I have wanted a stone house for the longest time. We live in a mud walled two room house with my family of four. My husband works in the city so he comes in once in a while. The rains have made the state of my house worse from how it formerly stood due to the washing away of the mad used to build this house. I am saving in my savings group to have enough to start on this project. My husband will also support once the project begins from his earnings.

I have two school going children. I used $15 in October and $15 in September to cover for school fees. I needed maize flour in September which I bought at $18, I also bought vegetables to be used for food in the same month$1. In October I sent $10 to my village savings group and spent $6 buying chicken, while that which was left $3 went into buying vegetables. I also spent $5.5 in November buying cooking oil and $6 buying clothes. I saved $10 to my Village savings group.

The difficulties I have experienced in my life have not hindered me from pursuing my goals. My dream is to open a grocery store in my village. I hope to accomplish this with the savings I have set aside as a result of your transfers. I am confident that I will receive daily income to meet the demands of my family. This will provide me with peace of mind.

I come from a humble background, and my parents were not able to further my education past primary school due to financial constraints. I got married soon after and got 2 children. Getting a job with a primary education has been difficult and I have resorted to doing menial jobs which are laborious and pay very little. I used $42 to pay clear school fees debt that had accrued. In addition, I spent $30 to buy food for my family with the remainder going into my savings. Prior to receiving the transfers, I had been struggling to put food on the table meet but I'm delighted I can now feed my family effortlessly.

Currently, I have been living in a 24-iron sheet-roofed mud-walled house. One of its sides had been washed away by rains, which subjected us to cold. I hope to accomplish the goal of building a new house this year. It will go a long way in serving my household better than the current one. As a result, my family will no longer be worried about weather changes that had caused my children to suffer from cold, a situation that had been costly for me to manage.

Since I do not have a regular source of income, I resorted to saving my transfer to build a new house. The current one is old, and I would wish to build a new better one. Because of my situation, I struggle to raise money for my children's school fees. The income from my husband is always insufficient to sustain us as a family. With the recent transfer, I saved $ 10 in a merry-go-round. I also spent $10 on paying school fees for my daughter who is in nursery school. Lastly, I spent the rest on food for my four family members. For the past four months, I have been experiencing a positive change in our way of life courtesy of GiveDirectly's transfers.

Given the unstable state of our house, my husband and I have been talking about building a new one. We fear that the current structure may collapse from winds or rain, and leave our two children with no roof above their heads. The new three-room house will be made of brick walls and iron sheets, which will require more funds. To implement the plan, I intend to start saving $20 from every cash transfer, and supplement it with what my husband will raise from his income as a cook.

I used all of my December transfers to buy food and clothing for my kids to enjoy the holiday season. My husband, who works as a chef in a small fast food restaurant along the sand-filled Bamba to Mariakani road, is my sole source of income because I am unemployed. His $3 per day salary is insufficient to meet the needs of the entire family. Due to the difficult economic conditions we were going through, we hardly had any savings going into the holiday season to use for both clothing and food purchases. I'm thankful that receiving the transfers in December gave our family a significant financial boost. We enjoyed eating delicious food with my family, and my kids joined their friends while dressed in new outfits that made them look stylish.

Three days before receiving my transfer, my daughter in primary school was sent home to collect school fee balances of KES 3500. Due to the poor financial state we were in, we could not raise any amount to pay the school fee balances. I tried talking to the class teacher but my efforts bore no fruits. My husband too was struggling because he had not been paid his salary. Luckily, I received my first transfer and I spent KES 1500 to pay part of the fee balance that my daughter owed the school. I am glad she is back in school and continuing with her learning. Finally, I spent the other half on buying food for the family because we had no food left to feed on.

In my opinion, GiveDirectly does well in giving transfers to the needy in society. As a result, beneficiaries' life has been made better. Suppose GiveDirectly never sent the transfer, we would have not been able to easily acquire food. The support is good and GiveDirectly should just always maintain a regular pattern of sending transfers to its recipients.

Since I got married, my main source of livelihood has been farming. I am a peasant farmer, although the previous season never yielded much for my family. Therefore, since the beginning of this year, my family has been struggling to cope with the hard economic times experienced in Kenya. At the time I was receiving my transfer, I did not have food stocked in my house. Thus the cash was in handy in buying 8 packets of 2kg maize flour. In addition, I spent KES 1,400 on buying new attires for all my family members because the clothes I had were too old and out of fashion.

I could not hide the happiness and excitement when I received the transfer. I felt the financial weight had been slightly lifted off my shoulders. I was assured that the household, especially my children, would be freed from the constant lack of meals.

Since my spouse lost his job, we adopted borrowing food and money as a means of survival. We would knock on our neighbors' doors and plead to shopkeepers for support at least two to three times a week. However, the case slowly faded away after transfers. We rarely beg and if it happens, the tendency is reduced to at most once a week. This stands to be the biggest difference I have realized after receiving money.

After my husband lost his waiter job, our household was deprived of a guaranteed flow of income. Also, it is difficult to depend on charcoal selling as a source of livelihood because the money earned, around KES 1500 per month, barely sustains our livelihood. Our two children suffer the most from the situation because we cannot afford regular meals for them. Hunger strikes us so hard that we sometimes survive by borrowing food from neighbors. We run into constant debts at the shop for acquiring foodstuffs on credit. So the moment I received transfers, I prioritized putting meals on the table and forwent other needs. I spent everything, which is KES1200, on buying maize flour.