Are Women Really Dependent? Their Income Vs Their Cost of Living

I have been watching this very closely lately. A friend of a friend of a friend (still i know her, or should i say we know each other) is employed in a telecommunication company. She is a single mother of 3 years beautiful girl. Her job is not a managerial kind of high paying one, but rather a service one, where a pay may range from Tsh 500,000 to 700,000 per months. To my knowledge, she does not own any business or shares in any company. Her job is the only source of income. (like sooo may people)

Recently, she started driving a  very expensive Porsche car. She also moved to one of these classy neighborhood (She used to live in one of those shabby unplanned streets in Dar) and her daughter goes to a very good private school (Which uses foreign curriculum). I  met her when she was picking her daughter from extra school activity - swimming lesson. She looked different, very different. The clothes, and shoes, and perfume she wore was expensive, like designer. Instantly, i felt a mixture of confusion and a little jealous, but it just passed anyway (don't we sometimes)!  

She told me that she still work for the same company. I suddenly started summing up her salary  and minus school fees, rent, fuel, food, clothes, etc etc etc, only to find overspend of 4 times her salary per month. As we were talking she volunteered  the information that she is  got a new "boyfriend"- a rich politician in the country. And this is the reality of many women and girls nowadays.

The question remain, how much dependency is independent and what are the parameters in defining independent self sufficient woman. I do not mean to compare or undermine, but  most women (frankly speaking i do not have statistics)  who claim to be independent are not independent at all. There are some level of compromise when it comes to independence where women depend on gifts from boyfriends to cover for the uncovered budget (if they do have a budget at all)in their expenditure.

This does not only pose the insecurity challenge  on women, but it leaves women desperate when these favors end. Being accustomed to a high lifestyle without an investment for the future is a great risk. For those who have this setting, here is my little piece of advice, please make sure you are investing with the money while you can. They never last forever. I have seen many people, including my best friends who went back to renting one room apartment in a crappy neighborhood and go back into daladala and eating once in a day and sell their smartest beautiful clothes because the arrangement stopped and  they had nowhere to go back to. They became desperate and depressed at the same time and they lost their friends. Trust me i have seen many of them.

Unfortunately, this is reality of many young women and again, unfortunately, this we kind of have a twisted way of talking about it. It is the painfully reality. Again most of these men are married old men who have squandered their young age and they are  paying you to use yours.