By: Natasha Archary
South Africa has welcomed the relief from loadshedding but consumers are still absorbing higher costs.
Nikki Quinn, Retail Lead for sub-Saharan Africa at NIQ and GfK joins Refilwe Moloto on Kaya Biz to share how consumers are buckling under higher costs as prices remain virtually unchanged from last year.
Nikki shared nsights from the NIQ Retail Spend Barometer, which combines data from NIQ and GfK to measure the turnover in sales of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) as well as Tech & Durables (T&D) goods purchased in stores across SA.
According to the barometer, South African consumers spent a total of R181 billion on FMCG in the second quarter of 2024, representing a 4.8% uplift compared to the same period last year.
This doesn’t bode well for cash-strapped households which are already living paycheque to paycheque.
In June, Deloitte South Africa released the 2024 Gen Z and Millennial survey which revealed tat 6 in 10 people are living paycheque to paycheque.
A total of 56% of Gen Zs and 55% of Millennials have more month left compared to their salaries and 3 in 10 do not feel financially secure and are despondent about their financial circumstances.
While most remain optimistic that the country’s economic problems will improve, and that new opportunities will come their way to change their earning bracket, some still don’t see how they can get out of living paycheque to paycheque.
Without the financial freedom to save for a rainy day, budgeting and cutting back on expenses is the only way most South Africans make it through each month.
One of the first things one can do to attain your financial objectives as quickly as possible is to lower their cost of living.
Adding up how much money you spend on necessities like food, utilities and housing costs each month is a good place to start.
You always want to make sure that there is money left at the end of the month and not more month left without money. There is a lot of pressure on the consumer at the moment.
Despite the fuel price dropping, it seems everything is going up internationally at the moment. So that is going to start bringing even more pressure on the consumer going forward.
You need to start looking at what are some of the money management moves you can make so that you do have that you do have that money and that you can stretch towards the entire month.
Listen to the conversation on Kaya Biz:
Also read: The difference between life in the ‘burbs vs eKasi
