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.

At the beginning of the year, the 24-year-old subject in this story was working at a job she hated and barely making ends meet, and then things changed because of a tweet she responded to. Through her highs and lows, one thing remains unchanged: her faith in God. 

What’s your oldest memory of money?

That’d be taking money out of my mum’s purse to buy choco milo. This was 2002 or 2003, and I was six or seven years old at the time.

I – 

By JSS 1, I was stealing between ₦100 and ₦300 to buy fruits and ice cream. I was caught once, but I didn’t stop. I was caught again in JSS 3, and this time, my dad flogged the budding Anini out of me. Since that time, I’ve not taken anyone’s money. 

Omo. Moving on from that. What was it like growing up?

It was good at first. My dad sold trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles, and his business was good. We got everything we wanted, and my siblings and I went to good schools. I was in JSS1 when things first changed. 

What happened?

My dad was a womaniser, and a lot of his money went into that. There was a time he bought a house for his girlfriend and built another one for her family. It wouldn’t have been a problem, but he lost a deal he was hoping to get, then, he was scammed and lost a lot of money.  

Omo. 

It took him about three years to bounce back, and when he did, what did he do next? He returned to his old ways. A few years later, he lost all of his money again. He tried to float another business but it failed. Like that, we were broke again.

Ugh. Where was your mum in all of this?

I don’t think my dad was giving her money even though he was generous to other people. My mum worked hard to keep up appearances and maintain the status people thought we had. She had a restaurant, and that was where she spent most of her time. She wanted to own two to three outlets. The stress got to her, and she died in 2015. 

I’m so sorry.

Thank you. Her death hit my dad so hard that he took a year away from working. I was in my second year at university at this time. Before all of this happened, I was getting ₦15k-₦20k as my allowance. After everything, it reduced to ₦2k per month.

What did that mean for you?

I realised that I had to fend for myself. One of my friends worked as an usher for an event planner. One day, I asked if I could follow her to an event she was working at, and she agreed. She put in a word for me with her boss and said I could assist in serving food. My pay was going to be ₦2k. But I quickly spoke up and said I could be an usher too, even though I had no experience. She agreed to give me a try. At the end of the event, she paid me ₦4500. I gave my friend ₦500 and kept ₦4k.

Was that the only time you worked for her?

Nope. She called me two weeks after for another event and paid me ₦5k. It became a weekly thing. Every weekend, I had an event to work at. So I was getting paid about ₦20k every month. 

Were you still getting an allowance from home?

Yup. The ₦2k came without fail. It was a good thing that I got the job because I was able to maintain the life I lived before things became difficult at home. I held the ushering gig for 2-3 years, I also did other things for money.

What else did you do?

Sometime in my third year, I heard that recharge cards were moving. I put ₦25k into it and started selling recharge cards. I did that for only 2-3 months, but I had made my capital back and an extra ₦30k in profit.

In my final year, I sold toast bread. It became as though I did blood money. 

I’m listening. 

This is how it started: one morning, I made toast bread and shared it with my roommates. Then they went, “Babe, you need to start selling this thing.” The next day, I bought two loaves of bread and six eggs. The cost of everything was ₦1800. The students next door bought everything, and I made ₦3500 that morning alone. In the evening, I decided to take it a step further — I bought a crate of eggs and loaves of bread. The students who had bought some earlier in the day spread the word that someone was making toast bread in the hostel. I got 55 orders and sold out that evening. Slowly, it became a thing. I increased the price to 150, and in a day I’d get up to 150 orders.

How much were you making from this?

₦8k-₦10k in profit per day.

Mad oh.

I should add that I stopped doing this every day. I couldn’t keep up with the stress, so I was open three days a week. I was going for the ushering gigs too. The steady means of income meant taking care of my tuition and other expenses and having enough left to save. I saved ₦100k every month from what I made from both sources.

What were your finances looking like when you left uni?

I left uni a rich woman but ended up broke three months later. 

What happened?

I had between ₦650k and ₦700k when I graduated from university. But I went home and found out that my dad had sold our house to offset debt and had moved somewhere else. I didn’t like the state of the house he was living in and also didn’t want my sisters to come home from boarding school to that. I gave him ₦300k to renovate the new place. 

I’m not sure how I spent the rest. I was reckless with money at the time, spending frivolously on food and hotels. I knew I was in trouble when I had run my chest down to ₦90k and I didn’t have an apartment. 

Omo.

I found a job as an attendant in a store, and the pay was ₦60k per month. Also, I found two roommates and we gathered our resources together and rented an apartment at ₦300k per year. 

What was it like going from ₦700k in savings to almost nothing?

I don’t think about money that way. True, I was reckless but I always knew I would bounce back. Once I realised my account was getting low, I was already praying to God to come through and started thinking about how to save the situation.

 I see. How long did you spend at the store?

I was there between February and June 2019. I had to go for NYSC, but I had saved up ₦70k. A week after I left camp, I found another job as a front desk officer, and they offered me ₦85k. The federal government was also going to pay me ₦19,800. For the first time in a while, it looked like things were looking up again, but…

But?

But I quit eight months into the job. The owner of the place was moving mad. Eight people left the company on the same day. 

Ah!

I didn’t think this through, but I moved out and spent most of my savings — about ₦300k — on another apartment. I thought I would get another job as soon as possible. But Covid said hello. 

How long were you unemployed?

Six months. My allawee stopped coming in June when I finished NYSC. I had no support system or safety net, but God was with me, and I kept my faith in Him. Someone gave me ₦20k on Twitter in July and a friend gifted me ₦10k in August. I don’t know what I would have done with all of this. I lived on the money while being super prayerful.

I eventually settled for a job in September 2020. It was a personal assistant job a friend referred me for, and my salary was ₦40k.

That’s almost half your previous salary.

Omo. It was better than nothing. But I realised how tiring the job was very quickly. I was just powering through each day, praying and hoping for a better job. I quit officially in January 2021 but worked till February. I wasn’t paid for either month. 

Was a job waiting for you when you quit?

There was no job, but God finally answered my prayers. It was like He was telling me, “You must have learned your lesson. Now let me say hello.”

That sounds interesting. What happened?

A few days after I finally cut ties with my previous boss, someone tweeted on Twitter: “Say what you want, you don’t know who is watching.” I quoted the tweet with “God should answer my heart desires.”

A while after, someone entered my DMs and asked what my heart desire was. I told her that it was a good job. I didn’t know this at the time, but she posted our conversation on her IG story. Later that day, she hit me up again to tell me that someone was asking for my CV. She asked me to send them a DM, and I did. 

I went for a test the following day and was invited to interview after that. Two days later, I got an offer letter. 

Ghen Ghen. 

I was hired as an operations manager. My new salary? ₦230k.

