Cost Of Living, Inflation & Surviving

I usually don’t go to the market, anything that has to do with food and groceries are handled by my mum. Whenever my mum goes to the market to buy foodstuffs and grocery she comes back always complaining about how the price of things are increasing everyday. All I just say is “that’s bad”or “where is this country going to?”. I just say those as a means of giving her emotional support on what she is complaining about. But when it comes to paying the utility bills, everything is pretty normal, the price is the same. I am the one responsible for paying the utility bills, so I rarely complain about how high the price has gone.

But yesterday I decided to leave the house and look at how the outside world is, since I have been indoors for months. I live in Lagos, that’s one of the busiest state in Nigeria and Africa. The street looked busy as usual as everyone hustled for their daily bread. So I decided to go to the supermarket and get some beverages because I noticed that we lacked beverages at home and I needed to buy myself toothpaste. I went into the supermarket and the prices of beverages I saw got me speechless. Not that I can’t afford their new prices, but because I was wondering how can foodstuff be this expensive for the common citizen to afford. All of a sudden this sadness filled inside me. This is because the prices of foodstuff has skyrocketed to 300% from the last time I can remember buying these things.

I bought a 350g powdered milk, last time I can remember it was worth about 320 naira, then I bought a 200g of Milo which was about 200 Naira the last time I can remember and finally Toothpaste that was 150 Naira the last time I bought it. I was surprised to see the prices to be 850 Naira, 650 Naira and 350 Naira respectively. That’s a lot for an average Nigerian who receives 30,000 Naira($60) every month. I came back home ranting and complaining like my mom always did whenever she came back from the market.

How Long Can The Citizens Stay Ahead Inflation With Crypto?

Inflation is eating the country so bad and it’s painful that the citizens can’t do anything about it. It’s true that most youths are investing in crypto quite alright, to stay ahead inflation, but with the rate at which inflation is getting high, I don’t know how long the citizens can stay ahead. The rate at which price of naira to dollar is going is different from the rate inflation and increase in cost of living is going. In 2 years the price of dollar to naira has increased more than 40% while the cost of living has increased 200%. That’s like 160% space gap, am using dollar as a unit of measurement because every one in Nigeria blames the naira to dollar devaluation as the reason behind the increment in the cost of living in the country.

Those of us that earn in dollars feel a little bit lucky because we feel that we are ahead inflation but the truth is, we are not truly ahead because we feel it in the cost of living. We are just a little bit better than those earning in Naira. If you were used to spending $100(36,000 Naira) in buying food stuff last year in Nigeria, this year the value of $100 is roughly $52,000 and it’s still not enough to buy those food stuff you used to buy with $100(36,000 Naira) last year. You can see that the citizens are not really ahead of inflation even if they earn in dollars.

Investing in crypto helps a lot but the price of crypto is volatile so you don’t really know what is going to happen. The value of your crypto asset increases in the value of dollar, while crypto price is increasing high, Nigerian inflation and cost of living is increasing higher. So it’s hard to keep up.

Last 2 years 1 Million Naira was roughy $3,000 but this year 1 Million Naira is roughly $1,940. But the sad part is even if you still have $3,000 with you I promise you that within 1 month it will finish as fast as it would 2 years ago when that same $3,000 was worth 1 Million naira.

*What Can The Citizens Do To Survive

Well the best the citizens can do is keep investing in crypto and earning in dollars, because no matter how bad it seems, in a way investing in crypto and earning in dollars keeps us in balance with the economy. But that’s for we that earn in crypto and dollars what about the ones that earn in Naira and has no other choice. This is really sad, because the citizens feel really helpless. During the Endsars protest, lots of citizens were hoping that the protest would be the beginning of a revolution but unfortunately the government won by killing a lot of protesters that led a lot of citizens into fear of protesting again. People were hoping that if the youths had won the protest, may be they would be more protest concerning other sectors in the country that needs to be reformed.

This year lots of Nigerians relocated out of Nigeria, from the updates I saw on Twitter the rate of migrating out of Nigeria was really high this year. This is because most of the citizens have no choice anymore but to look for a country with a suitable standard of living with less corruption than Nigeria. I also plan to relocate out of Nigeria , it’s almost every Nigerians dream to leave the country except the people in power. They love the country because they can get away with corruption and looting.

This is the reason I try to onboard as much Nigerians as possible because I feel their pain and I believe Hive can give them a means to stay way ahead of the Nigeria’s economy.

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