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

What’s your oldest memory of money?

I didn’t grow up with privilege. My parents and I lived in a face-me-I-face-you one bedroom apartment, and we shared a toilet with a couple of other tenants. I knew we didn’t have money because my parents struggled to pay rent. Eventually, we got a quit notice. Like that, we were homeless. My mum went to one of her friends, my father lived with his brother, and I moved in with one of my uncles. We were separated for about two years. 

What were those two years like?

God, I hated it so much. Even though we had no money, my mother spoiled me because I’m her only child. I didn’t cook or wash my clothes. I had to do all of that and other chores at my uncle’s. The most stressful part was that there were like six other kids in the house and we ate from the same plate. I wasn’t used to that and it didn’t help that I was a slow eater. I went to bed hungry a lot of the time. 

That doesn’t sound like fun. How did your living situation change two years later?

My mother did the work oh. In those two years, she learned a new trade, went out on her own and started making money. My dad was there too, but he was comfortable with his civil servant salary even though it wasn’t a lot. He liked the stability. My mum was the one who was always looking for the next opportunity. I imagine they raised the money together, but my mother was the major contributor. We moved into a two-bedroom apartment this time.

Were there other expenses your mum took care of?

Many. She was the breadwinner in so many ways. I remember that we were going through cash problems when I got into secondary school and couldn’t afford my ₦25k school fees. My mother managed to  find the money. Things like that.

Also, she was always worried that I would have to carry the weight of my family in the future, so she wanted me to have the same hustling spirit she had.

What did that mean?

She made me work as soon as she thought I was ready. I was 12 or 13 and in SS 1 when she hooked me up with one of her caterer friends. I started working with her friend twice a month during holidays and served guests at parties. My pay was ₦800 per day. ₦1500 on days she felt generous. 

How long did you do this for?

About a year, but it was also on and off. By the time I was finally done, I’d raised enough money — about ₦6k. I used it to buy a phone. 

Well done. Did you do another job pre-university?

Yeah. I was admitted into university in 2008, but there was a three-month wait before resumption. I got another job as a sales girl at a call centre. My salary was about ₦5k per month, and I was there for three months.

In uni, my allowance was ₦5k or ₦6k. I had a boyfriend who used to supplement what I got from my parents and buy me food every now and then. We were together for two years until he broke my heart. 

Wiun. 

University was all right for the most part. At least until my father got sick when I was in my third year. 

He had a stroke. He and my mother had just returned from an outing when I noticed that his mouth looked weird and brought his attention to it. He took some meds that night. The following day, they went to the hospital and the doctors told him he had a stroke. They gave him some medicine and said he was free to go. When they came back home, he couldn’t get out of the car. He had lost the use of his legs. 

Damn. 

They returned to the hospital, and he was there for more than six months. He was ill for anoher three years.

That must have been tough. I’m sorry. 

My mother had to slow down with her business to stay by his side and take care of him at the hospital. I still got an allowance every month, but it wasn’t always ₦5k anymore. I wasn’t even comfortable asking for money because I knew my mother had enough problems. So I went out to find a job.

What job did you get?

An ushering job. I held it for a while and got between ₦10k and ₦20k from each job I went for. I took some of the money I earned out and started selling shirts in school. I’d buy for ₦800 and sell for ₦2500 or ₦3k. 

So money was coming in?

Sort of. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t consistent. I was occasionally broke. One time, I went to the bank to withdraw my last ₦4k. On the bus ride home, they removed the money from my pocket. I wanted to run mad.

I’m not even going to try to unpack that. 

Lmao. I finished university in 2013, and my mother told me that she had tried her best to send me to uni and I was now on my own. 

What does a reality check like that do to someone?

You find a job ASAP. I started working almost immediately after I finished university. At first as an intern at an agency and on a ₦20k salary.

I went for NYSC that year. And nothing spectacular happened until I was done in 2014. 

And it was back to job hunting?

It was such a struggle. I was squatting with a friend, so I had accommodation. But you know when you’re living with someone but can’t contribute ₦1, you always wonder when they will kick you out. I continued looking for a job frantically. It took five months before I found one.

Whew.

It was at the same agency I interned at before my NYSC. I went back and started working in the finance department. My salary was bumped up to ₦74k.