That’s a significant raise, all things considered. 

It is. And there are other great perks too. It was so unreal. It happened at the perfect time too. My rent had almost expired, and I didn’t have anything saved up. I didn’t care about a lot of things — I just didn’t want to be homeless. 

Talk about a close shave. You’re earning ₦230k every month now, what do your running costs look like?

I don’t spend a lot of money on food because the office takes care of my meals. About the miscellaneous: I send ₦10k each to my sisters. Also, I have an account I opened for my boyfriend, and I put ₦20k in it every month.

 

Aww. What do you think you could be better at financially?

I could do a lot better with how I manage my finances. There’s only so much I could do if I continue spending money —  which isn’t even a lot —  and hoping something else will come up. My faith is lit and God always comes through, but I should really be more responsible. I’m working towards that. I have to build my savings up first before considering other options.

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

A car. But it will have to wait because I’d be moving out of my apartment soon, and I also want to save enough to travel somewhere for a vacation this year. 

Interesting. Anything you bought recently that improved the quality of your life?

I’ve always been big on health and wellness, but I couldn’t afford the vitamins and other essentials I wanted to buy. Recently, I bought WellWoman and some other vitamins for ₦33k. You should have seen the smile on my face when I left the pharmacy. 

Have you thought about where you’d like to see yourself in five years?

If I’m still at this company, I hope to have made it to a managerial position. Also, I should have started and finished my MBA, and hopefully, be in a position where I can spend more on myself. And if I don’t have everything by that time, I’m happy the way I am. I just need to put my head in my job and keep my faith alive. 

I’m curious, what do you think could have happened if your dad was still making enough money and your mum was still here?

I definitely would have had it easier. I probably wouldn’t be in this country, and I would have finished my MBA. Oh God, I would have almost finished seeing the world. 

Man. I wonder what your relationship with your dad is like these days?

On some days, I’m angry at him for his mistakes. But I also love him so much I can’t stay mad at him for long. Besides, he’s trying his best to make us happy. It is what it is.

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

I’m at a 7 now. I’m not crazy about building excessive wealth. I’m okay as long as I can afford the basics, and I’m in a better position to do that now. The only thing I want right now is to travel as much as I want to. There were many opportunities to do that when I was younger, but my father didn’t make it happen. Now, I can’t afford the places I would like to visit. This number will definitely shoot up once I can.

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.

Do you remember the first time you knew what money meant?

2005 or 2006. I went to a government secondary school and lived in a boarding house. My folks gave me just enough allowance to survive — about ₦2k per term. One day, my dad drove to my school and gave me ₦500, which I was supposed to survive on for 25 days. He probably thought I still had money and wanted to top it up. I lived on ₦20 a day, basically buying biscuits and a sachet of water. At the time, I was somewhat afraid to ask my parents for anything, so I didn’t say anything or ask them for more.  

Omo. What was it like growing up, financially?

My dad runs a couple of businesses and my mum has a nonprofit she manages. For as long as I’ve existed, my parents have worked for themselves. I was born around the time they were still getting on their feet. We weren’t very comfortable, but they managed to do the basic things. Things consistently got better over the years. We moved to more decent apartments and did. more than we used to. I mean, all of my parents’ kids went to university outside of Nigeria. I did mine in the UK.

Oh. How did it happen?

After my A-Level, everyone at my school was applying to universities in the UK. I told my parents I’d like to apply too, and they went, “We don’t have UK money oh.” But they let me try my luck with the application process. When they saw how good my A-Level results were, they relented, researched school fees and started planning. I continued the application process and got an offer to study law, and that was it. The tuition was £11k and my accommodation was £3600. The exchange rate was around ₦270 at the time.

Fun times! So, how was uni?

My parents gave me £200 every month, which was enough for me to get groceries, pay my phone bill, buy a nice dress once in a while, and purchase standard train tickets to neighbouring cities. 

Lit. Do you remember the first time you worked for money?

My first internship in 2013. I’d just finished my first year of university and came back to Nigeria for the holidays. I always knew I wanted to work in Nigeria, so it was important to build a network here. I got a job at a multinational company as a legal intern, and they paid me ₦30k per month. I spent a month and a half on the job before I returned to school. That meant ₦45k in total for the time I worked there.

I graduated from uni in 2015, returned to Nigeria and went to law school. I went  through quite a number of recruitment processes immediately after completing law school, and I got a job at a law firm during my service year in 2016. They paid me ₦150k per month. The federal government paid ₦19800.

You were balling, weren’t you?

Well, all my expenses were capped at ₦50k, and the rest went into my savings. I didn’t always stay on the budget, but for the most part, I was easily saving ₦100k out of my salary. I didn’t touch my allawee at all. 

What did your monthly running costs look like in 2016? 

My idea of flexing was buying shawarma or dining out once a month.  I used to go out with my friends who were doing better than me financially and they’d foot the bill.

What happened after NYSC?

I was promoted to full staff at the law firm and my salary increased to ₦200k. My expenses didn’t change, so I added an extra ₦50k to my savings every month. By the time I left the job, I had saved about ₦2.5m. 

Why did you leave the job?

I was going back to school for my master’s. I got a full scholarship, so tuition was covered. But my savings went into every cost that was associated with going to the US — application fees, transcript processing, medicals, plane tickets, enrollment deposits, and all of that. I had about ₦500k left in my savings when I travelled. 

Oh wow. How did it go in the US?

My parents came through again and put me on an allowance of $400 per month. My running costs were about $200, and the other half went straight into my savings. My recurring expenses at the time was $120 for groceries and my $40 phone bill.

Also, I picked up a job at the school kitchen to supplement my allowance, and the pay was $13/hour. I worked 5-hour shifts, three days a week. The first time I got my paycheck, I was like, “What’s this?”

Why was that?

Taxes. I was getting paid about $160 after tax. Anyway, it was still extra cash and it mostly went to shopping. I didn’t have guilty pleasures and I wasn’t one to splurge on things, but I could go to the store, see something I liked and buy it. 

Ah, lit. When did you finish your masters?

2019. I worked in the public service for a year after. My annual salary was $37k before tax, and I got about $2300 every month. My major expense at the time was rent, and it was $600. I consistently saved at least $1k every month. I knew I was going to come back to Nigeria, so I wanted to save as much as I could in dollars before I returned. I didn’t meet my $15k savings goal, but I was very close. Then I returned to Nigeria in 2020.

How much was “close”?

I had $13k right before I started preparing to return. But my travelling costs were expensive because of the pandemic and my account took a hit. I had $11k after everything was done. I took ₦300k out of it because I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to find a job here. The rest is still in my US account. 

How long before you found a job in Nigeria. 

