₦airaland Forum

heykims:
Speedaf now delivers items tagged 'tracking available' to your doorstep such as phones.
I've bought many of such items via Aliexpress this year and once I see 'received by local delivery company', then I know I will get the item the following day.
However, normally before it gets to the delivery company, tracking ought to show 'custom clearing started', then 'custom clearing complete'.
What people do myself inclusive when ordering items that might require custom fee like phones is tell the seller not to label it as phone. U tell them to write something like MP3, radio etc and also write low value like 30 dollars. That way, u will likely bypass custom fee.
Try contact Speedaf if they have ur item.

Leemekzy:
Next time use shiptonaija. They provide you with address in america or UK where your items can be shipped to then they deliver it to your address here in nigeria.

TheManOfTheYear:
So yeah, I've been coding since 2019, I wasn't consistent actually, it was on and off, I could say the stress of school was a major reason for the initial inconsistencies.

I'm coming from an Industrial Chemistry major, but I've always loved computers, I've always been tech savvy.

Well, Sololearn and W3Schools were my early teachers in the field of web development. I learnt HTML and CSS using those two platforms. They are awesome resources for beginners, I definitely recommend.

oliverjiad:
what's the shipping line

Jaid

oliverjiad:
GX 460 2014:#3.5m
GX 460 2015:#3.650m
GX 460 2016:#3.9m
GX 460 2017:#4.5m
GX 460 2018:#5.8m

Regards

Jaid

MangekyoAlt:
honestly Russians arent really in fighting mood ATM. And it would likely remain that way until or unless any external forces challenges russia militarily. Or interfere in their internal affairs. I can imagine that this is why the US haven't DARED trying to overthrow putin. Whenever any country gets on the nerve on the USA, what they do is first is try to overthrow their president, replacing him with a friendly one. They've don it many countries. They've even tried it with Erdogan, the president of Turkey. I was surprised that they've never contemplated trying such nonsense with Putin and this article totally explains wht. According to the CIA, the Kremlin is the most coded place in the world. Putin has even started clearing off some elements that he doesn't trust fully. The moment he notices that the USA are trying anything, he would be sure to leak it to the Russians who wouldn't have any of it. So the hands of the US are tied right now. The more they decide to interfer in Russia's affairs, the more the Russian people would become anti-west which I'm sure they wouldn't want.

This is very funny. Yeltin, the man who was the president of Russia before putin, was a certified western ass licker. The man did as he was told to do by the USA as they constantly humiliated Russia. Note that while this man was ass licking the ass of the USA, he was still criticizing their move to expand NATO towards Russia despite the reason why NATO was crated, the USSR was no more. When putin took over, he was fairly pro west as well. His attempt to join NATO was thwarted. NATO needed an enemy and if russia joined, pretty much NATO would become a useless bloc.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/putin-russia-ukraine-nato-george-robertson/
Which is why Putin asked in Germany, 2007.
"Are we still your enemies that you keep on expanding your alliance towards us?"

It is obvious that after the dissolution of the USSR, Russia legit wanted to form ties with the USA and the west. But USA felt like they won the Cold war hence they can treat their former rivals which was now a shadow of his former self, however they like. They became the proud fućks that they've been known to be.

Meanwhile, If USA can manage to overthrow putin and replace him with a pro western president like they did with Ukraine, believe me they will treat Russia with more respect than they have since the fall of the USSR. But the thing is, it is too late.
Lavrov, 2 days ago said "the illusions of Russia forming ties with the West is all but over now".
Meaning, instead of trying to create ties with the West they will instead with China and others in Asia and South America and even Africa. Russia has been of late increasing their presence in Africa. I don't know if it is just me that notices it

The ICONIC Ojota/Opebi Link Bridges and Approach Roads to be Flagged Off Tomorrow by Governor @jidesanwoolu …. Massive stuff …. Will explain the layout …. STAY TUNED !!!! pic.twitter.com/MeLEyfS967

— Jubril A. Gawat (@Mr_JAGs) January 25, 2022

RoyalBoutique:
okine4real, Lemme post something I used to get a male child.

This book worked well on both male and female.

I have 3 males and 1 female.

I'm going for 2 more females to make it 3 males and 3 females.

The males are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd borns.

The female is the 4th born.

You need to read the whole book to understand most things, but I'll post the part you're looking for.

Ok, so in the pictures below :

1. The name of the book
2. The chapter you need
3. How to get a female
4. How to get a male

NwaNimo1:
https://nairametrics.com/2021/11/26/relationship-between-inflation-and-the-unending-devaluation-of-the-naira/

lasthero:
Mods, I don't know the right thread to post this. If romance section isn't the right thread, you can move it to the appropriate section.


Moved into a new apartment and realized the light isn't too good. Average of 6 to 10 hours per day and sometimes, there won't be light for like 3 days on a stretch.

