 Alright, thanks for staying with us now. Buying gifts for our loved ones and getting ready for Christmas is part of the festive holiday chair and yet millions of households experience holiday shopping and preparation as a source of stress rather than enjoyment. For them the Christmas spirit is more about pressure and anxiety instead of calm peace and peace of mind. This year financial pressures can be harder to manage than usual as a result of the deteriorating economy, insecurity, the fuel scarcity, in fact the list goes on. However, how prepared are you rather for the festive season and how will you be managing the pressure amidst economic hardship? Now that's the question we're asking ourselves tonight. Now please let's hear what you have to say. Remember you can join the conversation send us an SMS or WhatsApp to the red one 8034663 you can also Twitter us at weishoafqa1 for the hashtag weisho. I mean you go to a supermarket now so today I was shopping at the mall and supermarket nearby and apparently the price tag on the you know the display tag that you see display prior before you pick the item so the lady picked the item and then took it to the till when she got to the till it was a thousand something on the on the display on the till it was 2000 almost 3000 something right almost 3000 she then goes to meet the manager that Olga when I am shopping there's a reason I am looking at the prices it guides my purchase that it is so unfair that you put a price there and I go to the till I'm meeting a different price so I wasn't thinking in my head is it that supermarkets now are beginning to also use that as a tactic because maybe sometimes you might not really check so me to when they were now tilling my own I picked a shrimp shrimp 15,000 I said what is 15,000 I said shrimp one sachet of shrimp I told her please go and check it out for me I'm sure there has to be a cheaper one so she got something that was around three thousand three thousand two or something so basically I'm saying that right the the pressure is real that like it's getting worse right so we must be really smart because again I don't want us to fall into depression because you cannot and I mean I reached out to Chinayla I was saying Chinayla is my new saving night and shiny ammo my eyelash now before I've I saved 50% of what I used to pay for my lashes I saw some lovely shoes she had I said please where did you go me they have not been to Balungu in years I have not Balungu market you know I'm just saying that we we just at as much as possible right you still want to look good you still want to whatever but there are cheaper ways to achieve all of those things right maybe we should start to explore that but let me hear your thoughts how are you guys managing the pressure something happened today right my son and dummy went to the market so before that we're even going to buy toiletries and whatnot and then we picked what's it called deterrence and we asked someone and then guy said oh it's one thousand seven and then we was like wait we used to buy this thing nine hundred nine how did we get to one thousand seven hundred for one bottle of and I'm like you know what I didn't want to think about the game let's just keep it moving so you see it's affecting every single thing every thing from food to you know your personal items to clothes to I can't imagine what's happening people that are trying to shop well thank god for black Friday I had a lot of slash prices that were slashed but even at that it's been it's it's been crazy and like I always say leave within your means there's there's several ways to actually look beautiful you know smell nice and all of that within a budget I'm a fan of budget you know leave within a budget it's okay to you know splurge and what not what not what not but I always say that you always find nice things cheaper but cheaper absolutely yeah you have taught me well I think for me and what I've noticed recently is anxiety has become the order of the day so before I go to a store or even go to the market to buy anything it's like god what would the price be this time around I know I know last month I I kid you not in terms of groceries and everything that I spent for feeding was about 100 000 wow I've not cooked yet too I just bought like raw raw ingredients and I had to tell myself last month I'm not eating out for any reason nothing will make me eat out I will cook is what I have in my fridge that I will eat until I finished it to the last bit of my fridge is empty before I step out and I I stuck with it because I realized that amount was very ridiculous I can't be spending that amount of money and then another thing that I started to do is sometimes you know you want to impulse buy you want to buy something you want to buy this and I have to ask myself and sit with myself I give myself three days before I actually have to ask myself whoa why me why me like today I went out I was like oh this fragrance looks nice and trust me I have a lot of fragrance and that's because I'm a frug head so I was like I smelled it it smells nice I said Jennifer do you really need it and I realized I don't need it I'll stop buying clothes as much as I used to because one I don't go out a lot and I mean I work from home most of the time so I'm like I'm not going to be buying outfits that I would not wear and I always try to buy sets I buy things that I know I can pair with other things now I look into my cupboard and my wardrobe I say yes this pink shirt and I mix it and I mix I style it in different