Let’s talk about a billion shillings, shall we? (Throughout this post, you can change ‘shillings’ to ‘dollars’ or ‘pounds’ or whichever currency you like. But not Zimbabwe dollars. A billion Zimbabwe dollars is/was not worth much.)
A billion is 1 with nine zeros after it. That is 1,000,000,000.
A billion shillings is a lot of money.
If you found 1 billion shillings and you were afraid to put it in the bank because that would attract questions about how you obtained the money, and you therefore simply kept the billion under your mattress, you would live well.
If you spent 1 million shillings out of that stash every month, you would be able to live that way for 1,000 months. That is one thousand months. That is 83 years and 3 months. Eighty-three years! Without investing this money at all, so every month, as you pull out a million shillings for your monthly upkeep, the money reduces.
So, if you found this money in March 2014, you would finish it in June 2097.
Pause there and think about that for a moment:
One million shillings a month until June of the year 2097.
Now, supposing you obtained the billion shillings legitimately and were not afraid of investing the money.
With a billion shillings, you can put the money in the bank and get a good interest rate.
But let us assume you got a mean bank that only gave you six per cent (6%) interest per year.
That means that each year, the bank would give you 6% of 1 billion, which is 60,000,000 shillings. That is sixty million shillings per year.
Divide that by twelve to find out your monthly earnings and you get 5,000,000/- per month.
Five million shillings per month.
You will be able to spend 5 million shillings per month, from the interest alone, that is, without you touching the original billion shillings.
Since your principal (the one billion shillings) remains untouched, you will be able to spend 5 million shillings per month for ever, way past June 2097. Or until 5 million shillings per month becomes too little.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what one billion shillings means. So next time you hear someone is worth a few billion dollars, remember this post 🙂
Baba Amor's Thoughts 
Oh God, someone give me a billion Kenyan shillings!