Black tax, counted: how to support family without losing the plot

Seventy percent of Nigerian income earners provide financial support to extended family. Forty-six percent do it every single month (PiggyVest Savings Report, 2024).

It's the largest recurring expense that almost nobody budgets for, and the reason is understandable: it doesn't feel like a budget line. It feels like family. Putting a number on what you send your mother sits somewhere between awkward and disloyal.

But an amount you send every month is a monthly expense whether or not you write it down. The only question is whether you're the one deciding its size.

What untracked support actually costs you

Not the money — the money is a choice you've already made, and usually one you'd make again. What it costs you is everything around the money:

• You can't plan. A month with two emergencies and a school-fees request is indistinguishable from a normal month until it's over and your savings didn't happen.
• You over-give and under-give in the same quarter. Without a running total, generosity becomes reactive. Whoever asks at the right moment gets more than whoever asked quietly at the wrong one.
• Resentment finds a foothold. People rarely resent giving. They resent not knowing whether they can afford to, and saying yes anyway.
• It's invisible in every other number. If ₦180,000 a month leaves as "transfers", your savings rate, your budget and your net worth trend are all quietly wrong.

Give it a number before someone asks

Three steps, and the first two need no app.

1. Count last year, honestly. Go through twelve months of statements and add every transfer that went to family. Include the small ones — the ₦10,000 top-ups are usually where the real total hides. Most people find a figure 30–50% higher than they'd have guessed.

2. Decide the monthly number now, while nobody is asking. A figure chosen calmly on a Sunday is a far better decision than one made during a phone call about a hospital bill. It can be generous. It just has to be deliberate — and it needs to survive the month it's in.

3. Track it against what you actually send. This is the step that decides whether the first two mattered. A target you never measure is a wish.

Make it a standing commitment, not a monthly negotiation

In Moneytaw, family support is a custom obligation — the same machinery that handles tithe and Zakat. Set a monthly target, and it appears on your dashboard every month showing what's due against what you've actually sent. Payments are matched from your transaction feed automatically, so you're not maintaining a second record.

Two details that matter here. If your income is irregular, you can set the obligation as a percentage of income rather than a fixed amount, so a lean month asks less of you. And if you run a business, you can calculate on profit rather than revenue — a month you lost money asks for nothing.

Then it stops being a question you answer under pressure, and becomes a number you already decided.