungry. We could be broke, but food was always on the table. For me, though, my childhood was tough. My dad made sure of that. I was the first child, so he thought I needed to be raised with an iron fist. I spent most of my childhood learning how to be a man. My dad always bragged about how he was an employer at 18, so it was like I was competing against him.
I would wake up at 6 am, say the morning prayers, go to school. There were extra classes after school, and then I would head to the shop to handle the business. I started helping around with the smaller tasks, but as I grew, my responsibilities also grew. I think I started managing all aspects of the business when I was 16.
What was it like handing the family business at that age?
My job was to make sure everything ran smoothly: the computers, printers and generators. I also did the books and made sure the numbers were right. I was paid ₦5k per month, although the money didn’t come to me. It went to a trust fund my parents kept. Subsequently, my salary was increased to ₦7k, then 10k, then ₦15k.
What was revenue like?
We averaged about ₦300k per month. But when it was time for elections or other large scale events, the number went up to ₦750k. During the 2011 general elections, I think we did about ₦1.5M to ₦3M every month.
Omo. So, when did you get into uni?
2014. I was supposed to study medicine, but I was offered biochemistry instead.
This sounds very familiar.
So, the plan was to do biochemistry and go for medicine later. My first year and second year were great. My grades were fine. In 2016, I replicated my dad’s hustle on campus and started a design and printing business. This brought in at least ₦200k in a good month. The best times were during the end of year events when I did about ₦400k.
Impressive. How old were you when you started this business?
19 or 20. The only thing was that this income wasn’t constant, so it was hard to plan around it. I mean, there were months I did only ₦15k.
I was making money on the side, but something happened in my third year.
What?
I was hit with depression and anxiety. I didn’t want to do the whole school thing anymore. I had my sights set on tech, but I didn’t know how to get into it. It kinda spiralled out of control. One day in 2017, I drank an entire bottle of vodka, Moet and Baron. The plan was to go off to sleep and maybe never wake up. I had forgotten that my girlfriend at the time was supposed to visit me later that day. When she came and couldn’t get in, she called my neighbour and they broke my door. They found me on the floor, laying in my vomit and my eyes rolled in. I remember the guy pouring buckets of water on me and pumping my stomach to get the content out. I eventually slept it off. I didn’t wake up until the following night. The pain was mad.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that.
We move. Later that year, my university started a tech hub. I was invited by a friend to join their team that was incubated to be mentored in the tech hub. All of us were rebels of sorts — we were tired of uni and just wanted to do something different. We had a building to ourselves, 24 hours of interrupted power supply and the fastest wifi on campus. Omo, I was sleeping there, just building stuff with my team. We became the cool kids on campus. The VC gave us ₦2M at some point.
What did you do at the tech hub?
My team was building drone technology of sorts. We wanted to deliver blood to cities like Zipline does in Rwanda. When we started, I was in charge of graphic design and marketing communications. I gradually moved into product design and front-end development. I also did a lot of strategy work. It was my biggest strength. People in other teams always wanted to pick my brain on something, and I absolutely loved it.
Where do you think this edge came from?
My dad. He’s a chief strategist. See, that guy didn’t go to uni, but he was a smart man. Also, I’m very curious about stuff. I’m interested in details as well as the big picture. So, when people tell me the big picture, my mind is looking for a million paths to get there.
Interesting.
I basically ditched classes. My classmates and lecturers thought I was a fool. Maybe I was, but I wanted better. Finally, I got to my final year in school and I was supposed to do my project. One day, I woke up and went to my supervisor to tell him that I wasn’t interested in the project anymore and needed him to refund the ₦30k I had paid for it.
This next person I saw at the hub was my dad. My supervisor had called him. This man came with a chain and he said: “I know an evil spirit has possessed you, so we will chain you and take you to the psychiatric hospital, then carry out some spiritual deliverance for you.” I was arrested and detained at the school security post for most part of the day. The school asked my dad to go home and that I would join him later, so we can settle our issue. This was in 2018, and we still haven’t settled it.
What happened after your “deliverance”?
They actually took me to see about three pastors. I sat through the whole process thinking of how to leave home. After everything, I lied to them I was going to school to fix a few things. It’s been two years now.
So, you came to Lagos.