I do freelance, love watching movies, I have a small fridge which serves me cold water, I need fan to cushion the heat. This implies that I need a constant light and with the epileptic light situation around, I felt I needed to do something.


My first thought was to get a generator. Average 1kva generator cost 80- 100k. I will have to be buying fuel, buying oil and also servicing the generator regularly.

I almost bought a new generator from jumia during the black Friday sales until I heard the rumors that fuel will likely to be sold for 320/ litre in 2022, I had to abort the generator plan and seek for alternative.


Then the thought of inverter came in. To figure out the specific watt to purchase, I first analyze the power rating of all my electronics.

1 dc led TV - 12v 3A which equals 36watt,
1 gotv - 12v 1A which equals 12wat,
1 dc standing fan in living room of 12v 2A which equals 24watt,
My laptop of 18v 2.3A which equals 41.4 watt,
1 table top fridge of 45watt,
6 energy saving bulbs of 5w each in entire apartment (bedroom, living room, toilet, kitchen, corridors, which equals 30watt
Phone chargers of 5v 2A which equals 10w.
1 wall fan in the bedroom of 45w

When I summed all the power ratings, I arrived at 243.4 watt in total.


So with miscellaneous appliances like woofer and the likes. I concluded And settled for 500w inverter.

maureensylvia:
Hello everyone

This is a sequel to my former thread
https://www.nairaland.com/6473797/northern-foodstuff-agro-bustop-cheapest

I'll continue here .

*YOU REQUEST*
*WE PROCESS*
*WE DELIVER*

Onions
Iron beans
Brown beans
Oloka beans
Akara/moimoi beans
Honey beans
Patasko
Butter beans
Well destoned Local rice
Local rice(foreign standard)
Maize (white and yellow)
Dawa (guinea corn)
Joro (Millet)
Soyabeans
Gorontula
Sugar lump
Dried Ginger
Dried tumeric
Dried Hibiscus flower
Castor seed

Delivery: worldwide
Legally Registered with CAC

For more Enquiries, Bookings/order placements;
Call or Watsapp 08099495483

maureensylvia:
Bloodline
We even look alike

I'm an Agro merchant based in Kano. I deal in Agro commodities which includes Rice, beans, maize, sorghum, Millet, Dried Ginger, Dried Tumeric, Dried Hibiscus flowers, castor seed... Suitable for exports.
I help you get more VALUE for less,save time and Money, legally Registered with CAC

Pls don’t fail to Dm me if you want to discuss business, My phone number is on my signature for more Enquiries.
Delivery is world-wide. .

ceciliab:
If you are a real estate firm and you have not considered marketing real estate to Nigerians in diaspora then you are missing out. According to the World Bank, Nigerians in diaspora; living abroad wired over $35 billion home in 2018, making it the largest African record remittance and the fifth largest in the world. As the number of Nigerians in diaspora continuously increase, the desire to own property back home also increases.

Many Nigerians in diaspora see investments in real estate as a way to empower their relatives and people back home as an investment . To successfully market to Nigerians in diaspora it is pertinent that you are a reputable and transparent real-estate company or agent. An online presence is not just enough.. your affiliation with leading legal firms and your connection to certain key players must be established.

A lot of Nigerians in diaspora have been swindled out of their hard-earned remittances, by either unscrupulous agents or worse still, family members and friends.

You need to develop a real estate business model for Nigerians in diaspora that would be beneficial for even family members as they can get incentives for recommending real estate offers to their people abroad.

We can help you develop a business model for real estate investments that allow for periodic part payments just like a typical mortgage payment facility or a crowd funding based investment platform.

Also we can collaborate with you if you want to work with a digital marketing strategist and business developer in developing a solution to market real estate to Nigerians in diaspora.

Contact me for more information

lalasticlala:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1439009262664044545.html

Emexicoman:
Source of water?
Gp tank...
Car Washing / pressure machine 75000
Sponges, brushes, buckets, rags 5000
Car port N/A
Hose.. yard is about 300naira
Land space/rent N/A
Chairs and table 4chairs 10k, table N/A
These are the things you need to start

I own a car wash

I don't know the price of gpee tanks in the market recently, you could price and select the size suitable and affordable for at the nearest building materials marketing your area.
The basic challenge with this business is staff, just like any other small business.

They might wash 5 cars in your absence but declare only 2. I know how many times I've caught my boys lieing about cars washed and believe you me this could run you down.

The best buckets to use are paint buckets, best soft Sponges are gotten from mosquitoes nets. Brushes go for 500 naira.

Do you have a source of water, I use the water board pipe borne water.
You need a small shop to store your properties after closing (staff may sleep over too)

Chat me up
Zero 7 zero 6 11 nine 0952

tensazangetsu20:
Tech twitter has been on fire this past few days. First was the new startup law being passed that will see the government taking one percent of startup revenue especially fintechs and the second was the closure of accounts belonging to fintech companies like risevest, investbamboo, and trove. This is just 2 months after the crypto ban.

