Owning a green grocery shop has been one of my dreams for a long time. Since we had a lot to put in place to have our house in order, I ended up spending both my first and second transfers in sorting the household needs. I sell cooking oil at the moment, and I am hoping that soon I will raise enough savings from it to enable me to start up a green grocery alongside it.

I am thankful that I was allowed to choose what I needed to spend the money on after receiving it. The information given to us at the enrollment stage greatly impacted the spending habits of the transfers by many people. So far, there is no area in which Give Directly is not doing well.

The moment we were informed by the Give Directly staff that we would receive some money from them, I promised to invest in a long-term project that would be a future source of income for my family. The most profitable project that thought of was investing in livestock. I bought a cow at 18000 KES and 3 goats worth 12000 KES. I am hoping to sell some of their young ones in the future to help especially in raising my children's school fees and meeting other household expenses. 13000 KES I invested in the cooking oil business which has been of great help in meeting my household needs since I did not have a reliable source of income previously. I exhausted the first transfer on building materials because their demand was high at that time. On receiving the second transfer, I spent 11000 KES on construction labor. I am glad we are now safer in the new house. The previous one was a small house in a bad condition, and we feared it could fall on us at any time.

It was exactly 1 AM when I heard my phone ringing so loudly. It was unusual for my phone to ring at that time and I was a bit nervous. At first, I thought it was an emergency message and without wasting time I opted to check who it could be. Upon checking, I realized that it was a Mpesa message from GiveDirectly. I was overjoyed with happiness knowing that I will achieve most of my goals.

The financial support from GiveDirectly has empowered me to buy a few goats. I am hopeful they will make me wealthier within a short period considering their short gestation period. I have been longing to own them for so many years ago but I couldn't afford them because they were relatively expensive. I plan that once they multiply, I will sell the offspring to meet both my long-term and short-term goals such as paying school fees for my son and buying a pair of oxen which will be for my agricultural activities in the future. This means I will also be able to make a living from the farm produce since I will now be doing farming on a large scale because I have the means to till my land. Also, I am hopeful that I will no longer struggle with this or even meet my other basic needs on time. Being a widow, I have been depending on my odd jibs with meager income which was not even enough to meet all the basic needs of my three children.

I spent part of my first transfer on buying iron sheets which cost KES 15600, building poles KES 10000, timber KES 4000. This was purposely for the construction of a new hose because the previous one used to leak excessively during the winter seasons and we were forced to seek shelter from neighbors. In addition, I bought new decent clothes which were to replace the old ones that were torn. Later on, I cleared school fees for my two children and they are now studying with minimal distances. I later bought goats which will now serve as the living assets that I can rely on in case of any financial constraints. With the remaining amount of money, I bought enough foodstuffs.