At 5 a.m., while most teenagers were still asleep, 19-year-old Tony Okeyo was already navigating the busy streets of Nairobi in the company of his father to report to their tiny office in the Capital. The cold Nairobi dawn did not deter the young man’s ambition. In the office, every coin he made had a value.
Before joining his father in the printing business, Tony enrolled on a 1-year training course in design, a decision that would later lead him to financial strength. Although a Degree graduate, Tony resisted the urge to knock on offices seeking white-collar jobs, which he says would not have elevated him to where he is right now. To him, earning a skill was a priority.
“I did not start with any capital because my father already had a running printing business and he let me run it,” says Tony, who recounts how his father left him to manage the business after they had worked together for five years.
As a sole proprietor now, Tony’s main focus is attracting new clients and retaining the old ones through satisfactory services. To achieve this, he invested in marketing.
“My exemplary services attracted more customers, and I later went to tendering”, says Tony
The demands that came with tendering pushed Tony to expand his business. Thanks to his savings, he managed to move from a corridor office to a bigger office in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. The relocation to a bigger space was dictated by the new printing machines and computers that he acquired, which could no longer fit in the tiny workspace.
“I learned very early that money disappears quickly when you don’t respect it,” he says, leaning on a chair inside his new office. “Even when I was making little, I forced myself to save something.”
Contrary to the beliefs of millions of employees that sustainability is not possible in the blue-collar economy, Tony beat all the odds to prove the possibility of achieving a stable life with the so-called hand-to-mouth jobs.
“I have a very strict saving culture”, says Tony, who reiterates that initially, financial growth was a challenge because only banks existed and they offered low interest on savings.
“Today we have investment vehicles such as money market Funds (MMF), Chama, which help very much in savings”, says Tony.
In a bid to strengthen his finances, Tony has placed a bank standing order where Ksh 500 is deducted from his MPESA daily and deposited into his savings account. This translates to Ksh 15000 per month. Tony is also a member of two savings groups (Chama) where he contributes Ksh 3000 per day and Ksh 2000 per week, respectively.
“In the savings group where I save Ksh 3000 per day, there are 30 slots for 30 people, where each person contributes 1000, and I have taken 3 slots”, says Tony as he pushes the computer mouse on the desk in his office to retrieve the most recent statements of his daily savings.
“From this Chama alone, I am being paid Kshs 30,000 times 3 within a span of one month; I am like three in one”, says Tony as he smiles while swinging on his office chair.
Today, a 39-year-old who began as a novice has managed to build a stable business and retirement plan.
“It was not an easy journey but an intentional one,” says Tony
It began with the fear of becoming trapped in poverty long after his father’s retirement.
Tony grew up in a household where both parents were in the casual labour market, and this pushed him to have long-term financial plans. UCESCO Africa and PHDA have been Tony’s biggest clients for the past three years, and he says good customer relations, on-time delivery and favourable pricing can be attributed to his business milestones.
“UCESCO alone gives me a contract of between 1.7 and 2 million while PHDA gives me a contract of half a million every year”, says Tony.
Tony says he never imagined he would grow in business to the level of signing contracts. In the early stages, he wrote every transaction in a worn exercise book whose pages were filled with dates and handwritten figures. When sales improved, he expanded slowly from worn-out exercise books to computers.
What separated Tony from many other young hustlers was not necessarily how much he earned, but how carefully he protected the little he earned.
While some of his friends spent profits immediately, Tony developed strict rules for himself. A portion of every earning had to be saved before anything else what he referred to as “paying myself first” during our interview.
“I would ask myself whether buying something today would delay my future,” he says. “Saving more and spending less was my motto.”
That discipline eventually led him to a local SACCO.
To understand better how SACCOs operate, I paid a visit to Britam. In his modest office, Mr Simon Karuma, operations lead, welcomes me with a smile.
According to Simon, one of the biggest financial challenges facing young people is not lack of income alone, but a lack of a savings culture.
“Many youths believe they must wait until they have a lot of money before they can save,” he clarifies. “But financial stability often begins with behaviour, not income level.”
Tony’s account started modestly. Some weeks, he deposited only a few hundred shillings or even coins. But over time, the savings created security. When emergencies came, he no longer depended entirely on borrowing.
“You can start with MMF to grow your capital, then diversify,” says Tony, who operates three MMF accounts: Britam, Jubilee and Old Mutual.
Tony also took an education plan 13 years ago, where he pays Ksh 12000 per month and another plan for 6 years, which totals to approximately Ksh 1.8million in terms of income.
Operations lead and financial planner at CPF Financial Services, Betty Ndonji, believes stories like Tony’s should be told widely to change the attitude of youths towards savings.
Working at an institution that offers pension funds administration and is regulated by the Retirement Benefit Authority (RBA), Betty says that most employed Kenyans have gone slow on saving because of the high taxation that is directly deducted from salaries.
“Some Kenyans say they are in tier 1 and tier 2, and now they ask themselves why they should save,” says Betty. “But people should understand that saving is for future self and not for the nation,” she reiterates.
She notes that many young entrepreneurs fail not because their businesses are bad, but because they never separate consumption from investment. They prioritize a glamorous lifestyle and forget about the painful tomorrow without income.
“Tony understood something powerful very early,” she adds. “Saving is not what remains after spending. Saving must come first.”
The latest Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data revealed that 90% of all new jobs created in 2024 were in the informal sector. With their huge impact on the economy, Betty urged this class of employees to take serious financial literacy education.
“Most Juakali workers neither fit in NSSF tier 1 nor 2 because they are depending on a hand-to-mouth daily basis. This means that their future financial security is dependent on their savings today”, says Betty
Saving is a journey which may seem painful now but ends in a smile, says Betty as she encourages the youthful population to focus on finding an excuse to save rather than concentrating their efforts on finding excuses to squander the little earnings they make.
“Some people are naturally negative thinkers, and this affects the savings culture. They ask why they should save, and they will die, and others will squander their money”, she says while cautioning potential savers to focus on finding reasons to pay themselves through setting something aside for a rainy day.
What began as survival gradually transformed into stability.
Today, Tony says he no longer lives with constant financial panic.
The notebook where he once recorded tiny daily profits still exists. Inside are years of calculations, crossed-out mistakes, and handwritten goals.
On the screen of his office computer, new figures are evident: savings projections and future investment plans.
Tony says his dream is no longer simply to escape poverty.
“I want to retire someday and earn from the comfort of my home,” he says
The same discipline that carried him from small coins to something far more valuable is what Betty Ndonji and Simon Karuma have urged youths to emulate to take control of their future.
Tony’s retirement plan is to attain Ksh 5 million and join special funds, a dream he says is possible for all youths.