I predicted this will happen a few months back but some people as usual called me a pessimist. Now, this has happened. They came for gokada first citing stupid reasons yet okadas are still in Lagos driving anyhow. They blocked remittances and made it very difficult to receive money. If you work remotely in Nigeria for a foreign company, you can attest to how difficult it is to receive money. I know people who have lost their jobs just because the companies they work for could not figure out how they could pay them in Nigeria then add the epileptic electricity supply and the bad internet.

If you are a programmer, trust me you are amongst the elite. Walai every day I regret not discovering the tech industry earlier. There's a fucking huge demand for programmers outside the shores of Africa. Latin America, Europe, and Asia. A lot of people think japa and will be thinking USA and Canada. Getting a work visa to these countries as a Nigerian living in Nigeria is almost impossible. It has happened for some people but its not the norm and you should not place your hope on it. The USA has a cap on the amount of work visas that go out every year and those visas most times go to OPT candidates (people who have schooled in the US). Canada doesnt have a cap but they prefer permanent residents or citizens to processing a work visa from scratch for an outsider. Australia same thing.

There are other countries that exist that do not have a cap on work visas and are desperately looking for programmers. These countries can be used as a stepping stone to your final dream destination instead of wasting your life in Nigeria looking for a US or Canadian visa. Countries like portugal, spain, brazil, mexico, vietnam, japan, south korea. The list is endless. These are countries desperately looking for programmers and their work visas arent difficult to get. Their governments are even encouraging tech migration to prepare for the next industrial revolution. As a Nigerian you have a serious advantage getting there. You speak English. English is the unofficial defacto language of the IT industry. If you go on linkedin and search tech jobs in this countries, you would find out that one of the requirements for most of these jobs is professional english proficiency. Their citizens dont have it and a few who have it are headhunted to countries like the US and Canada leaving a huge gap for skilled third worlders like Nigerians to take advantage of. A japanese programmer who speaks english really well can get into the USA easily. Japan has a visa waiver program with the USA and is one of the few countries that shares a working holiday visa with the US. Brazil has one with germany. Uruguay has with sweden. These are countries you should target because their own people are leaving presenting a very huge gap. Once you can get into these countries, leaving to your dream destination isnt too difficult and even if you dont want to leave, these countries have a lot of opportunities for you to build your own tech business. Their governments are very progressive. Their people arent poor or getting poorer and are very open to using technology. Theres another way of getting to the US via L1 company transfer but how many american tech companies exist in Nigeria and whats the size of the engineering team? These countries have as much 2000 to 3000 size engineering teams. You can move there, switch jobs to an american company and request for an L1 company transfer. The possibilities are limitless.

I myself started testing this theory out and I have gotten ten interviews from companies in Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Vietnam, and Chile. I am in the mid way of 3 and I really hope one goes through as I want to leave the zoo fast.

You might say stay in Nigeria and start a tech business. Well with what the government is doing to startups and the purchasing power of Nigerians reducing everyday, I dont know how that would be viable. NIgeria is so bad to the point that to eat food is a problem. Growing up, Nigeria was never at a level where food will be a problem. Festival periods and we would have food from all our neighbours even the poorest. Now thas not done and the worst is yet to come.

You can say stay in Nigeria and continue remote. Trust me remote work is sweet in your 20s but a sponsorship job is better as you would be provided insurance for, pension plans and all of that which remote work wont give you and remote jobs arent stable especially with small companies. You can lose them anytime and you need to start looking again. Its not bad in your 20s but will you be doing this at 40 and above. Will you be applying to remote jobs at 50 when your mates who migrated are CTOs for fortune 500 companies earning millions of dollars every year while you are looking for scraps in remote.

Make haste o.

BigCabal:
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.

This 23-year-old has an investment banking job and a couple of side hustles, but that’s not the most interesting thing about him. It’s how he makes much more money from his side businesses than he does at his 9-5, and how leveraging his privilege and connections got him there.

What’s your oldest memory of money?

I can’t think of a specific memory but growing up, my cousins and I danced for my uncles and aunts at weddings and other family events, and they sprayed us money. I liked balloons, and I understood that I needed money to buy balloons. I had to dance to get the money. It was that simple.

Haha. That makes sense. Can you tell me what growing up was like, financially?

My dad works in financial services and is a senior employee at a company he has worked at for decades. My mum did and still does a lot of business. I grew up comfortable although I didn’t understand how well the family was doing until I was older. A part of it was because I was too young to understand how money works. Also, I was exposed to a lot of kids who came from wealthier families, and that skewed my perception of money. At some point, I may have developed a bit of an inferiority complex.