Omo. It took about four months. I took some time to rest before I started job hunting.  I thought it would take one or two months because it didn’t take me that long to find my entry-level job. The joke was on me. 

What were those months like?

A lot of tears and second-guessing my decision to move back. Doing the right thing can be very painful sometimes. I applied to jobs, friends referred me to jobs, and headhunters reached out to me. I did multiple interviews and made it through various stages, but it wasn’t just clicking. 

Money wasn’t coming in, what was that like?

I lived on the  ₦300k I took out of my savings. I reduced my monthly running costs to ₦30k, which was great. I ran out of money last month, but thankfully, I had gotten a job in February. 

Yay! How did you get the job?

A friend referred me, and it is a multinational company. I made it to the final stage of their recruitment process and was offered a job in their legal department. 

How much?

₦750k.

Litttt! So what does an ideal month look like these days?

I haven’t yet figured everything out but my expenses are pegged at ₦150k, and that’s even me being extravagant. I’m on track to save about ₦600k every month.

The cable subscription is for my parents because I’m living with them and want to start contributing to the house bills in my little way. Flexing for me is still buying shawarma or going out to eat in restaurants. But I don’t eat out anymore because of the pandemic. Chances are that the ₦80k will still go back into my account. 

Your spending power is relatively low compared to what you earn.

I don’t know how to explain it, but I don’t get the urge to spend money. For starters, I don’t pay rent. I hardly buy clothes and shoes. Apart from a few work clothes and shoes I bought when I was moving back, I haven’t changed my wardrobe in a few years — my size has remained the same, and when making purchases, I focus more on buying quality items that last for years. 

In an ideal situation, I could squeeze my monthly expenses to ₦100k if I wanted to, but spending ₦150k every month doesn’t sound bad, and it won’t affect my savings goal.  People have told me that I might be frugal. But I happily spend money on other people; it’s a problem to spend anything on myself because there aren’t a lot of things I like. 

Ah, I see. What was the biggest amount you’ve spent on someone?

About $300. I bought a phone for my partner at the time. 

Where do you think this “frugality” came from?

My parents never gave me the kind of money that afforded me the luxury of splurging for no reason. I couldn’t be living on £200 a month and buying Jimmy Choo shoes. Also, I truly don’t have guilty pleasures.  One of my siblings tells me all the time that when you earn more, your taste improves and you spend more. That hasn’t been very accurate for me.

Mad!

I’ll be honest and say that I’m probably pulling this off because I don’t worry about my parents’ finances, and that has taken a huge burden off my shoulders. What that does is motivate me to earn more money so I can spoil them. The best part is that I can pace myself and have enough time to plan for whatever I want to do for them. I’m also grateful that I get to live with them, and there’s mutual respect between us. I can move out if I want to but that’s an additional and unnecessary expense. Like, have you seen the price of curtains?

Lmao. How do you think all of these experiences have shaped your perspective about money?

I understand that money is a good thing to have although it’s not something to hold on tightly to. It’s also made me curious about investing and growing my money. I used to think that you need to have a certain amount of money saved up before you think of investing. Now I know that’s not true. I’m trying to get educated on the right options for my level of income. But maybe I’ll need to save a little less to pull it off. 

Speaking of savings, how much do you have in your stash?

About $12k. I’m very broke in Naira. I don’t have up to ₦50k in my bank account right now: I’ve sent the bulk of it into my savings account.

Savings is the core of your personal finances, do you have a savings goal?

I want to consistently save ₦5m every year for the next three years. Then I’ll see what next I want to do. That means I have to grow my income because I also want to have an investment goal, though I’m risk-averse and wary of putting money I can lose in anything. I’m trying to see if I can invest $2k in something every year. If I see the compounding effect of that in the next three years, I’ll be happy to increase my goal. Right now, I’m focused on growing my savings and gaining investment knowledge. Not something like, “They say agric is the hottest thing now, let me put money in it.”

DFKM. What investment options are you looking at?

At the moment, it’s stocks and real estate. I put $500 in my Risevest account. I’ll see how it does in the next six months and go from there. 

Cool. How much do you think you should be earning to cater to your savings and investment plans?

About ₦1.2m. I can conveniently save ₦1m every month if that happens.

What needs to happen for you to unlock your next level of income?

Promotion or a job change. But since I just started at this job and really like it, promotions are my best bet. In the next three years, my goal is to be earning at least double of what I’m currently earning. 

What’s something you need but can’t afford?

Would it be weird if I said a new phone? I’ve been using my phone for almost three years now, and it’s about to give up on me. I checked the prices of phones the other day and decided that I can’t afford it. I mean, I have the money, but I can’t bring myself to splash it on a phone. 

What’s something you want but can’t afford?

Something I want but I really can’t afford right now is a second passport. I want access to the world in a way that’s not limited by borders, so a passport that gives me access to 180+ countries will bang so much. It would be great to be able to afford citizenship by investment in such countries, but I’d need more than $100k for that. Omo.

Haha. What’s something you wish you could be better at financially?

Spending money on something without feeling like it’s an unnecessary expense. I almost feel like I have to justify spending money. The recurring question I ask myself is, “Do I have to?” I’m struggling to move between the different layers of comfort and finding the balance between planning my finances and living my best life. I want to sometimes splurge on myself without feeling guilty. But I understand that it’s a journey. 

I have to ask, what’s something you bought recently that improved the quality of your life?

Wait, it’s not recent but I bought an Amazon Echo Dot when I was in the US, and it’s improved the quality of my sleep. I was dealing with insomnia at the time, and it was the worst. That cost me $30. 

Nice. How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

7. I don’t worry about money and I’m not in debt. I have good health insurance courtesy of my job, so I’m not worried about a health emergency. I’m in a good place to grow my savings. However, I still want to start investing in order to make my money work for me, earn more and save more. And more importantly, get to a place where I can actually start splurging on things without feeling any guilt. 

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Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.

Let’s begin with a throwback. Do you remember your oldest memory of money?

I’d say it was the house-to-house visits during Christmas. I always looked forward to that every year, even though the money I got from them wasn’t a lot — about ₦800 at the end of the day.  It was a big thing because every kid my age was doing it. 

Apart from that, it was watching how my parents managed money. My dad was a frugal parent. He believed his core responsibility was taking care of our education, and nothing more. My mum was the one who took care of the extra things. Nothing luxurious, but just enough to get us by. 

What did luxury mean for you at the time?

Let’s start with allowances. My friends in school were living large and bringing about ₦200 to school. I had ₦20 to spend. Also, video games. I wanted SEGA and PS1 at different points, but I didn’t get them. The only fancy things I remember us doing was going to restaurants, and those were far and in between. 

This didn’t affect me in any major life-changing way — I always thought that I could do whatever I wanted when I started making my own money.

Speaking of money, do you remember the first time you made some?