ways and also it also comes down to food and every other thing that you need now sometimes you want to splurge with the way the economy is set up I don't think you people a lot of people have the the liberty or the grace to actually just splurge except you feel like okay I can I mean you only leave once if that's for me I don't like to do you only leave once I like to make sure that I manage my funds as much as possible Christmas is coming I have to buy things for my parents I'll send money home as I'm going home I'm thinking bag of rice the price has increased what do we do and we are cooking we're not just cooking for my immediate family we're going to school for a lot of people my mom likes to invite people to the house for Christmas so I have to think about that you think about protein okay are we buying goat's meat and we're buying chicken chicken is not cheap at all you understand this is like a lot of things are very expensive you mentioned so you know the getaway we are having this year I was supposed to hire someone just so the plan was to get people to just cook and bring all my money we're calling price and I told my friends but right now they have a chef that comes like he wants to do Christmas food and I told the lady better my order the turkey the chicken and everything when they went to the house just so you know the prayer the pressure has always been there you just have to be creative we've never had a situation where I mean when we're in double digit inflation we have all sorts of situations both man-made and natural cause disasters or causes that are affecting our reality not to mention the things that are happening around the world I remember when the Ukraine war first started and we were chatting with the group right and I can't remember which of the ladies I think was Elsie who was Elsie yeah yeah it was Elsie you just wait you just wait in this global globalized world that we're in it will eventually catch up to us and we're really seeing the effects of it now so it sounds bad to say that we've always lived with this it's just the degree to which we're seeing it increase and a very short space of time so I mean anybody that knows me knows how much I love open-air markets love going to Lagos Island and all those places and I'm a bit meticulous in my record keeping right so I have what I call a market book and I've been keeping that book since 2015 thereabouts I've been keeping that book it's scary to see how prices have gone up in that time so when I asked now how much Gary you know we saw they say in the paint of Gary how much the paint of Gary is now and I look at that book and I remember buying it for 600 Naira it sounds ridiculous right so when I look at the total amount I used to spend back then I would go to the market with 70,000 and I would buy everything I needed to buy from meats down to dry goods fresh vegetables everything and I'll come home sometimes with some change now that 70,000 doesn't even it doesn't serve me in one store like one place where I buy things you know come to talk of the whole day I spend in the market so it's it's it's scary to imagine how people are coping right how people are still eating things have gotten smaller so the price stays the same the package the quantity inside the package have gotten smaller like now it's just creativity so when you were talking about the shrimp right when you were you call the amount of the shrimp I laughed because I told people that I buy shrimp once a year now I know the seasons I can tell you when things are in season I've always followed it but now is even more meticulous right where I only buy shrimp in rainy season like in the height of rainy season end of July August I will literally like at that point in time it's almost like a third of the price of what you would buy normally and I just buy and I stock up and I know that okay I know my situation is a bit unique yeah I tried to get to that freezer man it's my luck but but so that's that's the where the creativity comes in where you try to buy things in season if you are able to find people to share with to buy in bulk so that it's cheaper and then you you know you share down to the regular quantities going to I mean going to the market in December for me say no no if you cannot do it in the last week of November or the very first you know weekend in December even by then it's late but just trying to buy things when they're in season because really and truly it's not easy folks and it's across everything I think that's what's scary it's across everything and it's everywhere you took the story yesterday of the robberies in the UK yes and I literally I think I've shared this picture that my friend sent to me of butter so me I'm looking forward to like ah you know and they sent me a picture of butter that a tub of butter was seven pounds 25 and not only was it that expensive it had an anti theft device around it you know the way they the butter was tagged so it's not even just a Nigerian problem but I mean it's crazy to think about it really is the world that's going to be I mean I'll thank you for what you for reminding me because I was going to say that yesterday when I took that story because every time people just hear things and they think is unique to Nigeria in London two of our celebrities don't come back to one another yeah you know they have been robbed with their bags everything so it's not a it's not a Nigerian thing this is a global pressure yeah and that's why really utey thank you for that tip so maybe what I would just