For context: I went to a private secondary school and the kids there could spend $500 on an item when they go on vacation without blinking. There was no way my parents would sign off on such purchases.

However, once I started to get a wider perspective, I understood that my family was indeed doing well.

When did you come to this realisation?

That would be around 2014. I was 15 and about to leave Nigeria for uni. My dad had planned for me and my sister’s education and had a university fund for us. I had to go for my A-Levels first and I decided on a private college in Canada. The tuition was C$50k and my dad told me he couldn’t afford it at the time. Subsequently, I got a partial scholarship at the college and my dad still paid about C$30k. That was a lot of money, but he made it happen. Later that year, I moved to Canada.

Lit.

At first, I was living on a C$100 allowance every month, but my dad always ended up sending more money before the month ended. When he realised that it was more expensive sending smaller sums of money to me, he started sending C$2k at a time. Now, it wasn’t a monthly thing. The money was supposed to last me for a few months before I could request more. On average, C$2k lasted me for three to four months.

I finished my A-Levels in March 2016 and got into a university in the US to study Economics. I moved there in May 2016

How did it go in the US?

Nigeria was in a recession in 2016, so I knew that my dad must have been stressed having huge expenses in dollars. He was sending $200 every month, and I was determined to make do with it.

In my first year, I lived in school housing and was on a meal plan which had been paid for. I wasn’t saving money or working, so the $200 was everything I lived on. I finally picked up a job at a call centre on campus in my second year but I wasn’t completely committed to it. Thankfully, the minimum wage was $14 in the state I lived in. On average, I worked 20 hours in a month, which brought in an extra $200-$300. At that point, I’d say that at least half of my income went into feeding. I managed to save some $100 a month if I didn’t party a lot in the month, but those were far and between. I partied a lot when I was in uni.

Haha.

2018 was when I became intentional about making money.

How?

I saw what was happening in the financial market in Nigeria, and I was like “Wait, this could be a gold mine.” Here’s what happened: the CBN decided that they were going to start a “promo” and would be giving between 13% and 15% returns on short-term government securities. I thought that was a sweet deal and went in.

With ₦100k, I started buying and trading treasury bills. The returns weren’t a lot but I started to understand how money compounds over time. I did the math and the ₦100k would compound into millions of naira in 30 years, and I wouldn’t even have turned 50 years by that time.

However, in the short term. I realised that to scale, I needed to increase my capital. The way I saw it, it could happen in two ways: I could work more hours to earn more money or I could convince people to let me manage their money for them and charge them a small commission. I went with the second option.

Mad. Tell me how it went.

I started with my dad. I pitched the idea to him and managed to get ₦1m from him. I bought a few equities and invested most of the money in treasury bills, and it did very well. I made about ₦200k in fees I charged him.

I managed to convince a couple of other people in my family to help me invest for them and I got small sums of money here and there. I put whatever money I made from them into my portfolio and by the end of the year, I had about ₦500k in it.

That’s interesting.

I had been coming to Nigeria every summer since my first year in uni to intern at investment companies, so I was plugged into the climate. This came in handy in 2020 when COVID hit. Prices of assets all around the world dropped like crazy. I reacted quickly and sold as many treasury bills as I could and started putting money in the Nigerian stock market, which was also pretty risky at that point. But when I was returning to Nigeria in August 2020, my investment portfolio was worth about ₦2m and I had another ₦250k in cash.

You want to know why I returned to Nigeria, don’t you?

Now that you mention it, please.

I’d been thinking about it since my second year at uni. For the most part, I got my summer internships in Nigeria through my dad’s connection. My privilege became clearer and I thought it wouldn’t make sense not to take advantage of it.

Also, something happened when I was in the US that solidified this decision.

What was it?

I tried to get into an internship program at a big investment bank. During one of the interview stages, I met a girl I knew from school and her dad was one of the managing directors at the bank. We were in the interview room when one of the analysts came and was like “This is so and so daughter.” They took her from the interview room and gave her a tour of the facility. It was very clear that she was going to get the internship. I felt like I had this in Nigeria, so it made perfect sense to return and explore the opportunities I have here.

That makes sense.

I knew getting a job here wouldn’t be a problem. I had an understanding with one of the investment banks I had worked with to return to work for them when I graduated. I reached out to them, took a few tests, and that was sorted. In October 2020, I resumed work. My salary was ₦100k.

That didn’t make all the difference though. What I did between August and October did.

What did you do?

A couple of my old friends had returned to Nigeria before I did, so they had their feet on the ground already. When I got back, one of the first things I did was reconnect with them. I realised how much money they were spending when we went out.

