Money · Insight Engine
Life Got Harder. They Still Expect Next Year to Be Better.
Fifty-six members of the Inskriba Response Panel, most of them young Nigerians, answered a questionnaire on money and the cost of living in mid-2026. This is a small, self-selected panel, not a national poll: read it as the texture of how one slice of young Nigeria is living, not a representative measure. Every answer is anonymized; no name is ever stored against a response.
The Insight Engine · 56 on the standing Response Panel
“Food. It used to be something I bought without thinking about the price. Now I check prices, compare options, think about whether I really need it. Some days you go hungry.”
Three threads run through the answers. The present has quietly narrowed: asked where they had cut back, more chose social life and food than anything else. There is a performance of being fine, dressing well, posting outings, saying 'I'm okay' while calculating how to reach month's end. And underneath it, a stubborn faith that next year pays off: the same people who rated this year hard were almost unanimous that a year from now would be better, because they are learning a skill, starting a business, betting on themselves. When the formal system fails, the safety net is almost always family, and its limit is the fear of becoming a burden.
“We don't look like our problems.”
“It's easier to just say I'm doing okay these days. Then go back home to starve.”
“The performance is pretending that every 'no' is a choice and not a financial limitation. We call it budgeting, being intentional, when sometimes the truth is that we just cannot afford it.”
“I preferred armpit spray to roll on, but the cost of living has moved me to get roll on instead.”
“The children are protected the longest. For a long time I just heard and knew there was inflation; it didn't affect me until I moved away from my parents to school and had to fend for myself.”
“Any Nigerian that wants to survive must have a side business.”
“What solves today's problem can easily become tomorrow's problem.”
“Sometimes it isn't that the person stops being willing to help; the cost of depending on them simply becomes too high.”
“I honestly don't know, I'm just surviving, I really don't know if it'll get easier or harder.”
“My income is dependent on the amount of value I put out in the world, and that is something I am beginning to do now. So yes, my income will definitely catch up and even surpass prices.”
“But the person who has none of these? That is where the failure of the formal system becomes much more serious.”
The numbers, in full
How we gathered this. A standing panel of about 56 Nigerians, paid for their time and held anonymously, answered these questions in-system. Qualitative cultural response: depth over representativeness, not a national poll. Aggregates and anonymized voices only, no names or identities.
Compared with this time last year, is your own life harder or easier?
Average: 2.66
A year from now, do you expect your own life to be better or worse than it is today?
Average: 4.34
Where have you quietly cut back in the last year?
Compared with two years ago, how far does your money go?
Average: 3.07
Do you believe your income can ever catch up to prices?
Average: 3.45
On the cost of living: how close is this to your own life?
Average: 3.8
Cite this dataset
Inskriba Insight Engine. "Life Got Harder. They Still Expect Next Year to Be Better." Money, August 2026. Based on a standing response panel of about 56 Nigerians. https://inskriba.com/insight/dataset/vKiQbMJDChcMpAEVuHw4
Free to cite and share with attribution. Figures are aggregates from an anonymous panel; no individual is identified.