SEC17 WK:#4: the effects of economic hardships on families

Hello steemians I trust you are very well and okay, it is a new week and another series of engagements challenge are lined up for us. I am happy to participate in this challenge as I share with you my thoughts, opinion and knowledge on the subject matter.

What is economic hardship? This can be defined as a situation where an individual is unable to pay for or afford basic living expenses.

Basic living expenses include and is not limited to water, food, electricity, education, healthcare, etc.

Source

The state of my country is important to understand why Nigerians are facing economic hardships.

According to Transparency we are ranked 145/180 in the corruption index and according to news outlet Cable.ng “The World Bank says poverty rate in Nigeria has increased to 46 percent in 2023, representing 104 million poor Nigerians”.

So my dear readers you can see with the above that more than half of my country are living in poverty. This is the reason why we have a higher corruption index as people now go the extent to commit hideous acts just to get money to put food on their table.

_{I and my brothers}

Just like the time of the civil war in Nigeria there was so much hardship that families had to starve to death, some parents killed and ate their own children. Although we are not facing any war now but poverty and hardship is making more families to suffer.
In my family it has not been rosy at all, we are not rich and we are not very poor. We are just below average which means we make enough to eat and have nothing to save for tomorrow. The money we should have saved is taken over by bills which must be paid.

It has not been easy for my single mom to raise all three boys. We are also all in the university and the cost of education recently went up.
The only thing that helps me most of the times is the fact that I came on steemit. It is for this reason also I'll forever be grateful to my inviter @vudeme123 for introducing this platform to me as it has helped weather the storms of economic hardship. This was especially during my newcomer days where I was sure of getting something weekly.

For my I cope by writing on steemit and helping students do some school work. There is no part-time work here where I stay or the pay is very bad.
My mom had to take a loan and be paying back by installment since she's a civil servant.

_{Group cooking and eating}

Other ways we cope is by:

• buying foodstuffs in bulk to reduce waste, my mom father's buys a bag of rice than to be buying in cups.
• buying things when it's less expensive or when it is sold at a discount.
• living life within our means, we are aware of our financial situation and everyone is cutting their cloak according to their size.

In summary, with all that is going on, my family is hopeful that things will stabilize as we pray for God to intercede in the affairs of our nation. But while we wait for such prayers to be answered we are doing our part to stay alive and witness it.

Thank you for reading my piece, I kindly invite @stef1, @goodybest and @adachukwu to participate in this engagement challenge.

First picture source is stated while second and last is from my Facebook page