do now target august next year it's true but it's a challenge now I am lucky I'm fortunate yeah my house I have an inverter that powers my freezers 24 hours and all of that who are about the people that do not even have preservatives you understand because now it's not even enough to buy if not enough for you to stock up if you didn't stock up like I was going to buy I like these titles fish a lot but you can't buy that thing and store it because if it stays in your freezer for too long yeah it loses its form so utey how do you even how do we even start because again it's only it's only very few things that you can actually stock up like that maybe your chicken your beef you know there are some things you really cannot stock up and just keep there and again with the fluctuating power yeah go ahead I honestly feel like in a time like this you have to let go of some things do you understand if you can't afford it you have to let it go and then I mean we're talking about managing pressure a lot of people need to find ways to manage pressure because now it's like especially when you have a lot of people that are dependent on you you still need to find a way to manage their expectations look out for yourself and still have reserve because guess what every time we get into December you start hearing oh remember in January is two months or is three months and nothing is real because people get into this festive mood and they just go haywire they forget that it's just a month it's just another day it's just weeks it's there's the only special thing is it's just a special celebration but you can't cue yourself it's still the same rice chicken clothes my sister cannot give myself if you can't afford to buy new clothes money to ones that you have look for ways to style them if you can't tell me we're black we're black it's for economics you wear black you wear blazer wear this one mix it you are good to go if last year you were able to afford good meat by fish see guess what everybody will be all right if your wife your husband your uncle and say a complaining they will be all right they don't want to eat it let them know it's all you know is that you have provided what you cannot provide do not let people pressure you into doing things that you can't afford or into making you feel some type of way because you're living first of all the economy is hard look at the financial situation of the country a lot of people are suffering people are still earning the same amount of money two years ago and things have gotten so expensive so at the end of the day even people tell you oh invest now people can't even invest you can't even save as much as you can so the best that you can do is to manage your resources wisely let go of things that you can no more afford let's go doesn't make you less of a human being it just means that you're trying to live within your means just live within it avoid pressure anybody that wants to stress you it's the time to let them to shift on that note let us take a break when we come back from the break we will continue this conversation and take your messages please tell us how you are dealing with this prayer you know how you how you're managing the pressure stay stay with us we'll be right back all right thanks for staying with us now if you just tuned in we're discussing festive season and we're asking how do we manage pressure amidst economic hardship now remember you can join the conversation send us an sms or whatsapp to 081 803 4663 you can also tweet at us at weiss your africa one with the hashtag weiss shown um uti i wanted to come to you because i like what um jennifer just said before we went on the break about helping other people to manage their expectations right um so my god you as well okay you know what how do we how do we help people to manage their expectations because it's one thing for you to understand like for me now automatically my system can shut down if i don't have money to do anything so if his food maybe like fancy restaurant i'm craving my system can literally just shut down from anything that will make me to spend money i can afford to just like blank it off completely and it doesn't seem like it's existing but the people around me might not be able to do that so if we say we really want to help manage other people's expectations how do we begin to start that so you waited until it was my turn to give you a job you know the very first thing for me is that we have a very strong entitlement culture hmm people feel that um you owe them something they don't really put that in context of your circumstances don't matter um and some rightfully i would say rightfully so but let me use the the phrase black tax so when jennifer was talking talk about having to send money to her family all of these things are built into our culture then they're all the regular people that okay so we're coming to december if you're like me my budgeting includes how much money is going to to different people that i know that will be expecting money um at this time of year but then at some point if my budget is unable to carry that i'm going to have to have a tough conversation with someone to say look i really want to be able to give you as i've always given but it's not possible you know in this situation that is one way to go some people will still try to kill themselves to give what they have been given because they need to protect a certain image that's dangerous right we almost i don't think that there's anybody that will say they don't know how difficult