My grandmother used to sell bread, and she bought it from a bakery close to the house. Sometimes, I put some of my money into it when I went to get a fresh batch. So, if I had ₦20 and invested it, I would make like ₦10 naira extra. 

I also worked intermittently at the bakery from 2002 to 2005. The highest I made from the job was ₦500, but I ate a lot of free bread. I didn’t think the pay mattered because I was young and the job was fun. 

That’s interesting. What happened after?

In 2005, I moved in with my aunt in Lagos to continue school. It wasn’t a major change because I’d always visited her. At her house, I had some of the things my parents couldn’t give me. 

Oh? What sort of things?

A better allowance for starters. Also, my aunt worked at the port, so I got some of the things she brought in from the port. I even had a Gameboy at some point. You could say I was a little spoiled. 

Lmao. What was that like?

It was definitely a step up. It was nice having some of the things I thought were out of reach. The people she worked with thought I was her son and that brought in some additional perks.

Like? 

Making extra money. I always hung around the port every day after school and people started asking me to wash their cars and would give me about ₦500 when I was done. After a few times, I became more intentional about doing this and tried to wash as many as four cars in a day. On average, I made ₦10k every week. 

Impressive. Do you remember what you did with the money?

I saved most of it with my aunt’s daughter. If I needed anything, she bought it for me. I didn’t need a lot because I got whatever I needed already, so most of the money was hers.

After secondary school, I taught at a private primary school for ₦6k per month. I quit and went to university when I got an admission offer later that year. 

When was this?

2011. Another change happened here: my aunt retired from the ports authority around the time I got into uni. I slowly realised I had to sort myself out for the most part. My allowance used to be ₦10k per month at first and I got it on time. Then it reduced to ₦5k, then it went down to ₦3k. At some point, nothing came for months. 

What did that do to you?

It spurred me to get a job. In my second year, I became a private tutor— six hours a week and I got ₦10k at the end of the month. In my final year, I did a bunch of things — typed projects for people or helped them with their research. The money I got wasn’t set in stone, but it was between ₦5k and ₦20k. 

When did you leave uni?

2016. But before that, I did this internship that changed the course of my professional life.

Tell me about it.

I studied a science course and was supposed to intern at a research institute or something that had a lab in my third year. But a friend called me and asked me if I wanted to intern as HR admin at an insurance brokerage firm. I thought to give it a try and applied for the role. There were concerns about what I was studying but I convinced them to give me an interview. The interview went well, and I got the job. They paid me ₦25k every month, but I was living at Apapa at the time and going to work at CMS. The commute took most of my money. I didn’t mind, I thought the job was giving me more value than what I studied could ever do. My internship ended after six months, and I returned to school with the knowledge that I wasn’t cut out for lab life. 

I wasn’t doing a lot of courses during the second semester of my final year, so I asked them if I could come back to intern with them. They agreed, and I combined the job with school until I graduated.

So, after uni?

I got a job at another HR consulting company, which paid me ₦40k a month. I was there for a little over a year before I left in October 2017.

Why did you leave?

My boss was a pain in the ass. The company used a monthly performance review system to determine who got paid for a month. That wasn’t a problem, but my boss would delay the review until the 26th or 27th of each month. That meant we couldn’t get our salary until the first week of a new month. It wasn’t sustainable for me. So when I got a new offer, I left. The best thing about my time there was that I’d transitioned into sales too. I have the same boss to thank for that. 

Inside life!

I got a job with a fintech company operating in the payment space. They hired me as a business development executive. My salary when I started was ₦85k. Since it was a sales job, I had targets and was expected to bring 15 agents to the business. On average, I brought in 13 agents, and each agent was doing ₦3m-₦4m in volume every month. I wasn’t doing badly. After six months, I was moved to operations and became a team lead. I left the field and started managing a team on the field. My salary was bumped up to ₦135k.

Nice. 

The environment became somewhat hostile at some point though. Someone I used to report to on the team thought I was undermining them. Also, there was a problem with some transactions I was in charge of, and I got a series of queries for it. At the end, I left. This was December 2019.

Ouch. 

Yup. I had been looking for a way out too. Shortly after I left, a friend reached out and asked if I would be interested in a Head of Sales role at a new Edutech company. I applied for it, and I got it. ₦180K per month.

A few months into the job, Covid happened. The company was building solutions for schools, and when the pandemic hit, schools stopped coming. The homeschooling product we tried to ship didn’t scale as much either because parents weren’t willing to pay. We got a 15% pay cut. Then salaries started coming late. Later, we were hearing talks about the founders shutting down the business and moving into something else. Nobody’s job was certain. 

I was working a HR gig on the side while all of this was happening, and it was paying me ₦200k, so I didn’t feel the heat as much as I would have. 

When did you finally leave the Edutech company?

July 2020. I was home for a month before I got a new job as an e-commerce manager at a renewable energy company. They offered me ₦200k, but what did it for me was that they promised me up to ₦500k in commissions after my first six months on the job. 

Did it happen?

I didn’t spend up to six months. The system was flawed. First, the salary came on the last day of the month, which I wasn’t comfortable with. But that wasn’t the deal-breaker — they weren’t completely honest with where their products came from, and I was at the forefront of managing their displeased customers because I was the salesperson. To be fair, I always knew I wouldn’t stay there for long before I ran — there weren’t many chances of growth..

 When did this happen?

January 2021. I had a defining moment when I was planning my exit. A friend I used to work with moved to Europe and started a YouTube channel. In her videos, she talked about the process of relocating and applying for remote jobs. That spurred me, and I was like, “Okay, I need to go all out about this remote job thing.” At the end of January, I had three remote sales jobs. 

Wait. How do you go from being out of a job to landing three remote jobs?

Information. My friend talked about Linkedin and one other site, which I didn’t find very useful. I started with Linkedin and followed the steps she talked about. It was as simple as typing “worldwide sales manager jobs” in search, and I got a list of options. I got my first remote job within a week of applying, but it didn’t work out. 

Someone I follow on Twitter tweeted about another platform — angel.co. I signed up to the website and started seeing roles that were specific to my needs. I applied to a bunch of jobs, got matched with prospective employers, and interviewed with them. These three jobs came from that.

Omo. Tell me about the jobs.

Two of them are contract jobs, and they offered me 10% and 15% of my monthly turnover. The third one is a full-time job and I’m a country partner managing their markets in Africa and Europe. My gross salary is $8k per month.

FROM ₦200K.

Yup, it’s a massive difference. I started full operations in February, but I got $7k at the end of the month. Something about taxes. They are working on that since I’m not a tax resident in the country they work out of. But yeah, I’m currently earning about ₦2.6m from that job. 

Mad. And the other two?