Yup! A tech bro I met on Twitter bought me my ticket. I stayed at an uncle’s place for a while.
Wait, was a job waiting for you in Lagos?
Nah. There was no job waiting for me. I had sent applications before I came, but nothing clicked. I roamed the streets of Lagos for three months before I got my first job. I saw a tweet where someone said you could message recruiters at companies you applied to on Linkedin. So, I sent a message to a recruiter and she asked me to mail her my details. Two days later, I got an interview.
What role were you applying for?
A Creative Designer at a software company.
And you got it?
Yup. This was May 2019. My net salary was ₦145k.
Nice. How did that go?
That job got me settled in Lagos. But damn was it challenging. It was a lot of sleepless nights. The biggest challenge was navigating the commute. Where my uncle lived was too far from where I worked. After trying to wing it for two months, I started sleeping at the office. I would wake up early to go have my bath at a friend’s who lived close to the office. The work was crazy, but I didn’t do badly.
In 2019, the company flew me and a few other people to Dubai. That was my first time out of the country.
How did that feel?
Omo, it was mad. On the day we were leaving the country, I called my mum on my way to the airport and she broke down in tears — tears of joy and fear.
Lmao. Why fear?
It was that panic parents feel when you’re travelling. She has never been on a plane, so I guess I understand how she felt.
2020, how did that go for you?
It started with some massive gbas-gbos. I left the company where I worked because I got an offer to do something different in another company. This one was an actual product design job. And it came with a bump to my salary: ₦250K.
The company was on the Island, so I paired up with a friend and got an apartment together. I was also getting a few side gigs, so I was doing ₦400k-₦500k every month. Then Covid happened, and I got fired.
Whoa!
I didn’t adjust very well to working from home — with poor power, internet, and the emotional side of things. I got back to back queries before they terminated my appointment. It was a fair decision, sha.
The sad part about this was that my contract did me dirty. By the time they finished picking out the small details in the contract, my salary for that month came down to ₦160k. Naso I take broke oh.
Damn. How did the subsequent months go?
I had no job from May to August. What kept everything together was a few side gigs I got. Towards the end of August, I got another job. The salary was ₦300k monthly. It was actually one of the best places I worked. I quit at the end of last year.
Sometime in October 2020, I got a DM from someone wanting to know if I was interested in a job. I looked at it but the application process was too long, so I left it. One night, I went back to it and sent in an application. Two weeks later, I was invited to interview. A design test followed and a series of more interviews. In November, I got an offer from them.
*Drum Roll*
It was ₦16.6M per annum. $35k in addition to $4k in gadget, insurance and internet allowance. That’s ₦1.4M per month. Also, it’s a fully remote job.
Omo. What has this jump meant in this little time?
It feels good. It is more than any validation I could have gotten about my work, and it’s not even all about the money. Throughout every stage of the hiring process, they kept talking about how impressed they were with my work. See, I work hard. I deserve it.
Energy. Let’s break down your monthly expenses now.
I have this tradition, any lump sum I make, I spend at least 10% getting myself something
Is this break down pre-new bump or based on the new bump?
Pre-bump. Oh, I didn’t mention; I make about ₦500k-₦600k every month from side gigs.
What do you do for people on the side?
Product design as well. I used to do WordPress but stopped for a while. I also get gigs to help prototype products launch into full products. Then people pick my brain for a price.
Walk me through how your skill sets have evolved over the past decade.
I started designing with CorelDRAW 9 and Adobe PS 7. After that, I went into print production. I don’t think there’s a printer out there I don’t know how to operate. In uni, someone I met online taught me brand identity and strategy. At the time, coding was the rave, so I learned a bit of frontend technologies (HTML, CSS, JS), but computer engineering wasn’t something I wanted. UI/UX and product design were the perfect alternatives, so I explored and grew in it. I dropped graphic design totally and moved on.
The years you picked them up?
2010: I was already typing faster than my mum.
2012 – 2013: My design skills were getting better. By 2014, I was solid
2014 – 2017: I picked up most of the skills set. Brand Identity design and strategy was key at this time.
2017: I picked up UI/UX.
Growth. So, what do you imagine the next 5 years will look like?
I should have one or two products in the markets. I have enough resources to start — human capital and funds. I’m currently enrolled in a university in the UK and will be starting classes this year for a degree in computer science. And yes, getting married to my girlfriend is also top of the list.