We could go to the club and by the end of the night, they would have spent ₦1m on drinks. They split the bill but each person chipped in at least ₦150k. For the first few times we went out together, they didn’t ask me to chip in but I knew it was only a matter of time. The first time I dropped ₦50k, I knew my cash savings couldn’t possibly sustain that kind of lifestyle. I figured that they must be making a lot of money if they could afford to spend like that, which was interesting because they weren’t working 9-5 jobs — they had businesses.

What kind of businesses?

They did everything they thought could work. Eventually, I spoke to a couple of my friends and asked about businesses I could do with little capital. They gave me a couple of ideas but the most viable one was pushing large volumes of commodities. In my case, it was finding a rice supplier who needed to sell their trucks of rice and a buyer who was willing to buy.

A truck takes 600 bags of rice. Now, if the supplier sells a bag for ₦24500, I could add my markup, sell a bag for ₦25,500 and make a profit of ₦600k. The good part was that I didn’t need capital to start — I was just a middleman. The hard part was finding a buyer, but I committed to it.

The easiest way to find the right buyer was by leveraging my contacts. I asked everyone in my family and someone linked me to another person who knew the right person to call. Ultimately, it was about my connections. Between August and December 2020, I was able to sell three trucks of rice, and I made about ₦1.8m from these deals.

Sweet!

This was also the period my perspective started to shift away from my job. It would have taken me 18 months to make ₦1.8m at my day job. Naturally, I started looking out for more business opportunities. The next one happened in January 2021.

I’m listening.

In December 2020, I met someone looking to sell two plots of land in an upscale neighbourhood on Lagos Island valued at ₦350m. I told them that for a commission, I would ask around and see if I could find a buyer, and they agreed to it. I was pretty confident about it because a few of my friends’ families are into real estate development and are constantly on the lookout for properties. Within a week, we found a buyer. Less than a month later, the deal closed and they bought the land for about ₦340m. I got the biggest lumpsum amount ever in commissions.

How much?

₦20m. It was a complete dream. I mean, it was the kind of thing I envisioned would happen for me in Nigeria — being able to use my contacts for opportunities like that but I had no idea how it would materialise. Then this happened.

I was just looking at my phone over and over again, trying to take it all in. Once I got over the excitement, I knew I wanted to keep grinding. Now that I had some cash, I could afford to join a few of my friends in one of the businesses they were so big on — importing cars.

These moves. Inject it!

I wanted to see how it would work out, so I dropped ₦1m the first time when the total cost of bringing the car in was ₦4m. My cut on that was ₦100k when the car arrived and we found a buyer for it. Afterwards, I started increasing the amount of money I had in the business.

What types of cars were you bringing in?

At first, it was the old 2008/2009 Lexus RX and Toyota cars. We have a car dealer in the US who finds these cars at auctions and ships them to us. On average, it cost ₦3m or ₦4m to bring one of such cars in and we typically added a 30% markup, but it’s not set in stone.

Later, we noticed an uptick in demand for higher-end cars, so our focus shifted to the Highlanders, the newer Lexus RX, and Mercedes C-300 cars. We could make a profit of about ₦2m each on these cars. It’s only been a couple of months but we are growing and expanding the business.

I put ₦18m in the last batch of cars we imported from the US. They should arrive soon, and I expect to make about ₦4m in profit, which I think is very fair. Fingers crossed on their arrival.

Fingers crossed. I’m curious about what your earnings look like now.

Well, I still make ₦100k from my day job. But I make anything from ₦3m-₦4m every quarter from importing cars. Usually, I re-invest whatever I make back into the business and only take money out once every quarter.

What about your investment portfolios, how much are they worth now?

Most of my money is tied up in physical businesses, mostly car importation. The total value should be about ₦30m now. My other major investment is primarily in the Nigerian stock market and my brokerage account has about ₦10m in it. Because my portfolio is liquid and I can take money out any time, I don’t feel the need to save a lot of money in Naira. I have less than ₦500k in cash at the moment.

I’m very focused on opportunity cost and returns. If I think that I can make more money from my portfolio in the period it would take to ship and sell a car, I will pull money out of the business and put it into the portfolio.

Interesting. Let’s break down your monthly running costs, please.

How much do you think you should be earning now?

At least ₦600k at my 9-5. I’m underpaid at my day job, and that’s mostly because I haven’t done my NYSC yet. I love my job but I’m starting to value my time more than I value the work and the experience. The original plan was to work in the capital market for five years, then branch out on my own to start a business in fund management. Now, I’m not even interested in managing money for other people. I’m all about generating money from multiple businesses and pumping it into my investment portfolio. That’s always been the end game.

Nice. How have all your experiences shaped your perspective about money?

Working in the capital market where my job is to bring people who need money and the people who have it together has shown me that the best way to make money is to have money. It gets exponentially easier to grow wealth when you have some of it.

Also, the people around me have always been wealthy, and the more I see the way they spend and make money, the more confident I am to take risks.

