Should I keep sending money home, or set up a plan? How families use both

What a remittance is good at

• Speed. Most UK to Nigeria transfers land in minutes.
• Flexibility. Rent, food, school fees, a generator repair, a funeral: cash covers all of it.
• Dignity. Your mother or your brother decides what to do with it.
• Cost. About 2% on average through the apps, and less with the cheapest.

What it cannot do

• Guarantee that money for a check-up becomes a check-up. Cash goes to the most urgent thing that week.
• Get someone treated before the bill is settled. Many Lagos hospitals want a deposit first, HMO card or not.
• Tell you how they actually are. A transfer receipt says money moved. It says nothing about blood pressure.
• Put a qualified person in the room. Nobody visits because a transfer landed.

What a plan is good at

A Kinship Plan gives the member the Kinship team, a call every month, Kemi on WhatsApp and a shared family record. Kinship Visits add a qualified nurse at home for up to three unhurried hours, and a named Kinkeeper, a registered nurse who knows their history and medicines. The Kinkeeper checks every visit report before the family sees it and calls first if something needs acting on.

Billed monthly, the Kinship Plan is £20 a month. Visits add £40, £75 or £140 a month for 1, 2 or 4 visits per month. The monthly totals are £60, £95 and £160. Brothers and sisters can chip in as one payment.

How families put the two together

• The plan covers the health side and the checking-in. The monthly transfer covers everything else, and often gets smaller because it is no longer the emergency fund.
• When something happens, the first call goes to Kinship rather than to the group chat, and the family gets one account of it instead of six.
• The person in Nigeria keeps control. The plan is theirs, the money is theirs, and the updates go to the people they chose.

Questions people ask

Related

• Sending money to Nigeria for healthcare: what it costs
• What a Kinship Plan costs