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.
When did you first realise the importance of money?
A memory that stands out is from my uni matriculation in 2019. My aunt gave me ₦4k, and I was so excited because it was the closest thing to pocket money I’d ever received.
Getting into uni made my financial standing clear. I met people who got pocket money and realised it was normal to get allowances. One guy told me he received ₦20k monthly and often called his parents for more money. I couldn’t relate to the money or the parents, so I felt different from others.
That’s why that ₦4k made me so excited. Suddenly, I had money and didn’t feel so left out — at least not at that moment.
You said you couldn’t relate to the parents bit. Why’s that?
My parents had passed away. My mum passed when I was 11, and my dad passed in my first year at uni. I didn’t even live with my dad when he was alive. He worked full-time in the ministry and wasn’t financially buoyant, so I mostly lived with relatives. At the time I entered uni, I was living with my uncle.
I’m sorry about your parents
Thank you.
Money-wise, things were much better for me and my siblings when my mum was alive. She was also in the ministry but had a better financial situation than my dad.
Also, my parents were separated, so we lived with her. We lacked nothing. When returning to boarding school, she would buy family-size packets of whatever provisions I needed.
Her death caused a change in our quality of life. We went from living in a four-bedroom apartment to staying with my aunt in a self-contained apartment. Then my dad moved us to my uncle’s in a village, and we had to change schools. It felt like a decline, but I had to adjust.
Living with relatives meant I couldn’t ask for money anyhow, so when I got into uni, I decided to explore options for making money.
What options did you explore?
I learnt several skills before and during COVID in 2020: web design with WordPress, coding and social media management. I even took a “fundamentals of digital marketing” course on Google. The idea was just to learn as much as I could. I didn’t have a clear sense of what I wanted to do, so I just kept trying different things.
I didn’t have a laptop, so I borrowed someone’s laptop to practice what I’d learned. Omo, I collected plenty of insults in the process. The person was younger than me, but always tried to boss me around because I needed their laptop. I endured it because of what I wanted to learn.
Eyes on the prize
In 2020, I landed a remote social media management internship with a media company. It was an unpaid gig — my employer gave me ₦1k for airtime monthly, which wasn’t enough for anything. I stayed because of the experience and worked there for six months.
During my time there, I applied all the new knowledge I gained to building my personal brand. I opened an Instagram account and started posting tips and talking about my work to attract clients.
How did that go?
I got a client pretty quickly. She paid ₦25k to manage her page for a month, and I remember being so surprised someone could cough up that amount to pay for my services. The money was big for me, and I couldn’t handle it.
Do you know what I did?
What did you do?
I took the money and gave it to my boss, with whom I was interning. I transferred the gig to him because I didn’t think I could do it. I still ended up being the one managing the page, and he didn’t pay me for it, but I didn’t mind it.
After the first month, the client ended the contract because we didn’t meet expectations. I wasn’t bothered because I knew I could get someone else. And I did.
I started getting a few gigs from small business owners on Instagram. My boss also worked with multiple clients, and I handled some of their pages. That didn’t bring extra income; I just did it for the love of the game and to gain experience.
One day, I made a post on my Instagram page and a big design brand reposted it. Then the post got 5k likes on that page, and people started following me. That’s how one woman abroad DM’ed me and said she wanted me to help with her page. When she asked how much I charged, I was about to type $30 when she said her budget was $250/month. I thought I was dreaming.
Love it for you. Was it also a social media management gig?
Yeah. I also had to do the designs and create all the content. The client lived in the US and could only pay through PayPal, so she had to pay me through my cousin who lived in the US. At first, my cousin thought I was into Yahoo. Who did I know that was sending me money from the US?
I’m screaming
I worked with her for six months — she even reduced the pay to $180/month after the first few months, but I didn’t mind. I used the money I made from her to buy my first laptop, an old giant Toshiba that cost ₦70k and didn’t fit inside any laptop bag.
After I stopped working with her, I took a course on social media management as a business. The course taught me to approach my skills like a business, not just as a creative, if I hoped to make money. I also learnt how to write proposals and grew more confident charging for my services.
I increased my fees to ₦50k – ₦70k and got a few clients who agreed to pay that amount. Around 2021, I landed a ₦90k gig, which only lasted two weeks because the client wasn’t happy with the work. She only paid ₦45k.
Thinking about it now, between 2020 and 2022, I had quite a number of clients with whom I stopped working because of one disagreement or another. I can trace some of the reasons to my laptop, which was always messing up. When I got the ₦90k gig, I took a ₦150k loan to replace the laptop, thinking I’d be able to repay it with my salary, but that gig went the way it did.
