“I believed in handling finances independently in marriage until I was pregnant and broke.” — Mercy Agbeti
Launching Families by Houseriver:
This series covers diverse stories about what it takes to start a family, from planning a wedding to having a baby, raising children, and other milestones within families.
In the third issue, we interview Mrs. Mercy Agbeti, who tells us about how she believed in being independent with her finances even in marriage until she was broke when she got pregnant and had to depend on her husband.
Meet Mrs. Mercy Agbeti, Family Life Practitioner, and Formerly Hyper-Independent Woman.
Please Introduce yourself.
My name is Mercy Agbeti, but I’m mostly known as Christian Money Woman online.
I’m a family life practitioner and personal finance and investment educator. I create content about faith, family, and finance and own a clothing line, Delight Couture.
I’m married to Dennis Agbeti, a physiotherapist, trainer, and speaker. We have a daughter together, Tomi Baby.
What’s the best thing about being a wife and a mom?
Everything is the best, you know, because I find the silver lining in everything, even on days I’m feeling tired.
But the best thing is my husband, knowing that I’m not doing motherhood alone, and also seeing my daughter grow. The best thing about being a wife is seeing how I’ve grown capacity in ways I didn’t know I could.
I left home quite early to live by myself, so I grew very independent. I shouted about being an independent woman a lot before I got married. So getting married, having to share my space, and being tolerant and patient with another person was a lot, and that growth was one of the best things for me.
There are things that I thought were extreme for me to learn, and I’m shocked that I’ve been able to learn and adapt.
So that’s the best thing about being a wife — growing to accommodate my husband into my life every single day and having him accommodate me into his life too
Talk about this independent woman phase. Were you hyper-independent?
I was, indeed. It was toxic, too.
I got my first degree in chemical engineering and my second degree in project management. I worked with the assistant production manager at one of Nigeria’s top companies, VitaFoam. I had my clothing line as well. So, I earned well as a single lady and was very independent.
As a first child/ daughter, I tilted a lot towards hyper-independence. I affirmed that I didn’t need a man but myself because I was okay.
When did you change your heart about marriage?
I never said I didn’t want to get married, though, even in my independent woman phase.
For me, it was just to be independent of my husband in marriage, where he’d have his money and I’d have mine. I just wished for him to take care of basic things like rent and childcare expenses.
I wanted to get married from a ‘coconut head’ angle, where I have my money, so no man would maltreat me because of his money.
I imagined my partner and I would be financially independent in marriage— just dey your dey and I dey my dey. I wasn’t even thinking of changing my name.
But my parents were so keen on me not getting married with that mentality. They preached to me that it was not all about money, that I needed to start a family and all that. They talked about the things I couldn’t see.
So eventually, I got married.
Wow. That must have been toxic.
Read also: “I walked out on the doctor when she told me I was pregnant. I was angry”
Engaged and Married in a Year. The First Phases of Marriage. ‘Independent Woman’ in the Mud.
So, how did you meet your husband?
We met on Facebook, but we graduated from the same school — the same year and faculty. He was in computer engineering, and I was in chemical engineering, but we never knew each other back in school.
It was when we got talking that I realized I knew him as a campus fellowship leader back in school. I remember that he used to preach by the gate and judge those of us who wore crop tops and crazy jeans.
On February 13th, two weeks after speaking, he told me that God said I was his wife. It was funny, and I just told him to stay one side.
Wow.
And because he lived in Lagos, I was not interested. I was certain that I didn’t want to relocate back to Lagos because I grew up there.
Another thing is that he was from a local assembly with extreme dress codes, and even though I’m a Christian, I’m not that extreme. I told him, and he said it was fine.
When he came to Abuja in April, he met my pastor, and my pastor approved. In July, I went to visit him in Lagos, and he proposed. We got married in December. Everything happened in 2021.
Did you struggle to get along with finances in your relationship?
I’ll say kudos to my husband because he has always been very open since day one about his finances.
Because we weren’t in the same city while we were dating, we didn’t get to do a lot of things, so we didn’t spend so much money.
But whenever he visited, he’d pay for everything, and I didn’t have to pay for anything. Also, when I visited him, I insisted on paying for everything too, even though he wanted to pay me back.
We started agreeing on money when we had to plan for our wedding. We shared bills for the wedding too. Anything we were unable to fund, we gave to our parents.
Were you already saving for your wedding?
