Adulting is hard. Have you tried to buy curtains of late? Better yet, have you tried figuring out what happens to a thousand bob every time you leave the house? Or, how your water bill seems like you are running a carwash in your home, being charged for ten units as a single guy or girl who uses not more than two buckets of water. It puts into perspective why our moms smacked us into oblivion every time we would leave the light on when exiting a room. Those were the good old days. The nostalgia!!!
Speaking of growing up, I used to have these neighbors. They were five ladies in one house; the mum and four of her daughters. These ladies loved cooking (they were pretty good at it too). Every Sunday afternoon, the whole apartment building…to be honest, it was more of a “ploti”, would smell of chapattis. They wouldn’t invite anyone, but that didn’t stop the neighborhood from knocking on their door and asking for one or two chapattis to share.
Of these particular neighbors, three of them used to work. They were never around much. Out of the remaining two, one was in college, and then there was Sophie, who used to have a shop of some kind in the estate. I can’t remember what exactly she sold as she rarely opened for business. These ladies had one strange tendency, they were behind on most of their bills. Not that they didn’t have the money to pay, but that they were either too busy or too unwilling to spend two or three hours at the banking hall to pay rent.
The power bill was the hardest though. Those days you had to set aside at least half a day to go to the power company to pay your bill and these ladies for sure didn’t have the patience. It goes without saying that by the 18th, an agent from the power company would ride into the compound to do the necessary.
When Darwin proposed that survival is for the fittest, he failed to inform us that survival is not so much about being fit as it is about how well you use what you have to survive. The minute the power company agent would get into the building to perform his disconnection duties, Sophie would say hello in her ever gentle and welcoming tone and invite him over for a meal and a chat. Thirty minutes and a meal later, the agent would reappear, leaving all the notorious neighbors in the dark with an exception of Sophie’s place. This became the trend and went on for a little over six months.
The same trick was used on the landlord’s auctioneer and his repo men. You can guess that the landlord was not amused and long story short Sophie and family were kicked out late in the night on a rainy Wednesday evening.
Flash forward to present day. My cooking skills are limited to boiling water and preparing noodles, so I know for a fact there is no way I am getting away if the repo man knocks on my door. My insurance is my trusty money manager and friend called Loop. I have all my recurring payments set up as debit orders. Rent, sorted. Savings, sorted. My mum’s Chama money, sorted. My power bill is no different, but times have changed and I only need to enter my account number on Loop top billers and get my monthly bill then pay immediately. Leaves more Saturdays for me to try and find someone who can come close to making Sophie’s chapatis.
I may not be buying new curtains anytime soon, but I can save the small fortune needed easily. So are your transactions and finances sorted like mine or are you trying to live that Sophie type of way?
Download and register on NCBA Loop today to change the way you bank or invest in some excellent cooking classes.
