The strain of cost of living
Have you ever heard the phrase “wealthy people plan for the next three generations while poor people plan for Saturday night”? This came to mind after a recent study by FNB showed that most middle-class income earners spend almost 80% of their salaries within five days and survive the remainder of the month with just 20%...
The wealthy continue to plan for rainy days, they invest, they work hard and they save.
It goes without saying that they can and do live in luxury and without reservation. They honestly live within their means... Cross a few highways, get to a township or two and you have reached the less affluent side of life.
It is here where one is likely to find child-headed households, depending on social grants. It is also here where you are bound to find luxury vehicles and women spotting weaves worth thousand of rands. It is here where the word affordability just doesn’t exist.
The cost of living rises beyond all our abilities, petrol costs a fortune, food is fast becoming unaffordable – the electricity we rarely have costs a liver… we are honestly breathing with great difficulty.
So, when people in certain areas protest for housing, refusing to pay for electricity, we may be enraged, but a part of us understands this… life is unaffordable.
To a large extent, society has bred a nation of people who feel entitled, but what happens when society decides to stop giving into these demands? Will the entitled then be able to sustain themselves? Safe to assume that tyres and public amenities would go up in flames in protest.
Let us, however, be honest and admit that the poorest of the poor live beyond their means.
DStv service on shacks, expensive cars parked outside rented rooms and packed taverns. A week after payday, the fridge is empty and debit orders go unpaid.
If we do not educate ourselves, it will continue to be a cycle of poverty disguised by material trinkets that burden us further. What we ought to learn is that if we cannot afford it, perhaps we should not have it – then economic freedom in lifetime will be within reach.