"I am a maize farmer, these past three years have been terrible so to say. When I pass by my two-acre land I get frustrated with how it is. It is dry and bushy and I long for the days I would wake up knowing my time would be well spent on the farm. Today, I buy everything I need from the shops, the prices are too high for me since I have no source of income, and I depend on my daughter's assistance to make ends meet."

"Previously, I was living a miserable life and it felt like I was just trying to survive in the society. My culture values livestock a lot and I did not have any to call mine, my three children were barely in school due to lack of school fees and their uniforms was torn. Even though I had a local traditional bamboo bed, it didn't have a mattress and my three children were would spread cartoon and lied on them during the night. My guess is that they hated nights because they would wake up every morning complaining of back pains. I didn't know when and how I would change life for better. Poverty was the mother of all these problem and I didn't know how I will manage though it. My husband would get seasonal casual jobs and the highest he would earn was KSH 500. With the prevailing droughts, food prices are usually very high and therefore can't afford to do something meaningful with this money. When I received my first transfer, I sorted most our problems. I spend Ksh 30000 on buying two cows, Ksh 11000 to buy bed and mattress for our kids, Ksh 3000 to pay school fees and buy school uniform for my children and still have the balance which I use to buy daily food. I'm so grateful to GiveDirectly for getting us a step out of poverty."

"I had a goal of acquiring a bicycle for moving around and fetching water for the home. I bought one worth 5000 shillings. This has made our water fetching experience quite good. My husband makes two trips a day to get water. On one trip the bicycle can comfortably carry 4 jerricans of water. We are able to have sufficient supply of water for two days if he successfully makes two trips a day. We also give the bicycle to out neighbours on the days we are not getting water for them to also get water. I bought a bigger and better bed for my husband and I at 10,000 shillings. I still worked on my house biulding role and bought 24 sheets of roofing sheets at 1000 shillings each, this totalled to 24,000 shillings. I took 4,400 shillings and bought posts and different prices based on size and length which would also go into house construction. I used the rest of my money from my first transfer on food. The second transfer came in handy in mending relationship that seemed that would be strained by paying for my dowry. My family had mentioned I would have to go back home as my husband had not paid them dowry yet. Now our association is much better. I also bought 5 kid goats at 15,000 shillings which I will use to sort my financial issues. I have also set aside the rest of the transfer for the construction work, paying for the labour. I am not sure how much it will cost and that is why I saved a huge amount since my husband who is current away is more conversant with this payments."

"My first transfer went into buying goats. I wanted to buy she goats that could breed and increase the herd. I set apart 10,000 shillings which I used to by 5 goats all for different prices which was dependent on quality of the animal.I also bought 5 hens and one cock to add to my animals, the chicken cost me 250 shillings each while the cock cost 1000 shillings. I also bought a bed and a mattress at 10, 000 shillings with each costing 5000 shillings. My children, my wife and I didn't have presentable clothes. I felt it as an important thing to buy clothes for the entire family so they would be able to have good clothes for them to wear. I had taken out a loan worth 32300 shillings in Mombasa to begin a car wash which eventually ran down. I paid 15000 to the lender from the first transfer. The rest of the remaining cash from the first transfer sorted out food for my family. I paid 17300 shillings to my lender from the second transfer so I could clear the loan completely and used 2500 shillings to buy a door for my house. The rest of the money I had left was directed to the purchase of food. We have had a long drought which has made it a difficult task acquiring food. I spent a large chunk of my transfer buying food over the period of time from recieving the transfer till now that I have 5000 still left which sorts water as well as food purchases."

"The cost of living has gone high. I am a farmer but I have not been able to get much produce. The last year was a great challenge with no rains, luckily in December It rained and we expected that the rains would last to January only to be disappointed. What we eat as a family mainly comes from the farm but now I have to incur an extra cost since I have to buy everything from the shops and the prices are very high."

"I am been engaging in small poultry farming. Last December I sold 7 chickens and earned KES 3000 which I used to buy maize grains for household use. I was so elated since the prices fetched good prices that enabled me to buy a 90 kg sag of maize which we are consuming to date."

"Last year my village experienced drought immensely and it really affected us as a whole including my family because we rely on the rain for crops which in turn help us in having a meal in our homes during the harvest season. Therefore when I received the money my initial though was to cater for my nourishment and nutrition for my family so I went ahead and bought maize flour and sugar which cost me KES 1,000. As for what was left which was KES 2,000 I decide to invest it in the project that I had been carrying on for a while which was buying hens. At times I bought chicks and reared them myself but at times I bought readily available hens and took them to the market. This time round was not any different so I bought seven hens at a price of KES 250 and KES 200 depending on the size and sold them in the market at prices ranging from KES 300 to KES 500."

"I have new goals of starting up a new business of selling second hand clothes, as I have always having the passion of being in the business sector.It has high demand as those in middle class do not opt to buy new clothes due to high prices. Before the transfers, I never had such goals in my thoughts as I have been wondering where to get the capital. With the transfers, I am planning to sell out some of the livestock to get capital."

"When I received my first transfer, I spent KSH 900 in buying food for my family. The year hard been a very difficult year for us financially. We were not able to harvest any food from our farms. This proved challenging to us as we opted to engage in manual jobs such as burning charcoal and selling just to earn a living. The charcoal is also sold at very low prices and it also takes a long time before we get to sell them. I also used the remaining KSH 300 in buying a chicken as a start towards my poultry project."

"Food insecurity is the biggest challenge we are currently facing. This has affected us for the past 5 years and this is because our maize yields have been doing poorly .We have been forced to buy maize flour sourced from other regions of the country.With the increase in prices of maize we have been able to afford inadequate amount of flour because the incomes we get from the sale of milk are limited.My family has therefore suffered from hunger and malnutrition because of this."