Month: August 2019

The woman in this Naira Life story is 32 and loves the finest comforts of life. Get to know her.

When was the first time you understood money?

Ah, I think it was that time when I realised that having the money for something is not the same as having the money for something – if that makes any sense.

It does. I’m listening.

My family was on vacation in the States, and my dad had this thing where everyone gets their own spending money, depending on your age.

So I still had some money, and I wanted to buy some cards – I think they were $1.70. It wasn’t the beginning of the vacation, so I’d almost run out of money. I got my money from my mum who used to help me hold on to it and went into the shop like, take my money.

The attendant said, “That’ll be $2.12,” and I said, “No no, it says $1.70.” And she was like, “Oh yeah, plus tax.”
Then I thought, if I take this $2.12, I can buy this card, but what else can I buy after that? In the end I said to myself, I have the money, but can I afford it? So yeah, that’s my first memory of knowing that you can pay for something doesn’t mean you should. I was 11 going on 12 at the time, in JSS1.

So what’s the first thing you ever did for money?

Does dancing at parties count? If it does, then dancing at all our family’s events it is – we used to have a lot! I’m not a good dancer, but we’d wait until the people who sprayed showed up on the dancefloor, and then we’d go and dance.

When you think about it, it’s like stripping, but without the actual stripping.

Hahaha.

But the first time an actual gig paid me money would be when I graduated from secondary school. There was this company’s initiative to get teenagers to work on a magazine. They’d pay us ₦5k a week. 2003, 17, living in my father’s house, and earning ₦5k a week; catching cool fun, buying meat pie.

I went to school outside the country after and all of a sudden, I was in school with the children of some of the richest people.

Interesting. When you were in Nigeria, you were a rich kid. But here you were, abroad, realising that money pass money.

One of the babes in my class was the daughter of one of the richest men in the country; another was the daughter to an ambassador.

The funniest thing about it – and maybe it’s part of why money still doesn’t faze me – is that your money and exposure aren’t the same.

I was getting $500 monthly, and that covered all my bills – they had black cards – but they were so much more childish. These babes got excited by the littlest things like alcohol.

It’s easy to say that they were childish in hindsight, but there were little things that made me think. For example, babes would just be like: “Oh okay it’s the weekend. I’m going to travel and stay in a hotel.”

And me, I’d be doing maths like: “Okay if I buy a ticket of $19, will I be able to pay for a hotel?”

These babes could buy anything they wanted in a store, while I’d be looking for the sales rack.  I ate every meal in the cafeteria – I’m not spending my whole pocket money eating out with you people when my parents have already paid for food.

Oh no, I’m eating my tuition’s worth.

How much was your school fees at the time?

I can’t remember, but I think it was around $35-40k.

Did you do any work in uni?

I had a lot of random side hustles. 1st year, I was getting money from my parents. By the end of the first year, I failed uni woefully.

I had to get a job working at one of those storage locker places.

I remember the day I went to drop my resume; one of my flatmates used to work there. She was leaving, so she brought me in as her replacement.

The manager came in, and my resume was already on her table. She looked at it and tried to say my name. My resume had my full name, all of them in full glory and syllables. When she tried and tried to say the name, she just hissed and threw it in the trash. She didn’t realise it was me.

And then my friend introduced us, and it got kind of awkward.

If that happened now, I would have fought, but back then, my mindset was ‘epp me’. I lasted a month or two at the job; they fired me.

Why?

Multiple reasons. I wasn’t a bad employee, but I wasn’t a model employee either. The main moment came when a white couple said they couldn’t be comfortable with me around their stuff.

An obvious racist scenario. It was also my first personal incident.

The next time I came late, they were like, “Eh ehnnnn, you’re late.” And I’m just there thinking, it’s been only five minutes bitch.

I think I called in to make a complaint with reference to the white couple incident, probably said I was going to sue. They told me to come and take an extra month’s pay as severance, and that was that.

I wasn’t going to sue of course, who has that kind of time?

Waawu.

After that I learned how to braid hair – my customers were mostly guys, because guys then didn’t like to go to the salon. I think they liked the idea of going to a woman’s house to get braided, but no dear, I’m going to charge you still. To be honest, it was cheap – maybe $40.

I went back to school for my second year and for some reason, I asked my parents to stop giving me pocket money. I think I felt bad that I’d failed. They were still giving me rent money, paying my fees, but no pocket money.

That’s when I started writing essays. People would give me their books – I loved and still love literature – and I’d write a book report, charging $25 a page for about 5 pages. I could bang out an essay in one hour.

Mad.

That was good money. I added research to that too. I think I did that for a few years. After a while though, I was like, I don too suffer, send me pocket money abeg daddy.

Going into my 3rd year, I came back to Nigeria for a summer internship at a bank.

On the first day, my dad dropped me off at work with his SUV, and I became known as the rich intern. That’s how they didn’t pay me shit – as in not even transport money.

I was 19 at the time, but it was a proper job. Unlike other interns, I couldn’t be sent on errands.

One of the workers even used to send an intern to go to the market to buy stuff.

Because of this, I didn’t fight the rich intern tag.

At some point, I started doing tests for new employees. In fact, they started putting me on duty to go to interview people.

Then they put me on payroll, and that was when I knew there was money and there was money. I saw the MD’s salary and I thought, “My God! This is your clothing allowance? Why are you collecting clothing allowance monthly?”

There was furniture allowance, insurance for his kids, and all that. I had to sign off on it

How much was it?