Nice. You were earning money now. Did that change anything?

A month after I got the job, things went sour between me and the friend I was squatting with, so I had to move out. My parents live on the outskirts of the city, but I moved back in with them. For next five months, I would get out of the house at 5:30 a.m., hitch a ride with someone, take a bus after that and then walk the rest of the way to the office. The entire experience was draining. 

I was saving ₦40k out of my salary every month to raise money for rent. I eventually got a dead apartment  for ₦150k. God, two people couldn’t fit in the kitchen or the bathroom. Don’t even get me started on the rats. Two years later, I left the house. 

What happened?

My landlord asked me to pay rent in advance. I wasn’t going to do that. But I also didn’t have enough money to move out. 

How did you navigate that?

I thought my father would help. He’d just collected his pension, which was a decent amount of money. I asked him for a loan, but he refused. He blew the money away. He claimed he bought a car and a plot of land. Till today, we haven’t seen anything.

When I didn’t get the money from him, I applied for a loan at a loan company and the interest rate was insane — about 21%. I was desperate, so I took ₦250k from them. The good news, I was able to finally move out of my shitty apartment. The new apartment cost ₦230k. The bad news, I had to pay them a portion of my salary every month.

Were you still at the same job?

I was there for about three years and didn’t get a raise once. But that was about to change too. I met this HR person on a random day. We spoke for a while and I casually told him I was looking for a job. He asked for my CV. A few months later, he reached out to me about an opening at an FMCG company. I applied, interviewed and got a job in their sales department. This was 2017. 

My salary went from ₦74k to ₦200k. They also gave me a car. It felt so surreal. I had walked the streets of Lagos in my dusty shoes, but now I was getting a brand new car. 

I get that.

I cleared the outstanding loan first which was about half of the initial ₦250k I took plus interest. Then I started saving more aggressively. For the first time, I could see where my life and career was going. I’ve been at the same job since that time. 

Cool. What has happened between then and now?

I’m my mother’s daughter. I’ve done a couple of businesses on the side — I’ve sold make-up products, perfumes, clothes and other stuff at different points to supplement my salary. 

I was promoted at work in 2019 and moved from ₦200k to ₦420k. I was managing a lot of sales reps when I joined the company, but after the promotion, I started dealing with clients directly. However, all of this came with a transfer. 

Yay? 

Not really. They only gave me a few weeks notice, so it was scary. Fortunately, they gave me ₦600k to get a new house and ₦100k for my flight ticket. But it took a while to settle in at the new office. My job is pretty male-dominated, and I try not to ask for privileges because the men already think I’m supposed to be bad at my job. I got the hang of it quickly and still hit all my targets. I mean, I’ve not missed a target since 2018. 

This flex. Let’s talk about those targets.

Each salesperson has their own yearly target, and It depends on the type of customers they’re  managing. For me, it’s usually between ₦200m and ₦500m. Meeting your targets means getting a performance bonus.

What has been your best performing year so far?

2020, weirdly. Most of my clients are supermarket chains, and consumers moved to those kinds of outlets to buy their products instead of going to the markets. I was able to grow our numbers despite the virus. I got a bonus at the end of each quarter in 2020, and it was between ₦400k and ₦600k. But money came from other sources too. 

I’m listening. 

I’m a babe, so there were a couple of men who liked to give me money or take care of some of my bills. I was bent on moving to Canada in 2019 and someone paid my visa fees. Another person gave me money to add to my proof of funds. I also started seeing someone casually and he was giving me ₦100k to ₦200k every month, so I wasn’t spending my salary.  When men like you and they think you have money, they like to give you more money to impress you. The best thing about it was that I could save more aggressively than before. 

I stan. 

Lmao. At the end of 2020, I had ₦5.5m in savings. 

Interesting. 

2021 has been pretty slow so far, but I’m still saving more than ever. I think I have saved about ₦7m. However, I hardly ever have money in my main bank account. I sort of have my money everywhere.

Can we try to trace where your money is and break down the numbers?

Dollar investment on Risevest: ₦4m

Cryptocurrency: ₦1.8m

Emergency funds: ₦600k

Rent savings: ₦470k

PiggyVest: ₦50k

I invested ₦270k in a friend’s business and I’m expecting my capital and ROI in a couple of months. I also have ₦400k in a special fund I opened for my dad’s funeral. 