I’ve not made anything from those ones. As I said, they are contract jobs and I’m only getting a percentage of whatever we sell. One of them is actually on hold right now because the company we were contracted to work for had some technical issues. 

Omo. This is the part where we break down your monthly running costs. 

I’m still living on my old salary. However, there are so many other bills to pay.

I’m listening.

Most of it revolves around family. There are projects that I’m expected to chest. And there are the additional emergencies that come out of the blue. My sister needed money for something recently, and I had to cough up ₦400k. I’ve never been able to save because of these things. When I was still earning my old salary, I used to save half of it at the bank and before the end of the month, I would have touched it. As a matter of fact, I only had ₦60k in my account a week before I got paid. 

The first thing I did when I received my first paycheck at this new job was to clear all my debts, which was about ₦300k. Also, I spent ₦600k to take care of my traditional wedding expenses. 

At least I’m debt-free now. One job took care of all that.

That’s lit. Going forward, how do you imagine your personal finances will look?

I have $3k left in my savings now. The plan now is putting 50% of my monthly earnings into that account and letting the money breathe. The other 50% will go into my monthly running costs and other projects. This means I can’t be chesting every little bill for my family anymore. I’m also starting my own family, and I have to think about that too. 

Looking at your career now, how much do you think you should be earning?

$15k. I’ve realised that I can’t take a job that pays in naira anymore. I expect to hit that figure soon because  I’m currently in talks with other companies. The plan is to get about two full-time roles and some contract gigs on the side. 

That sounds like a plan. What do you think has made all the difference between the time you left your job and now?

The quality of work I do. I’m all about the value I provide. Most of the jobs I got were through referrals. Also — and this is very important — the quality of information I had access to. I probably wouldn’t have thought of finding remote jobs that pay forex if I didn’t hear about them or the process involved from someone I knew and trusted. 

That makes sense. What’s something you bought recently that changed the quality of your life?

I spent ₦350k on a laptop and upgraded my iphone. Working has been a much smoother experience. 

Haha. Anything you want but can’t afford right now?

A car. My budget is ₦3.5m but I should raise that within three months.

Do you have any financial regret?

Maybe not saving as much as I should have tried to all these years. But I have an opportunity to remedy that now, and I will. 

Rooting for you. On a scale of 1-10, how will you rate your financial happiness?

At the beginning of the year, I was at a 2. I had more expenses than my salary could cater to, and it wasn’t healthy. But with everything that’s happened since that time and my new earnings, I can say I’m at a 9 ½ at the moment, and it’s the best feeling ever. Now we move to $15k per month. 

Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.

The lady in this story is quite young, but frankly, that’s not the most interesting thing about her. It’s how she started photography as a hobby and followed through till today.

Five hard years, long YouTube hours, a couple of projects later, here’s what her #NairaLife looks like.

Let’s start from the beginning. What’s your oldest memory of money?

When I was in Primary 2, my dad started giving my siblings and me pocket money for school. He thought we were too young to handle money, but we begged. We didn’t need the money; we just thought it would be cool if we could join the queue to buy stuff from the vendors at school during the break period. He started with ₦5 and increased it over the years. 

Haha. Do you remember the first thing you did for money?

In JSS 1, I started making this flavoured drink solution — Eve — and sold it to kids in my compound. I bought a sachet for ₦15 and sold a cup of the drink for ₦10. I made up to ₦200 from that.

It was going well until my mum woke up one day and went “If you continue with this, you won’t be serious with your books.” She collected what I’d made to keep for me. Well, we know how that goes.

Lmao. Speaking about your parents, what did they do?

My dad had a printing business, but he left Nigeria for the UK when I was five years old. This was 2004, and we didn’t see him for about five years after that. One day, my younger sister told him on the phone that she wouldn’t recognise him if she saw him. This triggered him, and he took the next flight home. He’s into a bunch of things in the UK but he comes home at least once every six months now. 

My mum sells clothes and other materials. At first, none of them wanted us to be involved in the business because they didn’t want us to mix with the crowd of people where her shop was. We moved into our home when I was in SS 1and my mum found a new shop close to the house, so we started helping out.  It was fun at first, but before I finished secondary school, I wasn’t so keen on helping her at the shop anymore. My younger sister was more interested in the whole thing and I didn’t hear the end of it. 

What was the next thing you did for money?

I don’t know if this counts, but I got a job as a teacher right after I finished secondary school. I didn’t last up to two days there.

Haha. Why?

Those children were stressful. They wanted to pay me ₦5k and they wanted me to be teaching all subjects. I wasn’t down for that.  After my second day, I told them I was done. 

What happened after that?

I went to university. My allowance was ₦10k at first, then it increased to ₦15k. In my first and second year, the only thing I cared about was my studies so I could graduate with a 2.1. It’s funny now because I was hardly in school in my third and final year.

What changed?

I found something more interesting. Photography.

Let’s back it up, how did you get into this?

In 2016, I met someone on Twitter and during one of our conversations, he asked if I had anything I was interested in. I told him I’d like to capture moments but I didn’t have a camera. He advised me to start with my phone. 

I started taking photos with my phone and putting it out on social media. Slowly, my follower base grew. Later that year, the same friend asked me if I would be interested in working for a smartphone company. I would take pictures with their phones and share on social media. It was a micro-influencing kind of gig. Of course, I was interested. A month later, the company set up a meeting with me at their office. I was hired and offered ₦50k every month.

Lit. 

I decided to give professional photography a chance and see if it would work out. I saved for six months and bought my first professional camera — a used Canon 650d for  ₦150k. I had a community of photographer friends, and I put the word out that I was looking for gigs. I got my first job in less than 24 hours after I bought the camera. 

What was it about?

I assisted a photographer at an event and he paid me ₦25k. Immediately I got the money, I spent ₦16k on an external flash.

Two weeks later, I got another job, which paid me ₦50k. Then other jobs started coming. The first photographer I worked with was a major plug. He always called me back for jobs until we shot at a wedding and lost all the pictures. 

Omo.

I still have no idea how that happened. It was a stressful experience. The client threatened to lock us up and all that. I would wake up in the middle of the night and start crying. I think the guy even travelled out of the city for a few months until it blew over. 

We move.

After that, I focused on portrait photography. Though event photography paid more, I was still in school, and it was a struggle going out every weekend to do a job. 

With portrait photography, people were booking me to handle their birthday shoots and stuff like that. I charged an average of ₦6k-₦7k per look, but it was a lot of work for little money. If they didn’t complain about the price, they would have something to say about the pictures. I realised that I couldn’t make a lot from that. Shooting videos looked more promising, so I thought it would be cool to learn and combine both. 

How did you learn how to shoot videos?

