Newspaper vendor builds sh14m house Publish Date: Jun 17, 2013 newvision.co.ug/news/644056-newspaper-vendor-builds-sh14m-house.html By Kizito Musoke If you have been despising jobs, meet Judith Kabajungu 47 a newspaper vendor who has built a sh14m house. She has been in her business for the last 15 years. The beginning I am married to David Kitenga, and we have 10 children. I sell newspapers along Kampala Road, near the Cairo Bank Building. In 1998, I was a hawker of old clothes, which I used to sell around Kampala, but my friend who was already in newspaper business advised me to join her, since there was money compared to hawking clothes. She took me to Nasser Road and we met a gentleman called Ssemanda who was an agent of newspapers. My friend acted as my surety since it was a prerequisite for any newspaper seller to first bring a surety, who was already in the business. By that time a copy of New Vision was sold at sh700. The first technique I used was to get customers around the city that would buy a copy daily. I also approached different companies, and requested to supply them with newspapers. Some companies accepted, but on condition that I was paid at the end of the month. Since I had small capital I accepted and immediately I started supplying them. I am so grateful to these companies and organisations and other customers who have been taking my newspapers, since they have been paying me promptly. The companies pay me sh900, 000 at the end of the month, which they deposit directly on my account in Cairo Bank. I discovered that if you buy newspapers with cash, you are given a bigger discount compared to someone buying on credit. So I started buying mine with cash so as to get more profits. I wake up at 4:00 am and at 4:30 am I start walking from home. My home is one and a half kilometres away from the main road. My children always accompany me to the main road, from where, I board a taxi. Since newspapers are supplied at 6:00 am, I have to be at the collection point at that time. Secondly, most customers buy newspapers very early in the morning. By the time it approaches 9:00am in the morning, most papers are sold, and I go back to buy other copies to be sold in the remaining hours of the day. In our business display matters a lot because it is what attracts customers. At the end of the day, I make sh15,000 as profit. Of the sh15,000 , I save sh5,000 daily. In a month I would have saved sh140,000. In a year I will have saved sh1,680,000. After saving for three years from the inception of work I had sh5m in savings. I invested sh3m in agriculture. I started growing vegetables for the market and rearing chicken. I left my sons in charge of the gardening and the chicken rearing while I continued with my newspaper vending. I used sh2m of the sh5m to buy the first set of building materials (cement, spade, wheelbarrow and jerrycans) which I kept in my village. I kept some balance to buy sand. Construction After two years I managed to buy a plot of land at sh3.5 million at Jokolera village in Nangabo sub-county in Wakiso district in 2007. At the time I bought the land many youths at Jokolera were into brick making. So I decided to buy bricks from them. I bought each brick at sh50 and did not incur transport costs. Whenever I had savings of sh1m, I would use them to buy building materials like sand and cement. After the foundation stage I saved money for five months before I started construction again. My combined savings from My Cairo Bank account and farming earned were sh7m when I started building the house. When work resumed construction continued unstopped until when the house reached wall plate level. Then I had no money left. At roofing stage you have to be well prepared. You would need iron sheets, bricks, nails timber and other materials. My friend advised me to apply for a loan from Cairo Bank where I had an account. The officials at Bank looked at my financial statement and agreed to loan me sh5m, which I was supposed to pay back in installments. It’s this money combined with my sh3m savings from farming that I used to roof and finish my house. I managed to service the loan in three years. My house has three bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, garage and a dinning. To build the whole house I could have spent about sh14m and above. Future plans I have now started on building boys quarters. I want to use these houses to rear animals and chicken. I have also managed to educate my children from money I get in newspapers. My first born Daniel Lubogo graduated recently with a bachelor’s degree in law from IUIU. Other two children are at university, one at Mutesa I University, and another one is doing Medicine at Mbarara University. In the coming three years, I want to stop coming to town every day for this business. I will get someone more energetic who will run it for me. I want to concentrate on farming especially on rearing animals and keeping birds, because I have discovered that they are very lucrative. My advice especially to unemployed women is that they should stop looking at their husbands as the only source of income, because you never know, a wife might be with more opportunities, what is more important is to be faithful to your husband. You can also send comments on this story to [email protected].
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:32:12 +0000
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