Wait, what?

I know it sounds very dark, but it is what it is. I like my father, even though he’s done some bad shit to me and my mother. But he’s elderly and will die eventually, and I want to be ready for the expenses that will follow. I started thinking about this last year because of Covid. 

I wonder what your relationship with him is like.

Like I said earlier, my mother was pretty much the breadwinner. He became intimidated, and it morphed into violence. There was a time he beat her and didn’t stop until she fainted. Fast forward to the time I needed the loan from him, he didn’t come through. He was spending money for outsiders, yet I was suffering. I don’t think he has ever treated me or my mother fairly.

I-

He’s my business, and I take care of him now, but I wish we didn’t have to struggle so much when I was younger. If he carried everything on his head like my mother did, some of these things wouldn’t have happened to me. I like him as a person. But as a dad? Not very much. 

This has impacted my relationships too. If I meet someone and they start giving me signs that they’re intimidated by me, I start to panic. I’m very careful with my relationships. I would hate to be in the same position my mother was. 

However, I still do my duty and send him and my mother money every month. I’m not even sure if my mother needs it. She has more money than I do.

Phew. This sounds like a good place to talk about your expenses. 

I don’t really spend the money I work for. I get gifts here and there, but my running costs per month should look like this. 

Interesting. But how much do you think you should be earning now?

At least ₦8m per annum. However, I’ll have to leave my current job to get that. Leaving the job isn’t my priority. Leaving Nigeria is. 

Is there something you currently want but can’t afford?

I don’t know. I live within my means and I’m not big on things. Wait— I’d like to buy my first designer bag this year. The bag I want costs about $1200. 

Cool. What was the last thing you paid for that improved the quality of your life?

My smart TV. It’s made me like my house more. I got a good deal for it too because it was on sale. It was only ₦70k.

What do  you think you could be better at, financially?

I think I’ve saved up decent money, and I’m cool with that. There’s nothing I want that I can’t buy for myself. All I want to do this year is to double my income, and I’ll do it. I just have to take all my side businesses seriously. 

I see. How have all of these experiences shaped your perspective about money?

I still live in panic mode all the time. It’s why I’m so big on having an emergency fund. Covid didn’t help matters. I was so scared I’d lose my job even though I was making money for them. I save most of the money I get, but I still don’t think I’m doing well for my age. 

What would make you panic less about money?

The goal this year is to add at least ₦5m to what I currently have. That should do it. 

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

7. I’ve made a lot of progress in the last two years and I’m thinking about my future and actually working towards it. But at the same time, I feel like I could do better and time is running out. If I hit my extra ₦5m target this year, I can move to 8. 

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

What’s your earliest memory of gambling?

I lived with my grandmother for a while with some of my older cousins. They were much older and played dice and rubber games and bet against themselves. The first time I saw gambling on the screen, I was watching a movie with an uncle and a casino scene came on. He explained how Russian roulette and the other games worked, and how people made money from them. I found it fascinating. It felt like a sure way to make money. Besides, the people I saw looked like they were having fun.

When was the first time you acted on this?

Towards the end of my first year in secondary school. I started taking decks of cards to school and signing my classmates up to play and place bets. Although I was investing my money into buying cards, I never staked or made money from it. I was only trying to recreate what a casino looked like. I did this from 1999 to 2002. I got bored in JSS 3 and abandoned it. That side of me didn’t resurface until a few years later when I went into sports betting. 

What happened?

In 2007, I travelled to the UK for my A-Levels. I was 17, but one of my closest friends who was two years older than me  was into gambling. There was no football  game he wouldn’t place a bet on. At first, I was only helping him research the best games and odds. When he won, he spent the money on us. I liked the distraction it created. The following year, I asked him to teach me how it worked. 

I placed my first bet in November or December 2008. I selected the games and I staked £5. I didn’t win anything in the first month. I eventually won £30 after a couple of losses. 

Hmm. 

The following week, I staked another £10 and won £120. I remember this because I was coming to Nigeria for the Christmas holidays and my winnings went into buying gifts for my family. 

Back to back wins.