it is we are at the point where even the uber rich are feeling it so everybody's affected so when it comes to managing expectations for me it's about honest conversations i can't give what i don't have but i know people that do to their own detriment because they're more worried about the image but in my own case i'm very happy to give but i can only give what i can afford because you still have to keep on living you still have to keep on ticking um so that really for me is the way in terms of managing people's expectations you just have to be able to tell people that look this is where i find myself whatever you're still able to do go ahead and do even if it's not as much as you could do before but if you find yourself in a place where you are not able to manage your budget manage your mental health manage your physical well-being and just say i cannot do it because it is because if we are talking about it like this imagine the people who are earning 50 000 the people who are earning 30 000 the people who are earning 80 000 i don't even want to begin to think how they're coping because every single thing is affected food everything is affected it's just crazy i mean somebody was complaining the other day about how fast the data on her phone was running it's like everything just seems to have you know risen to the next level and we are all just trying to find the right yeast to rise right along with it the honesty is the way okay so i mean shopping is here whether we like it or not you still need to buy a few things so what are the creative ways to help i mean uti has talked about sharing like calling a pool because i remember that there was a time when my kids were still a lot younger there was a time where my friends would call me that oh because that time you know famous emus and cereal you know like you would just be spending so money so much money on cereal and all of that um i so um we we then got someone to go to i think i don't know if it's balogona the place ok area where they do the bulk yeah buying the buying cartons and we share um that period one and i had one funny nani like that i don't know how that nani did it rat multiplied in my house and guess what happened you see all those sachets of milk they will go to the new one poke a hole because the new one poke so i threw it so i think that's what just gave never again i might buy anything in bulk but i mean that bulk buy still does help right so i mean if if you were to cancel so what would be an ideal thing to do if you say you want to go buy should we be buying it like um um now or should we be buying it maybe after the season because this is the season is already upon us like what they rightly said no you shouldn't actually be there's anything you shouldn't be shopping for in december right okay so well well you can't you might not be able to preserve food as much but things like oil you can actually keep oil right you can keep rice you can keep um flour you can keep um maybe things like biscuits and so you might not be able to preserve as much as oil and all of those things but then as much as possible the things that you know that you can keep and that can stand time before we let's say another six weeks or eight weeks you should actually buy them to keep because i've noticed that guess what so i went to the salons today and then they had just after making my hair she then gave me the bill and i was like wait what happened she said at that point it's now 2000 error oh that waits why she said guess what before by next next week we might even get to two five two weeks ago i made my hair and i thought it was 1600 and in two weeks we've gotten to 2000 and that's we were going to get 2000 so if i had known maybe in september or october would have bought me like four knowing that okay i might have to make my hair i can't start selling attachment just because this season is here so those kind of things you can actually you know buy them to keep because we know these things have it has always been like that anyway in december prices of things tend to rise and then by generality that it's dropping so you can actually you should bulk buying is so are we saying that the people that have missed the window shopping should not bother to shop at all or how do they not money themselves no they can still they can still shop i my own advice would be buy what you need okay and then also coming together with your friends to actually buy in bulk because i know last month when i was in abuja my friend sends this lady to go to the market is this market a orange market these are so cheap there so i was like oh buy me 1000 naira what of lemon i went that lemon came back and it was those yellow ones that they sell in shop rights are you i was too shocked i was uh huh so because of that we're like okay let's place the bill let's ask other people if they want as well and then just spread it around at the end of the the amount that we thought would have spent on groceries or those items or food ingredients wasn't as much as as um as it was uh my friend recently posted on instagram that she went to mile 12 and she spent only i think 17 000 naira on things so i think so she was like oh who is interested so basically what i think she's about to do is ask people what do you want what you want onions she probably buy like a bag and then she will split it so basically it's cheaper so instead of me buying what like five big onions for 2000 or 2000 or 1000 naira she's probably giving me about 10 pieces for the same amount or even cheaper because