Every week, Zikoko asks anonymous people to give us a window into their relationship with the Naira. Some will be struggle-ish, others will be boujee–but all the time, it’ll be revealing.

This #Nairalife story was pulled off in collaboration with mycashestate.com. In this story, a guy who manages to balance la vida loca with altruism. 

Age: 26

Occupation: Designer

Relationship Status: Single

Net Income: ₦1.3 million

Remember your first gig?

It was in Uni, at the end of my first year–wait, that’s not how it starts.

I was in my first year in Uni and lucky to have my laptop. I was playing around with graphic design with no plans to make money off it. But then a friend recommended me to design posters and award plaques for a school party, and it kinda took off from there. Funny story, the whole thing was supposed to be ₦21k, and because I wanted to show that I was a big boy, I paid for it from my meagre savings. They never paid back.

Ouch.

Silver lining though, that was how my reputation began as a graphic designer in school. I did that for four years earning a little more every year. I got bored after four years, and it was also getting too difficult to make more money, so I decided to learn something else. I took up website design in 2012 and started making fancy websites for myself. 

That’s awesome.

Someone–let’s call him M–liked it, and offered to take me under his wing. He’d get the jobs and I’d do them for ₦35k per gig. Two website gigs instead of seven graphic design gigs to make the same amount of money sounded like a great deal. I was weirdly also impressed that he lived out of his car—a Golf 2. I’m not sure why I thought that was a good thing, because soon enough he got inconsistent with payments. He would pay partly for old work to get me to take on some new work. 

What happened next?

I got tired of contracting and wasn’t improving professionally, so I decided to work in a company. I tweeted about this and got an offer to work at this new eCommerce company for ₦70k.

To be honest, I was already earning that, but I took it because I thought this was a way to grow professionally.

That didn’t happen. But a few months later, someone else reached out to me and we negotiated a better deal–₦135k precisely–and an environment where I really really grew. By the time I left uni, I was earning a ₦200k salary, minus contractual work every now and then.

That’s quite the start.

By May, I signed a proper contract that was the equivalent of $3,000. It’s in naira now though.

Okay, let’s look into your current monthly damage.

First of all, I don’t really track things less than ₦5k. Also, my net income now is about ₦1.3 million. I just started tracking and planning in 2018 when I realised I was earning much and still going broke. Now, I know I need ₦800k a month to maintain my lifestyle, and I plan my expenses around that.

That’s a lot of green.

Let’s talk about saving

I spend most of my money and save in trickles. Tiny bits of money go out of my account weekly just to build the habit. Sometimes, however, I do a big save—for a specific project or trip or for a big investment. But keeping a chunk of my money monthly as savings? Fuck that shit. 

I don’t believe anyone climbs up socioeconomic classes by saving. Nah. You get some job that’s two times your current income, or you start a business that makes some money, or you get some deal, that’s how you move. Not trickle savings, that’s not going to save you mehn–pun intended.

I’m looking at your breakdown, and there’s a ₦500k that I can’t place

₦800k of my salary is recurrent expenses. Basically my life. For the rest of the money, it entirely depends. Some months are tough for a lot of people I know, so I end up giving it all out. Some months, I save or invest it. Other times I might spend it on a big purchase or on travel. Sometimes, I leave it open for just some extra flenjo, like in December. It can take on many uses.

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

My entire Amazon wishlist. It’s not that I can’t afford them, but if I impulsively bought them all, as is my default nature, I’ll keep running out of money. So now I keep a wishlist, and when I go back to it, I realise how ridiculous the things I want to buy are, like why am I buying a dustbin or kettle on Amazon?

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

₦21k to ₦1.3 million – what has that done to your perspective?

True that.

When do you think you’ll retire?

What will you consider as rich?

Check back every Monday at 9 am for peeks into the Naira Life of everyday people.

If you’d love to share your Naira Life with us, tell us here. You’ll be anon, of course 

NB: All the conversations in this series are based off real conversations with actual people. The dialogue is edited for clarity and ensuring that the identity of the subject is kept as discreet as possible.