Yes. I thought I had learned the trick. I spent about two weeks in Lagos before I returned to school. It was a struggle to continue gambling because school became overwhelming, and I couldn’t keep up with the whole process. Occasionally I’d find some loose change and put it in a game. If I won, I celebrated and if I lost, I kept it moving. It was money I could afford to lose. 

What happened after that?

I finished my A Levels in August 2009 and came back to Nigeria. A few months later, I returned to the UK for uni. It took 8-9 months before I gambled again. 

Why was that?

I found other distractions. Parties, girls, and my local football team. The Champions Leagues final in 2009 was my return to gambling. I was watching the match with a couple of friends when an advert from a betting company lit up the screen. It was something like “Bet £10. Predict the next goalscorer and win £1000.”

My friends and I immediately raised the money. I created a profile on the website, funded the account, and placed the bet. 

Did you win?

Nope. Right after that, another sign flashed advertising new odds. We could 10X our stake this time if we predicted the number of corners left in the game. We put £50 in and lost that one too. My friends gave up. But me? I wanted to make the money I had lost. 

I returned to gambling regularly. I was getting £600 from home every month and was placing bets up to £100. I adjusted my spendings to fund my gambling. But once I reached the £100 threshold, I was done for that month. I was partly playing for the thrill of it and in the hopes that I might recover all the money I’d lost over time. There were the occasional wins too. This continued until 2012 when I finished my degree. 

I guess that was when I got addicted. 

Why do you think so?

While waiting for my masters, I got really bad news from home. My mum had fallen sick and my family kept it a secret from me. It was a tradition for her to visit me at the beginning of every school year. When I picked her up from the airport, I knew something was wrong. She broke the news to me on the car ride to my apartment, and it hit me so hard. 

Do you want to talk about it?

It was cancer, man. 

I’m so sorry.

Thanks. My parents decided that she would be treated in the UK. My sister was also preparing to move to the UK for school. My dad insisted that I remain in school while my mum got an apartment in the UK. I was splitting my time between her apartment and my campus. It was a tough year, and I needed a distraction.

You went back to placing bets.

Yes. And it worked for a bit. When a match was on, I didn’t think about anything else but my stakes. I had started betting on other sports too, so it was a 24-hour process. Football in the afternoons, basketball, hockey and baseball at night. 

My monthly income at the time was £750: £600 from my dad and £150 from my job. After spending money on groceries and travel tickets, which was about £250, the remaining £500 was for gambling… 

Ah.

Luckily, my mum got better the following year but my dad had spent about £30k on her treatment. I don’t know how my dad did it but I respect him for how he worked his ass off and carried the family on his back. 

I get what you mean. But now, you had no reason to gamble anymore?

No, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t go a day without it. I finished my Masters in 2014 and returned to Nigeria. After a couple of weeks, I realised that I wasn’t ready for Nigeria yet. I moved to the US in January 2014 because a work opportunity opened up. As soon as I settled in, I researched betting companies and found out that online betting was restricted in the city I was in.  For about two months, I stayed off. In March, I found a VPN to bypass the location restriction and went back to it. 

Nothing changed?

The only thing that changed was that I was earning about $3500 every month. My major expenses were rent and groceries, and these ran into $2000 in a month. I was saving $1000 every month too. I returned to staking small sums of money — $5 here, $10 there, but they stacked up to $200 in a month. 

I spent a little over a year in the US before I finally returned to Nigeria in October 2015. I thought I was coming back to a job. The uncles who promised me jobs in Chevron or Shell didn’t come through.

I’ve seen this movie before. 

Hehe. I had about $10k in savings, so that was good. I started my NYSC that year but I was alternating between Nigeria and the US because of my girlfriend. When I finished NYSC, I took another break from gambling and travelled across Europe and America. However, I was spending a lot of money on plane tickets. 

During one of those visits to the US, I met an uncle — we weren’t related but I called him uncle. He had a clearing and forwarding business and needed someone on the ground in Nigeria to help clear his goods at the port. I thought I could do it, so I agreed to it. The plan was I would pay the agents at the port and once the goods were cleared, I would get my money with an additional cut. The arrangement worked fine the first three times. But everything went sideways the fourth time. 

How?

