I am 34. I work as a part-time professional mechanic for a second-hand vehicle importation and garage business.
I make Sh1,500 per day working Monday to Saturday. Sometimes I get tips from customers that bring in about an extra Sh500 and Sh1,000 per week. I got married a few months ago. My spouse is currently not working. She is four months pregnant, and all household duties are my sole responsibility.
We live in a one-bedroom where I pay Sh11,000 in rent. I got Sh350,000 from family and friends during the dowry process and then raised Sh200,000 from friends for the wedding. This amount was too little, and so I took a four-year loan of Sh700,000 using my father’s ancestral land as collateral to supplement the deficit in our wedding budget.
I pay Sh22,054 per month. We thought that we would be compensated in gifts that attendees would give, but the items we got were less than Sh150,000 in value. We are now broke!
I paid for four months and have so far defaulted on repayments for three months. The bank has started making recovery threats. I am stressed because my father could lose his land. Paying rent and groceries has become a problem, and I am constantly borrowing from friends and family. I feel like getting married was a mistake because I did not have these financial problems before.
Gertrude Njeri is an accountant, personal finance and investment consultant and the founder of Financial Buddy Africa Ltd.
Raphael, first, please don’t be too hard on yourself. You are 34, working, supporting your wife, preparing to welcome a baby and trying to meet your financial obligations on one income. That is a lot of responsibility for one person. But looking at your numbers, there is one problem that needs to become your number one financial priority: The Sh700,000 loan secured against your father’s ancestral land.
You earn Sh1,500 a day, Monday to Saturday. If you work 26 days a month, that is about Sh39,000 in a typical month, before your Sh500–1,000 in weekly tips. Your loan repayment is Sh22,054, which consumes more than half of that regular income. Then you pay Sh11,000 in rent. That leaves you with roughly Sh6,000 before food, electricity, transport, your wife’s needs, medical expenses and everything else.
Your first step should be to contact the bank immediately and ask for a meeting with the department handling your loan. Don’t avoid their calls because you are afraid of the recovery process. Explain your actual situation: your income, the three-month arrears, your wife’s unemployment and pregnancy, and your willingness to find a way to bring the account back into good standing.
Ask whether they can offer a restructuring, rescheduling or extension of the repayment period that would reduce the monthly instalment to something your household can realistically afford. However, don’t accept a new arrangement simply because it lowers the monthly payment. Find out how it changes the total interest and total amount you will eventually repay.
I would also encourage you to get independent legal advice on the loan agreement and the recovery process. If the bank sends you a formal demand or legal notice, don’t ignore it. Deal with it immediately and get professional advice on your rights and obligations.
At the same time, I would make one rule for your household from today henceforth: no new borrowing to pay for everyday expenses unless it is part of a deliberate debt-restructuring plan. Borrowing from one friend to repay another, taking mobile loans for groceries or taking another loan to make this loan payment will only push the problem forward.
Your next priority is increasing your income. Your biggest asset right now isn’t money: it’s your mechanical skill.
You already work in the motor vehicle industry, so look for ways to turn that skill into additional income. Depending on what your employer allows, you could take on small mechanical jobs outside your regular working hours, offer mobile repairs, servicing or diagnostics, build relationships with car owners who can refer customers to you, or negotiate better pay as your experience and responsibilities increase.
For example, an additional Sh500 per working day on 20 days of the month would give you another Sh10,000. That could make a meaningful difference to a household currently operating with only a few thousand shillings after rent and debt repayment.
Your wife’s situation also needs to be considered, but sensitively. She is four months pregnant, so this may not be the right time for her to take on physically demanding work or a conventional job. But once she is able, and depending on her skills, she could explore a small income-generating activity that can be done safely around the baby.
Don’t, however, take another loan to finance that activity. Your household already has enough debt.
You also need to prepare for the baby’s arrival now. You don’t need an expensive baby budget, but you should sit down together and identify the essentials you will need for antenatal care, delivery, transport, food and basic baby items. Knowing the costs in advance will help you distinguish between what must be paid for and what can wait.
For now, forget about investing, buying property or trying to rebuild the lifestyle you may have expected after the wedding. Your investment priority is stability. Once the debt situation is under control and your household has some breathing room, you can start building an emergency fund, even if you begin with Sh500 or Sh1,000 at a time.
There is also an important lesson here about the wedding. The difference between what you spent and what you received is now being paid for through a four-year loan. That doesn’t mean you should spend the rest of your life regretting the wedding. But it does teach an important financial lesson: never borrow based on money you expect to receive from other people later. Gifts are voluntary and unpredictable. A financial plan should work even if those gifts never come.
And Raphael, I want to address the sentence where you say you feel getting married was a mistake because you did not have these financial problems before.
I understand why you feel that way. Your financial responsibilities changed dramatically after the wedding. But try to separate the marriage from the financial decision that created this particular problem. Marriage did not create the Sh700,000 debt. Financing a wedding with a four-year loan secured against ancestral land did.
That distinction matters because you cannot undo the wedding, but you can change the financial decisions you make from this point forward. Don’t allow regret to make you give up on your marriage or your future. Right now, your household has four priorities: protect the land, deal honestly with the bank, increase household income and keep your basic expenses under control.
The wedding was one day. Your family, your father’s land and your financial future are much bigger than one day. Focus on protecting those.
