Surviving the recession

I have had a lot on my mind recently (yeah, what else is new). The thing that most occupies my mind is this global recession and how it affects me. I have tried to talk about it with some of my friends but find that a lot of people are not even sure that we are in a recession and a few others that do know think that they can keep living their lives normally until economic forces force them to adjust (pardon the pun). I find that the typical Nigerian behavior is reactive rather than proactive and what this means is that we wait until a simple challenge has turned into a complex labyrinth before we start working our way out of it. I am guilty of this too. After all, I am Nigerian.

However, I have decided that on this particular issue I have no choice but to be as proactive as possible. I am no expert but the way I see it, there are 2 things I can do.

1. Cut back on all unnecessary expenses. Frugality has to be the watchword. 

2. Find a source of income other than my salary. (I used to have one but kind of abandoned it   when I changed jobs).

I have even started reading some frugality blogs in the hope that I can learn a few things. Most of the tips don’t apply to us here in Nigeria. [However, this may interest owners of gold jewelry]. I did manage to find some tips here but some of them are much too extreme for my taste. This is the list I really like.

So I am throwing it open. If you have any ideas that are relevant in Nigeria, please put them down in the comment box and I will update the post by putting up a list of everyone’s ideas.

Let me get the ball rolling by putting up a few ideas of my own.

      1. Car pool. That way you save on cash spent on petrol. Also use the staff bus if that option is open to you.

      2. Draw up a budget every month and follow it. If you have a spreadsheet allocating money to specific expenses, it easier to see if there is an unnecessary cost or a cost that can be adjusted so that you can save money. I recently saved about N62, 000 after adjusting my daughter’s after school schedule. My spending is now more cost-effectively done since I started using a spreadsheet for budgeting.  

Over to you…

Loony Mother

I met this girl recently less than 5 minutes into striking up a conversation, she was planning on leaving her son in my house for the weekend.

I was astounded. She was so flippant the whole matter that she may well have been speaking of dropping off meat in my freezer. I had to ask her if she did not have any concerns as to her son’s safety and specifically mentioned sexual molestation. Her watery response was that her son is old enough to speak and as such is able to speak up if he does not feel comfortable going back to a place he had been before. Yeah, right! Someone has clearly never read or heard about the psychology pedophiles use on children.

As far as she was concerned, it was a no-brainer. She would bring her son to meet my daughter and when coming she would pack a weekend bag for him. If her son and my daughter got along, she would simply leave the weekend bag there and go back home without him. Oh, and she meant that weekend. It was a Friday when I was talking to her so that was the very next day or that night.

I still can’t believe that such a thing was possible in this day and age and she went on to tell me I had hang-ups because I was a single parent. I don suffer no be small. Apparently, she and her husband wanted some alone time and although she had a nanny, the best way was to get her son out of the house completely. That was when I understood that it was a 2 for 1 deal. Nanny comes with the son. Ostentatiously to help in taking care of her son. Reading between the lines, I figured that she had exhausted her normal “helpers”. Maybe they had stopped taking her calls.

After the 15 minutes we spent talking, I decided that:

1. I will never let her “visit” my home.
2. She was looking for a free babysitter to foist her son and nanny on.
3. My daughter would never spend even an hour in her house as chic had disturbing ideas about parenting -who knows what sort of dangers she would expose my daughter to? And I will never go too. It may be some disease you can catch.
4. Chic was plain loony! Who puts a kid out there like that? With strangers. It is crazy.
5. Her husband must be crazy too.

Or am I really the one that is being uptight?

Obama sleeps on a Mouka foam mattress

Did y'all see this Mouka foam advert of Obama? It was in the papers on the day of his Inauguration. The cut off part says Great Mattress, Great dreams.

Think he should sue or come and collect royalties due to him for this ad?

Almost forgot to add that there were some claims that he is actually from around Rivers State in Nigeria and not Kenya as is reported. Obama is a Niger Delta boy! Yep, the crazies have started coming out of the woodwork.

And, what was up with banks and other companies taking out full page ads in the dailies to congratulate him? I don't get Nigerians, children are starving, there is no power and in fact there is a recession going on and we are spending money on adverts directed to a man that will not get to see them. And in the off-chance that he ever will, will not give any contracts (yes, nothing goes for nothing in Nigeria).

Run Obama, Run!! Don't let the crazies get you! And congratulations (me sef go try, who knows? He might just give me a contract to change the carpet in the oval room, LOL!)

