“I Can’t Even Afford Beans”: Ordinary South Africans Spend R10K on Essential Monthly Groceries

“I Can’t Even Afford Beans”: Ordinary South Africans Spend R10K on Essential Monthly Groceries

  • The cost of living has become too high for most working-class citizens to grasp 
  • Netizens joined a portal of conversation surrounding the cost of monthly groceries in Mzansi
  • The middle-class citizens admitted that they could no longer afford certain essential foods because of their ridiculous pricing

A woman on TikTok opened the portal for citizens to discuss the unbearable cost of living.

Mzansi struggles to keep up with cost of living
A woman on TikTok opened a conversation around Mzansi's high cost of living. Image: @lifereset_za/TikTok/@Ying Tang/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Source: UGC

The lady could not believe she could no longer afford beans priced at over R200.

Ordinary South Africans spend R10K on essential monthly groceries 

Mzansi has been complaining about the high cost of living since even before the pandemic. A woman on TikTok opened a platform for Mzansi to discuss their thoughts on ridiculously priced foods.

Read also

Student's R362 grocery haul video wows Mzansi, SA buzzes over budget finds

The lady wanted to determine how much an ordinary South African spends on essential groceries per month. She discovered that the price varies from household to household but mostly ranges from R6K to R10K monthly.

The woman captioned her interactive post:

"How much are we spending per month on groceries and lights in South Africa?"

Watch the video below:

Netizens react to cost of living in Mzansi 

Another thing that eats into South Africans' pockets is electricity. Recently, a man from Cape Town studied his meter band and discovered that Eskom is scamming people and decreasing units by the second.

Briefly News reached out to a breadwinner, Thandi Ngqwebo, to find out how she handles the challenge of having to cut down on certain foods:

“It is hard to cut down on things that you’re used to, but my family and I have sacrificed snacks for more wholesome foods that will sustain us for the whole month, like veggies, rice, flour, sugar and mealies. We bake our own bread occasionally and at least have one fun and greasy meal twice a month.”

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"It's the people’s fighter": Student shows SA how to survive on R100 a month

Netizens explained their monthly spending in the comments section:

@Kumkani👌🏿explained a theory:

"In Ramaphosa's economy you can't eat breakfast, lunch and supper. You must skip breakfast, eat lunch and skip supper. Otherwise you will work for food."

@yayazy is also has affordability problems:

"I think now I use R3 000 per month and it's never enough. Red meat I only eat at functions or funerals."

Gent uncovers SARS’ unfair deductions on working-class

Briefly News also reported that a man on TikTok shared how SARS was unfairly deducting money from the working class. As netizens have stated in a TikTok post, the absurdly high tax rate is holding the working class back.

Netizens agree with the man on TikTok that SARS and Eskom are to blame for the country's financial downfall.

Source: Briefly News

Authors:
Chuma Nontsele avatar

Chuma Nontsele (Editor) Chuma Nontsele is a human interest journalist for Briefly News. Nontsele holds a diploma in journalism and started her career working at Daily Maverick as a news reporter. Later, she ventured into lifestyle. You can reach her at: chuma.nontsele@briefly.co.za