This was in 2006 anyway.

Crazy. How much did interns earn?

₦15k monthly.

Then I went back to school and got pregnant.

Slow down. You what?

I had my kid 2007 and dropped out of college. See, if I didn’t have my parents, I’d be dead by now. My parents supported me through everything. In fact, when my baby was born, my parents increased my allowance. Around that time, I went to beauty school and learned makeup. So I started making money from that.

How much did you charge?

About $150 per session. I did that for a while, then came back to Nigeria with my kid. This was in 2009, and I was about 23. Not too long after I got back, I got hired by a beauty company. How I got that job without a degree was wild.
I told them, “You know what, I can fix your business, I have these ideas. Give me a chance and I’ll help you do amazing things, put procedures in place etc.” I can have a sweet mouth when I need it. I got the job and I was like, ah, I dunno this work o.

Hahaha. Why do you think you got hired?

I got hired because I had an accent, let’s start from there.

But seriously though, I didn’t go in there planning to be useless. I had young blood and fresh eyes, so yes, I did make a difference. I like to think I was key to helping them transcend the one-man business mentality, by building processes.

This was about October 2009. I spent about 7 months there, and travelled out of the country to finish school. I was still doing random side jobs here and there. I eventually graduated the following year.

After school, I got a job selling vacuum cleaners door to door. No salaries, only commissions. That was tough.

After this, I got a job as a Telemarketer. Oh my God, I’ve never been abused like that in my life.

Crazy.

I lasted at that call centre for exactly one month. They paid $12.50 an hour. Someone abuses you on a call, but the next call, you have to be like “Hi, my name is Yen-yen, and I’m calling from – ” ugh.

I quit and got hired in a jewellery store in a Mall as an assistant manager. I did so well that in less than 3 months, I got promoted to Manager. We climbed from 15 to number 1 in about two months.

Eventually, I moved back to Nigeria.

An interesting thing, everyone is moving out, and here you were, moving back into the country.

Ah yes, the main reason I moved back was that I wanted my kid to be close to family. Also, the house I was living in was my dad’s; I couldn’t afford to maintain it.

It was a 5-bedroom house. The electricity bill was huge.

Anyway, I moved back to Nigeria and started doing make-up for brides and all. Then I started a kind of make-up business, training people.

That’s when I realised that setting up a school in Nigeria can’t be easy. Babes will show up late; they miss some days, and when they come, it kind of forces you to repeat the last session so everyone is moving at the same pace.

I’d actually paid to rent a space for a particular period, but because they were wasting time, our rent elapsed, and we had to go rent another space.

I did that for a while, then I rented a shop, and started a make-up studio, while also selling make-up supplies. Around that time, I got this opportunity to work for a production studio – it was to lead the Hair and Makeup department. The money was really good. It was ₦250k, but by the time I added one or two other allowances, it went up to ₦400k a month. Imagine earning this while living in my father’s house from 2013 to 2014.

Lit.

I thought I’d be able to do that and manage the studio, but I couldn’t. So I started spending less time at my makeup business, and it was costing me money. I had a shop girl, and it was fine until the products started to disappear. And then one day, she disappeared herself.

Now you see her, now you don’t.

I panicked and was worried for her safety until I found out she eloped with her boyfriend. I shut down the studio and focused on my production job. The work was stressful, but the money was good.

I had no idea what to use the money for that time, I was just spending anyhow. If I could go back, I’d have saved more. I was just buying gifts left and right.

Anyway, I left that and decided I wanted to do stuff with food. I’d saved up a little, and the only reason I’d saved up at the time was that I didn’t know what to spend the money on again. I travelled again – to the Abroad. It was for short courses – 3 months of culinary school, and one month of film school.

Film and Food.

Yeah, I actually had some interest in working on a TV show, so I went to film school to get some experience. I believe in having range, instead of showing up and just talking. Then I came back to Nigeria, and that’s when my real suffering started.

2014?

Towards the end of the year, yes. I was 28. I moved back to Nigeria and tried to set up a food hustle. Ah, this entrepreneurship life is not for the weak. I learned this when I was doing the Beauty thing.

Did you have any contingency plans?

Thing is, I always have a safety net. I’m ridiculously privileged and I thank God for that. I never have money, but I still spend like I do. Anyway, I raised money to shoot a TV show.

Just like that. How much?

Let me run through it. I raised ₦10 million. Wanted to rent, then realised that it’s too expensive. Rented an apartment instead. Part of my problems started here – I didn’t separate the Church and State.

I already shot a pilot – thanks dad for that 1 million.

What happened to it? “No sound” was what the guy who shot it said. Imagine. Add shaky footage and bad lighting. My three-episode pilot only gave me a three-minute trailer in useful footage.

Later, I got new people. Those ones? Another three episodes of trash. They said they’d refund until they disappeared.

Another guy didn’t charge me at first. One mad week of shooting but when it was time to edit, he disappeared.

Wut?

I cried, “Haba is it only me?”

I’d sunk money into equipment and rent, but I abandoned the show struggle for a while. Until someone introduced me to a bunch of people who wanted to do a show. I gave them my space, got some equity, but did they ever pay me for that season 1 I shot as host? Nope. Then I found out I’d been replaced.

After a while, my dad was like, what’s happening with this show? Anyway, he gave me another 3m. I knew we had to do this one right. Got a crew, shot 15 episodes.
Time to edit, the guy said I needed to pay his balance first. And I’m like, Oga that’s not what we agreed on na.