she's getting it from a market that is cheaper than that yeah but at the end of the day i'm going to buy what i need i'm not going to buy what a very big bag of onions onions gets bad plantain gets bad even if you buy sweet potatoes sweet potato gets bad yam gets bad yeah all these things vegetables get bad even your vegetables when you store them in the fridge it also gets bad except you're going to freeze it so things like that you might not necessarily have to buy and work you might buy them when you actually need it but then there are other things like she mentioned that you you can buy in bulk but also like advise people to come together like maybe your neighbors ask them oh i want to send somebody to the market or i want to go to market let's contribute and then buy these things so talking about fuel crisis right of course now i hear that there is the pool services for these ride healing companies they have those pool services where three four people can but it's almost like a cab the way the taxes were running so that is already helping do you think that going moving into a friend's house would save you more money so for instance now the way you poke do a poker everybody go go in one car instead of everybody driving their own cars what if we all came together and said this season let's live together maybe if i was spending 20k by myself before would not split that 20k into like four people everybody bring for 5k would that not help that would do help but it depends on it so it depends on your relationship yeah it's heavily dependent on relationships but would you do that with someone that yeah yes i would so if i wasn't going to my parents house for christmas i mean i have friends in lego's who their parents live far away some of their parents live abroad and they are the only ones here if i was the only one as well who come together who cook who eat who be merry and be happy it's cheaper honestly it's cheaper so if you have a good relationship it helps because you're not going to fight over you didn't bring salt or this you're eating five pieces so you just divide it okay you're very good in cooking fried rice cook fried rice you can make a goosey soup you make a goosey soup or for breakfast you make this oh you're very good in grilling chicken or cooking chicken or even boiling or seasoning chicken why not do this because even in my house at home we do that when it's time for celebration everybody pick what you have chosen you do that so they know that oh Jennifer can make fried rice and party gelof that's what you would do i would say i cannot do two give me one and then somebody will decide okay i'm going to make pepper soup my mom is chairman for soup so nobody touches soup my mother will make the soup the boy is pounded yam oh yeah you pound yam so it's like the vision of label everybody comes together so instead of just being by myself yeah would you agree would you do that if you had the um the chance to because you guys are actually used to those kind of things actually leave it haven't lived abroad uti are you there oh did we lose uti i'm here interesting interesting no but would you i would you take up that option which option that's what i'm saying i like if for instance a few friends of yours we come together and have a few friends come together yeah live in the same house that's the norm in my life oh is the norm is a norm in your life right but some people are not some people don't see that as saving does it really save costs if for instance instead of staying by yourself everybody shuts down their house and you pull move together into one apartment and you know split all the bills do people would people take up those options i don't well so i think we are coming to that point because shared housing is more of a normal thing it wasn't a thing before but i think more and more we're getting to that so for me that's the norm but then that's the norm outside of nigeria i say nigeria you see one person living in a four bedroom five bedroom house all the rooms are empty it's just them so for me it's the norm but it only makes sense right because today power is getting more expensive when you put on a gen whether you put on all the lights or not the same amount of diesel or petrol is going to power the gen right so what if there are more people sharing the cost so i think a lot of people today it's we're just now coming around to ways of being more efficient in how we spend our money but of course if you're going to do things like that you have to find the right people sharing houses the very sensitive let me give you this example i remember growing up as a child when we first moved to legos we lived in this normal face me i slap you kind of situation but then you know it was like a big compound with a very wide quadrangle and then we had people from different tribes had uroba ibo we had um aquaibom we had um ganna and togo and there was something i noticed um between the ganna and togo family when it's towards christmas if they don't travel to um aqua they come together and then they cook in one big pot once they finish cooking they divide the food the togo whom sometimes they even just sit together eat then they remnant to divide it in coolers to go to their separate houses so i mean for people who have who have like big houses your friends can afford to come but then not everyone has um that kind of living situation the people who live in like one one bedroom apartment apartment you have your neighbors so you can always still do that come together cook share