Do you think there’s a part of your finances you could be better at?

Ah, yes. My investments are not as diversified as I’d like them to be. Most of my money is currently tied up in the car importation business. If something goes wrong — like if a ship sinks — it will wipe out most of my net worth.

I could be better with budgeting as well. Sometimes I need to make a purchase but can’t because I don’t have liquid cash around. For the most part, this wouldn’t happen if I’d budgeted better.

Speaking of purchases, is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?

It’s not a pressing need but I’d like a new car. I only started thinking about it when our focus shifted to higher-end cars. A Mercedes GLE-63 will be great but I need around ₦20m for it. As much as I want it, I can’t spend that much money on a car right now. My net worth has to be at least 10x what it is now before I consider it.

What about a purchase that significantly improved the quality of your life?

I paid for a one-year subscription to an online service that provides data in financial markets across Africa. It cost only $300, which was such a good deal and since I paid for it, it’s been way easier to do research. The quality of my life has improved because of it.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

7. I’m not doing badly for a 23-year-old, and I acknowledge that I had a lot of help to get here. I know the role my privilege has played, and I’m proud of the ways I have leveraged it. My salary from my day job is only enough for my baseline expenses, and I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have people to help me get into these side businesses. I’m definitely in a better place than I was a year ago. However, there’s a lot of things I want but can’t afford yet but I’m taking it one day at a time.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/privileged-nairalife-of-the-investment-banker-with-multiple-side-businesses/

BigCabal:
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.

This 23-year-old has an investment banking job and a couple of side hustles, but that’s not the most interesting thing about him. It’s how he makes much more money from his side businesses than he does at his 9-5, and how leveraging his privilege and connections got him there.

What’s your oldest memory of money?

I can’t think of a specific memory but growing up, my cousins and I danced for my uncles and aunts at weddings and other family events, and they sprayed us money. I liked balloons, and I understood that I needed money to buy balloons. I had to dance to get the money. It was that simple.

Haha. That makes sense. Can you tell me what growing up was like, financially?

My dad works in financial services and is a senior employee at a company he has worked at for decades. My mum did and still does a lot of business. I grew up comfortable although I didn’t understand how well the family was doing until I was older. A part of it was because I was too young to understand how money works. Also, I was exposed to a lot of kids who came from wealthier families, and that skewed my perception of money. At some point, I may have developed a bit of an inferiority complex.

For context: I went to a private secondary school and the kids there could spend $500 on an item when they go on vacation without blinking. There was no way my parents would sign off on such purchases.

However, once I started to get a wider perspective, I understood that my family was indeed doing well.

When did you come to this realisation?

That would be around 2014. I was 15 and about to leave Nigeria for uni. My dad had planned for me and my sister’s education and had a university fund for us. I had to go for my A-Levels first and I decided on a private college in Canada. The tuition was C$50k and my dad told me he couldn’t afford it at the time. Subsequently, I got a partial scholarship at the college and my dad still paid about C$30k. That was a lot of money, but he made it happen. Later that year, I moved to Canada.

Lit.

At first, I was living on a C$100 allowance every month, but my dad always ended up sending more money before the month ended. When he realised that it was more expensive sending smaller sums of money to me, he started sending C$2k at a time. Now, it wasn’t a monthly thing. The money was supposed to last me for a few months before I could request more. On average, C$2k lasted me for three to four months.

I finished my A-Levels in March 2016 and got into a university in the US to study Economics. I moved there in May 2016

How did it go in the US?

Nigeria was in a recession in 2016, so I knew that my dad must have been stressed having huge expenses in dollars. He was sending $200 every month, and I was determined to make do with it.

In my first year, I lived in school housing and was on a meal plan which had been paid for. I wasn’t saving money or working, so the $200 was everything I lived on. I finally picked up a job at a call centre on campus in my second year but I wasn’t completely committed to it. Thankfully, the minimum wage was $14 in the state I lived in. On average, I worked 20 hours in a month, which brought in an extra $200-$300. At that point, I’d say that at least half of my income went into feeding. I managed to save some $100 a month if I didn’t party a lot in the month, but those were far and between. I partied a lot when I was in uni.

Haha.

2018 was when I became intentional about making money.

How?

I saw what was happening in the financial market in Nigeria, and I was like “Wait, this could be a gold mine.” Here’s what happened: the CBN decided that they were going to start a “promo” and would be giving between 13% and 15% returns on short-term government securities. I thought that was a sweet deal and went in.

With ₦100k, I started buying and trading treasury bills. The returns weren’t a lot but I started to understand how money compounds over time. I did the math and the ₦100k would compound into millions of naira in 30 years, and I wouldn’t even have turned 50 years by that time.

However, in the short term. I realised that to scale, I needed to increase my capital. The way I saw it, it could happen in two ways: I could work more hours to earn more money or I could convince people to let me manage their money for them and charge them a small commission. I went with the second option.

