What’s your earliest memory of money?
Helping my mum sell food at one of her shops. She’s a civil servant, but she took on side hustles — making food, pastries and beads — to support the family when my dad, who was also a civil servant, quit his job to venture into charcoal exporting. Things didn’t work out for him.

My mum was able to carry the burden of taking care of her four children well. We didn’t lack food, clothing or good education. Sometimes, she’d buy clothes for us and say it was our dad who bought them, just to keep things looking good in the family. She was so graceful at it that I knew I had to make my own money too. I even tried to start in JSS 3.

How?
During the holiday after junior WAEC, I asked a neighbour who was a baker to teach me how to bake, and she was excited to. But my dad said no. My parents are big on their children staying home to read rather than doing business.

When I was in SS 3, I made jewellery with my mum’s beads and sold them to friends and neighbours for ₦500 each. That didn’t last long because I went to university in a different state, far away from Lagos.

What did you study?
Law. It would’ve been food and nutrition, but my dad’s late brother was a lawyer. He wanted one of his children to study law as a way to remember him. I got into uni in 2013, but because of ASUU strikes, I had to return home for over a year. In 2015, when I resumed my first year again, I applied and won two scholarships. One was an essay competition, and for the other, I had to write an academic paper and defend it in front of a panel of judges.

I won ₦200k in total and used some of the money to start a business.

What business?
I bought hair straighteners and helped people stretch their hair. I didn’t have the skill. I just thought it could be good business since I was in a girl’s hostel. I printed “Stretch your hair here” and pasted it on my door.

How much did you charge?
Between ₦300 and ₦500. Because I wasn’t good at it, I could spend as long as one hour per person. In 200 level, I stopped and started baking cakes instead. My mum was a baker, and I had a roommate who baked as well, so I used the combined knowledge to bake small cakes for friends and people from fellowship with a stove in the hostel. On some weeks, I made just enough profit to survive on my own. Most other weeks, I survived by asking my parents and aunts and uncles for money.

During strikes, I wouldn’t travel back to Lagos because I didn’t want my parents to keep me home doing nothing. My aunt, who lived in the same state my uni was located, connected me with some families who needed a home lesson teacher for their children. They were three families with a total of 10 children, and I charged between ₦1k and ₦2k per child. So I was doing over ₦10k a month during strikes.

Towards the end of uni, when I went home during a strike, I worked as a teacher in a small school. They paid ₦12k, but I left because it was too far from my house. After that, I worked as a receptionist at a medical lab. They paid me ₦10k for a month.

Those were the things I did to make extra money during university. I graduated in 2019.

What happened after?
I got an internship at a small law firm in Abuja. My older brother lived there, so I moved in with him. For three months, I wasn’t paid a consistent salary. It was always between ₦5k and ₦10k. And my manager kept making passes at me even though I told him to stop. I stopped going there the day he took my hand and put it on his crotch to feel his penis. I told them my dad needed me back in Lagos.

Did you actually return to Lagos?
Yes. But then I had an issue with my brother’s wife. I’m not a heavy eater, and she took that to mean I didn’t want to eat her food.

Also, they had a maid who woke up by 4:30 a.m. to clean the entire house. During the day, I did dishes, ran errands, cooked and helped prepare the kids for school. So tell me why she had a problem with the fact that I wasn’t waking up as early as the maid to do chores.

What happened when you got back?
I worked as a teacher till December. This one paid ₦20k. I also properly learnt how to bake, finally. I paid a baker friend of mine just ₦30k, and she taught me how to make and decorate cakes professionally.

In 2020, I finally went to law school, but I could only stay there for a month before COVID chased us home. Then I decided to start a cake making business.

How did it go?
I was making good cakes, and my friends patronised and recommended me. The problem was I lived in a remote part of Lagos, so it was difficult to find dispatch riders. When they eventually came, they’d still run other deliveries before delivering my cakes late, and many times, smashed up. I didn’t make profit, and I was leaving a bad impression.

Shortly after I stopped, a friend connected me with someone from Ghana who needed to do their school project. They knew I could write, and I knew I needed the money, so I took the job. In about a month, I was done, and the Ghanaian paid me ₦30k. I couldn’t believe it. To me, it was such good money. I started looking for more writing jobs. Someone told me about Fiverr but also discouraged me because Nigerians either didn’t get jobs or were paid poorly.

In the search for writing gigs, I stumbled on the post of a lawyer I followed on LinkedIn, who made money from affiliate marketing. When I reached out to her, she said I needed to learn how to write persuasively to be successful at it. Not the type of writing I did, but copywriting to evoke emotion. I also needed to learn about targeted ads, sales funnels, and all that marketing stuff. Affiliate merketing is promoting other people’s products to get a commission, and I needed to learn properly.

Did you?
Yes. She sold me a course that taught me the fundamentals. It cost ₦40k. I didn’t have the money, but my ex-boyfriend did, and he gave it to me. As soon as I read the first part of the course and understood the basics, I decided to give affiliate marketing a try.

I started in November 2020. By the end of December, I’d made ₦500k.

Read full story: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/-lawyer/