The price we pay for life

Count your riches in your children, you don’t know how blessed you are, my friend tells me after our umpteenth glass of red on my stoep.

Good point – but can I just, per chance, start counting my riches in coins?

The stats tell you: nearly all of us spend our salaries within the first five days of being paid. Of the 25 million credit-worthy consumers, nearly 50% have a compromised credit record nowadays.

Another 40% have defaulted on their home loans or car payments.

I’m that girl. And I’m so tired of it.

Beloved left me a bit skint after he died and the Advocate is battling to find work – like my dentist, doctor and every professional I visit.

And that’s how I know Covid-19 – and all the excuses that go with it – decimated us. Two sons who were independent, proud workers can’t find jobs. One was in the restaurant business; the other built custom kitchens for people with money.

Problem is, no one has money nowadays, so nobody gets paid.

Enter me: single woman with a single income and five mouths to feed – and sometimes a giant who eats half-a-dozen eggs and four slices of bread just for breakfast.

Problem is, I can bargain with my dentist or doctor, but have no bargaining power with the big brands. The price of chicken and pork is going up by 40% to 60%, I read – and despair.

And Black Friday just gave me Monday blues: I bought a watermelon for a bargain R50. Mince was still a good R90 a kilo, but at least I could get very bony chicken – a full 10kg – for 230 bucks.

Must be a bargain, if they say so – or maybe we’re just uneasy, questioning consumers since the pandemic hit. Or so we’d like to think, new values and all.

Rubbish. We need to eat and that trolley that used to cost me just over R1 000 on “big shopping day” – that one when your salary gets paid in? – has more than doubled in price.

So, all you big retailers with your “big savings”, this girl is becoming a vegetarian. I know you are going to charge me an arm and a leg for those legumes and coconut milk I’ll need to stay regular, but I have children: I’m not complaining. I count my blessings.

Apparently, I’m rich?

Carine Hartman.

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