At some point, he just sent me the flash drives like, come and be going. Got another editor, and it took him over a year to edit, another disappearing act. The editing wasn’t really great too.

By 2018, I’d given up on it. Then some company stepped in to take over it – editing the content that is.

Almost 3 years. About ₦14 million. How did you get by?

I was making a living off my catering business all this time. It was a month to month grind. Here’s the thing: I’m very terrible with my finances. I can’t tell you how much I made last month. I can’t tell you what I made yesterday. I can’t project what I’ll earn tomorrow. There’s no rhyme or reason to my spending – I mean, I know I spend a lot of it on food for myself.

There are some factors in life that force you to have money. Like rent, like fees.

Let me confess something: every year, I have no idea how I’m going to pay rent, and every year I pay rent. Technically, I shouldn’t be living here – rent here is about ₦2.5 million with a ₦300k service charge. I should be living somewhere cheaper. My problem is that I’d rather die broke than be uncomfortable. Comfort is the one thing I’d die on the line for.

Another thing that requires consistency is child welfare, like school fees.

When she was in primary school, I didn’t pay her school fees, but now I do. I pay about half of it, or a little over half. To be honest, it’s very hard to plan – here, dad is somehow useless – I just set out to pay all of it.

Then after I’ve already paid, he sends me the money. So in my head, I’m like, “I’ve already paid, but I can use this one to Jollof.”

How much is her school fees?

South of 3 million yearly. That’s minus the random ₦10ks and ₦50ks for this and that.

Wild. You don’t know how much you earn, but what are the constant bills that must be paid monthly?

What are some constants in your life that you know you can’t afford?

My life. I can’t afford my lifestyle. Right now, I have less than ₦100k in my bank account, and I only have one bank account. I live way above my means and I know that.

Wh –

– Okay, wait, now that I think about it, I can’t afford to fall sick. I can’t afford for my child to fall sick. If either of us falls sick now, we’ll be doing GoFundme on the Internet. There’s no other way.

So now, you don’t have any Health Insurance?

I used to, but it expired and I didn’t have the money to pay for it. I don’t have any insurance. I have considered other forms of insurance; if someone comes to do all of this for me in my house, I’d happily do it.

I might be poor, but I have rich people mentality.

Let’s say all your finances are in order, how much do you feel like you deserve every month?

For my skill level and work ethic, ₦700k monthly. Actually, that’s a lie. For my skill level and the way I work, ₦1.5 million monthly. But I would settle for ₦700k monthly if it gave me free time. ₦700k monthly can fund my lifestyle. My lifestyle isn’t that expensive. To be honest, if I managed my finances properly, I’d be able to easily afford this place.

Is there a world where you attempt to rip Church and State apart?

I’ve been procrastinating. I called someone that I was going to do it, but I haven’t called back. The person I spoke to asked me to put all my invoices together and I’m like, where am I going to find them abeg?

You know what? I might just close my eyes and do it next month.  If there’s anything I can admit, it’s that I can’t do it myself. Part of being older is becoming very realistic about the things I can and can’t do.

I’m 32. I’ll get better, but I need someone to do that initial groundwork. I also need someone to pay me a salary, I’m not cut out for this entrepreneurship life.

That’s honest. Talking about financial literacy, what do you wish you learned when you were younger?

It’s a funny question because it almost implies that my parents failed somewhere. The one thing I’ll say is I don’t think they taught us the importance of money. It’s great in certain ways in that I don’t hold on to anything. If you need the money and I can afford it, you can have it.

I’ve seen my dad buy a brand new car, and someone came to the house and said they like it, Oga gave it to him. Yah.

Mad.

The downside to this is that I didn’t appreciate how important it was to have structure around money.

I may not have a lot of it, I may not have enough of it, but I’m never truly lacking it.

Also if I’m not enjoying something, I’m not doing it, regardless of how much it pays. There’s some guy who was pursuing me for a job – ₦200k for an hour’s work. I hate him. I didn’t take the job.

I make quite a number of decisions that way.

There’s one planner that did me strong thing. I don’t care what the job is – even if she’s making food for Obama – I’m not picking up.

That is –

– That is a lie actually. I’ll pick up if it’s Obama. I might be somehow, but I’m not foolish.

There was a time last year that I was having anxiety attacks, I was getting more worried. But something I later learned is, I can’t come and kill myself. Sometimes, I tell myself, focus! But I no do. It’s quite bad.

There are two payments I need to make next week, over 100k, I don’t have the money now, but I can guarantee you that I’m going to pay it even though I don’t know where it’s coming from yet. Every month, we don’t have money for electricity, but somehow we pay.

We’ve talked about the past. Let’s talk about the future. Do you have plans to make sure your kid picks up some of these skills?

If I say what I want to say now, it’ll look as if I’m a bad mother. I’ll probably put her in a financial literacy course so she can understand it better than I do. But I also think – how do I put this without sounding somehow – we over-burden ourselves with these things. And it’s easy to say this when you’ve always had a safety net. If we focus on living fulfilling lives doing what we want, we may not earn as much, but then we’d be generally more fulfilled. I’ve never wanted a life of luxury, but my ideal scenario is earning enough for my comfort. Maybe enough to go on vacation once a year.

I’ve never thought of being a billionaire, I dunno what I’d do with billions. I wonder what I’d do to become a billionaire, I know I don’t want to do the work.

How much did your best gig ever pay?