Mad. Tell me how it went.

I started with my dad. I pitched the idea to him and managed to get ₦1m from him. I bought a few equities and invested most of the money in treasury bills, and it did very well. I made about ₦200k in fees I charged him.

I managed to convince a couple of other people in my family to help me invest for them and I got small sums of money here and there. I put whatever money I made from them into my portfolio and by the end of the year, I had about ₦500k in it.

That’s interesting.

I had been coming to Nigeria every summer since my first year in uni to intern at investment companies, so I was plugged into the climate. This came in handy in 2020 when COVID hit. Prices of assets all around the world dropped like crazy. I reacted quickly and sold as many treasury bills as I could and started putting money in the Nigerian stock market, which was also pretty risky at that point. But when I was returning to Nigeria in August 2020, my investment portfolio was worth about ₦2m and I had another ₦250k in cash.

You want to know why I returned to Nigeria, don’t you?

Now that you mention it, please.

I’d been thinking about it since my second year at uni. For the most part, I got my summer internships in Nigeria through my dad’s connection. My privilege became clearer and I thought it wouldn’t make sense not to take advantage of it.

Also, something happened when I was in the US that solidified this decision.

What was it?

I tried to get into an internship program at a big investment bank. During one of the interview stages, I met a girl I knew from school and her dad was one of the managing directors at the bank. We were in the interview room when one of the analysts came and was like “This is so and so daughter.” They took her from the interview room and gave her a tour of the facility. It was very clear that she was going to get the internship. I felt like I had this in Nigeria, so it made perfect sense to return and explore the opportunities I have here.

That makes sense.

I knew getting a job here wouldn’t be a problem. I had an understanding with one of the investment banks I had worked with to return to work for them when I graduated. I reached out to them, took a few tests, and that was sorted. In October 2020, I resumed work. My salary was ₦100k.

That didn’t make all the difference though. What I did between August and October did.

What did you do?

A couple of my old friends had returned to Nigeria before I did, so they had their feet on the ground already. When I got back, one of the first things I did was reconnect with them. I realised how much money they were spending when we went out.

We could go to the club and by the end of the night, they would have spent ₦1m on drinks. They split the bill but each person chipped in at least ₦150k. For the first few times we went out together, they didn’t ask me to chip in but I knew it was only a matter of time. The first time I dropped ₦50k, I knew my cash savings couldn’t possibly sustain that kind of lifestyle. I figured that they must be making a lot of money if they could afford to spend like that, which was interesting because they weren’t working 9-5 jobs — they had businesses.

What kind of businesses?

They did everything they thought could work. Eventually, I spoke to a couple of my friends and asked about businesses I could do with little capital. They gave me a couple of ideas but the most viable one was pushing large volumes of commodities. In my case, it was finding a rice supplier who needed to sell their trucks of rice and a buyer who was willing to buy.

A truck takes 600 bags of rice. Now, if the supplier sells a bag for ₦24500, I could add my markup, sell a bag for ₦25,500 and make a profit of ₦600k. The good part was that I didn’t need capital to start — I was just a middleman. The hard part was finding a buyer, but I committed to it.

The easiest way to find the right buyer was by leveraging my contacts. I asked everyone in my family and someone linked me to another person who knew the right person to call. Ultimately, it was about my connections. Between August and December 2020, I was able to sell three trucks of rice, and I made about ₦1.8m from these deals.

Sweet!

This was also the period my perspective started to shift away from my job. It would have taken me 18 months to make ₦1.8m at my day job. Naturally, I started looking out for more business opportunities. The next one happened in January 2021.

I’m listening.

In December 2020, I met someone looking to sell two plots of land in an upscale neighbourhood on Lagos Island valued at ₦350m. I told them that for a commission, I would ask around and see if I could find a buyer, and they agreed to it. I was pretty confident about it because a few of my friends’ families are into real estate development and are constantly on the lookout for properties. Within a week, we found a buyer. Less than a month later, the deal closed and they bought the land for about ₦340m. I got the biggest lumpsum amount ever in commissions.

How much?

₦20m. It was a complete dream. I mean, it was the kind of thing I envisioned would happen for me in Nigeria — being able to use my contacts for opportunities like that but I had no idea how it would materialise. Then this happened.

I was just looking at my phone over and over again, trying to take it all in. Once I got over the excitement, I knew I wanted to keep grinding. Now that I had some cash, I could afford to join a few of my friends in one of the businesses they were so big on — importing cars.

These moves. Inject it!

I wanted to see how it would work out, so I dropped ₦1m the first time when the total cost of bringing the car in was ₦4m. My cut on that was ₦100k when the car arrived and we found a buyer for it. Afterwards, I started increasing the amount of money I had in the business.

