MONEY TALKS: How to survive the 89 days of January

I have a confession: I’ve been borrowing money from Tala.

You must know Tala? Formerly Mkopo Rahisi? It’s that app that sends cash to your M-pesa when you ask for it. The cash comes in almost instantly, as an unsecured loan.

I first borrowed from Branch in late November, I was doing it as research for this column. (Branch works in almost the same way as Tala. But more on that another day.) Branch led me to Tala. Tala led me to more money. I haven’t left Tala since.

I like Tala. It’s my dirty little secret. I’m floating in a peaceful Zen-like bubble knowing that it’s right there in my phone. And that we’re in good terms. And that it’ll sort me out when I need it to.

I don’t have any loans currently outstanding but I will borrow again soon. That’s for sure. I’ll borrow because I need to complete my research for that story, but I’ll borrow mostly because it’s the 89 days of January and I don’t know how many miles the coins I have in my pocket will run. Which brings me to the first survival pointer in the Njaanuary toolkit.

Borrow from Branch, Tala, any such apps or from a shylock
I won’t be coy about this – if you need money to survive the long painful trek of January, then borrow. Don’t suffer, borrow. Borrow what you need and have a plan to how you’ll pay it back in full and on time.

I’m good friends with Branch and Tala because I’d been borrowing and repaying on time – my credit history has earned me a license to bigger loans on lower interest rates.

You can also borrow from Safaricom’s M-Shwari, KCB, Timiza... it’s a long list of apps.

There’s also the good old shylocks.

Shylocks trump these apps because you don’t need to have been building a good borrowing-and-repaying-on-time history with them to get the money you need, right away. You also have the option to negotiate collateral, interest rates and repayment period with them.

Budget for your January income to settle these loans
Not repaying a loan is just bad manners. And it will cost you, one way or the other, it will cost you: a shylock will break your knee caps or send someone with a growling name (like Bruno) to rough you up and take away your car keys.

The apps are passive-aggressive, they’ll just keep rolling forward your unpaid loan and charging sinful interest rates on it, until the day you pay it back.

Honestly though, it’s senseless and really just idiotic not to settle your loans on time and in full.

I strongly suggest that you use your income – or salary – to settle them. Don’t borrow a new loan to settle an old one; you’ll be starting yourself on a trap of living off bad debt. It’s a difficult habit to break, one demanding more discipline than you imagine.

Also remember that you must be good to these ‘financial saviours’ because you don’t know when another financial emergency will rear its ugly head.

Don’t host any guests at your home
Look, hosting isn’t easy on the pocket. You know that as well as I do. I know it much more because GB and I love to host in our home. Our tales of the Holiday Season last December aren’t without our hosting dramas.

Guests maul your resources unforgivingly. They maul your food, your electricity, your water, your cleaning-lady expenses, your sleep, your gas. Did I mention your food?

Of course, the guests come with their own blessings and bottles of wine and all those other goods tidings, but these tidings can wait until the dusk of January sets in.

If guests must, ask them to come over late in the afternoon, when a cup of Kenyan tea and some hot mandazis, fresh from the pan, are as good a feast as any.

Carry from home packed lunch and snacks
I’m snacking on some ngwacii ( sweet potatoes) as I write this. The Help boiled them this morning and packed them for me in my carryon food bag. Later, for lunch, I’ll have the chapos and peas left over from our dinner last night (her chapos are something else). A banana and homemade smoothee at 4pm will wrap the day up for me.

I intend to carry this cost-cutting measure into the 89 days of January, and beyond.

Ngwaciiis not the sexiest snack, I’ll tell you that, but it’s healthy and easy to prepare and puts the money back into my pocket. Do you know how much it would cost me to leave my desk and go to a kibanda or worse, to a coffee house like Java, to buy a healthy snack and filling lunch every single working day?

I’ve done the math – it translates to about a years’ worth of ngwacii.

Take a matatu to work
I usually take a matatu to work. My office is located smack in the CBD so it’s relatively convenient to find my way here without feeling as if I’ve been punished.

Today, particularly, I made sure to get here before the sun was shining in all its glory; there’s something about getting to work sweaty that turns the whole matatu experience unpleasant and ugly.

I’ll leave my desk at around six in the evening, when the sun is dipping into the horizon and casting the city’s silhouette in the warmth of the orange-red sunset.

I’m lucky to work in the hubbub of the CBD. Where do you work? I bet it wouldn’t hurt you to park your car for a few days this month and take a matatu, instead. It’ll give you a different taste of our city. Not to mention the palsy 100 bob in a day’s fare.

Two rules for matatu travel: Always have loose change at hand, and travel light.

Do your vegetable shopping at the source itself, in Marikiti
Marikiti is an animal on its own. I’m learning to tame it and speak its language.

Shopping there is like cutting out the middlemen and shortening the supply chain by a handful of thousands in cash savings every month.

Do you know what’s amusing? I bumped into my local mamamboga when I was doing my own house shopping. We cackled, slapped each other’s back and carried on our way.

The catch with Marikiti is that you should get there by 6 a.m.; when the sun is just about rising, and the vegetables are still tightly fresh, and you can manoeuvre through the human traffic, and get parking for your car under the bridge for only 100 bob.