How to make ₦70,000 last a month

On a tight salary, every naira is already needed somewhere before payday comes round again. The general approach is on how to make your salary last. This page is about making it work at ₦70,000.

What ₦70,000 has to cover

₦70,000 is the national minimum wage. It was approved in July 2024 under the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act 2024.^[1] For many workers, it has to cover rent, transport to work, food, data and often support for family, all in one month.

Half of the people who come to Delight say money feels stressful. When people start setting up the app, 51% describe their finances as stressed.^[2] That's not a lack of effort. On a tight income, there's very little room for anything to go wrong.

Most people have no cushion for a surprise. 62% of Nigerian adults say emergency money would be very difficult to raise.^[3] On ₦70,000, a single hospital visit or a late salary can undo the month.

Why it runs out before the month ends

When ₦70,000 lands in one balance, the first days feel manageable. Then transport, food and small payments draw from the same pool, and by the third week there's little left for the last.

On a small salary, the order matters more than anything else. If food money goes first, rent is short. If rent goes first and food isn't released in portions, the last week is empty.

An example month on ₦70,000

An illustration. Your costs depend on where you live and work.

Purpose	Amount	How it's held
Rent share	₦20,000	Funded first, on payday
Transport to work	₦14,000	₦700 each weekday
Food	₦28,000	₦7,000 a week
Data and airtime	₦3,000	One monthly top-up
Toiletries and others	₦3,000	Spent as needed
Buffer	₦2,000	Kept aside, grows every month
Total	₦70,000

If your rent or transport costs more than this, the table won't balance. That's useful to know. The missing amount is the real gap, and it's easier to plan around (a shared room, a cheaper route, extra income) when you can see it.

What works, with or without Delight

1. Fund the essentials on payday, in order. Rent share, transport to work, food, data. They're decided once, instead of competing with every small payment.
2. Release food money in portions. A pension study in Mexico found that monthly payments kept food spending steadier than larger payments every two months.^[4] Smaller, regular portions work the same way inside a month.
3. Pay for transport only on work days. ₦700 a weekday is easier to keep to than ₦14,000 at once.
4. Keep a small buffer, however small. ₦2,000 a month is ₦24,000 by the end of the year: enough to stop one bad week from becoming a loan.
5. Avoid paying charges you don't need to. Airtime, data and bills paid from Delight have no charge. Bank transfers carry the standard charge, so fewer, planned transfers cost less than many small ones.

Set it up in Delight

1. Receive your salary into Delight. Give your employer your Delight account number, or transfer your salary in on payday. Tier 1 holds up to ₦300,000, which is enough for this salary.
2. Create a group called "Monthly" with sub-budgets for Rent, Transport, Food, Data, Others and Buffer.
3. Set the order. Check that Auto-fund is enabled on each budget, then open a budget's menu, tap Funding priority, and put Rent, Transport and Food at the top and Buffer last.
4. Put drip mode on Transport and Food. Choose Week Days and ₦3,500 for Transport, released for each Monday-to-Friday stretch (₦700 a working day), so only work weeks are funded. Choose Weekly and ₦7,000 for Food; it resets every Monday. Only the Available Drip can be spent, and it can't be exceeded.
5. Automate data. Set a monthly data payment from the Data budget. It has no charge.
6. Grow the Buffer with a Stack. A budget can't hold more than its amount, so unspent money that rolls into the next month counts towards that month's amount instead of adding to it. To build a cushion, add a Stack to the Buffer budget in the Grow tab, with a target such as ₦24,000 by the end of the year, and choose Yes, but a limited amount, so you can take out a set sum when you need it. Each time the Buffer is funded, your chosen share moves into the Stack. Stacks don't pay interest.
7. Look back and adjust. Early each month, the Monthly Recap shows where the previous month's money went, if you made more than 5 transactions.