What types of cars were you bringing in?

At first, it was the old 2008/2009 Lexus RX and Toyota cars. We have a car dealer in the US who finds these cars at auctions and ships them to us. On average, it cost ₦3m or ₦4m to bring one of such cars in and we typically added a 30% markup, but it’s not set in stone.

Later, we noticed an uptick in demand for higher-end cars, so our focus shifted to the Highlanders, the newer Lexus RX, and Mercedes C-300 cars. We could make a profit of about ₦2m each on these cars. It’s only been a couple of months but we are growing and expanding the business.

I put ₦18m in the last batch of cars we imported from the US. They should arrive soon, and I expect to make about ₦4m in profit, which I think is very fair. Fingers crossed on their arrival.

Fingers crossed. I’m curious about what your earnings look like now.

Well, I still make ₦100k from my day job. But I make anything from ₦3m-₦4m every quarter from importing cars. Usually, I re-invest whatever I make back into the business and only take money out once every quarter.

What about your investment portfolios, how much are they worth now?

Most of my money is tied up in physical businesses, mostly car importation. The total value should be about ₦30m now. My other major investment is primarily in the Nigerian stock market and my brokerage account has about ₦10m in it. Because my portfolio is liquid and I can take money out any time, I don’t feel the need to save a lot of money in Naira. I have less than ₦500k in cash at the moment.

I’m very focused on opportunity cost and returns. If I think that I can make more money from my portfolio in the period it would take to ship and sell a car, I will pull money out of the business and put it into the portfolio.

Interesting. Let’s break down your monthly running costs, please.

How much do you think you should be earning now?

At least ₦600k at my 9-5. I’m underpaid at my day job, and that’s mostly because I haven’t done my NYSC yet. I love my job but I’m starting to value my time more than I value the work and the experience. The original plan was to work in the capital market for five years, then branch out on my own to start a business in fund management. Now, I’m not even interested in managing money for other people. I’m all about generating money from multiple businesses and pumping it into my investment portfolio. That’s always been the end game.

Nice. How have all your experiences shaped your perspective about money?

Working in the capital market where my job is to bring people who need money and the people who have it together has shown me that the best way to make money is to have money. It gets exponentially easier to grow wealth when you have some of it.

Also, the people around me have always been wealthy, and the more I see the way they spend and make money, the more confident I am to take risks.

Do you think there’s a part of your finances you could be better at?

Ah, yes. My investments are not as diversified as I’d like them to be. Most of my money is currently tied up in the car importation business. If something goes wrong — like if a ship sinks — it will wipe out most of my net worth.

I could be better with budgeting as well. Sometimes I need to make a purchase but can’t because I don’t have liquid cash around. For the most part, this wouldn’t happen if I’d budgeted better.

Speaking of purchases, is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?

It’s not a pressing need but I’d like a new car. I only started thinking about it when our focus shifted to higher-end cars. A Mercedes GLE-63 will be great but I need around ₦20m for it. As much as I want it, I can’t spend that much money on a car right now. My net worth has to be at least 10x what it is now before I consider it.

What about a purchase that significantly improved the quality of your life?

I paid for a one-year subscription to an online service that provides data in financial markets across Africa. It cost only $300, which was such a good deal and since I paid for it, it’s been way easier to do research. The quality of my life has improved because of it.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

7. I’m not doing badly for a 23-year-old, and I acknowledge that I had a lot of help to get here. I know the role my privilege has played, and I’m proud of the ways I have leveraged it. My salary from my day job is only enough for my baseline expenses, and I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have people to help me get into these side businesses. I’m definitely in a better place than I was a year ago. However, there’s a lot of things I want but can’t afford yet but I’m taking it one day at a time.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/privileged-nairalife-of-the-investment-banker-with-multiple-side-businesses/

naptu2:
The Lekki Coastal Road and the Lekki Regional Road are two roads that have been designed to decongest the Lekki-Epe Expressway.

The Lekki Coastal Road has been on the masterplan for decades. It is meant to be on the ocean side of Lekki. In 2011, some of the people that protested against the tolling of the Lekki-Epe Expressway demanded that the Coastal Road should be built before the expressway is tolled. However, despite the fact that the place had been demarcated, nothing was done on the land and it was taken over by mechanics and other squatters (one of my mechanics had his garage on that site until he was evicted last year). The government has now decided to build the road and it has been evicting the illegal squatters for the past few months. The Lekki Coastal Road is meant to run from the Oniru/Victoria Island axis to the Lekki Free Trade Zone.


The Lekki Regional Road is being built on the Lagoon Side of Lekki. Part of the road will be made up of bridges on the Lagoon. It will connect VGC to Freedom Way in Lekki Phase 1.

Picture 1 below = The area that is meant to be the Coastal Road.
Picture 2 below = The Lekki Regional Road