Back to the present. What’s something you want right now but can’t afford?
A collection of media production equipment for my church. It cost about ₦36M. This is very personal to me. With my current bump, I think I can afford most things I want. Last last, I’ll save up for it.
What is something you wish to be better at financially?
Saying no, maybe. I’m very reckless about giving people money.
What’s the largest amount you’ve given away at once?
₦330k. I was the president of an organisation in 2017, and we were planning an event. However, we were low on funds. I borrowed ₦200k, but it wasn’t enough. Then I started dipping into my personal funds. By the time we were done, I had spent ₦300k. I never got it back.
Lmao. What’s the most annoying miscellaneous you paid for recently that cost a lot?
Maybe my trainers? Got them for ₦25k after searching for months for my size. I am a size 50. The annoying thing was not the price but the fact that it had to be shipped from Germany, and I have been searching for three years for a size 50.
SIZE WHAT?
All my shoes are custom made.
Haha. When was the last time you felt really broke?
My first four months in Lagos. I trekked to places a ₦100-₦150 bus ride could have gotten me to. There’s this lady on Twitter that shares food in my area. One day, I joined the line to collect rice oh.
Wild. Have you ever imagined how life would have turned out if that Tech Hub didn’t get built in your school?
I would have found another way to survive. I may not have gotten to this point, but I definitely would have survived. I believe that the places we go to and the people we meet are all paths to a destination. Taking a different path might mean having a different experience, but they all lead to a result. Now the uncertainty is, nobody knows how good or bad the result will be.
What’s a purchase you made recently that significantly improved the quality of your life?
Ah, that trainers oh. In one week, I have lost 6.5 kg.
On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?
Ladies and gents, as someone who has been doing it for a while now, I’m here to tell you that remote work is the hottest invention since penicillin.
Don’t quote me on that, though.
Remote work is amazing, especially when you live and work in a place that every time you leave your house, it feels like you’re Super Mario trying to get from one end of a difficult underground stage to the other.
Lagos people, how una dey?
Anyway, if you’re thinking of working remotely, I have a starter kit for you. It’s a list of things you’ll need to make sure your time doing office work in pyjamas goes smoothly.
1) A job that allows remote work.
If you’re a writer, developer, designer, video editor, etc then working remotely won’t be a hassle. However, if you work at a place where remote work is next to impossible e.g bank, I am so sorry but this article isn’t for you. So it feels like you didn’t waste your time, here’s a picture of Guy Fieri hilding a giant hotdog:
2) Have a boss that hopefully doesn’t like looking at your face.
While it does feel good to have a nice boss, it can cross over from “cute” to “creepy” really quick when shit like this starts happening. Having a job that allows remote work won’t mean a thing if you have Willy Wonka as your boss.
3) A workspace.
It doesn’t even have to be anything fancy. It could just be a chair and a table in the corner of your room. Because sitting on your bed, hunched over your computer is exactly how you end up looking like Quasimodo. And lying down to work is exactly how you end up asleep.
4) Strong Internet
The fact that the internet allows one to access Slack, Google Drive, etc from anywhere on the planet is the main reason remote work is possible. Having shitty internet cuts you off from your colleagues, leading to some of them thinking that your remote day was just an excuse to nap.
5) A reliable power source:
If you think PHCN is going to come through for you when you need them the most, you’re a clown whose costume will be delivered shortly. Get you a reliable source of electricity (generator, inverter, solar panel etc) to power your devices (computer, modem, fan etc).
6) And one last thing:
With remote work, it’s up to you to structure your time and get stuff done. A difficult thing to do because that’s a thing you’ve always relied on your boss to do for you. So without the piercing gaze of your boss, you’re going to want to procrastinate and stuff. But you also have to remember that shit like that is what gets you unemployed.
If you’ve been reading this every Monday, you know the drill at this point. If you haven’t, now you know that Zikoko talks to anonymous people every week about their relationship with the Naira.
Sometimes, it will be boujee, other times, it will be struggle-ish. But all the time–it’ll be revealing.
What you should know about our guy: He’s 25, and he writes code day and night. Let’s get it going.
So when did the first alert enter?