There was one gig that paid me 1.4 million and I spent only 200k or so on groceries. And I prepped for it in only one night. Easiest money I’ve ever made – of course, they paid in instalments.

Imagine a world where that came monthly.

I won’t be angry. That’d be a good world, to be honest, I just haven’t put in the work.

What do you mean you haven’t put in the work?

Not physical work. The smart work. I work hard, everyone knows I work hard, but I don’t know how to sell my market. Do you get?

Most annoying miscellaneous?

There’s one ₦22k that I spent last weekend that is paining me. And I don’t know why it is paining me. Car trouble.
My problem is, I don’t plan. Take for example, I’m supposed to save north up 6 million for a travel project scheduled for December. Ask me how much of 6 million I have?

How much?

Let me check my account balance… I have exactly ₦62,750. That is all the money I have in this world. I might not execute with 6 million, but I’ll probably go with ₦2-3 million. I dunno how Imma do it. But Imma do it.

First of all, if I sell everything in my house, I should raise good money – wait how much will you pay for my couch?

Hahaha. We’ll get to that. How much did you make last month?

What? I can’t even tell you what I made last week. You know what? Let me check my bank account and let’s track everything from last week, Monday to Sunday.

Okay… Done. How much do you think it is?

₦300k.

₦452,325…

…Wow. So it makes no sense that my account balance is now at ₦62k. I’ve spent over ₦400k this week, on what?

Tracking your debits, it means you spent ₦100k more than you made.

I should do this more often.

On a scale of 1-10, Financial Happiness.

I want to say a 4, but I also want to say I’m lying because I don’t stress out about it. Let’s say 4 – I should say 2 because I shouldn’t be happy at all. But let’s stick with 4. I’m not earning enough – well, from that number you just rolled out, I’m probably not managing enough. So spend wiser, earn more.

Imagine this, what will a life without all your safety nets look like for you?

God forbid it.

Okay, let’s pretend it’s a movie, and you’re the Protagonist, and suddenly, there are no safety nets.

I would have a salary paying job. I’d be living somewhere significantly cheaper. I’d have less furniture. I’d then be forced to get some insurance.

I can do this hustle thing, because I know I won’t die.

So your hustle now is more self-actualisation than actual survival.

Hmmm. I think that minimises my hustle a little bit. It’s definitely survival, it’s doing what I enjoy that matters.

I loved having this conversation so much.

Ya welcomeee.

Is there something you wish I’d asked that I didn’t?

Probably about when I was about my most broke, my rock bottom. I’ve been there twice. When I was at the vacuum company. I went into this store, and they had some lunch packs on sale – synthetic food you shouldn’t feed to kids. They were about to expire and they were selling them cheap. I used my last $4 to buy as many packs as it could pay for, and that’s what I fed my child for almost 3 days. When my child had diarrhoea, I was like Godddd. I was eating rice with nothing, just plain white. One time, fuel finished, and I had to gather all my coins. I bought a little fuel in a bottle, poured it, and then drove home.

I invested in an event project this year, invested over ₦1.5 million into it. It was supposed to fetch $14,000. It was a bust. The ₦1.5 million was an investment but it was also all of my money. It involved international travel too. In fact, I got stranded in another country because there was a mistake on my ticket and I couldn’t afford to get another one to bring me home.

Hello, Martian.

This is where safety nets come in, because I called my parents, and they paid for a ticket to bring me home.

The lady in this story has worked in digital media (creative industry) for almost a decade. But she’s convinced that she’s just getting started. This is her story.

When was the first time you knew what money was?

It has to be that time I wanted to travel to the UK. Now I was living with a cousin who travelled frequently – and everyone had money to travel. My cousin was like, ah ahn, don’t you want to go?

Somehow, I ended up going with her – but only after asking uncles and aunties to chip in. And even when I went, I didn’t really enjoy myself. I shopped from charity shops, and nobody had my time. My richest uncle there gave me £20, which is ridiculous when it’s 2011 and you’re 26.

Immediately I got back, the first question I started asking myself was, how can I have my own money? I was pampered but also broke. How can you be broke and pampered? And that’s how the ajebo part dropped o.

So I took this strange job, where all I had to do was slot in sim cards into phone packs – it was one of those promos where phones came with sim cards. That was the first time I felt like I was hustling.

Also, because of how I was feeling broke in the UK, I hardly bought anything for myself – most of what I bought, I brought back to sell. At good margins too.

Unfortunately, I still sucked at managing money, so all the money I made, I blew anyhow – not like it was a lot though.

What came after that?

I went away for a year-long course, then went for NYSC, and it was during service I made up my mind that I was never going to ask my parents for money again.

Why?

I grew up in a small town outside Lagos – a dead place. So, I knew that if I didn’t have a plan before the end of NYSC, I would have had to go back to that place, and it would have killed me. Weaning myself off their wallets was motivation.

Small town girl with big dreams.

Yeah, so I started hustling for work in Lagos during NYSC, so I wouldn’t go back to live with my parents. I took my savings, my cousin chipped in, and I bought a camera and started learning photography.

Then I got a part-time radio gig. Basically, I was going ham, anything to not send me back to my parents’ house. I worried that if I went back there, I’d have to struggle to get back out. In all this time, I was still at my actual place of primary assignment – they didn’t care much anyway, so I didn’t have to go every time.

Interesting

Halfway through NYSC, I started trying out for gigs in digital agencies. The first one didn’t pay and would be shouting where is your work. Dumped that after a month. With the second one, I spent only a month – some drama – then I got a third. That third one came toward the end of my NYSC – about three months toward the end.

