I work as a waitress at a restaurant and get paid a salary of Sh13,000. I am married but my husband and I don’t have children yet. My husband works as a night watchman. He earns a salary of Sh15,000 per month. He is the main breadwinner at their home. He spends a minimum of Sh8,000 in black tax alone. I also support my family with Sh3,000 every month.
We spend Sh5,000 on rent and divide the rest on groceries and shopping. I have recently heard of an opportunity to go to Saudi Arabia as a housemaid and I am considering it. If I worked there for two years, I might get enough capital to improve our lives.
I need to raise at least Sh120,000 to pay the agent. How can we raise this amount within the next six months? Is this a good investment? What would be the alternatives?
Josephine Murage, an investment banker and personal finance consultant.
Your combined household income is Sh28,000. Out of this amount, from your listed expenses, you spend a combined minimum of Sh11,000 every month on black tax. This implies that about 40 per cent of your income goes to supporting your parents, siblings, and, or relatives. This leaves you with about 60 per cent to live on, which is equivalent to about Sh17,000.
Your only other listed expense is Sh5,000 which is allocated for rent, leaving you with Sh12,000 for all your other needs and wants. This amount does not have a breakdown on what every coin is allocated to. Although your budget operates majorly on the kadogo economy, I would urge you to budget every coin that comes your way, regardless of how small the amount may seem.
However, your dream of securing a better paying job abroad is not doomed if you can stretch your timelines, readjust your spending, and widen your income bracket.
Start by evaluating what the Sh11,000 amount you and your husband send home in black tax is spent on. Is the black tax spent on health, education, food or is it sent as a casual form of support that can be readjusted until such a time when your finances stabilize?
Draw two columns for this evaluation consisting of wants and needs, and focus on the mandatory such as health. Narrow down on alternatives; for example, if it is health, consider enrolling your siblings in the national health coverage scheme for which you can pay the basic annual fee in January and still grant them a level of coverage.
Sit down with your family members, explain your situation to them and explore other options they can do to start earning some income to reduce your burden. If you are able to reduce this dependency from a minimum of Sh11,000 to a maximum of just Sh4,000, you will have a disposable income of Sh7,000 per month.
Put this money in either a Money Market Fund with a minimum interest rate of 9 per cent or in a reputable and professionally managed Sacco that will earn you dividends at a rate of at least 10 per cent. Your target here is for your money to start growing by earning compound interest, and, or Sacco dividends, and a potential for funding at 3X your savings by the end of 2026.
Due to your stretched income, this disposable income may be the only fair amount you can score without further upsetting your financial capabilities. However, you can create additional income streams by exploring short term side hustles.
For example, since your spouse works at night, you can sit and evaluate if there are light hustles he can take for a few hours (for example, between 2pm and 6pm) per week after getting his sleep. These could be as simple as working at a car wash, or riding a boda boda on commission. It is also common for guards to get extra cash from keeping an eye on neighbouring buildings or parked vehicles within their work vicinity during their night watch.
Every Sh50 or Sh100 earned from such hustles can be deposited in M-Pesa and saved in the Ziidi Money Market Fund. At the end of the month, the cumulative amount could very well be as close to Sh5,000, which would take his monthly income to Sh20,000.
Similarly, find out ways you can also top-up on your income to between Sh15,000 and Sh20,000 per month by doing simple side hustles such as freelance catering, cooking chapatis and mandazis for sale, mama fua, etc. on your free days. In the interim period, direct all your extra earnings to the Sacco savings account or to an MMF.
Assuming that you are able to get a modest income of between Sh5,000 and Sh7,000 per month from side hustles, you will have earned an extra Sh60,000 at the end of 2026 (even before you factor in any compounded interest and/or Sacco dividend). This would push your savings from budgetary adjustments and side hustles to over Sh140,000, excluding compounded interest and/or Sacco dividend, which would be adequate to meet your goal of funding your move to the Middle East for work.
Although it is possible to raise the required agency fee amount, I will caution you to be extremely careful with the type of agency you work with, the type of job you will be going to do, the amount you will earn, and any hidden terms and conditions that you may not be privy to now.
If, at the end of next year, the move to Saudi will no longer be viable, evaluate how you can boost your skillset upwards, for example by taking short courses on baking and catering that align with the hospitality sector which you are more conversant with.
The same goes for your spouse. Let him also explore ways he can upgrade his marketability in the job market, according to the level of his education, either by taking additional short free courses or even subsidised part-time trade courses. I wish you all the best.
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