He needed about ₦40m to clear his containers. I promised to find at least half of the money. I told a few friends what I was up to and vouched for the guy. I raised ₦20m, added ₦3m from my savings and gave it to him. Uncle disappeared after that. 

Ah!

The goods landed in Nigeria a couple of weeks later, and I went to the port to clear them. But there was no arrangement to move them out of the port. That meant I had to pay more money every day for storage. 

That wasn’t my biggest problem — the people I promised their money back started disturbing me. So I needed cash, and fast. In the middle of this,  I would open the newspaper and see an advert from a betting company: someone posing with a cheque of ₦20m, which they won from placing a bet with ₦200. I was like, maybe I should start gambling again since I was technically in debt and needed to raise money. 

Omo.

I reached out to an uncle, and he sent me about ₦700k. All the time, I was thinking about the multiplier effect of sports betting. If someone could win ₦10m with ₦100, then it should be easier for me to turn ₦700k to ₦70m. I just needed to have one good week and I’d make enough money to clear all the debt at once. 

How did that go?

Terribly. I placed a bet with ₦200k at first, hoping it would return ₦4m. It didn’t. Then I went all in and staked the remaining ₦500k on basketball games. I lost all of it in a night. I was back to square one again. 

This is scary. 

I was very desperate. I started borrowing more money from other people and giving them conditions that were impossible to meet. I raised another ₦3m in the following week, cleared ₦1m from the debt and gambled the rest of it away. I was winning insignificant amounts too, but ultimately, I was always back to 0. It became a cycle and it lasted for months.

Omo.

We had incurred an additional ₦3m on the port bill and my debt profile had risen to ₦35m in only a few months. I  was tired of the whole thing and decided to bring my grandmother into it. She was the one I trusted to talk to my parents on my behalf. Unfortunately, she died before I could tell her about the whole situation. 

I’m sorry. 

This is how I lived during that period: if I made a new friend, I would ultimately ask them to loan me money and use it to place bets in the hopes that I’d get the money back and return it to them. I wasn’t gambling casually anymore — I actually needed it to make me money. But it just wasn’t working. 

Did you ever talk to anyone that you might be dealing with an addiction?

I actually told a couple of people but they brushed it off. I remember someone telling me “Don’t worry. Your eyes will clear.” I locked up after that and decided that it was my mess to clean.

How long did this last?

About 5 months. Within that time, I gambled away ₦15m. That’s an average of ₦3m every month.

Wild! How much was your debt profile at this point?

It had risen to ₦45m. It became harder to borrow money from people because I had used up all my goodwill. I pretty much went into the dark and avoided all my friends. Some of my close friends finally managed to contact my mum and informed her that I might be in trouble. My mum invited them into our home, and I was forced to tell them about everything.

How did your parents take it?

They were very upset. If my dad had a gun, he would have shot me. But they also wanted to put an end to it as soon as possible. My dad asked me how much I owed and I stupidly lied and told him it was ₦35m instead of ₦45m. 

A few days later, he asked for a list of people I owed money and cleared everything. Till today, he claims that he paid the ₦35m from a portion of my inheritance.

But fresh start, yeah?

Yes. I started actively job seeking and got a job in financial services in January 2018. My starting salary was ₦180k. But remember I was still owing about ₦10m. I was committed to clearing that myself. I would take ₦50k out and put the rest in my savings to raise the money. 

However, in April 2018, I ran into an old acquaintance. I visited him at his house one day and he talked about how he rented and furnished the place from his winnings from gambling. Like that, I started thinking about it again. I was like maybe I lost all that money because I was placing the bets myself. I told him I had ₦500k I wasn’t using and looking to turn it into ₦1m before the end of the month. He agreed to select the games for me. 

Wiun!

I won ₦200k on my first attempt. I should have taken it slowly but the following week, I put the whole ₦700k into it. And I lost it. The moment that happened, I knew I was done. 

That’s what finally did it for you?

Man, I had made significant progress between January and March and couldn’t just fall into the trap all over again. Besides, the tension between my parents and me was at a peak. My friends had removed me from our group chats, and it was incredibly awkward whenever we ran into one another. Also, I’d started staining my girlfriend’s white because we rolled in the same circle and the gist had reached her. She broke things up that same year. 

That’s a lot. 

