Beyond Your Salary: What ₦100,000 Left Over Every Month Could Actually Do

₦100,000 used to mean something. It still does, just not the thing you think. 

With Nigeria's headline inflation sitting at 15.43% as of July 2026, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, the naira in your account is quietly worth less every month you leave it sitting still.  

That was the starting point for "Beyond Your Salary," a Techloy community event held on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, where financial strategist Titobi Oreolorun and investment professional Elizabeth Omowunmi Babalola joined host Adaobi Okozor to talk about what to actually do with your money before inflation does it for you. 

That gap between what you earn and what it can still buy shows up as a strange kind of poverty. You are earning more than you did two years ago, and on paper, things should feel lighter. Yet the money still disappears before the month runs out, and you are back to counting down to the next alert, because the raise you got was never really competing against your old salary.  

It was competing against inflation, and inflation rarely loses quietly. 

Want to watch the full conversation?

Catch the full Beyond Your Salary event recap, where Titobi Oreolorun and Elizabeth Omowunmi Babalola discuss investing, emergency funds, financial planning, and building wealth beyond your monthly income.

WATCH THE RECAP

The Problem Isn't How Much You Earn 

Adaobi opened the conversation by pointing out that the economy has shifted, and so has people's relationship with money. She asked Titobi, founder of Tito Finance, what belief he held five years ago that has since changed.

His answer cut straight to the point. "Your money should actually be sent on an errand to go work for more money for you, rather than just you keeping it in savings or probably in the bank," he said. Holding cash, once seen as safe, is now one of the fastest ways to lose value. 

Isaac Kanye, cohost of the Road to 30 podcast, made a similar point in a separate conversation on this topic. He used to believe everyone needed millions to live a happy life, until he realised that chasing a moving target is a losing game.

"The goalpost for wealth keeps changing, and if you're not careful, you can spend your life chasing an amount that keeps getting further and further away," he said. His advice is to set a number that is specific to you, and to live your life while working toward it. 

That same restlessness, the sense that more money should have solved the problem by now, is exactly what keeps a lot of good earners stuck. Isaac points to a mistake many people make without realising it.

"Most people struggle because they approach personal finance with a one-size-fits-all mentality," he explained. Everyone repeats the same rules, like save 20% or invest 30%, but those numbers were never meant to apply to everybody equally. "Personal finance should be personal," he said. 

Elizabeth, who works with Money Africa, made a similar case using a simple example. If you want to buy a laptop by December, don't just hope the money appears. Work backwards. Decide how much you need to save every month to get there, and if you don't have it yet, ask how else you can raise it, whether that's a scholarship, a delayed timeline, or asking someone who believes in your growth.  

She used her own story to prove it. She once needed money for a financial planning certification and didn't have it, but because she had already been clear about her goal, funding it became easy when the right person showed up. As she put it, "you should start planning towards your future from now." 

What ₦100,000 Left Over Can Actually Do 

Once the goal is clear, the next question is what to do with the money. Adaobi asked what someone should do if they have ₦100,000 left after covering their expenses each month.

Titobi's response was blunt. "If you have ₦100,000 left after your salary in Nigeria right now, you're one of- you are even rich; you are wealthy," he said.  

Then he did the math. Put that ₦100,000 a month into an S&P 500 index fund for 40 years, factor in 7% inflation against 8 to 10% historical growth, and you land at roughly ₦823 million. Even ₦10,000 a month, done consistently over 20 years, adds up to real money. As he put it, "wealth is not grown quickly; it is grown consistently." 

Elizabeth agreed but added a caution. Before any of that, build an emergency fund first, ideally three months of your living expenses, kept somewhere accessible.

"When you are investing, it's important to have an emergency fund," she said, so that a short-term problem never forces you to break a long-term plan. And once that cushion exists, she said, "the goal is for your investment portfolio to beat inflation," not just to exist.