300-level. I worked on a 400-level student’s Final Year project – ₦20k. So imagine still living with your parents, collecting pocket money, and earning an extra 20. Super chill.
It wasn’t exactly hard work – I research, find as much as I can. Arrange it into chapters. But I did it for like two more people and stopped. I was worried schoolwork would suffer.
Interesting, next?
I made friends with someone, who in all truth, I was always looking up to. He got me into coding. I had some knowledge already, but he had the direction. He knew how to convert that knowledge to money. The sum of my 400-level is that I worked with him, taking on gigs with him, earning a ₦20k here, a ₦30k there. Learning from him.
When was this?
2013. I was in school, and I wasn’t using this money for anything per se – maybe just Internet and fuel. By default, once you’re driving in school, you attract attention. So you spend money on fuel and go to places you’d normally not have gone if you didn’t have a car. And then spending on people too.
I recognise this.
You know that break after exams, before the actual graduation? One of my friends came and said his dad’s company wanted us to build something to help them manage their entire process.
So we had a blank slate to think of something, and what did we land on? An inventory managing system.
Next thing, this guy comes and says, yo, my dad has invited us to come and pitch this product. In two weeks. So now, we had two weeks to build something, a minimum viable product, that could at least do the basic functions. Those two weeks was a blur.
In the end, we got the gig. ₦600k split between three people.
Lit.
Fast forward to NYSC, and I was collecting ₦19,800, plus ₦10k at the place I worked. So ₦29,800 per month. This was the first time I was leaving home. I barely knew how the world worked, so I was spending money the way I’d do when I was at my parents’ house.
By the second month, I was broke.
Ouch.
I had to call my dad to ask for money. And it went like,
Me: Daddy, I need money o.
Dad: How much is your allowee?
Me: ₦19,800
Dad: What of the place you’re working, how much do they give you?
Me: ₦10,000
Dad: So ₦29,800. You better manage, because that’s what families use to sustain themselves.
Me: Oh…okay daddy. But can you just send me money please?
Dad: *sends ₦5k*
It’s the last time he sent me money ever.
Wild.
Not too long after, a friend told me about a startup that was looking for hands. I applied straight up. The first week, no response. The second week, same. Then towards the end of the month, I got a response. It was a Quality Assurance role. I got an offer of ₦50k and started immediately.
First week, I did all my tasks and there was like, nothing else to do. And then the CEO just hit me up:
CEO: Looks like you’ve run out of work to do. And it’s only been a week. I’m wondering if I should keep you for the entire month. What are your other skillsets?
Me: I can code.
CEO: That’s interesting. We’ll move you to being a developer. I know you’re serving, but can you come around tomorrow for a meeting with the rest of the team?
Me, a broke Corper: It’s the middle of the month, I don’t have money.
CEO: *asks for account number and sends ₦5k*
I was already at the office in Lagos first thing the next morning. Then I had to head back out of Lagos and I got my first taste of the Lagos traffic. Anyway, I was wondering, this money thing, do I still get the same QA money, or I should be negotiating for a different pay? Sha, I texted a few days later.
Me: Hi boss, nobody said anything about payments to me.
CEO: Oh, that. How much do you want?
I didn’t even know what to ask for, I just sharply texted my friend.
Me: Guy, how much do you earn?
Guy: ₦100k.
And I’m like, I’m just going to tell this guy 300k, because in my head, that’s what you earn after leaving school as a standard. So, back to me and the CEO,
Me: ₦300k
CEO: LMAO. I can’t pay you that.
Me: So how much will you pay?
CEO: ₦80k
Me: ₦150k
CEO: ₦100k?
Me: Okay.
And that’s how I secured ₦100k in my third month in NYSC. That means ₦130k per month. The day the alert entered, I stared at the alert for a long time, smiling. That was almost $1000 at the time.
I just dey super chilllleeedddd.
I worked for another year, then I asked for a raise. It took a lot of courage to ask for it, but I got a raise to ₦175k. Then I moved to Lagos proper. No time. At this time, I’d gotten really good and improved my craft.
I started getting other projects from my friend who got me my 9-5. So I was earning 9-5 money, and I was doing side jobs. What it meant was that I wasn’t getting enough sleep, so I was shutting down on some days. It was hard juggling them, but I made sure not to drop the ball.
What were the numbers looking like?
