13/10/2026
Almost R40 a litre for diesel. And when every vehicle you own runs on diesel, you feel every single rand disappearing into that tank.🫣
When did the cost of living become so overwhelming?
We used to fill up, do our errands, visit the shops, deliver our parcels and get on with life without having to plan every kilometre. Now, every trip needs to be calculated. Can it wait? Can we combine two errands into one? Is it really necessary to drive into town today?
I've already cut my parcel deliveries down from twice a week to once a week. I now spend my Sundays getting orders packed and up to date so that I can make one trip on Monday. If there's another errand to run, I'll combine it with that trip. We adapt where we can, because what other choice do we have?
And then life throws something else at you. Tomorrow, Maya needs her dental work, and the extraction and full dental clean are costing us close to R3000, before we even know what her medication afterwards will cost. Of course, we want to do what's right for her. She's part of our family. But it's another reminder of how expensive even the things we cannot put off have become.
It's not always about luxuries, holidays or buying things we don't need. It's the fuel to get where we need to be. The food on the table. The electricity. The unexpected vet or doctor bill. The everyday things that used to feel manageable but now require careful planning.
I think we need to start looking at our lives more differently. Perhaps we need to become more intentional about how far we travel, how often we make those trips, what we can grow ourselves, what we can repair instead of replace, and how we can make better use of what we already have. Not because we're going backwards, but because being resourceful is becoming a necessity again.🙂
Maybe some of the old ways of doing things deserve another look. Maybe we need to learn to waste less, plan better and become a little more self-sufficient wherever we can.
But goodness, it's tiring, isn't it? Always having to adjust. Always finding another way to make things work.
I wonder how many people are sitting tonight, doing exactly the same sums in their heads, wondering how ordinary life became such hard work.
We're all trying to make it work in our own corners of the world. And perhaps we should talk about it more, share the things that can help one another, and learn from one another rather than pretending everything is fine.❤️