I wake up each morning to pray and then the next thing that comes to my brain is how much I would be needing to survive the day, even before my feet touches the ground, various things rushes through my mind, transport, feeding, airtime, data and all those unexpected expenses, there are times I just wanted to sleep back, but what would sleeping change, the cost of living won't change.
The most basic necessity is food, and the state of the country together with the economy now has gone awry, there was a time ₦500 could get one a decent meal and even have change left. But now, ₦500 is not even enough for transport fare to the restaurant, getting a good and decent meal now would need one to have ₦2000 and above, and that will be just for the morning food, the high cost of things has even made me to personally decide to only eat twice a day, or atimes, once. I love cooking, its even my hobby, but then again, the amount needed to stock the house with food, where's the money? Food used to be cheaper, now everything has skyrocketed. Even garri, our so-called poor man’s food, is no longer cheap. The struggle is real.
Then, lets discuss transport. I used to move around town, or to and fro from work with ₦200 to ₦300. Now, that same distance is ₦800 and with the increase in fuel, I just manage to spend a thousand naira(₦1,000) on transport each day, and how much is the salary, imagine spending close to ₦2,000 just to go out and come back home in a day, its within the city, not to talk of if I want to travel. I even pity some of my friends who stays faraway from their workplace, how much are they spending on transport, how much is their salary, how much are they able to save, how much do they have left, cause I don't understand what exactly it is we are working for if half our salaries is going into transport.
Then, theres house and electricity bill, the rate at which house rent has increased is alarming, also, for electricity, its not constant, meaning we have to opt for generator, and again, that's fuel. There are a lot of times I wonder how I in particular is surviving, at the end of the month, I find out I spent way above my salary.
Not to talk of all those hidden and unexpected costs, there are times I will need to send money home, there are times that home itself will call, there are a lot of things we don't think about, we feel they are little/small, but they are really eating deep into out income. I shouldn't even get started about airtime and data, data which was once ₦350 per 1GB, just earlier this year, it has increased to ₦900 per 1GB. Where should all that be calculated.
One would need to save up, to start a business or something, from how much, one would need to buy new clothes, set the room, buy necessary things and all, all from how much. There are a lot of times I think leaving this country would better, and its still on my mind, I know every country has its own struggles, but here is just out of it.
If there were to be a stable economy, things will be very much easier, if price wouldn't just rise each and every time, I would be able to plan better, here salaries don't match inflation, prices of goods and services kept on increasing and the salary remains stagnant. Government should do better to make life easy for us, and not just giving empty promises.
Well, as Nigerians, I am a Nigerian, and there's one thing about us, we always adapt, we will still thrive and keep on striving even in the face of hardships, we off the light when the prepaid is getting exhausted, we off the fridge, when we feel our pocket and its empty we just laugh it off, and we have this negotiating power, we can negotiate a thing to the last kobo. But deep down, we all know this is not how life should be. We are humans, we deserve better.
And until things change, we keep pushing, hoping, and praying that one day, waking up won’t be another day to calculate some mathematics with no formula.