I watched a lot of YouTube videos. Also, I was in my third year at this time and there was this long strike. I got a job as a behind-the-scenes photographer on a cooking show. Then their video guy travelled out of the country, and they asked if I would like to try shooting their videos. I took up the offer. That started my transition into videos.

How much were you being paid for that?

Nothing. But they gave me a chance to learn on the job and paid for the logistics. It didn’t matter if I was being paid because I was also doing photography on the side and making an average of ₦80k every month. 

Ah, I see. 

It didn’t take long before people noticed my work on the cooking show. I started getting small video gigs. I think the first one I worked on came from someone in the cooking show crew. They hired me to work on another project they were on and paid me ₦70k.

The other video projects I worked on doing the time paid between ₦50k and ₦100k. But I wasn’t good at editing and was outsourcing it. The ginger to take video editing seriously came in 2018. I had shot an Independence Day video for the cooking show, but they couldn’t send the cuts to the regular editor. They asked me if I could just do it, and I downloaded Windows Movie Maker on my laptop. YouTube got me through it. Omo, I spent four hours editing a one minute video. In the end, they liked what I did. 

Mad.

The rest of 2018 was pretty much about sharpening my editing skills.I bought a new camera and upgraded my laptop in 2019. I also invested in a couple of other gear. In that year alone, I spent about ₦1m on gadgets. Once I got paid for a job, I made sure to buy something I needed for work. I’m not sure a lot happened in 2019 except that I graduated from university and went all-in on personal projects.

I’m listening.

I did a short film at first and spent about ₦500k on it, but it didn’t bang the way I thought it would. The next project I worked on was a documentary, which I co-produced with someone. That one did considerably better. It was selected for short film festivals, and we had private screenings. Suddenly, people were reaching out to me for interviews.

Did you make any money from these projects?

No. But they were worthy additions to my portfolio. Also, I made sure to share everything I worked on and tried to be visible online. 

How did this affect your earnings in 2019?

I was making an average of ₦150k on a project, though I was investing a lot of it back into my craft. At the end of the year, I had saved about ₦300k. 

Impressive. 

2020 was weird in the beginning. I went for a vacation in March and the country went into lockdown the week I returned. 

That meant you couldn’t work.

I couldn’t oh. A lot of brands weren’t even interested in video projects anymore. They pivoted into motion graphics. I was stuck at my parents house, broke and tired. I did something for an American brand during the lockdown in April  $500. That  was the only thing I worked on for about three months. I didn’t even get paid until July.

How much did you have in savings before the lockdown?

About ₦1.2m. However, I wanted to get an apartment and had sent ₦1m to a friend. 

So I had ₦200k in my account. When the lockdown was lifted, I had only ₦70k left. Most of the money went into paying for food and the internet. 

Luckily, I was hired to shoot and edit a TV commercial for a brand immediately after the lockdown and they paid me ₦400k. That kicked things off. I got a mini-flat for ₦750k in July 2020 and moved out of my parent’s house. I’ve spent an extra ₦600k on purchases and renovations since that time. Tears!

Lmao. What happened in the second half of 2020?

It was the best. The jobs kept coming in. A big brand here, a small business there. The interesting thing was that I didn’t have to spend money on logistics on some of the jobs I was getting — the companies that hired me took care of those, which was great for me because these logistics expenses always took a chunk from my earnings. I got one that paid me ₦750k and another one that paid ₦1.9m. 

You were charging more to work on projects. How did this happen?

The quality of my work had gotten better, and I had gotten better at self-promotion. I was sharing every project I worked on social media. That made the difference.

 I didn’t have to look for new projects to work on. Most of these new clients were referrals or people who had been following me for some time. I was getting emails like, “I think you might be interested in this project. Are you free to work on it?” I guess that gave me the leverage to negotiate what I wanted. 

Of course, I was still investing in gadgets. I bought a drone for ₦600k in September. It was my biggest work purchase last year. 

Nice! What did your finances look like at the end of the year?

I had about ₦3.5m in savings. I took ₦2.6m out and bought a car.

How did that feel?

I felt proud of myself. I’d been planning to get one since the beginning of the year because I was spending about  ₦100k on Uber every month. I even had an Uber guy who drove me around whenever I had to go out, and I paid him ₦15k every day I needed him. 

My parents were just beginning to accept that I wasn’t living in their house anymore when I bought the car. When I moved out, they were like, “Go and see the world and come back home.” They definitely didn’t expect that a car was the next thing for me. They were proud, but they were surprised too. 

I get that. I think you’ve come a long way between 2016 and now. What’s 2021 looking like for you?

I was working on a photography project for an American company at the beginning of the year. It was supposed to pay me $10k, but they suspended the project halfway. I only got $4500. I started working on other projects at the end of January. There was this four-day project I worked on that paid me ₦850k. I’m currently working for a production company, and I’ll be paid ₦1.1m for it. 

I still get the ₦200k and ₦300k jobs, but they are far and in between. And when they come, I probably just pass them off to my assistants.

I’m coming to accept that I deserve the money I charge. I know the work and I’m an all-rounder — I’m good with cameras and drones. I’m good at editing. Clients like to work with people who can do everything effectively. I’m that person. 

Energy! Can we break down your monthly running costs?

I started paying myself ₦120k as a salary at the beginning of the year to control my spendings. 

I don’t pay black tax, but my parents could call me and ask me to buy something in the house or loan them money they won’t return. I spent about ₦400k in money gifts for my family in December last year. At the beginning of the year, I decided to see someone through school. I give her about ₦25k every month. 

What about savings?

I currently have $4500 in my domiciliary account and ₦1.5m in my savings account. The total should be about ₦3m-₦4m.

Are investments your thing?

Lmao. I invested ₦250k in cryptocurrency recently. The thing dipped the day I put the money in it, and it was like that for a week. The money is still there, and I won’t touch it. However, I like to open my bank account and smile at what I see. 

What aspect of your finances do you think you could be better at?

I could be more prudent at spending money. I’m a fan of “problem no dey finish”, but it would be great to stick to a budget. I could literally spend my last kobo on food or wine. 

What’s the largest amount you’ve spent on food at a time?

I took someone I liked on a date once and the bill was ₦40k. I’ve done that three or four times now. 

What do you think the next five years will look like?

I don’t want to be in Nigeria. I’d like to work with a company like Netflix and handle their post-production or working with a global production company. Also, I’d like to build my own production company. I registered it in 2019 but recently started putting some structure around it. So I have to work on classic projects and invest more in myself and other people. I love investing in people. I think it makes everyone’s lives easier in the long run. 

Love it. Back to the present, what’s something you want right now but can’t afford?

In the short term, a vacation. I spent ₦650k on my last vacation. I’m thinking of going to Europe this year, and my budget is ₦700k. I don’t have that kind of money at the moment, but I hope to raise it soon. I also want to go to film school — New York or Vancouver. The tuition alone is about $25k, so I imagine I need about ₦10m – ₦15m  to make it happen. 

