Recently, I sat down to calculate all I've spent on data subscription and food this year and I couldn't understand how I arrived at a huge sum of money for data subscription rather than feeding. As an independent lady, don't twitch your nose yet, I am an independent lady, and most of my feeding isn't done at home with the rest of the family because I will be out for work early in the morning and return in the evening. The only regular food I have with my family is dinner, which means I am responsible for my breakfast and lunch.
Most of the time, I don't take lunch because I have breakfast sometimes in the afternoon, I guess that's brunch? And by so doing, it helps me cut down my eating expenses. I am always disciplined with food, I don't eat anywhere which makes me stick to my favorite restaurant where I get a plate of rice with different protein of my choice. Calculating how much I spend on food on the current exchange of naira to dollar daily isn't so much because most time I eat once while at work till I get home at night, I think that saves me lots of money.
At my favorite restaurant, a plate of jollof rice with fried rice and beef costs #700, a plate with chicken cost #1,250, a plate with croaker fish cost #2,100 that's $2, while a plate with any other fishes cost #1000 which is approximately $1 because the exchange rate of naira to dollar presently is #1,000 to $1. When I want to eat, I do eat according to my purse (the money I have at hand). And because I don't eat all the time, food doesn't cost me much money but looking at it from another perspective, purchasing foodstuffs is very expensive nowadays.
Due to this reason, eating the three square meal has become a difficult thing in many families just as I stated earlier. The high cost of foodstuffs is leaving many families in hunger, people can no longer purchase the normal daily foodstuffs they get at cheaper prices some months back. Early last year, we were still able to buy a bag of 10kg semolina at the rate of #4,500 to #5,000 but towards the beginning of this year, things changed drastically. A bag of 10kg semolina was sold at the rate of #6,500, presently it is being sold for #8,500 making it unaffordable for many families.
Taking a bag of rice which was once sold at #15,000 to #20,000 last year to #45,000 this year. A module once sold for #500 is now #1800, the regular meal eaten is unaffordable anymore not to talk of a balanced diet. To some food costs more depending on your point of view.
On the other hand, for those of us using an Android which is normally called a browsing phone, we know how much we drop every day, week, or month for data subscription just to be online. Your spending depends on the network provider you are using, taking me as an example, I am using a phone with a dual sim that is a phone using two sims. I decided to use Mtn and Airtel, network providers, many people might say these two networks are cheaper than others such as Glo and 9mobile, and I disagree with that. I decided not to use the normal Mtn data bundle pack because of the high cost thinking I was cutting costs by doing so but I didn't see the difference.
I chose to use SME Mtn data which costs #290 per 1GB on the selling site except if I'm to buy from a merchant who will sell at the rate of #350 per 1GB. This 1GB is a monthly data plan that is, it is expected to last for a whole month but unfortunately, I do use mine for just 2 days. Let's take a month with 30 days which means I will buy data 15 times before the month runs out. 15 multiplied by #350 that's #5,250 per month on data subscription just for my Mtn alone, don't forget this is on a cheap plan. I love having data on both my sims in case one network is bad, the other will help me in terms of need.
I go for Airtel SME data also just to cut down costs as usual but it's a bit more costly than Mtn. 1GB of Airtel is sold for #400 by the merchant if I'm to use this too, it's just for two days and sometimes a day. Take a month with 30 days for example, if I'm to buy data worth #400, fifteen times that's #6,000 monthly, that's huge. If I calculate the food I eat outside my home for a month it's not up to #6,000 which means I spend more on data subscription than on food.
I would love to have your comments, let me know which one you spend more on. Thanks for your time and your comments will be appreciated.