Wow, so I was making this much during NYSC. Right after NYSC, I started at the agency. I was working in Content, and that’s what I’ve done for the most part since then.

And you put your small town behind you

Hahaha. Yep. So I started full time at the ₦40k agency. But this time, I was earning less.

How?

They started removing tax – nobody told me about net or gross – so now I was netting ₦36k. I would have just been doing my part-time for ₦40k. I got a raise to ₦40k a few months after, net.

About one year later, I left – got another gig that was offering me ₦80k.

Ah, nice. What was that like?

First of all, I made a mistake. Someone told me after I got the job that I should have asked for 150k because I was poached. That meant I was in a good position to leverage a better deal. But the moment I heard 80k from the ₦40k, I was like hayyy double salary!

‘100%’

Bad bad call. At my old place, there was a staff bus for the to and fro commute. Also, food was cheaper around my old place. At the new place though, food was way more expensive – it was on the Island.

I think I realise now that your first salary might go on to affect your salary for the rest of your life.

If I was earning ₦150k at that next gig, I would have had a better starting number to negotiate the next salary.

I did get a raise though, a little over 6 months later. To ₦150k. I actually had to pull an “I’m getting poached” move.

Were you getting poached though?

Yes. I had an offer from one of the agency’s rivals, but I knew I wasn’t going to take the job – I didn’t even like the company. I just used them to get a raise. This was early 2015 though.

You know when I got my next raise? 32. Months. Later. What raise did I get? ₦30k.

Anyway, by November 2017, I was out. I joined another company that offered me ₦300k. Got a raise months later to ₦360k.

But then I resigned by the end of June 2019. With immediate effect.

No notice period?

There was something with the workplace culture I could no longer deal with. My workplace was beginning to feel like a battlefield, so I quit. It didn’t make sense to many people, but I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. It wasn’t supposed to be long term anyway.

I had plans of starting an agency, but that took the backburner. Thing is, I tend to put in everything wherever it is I’m working. That means barely having time for side projects. And because I feel like I haven’t been rewarded properly for the work I put in, I have become disillusioned by 9-5’s. The job before my last didn’t end on good terms too.

So you’re at a place now where you don’t exactly know what’s next?

Yeah. I’m just trying to figure out a bunch of things. I wanted to start work on my agency, but I couldn’t do that while still at my job – conflict of interest. Now, I want to focus on getting this running. It’s going to be a bunch of services, including Social Media Management and O.R.M.

Online Reputation Management?

Yes. Basically, a lot of it involves managing the images of public people online and sometimes cleaning up after their mess.

But then, it’d be nice if I was starting this and wasn’t worried about where my next income would be coming from – no safety nets.

In the time being, I’m looking at freelance gigs, preferably forex-paying, so I can do stuff that will earn money on the side, while I focus on building my agency.

Okay, I hope you get something. But let’s talk about your perspective about this money thing.

I think that if you don’t position yourself to make money, nobody is going to give it to you. There’s hardly anybody who’s earning good money that hasn’t been deliberate about it. It’s not an accident. You have to position yourself with your skills or your confidence.

It’s illegal for me to have been earning ₦360k with all the experience I have, in the places I worked at. There really is no reason why I should be earning less than 1 million a month.

1 million is quite the number. Any rationale for choosing that number?

I got an offer which was basically everything I’d been doing for years, and they were going to pay me ₦1 million a month. I didn’t get the job – I feel like I didn’t interview well – but it opened my eyes to what is possible. Someone somewhere is willing to pay a million for my skills. I should be earning that.

To be honest, I have gotten offers – those ₦200k offers – but I’m not doing again. My friend is like, “just take it in the time being”, but that’s what happened with my last job. I ‘managed’ it.’ Before my last job, I was convinced that I wanted nothing less than ₦500k. Then I met my previous employer, and he sold me a vision. And I managed it.

So, what’s the plan to get by between now and when you can get steady income?

First of all, I have some savings, then I’ll be getting by on freelance gigs, which should get me a decent amount of money.

Also, I’m working to secure a client for O.R.M. The goal is to help High Networth Individuals manage their image online. There’s also the crisis management part. I have a mentor who’s already operating on that level.

She’s working to set me up with a client or two – probably start with the small clients – the ₦500k people. Then we’ll go up from there.

Okay, just so I get a sense. What do you think you’d charge for ORM of a Nigerian Senator?

At the very least, ₦5 million for three months of work. Depending on the profile of the Senator. That should cover a lot of the costs.

Senator’s costs aside. What’s your current survival mode running cost?

I live pretty leanly. I buy in bulk. I don’t go out very much. So that means I can be frugal.

How much runway do you think you have before you absolutely need to get a steady means of income?

First of all, I need to pay rent in October. Rent is ₦350k for a single room. Also, I want to move to a new place. So yes, I need to be earning properly before September.

How much do you imagine you’d be earning in 5 years?

10 million. The goal is to scale up to three hustles properly: luxury goods, real estate, and agric.

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

My own house. In Banana Island. 7-bedroom duplex. So it can become a family home. And so that my friends can come and chill.  And then a Range Rover Evoque – I’ve always wanted an Evoque. I think that’s one of the reasons I haven’t considered a car yet, because I don’t have Evoque money.

So, do you have a house plan?

A house plan…? To be honest, I plan to buy my own house… but –

You weren’t thinking of how?

