I have been helping my mother in raising school fees for my siblings especially my sister who is finishing her secondary school this year. My mother who has a small grocery business has not been able to raise money in time to clear her school fees arrears. I have been using the small amount of profit I get from the business to help pay her fees. It has not been easy since I depend on the business for all my needs. As a result, the business has reduced and not doing well because I do not invest in it as I used to. This is where GD transfers have changed my life. I am able to raise a good amount of money for fees and even spare some amount for boosting the business. The fear of losing the business is no more because of the transfers I have been using to boost the business.

I am going to focus my next transfers to repair business premise where I do carry out cloth business. It is a small kiosk made of iron sheet and it has been affected by the strong winds and rains weakening it. This is why I have chosen to focus on the next transfers to repair it.

I spent my transfer on paying school fees arrears which were carried forward to this year for my sister in secondary school. I had promised to pay the money as soon as they had reported back to school. I did not want to fail on my promise. I also used part of the transfer to buy food for the family. It has been our tradition to buy food once a month so as to help reduce daily expenditure. The remaining I have saved to help in the future needs of the family.

These transfers have made it possible for me to start a business that would have otherwise been impossible. Having an extra source of income, however little, from the business and assured monthly income from the transfers has made my life very easy this year, as compared to last year because I can now pay my bills on time and provide decent meals for my family. Before I started receiving these transfers, I only depended on the tailoring job which was irregular hence not sustaining.

I am currently running a part-time business while also working as a tailor during some days of the week. The tailoring job is not working out quite well for me because I have to wait to be called by other tailors whenever they have an extra load of work to assist them. This inconveniences me a lot because I cannot have any plans due to the uncertainty of the job. For this reason, I wish to boost the business I am currently trying out into my full-time job. I have been selling sardines on my free days and it has been a good business so far, so, before I can completely quit the tailoring job, I want to expand it by having a permanent place where I can build a good customer base.

With next year in mind, I decided to save most of my most recent transfers so that I will have an easy time paying school fees for my child as well as buying the school requirements without any trouble. There are usually a lot of School requirements at the beginning of the year which is why I thought I should start saving early enough to avoid inconveniences. I spent what I had left after the savings on foodstuff and other household needs.

My life is different in that the money has enabled me to cater for my households needs and other household expenses with ease. Apart from this, I support my sister's education, I have always paid for her school fees in time for her to continue with her studies. I have also opened sardines and second-hand cloth business, from which I get an extra income. Had it not been for GiveDirectly, I would not have achieved all these.

My new goal now is to get a better business premise that will enable me to run my sardines and second-hand cloth business. I will as well as add more stock to what I currently have as a way of expanding the businesses. Currently, I run this business in the street which is not really conducive and productive in terms of meeting my customers.

I spent my most recent transfer on buying household items such as foodstuffs and other basic needs which we lacked in the house. I also paid KES 1500 of the money to cater for my sister's school fees before she was sent home so that she would comfortably continue with her studies without interruptions of being sent home. In addition, I spent the remaining amount to boost my business by adding more stock to my business that I am currently operating to earn a better profit.

I am planning to expand my fish business. In doing so, I will earn more income and it will be easy to keep my siblings in school. As the breadwinner, I am planning to save towards their future university school fees. My plan is to ensure they achieve the best in their education. This will allow them to more independent.

The biggest difference is that I used to work extremely hard to raise school fees for my siblings as well as foot the bills in the household this was very difficult. Some days my sister was forced to stay at home due to lack of school fees. But with the transfer, the burden has been made lighter and barable.

When I received my recent transfer, I used it to reduce my sister's school fees arrears. She is currently in form two and depends entirely on me to go to school. I am the breadwinner in our household and the backstops with me. So these transfers were of great help.

I felt so good and relieved. The burden of paying school fees for my siblings was weighing me down but when I received this transfer I knew that was sorted.