Yeah. So, when I lost the ₦700k, I just knew I had to cut my losses and move on totally. 

Whew. What’s happened since then?

I kept my job and got a couple of raises. I was earning ₦250k in 2019, so it was very easy to save. By the end of the year, I completely cleared my debt. I should add that some of the people I owed pardoned some portion of the debt. 

Yay.

I had nothing in my savings though.

2020?

I returned to gambling. 

Sir?

The lockdown was the trigger this time. After the second week of lockdown, I got bored and started staking money on virtual games. Nothing more than ₦1k though. What I do now is that at the beginning of every month, I send ₦5k into a separate account. If I lose the ₦5k before the end of the month, that’s it. 

I had a stroke of luck last year and had about ₦300k in winnings between June and September. I took ₦200k out and sent it into my fixed deposit account. That’s how I approach it now. 

The plan is to keep it in control?

Yeah, I’ve realised that I might not be able to stop completely, but I can control the way I gamble. I mean, I started as a casual gambler, then it became a coping mechanism before it blew into an addiction. I think I’ve returned to doing it casually and not expecting anything from it.  I’m in a better place now. But imagine my parents weren’t there to clear the bulk of my debt?

I don’t know, man. What aspect of your life does gambling make you feel guilty about?

The stress I put on my family. My relationship with my parents and my sister has been strained since that time, and we are only just beginning to return to the old days. I can’t randomly ask my sister for money without her asking for intricate details. If an unknown number calls my mum repeatedly these days, she thinks it’s because I’ve gambled someone’s money away or I’m in some money trouble. They don’t completely trust me anymore, and it’s my fault. 

That’s deep. 

That’s why I need to move out of the house as soon as possible. This was supposed to happen last year but I had to buy a car. 

Why?

I had an accident and my last car was totalled off. I’m actually not sure how I survived. About ₦5m — most of my savings — went into buying a new car because of work.

Sorry, man. Speaking of work, how’s that going these days?

I’m still at the same job and my salary has increased to ₦380k. I don’t have any major expenses at the moment, so I’m saving as much as I can. 

What does your running costs look like every month then?

I’ve built my savings back to about ₦1m between the time I bought my car and now. 

That’s great. What do you wish you could be better at financially?

Unlocking new ways to make more money, especially in forex. That would get me to my goal faster. I’ve registered for digital marketing and coding classes. We’ll see how it goes.

What has your experience with gambling done to your perspective of money?

I hate how much importance we attach to money. I think people give money way too much respect. It was how I couldn’t cut my losses and let go before things got out of control.

Uhm. What about your happiness levels?

I’m currently at a 5. I’m not dissatisfied but I’m also not extremely happy. But I will take it. I’ve been at my lowest and I know how that feels. At some point, I couldn’t afford data without borrowing money from someone. On the other hand, some people earn considerably less than I do but have a better quality of life. They cut their coat according to their size, which is something I should have done earlier. 

I’m curious, what do you think your life would currently look like if you hadn’t been addicted to gambling?

I would still be with my ex, and we would probably have started talking about marriage. We broke up because of the whole mess I got myself into. If I had also put all the money I blew away into streams of investments, I’d probably have a strong portfolio now. 

Ah, right. Did you ever get in touch with that “uncle” again?

Oh yes, I got in contact with his sister. He ran into a wire fraud situation in the US. He’s currently in prison. I think he’s getting out next year. 

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.

A couple of things to know about the guy in this week’s story: He’s 34. Spent 13 years in university. Has done a couple of stuff but currently works in comms. He’s found a way to balance a full-time job with three side gigs. This is his #NairaLife. 

Do you remember your oldest memory of money?

My mum worked in the civil service but she always dabbled in one thing or the other. When I was 12, she did a bit of GNLD and built a community where we lived. I was involved in the business and got a few orders for her. The first and most memorable moment was when I pitched some supplements to a classmate who had a bad case of acne. She told her mum about it, and her mum signed off on the purchase. It was about ₦10k, and I made ₦2k from it. It wasn’t about the money, but the thrill of making it. 

Nice. What happened after that?

By 2002-2003, the GNLD thing had gotten saturated and there were competitors springing up everywhere, so we moved on. I finished secondary school in 2002, took a gap year and got admitted into university in 2004. I should lead with this: I spent 13 years in university. 