I was thinking of how… To be honest, I’m just looking for who to dash me house in Banana Island abeg.

Hahahahaha

Hahahahahaha. Any house I buy now, it will be in my village. See, right now, it’s to just become an Influencer, and then one politician will like me, and then dash me house in Banana Island.

When do you think you’ll retire?

I think when I’m 60. I would have started easing my workload then. At that time, I just want to be travelling and speaking to people.

What’s the last thing you paid for that required serious planning?

Definitely the Dubai trip last year. That cost me about ₦700k in total. I paid in bits, but that’s the total cost. I chose Dubai because I didn’t have to struggle to get a visa. I could go there on short notice.

See, I want a life of luxury, and being stuck in Nigeria can make you think the whole world likes suffer-head.

Dubai for me is the height of luxury. It opened my head, a lot. These people just thought, what does everyone else do? How can we make our own extra? Everyone has Fountain? Make our own dance.

I watched the Dubai Dancing Fountain. And people just gathered to watch water dancing. And it shows you how simplistic the human mind is. People just want pleasure. People are driving three hours into the desert, to go and pose with a bird.

Dubai is packaged sand. And this business, it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. People will pay for enjoyment.

So yes, I think this one was of the most powerful things about Dubai for me.

Hmmm.

Also, I learned that if you want to make money, you have to break out of the mould of culture. Conservative country yen yen yen that people are always shouting, but we went to a nightclub in Dubai, and people were just wilding. They were even playing Burna Boy sef.

This money thing is a mindset.

When was the last time you felt really broke?

Thing is, when I came back from Dubai, I was sad because there were some things that I needed money for, and couldn’t get. Then one of my friends told me to focus on being grateful.

And so I realised that it made me not feel broke. I know it’s weird, but being grateful for things I’ve gotten done makes me feel less broke.

But then again, broke is also relative. I’m living in a house I don’t like. I don’t have a car.

What am I saying? I guess I do feel broke hahahaha.

Hahahallthetimehahahaha.

Hahaha. In fact, I still felt broke yesterday. Imagine I was trying to break a journey to cut cost. Taking Keke then taking a cab. Only for me to realise that the whole thing is not even up to ₦1k sef.

I’m even scared to open my other app, because it’s like I’m owing them money from my last trip. Hahaha.

So yes, I guess the last time I felt broke was today. I speak to you broke.

Do you have any insurance these days?

None. Only thing I own is my investments in stock and gold a long time ago. I can’t even remember them sef.

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

2. I deserve better. I’m not even going to blame it on anybody. I think my awareness came too late. I somehow assumed that if I worked hard, the universe would reward me for it. I hustled so hard – and it’s why I resist that word ‘hustle’ now. It’s a stupid word because it’s not a guarantee of anything.

It’s being smart, and positioning well. Anybody can do the grunt work. In fact, I feel like, being the person known for the grunt work is dangerous. Because suddenly everyone thinks that’s where you flourish best, doing the heavy lifting. No managerial anything.

I feel like I should be doing better than I’m currently doing, considering how much I’ve invested in other people’s businesses.

I find myself having conversations about starting my own business now, and I feel like I’m behind.

I’ve always seen myself as a simple girl. But now I’ve come to realise something; simple girls don’t make money. They don’t get the opportunities. They don’t win.

Today’s story is about a Septuagenarian. She’s done everything from secretarial work to hospitality, and trade. All of this with one goal; to give the best life possible for her kids. This conversation happened in Yoruba, and this is an attempt at translating it to English, all without losing the yorubaness.

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Tell me about your first job.

I worked at the Health Department of the Lagos City Council. I started working there in 1969, and I was 20 at the time – that’s when I got married. My salary was £16 and we used to get a Danger Allowance, because of the department we worked in – another £2.

Ah, Pounds.

Yes, Nigeria still used the pounds back then, and it was the same value as the British pound. I worked there till 1971, and then I travelled to go and join my husband, who was in the UK at the time. In Britain, I got a secretarial job that I didn’t like very much. It kept me seated too much. So I took the City and Guilds Certificate, 1 and 2, in catering. A few years later, we returned to Nigeria in 1975, and it was a different country.

The Naira?

Yes. At this time, I already had three kids. Even the hand drive changed. I got a job as a Restaurant Supervisor at Eko Holiday Inn in 1975 – I was 26. You people now know it as Eko Hotel. I was expecting my 4th child at the time.

Interesting.

Yes. It was a joint venture by the government and some Americans. But we mostly worked with the Americans. My first salary was ₦375. To be honest, Jakande didn’t really care about the hotel business. A lot of his attention was on education and housing.

I had to be at Eko Hotel before 6 am. We were living on the Mainland but good thing was, in those days we had staff buses to pick us up and drop us off at our stops.

One funny thing that happened a lot in those days is this. My husband worked somewhere not too far from me. And he always wanted to come to pick me up, but then, sometimes, he’d have come and I’d have left with the staff bus. Can you imagine all that frustration was because we didn’t have phones that everyone has now?

By the time I resigned in 1981, my last salary was a little over ₦700.

Why did you resign?

My child was born prematurely. And there was the fear that if there wasn’t enough care, the child won’t survive. My husband used to say “If this child dies, it’s on you.”

You know, when I was leaving, the personnel manager did everything to keep me. In fact, they came to the house officially asking that I return. I didn’t.

