Initially, I had considered starting a small hotel business to generate daily income and support my family. However, I realized that saving enough for this venture would take a considerable amount of time, especially given the financial constraints my family faces. I was concerned that I might be tempted to use my savings for other urgent needs, jeopardizing my goal of opening a shop business. Instead, I decided to invest in livestock, specifically goats, with the money I save. I plan to start with two goats, which will multiply over time through breeding. Once I have a sufficient number of goats, I can sell some to raise capital for my dream hotel business. I am committed to saving a portion of my monthly transfers and combining it with earnings from casual jobs to achieve this goal. Investing in goats allows me to demonstrate serious commitment to this project while building a sustainable source of income for the future. Ultimately, I envision using the profits from goat farming to transition into my desired hotel business, providing a stable and fulfilling livelihood for my family.

Life has truly changed for the better since I began receiving these transfers. Previously, my children were frequently sent home from school due to outstanding fees, and with my spouse and I relying on unpredictable casual jobs, providing for the family was challenging. However, since Give Directly entered our lives, things have improved significantly. I now heavily rely on these transfers to support my family's needs. I allocated $44 towards settling my children's school fees, ensuring they can continue their education without interruptions. Moreover, I set aside $3 for savings in our group intending to invest in livestock to enhance our quality of life. The remaining $28 was used to purchase food and clothes for my four children, ensuring they were well-nourished and dressed adequately. I am deeply grateful for the financial assistance provided by the transfers, which has played a crucial role in enabling me to meet my family's needs with ease.

As I said earlier I am the only breadwinner in my house. My husband has not had a job in years. I am still running my business in the city thanks to Givedirectly transfers which I use to add to the business as well as helped me start the business. I however have interests that I hope to fulfill in the new year that I haven't done as much. I got 4 chicken using part of my November transfers. I would want to add more animals such as goats which will multiply when they give birth and I can sell them and use the proceeds from the sell to buy cows that I can use to rent out during tilling season and also use it on my own farm cutting down on planting costs. This will help me save money to help me buy a plot of land and educate my children.

I moved to Mombasa in 2022 to set up a business. My husband is a mason, he had had problems getting jobs and we needed money as we had a newborn in our house. I went to Mombasa and started a food business. I sometimes use my transfers to add to the business as I did in October where I spent $14 to buy flour and oil for my business. I also have two children, my youngest is 3 and the older one is 5. Kids at this age outgrow everything so fast, I spent $20 in October to get them clothes and I also got my own clothes in November at $24. I bought myself clothes as I did not have clothes that were decent enough as most of my clothes were old and worn out. I travelled back to my matrimonial home in December and spent $10 on transport while the rest of my December transfers bought food stuff that we used during the festivities. I have also invested in chicken and in November I got 4 chicken at $10.

I have been depending on my husband as the primary breadwinner for our family. However, his income from casual construction jobs is unpredictable and unreliable, causing financial stress in our household. To alleviate this, I took a job as a housekeeper in the hopes that it would provide some relief, but the pay is low. To improve our financial stability, I have set a goal to start a food kiosk in the nearest town center. I plan to save some money and combine it with my monthly transfers to fund this venture. By doing so, I believe the food kiosk will supplement our income and meet our needs more easily, thanks to the profits it will generate. My ultimate aim is to establish a sustainable source of income that will support us in the coming year and beyond, making the food kiosk a crucial step towards achieving this goal.

I allocated $30 from my recent transfers to acquire a goat with the intention of building a sustainable source of income through breeding and selling them. I believe that owning goats is an investment because, once they multiply, I can sell them to generate cash and meet my financial needs. Additionally, I set aside $34 to boost my savings and purchased a new phone to replace the faulty one I had been using. The constant unavailability of my old phone was causing significant stress, as I feared missing important calls. Thankfully, my new phone has resolved this issue, and I now enjoy regular communication with my family. I spent the remaining funds on purchasing an ample food supply for my family. I made sure to buy essential foodstuffs like maize flour, ensuring we have enough to sustain us for several weeks.

