I Don't Want to be Broke

I've always hated being broke, I made it a principle not to borrow, borrowing always results from being broke. Hence I've always tried to source legitimate ways to increase my income. When I saw the prompt for @hivenaija this week, about sharing what experience spurred us to make the declaration of never going broke, I quickly took it up.

Source

Aunty Grace was a family friend, she once lived with my family while we were growing up. She was a really fun 'big aunty', you could never have a dull moment with her around. We got so used to her presence that once when she had to go visit her family during the Christmas period, I and my siblings literally cried because we were going to miss her dearly.

According to the popular saying “Everything that has a beginning also has an end”, it got to a point when Aunty Grace had to leave my family to go pursue her future. It was really an emotional moment for us when she told us about her plans, but we couldn't stop her, because she had gotten to that point in her life where she needed to leave and pursue her dreams and ambitions. Even though she had to leave, we still kept in touch with her, called and sent messages from time to time.

After she left things were a bit difficult for her, life was not going as she had planned. She couldn't even get a good job in other to live well and pay off most of her bills, I really felt bad for her, but there was nothing I could do as I was still very young then. She wasn't able to complete her education, so this also posed a problem in securing a good job for herself. She tried some businesses, but they didn't just work out, I can't really say why, but they ended almost as soon as they started.

After some years, Aunty Grace dropped by the house one day with a fine young man and told us he was her fiance and they were planning on getting married. We were beyond excited for her, we made sure to ask her if she was certain about him and she blushed and told us she was more than certain. My family supported her to the best of our abilities, and she finally got married to Uncle James after all the bride price and every other thing had been paid.
But the issue was that she wasn't really really doing much, she worked as a janitor in a local primary school within their area and the salary was nothing to write home about. She once told me that she was merely doing it so as not to be idle and get some money for herself to be able to assist her hubby with the responsibilities at home.

I advised her to monetize her baking skills that she had once acquired, but she kept complaining of how she had tried that, but it wasn't profitable, she didn’t have enough customers, and the ones that patronized her, had a way of always underpricing her goods, which eventually made her run at a loss, I felt so sorry for her. I advised her to try again and this time be intentional with her marketing, sales, and negotiations, but she was reluctant about it, so I let her be.

At some point, the local school where she worked, had to shut down because they weren't doing so well, so she was out of job and kept on searching in order to get something else to do. It was a real struggle for her because she couldn't assist in the home front, and her husband was saddled with all the responsibilities at home.

There was this day I visited her and her husband at home. While we were watching TV in the living room, she reluctantly asked her husband to please subscribe to mobile data for her on her phone, and her husband told her that he didn't have money to do it, that whenever he subscribed for himself, then they would both share it (this would mean him having to share his hot-spot for her and whenever they weren't together, she would not be able to use it). I pretended to be engrossed in the movie I was watching, but my full attention was on their discussion, and I felt really bad for her situation. It was at this point I told myself that I will never let myself get broke to the point where I could not provide my basic needs, I will keep looking for legitimate avenues to increase my income, so I don't have to depend on or be at the mercy of anyone, not even my future husband. I would rather be an asset to him than be a liability.

When I was ready to leave and she had to escort me to the bus station to get a bus back home, I just had to transfer some data on my phone to her phone and she kept thanking and thanking me. When I got back home, I couldn't help but reminisce on the event of that day.

This is also one of the reasons I joined Hive, other than making valuable connections, I intend to also grow my income, I am putting in all the work that I can, thanks to @ibbtammy for onboarding me and for always pushing me to do better when it's required.

Thank you for stopping by, until next time.