But at the time, I’d already started doing some business on the side. I had a friend who travelled a lot, so she helped me buy things I could sell while I still worked at the Hotel restaurant. She had a shop at Tejuoso Market then, and she encouraged me to open one too.

So I opened my shop in Tejuoso Market in 1981.

How much did a shop cost at the time?

It cost less than ₦5,000 to set up. About ₦120 per month. Restocking used to cost me about ₦2,000, and how did I restock? Only from buying from abroad.

Setting up wasn’t difficult at the time. I remember I even got a car loan while I was still at that job – ₦1700. Ah, Nigeria ti bàjẹ́.

Back then, when you get the car loan, you could buy a Volks. A Volks didn’t even cost up to ₦1,000. A Toyota Corolla cost under ₦2,000 – my husband bought this one. It was pretty and had so much room.

I used my car loan to buy a pick-up truck. I was using it to carry canned drinks for supply. I’d go pick them up at Ota, and then deliver at Apongbon.

So you could even buy a car on your salary of two months?

Daada! Even all the gold we used to buy in those days, how much did they cost? Fashion wasn’t hard at the time. Gold bangles were going for ₦120.

What did you sell in your shop?

Baby wares. Children’s clothes. Those days, if you haven’t bought Mothercare products for your child, it’s like you haven’t given birth. There weren’t any diapers, only napkins.

But around the time I started, there was one Igbo man in my neighbourhood. He used to go to Brazil to get car spare parts. He was the first person that made me start selling Johnson and Johnson diapers. He’d stock up his own container with my goods, and bring them to my shop.

The blessing was that my children also wore good clothes – the boys wore suits, the girls wore the best dresses. My last child at the time would come to the shop, and once he saw a toy, he’d cry till he got it hahaha.

Business was really booming in those days.

What changed?

It started with a house fire in 1983. The things we lost, I can’t even begin to value. The shop was something I started to fill up the time while I was planning to start my catering business. Part of my profits from running the shop went into buying things I needed when I was ready. I didn’t have a warehouse, so things I couldn’t keep in my shop, I stored at the house. Cartons on cartons on cartons.

They all got burnt.

Wow.

We moved into a new place, and that cost ₦250/month in rent. It was a three-bedroom flat. Towards the end of the year, someone wanted to help me get a ₦25,000 loan that same year. That money was going to cover the capital to set up my catering business and pay two years rent. I was going to use my father’s properties as collateral, but my mother didn’t think it was a good idea. So I didn’t take the loan.

The drought hit us proper in 1985. My husband also didn’t pick a better time to marry a second wife. Before then, our kids’ school fees were paid by whoever had money first. I paid, he paid.

When the second wife came, everything thinned out. We barely saw him. Sometimes, we didn’t even see him for weeks. Before this period, work made him go away for months at a time, so I was already used to not having him around in a sense.

How did you cope?

Business never really went back to how it was before that fire, but we managed. That shop was literally how our family survived. My baby sister lived with me too at the time. We’d sell what we could sell, and buy food for the house for that day. The bulk shopping I used to do before became buy-as-you-have.

What was bulk shopping like in the good days?

I had another sister who was the Oga of bulk shopping, bless her soul. Once I gave her ₦200 in the early 80s, we were sorted. Do you know how many people were living with me? Three of my siblings and my own six children. My daily sales in those bulk shopping days used to be over ₦1000 on good days.
In fact, I used to be part of a club. You people only talk about Aṣo Ẹbí, but we used to buy a lot of Aso Egbe.

Squad goals.

Kini yen?

Nothing ma. So, back to Aso Egbe.

We called ourselves Club 8. We partied together and bought our clothes together. But by the mid to late 80s, I couldn’t keep up. I had kids to feed, and their suffering was too difficult for me to bear. My baby sister and first daughter got into tertiary school. You had to pay for their hostel rent, school fees, and you had to buy their hand-outs.

Whenever my daughter and baby sister came home and there wasn’t money, they’d take a few things from the shop and go sell in school to lecturers. That was how they survived. It got to a point, by the late 80s, where I could no longer continue selling baby wares. I had friends traveling, who’d help me buy shoes for adults, male and female, and I started going from office to office, selling them.

How did you pull off the school fees struggle?

At the biggest school fees stretch, I was paying the school fees of 7 people, my kids and my baby sister’s. When my last born came, I couldn’t afford private school for her, so she went to one of these under-the-tree schools in the neighborhood.

At some point, I could no longer afford private school for two of my older boys too, so I moved two of the kids out of private school, and took them to public school – Jakande made those free and that saved our lives.

All you had to do was buy books, uniform, and give them attention.

Where was he – your husband – all this while?

Oh, he said he was raised by his mother too. And so, I should raise my kids too. And it wasn’t just me. He did it to his second wife. If she wasn’t fortunate enough to be able to send her children abroad, she wouldn’t have survived. She faced the same struggles too. She was hustling to pay ₦150 school fees too.

So, all he was doing was having children. What was he using his money for?

I dunno for him o. To be honest, there was a time he quit the safety of a job and tried to start a company, and that was a tough period for him. In fact, it’s in between all of this he married his second wife, and everything just crumbled for him. He sold his two vehicles, a bus and a car.

Was this how they used to do, these men?

Most of them were like that. But there were some who were good homebuilders, despite being polygamous in some cases. They were present for their families. All the while, he blamed me for having all the kids.

Why didn’t your husband use birth control?

I even used at some point, but I’m just unfortunate with birth control. I used the coil but somehow got pregnant. When my child was born, he was holding the coil in his hand. The doctors at that time said I was 1 out of 100, and I was like, why me?