Random Thoughts: I dislike it when men...

I am sitting at the airport, waiting for the nasal lady to announce my flight (do they go to a special school to learn how speak in that unintelligible manner?) and of course surreptitiously taking in the arrival of other passengers.  I have a lot of people to look at (including a girl who is wearing sunglasses indoors plus knee high boots while others are melting – it is possible that her body is here but her mind or whatever regulates her temperature is in a sunny place where it is cold) and that has somehow inspired this post.

I dislike it when men:

• Have over-defined bodies and then wear really tight tops to show them off. Arggh! It seems that the favorite top for these body builders is the one in the photo above. Almost forgot this one...the guy that wears a net top. It is cut away such that there is 10% fabric and 90% body on display.
  
• I was going to say: wear colored shoes ( I can forgive red trainers) but some guy just passed by wearing a lime green t-shirt , a pair of jeans and lime green trainers. Not a bad look.
  
• Can cook. While they are great at whipping up a meal, they can also be great at criticizing whatever you put before them. “There is too much salt.” “Just a little bit of curry would have pepped this up.” “Are you sure you put in garlic?” “It tastes kind of bland.”  I am a good cook but like everyone else, I have my off days.  I like guys that wolf down whatever you put in front of them. It will be great to be with one that cooks and agrees to help out that way, the only condition being that he has to reserve his acerbic comments. I don’t want to know that the food is not to your liking.
• Have more cosmetics than I do. I was once amazed by a guy’s collection which included nail growth cream, hair mousse and hair gel. For the love of all things good! While I do not want a guy who is a slob, there are 2 major things wrong with these guys: They are too “aware” of themselves and anyone that they are with has to be on point constantly. Just like the cooks, they point out ashy elbows, overgrown cuticles and lightly chipped nail polish. I am generally well groomed and again, have off days when I do not need the pressure of a perfect looking boyfriend who wants me to match him. The second thing is that they look too "done". The not a hair out of place look is not natural. 
  
• Wear see-through outfits.  And go commando. Where do you want me to put my eyes? Abeg!  Or they wear head to toe white sheer linen and top it off with flaming red boxers or worse, boxers with cartoon characters drawn all over them. It is a violation of my personal space.
  
• Think that it is sexy to show their workman’s cleavage. Cringe worthy!
  

Enough for now. Would be interesting to hear what the men have to say about what women do.

I almost missed my flight today because I was typing this…..I had to run to catch the plane! The price one has to pay for being a gbegborun and not minding their own business.

Officially a Waffy Girl

I had to go to Warri for work a few days into the year. I had never been there before and got all sorts of warning and advice...yes o! Naija chic like myself. Naturally, a lot of them were just my friends jesting about the situation in Warri.

"Carry your Nigerian passport o!"

"Practice walking around with your hands in the air"

"Tan a little before you go".

With an earful, I boarded a plane headed to Warri. We were seated for more than 10 minutes but they still had not closed the door of the plane. We soon found out why...apparently someone's checked in baggage was leaking. They held up the small bag and there was liquid leaking out. Since they could not put it in the baggage hold like that, they needed the owner to come and check the bag. Dude got off the plane and opened the bag. It was 99% full of canned beer, one of the cans had been punctured and was leaking. Laughter rang out on the plane! Dude probably went for a party and carried awoof beer...I mean, as far as I know star beer is sold everywhere. The only reason one would want to transport it is because it was free.

The company I work for arranged for someone to meet me at the Osubi airstrip. As soon as I stepped into the arrivals "lounge", there were 2 guys to meet me. Great! They got my bags and we headed to the bus. That was when I officially started having doubts about my safety. I was the only passenger in the bus plus 2 uniformed & armed mobile police men. For what now? And on the trip into town, there was heavy army presence complete with barricades and sandbags. I had only ever seen sandbags on TV before. I have since learnt that the security threat has greatly reduced. The mobile police men that rode with me to work and back to my hotel were precautionary. They never really looked at me, apparently quite bored with these routine trips. After my initial surprise, I got used to having them there.

One last interesting thing about Warri: There are massive projectors? TVs? at Effurun roundabout and majority of the time, DSTV is on. I have seen it on at National Geographic, SuperSport3 and of course Africa Magic. Only time DSTV was not on, there was a documentary about the accomplishments of the state governor in the state. Not sure it has sound as the car windows never go down. One wonders how this helps the citizens of the state in terms of revenue generation.