Why Kenyan single ladies are always broke

I am sure you must have come across an interesting trend whereby; a majority of single ladies are always broke.

It is not uncommon to see single ladies looking upon their boyfriends, sponsors or fathers to take care of their bills irrespective of the fact that they have decent jobs which could be paying more.

In my scrutiny of this phenomenon, I have noted that the problem is the short-sightedness of many women in terms of financial management. In essence, a number of women do not know that there is tomorrow or the future to be cared for. If she earns 30k for instance, the money will be wiped out before the week even ends.

Talking of the short-sightedness, many women have things that they fancy more than others. I mean a single lady will opt to buy the latest outfit in town rather than paying school fees balances for her kid for those who already have them. She will also make sure that she has changed her hairstyle despite the fact that it was done only two weeks ago. This is the same case with her children which she will make sure they are looking classic with new fashions.

The single lady will proceed to join multiple ‘chamas’ to enable her buy a plot in Kitengela or Ruai to “keep her secure”. However, the results will be devastating since children will be going hungry for weeks as all the money will be going to these chamas. When she is paid her contributions from these ‘chamas’, she first of all has to clear debts accumulated over time.

Most single ladies have also the assumption that even if they squander all the money at a go, they will always find someone to bail them out of the situation. Indeed, many ladies love and are used to freebies from men. However, sometimes this does not always come through, leaving the ladies in dilemma.

Many ladies also squander money that could have been useful in important areas in unnecessary things. For example, a lady would rather use a taxi in a 2 kilometre distance than walk to the place. She would also take expensive chicken for lunch to “impress people” rather than be seen around with a 50 ‘ugali sukuma’ for lunch when she has no money. If you see the kind of lunch she is taking, you may think that she is loaded.

Contrastingly, many men “keep tomorrow” in mind when budgeting. He would rather walk even for 20 kilometres to save money, stay without taking lunch and avoid new clothes if there is enough money.

Many men also make sure that important things like flour, sugar, electricity, water, house rent or school fees are catered for first before using their money elsewhere.