Why…why didn’t you leave?

The kids. I kept wanting them to be present in his life. And him in theirs.

The times are changing though.

Do women these days have time for nonsense? They would have flung the man away since. Nobody is waiting around for someone who won’t give them love and give the kids attention.

Okay, back to work.

I kept trying out things to sell and make a living, and by 1988, I started travelling to Aba.

Ariara Market?

Haha. Ariyariya. I used to go and buy cut-and-sew. We walked the length and breadth of the market in those days. The roads were good, and. How much did it cost from Lagos to Aba by bus? ₦120.

Hayyy

Bẹ̀ẹni! We didn’t have to worry about anything on the road. I used to travel with Emerald Motors at Jibowu. Then there was Young Shall Grow. Okechukwu.

The Young Really Grew.

Yes o. They didn’t have enough vehicles then. Emerald was the reigning one, but when the owner died, the business died too. Even Ojukwu had his own bus line then.

Aba was really pleasant. When I wanted to start that business, I didn’t even have up to ₦10,000.

Again, my husband was saying “Why are you risking your life and leaving these children at home.” As if we were even seeing him at home. Hahaha.

He was giving you trouble at the time?

You see, the way he switched when he married a second wife ehn? He just became bitter. So, I just focused on making sure that I could give the kids the best things possible.

What was the most popular order in Eko Hotel?

Jollof Rice and Chicken Peri-Peri. A plate went for ₦180. There were different restaurants – Kuramo, Summit Restaurant at the rooftop. We moved from restaurant to restaurant, but I worked at Kuramo as a Supervisor.

How stressful must it have been?

It was stressful, but it was good work. My health started to deteriorate shortly after I left. I started treating hypertension in 1983 at the age of 34. When I eventually got rushed to the hospital a few years later, the doctors said I was “very lucky”, because if I had delayed treatment, it would have killed me.

Something else came in 1996. One of the kids fell ill, so we went to the hospital. I was just lying down on a bench, exhausted, when this doctor came in and asked if I was okay. He randomly observed me for a few minutes. Then he asked me if I was hypertensive. I told him I was.

I think it was his instinct, but he asked to run some tests on me, and when it was done, he screamed.

What was it?

Diabetes. The doctor said ‘ah! 400!’ I didn’t even know what diabetes meant: there wasn’t that much awareness about diabetes at the time.

I told the doctor that the child I brought, I hadn’t even paid money. Where was I going to get money to pay for mine? Hahaha.

Wow.

I was still travelling to Aba in all this time, while at the same time trying to arrange flight tickets for my son, who was going to the UK. I paid for all of it without his father. I think it was about ₦25,000 in the mid-90s. It could have been easier for us to arrange that travel because he was a British citizen.

What made it hard?

Abacha. There was some embargo on the Nigerian government, and British citizens could only fly from Ghana. That would have cost more money.

All that travelling and stress must have taken its toll on your health. When did you eventually stop working?

I stopped going to Aba in 1998. Do you know what I loved about Aba? Many of them were kind. When you become a regular customer, you can show up with the money for 5k worth of goods, and they’d tell you to take 10k’s worth. Because they knew you’d come back, and pay up. That helped a lot.
I dunno if it’s still possible today, but I hope your generation eventually gets it easy.

I travelled in 2002. At this time, two of my children were now in the UK. I really just wanted to go take a break, and see my daughter – I hadn’t seen her in four years. I needed to see how comfortable she was. She was still a teenager when she left. That was also tough for her.

I spent almost a year there, and when I came back, I was still trying to buy and sell things and chasing debtors.

Looks like debtors were stressful.

Yes, they were. People in offices, for example, would take things on credit and pay at the end of the month. And I don’t blame them because they also couldn’t afford to pay till the end of the month, but my children had to eat.

The food sellers in our neighbourhood were really understanding. They let the kids come and buy food and kept a tab open for me. So I paid when I had money.

That year, we moved into our own house. My husband had been building one. By the time we were moving out of the house we lived in, it cost ₦5,500 per month. A lot of it was still incomplete.

Do you want to know how much we bought the land? ₦25,000 in 1992. I contributed ₦8000.

With all of what you know and have experienced now, what would you do if you could travel back in time?

Hahaha. Let’s just be glad I survived. You know, when things happen, it’s impossible to tell outcomes. If I died, my children’s lives would have still continued somehow. They were courageous.

I’m really grateful.

How is old age?

Boring. I’m grateful that I have children who send me money for my welfare. I never have to worry about medicine. But the hardest part about being old for me is that all the places I could go, You can’t move around as much because your body is weak. Some of the things you did with ease when you were younger, now need an extra hand.

I’m treating Diabetes, hypertension, and osteoporosis. My meds are taken care of by my kids. I have no pension. No insurance.

Investments?

My kids hahaha. They’re my pension and my insurance.

They send money, but, even that no longer feels enough. I’d love to talk to them. And my grandchildren. I can’t always do that now, and those times when I can’t hear from anyone, I feel lonely. It used to make me very bitter – the loneliness – but not anymore.

Their father talks about it now, about how much of a lucky man he is. And despite the fact that they remember everything, the children don’t hate him.

Are you happy now?

I used to be bitter a lot. All that suffering alone. Now I’m just thankful, the kids are doing fine.

Thank you for making me remember all of this. It’s so easy to forget

Originally published on Zikoko