For this year, my primary goal is to invest in livestock keeping. At the moment, I only have a poultry farm with two hens left after losing some to a poultry-related disease outbreak. I aim to raise goats because when the herd increase, I will have an alternative source of income for my family. Therefore, in serious need n I am seriously in need. Besides, I also hope to start a new business dealing with vegetable sales because they are fast-moving goods and can fetch much in the long run

I work as a casual support team in the hotel industry while my husband works as a PTA teacher. Both earn meager incomes and meeting our nutritional and educational needs is always a nightmare. We skip meals daily while our children spend days at home due to unpaid school fees. From my recent transfer, I spent $15 on food for my family of eight members. Since I have two daughters, Salsha and Amelka, enrolled in school, they had old uniforms. The situation forced them to put on civilian attire instead of uniform. I am glad I spent $19 to get them new uniforms, and they have been looking smart in school uniforms.

I would love to start a business of selling vegetables here in Mariakani, where I have been employed as a cook at a food point. The goal is to set up a shed and acquire an initial stock of not less that $50 to run the business. To get there, I purpose to save at least $15 from each of the subsequent three transfers to start. In the long run, I long for the business to grow into a stable grocery shop.

Due to severe drought that we have been experiencing back in the village hunger has been one of our biggest tribulations. That is why I went ahead to use KES 1,500 of the transfers and spent it on buying seven packets of maize flour. Afterwards I proceeded to use KES 1,100 and bought myself a couple of clothes because most of the ones I owned were quite old and worn out. I also happen to own a cooking business and I decided to use KES 500 into buying a couple of cutlery which included more plates and cups. I was left with a balance of KES 300 which I used to buy a hen with because I was planning to invest in poultry farming as well.

I have two children; a girl and a boy. However, since we do not have any source of income except relying on irregular casual jobs, meeting their basic needs in terms of clothing and food is always a struggle for us. However, we are glad that since GiveDirectly began sending us monthly transfers, our family lifestyle is steadily changing. Though they never had presentable clothes, I spent KES 2,000 on acquiring their new set of clothes. They are neat nowadays. The balance of KES 1,000 helped me in buying food for the family to supplement what we had.

I like everything about the GiveDirectly processes. They first called us for a sensitization meeting where they answered all the questions we had and later some of the field officers visited us at home to explain further and never got tired of responding to our questions. When it came to disbursing the money they did it on time as promised without any favoritism. I do not have any discontent with the organization nor have I heard of any from my village mates.

I sell fish but on a small scale which does produce much profit leaving me to strain in most cases to meet my family's needs. I am, therefore planning to start up a poultry project as an additional source of income. They are easy to manage at the same time, they do not require much space and attention. Out of the KES 3050 that I received as my second transfer, I saved KES 2300 for the project. I need to raise KES 3000 more to kick it off. KES 550 I spent on a few packets of cornflour for my family while KES 150 I spent on a bar of soap for my household use.

I was at home preparing breakfast for my family when I heard a message notification. At first, I didn't bother to check because I was used to the regular promotional messages sent by the network provider. When I was fully settled, I checked to see if the message was of any importance to me only to find out it was the cash transfers message. I was so overjoyed because I knew I was going to sort two or three of my basic needs.

The biggest difference is that my children are now confident enough to play and hang around with other children because they nolonger wear the torn clothes anymore.

My husband is a local mason and he is the breadwinner of the family. Due to prevailing drought seasons, it's been difficult for him to get a job since majority of people in our region spend the little income that they get to provide basic needs and cannot afford to bear building cost. Sometimes, he's forced to walk for kilometers for him to get a job and when he does, he earns very little like KES 500 per day. This only enough to cater for the most basic needs such as food and water. Because of these economic hardships, we have been forced to survive with only two pairs of clothes which are now torn due to regular washing. I used to feel ashamed seeing my two children waking in torn clothes with stitches everywhere. When I received the transfers, my major priority was to save the children from shame by buying them clothes. I spend KES 650 to buy them second hand clothes and KES 450 to buy maize floor. Right now, my children are nolonger the laughing stock of the village and I'm glad that we were able to get food enough to take us for some few weeks.