the food go back to your separate houses yeah good just takes some comments all right so i have a comment here say um good evening ladies compliments of the season i've missed your show the economic hardship hasn't reduced as we all thought i called for a painter last month the bill was outrageous i asked my brother if he can paint i'm a painter he's been coming since last month anytime he's off duty and we've been doing the painting together i will do the last bit tomorrow we need to manage what we have this season knowing that january is a long month we'll do what we can i'm not even thinking of clothes i advise close friends to leave a day at a time to avoid health issues have fully adjusted and helping my family to know it's a face that we need to be in control of thanks ladies this is from bc oh thank you missy we missed you too go ahead okay good evening my dear beautiful sisters of what are you saying hashtag wave first tips is in managing pressure admins economic hardship we should always plan our shopping precious goods should not be bought and stored it should be used immediately let us cut our cloth according to our material when shopping anymore let's be very careful because they can be very smart with their prices let us not get enough let us get enough funds so that we don't get embarrassed i'm the happiest person today and excited my dear beautiful sister genfinical ass is in the house i have missed her in love still looking beautiful and lovely you'll welcome back my name is daniel thank you daniel we miss you too and we will miss you some more mauti i mean let's have our final words if you had anything to say to anybody right now my own is that when you go to supermarket check the price and guess what they now did too so i bought something two pieces of something i saw on the display that i was three pieces i said but this is only two so you really must scrutinize don't be ashamed i stood there for a minute i was looking in bill one by one so what is this item again what is what is this so please um check your bills check it um it is not a thing of what's he called there's no shame in checking your bills make sure you double check because some of this um supermarket attendance they can also be smart so you need to outsmart them you know check the bills if the thing is not working tell them i'm sorry i cannot afford it you drop it off i mean there's no shame in it instead of putting yourself on that what are you gonna say so i mean the last thing i think i'll say is just be a savvy shopper i don't know that um particularly for those that shop in supermarkets that people shop around uh one thing that me i do is when i go shopping i'm phone in hand thank god that today you can buy almost anything on junia and conga so when i go out i go and check prices like i just check on different online stores i go to different different supermarket it's a bit more work but when you're trying to save money you have to do the work right so sometimes you see a price the days when we could just go to the supermarket like you said and just put things in your cart and whatever price they tell you you pay these days when you pick up a few things they tell you the prices you're taking a back your first reaction is what did i buy so uh you know every time i say that to a supermarket attendants you know it's the usual funny laugh but the truth of it is that's how we all feel like i've only picked up a few items why is my bill 15,000 20,000 but it's now shopping around so we all thankfully supermarkets are you know almost on every other street these days so it won't take too much to shop around particularly for the things that you know you buy quite frequently to know where you can get the best price and i still say to open air markets they are your best friends i would say they don't like the k-hop don't say that too uti don't say that i went to balogun that's how i love his dress i pointed that the dress and i asked the lady i said how much is this she said 60,000 there and i looked at it i said is it 16,000 she said 60,000 there i said it's not the best price i say 55,000 i said thank you very much i was like literally shocked that how can you put that same price in a store like that or via in a boutique and get the price then you go back to her i say i know they buy okay um remember that january is the longest month of the year that's all i have to say so while you're dating your december remember that january is the longest month of the year absolutely so for me i would say one way to manage pressure is to put your foot down and say no learn the word no unnecessary expenses no is he your wife no your husband no your child no your mother your father no everybody no okay no to you too why are you coming over for death in december no but thank you so much we've had a fantastic conversation thank you uti thank you um nello and thank you genny baby all right so before we go and show you follow us across all the social media handles you can interact with us further drop a comment or more importantly follow all languages on social media like share and invite your families and friends to watch and follow the conversation now if you missed our quote here it is again there is no dignity quite so impressive and no independence quite so important as living within your means it's so clear please please please let us live within our means we'll see you guys in the new year hopefully by the grace of god christmas and happy new year in a time merry christmas and happy new year in a thank you guys