With the removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol, many Nigerians have been feeling the brunt.
Families are cutting down costs of food and household fuel and many companies are investing in online technology solutions to improve their work-from-home model while navigating the new economic realities.
Since the President, Bola Tinubu, declared in his inaugural address on May 29 that subsidy was gone, the price of fuel has skyrocketed by almost 300 per cent.
This has also resulted in rising prices of goods and services.
Whereas, a report by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that over 133 million Nigerians live in multidimensional poverty.
Over 70 per cent Nigerians, according to the World Poverty Clock, an online poverty calculator, live below the poverty line.
Although former President Muhammadu Buhari talked about an $800m World Bank facility aimed at cushioning the effects of the removal of fuel subsidy, models have not been put in place to fashion out ways of identifying those who need it, how much they need and the mode of disbursements.
A stay-at-home mum in Delta State, Mrs Deborah Fabie-Dan, while speaking to our correspondent in a telephone interview, said she had to cut the cost of feeding to be able to afford more household fuel as her house ran mostly on generating sets because of epileptic power supply in her community.
“I had to be creative,” she said. “I did not wait for my husband to tell me to cut costs. When I went to the market and saw how things had increased dramatically, I told myself that we needed to, as a family, make some sacrifices.
“I cut down the cost of our monthly feeding and reworked our timetable. I and my husband are both civil servants, so it is out of the equation that we will earn extra cash,” she added.
Cut budget
Speaking on ways to navigate the new normal, a personal finance expert, Eucharia Ogu, said families must begin to cut the cost of running their homes if they wanted to survive the regime.
“The major fact is that sacrifices would have to be made by all. All expenses must be cut down by almost 40 per cent. The budget spending on food and other supplies would have to go down as well.
“If the family needs to sit down and do a meeting on what has to go and how, they can sit down to do that. But, it has to be done and fast, too, because the prices of food items will increase or decrease according to market forces,” she said.
A statistician, Mr Eyoh Eyoh, said budgeting for the entire month or quarter might be better than just doing so for the week.
“The money on transport should be worked on. Lunch money should be cut or expunged. Children can go to school with cooked food instead of buying overpriced meals at the school canteens or roadside food stalls,” he added.
Embrace online meetings
Eyoh asked workers to plan around doing their meetings online to limit the cost of transport and commuting to and from the office.
He said, “There is an issue with transport. For those that have cars, they will burn more expensive fuel now. Those who join buses will pay high fares. All these can be neutralised if more individuals can embrace online meetings rather than face-to-face conversations.”
Ogu said online meet-ups even in religious and friendly gatherings should be encouraged.
“If you really do not need to be there in person, why go there? That would be putting a lot of pressure on your already shrinking finances. It would only be fair that more people embrace meeting and greeting online till everything stabilises. If we could do it during COVID-19, we can do it now,” she said.
Be wise with fuel usage
For families and businesses that run on generators, Agu said they might have to consider other sources of energy or limit fuel consumption.
“There are inverters and some of them are solar-powered. Families can begin to invest in them. If you turn on your generator, as a family, from morning to night, you may want to turn it on only when it is expressly necessary.
“The major point is to save energy costs and use the money saved to improve feeding or other areas of the budget,” she added.
According to Eyoh, a business that does not need a generator all the time should not run it unnecessarily.
“If a barber turns on a generator to cut a client’s hair, when he finishes, he can turn off his generator and wait for another customer. Leaving it on for people to charge their phones, play music and the like, may be considered wasteful, especially with the high cost of fuel in the country,” Eyoh added.
Embrace trekking
Eyoh said trekking should not be seen as a thing for the poor.
According to him, even in developed countries, like the United States of America and the United Kingdom, people walk short distances.
“If the place one is going to is not far, walking is a better alternative. A 15-minute walk from one junction to another before taking a bus will not hurt,” he said.
Agu added that trekking is healthy and beneficial to the body.
“When one walks, one burns calories. It is not always advisable to always be behind the car steering even when one is going to a walkable distance,” she said.
She noted that a ‘walkable distance’ could be a distance of N100 on a bus or about one kilometer.
Relocate closer to work, school
Agu advised families who lived far from their work areas to relocate to a ‘walking distance’ of their workplaces.
She said, “The healthiest commute to your workplace should be less than one hour in a car. Staying five or seven hours in traffic just to get to work can be disastrous, not just to your health, but to your pocket.
“You may consider changing your child’s school to one closer to your home. Attending a religious assembly close to home can also help.”
Bulk buying
Instead of buying supplies in tiny bits, Eyoh said it was advisable for families to buy in bulk.
“If a family cannot afford a bag of rice, for instance, they can tag with another family, buy it and share into equal halves to save cost,” he said.
Agu added that bulk buying was the safest way to beat inflation, especially in a subsidy regime.
She also advised families to cook in large portions and store up in the refrigerator so they might not have to always use up food items quickly.
