Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
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When did you first realise the importance of money?
I understood the concept of exchange before actually handling money. In primary school, I loved drawing cartoon characters like Ben 10 and Naruto, and I was good at it.
I drew these characters on pieces of paper torn from my notebook. My mum, who was a headmistress, wasn’t particularly impressed that I tore my notebooks to draw. So, as a workaround, I drew for classmates in exchange for extra sheets of paper. I was being paid, just not with money.
Watching how hard my mum worked also made me think about the importance of money.
Tell me more
My mum was a single mum of two. My dad died pretty early; I don’t even remember much about him. So, it was up to my mum to provide for us. We weren’t financially stable, but I knew my mum worked hard to keep food on the table. We couldn’t always afford nice things, but she did her best to ensure we had the basics.
What was the first thing you did to earn money?
Still my drawing and art talent. I went to a secondary school attended by rich kids, and one day, when I was in JSS 2, a classmate approached me. He’d heard I could draw and needed help with his assignment. He paid me ₦200, which was enough for two doughnuts and a bottle of Coke. It was good money.
After that, I had a relatively steady stream of people paying me at least ₦150 to do their assignments. I stopped in JSS 3 when a teacher noticed my drawing style in other students’ assignments and warned me not to do it anymore.
I didn’t do anything else for money until uni. I entered uni in 2017 and was on a ₦10k/month allowance from my mum, which only covered food and transport, nothing extra. Even then, ₦10k didn’t last me until the end of the month. In the second semester, my uncle gave me a laptop, and I decided to learn design.
How did you go about this?
I knew a graphic designer from church, and with my mum’s consent, I spent my semester break learning CorelDRAW at his studio. It helped me learn how to digitally recreate the images I drew on paper. I also assisted the graphic designer with t-shirt prints, banner designs and the like.
I learnt from him for two months until school resumed. In school, I kept designing and started posting my work on my WhatsApp status. Then a friend reached out one day, asking if I designed logos. I said “yes,” and she introduced me to a client.
I can’t forget that logo. It was for a finance-based business, and the logo featured a house with a chimney. Now that I think about it, we don’t have chimneys in Nigeria, so that was completely unnecessary.
I’m screaming. How much did you make from that first gig?
₦2500. It was the biggest amount I could think of. Subsequently, I started receiving logo requests from fellow students who ran small businesses. I didn’t have a flat rate. Students don’t have money, and no one would’ve paid ₦2500.
So, I charged students between ₦1k and ₦1500 for logos and banners. Most of the time, I was only making an extra ₦3k or ₦4k a month, but it felt nice to add that to my pocket money.
This went on until COVID came. While people complained about being bored, all I did was eat, sleep and watch design tutorials. I was designing every single day. Before the school shutdown, I’d begun moving with a student club of developers and tech guys. I could tell these guys had more money than the average student, and I figured I could be like that if I improved my craft. The lockdown gave me the opportunity to fine-tune my skills.
Some time after the lockdown was lifted, I posted a test project I’d designed on Twitter. A marketing agency reached out to me and told me they liked my work. Then, they asked if I was open to a full-time role.
That’s how they offered me a job with a ₦60k/month salary. I was so excited that I called my mum immediately. Unfortunately, my excitement was short-lived.
Uh oh. What happened?
They fired me after three months. I had a difficult time transitioning from freelancing to paid employment. I’m a perfectionist, and I take time because I need everything to look good. However, companies have deadlines, and after I delayed a few tasks, the agency ghosted me. They didn’t even give me clear communication; they just stopped paying my salary and didn’t respond to my questions. I got the message.
I was sad because I liked the job, but the experience helped me realise I wasn’t as good as I thought. There had been callbacks on a number of my designs, and it was pretty clear I still had some learning to do.
I lost the job in December 2020, and around the same time, a friend introduced me to someone who had opened a co-working space. The founder told me he needed a designer to create marketing materials, but didn’t have the money to pay. However, I would get free access to the co-working space (plus the WiFi) as long as I worked with him.
Did you accept?
I did. It would give me the opportunity to work on my craft and potentially meet new people. This arrangement lasted two years, and during that time, the founder referred me to multiple clients. So, it was a win-win.
Beyond the referrals, I was getting gigs from various sources. One time, I worked with a guy who had Fiverr and Upwork accounts and would outsource gigs to me. In 2021, I got my first foreign client on Twitter, who paid me $82 for a couple of gigs. He returned a few more times.
Throughout 2021, my monthly income from design ranged between ₦30k – ₦90k. It wasn’t stable, but I earned something every month.
2022 came with an eight-month ASUU strike and new opportunities. I landed a four-month internship at a design agency and participated in branding projects and training classes. They paid me a ₦100k/month stipend.
The experience and exposure I got from the internship gave me the morale to return to the founder of the co-working space to tell him I needed to start getting paid.
Get it! What did he say?
He couldn’t create a budget for me at the workspace, so he transferred me to a fintech company that he was a part of. There, I got hired as a brand and product designer. My salary started at ₦80k/month, then jumped to ₦120k after the three-month probation. This was in 2023.
I was in 400 level at this point, juggling the fintech job, actively freelancing and taking occasional gigs from the design agency I interned at. The least amount I earned in a month was my ₦120k salary. With my other hustles, I was comfortably netting ₦200k – ₦500k in some months.
Not bad for a student. What were your spending habits like?
Besides spending on the basic necessities, I was saving to buy a MacBook. In the design community, that laptop is like a badge of honour. It took me a full year to save over ₦1m to buy it.
In 2024, I left the fintech because I was juggling bigger things — Fiverr. I had opened an account in January because a friend was opening his, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to join him. That turned out to be the best decision I’ve made for my freelance journey.
