Naira Life Vol 181

Good Morning, 🌞

We’re still accepting responses for our inaugural Income report. We’re really curious about how Nigerians across the country think about making money and what answers we might find beneath the numbers.

Your participation gives us exactly what we need to prepare and build a definitive report on the state of income in Nigeria.

We've put together a short, completely anonymous survey. It'll take a few minutes.

Take the survey here.

If you can, please send the link to someone you think should take the survey, too.

In this letter:

• #NairaLife: This Designer Has Gone From $5 Gigs to Earning ₦3.2m/Month. But He Feels Poorer
• “I Handle Everything” — Married Nigerians Get Brutally Honest About Splitting Bills
• I Lost My Best Friend When I Became the “Rich Friend”
• Where The Money At?!

This 25-year-old’s #NairaLife began in secondary school with small business pursuits. These days, he earns ₦3.2m/month, validating his theory that anyone can “make it” in design.

Now, his sights are set on his $30k savings goal and his efforts to outrun a failing economy.

Your income doesn't have to be consistent for your life to be. The soft months and the slow months will both come.

Carbon lets you lock away what you earn when it's good, grow it at up to 20% interest yearly, and access up to ₦1 million in loans when you need it, without touching your savings. And if you use your locked savings as collateral, you unlock even lower interest rates on top of our already competitive rates.

Steady life, no matter the season. That's the Carbon way.

Money conversations in marriage, especially when it comes to who should pay for what, can get tricky. For some couples, it’s 50/50. For others, the husband primarily takes the responsibility.

We spoke to 10 married Nigerians about how they split bills, and their answers show there’s really no one-size-fits-all approach. Read the full story here.

You've budgeted. You've manifested. You've eaten at home for three weeks straight.

The money still isn't adding up. Maybe it's time to focus less on cutting and more on earning.

Jenny* (31) and Mercy became friends in 2006 and they quickly became almost inseparable. But something always shifts when money enters a friendship with an uneven power dynamic.

Jenny unpacks how money and power shaped their friendship, and how her relatively late but rapid income growth might have been what broke it.