Wait, what?

My university was a special breed. We took at least two months break between semesters, and there were also long school closures and strikes. Also, I wasn’t passionate about the course I was studying, so I struggled with it. I eventually switched departments in my fourth year and started all over again.

That sounds intense. 

It was. By the time I switched courses in 2011, it’d become easier because I was doing a couple of things on the side and making money. I was pretty much a non-academic student. 

Haha. Let’s talk about that.

I partnered up with a friend and we started consulting for people who wanted to start their businesses. Our services mostly revolved around strategy and marketing. The only problem was that our potential clients either had a limited understanding of how branding works or didn’t have the budget. It took a while but we eventually landed a client who wanted to start a school and we did a feasibility study for her. We got ₦25k from that job. Other jobs came too, but they were far and in between so the business wasn’t the core money earner for me. 

Oh. So how were you earning?

It started in 2010 when I was in a government-funded TV show where I was paid ₦300k. I remember I bought a laptop and a Blackberry phone with the money. The following year, I deferred a semester from school as part of the process for changing departments. I opened a blog and started writing about government policies in the North since I was born and was living there. At the end of the year, a blog reached out and asked me to be a contributor. The deal was that I’d write four articles a month and get ₦10k. I was like “Great! Now I have BIS money.” This gig ran for 3-4 months. As it was ending, I got another contract with a different blog and it paid me the same amount. 

Interesting. 

Writing gave me a lot of visibility, and it helped build my clout. A lot of people weren’t writing about the kind of topics I was interested in. The clout brought better opportunities. Once in a while, I would get invitations to be a resource person on a  project or get invited to a conference and get per diem allowances — this was anything between ₦60k-₦300k. This continued until 2014.

In the months leading to the 2015 elections, I got a lot more writing contracts, especially from foreign publications, and of course, the pay was much better. I was averaging at least ₦50k per article.

Baller. 

It didn’t feel like I was making a lot of money, although it did increase my standard of living in school. I’d also become totally independent and wasn’t living on an allowance from my parents. Life was sort of soft. 

Of course. 2015? 

I worked at an NGO for my I.T for  ₦100k monthly. I had two side hustles at the time too — a writing gig that paid ₦20k monthly and a social media job that paid ₦30k monthly. Now, my income was steady and I knew how much to expect at the end of each month. 

What was that like?

This is very embarrassing for me to say. I lived with a family friend during my IT, so I wasn’t spending money on accommodation or feeding. But there was a lot of lau-lau spending on hangouts and women. I saved some money too, but what I saved was not a reflection of what I earned. 

IT ended in 2016 and I returned to school. I eventually graduated from uni in 2017 and moved out of town to a city in the North-Central. 

Man, 13 years though. What was your post-uni plan?

The initial plan was to pick up the consulting business with my partner from where we left off and focus on it, but it didn’t work out as quickly as I hoped — the jobs weren’t coming in. My parents also gave me two choices: find a job or move back home. I found a job. 

Lmao. When was this?

May 2017. It was at the Nigerian division of a non-profit focused on renewable energy. I was hired on a six-month contract to handle comms which kept getting extended, and my salary was ₦400k per month. But there was a challenge. 

What was it?

Salary never came on time, and nobody explained why this happened. We could go three months without a salary and it made it very hard to make plans. My boss in the Nigerian office also had her own NGO, and she started giving it more attention. In December 2018, she brought most of us in on her project. That meant a contract revision and a pay cut. 

How much?

₦200k

Oop.

Well, we were being paid on time. A while after I started the new job, I got a side job with another NGO, and they offered me ₦150k per month. That brought my monthly earnings to ₦350k

Lit. 

I was with my boss until the end of 2019. There were lots of departures that year, so I took on a lot more roles and my workload increased. My health suffered for it in the third quarter. I was physically and mentally exhausted. I’d wanted to quit earlier, but I was involved with a family project with my brothers and needed to keep earning.

Anyway, a media company reached out to me towards the end of the year and gave me an out. But I knew the arrangement wasn’t going to last because of their model. They were very particular about recruiting people who had large social media followings, even if they couldn’t write. We agreed to a ₦30k per article deal. It lasted for about three months, but I made at least ₦380k every month from them alone. 

