Add vegetable sales to my store

Fostina

Block D, Zambia

28% repaid

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How it Works

Entrepreneur

Name

Fostina

Member since

January 2016

On-time repayments

179 installments • 60%

About Me

I'm a happily married woman with 3 children of my own. I also help to raise some nieces and nephews. My eldest son is in secondary school right now and my husband and I are working hard to support his education as well as the education of our other children. My husband and I have a small farm as well as a store in Monze town. We want to be able to expand our business, but most of our profit goes into paying for school fees, leaving little to invest.

My Business

I have a small store in the town of Monze where I sell beans, kapenta (fish), and cooking oil. I buy the beans, kapenta, and cooking oil wholesale and then sell them in varying sizes. On a bag of beans, I can make about 400 kwacha profit. With paying for school fees, though, I run into a tough time reinvesting into the business as much of the profit goes to education costs for our children. I want to be able to diversify my income sources. I want to add Maize to my store as well. My first loan helped us a lot and we were able to save money.

Loan Proposal

I am currently selling dry goods only, but what I would like to be doing is expanding my business by also selling vegetables. More profit can be made from vegetables, but they are sometimes higher risk. To aid in this, some of the loan would go to creating a vegetable garden so we can provide some of our own produce while also creating work for youth in the community. The previous two loans have been very helpful and I will manage this one as well.

Show original English

About Me

I'm a happily married woman with 3 children of my own as well as helping to raise some nieces and nephews. My eldest son is in secondary school right now and my husband and I are working hard to support his education as well as the education of our other children. My husband and I have a small farm as well as a store in Monze town. We want to be able to expand our business, but most profit goes into paying for school fees, leaving little to invest.

My Business

I have a small store in Monze Town where I am selling beans, kapenta (fish), and cooking oil. I buy the beans, kapenta, and cooking oil wholesale and then sell them in varying sizes. On a bag of beans I can make about 400 kwacha profit. With paying for school fees though, I run into a tough time reinvesting into the business as much of the profit goes to education costs for our children. I want to be able to diversify my income sources. I want to add Maize to my store as well. My first loan helped us a lot and we were able to save money. My second loan was also very helpful and we were able to invest more into education.