One of the most powerful things you can do as a young man is learn to live by yourself.
Nobody gives you a manual for living alone for the first time. You move out, you stand in an empty room, and you work it out as you go. So this is the rough blueprint I wish somebody had handed me, built from how I actually did it.
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Why I moved out of the hostel
When I joined university I lived in a hostel, and a hostel is not living alone. You have roommates. They have girlfriends, visitors, their own noise and their own plans. There is no privacy and there is no quiet.
In 2016 I decided to move out and live by myself.
If your budget cannot stretch to it yet, that is fine, do not force it. But understand what sharing a room costs you. You cannot sit down and focus on anything, and focus is the whole point of everything that follows.
Do not chase an expensive house
My first house was a single room in a place called Chania, in Nyeri. The rent was 2,300 shillings a month.
For perspective, 2,300 shillings is roughly what I pay per day for the house I live in today. That was 10 years ago, and that room is where it started.
So the first rule is simple. Do not look for the most expensive house you can just about afford. A reasonable ceiling is 25 percent of what you earn. It is your money and your responsibility, but do not fix yourself in a situation you cannot get out of.
Prices depend on where you are. In Nairobi a single room in a decent area can be around 7,000 shillings, and a bedsitter anywhere from 8,000 to 15,000. Start where your income allows.
The first house is for surviving
Let me use the example of somebody earning very little who has just moved into a single room.
Understand what that room is. It is where you survive. It is not where you start buying things to impress visitors. For the first year or year and a half, you are surviving and building.
Here is what to set up, in this order.
1. Internet
I will not lie to you, internet comes first.
It does not have to be expensive. As long as it is stable and keeps you online, it is enough. If you cannot get a connection, buy monthly data bundles. Or if a neighbour has Wi-Fi, ask to share it and pay them something toward the bill.
That conversation is also how you start knowing people in a new place. Get to know a few neighbours. You do not need to be everybody’s friend, but you should not be a stranger either.
2. A simple cooking corner
Get a small gas cylinder, the 6 kilo type with the burner on top.
Then 2 or 3 sufurias, 2 or 3 cups, 2 or 3 plates. Not many. A basin to keep them in, which costs about 100 shillings. And a small table for around 2,000 shillings, where the gas and utensils will sit.
Buy a few basics like flour, sugar and cooking oil, and cook your own food. Keep the gas near the door or a window so the room has air.
That corner is your kitchen. It does not need to be fancy.
3. A mattress and bedding
A mattress on the floor is enough to begin with.
If you live somewhere cold, get a blanket and a duvet. Somewhere warm, a duvet alone will do. If you are at the coast, buy a fan. I stayed in Mombasa once, so I say that from experience.
4. A desk and a chair, before the bed
This is the part most people get backwards.
Forget about the bed frame in the first month. Go to Jiji, or anywhere that sells used furniture, and get a desk and a simple chair. A used office desk goes for about 3,000 to 4,000 shillings, and a chair for about the same.
Put them in a corner of that room. That corner is your productivity zone.
Even if you only have 20 minutes in the evening to watch a tutorial, that is where you sit. If you want to watch a podcast or the news, that is where you sit. You are training yourself that this spot is for building.
5. Bathing essentials
These are not expensive. A good bar of soap, 2 buckets and a basin. Something that keeps you smelling clean. You do not need the costly brands to start.
What to do at that desk
Now use the internet and the desk properly.
Do not limit your thinking to the job around the corner. Pick something and start learning it. What is social media management? What is web design? What is data analysis? What is video editing? Watch, practise, repeat.
And ask yourself one question. Whatever your rent is, can you make that amount from inside this room, without relying on a job?
That is exactly what I did. When my rent was 2,500 shillings, after I had moved from Chania to a place called Farmlands, I was designing posters in Adobe Photoshop. Church posters, event posters, campaign posters. That brought in about 1,000 shillings a week.
A thousand a week is 4,000 a month. My rent was 2,500. So the room was paying for itself, and the more I did it, the better I got.
Buy things one project at a time
Once the basics are in place, give yourself projects. One thing at a time, saved for and paid for.
The bed. Put aside 5,000 shillings a month for 2 months and buy it. Done.
Something for entertainment. A small sound system so the room feels like yours.
A laptop. A good refurbished laptop costs around 30,000 shillings. If you are left with 5,000 a month after expenses, that is 6 months of saving.
But do not stop at saving. Ask what else you can do to add 3,000 shillings a month. Take extra work. Edit short videos for people at 500 shillings each, and if you have 6 clients a month, there is your 3,000.
Now you are saving 8,000 a month, and the laptop arrives in 4 months instead of 6.
Do that with discipline for a year and you will be in a position to move up.
Fixed mindset and growth mindset
Here is the trap.
You move into a single room, and 3 years later you are still there. Then 7 years. Then 10. Same room, same 15,000 shilling job for 5 years, and no plan to change either. That is a fixed mindset.
When I made a video about moving my work to Westlands, somebody in the comments accused me of telling people to chase luxury. That is not the point. The point is to see what is out there and then ask yourself the next question, which is whether you can get it.
So do not get comfortable in that single room. After a year or a year and a half, with your laptop and your desk in place, start scouting for a bedsitter.
Moving up: the bedsitter and beyond
By now you have a laptop and a skill, so use them.
Keep whatever you do during the day. In the evening, spend an hour editing videos for clients. That covers the difference in rent.
And start creating content. Post about the skills you have been learning. TikTok is the fastest place to be discovered. You are not posting to entertain anybody. You are posting so that people know what you can do.
It is hard, and that is exactly why most people avoid it. Tell somebody to post 3 times a day and 99 percent will find a reason not to. The 1 percent who do it are the ones who get found.
Then the bedsitter becomes a one bedroom. You grow like that, step by step. And when you are making enough, you can move to Nairobi if that is where your work is.
A word on distractions
A new house and new freedom come with new temptations.
I will say it plainly. This stage is not the time to fill your room with visitors and casual relationships. A lot of young men come to the city, start earning, spend it all on that life, and go back home with nothing. Somebody more focused takes their place.
Spend this period on yourself. Come with a clear head. If you want a relationship, choose one person you can be serious about and responsible toward.
Two or three years from now you will be glad you did.
Start with the basics
So, to put it all together.
A mattress on the floor. A simple cooking corner. Internet. A desk and a chair. You are not trying to be fancy. You are surviving and building, for about a year and a half.
That desk is what you use to lift yourself, because nobody is coming to sort out your life for you. Not the government and not anybody else. You have to do something for yourself.
This is what I did, and in many ways it is what I still do. It is not a manual for life. You are free to live yours the way you choose. These are just the things that worked for me.
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— Elvis W.
