You know that feeling when your grocery trolley looks suspiciously similar to last month’s, but the amount at the bottom of till slip is significantly higher? You’re not losing your mind. And you’re not bad with money. You’re living through exactly what the Competition Commission’s latest Cost of Living Report just confirmed in black and white: the essentials – the items you can’t just decide to stop buying – are getting more expensive, faster than everything else.
Between July 2025 and July 2026, electricity prices rose 8.1% and water prices rose 10.1%, while headline inflation sat at just 4.3%. Zoom out further and it gets worse: since January 2020, electricity is up over 100% and water around 85%, against inflation of roughly 36% over the same period. Add petrol inflation of 26% this year alone, public school fees rising one-and-a-half times faster than inflation, and healthcare costs climbing steadily too, and you get a very honest explanation for why your salary feels like it’s shrinking even when the number on your payslip hasn’t changed.
Fortunately, you can change how you spend around the costs you do have some control over. Consider this your practical toolkit for fighting back – no willpower-of-steel required.
1. Make your budget do the boring work for you
A budget has a bit of an image problem. It sounds like punishment, like being grounded by your own bank account. In reality, it’s just you deciding in advance where your money goes, instead of finding out in horror three days before payday. Track your actual spending for one month – not what you think you spend, what you actually spend – and you’ll usually find at least one “wait, how much?” moment hiding in there. That’s not a moral failing. That’s just what happens when subscriptions, small daily purchases and “I’ll just grab this quickly” add up.
2. Plan your trips like you’re avoiding a toll gate
Every trip to the shops costs more than what’s on the receipt – petrol, time, and that inevitable extra item you didn’t plan to buy but somehow ended up adding to the trolley. Batching your errands, planning your week’s meals before you shop, and consolidating deliveries instead of ordering something new every second day can help cut both your fuel spend and your impulse buys. Fewer trips means fewer chances for your trolley to develop a mind of its own.
3. Buy in bulk – but only for things you’ll actually finish
Bulk buying is one of the oldest cost-saving tricks in the book, and it still works, provided you apply it with a little discipline. Non-perishables, toiletries, and household basics are ideal candidates – buy the giant bag of rice, not the giant bag of something that expires before you’ve made a dent in it. The real savings come from buying less often at a lower unit cost, not from filling a cupboard with good intentions.
4. Make use of the loyalty programmes you are signed up for
Somewhere in your inbox or wallet, there’s probably a loyalty card or app quietly collecting points you’ve never redeemed. Retailer loyalty programmes, fuel rewards, and bank-linked cashback schemes exist specifically to soften the blow of rising prices – but only if you use them consistently, rather than remembering they exist once a year in December. Ten minutes spent linking your accounts and checking your points balance is one of the easiest wins on this list.
5. Get comfortable saying “not this month” to non-essentials
This isn’t about cutting out every small joy in your life – that’s a recipe for giving up on a budget within a week. It’s about being deliberate. When water and electricity are eating a bigger share of your income than they were two years ago, something else in the budget needs to flex to make room. Identify your true nice-to-haves – the subscription you forgot you had, the takeaway that’s become a habit rather than a treat – and give yourself permission to pause them without guilt.
6. Build a small buffer, even if it feels pointless right now
When municipal tariffs jump without warning or the cost of fuel goes up overnight, having even a small emergency buffer is the difference between absorbing the shock and reaching for debt to cover it. It doesn’t need to be dramatic, even a modest, separate “life happens” fund started today gives you options tomorrow that you simply don’t have if every rand is already accounted for.
None of these tips will single-handedly undo what electricity and water tariffs are doing to household budgets right now. That’s a structural problem, and the Competition Commission’s report makes clear it needs structural fixes. But the space you do control – how you shop, what you track, which programmes you actually use, and what you’re willing to pause – can add up to real, meaningful breathing room.
And if you’re not sure how these choices fit into the bigger picture, a financial adviser can help you look at your budget, savings and longer-term goals together, and work out where small changes could have the biggest impact.
The cost of living going up isn’t in your head. But how much of that pressure lands directly on you? That part, at least, is still very much within your control.
Written by Andile Jonas, Head of Marketing at Momentum Savings