My side hustle was giving me an extra 100 to ₦150k every month. Then I got a part-time job at a startup where I could work remotely. That one was paying ₦70k, and I did this for 3 months. It also came around the time of a side gig drought.
When the 3 months passed, I was back to ₦175k, but only briefly. Got a gig right after that that paid ₦100k. Then another one that was going to give ₦300k. This was November 2016.
It was a really huge project, and it meant I had a whole lot of stuff to do.
My main job had become mundane at this point, and since freelancing was already giving me good money, I took another step – I resigned. At this time, I was stressed, tired and wanted to leave Lagos, because it was killing me.
So I went to Ibadan, found a place with a friend. A badass three-bedroom. ₦350k per year. Then I ran into a friend;
Friend: Guy, we need a coder in my company
Me: Eh ehn? Me I’m leaving Lagos. I’ve already seen an apartment to pay for sef.
Friend: Why are you leaving? Lagos is where all the action is at! We’re up to big things!
Me: How much?
Friend: ₦300k, for the probation period.
I stayed. But the hard part? I had to start coming to work – my former jobs allowed me to be remote most of the time. So I thought about it, and decided to give it a shot.
You know what’s crazy?
What?
I met my new boss, and there was an opportunity to negotiate for a raise. But it didn’t feel like a lot more work.
I played myself, because the workload was the equivalent of three jobs from the past, put together.
My problem is, I couldn’t get anything done at the office. Open office plans don’t work for me. The constant noise and talking. So I had to work at home at night till like 4am. Then drag muself to work at 8am. Then crash on the weekend. Did that till the end of the year, and I got tired, I wanted to quit.
Then things happened at the end of my first December at the company;
Alert: *Salary enters, ₦300k.*
Me: Oh okay
Alert: *13th-month salary enters, ₦300k*
Me: WOLLOP NIGGA
This was my first time ever seeing the 13th-month salary. I didn’t even know the concept. Anyway, January came, and it was time for a salary review. My salary got increased to ₦400k net. I wasn’t happy with the raise.
Why?
My workload. I didn’t even have time to take up side work. So I went to renegotiate and got an extra ₦50k. So ₦450k.
All this time, I’d been staying with some family in Lagos and I moved out around this time.
How much was rent?
₦1 million at the time. It was a 2-bed I was splitting with my friend. We were paying a million each. I had to borrow, plus all the money I’d saved up.
Mad.
I got another raise at the end of Q1, ₦25k. It was small, but it was extra money, so nothing spoil. But you know what’s even better, I had to go work for the company abroad for a few months. In the US. It was my first time leaving Nigeria, ever. I was getting allowances per diem.
That is super lit. You didn’t touch your salary?
Plis dear. I touched it. I was eating out. But the first thing that struck me about living in Oyinbo country is that they actually wait for you to cross at a Zebra crossing. My first time at a traffic light;
Me: *waits for car to pass at Zebra crossing*
Car: *waits for me to cross*
Me: *waiting for car to pass*
Car: *horns so I can cross on time*
This happened to me like thrice, because I was like, “is this how you people used to do?” That was when it dawned on me properly that we’re living Jungle life in Lagos.
So I had to start unlearning many things. But as I was unlearning, I was buying new clothes and changing my wardrobe. I packed all the clothes I had, every single one from Nigeria, and I gave it to a charity –
–For them to send back to Nigeria for people to sell in Yaba?
LMAO. It was for a local charity for homeless people. Sha, I started buying gadgets I wanted. Like, I even bought Google Home. And every month, I’d laugh at myself like, “we’ll save next month.”
Then I came back to Nigeria, and that was one of my saddest days ever.
It didn’t properly dawn on me until the connecting flight I took was filled with Nigerians, and the air hostesses were shouting at Nigerians to stop being rowdy.
And I was like, oh fuck.
The first thing that hits you when you arrive is the hot air. Come and see my load. I’d spent all my money in the Abroad. It was like I was importing things. But most importantly, I was broke. So I did what everyone else would do – hide at home till the next salary.
But the whole trip made me sad about how far off we are in Nigeria. Once you see the difference between where they are, and where we are, you lose all hope that we might ever catch up. At least once in my lifetime.
Anyway, back to work. End of the year. 13th month again. January, salary increased to ₦610k. Major raise.
