Welcome to #ChopLifeDiaries, a series documenting how Nigerians eat and all the ways they spend their money on feeding. In a country where people spend up to 85% of their income on food, we’re following our readers’ food journeys during the week and documenting expenses related to shopping, fast-food meals, market runs, restaurant dates, and every bite in between. In this time of rising food inflation, #ChopLifeDiaries reveals how folks from different walks of life are figuring out their food budgets in different cities.
Today, a writer walks us through his weekly eating habits, and meal plans.
The income
Today’s subject is 25 years old, lives in Ajah, Lagos state, and works as a team manager and scriptwriter for a content creation company based in Europe. He creates content that involves writing, editing, and sometimes creating the entire video from scratch. He also recruits talent and manages the entire creation process.
What’s your annual salary?
Say, around $30,000 a year but I live in Lagos. In a good year, it could be much more.
What’s the payment structure like?
I don’t own the firm; an American does. I’m just a manager. So all the gains go to him, and then at the end of the month, I get paid. Each paycheque is a minimum of $2500 per month. But it can go as high as $4000 on a good month.
What are your recurring monthly expenses beyond food?
It’s hard to keep track of my expenses but I spend ₦25,000 on data, and around ₦40,000 on digital subscriptions: Netflix, Prime Video, newsletters, magazines, and everything else. Then around ₦10,000 on house bills such as water and electricity. Since we almost never have power Ajah, I have to fuel the generator every day and I spend around ₦60,000 monthly on this. I spend roughly ₦200,000 on black tax, sending money home to my mum and brothers. Most other expenses are just miscellaneous.
The budget
Give an estimate of how much you spend on food per week?
Hmm, say, up to ₦100,000 per week.
Can you give a quick breakdown of what you spend this on?
I only make pepper stew that lasts two days. I enjoy fried turkey in a well-cooked stew, and two kilos will do the job. The stew is only there to help when I need to cook something quickly, or on days when I don’t buy food. I spend more than ₦8,000 to make the stew.
Having stew often determines how, when, and what to cook, but I buy food more than I cook. For breakfast, I spend ₦4,000 on any meal I am interested in, and it is nothing more than the usual rice, beans, or spaghetti. This is a budget I made already so I really don’t think much about it. I eat only twice a day: breakfast and dinner, and for the latter, I don’t spend as much as I do for breakfast, only ₦2,000. The most expensive of what I buy is the chicken, turkey, and fish. I buy turkey for around ₦2,000/₦2500.
When you buy food, where are your favourite places to buy from?
Errm, TYM Kitchen, Kilimanjaro, Amala village, Chicken Republic. It probably costs me up to ₦40,000 to buy food outside.
That’s a lot.
Omo. I eat a lot sha, and I tend to buy a lot of food in the morning that will last me till early evening. I just keep eating till all the food is finished.
So do you cook for yourself?
No. I always try to hire someone to help me do the cooking, and I only cook if I can’t get someone to outsource the cooking. And when I do cook, I just make rice, spaghetti, eba, vegetable soup, or beans. The cost of hiring someone to cook for me is quite unstable, given the time and location.
What’s your most recurrent meal?
Rice o. Nothing else beats rice. I can eat rice every day of the week, but I try not to. So just four to five times a week.
The diary
Monday
8 a.m.
My day starts with a cup of coffee. I always get my groceries over the weekend so there is absolutely no scrambling for what to cook. I begin my daily workout routine–nothing serious, just a few push-ups and squats–before I begin to cook. From the previous Sunday, I already have bought what would go with the rice so I just pick it up from the fridge. After a short workout, I sort the dirt out of the beans before boiling it. After this is done, I make my stew and fill it with whatever protein I might have.
10:13 a.m.
By now, it is time to delve into breakfast and I already have my fill. This is usually the same time I begin to work, and what cuts it simple for me is having to eat first before work. Breakfast at 10 is my favourite: rice and beans, garnished with fish or meat sauce, depending on my mood I also prep fruits and other ingredients to make my smoothie. I particularly do not enjoy the water with it, so I go the extra mile to find unique flavours & creams. The smoothies are always essential, so I have them after food and right before work.
1:12 p.m.
I barely take anything for lunch, and except I have snacks or other goodies I can munch on, I mostly go through the afternoon without food. Chocolates work really well in this case, and they do more than just help maintain a specific rhythm.
5 p.m.
I sometimes escape the troubles of searching for dinner and just opt to get pastries in one of my favourite kitchens around. Dinner is always light because heavy food keeps me awake. I like warm custard with milk, but sometimes I opt for a salad. Getting the vegetables is the hardest part of this one, but I know I will get lucky from my shopping from the weekend. Although not predetermined, dinner is always one call away.