…

It ended in January 2020, and I had also quit my job. I took the whole month off from work. Money was already running out in February, so I found a job at another non-profit. My salary this time was ₦250k. Everything went sideways the following month.

Covid?

Yeah. There was no money coming in and everything came to a standstill, including our salaries. I was meh from April to June. My income dropped massively. Fortunately, I had a small gig with a media company that was paying ₦20k, and it became what I relied on to get me through each month. My brothers also stepped in from time to time to help because I was the hardest hit. 

Damn. What was navigating that period like?

It made me realise the difference between needs and wants. It also made me cut down on my spendings. I wouldn’t have thought that I could live on ₦5k per week. 

Things started opening up in July and I got hired to work on three projects back to back. An energy consulting company I’d reached out to months earlier finally got back to me and wanted to see if I was available to work on a part-time project. I signed on to it. Also, I reached out to a UK risk analysis firm and was brought on one of their projects. Not long after, the last NGO I worked with came back to engage me on something else. I worked long hours in August and September. At the end of it, I think I got about ₦800k from all of these projects. 

Wild! Can we break it down?

1. Energy consulting: ₦570k

2. The UK risk analysis firm: ₦140k

3. NGO: ₦100K

Must have been a huge relief.

It was like a swing from one extreme to the other. I started deliberately reaching out to more folks for job opportunities and attending job interviews. In January 2021, I got another full-time job at a non-profit I applied to in August last year. I’m currently leading their communications team and getting paid ₦320k per month. The good thing is that I’m still working with the energy consulting company and the UK risk analyst firm. Also, there’s another writing contract with a media company. At the moment, I have a full-time job and three side gigs. 

How much do you make from all of them?

About ₦600k. My full-time job pays ₦320k. The UK risk analysis firm and energy consulting company pay me  ₦160k and ₦100k respectively. I also work with a media company, and it brings in ₦20k per month. 

How do you balance all of this?

Time management. I decide on the numbers of hours I need to spend on each job per day and stick to it. However, I don’t work on all of them every day. Besides, there are deadlines and that helps too. 

Ah, I see. How much do you think you should be earning now?

My earnings are fair. I can live comfortably without even touching my core salary. However, I’m still trying to find my footing with my new earnings because of how life has changed.

What do you mean?

My biggest worry at first was balancing my side gigs with my full-time job, but I’ve been doing that well. I got married in January, and now, there is a kid on the way. Kids aren’t cheap, so there will be a lot more expenses. Also, I moved into a new apartment recently and well, my account took a hit.  

I’m curious about what your running costs look like each month now. 

This is more of a projection because everything is currently changing so fast. I expect these numbers to change in the coming months. 

Let’s talk a bit about your savings 

I have about 200k in my savings account now. I’m just coming out of a wedding and have just moved into a new apartment, so that’s a factor. However, this doesn’t include all the money I have outside — I always have money outside from jobs that haven’t paid. 

Do you have investments?

I talk with friends and I follow conversations about investments on social media. There’s also a lot of reading and research on my own part. I started a portfolio with Risevest last year but I couldn’t consistently fund it because of the pandemic. My investment portfolio is about 100k at the moment. The plan is to be more consistent this year. 

What do you think you need to unlock your next level of income?

Working on more side gigs. I want to get to a point where the money I make from these projects is at least twice my monthly income. That should do it. 

How have all of your experiences shaped your perspective about money?

I’ve realised that people will always pay for value, so I know that whatever money I spend will always come back.  At the same time, savings and long term investment plans are important. I’m afraid that the quality of my life will drop if my salary stops coming through — I’ve seen it happen to a lot of folks. That may be why I’m so committed to having multiple streams of income.

Fair enough. What’s something you want but can’t afford?

I’d like to furnish my new apartment to taste, but that will run into 500k-600k. I can close my eyes and do it, but it will affect a couple of things. 

Interesting. What’s something you got recently that improved the quality of your life?

My car. It was a gift from my parents. I thought I was doing fine without one, but my life has been immensely better since I got it. 

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

I’ll give it a 7. I’m not there yet but I’m in a place where I can conveniently take care of my basic needs and some of my wants. The way I see it, it can only get better from here.