As we all know,scarcity is inevitable! As married people we are sometimes faced with financial situations that puts us in tight corners. This may not be as a result of carelessness or lack of savings,it may be due to unforseen circumstances like sickness,loss etc.

Pls how do we manage the home at such times? Whether as a man or woman,whether both partners are working or not! Pls give us suggestions,ideas or personal experiences! Thanks

I'm like the mother of my father's hhouse....


1. I Reduce the size of the servings of food (meat also)

2. Wash all the clothes ata stretch to make full and efffective use off the soap..

3. Prepare cheaper meals

4. Pray to God

Change your feeding time-table to 101.

duffie: Change your feeding time-table to 101.

I wouldnt advise 101, instead she shld reduce d quality of the food and cut down unimportant and avoidable expenses..

You simply wound your budget around what is left, your attitude towards the situation is what make the difference. Manage what you have and keep your hopes alive.

Manage your resources wisely.

Limit the Brazilian weave, go for Chinese.
Refuse that fat broiler lap, go for local fowl.

Sell your car, take a bus.
Do your hair yourself.
Nails yourself.

Home school your kids if possible.
Register in one church and give them your problem. No be only to collect tithe dem Sabi.

Pls add more. Baby dey cry here

Buy only what you need. Not what you want.

Plan your meals wisely. They can be cheap and nutritious with good planning.

Buy in bulk always so that when the rainy days come, you will have correct umblerra that will last a while before you start buying small small.

Never waste food even when you have plenty.

Hahahaha!!!!! Lol!@Chillisauce, u made me laugh like a mad woman!

But seriously you have a point! Especially the 'do it yourself'.
@Byvan,very true! Attitude to d situation matters a lot! Lots of women find it difficult to cope during scarcity and some men too! They become edgy,getting angry at every given opportunity!

@duffie,hmmm,even when there is no scarcity,how many families do the 101? Most times the 1 is what is eaten throughout the day.

Chillisauce: Manage your resources wisely.

Limit the Brazilian weave, go for Chinese.
Refuse that fat broiler lap, go for local fowl.

Sell your car, take a bus.
Do your hair yourself.
Nails yourself.

Home school your kids if possible.
Register in one church and give them your problem. No be only to collect tithe dem Sabi.

Pls add more. Baby dey cry here

You get your hair done yourself

ireneidiva:
You get your hair done yourself

Sometimes, especially when I had my baby and couldn't go tithe salon, the first 2 months, I did my hair my self.

Relax it,

Weave it,

Fix weave on it... Takes like the whole day...breastfeeding and all. ...



For the fixing of weave, the needle should be positioned in a way you use the back of needle to Enter the weave and your hair.

Chillisauce:

Sometimes, especially when I had my baby and couldn't go tithe salon, the first 2 months, I did my hair my self.

Relax it,

Weave it,

Fix weave on it... Takes like the whole day...breastfeeding and all. ...



For the fixing of weave, the needle should be positioned in a way you use the back of needle to Enter the weave and your hair.

Lolzzzz. That is real creativity!

ireneidiva:
Lolzzzz. That is real creativity!

Yep, u tend to be creative when u hv no choice.
And what stops the woman from buying one or two good wigs, always do soko( I don't know whether I gat it)and cover with ur wig whenever u r going out. It helps a lot. Alternate it every one or two weeks interval. U can save a lot from there.

Must u do ur nails if u r blessed with good ones?

U can go for gotv instead of dstv.
Ur gen gat to be on when its it necessary to cut cost. Eg if the whether is cool after a heavy rain, why waste ur fuel?

yellowpawpaw:

Yep, u tend to be creative when u hv no choice.
And what stops the woman from buying one or two good wigs, always do soko( I don't know whether I gat it)and cover with ur wig whenever u r going out. It helps a lot. Alternate it every one or two weeks interval. U can save a lot from there.

Must u do ur nails if u r blessed with good ones?

U can go for gotv instead of dstv.
Ur gen gat to be on when its it necessary to cut cost. Eg if the whether is cool after a heavy rain, why waste ur fuel?

Wig? Hmmm. You must have forgotten what happens when wind blows? I fear wigs o. The gotv thing makes sense to cut costs.

ireneidiva:
Lolzzzz. That is real creativity!

What can you do when no much option to choose from

ireneidiva:
Wig? Hmmm. You must have forgotten what happens when wind blows? I fear wigs o. The gotv thing makes sense to cut costs.

I don't like wigs o, when you want to get down with Oga, naso the wig go comot you now look like a

Chillisauce:

I don't like wigs o, when you want to get down with Oga, naso the wig go comot you now look like a

Lolz.

ireneidiva:
Wig? Hmmm. You must have forgotten what happens when wind blows? I fear wigs o. The gotv thing makes sense to cut costs.

U hv ur pins, pin it to ur hair. Unless its not ur skull size. It will perfectly fit.

An average Nigerian using gen spends more than 15 thousand every month for fuel alone. Some will tell u they spend more than that. This is just an estimate.
Do u know that 15 thousand can feed a family of four if well managed during scarcity?
When I mean well managed I mean choosing where u buy foodstuffs carefully and buying only the needed.