Whoop whoop.
Oh wait, I skipped something. I got a gig when I was out of the country. ₦800k. I got 50% while I was in the U.S., then I collected the balance when the job was done.
In January, I decided I need to get back to my side hustle ways. I needed more money and more ginger in my blood. The more you earn, the more you have ideas about how to put money to use and secure your future, the more you need more money. I needed to get back to hustle mode.
So I started applying for jobs outside Nigeria.
How many applications did you send out?
32 in 3 months. I got rejected by all of them. Some didn’t get replied. Some replied, then rejected me. One went through. I did an interview, and I got selected. Did everything – met with the teams. The pay? $4,000.
The day I was supposed to resume, everything got called off.
What…the fuck?
They said something about them not being able to come through at this time yen yen yen. I was just happy I didn’t resign from my current job to start this because that would have been bad.
Ah shit.
Good thing is, I went for training abroad, and I ran into a CEO who offered me a job to work on a product with them. He offered me a job paying $500 every week. It’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but that’s ₦1.3 million from two jobs.
That’s…that’s not a lot at all.
It’s not. Like 3,500-ish.
Have you ever thought about all of this – from that first 20k to ₦1.3 million in 6 years?
Yep. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I realise that there was always a connection. Always a friend offering me the job. Or the next job. Even this dollar gig, if I hadn’t struck up that conversation, I’ll probably still be earning ₦610k. The key has always been people, offering genuine value, and never dropping the ball.
Okay let’s break down the ₦1.3 million and where it goes.
I used to have a spreadsheet, but I don’t track that much anymore.
What? The spreadsheet couldn’t fit?
LMAO. I got tired of tracking my spending. Still, I became money conscious when I discovered I was earning a lot and still getting broke.
But the recurring stuff:
I keep running costs less than ₦200k. But a lot of my money goes into gadgets. I want the latest of everything. So that’s where a lot of my money goes.
What’s your current gadget stash looking like?
Okay, so where’s the rest of the money?
Minus recurrent stuff, and occasionally buying gadgets, I tend to give a lot of money out. If I feel like someone needs money, I just send it to them. We always know someone who needs it. You can file this under lau-lau.
But I’m also trying to save, and on my saving end, that will be $1k per month. Saving it in dollars, because we can’t be saving in naira, please.
Have you considered investing?
Yeah, but to be honest, I’d rather invest in dollars. The naira is a mess. The inflation rate is a mess. So a good investment that does not give you significantly more than what the current inflation rate is, is like a waste to me.
How much do you really feel like you should be earning though?
I’ve never really thought about it, but I can really use some $10,000 a month. That’s just about $120k and it’s not a lot.
What’s something you want but can’t afford?
That I want? Bro. Technically, I can afford it. I wanted a car, but I paused it for a bigger plan.
Bigger plan?
Leaving the country – Canada. You know something I actually want but can’t afford? A second citizenship. There are faster ways to do this citizenship thing – faster than the usual ‘live there for four years etc’. You can buy property or invest in some countries and you get citizenship.
Do you ever think about retirement?
Yep. The goal is to retire at 40 – I mean I’m 25 now – but that still is the goal. Then I’m going to be teaching and mentoring people. And helping out in whatever way I can. I really don’t see myself working beyond 40.
The goal is to stack up like $200k, then put it in some financial instruments that can fetch me maybe like 5-10 million naira quarterly (based on today’s values).
Looks like you have active retirement plans.
There’s my pension. I track that. It’s currently at ₦1.5 million or so. I have no other plans at the moment tbh. There’s also the part where I still want to travel the world, but then I need a different passport to do that.
Back to the moment.
Okay, back to the moment.
I feel like I’ve been able to reach the perfect amount to unlock balling in Lagos. You have enough money for all your needs, and then a decent amount left for lau-lau. What I need to hack now is how to find ways to do way less work, for the same amount.
When was the last time you felt genuinely broke, and how much did you have?
Definitely. When I came back from the U.S, I had ₦30k in my account. At the beginning of the month.
What’s your happiness metre saying?
A 7. That’s because I feel like I need to get to a point where I don’t bother about money. Currently, I’m juggling two jobs. I’m always occupied. Relationships suffer. You have less time to chill and even enjoy the things you’re working for.
So that’s it. All of it.
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