Fortunately, I got a social media management job with a fintech startup shortly after, so I wasn’t stranded for long. This was in 2022.
What was the pay like?
My salary was ₦120k/month, and I worked there until the startup pivoted in 2023 and laid off staff. I was also affected and was unemployed for about three months.
All this time, I was still in uni and living with my elder brother, so I had food to eat. I kept applying to jobs, and towards the end of 2023, I landed one with a startup that paid ₦130k/month.
I supplemented my income with a ₦40k/month video editing side gig and sold social media content calendar templates online at $5 each. I didn’t put much effort into marketing the templates and sold between 2 and 10 every month. I also occasionally made vox pop videos to create content for my page.
Then, in 2024, I got my big break. Someone DM’ed me on WhatsApp and offered me a $1k/month role.
Wait. How did that happen?
A friend recommended me for the job. The company is an international crypto/blockchain brand that wanted someone to help with its social media and community management efforts in the region.
The offer came just as I was rounding up uni, and it was like the perfect time because there was no way I’d have managed the job while in school. It’s remote, but I have to work a minimum of six hours daily, and there’s software that monitors my work and takes screenshots every 10 minutes to ensure I’m actively on my laptop.
I still work there, and my salary is now $1200/month. I’m not even sure how much my salary is in naira because I haven’t converted the full amount yet. My employer pays in crypto, and I leave it in the exchange and withdraw only what I need using their P2P service.
I’ll do the conversion for you. That’s over ₦1.8m
It was a big jump from my last salary—about a 10x increase. My lifestyle has changed, too. I moved to Lagos after school and went from paying ₦80k/year for rent to ₦1.5m/year for a one-bedroom apartment. I spent about ₦4m on the total rent package and some furnishing.
Living in Lagos also means my monthly bills have vastly increased. I probably wouldn’t need to spend as much as I do if I’d stayed back around school, but it was a necessary change of environment for personal and professional growth.
What do these bills and expenses look like in a typical month?
My staff budget is for the contract assistants I work with when I shoot videos for content. The videos are gradually progressing from a passion project to an income source.
I have a manager who interfaces with potential clients, and we’ve had a couple of people pay us to shoot content for their events. One client paid ₦350k last year, and another paid just last month.
I’m not interested in profit sharing right now because I’m more focused on building a business presence and getting standard equipment. Once that’s done, I can consider trying to earn from it.
What does your savings portfolio look like right now?
$1500. I had to dip into my savings when I moved to Lagos and set up my apartment. I keep my rent savings in a savings app. The rest are in crypto.
I’m curious. How has your rapid income growth shaped how you see money?
My attitude to money has changed to, “This thing is for convenience.” I no longer worry about certain things because I can now afford them.
For instance, money has given me the ability to give, and I give a lot. I can afford to pay attention to people’s needs and keep in touch with them because I know if they need something, I can step in. I can just call my friends, ask how far and go, “Send your account, let’s do this thing.”
I couldn’t do all this before, even when I wanted to. Before, I often had to ignore people’s needs or even limit interactions because of financial concerns. That’s not my problem anymore.
Energy. Do you live above or below your means, though?
I live within my means. I don’t spend so much, except it’s absolutely necessary. Last month, I dropped ₦700k on a laptop because I needed it. This month, I’ll probably need to spend on a few more house furniture needs and set up a Starlink connection. These are basic things that I need. They’re expensive, but they aren’t exactly luxuries.
I get you. Out of curiosity again, do you ever worry about money?
I definitely worry about losing my job and not having money for the things I want. But I also feel like I’ll have money when I need it. If anything happens to my job, I’ll just find another one or focus on video production. My mum used to have a thing where her account balance could be zero today and money would enter the next day.
I’ve experienced that before, too. Several times, I was almost stranded, and money just came. I’m consciously trying to fix my money habits, so I don’t just rely on money coming in. I plan to read financial books, intentionally manage my money and achieve financial stability.
Is there anything you want right now you can’t afford?
Not right now, but a wedding. I know I’m just 22, but I believe I’ve met the person I want to spend my life with, and I hope to get married in the next two to three years. I want a small intimate wedding, but I’ll still need to get my money up, considering how expensive things get every day.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
6. I don’t think I have a handle on my finances yet, so I still feel broke. I want to be able to manage my money strictly, figure out extra sources of income, and make better financial decisions.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Find all the past Naira Life stories here.
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