Tuesday
10:30 a.m.
I fast on most Tuesdays. So I go through the whole day without eating. My work engagements are typically relaxed on Tuesdays, so I take advantage of this to make turkey stew that will last for days. Stocking up the fridge from the past Sunday makes this very easy. It’s on Tuesdays that I do most of the cooking.
6:00 p.m.
By 6 p.m., I break the fast with bread sometimes, or white rice and stew at other times. I start cooking earlier in the day so I can meet up at the 6 p.m. mark. Because I didn’t eat for most of the day, I try to overcompensate by binge eating throughout the night. On days I break my fast with rice, I find myself going back to the pot until I get to the bottom of it.
Wednesday
9:50 a.m.
After the usual morning coffee, Wednesdays are mostly for eating out. But, I do not venture out so early to buy food. For breakfast, I take something really light, like pap or milk with custard.
12:15 p.m.
On Wednesdays, the workload is typically minimal, which means I have time to go around Lagos without the fear of not meeting deadlines. The first stop is usually Kilimanjaro, where I have lunch. My favourite meal here is the native rice, which I usually have with turkey and a bottle of their organic fruit juice. I don’t know how their menu works at Kilimanjaro but I think their meals are overpriced for the quality they offer. Sometimes I spend up to 7k on a single meal.
3:30 p.m.
Knowing Lagos and how horrid the traffic gets on some days, I stuff my bag with a lot of junk when I’m stepping out so I can have something to munch on if I get stuck in traffic. Chocolates are my favourite so I buy a lot of them. I don’t particularly have a brand preference so I buy whichever one I get my hands on. I buy water in traffic because those hawkers always have chilled water.
6:00 p.m.
Since eba is the only swallow I can make at home, I make sure to eat other varieties of swallows on Wednesdays. There’s an amala spot a walking distance from my home where they sell amala and other types of swallows. So when I get back home in the evening, I get refreshed and then step out to the spot to buy swallow. I typically get two wraps of amala with ewedu and stew.
Thursday
9:20 a.m.
Thursdays are only slightly different from Wednesdays, so I eat out most of the time. For breakfast, I settle for rice — any kind of rice with a lot of meat.
2:15 p.m.
For lunch, I simply scroll through Twitter for food vendors or I ask my friends about any reliable food vendor they know. This simply gives me a variety to choose from, but I never go past my 5k budget, even though Twitter vendors are sometimes pricy as hell.
5:00 p.m.
Thursday nights are for spaghetti. It’s crazy that even though spaghetti looks easy to cook, I generally suck at it. When I’m feeling adventurous I try to replicate simple YouTube recipes but when I’m too hungry for all of that drama, I just boil white spaghetti and use my stew as the sauce.
Friday
10:20 a.m.
Fridays are lazy days. I stay in bed for a longer time than I do on other days, and when I get up, I do a little workout before going into the kitchen to comb for junk to eat. I often have grand ideas about cooking something I seldom cook, like beans, but I eventually don’t.
12:00 p.m.
I buy food. I don’t have a specific formula for this, so I go as the spirit leads. Sometimes I go out, sometimes I use my Jumia Foods app to order. I also have nothing specific in mind so I just go with whatever catches my eye among the options presented to me.
8:00 p.m.
It’s a Friday night nau. I’m not going to say I’m much of a drinker but I sometimes abuse my limits on Friday nights, especially when the boys come over. Sometimes we buy a medium-sized bucket of chicken nuggets from KFC and down the nuggets with a lot of beer.
Saturday
9:00 a.m.
I’m typically recovering from the previous night so you’re probably not going to find me awake by this time.
11:00 a.m.
Still reeling from the recklessness of the previous night, I take oatmeal, pap, or custard. When I was little, these were the meals I was given when I wasn’t feeling too well so now, I consider them wellness meals. I often sleep through Saturday so eating in the afternoon depends on how much I slept.
6:00 p.m.
For dinner, I commit to traditional dishes, those Yoruba ones that I cannot make. I never buy eba outside so it’s always either amala, pounded yam, or anything that is not semo.
Sunday
10:15 a.m.
I attend the third service on Sundays just to have enough time to eat breakfast before leaving the house for church. First I drink a large mug of coffee to keep me awake during church service. Then I make a smoothie thick enough to fill my stomach till I get back from service.
12:05 p.m.
Immediately after church, my friends come to visit and we play games all into the evening. We also eat, and this is exactly where my turkey stew finishes.
5:40 p.m.
By evening, my friends would be on their way. This is when I go to the supermarket (thankfully, they open on Sundays) to shop for the coming week. I usually draw up a list of items I need and I try to adhere strictly to that list. I make sure to eat out before I come back home because the moment I get back, I’m preparing for Monday.