What’s the last thing you spent money on that significantly improved the quality of your life?

My car. I also bought a new camera in January for ₦1m. Normally, I used to rent the camera for ₦25k per day when I needed it for projects. Now, I don’t have to. 

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

It’s between 6.5 and 7. I have a lot of anxiety about when I’ll get my next job or if it will even come, which is funny because I have gone from charging ₦200k per project to at least ₦700k-₦800k in a few months. I’ll feel better when I work with all the brands I want to work with or execute foreign projects in Nigeria and get paid in dollars. Nobody deserves to be broke in this country. 

How has your skillset evolved over the years?

2016 — Started as a mobile phone photographer. Got my first gig with a smartphone company.

2017 — Transitioned into professional photography.

2018 — Started learning cinematography and editing. 

2021 — I’m thinking of learning animation and design. I’m getting bored.

Got it. Last question. How old are you again?

22.

Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.

The subject of this story first got published in 2004. A lot has happened since that time, and most of it is about employers and publishers not holding up to their end of the deal. Now he’s taking a crack at building his own publishing company. But how did he get here? 

What’s your oldest memory of money?

That would be the allowance I got from my parents growing up. But the awareness really came when I got into university and published two children’s books in my first year at university. I was 19 at the time. 

How did you get into writing?

I had friends that loved reading and writing. We were bookworms. I also got lucky. When I was 17, an extended family friend started a publishing company,  and someone in the family suggested that we worked together. The man asked me for a sample of my work, and I sent him some — which were terrible — but he liked them. After that, he gave me a story pitch and told me to write around it. He liked what I did and signed me to his publishing company. 

Ah, great. Back to those books. 

 I published the two books in 2004 and got ₦8k in the first wave of royalties. My dad insisted that I bought shares at a bank and ₦5k went into that. I also paid ₦800 in tithes at my church. I’m not sure what happened to what I had left, but I remember that I bought gifts for my parents and my girlfriend at the time. 

What came after?

One of the books was selected by an international organisation for a project they were working on at the time. They bought 1000 copies and distributed them across libraries in Nigeria. 

Interesting. How much did you make off the book in subsequent years?

2005: ₦45,000

2006: ₦25,000

2007: ₦20,000

2008: ₦10,000

After the fifth payment, the publisher stopped paying me. The demand for the books had decreased, and he complained that people owed him money. In the middle of this, we had a fallout. He had some of my manuscripts he was supposed to publish that he didn’t, so I collected everything back. 

 That’s rough. 

Yeah, I know. I finished university in 2008, went to serve in the north, and got a job at an insurance company. I got ₦30k from the company plus  ₦9,775 from the federal government. I worked in three departments — admin, IT, and marketing. But I enjoyed the perks of working in marketing. I made between ₦2,000 and ₦3,000 every week on commissions alone. 

The company also gave me a furnished apartment. I lived on my commissions and put the remaining money in my savings.  By the time I finished service in 2009, I had saved about ₦1m. 

That’s impressive.

After NYSC, I got a job at an IT firm in a state in the south-west. They were supposed to pay me  ₦45k every month. I spent three months there and wasn’t paid once. Their excuse was that there were no sales, so they weren’t making money. 

Omo.

The only reason I stayed that long was because I wanted to learn more about system engineering and cable TV installation. After I left, I went out on my own and ventured into the same services the company provided. My dad has a company, and I’m a director there, so I used the company to get jobs, mostly cable TV installation. 

How much did this bring in?

In good months, I made nothing less than  ₦10k per week, especially if the cable TV companies were running a promo or a price slash. Things were even better during Christmas — I could conveniently make ₦10k  in a day. But when there was low activity, I could make the same ₦10k in a month. I made about ₦300k  in that year alone. 

I got job offers in the following year, but I didn’t accept them because I was working on my first novel. It was published in 2011. 

Lit. Tell me about that.

It was a young adult novel. I self-published with a publisher in the UK, and the whole thing cost me about £600. I also submitted it for the Commonwealth Book Prize, and although I didn’t make the shortlist, I got a notable mention. 

Aw.

In 2012, I wanted to do an MFA in the UK or go for a postgraduate management course at a Nigerian university after that. I got both offers, but my dad didn’t agree to sponsor my MFA, so I went to the Nigerian university angrily

I finished my masters in 2014 and got my next job as an admin officer at a security company. The salary was ₦50k, but when they didn’t pay me at the end of my first month, I jumped ship. I got another job immediately at a real estate company in the same building. My salary there was also ₦50k.

Wait, same building?

Haha, yes. My previous boss obviously wasn’t happy with it, but it was a good move for me — I actually had a job to do and was being paid for my troubles. 

Oh, I also got a Nigerian publisher who was interested in publishing the Nigerian edition of my novel in the same year. We agreed to a part-publishing deal. 

How does that work?

The publisher splits the production cost and royalties with the writer. The production costs for my novel was ₦400k, so I brought ₦200k and he raised the other half. 

I see. 

The publisher made a lot of noise about his plans for my book, but he didn’t pull his weight. When I got tired of waiting, I stepped in and took the book to bookshops. My cousin gave me the biggest boosts — she worked at a bank and took copies of the book with her to work. A copy of the book sold for ₦1k, and I sold about 100 copies.

There is a  digital edition of the book too. We built an app and hosted it on digital stores. ₦400 airtime unlocks the content of the app, and I get 70% off every purchase. I made about ₦50k in digital downloads in the first year.

And the publisher?

I have no idea how many copies he sold till today. We printed 1000 copies, so I took 500 copies off his hands and left the rest with him. 

How much have you made on that book since 2014?

About ₦250k, and I still get some ₦10,000 per year on digital sales. I stopped promoting the hardcover, so nothing comes from it anymore. 

Got it. Back to your 9-5?

I was at the real estate company until 2015. I was due for promotion and the general manager role opened at the time, but my boss passed me over and brought in a new person to fill the position. It didn’t sit well with me, and I resigned immediately. I didn’t work at another job until five months had passed. My next job was at an entertainment company, and it was also an admin role. They actually did a lot of things, but events and logistic management were their biggest drivers. Another division of the company handled Merchandise-In-Trade businesses. I was hired to work in both divisons. My salary was ₦60k.

I’m curious, what’s Merchandise-In-Trade about?

You see those branded trucks loaded with drinks you see on the road? There are companies who manage them on behalf of the bottling companies and ensure that the products are distributed. The company I worked for managed these trucks for a bottling company in a state in the south-west.

Interesting. 

When I started working there, I had 28 people under me. The job meant that I had to be on the road all the time to make sure everything ran smoothly. I also had to return as fast as I could to handle the entertainment division of the business. 

