A friend, who is a car dealer, is helping me get a car. My current 1999 Camry is making my life difficult, throwing up one fault after the other. He would be bidding for a car on copart.com and shipping it from USA to Lagos. So I decided to have some extensive clear-all-doubts meeting with him. 

After we discussed about the car, the number of weeks it would take to reach me, the total amount and if this direct buying is truly better/safer than buying already-in-Lagos tokunbo car, we got talking about vacation and traveling outside the country. 

He asked me where we went for our honeymoon -- Senegal -- and how much it costed. It costed us N182,000/person for a return flight to Dakar and the hotel was about N24,000/night. I thought it was a good deal as all the destinations outside West Africa cost more than double. And then came the shocker from him.

He has been flying to Dubai and South Africa way cheaper than we paid to Dakar. In fact, not too long ago, he took his family -- he + wife + little son -- to Jo'burg for N360,000 return flight. All three of them! I think it was Ethiopian Airline. And Dubai. He goes there cheaper than one typical pays to go to Ghana. He then explained to me how he does the bargain hunting.

He starts first with using TravelStart to get details of cheapest airline for the date and destination he has in mind. Also, he explained which months of the year are typically cheaper for most vacationing destinations.



You then note the cheapest airlines for that route and date. In the example screenshot above for a Lagos to Dubai return trip for March 2019: Egyptair is the cheapest followed by Rwandair and Ethiopian Airline. 

You go to their websites and make the search there. This will show you if there are cheaper flights around that period so instead of going on March 5 at $300 you can switch to March 4 at $230. Then most foreign airlines do special price drop promos.

He says he typically spend days and weeks hunting for airline promos and noting which airlines fly cheap to his preferred destinations. Still, if you are okay with flying to London at the same price you would have gone to Accra then you might not need to hunt for days or weeks. But if you are looking for crazy irresistible deals that make flying out of the country cheaper than some local flights, then you should start monitoring popular foreign airlines weekly to get in when they do special price promos.

For me though, vacationing just got cheaper and more doable factoring that I am now we. We can now have a special fund/account for promo vacation. When it reaches a good amount, we start hunting for deals.

Also, he showed me how to use booking.com to pick excellent and very affordable hotels. Plus tips on how to make the most of my vacation without paying for any expensive tour or package.


We bought exactly this model:


Package looks like this:


My wife (code name, H) heard about it in one of the pre-marital counseling course classes we had last year. A guest presenter in the class mentioned how much better and more functional a Halogen oven is compared to Microwave Oven.

I decided to do my own reading too. Went online and read about Halogen Ovens. Are they truly amazing or just a shiny new tool that does nothing significantly more than a microwave? Well, after hours and days of poring over dozens of articles online I came to the following conclusions:

  1. They have no health benefits over Microwave oven (so no luck if you are one of those who feel Microwave is radioactively killing us). More sincerely, both Halogen Oven and Microwave Oven have no health hazard. Yes, the way Microwave Oven heats food might make some meats taste like rubber but that's purely the meats' fault.
  2. Microwave is awesome for reheating cooked food. Does it more (energy) efficiently than a Halogen Oven. But it can't cook rice, roast chicken, fry chips (in a little oil, healthy way), bake or even cook beans. Halogen oven does these and more.
  3. Just like how people who use iPhone feel their lives are intertwined with their iPhones in a way that makes them treat it specially above how other phone owners treat their phones, so also do the many people who posted online about their Halogen Oven. Many say they no longer touch their Microwave and traditional ovens, that its easily their most beloved kitchen appliance.
  4. We definitely need one.
And so we went on Jumia and bought one. We went for the brand consistently ranked high on foreign review sites.

We made the order on 25 December, 2018 (Christmas day) and got the delivery today (7 January 2019). 

I have already used it to roast the New Year full chicken I got from my parents. It tastes great. Even H says I have got a knack for all things food making. 😀

UrBizEdge Limited is a leading business data analysis training and consulting company in Nigeria. We are looking at hiring a Social Media Marketing intern.

Job role:
  1. Managing our social media platforms -- Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Blog. We have paid professional social media management platforms (Mailchimp, Hootsuite, Buffer, Upflow etc) which we will teach the intern to use.
  2. Manage the onsite chat tool on our website to engage prospective clients and guide them. Again, we will teach the intern how to do this.
  3. Create engaging and informative tweets and articles for posting across our social media platforms. We will teach the intern how to use professional content creation software and how to analyse performance/engagements.
  4. Follow-up on generated leads and earn conversion bonus. We will teach the intern to use the pipeline tracking and activity log software (CRM).
  5. Undergo our data analysis, financial modelling, business intelligence and other training we sell clients so as to be able to better communicate with leads and be more knowledgeable in data analysis.
  6. Manage our online presence and engagement tools. We will train the intern.

Requirements:
  1. First degree in any course
  2. Must be social media savvy and willing to learn to do proper digital marketing
  3. Must be very teachable, goal oriented and diligent
  4. Must be based in Lagos. Proximity to Anthony/Maryland is a plus, to avoid traffic stress that might impact work productivity.
  5. Good writing skills and grammar very important.
  6. Excellent team skills

Remuneration:
  1. Base salary of N40,000 for the internship period of 6 months. 
  2. Health Insurance
  3. Internet and phone call allowance (monthly)
  4. Pension
  5. Performance bonus for every lead conversion

Terms:
The internship is for a period of 6 months. After the internship, depending on performance, we convert the intern to permanent staff and higher remuneration (a mix of base and performance bonus).

Application Process:
Email your CV and cover letter to hannah@urbizedge.com and copy hr@urbizedge.com