I’d call myself a hoarder because I know how to hoard money. It went beyond just saving — it was hoarding. So, I had money.
Then, I had savings that could sustain me for another year without going broke. So funding my wedding was not a problem.
Read also: How to Manage Your Family Finances
How were the first phases of marriage?
Hmmm.
A fewmonths into my pregnancy, I got broke, and all my independent woman talk went down the drain.
I felt I had enough savings to sustain myself after the wedding, and I was planning to save up again by working, but not long after the wedding, I got pregnant and had no investment to sustain me and that’s why I’m now big on investment with the right financial education.
I couldn’t work because I was really sick, and I had to depend on my husband for everything.
It was then I told my husband that we had to figure out our stuff because anything could happen to anyone at any time. I realized, too, that one essence of marriage is being able to depend on each other. We had to see ourselves as one.
Also, having lived as a single woman for a very long time, sharing a space in marriage was a burden. When we first got married, we were in a one-bedroom apartment before we moved to a bigger space. The space was so limited, and I think it was God building character in me. Because if we started out in a bigger space, it would have been easy for me to put my things in one room and him in another, which would separate us.
But we had to sleep in the same room and on the same bed. Whatever we needed to sort out, we had to sort it out immediately because we had to learn patience by force.
I’m more of the coconut head, while he likes to talk things over immediately. I always want justice; one person must be right and another wrong.
So I’m now learning that peace is more important than justice in a marriage.
Two Months Pregnant and Unable to Work. Depending on my Husband. Combining Strengths and Weakness to Manage Finances.
Since he was handling most of the bills, how were you both able to save towards your baby’s expenses?
So I’m better at saving, and he’s more of a spender. He just believes money will come back, but I’m a hoarder.
We had to put our strengths together for good. So I was handling our savings.
Whenever income came in, we had a certain percentage that we were saving towards different goals. So we had a certain percentage we’d save for our child.
No matter what was happening, we never touched the money we saved because I was in charge.
How did you become such a big saver?
I picked it up from my grandmother.
She was a trader and a fashion designer, so I watched her every day; she would remove a certain percentage, no matter how little. Even if she made only 2000 naira, she would remove at least 200 or 500 to save.
So I learned that from her. The only thing I didn’t see them do was invest, but I learned how to save from them. Saving comes very easily for me.
Read also: “We homeschooled our first child when we couldn’t afford the best school .”
Did you try to work at all while you were pregnant?
I couldn’t do anything at all. I had to close down my clothing store because I couldn’t operate.
I wish I had better financial knowledge and business structure before then which could have helped my work continue even when I was pregnant.
It was not until after I gave birth that I started creating content online.
What was the saving structure like for your daughter?
So we didn’t exactly make a list of the things we were saving towards for her. We just knew that one account was for her, and anything that concerns her will be spent from that account.
If we needed to invest in something for her, we’d do it from that account. Health bills, clothes, and her necessities all come from that account. For any need that pertains to Tomi, we have an account to fund it.
In the first few months after her birth, we didn’t have to worry about finances because we had been saving little by little before she came.
When we had her, all the money we were given as gifts went straight to her account. We had enough to take care of her in the first few months after birth.
Considering you’re a finance coach, what ways do you plan to teach her about money?
I don’t think I have a structure for that yet in my head, but God will help me.
As she’s growing and she does chores, I’ll probably pay her.
She’ll have a piggy bank so that she puts the money she receives in there, and when she needs something, what she has in there will guide her purchases.
And of course, her parents’ money habits will shape her financial discipline.
We’ve already started investing for her too. I bought a couple of shares for her in her name, and in three to five years, it would have appreciated, and we could move into land banking for her.
So that when she’s 18, we can have a trust fund to hand over to her.
On Houseriver, parents can invest in USD assets for their children like a trust fund, and hand it over to them when they turn 18.
What’s your advice to those who want to start their families?
Plan Ahead! Everyone should plan.
Have a 3 to 6-month plan and envision what you want. As a single lady about to get married and one who’s expecting a baby, plan. Even though things can change, you should be prepared.
Have a goal for yourself. Review them from time to time and update them. Plan for finances, education, social networks, and your worth. That’s how people prosper in life.
If you’re thinking of having a child, please plan. It’s not fair to you and your child if they are not well planned for and taken care of. There are a variety of options to help you plan financially.
You can have it all.