I go to malls, markets and what hv u and I must tell u, an average Nigerian wife don't know how to shop!
We waste money as if there is no tomoro especially on irrelevant things.
A pot of soup u can comfortably prepare with meat stock of 1000naira, some of us will buy meat 1000, stockfish 400, fish 600. But a woman that has tomoro in mind will use that 1000k and buy all these and still make palatable soup. The remaining change,she keeps for tomorrow. Pot of soup that will last for 3 days only?
And if u hv small children, most times its advised we use fish for them bc of brain devpt.(Omega 3 and co)

[color=#006600][/color] during our time of scarcity as a family, lots of adjustments were made. Instead of Lipton, we made do with Lemon grass tea, byebye to kerosene, we used charcoal, we made do with designer rubber shoes that served all purposes, bend down boutique ws handy. We had a vegetable garden from were we sourced our vegetables..we made few friends. If you cant pay the NEPa bills, get a transistor radio. problems are only a passing phase. Every wahahla get expiry date.

Chillisauce:

I don't like wigs o, when you want to get down with Oga, naso the wig go comot you now look like a

Mama iyabo! Lol!

What happened to ur hair
Men prefer touching real hair than artificial anyway.

yellowpawpaw:
Mama iyabo! Lol!

What happened to ur hair
Men prefer touching real hair than artificial anyway.

Nothing do the hair, but e stubborn die! .. Better to braid or fix weave than comb dis hair

Chilisauce

You just made my day by causing me to LOL thanks. The part about the wig reminded me of a female friend's ordeal when she was getting her groove on one time with her guy and then the part about registering at a church for help (no be only tithes dem sabi collect was just hilarious).

@ OP

Cheap is the way I go to adjust to scarcity and hard times, I buy the cheapest products on sale which in some cases means compromising on quality. For instance rather than buy the big pack of omo detergent I do the small satchet packs of N20 so five of that would be N100. What that does is that it frees up more money for me to spread out in covering other expenses.

And like someone said cut out unnecessary expenses, do without the things that are not a necessity and then learn to wait out your problems don't start borrowing money or items left, right and centre to survive you'll only be digging a grave for yourself oooo.

Finally talk things out with God, you know he really is interested in every part of your life, he isn't unaware of your issues and he does know the end from the beginning. Talking to God is good therapy for your soul you may not see or get immediate results but you'll leave his presence 10 times lighter than when you first got there.

Well, we are managing. Lol... That's the language of about 70% of Nigeria's population, making it seem as if studing management at school is a huge profligacy. As the situation presents itself, we take it like that at home, yeah we try to adjust and adapt. through out last 2 weeks, me and my guy had the toughest time to the extent that we respected even G-4 but just yesterday, God touched our debtor who was oweing us 220K and he started paying by installment. Now pepper don dey rest small-small. Prayer really helped us cos we initially reported the case to NSCDC but they did nothing. Why am i saying this? It's just to encourage u too, no matter what, don't only depend on ur hustle or any of Nigeria's law enforcement agencies when ur debtor(s) refuse to pay up cos they will fail just like they failed us. May God bless our hustle!

1. Garri:- You'd want to switch most meals to garri, the food of champions. I hear they now have instant garri in a sachet.
2. Drink lots of water:- Helps ease hunger pangs.
3. Get a room mate:- Helps to split the cost of rent making housing more affordable
4. Take the bus:- Who you kidding, flousing with that ride when the tank is on E.
5. More Garri:- Repeat as necessary, until the situation subsides.
6. Start hustling again:- Dust the dirt off your shoulder and get back into the zone.

I wish you the best, I have known what it is to be broke and it aint pretty. Just make sure that when the money starts pouring in again, you double up on your savings to cover any unforeseen events.

I go just dey visit people anyhw.

cos thats the best way to manage scarcity if you know what I mean.

vivichocs: I wouldnt advise 101, instead she shld reduce d quality of the food and cut down unimportant and avoidable expenses..

What of those that already do 101 due to either reasons of their own or from habit.

The answer is the trite saying:CUT YOUR COAT ACCORDING TO YOUR MATERIAL.

duffie: I'm like the mother of my father's hhouse....


1. I Reduce the size of the servings of food (meat also)

2. Wash all the clothes ata stretch to make full and efffective use off the soap..

3. Prepare cheaper meals

4. Pray to God

*taken* wash all the clothes at a stretch, t also saves tym nd water.

tellwisdom: Only poor people complain of scarcity # I'm out

:PYou have been noticed! Thanks for stopping by

When there are kids involved, it's wise to be very careful and not let them know how financially difficult the situation is. 'Responsible' adults can easily adjust their needs when working on a tight budget, but for kids(aged 5-15) who are already accustomed to the good life, it can be quite a challenge.
These are some few tricks that might help;

1. You can never go wrong with Bread & Tea for breakfast. Stick with it, and it's cheap.

2. Noodles! Yes noodles. It's a cheap source of nutrients, and you can mix the food time-table up to include Pastas. This can make a nice dinner.

3. Look for someone who deals on fairly-worn imported clothes. Children's clothes are plenty in this business, so u can still change their wardrobes..cheaply!

4. Buy fruits a lot. Oranges, Pineapples, Pawpaw, Avocados. These are cheap, and u still get your nutrients.

5. When your kids ask for favours, it's better to tell them to give you some time. Never complain about financial problems openly, leave those for the bedroom at 10pm when everyone is asleep and do it quietly.

6. Toileteries needed for running the house always come in expensive and cheap, large and small, luxurious and normal...and better still, there's not much difference between them so this shouldn't even be a problem.

Like I said before, this is when kids are involved. I got no advice for adults, y'all should be matured and sensible enough to handle your shhii!t.