That sounds like two jobs. 

It was. The good thing was that I made more money in bonuses from the MIT job — an extra ₦100k – ₦120k every month. 

How did your role evolve?

The company had a very good year in 2016  and performed better than the other MIT companies working for the bottling company, so they gave us two more states. I was put in charge of those states, bringing the number of states I managed to three. The number of people I managed grew from 21 to 110.

That was more work, but I didn’t get a raise, which was confusing. I requested for my payslip and found out that my basic salary was supposed to be ₦200k. I confronted my boss, and he tried to sell me a story about how there were more expenses than revenue. I didn’t buy it. I resigned from the job. It was about time too. 

Why?

I was working long hours from Monday to Sunday, so my writing suffered. I decided that I wouldn’t do another full-time job if it wasn’t related to writing. I didn’t get a job like that between 2016 and 2017. However, my experiences with managing events at my previous job came in handy during that time. People started reaching out to me to plan their events. 

I charged clients 10% of the total cost of the event as my service fee. But at the end of each event, I usually got more than that because I had necessary contacts and vendors and leveraged these relationships to get discounts. 

On average, how much did you make from each event you planned?

It wasn’t a lot and depended on how big the event was. There was a time I made ₦200,000. There were also times I made ₦50,000 and ₦10,000 on a job.  My biggest payout was ₦900,000 from two events I did back to back. This got me my first car, which I bought for ₦650,000. 

Lit. What happened after?

In 2018, a friend called me and said he was starting a publishing company and was looking for writers to work on his first book project. After he explained what he wanted to do, I offered to come on board and help him kick things off the ground. I joined the company to manage a small team of four writers at ₦50k per month. I didn’t care about the pay because I had another stream of income. However, I didn’t know that I was making a mistake.

What happened?

He didn’t have a blueprint for his business or provide all the things he promised to ensure that the project ran smoothly. Then in April 2018, he decided on a whim that he wanted a break from the project, and that was it. Everyone on the team left. 

Omo.

I knew I wanted to set up my own publishing company, so I started the process soon as I left that job, and it took about four months. Later that year, the same friend reached out to me again and asked me to lead a bigger team. The direction had changed too. Now we would be ghostwriting academic books for other publishers. 

Sounds interesting. How did this affect your salary?

It increased from ₦50k to ₦70k. Things were more structured this time too. There were more people and more roles, which gave me room to focus on managing the other writers. It was exciting at first, then I started having problems with the boss when I got a publishing deal. 

 Let’s start with the publishing deal.

I’d been in talks with the publisher for a few years. I sent the manuscript in 2015, but we agreed on a deal in 2018. So, I signed the book contract and got an advance fee. 

How much was it?

₦50k.The deal was that the publisher would hold the rights to my book for five years. If a contract renewal doesn’t happen, the rights return to me and I can take it elsewhere. But in those five years, I’m entitled to 10% of the net sales as my royalty. 

The deal was finalised in September 2018, and I had to go to a literary festival. My friend, who was now my boss, was not happy that I was going away for a week. When I came back, he started acting off. 

I didn’t care so much about that until he started changing the direction of the business every week. 

We could be working on a math textbook this week, and he would come in the following week and ask us to start working on a math comic book. It was a lot but I had just registered a company in an industry that isn’t very profitable. I stayed for as long as I did because I wanted to see how he made money from his business. 

When did you leave?

2019. I travelled for a book tour in August to promote my book. While I was away, my boss had a meeting with the staff. I don’t know what he said to those guys, but everyone turned in their resignation before I returned. When I heard the news, I knew I was done. I wasn’t even paid for that month. 

Omo. But what about the book deal? How’s that going?

In 2019, I got a royalty statement that stated that I made  ₦37k in royalties between October 2018 and November 2019. 2020? Nothing. When I asked for updates, the publisher was like, the people they were working with stole from them. So yeah, no money.

Ah!

I just started focusing on my own thing after that. I started operations at my publishing company in October 2019.  For my first gig, I ghost wrote four articles, and got ₦200,000 from it. An editing job, which paid ₦50,000 followed. The year had almost ended, so a lot didn’t happen in 2019.

2020?

I signed my first writer, and we published his first book in February. Right now, I’m working with 8-10 writers, and we have some new titles coming out. 

I’m curious, what’s the cost of publishing a book?

It costs between ₦400k and ₦600k  to get a small book out. The cheapest book we’ve done took about ₦200k, and it was a book of 40 pages. The author bears most of these costs, at least for now — I’m running a self-publishing company, so they bring the resources and I help them publish and market the books. 

I see. How do you earn from this?

I do editorial work on manuscripts and charge between ₦50k and ₦150k depending on how much work the manuscript needs. However, if the deal is to ghostwrite the book from scratch, I charge between ₦200k to ₦300k to get it done. Also, I get another 10% cut of the total publishing and printing cost. 

It’s dicey understanding how money works in this business. I mean, I made ₦500k in a month last year from a project — ghostwriting, editing and printing. But there was another month I incurred an ₦80k loss.

How much typically comes in every month now?

Between ₦100k and ₦150k. I’ve not pushed a book out this year, so the money has been coming from ghostwriting jobs. 

Let’s break down your monthly expenses:

Do you have an emergency fund?

I try to save as much as 70% of what I earn in a month, but I don’t always stick to it. However, at least 40% go into my savings, and that’s how I raise my ₦300k rent. I have about ₦1.3m in my savings account now. 

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

My wedding. I got married recently, and by the time we were done, I’d taken about  ₦1.2m out of my savings to fund it. 

Ah, Congratulations. What do you imagine the next five years will look like?

I’ve realised that it’s easier for people to take advantage of you if you don’t have a big platform. I’m building that for myself now. I got a new publisher in the UK earlier this year, and while I’m not putting all my hopes on the deal, I know what it can do for me. I’ve taken my writing to the international space, and if it works out the way I hope it will, I’ll start getting capital publishing deals and publishers who will stick to their end of the bargain. 

For my publishing company, I pushed out about 6000 copies of books this year. I’m hoping to do 40,000 copies this year. In five years, I should be able to do 2 million copies in a year. It sounds ambitious, but it’s really not. About ₦6M passed the company in production costs last year alone, and I made more than ₦1M in profit.

You have quite the experience with publishers and employers, how has all of this shaped you?

Well, I know money must be made. Nigeria has terrible labour and contract laws, and I’ve not had the best experience with publishers or employers, but is that the reason I should fail? No! I’d rather learn from it and find new ways to make my money.

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

4. The income is not steady yet. I want a system where I know when I’m getting paid and how much to expect. But as it is now, people are always owing me money. I can go to a 7 when I’m working at optimum capacity and making at least half a million every month.