I made $120 in the first month I joined Fiverr. By March, Fiverr and a few other freelance projects brought me ₦1.5m. The subsequent months were at least ₦700k. I also got another full-time role at a creative agency at some point in the year. They paid me ₦200k/month.
So, I was earning from two full-time jobs and a profitable freelance hustle. To put it simply, I was balling.
Love to see it
The extra income made it easy for me to start thinking about investments. I began thinking of a future where I could afford not to work, and I knew investments could get me there. So, I started sending any spare cash to a real estate plan on an investment app.
After leaving the fintech in November 2024, I took another part-time job with a returning UK-based client. He paid me $1000/month to work 40 hours a week. So, again, I was working two jobs and managing my freelancing business.
Wasn’t that a lot to juggle? Also, you haven’t mentioned school in a while.
See, greed is a very fascinating thing. I tried not to take on heavy freelance gigs, but I was still practically doing three different things at once. Who says no to money?
As for school, I dropped out in my final year. I wasn’t doing very well, and the course wasn’t what I wanted to do. I even got an extra year. I just couldn’t engage with school anymore, so I finally quit in 2025.
I’m curious, how did your mum react to that?
I kept it from her until I couldn’t anymore. My answers to her “What’s happening at school?” got sloppier, and I had to come clean. My mum doesn’t cry. I can count the number of times I’ve seen her cry. But the day I told her I dropped out, she completely broke down.
The thing is, my mum is an academic. She believes you need to go to school to get a good job and have a good life. She couldn’t believe I’d make such a decision after all her sacrifices. The issue shook our relationship, and it’s still shaky to this day. She doesn’t talk to me much anymore. I try to call her, but our conversations are always awkward.
Do you think it was worth it to drop out so close to the finish line, though?
I don’t think staying around would’ve changed anything. I never cared for classes, and even as a final-year student, I still couldn’t answer basic questions about my course.
Besides, people around me were graduating and doing totally different things. You’d see someone who graduated with a nursing degree working as a product manager. Life isn’t black and white. If I can’t give my time to school, I might as well give it to design and build a stronger career.
It also helped that I was doing really well financially. I left the creative agency in 2025 to focus on the UK job and Fiverr. My monthly income was around $2000, which is almost ₦3m in naira. I was financially responsible for myself. I moved into a new apartment, set up a small workstation, bought an inverter to solve power issues and Starlink to avoid network wahala. The whole thing cost me about ₦3m, but it was definitely worth it for my productivity.
What does your monthly income look like these days?
I’m still at the $2k mark, but this is entirely from the UK job (I got a raise in 2024). My Fiverr account was blocked in October, I suspect, due to a bad review left by a client. I haven’t been able to gain access since then.
The experience has driven me to put more effort into growing my personal brand, in case I lose another source of income. I still get occasional freelance gigs, but it’s not at the same level as I had with Fiverr.
In addition to building my personal brand, I’m very intentional about my investments. I live on 25% – 30% of my income; the rest goes into investments. A short-term goal I have, which I call my 401 (k), is to get to the point where my investments pay me at least ₦1m every month.
The investment app I use has a feature that gives users 25% of their total investment monthly if they have more than ₦5m in their accounts. I estimate I’ll need ₦40m in the account to get ₦1m monthly, and I plan to get there in 5 years.
My long-term goal is to save up to $1m or at least ₦1bn. If I invest that in different channels and earn around $15k monthly, I’ll never need to work again.
Those are big dreams. Let’s talk about the life your income affords you right now
The life I live doesn’t match my income at all. I’m very frugal. Last year, I earned ₦40m in income and ₦2m in investment dividends. Yet, I live in a tiny self-contained apartment. I’m a big believer in staying as small as possible for as long as possible.
I spend 30% of my income now, and that’s only because of the new tax laws. I don’t want the government taxing me too much, so I registered an LLC early this year and now “pay” myself a ₦600k monthly salary. The rest of the money stays in investments. Even from that ₦600k, my usual monthly expense is just about ₦350k. The rest still goes to investments and other minor expenses. I live way below my means. I have a budget for everything.
Walk me through what your monthly budget looks like
How about your investment portfolio?
I have ₦1.2m in my emergency fund. I started investing in stocks in 2025, and currently have ₦8.6m there. Then another ₦20.4m in my real estate investment account — that’s the one I’m trying to raise to ₦40m.
I also have another ₦360k in a separate account specifically for taxes. I calculate tax for whatever I earn and send it there, so I’m not surprised when the government starts asking for it. In total, my net worth is around ₦35m, which is still very far from ₦1bn.
How would you describe your relationship with money?
I’m very diligent with money. I’m diligent about how I make it, and for the past year, I’ve been diligent about paying myself first by investing in my future goals. One thing I’m still trying to learn is staying with my budget.
Sometimes, my actual monthly expenses reach ₦450k. Clearly, I still have some work to do with watching out for the small things that balloon into big expenses. Buying more protein shakes at the gym or spending a bit more on transport once or twice don’t sound like much, but those things that add up.
Is there an ideal amount of money you think you should be earning?
For my perfect life, my dream income is $15k/month. However, I’m really happy with where I am. It’s a lot more than most people get. So I’m not complaining. I want more, as most people do, but I am also content. I’m not overspending, and I’m going slowly. Slow is good. Slow is fine.
Is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?
Maybe a relationship. I can afford it, to be honest, but I know love can be financial. I’m too frugal to spend on dates or anything like that right now.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
9. I earn enough to create artificial scarcity. I earn almost ₦3m monthly but choose to live on just ₦600k. That’s an interesting place to be.
Curious, do you sometimes wish you’d completed school?
I have no regrets. Of course, there’s the issue of the certificate, but I’m open to the idea of having my own business one day, and I can always go to business school.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Find all the past Naira Life stories here.
