30/05/2023
How I Became a Hustler
I had been working for Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) at its Chingola site as a process engineer since 2010 and all was fairly well in personal economic terms until 2018.
The salary i was getting paid in this period was good enough for my family to afford a modest living standard with something to share with both my parents and in-laws.
But overtime, the salary's purchasing power kept on diminishing due to inflation which could not be beaten by the negligible or no increments on the pay. By 2018 it got to a point where we could barely afford the basic food basket.
Mind you, we had been on this same basket all along...no luxuries but it became an issue at this stage. In order to continue managing this basic food basket, we made a painful decision to cut support to parents for almost 10 months. We had become experts at the knowledge of places where to buy the cheapest food stuffs in Chingola such as Chiwempala, Kapisha and many others.
At this rate, my family was labelled to have joined a Stingy Family Association (SFA)....🤣🤣🤣. I was said to have been charmed to turn me away from my external family (Naba mulisha), but alas things had just become difficult for me and family. Life became so hard as if i was not employed, even buying vegetables became an issue.
Then one day i questioned myself why i was struggling to afford even vegetables that could easily be grown. We had the water and yard, so the barrier was ourselves as family. Consequently, we started vegetable gardening and we have never looked back...great way to reduce cost of living. When we stayed at a rocky place, we grew vegetables in the sacks.
All the while, I was still working diligently on my job despite these personal financial challenges. On this proficient work ethic, i was promoted in late 2019. We immediately put our parents back on a decent payroll and it has been a permanent feature of our lives ever since.
Because suffering taught us a lesson (ubuchushi bupa amano...Bembas say), we did not upgrade our standard of living beyond our means (salary). This enabled us to start investing some money in business. This is how the peanut butter business was born for example.
Colleagues, an employer is not interested in paying living wages but a cost effective wage for the business to thrive. It is therefore important at times for us to look beyond the salary and earn extra income to beat inflation ( i hate this animal). Unfortunately, the only way to hunt down this animal is to invest funds. Moreover, we spend everyday and we must try to earn everyday for some of us who do not get bumper salaries.
Evans Chomba
CEO Evanov Enterprises .
