Have you visited your local butcher? Ask them where the best veggies can be found - the smaller shops always had the best hook ups.
I would buy food for 2 people for 40 pounds for a months food - all fresh meat and veg. Nothing processed.
Takeaways we spoiled ourselves once a month with.
Stay away from the pizza places, try all the thai, indian and chinese places you can - the smaller and dodgier they look the better the prices and foods.
And dont be afraid if you live near a 1 pound store (dunno if its still a thing?) Then do your cleaning supply shop there - toiletries and so on was silly cheap. I also often bought their tuna - 4 cans for 1 pound, 3 packets of pasta for 1 pound. Never regretted it.
Oh yes, my local butcher is also a former South African and he makes boerewors (really nice wors)
We’re quite lucky to be “in the country” so there’s a farm shop 5 min walk down the road from my house and they sell apples, apricots, pears and plums. They also makes jams and preserves.
Poundland is still a thing, the wife makes a monthly trip there for odds. Her favourite shop is actually B&M which is like a lovechild between Makro and Giant Hyper.
Honestly the Co-Op stores are the ones I enjoy most for food, but it’s mostly for how they operate. They donate 1% of what members spend (membership is like smart shopper) to local community projects (as in local to each store). “In 2017 we gave £1.8m from the sale of bottled water to fund clean water projects in some of the poorest parts of the world.” <- That type of stuff they do as well. Their “in-house” products use almost no sugar or salt. “100% of our own-brand cocoa, sugar, tea and coffee and bananas is Fairtrade.” it’s the little things
Jup that is the kind of thing I found amazing as well, they do so much for local everything. The shops are so much more aware than here. Altho at least Spar is catching up
You have to do me 1 BIG favour - once cherry season begins, spoil yourselves - the cherries there still has so much more flavour than what we get here and so much cheaper!
So every second person I meet these days is planning to jettison from South Africa, lockdown has put a real spot light on things, that seems to be shining through people’s rose tinted glasses. Some are even moving to Botswana and Mauritius.
A lot of folk are feeling trapped and frustrated because their plans have been completely scuttled. I know of 3 families who were supposed to fly to NZ in June now their job offers have been retracted.
I believe their plans will still come to light in time, they just mustn’t quite the forward motion.
Would anyone else like to talk of their situations?
I live a fairly comfortable life in a bit of a bubble currently in good old ZA. I have a nice house which we rent in Cape Town and own a property in Gauteng that we’re renting out and I’m driving (as much as one can drive these days) a car I’ve desired for most of my adult life. I have a business that is flourishing right now with a smidge over 50 employees. I have a decent income and can put away a fair amount of savings money each month. So by all accounts I’m incredibly blessed and one of the very privileged few in the country.
The reality of our economic and political landscape has in recent times, however, made me sit up straight and worry about the future of the business that I’ve literally bled to grow to the point where it is now. The shocking reality of the rapid downward spiral of the country’s spending vs revenue (and the subsequent deficit) as highlighted by an article on MyBroadband yesterday invoked some serious discussion in our household yesterday as to our future here. We need to consider our son who’s turning 2 years old soon and his safety and education - both of which seem in dire straits in the country right now.
So right now I’m not making any hasty decisions, but I’m constantly working on back doors for a swift exit. We have a dormant branch of our company already established in Ireland (which acts as a holdings company for now) and we’ll get the official papers from the Austrian government in a week’s time for the branch that we’re busy establishing in Vienna. We have an ex-pat working at a university in Vienna already laying the path for us there and plan to send one of our key developers to complete a Doctorate at said university while establishing a footprint that side. Being a majority shareholder, director and “key decision maker” in each of those companies, I essentially have a hall pass to get into those countries with my immediate family in tow.
I honestly love staying in Cape Town, as the weather is great (much better than Gauteng, where I spent most of my life), the scenery is breathtaking and life is just generally better than it was further north in ZA. If we didn’t have the political and economic turmoil that we currently have, or if there at least was some light at the end of this dark tunnel, I wouldn’t even have giving emigration a second thought. I’m approaching 40 at a rapid pace, so I need to decide where we’ll end up settling and spending the rest of our lives, and sadly ZA isn’t making a strong case for itself right now.
I am stuck here in this place, too old to move. However, we are doing everything we can to get our kids out of the country to seek opportunities elsewhere.
Same, I am stuck, financially cannot afford to go anywhere. My dad is threatening to move the family to Mauritius - why we have no freaken clue, its his new obsession. I just looked at him and said its not much better there than here, I will stay here.
The Internet (and cellphone networks) in Mauritius are a definite downgrade compared to South Africa, and the caste system is still entrenched for the population of Indian decent. But at least they have a commitment to public education and are not openly hostile to business
I deal a lot with companies in Mauritius and was there last year for work , the people are really great super friendly and helpful , food is not nearly as great as in SA, but yeah the internet isn’t he best and it is a heavily state controlled country… also hurricanes are common
Agreed. Mauritius is amazing whether you want to live/work or vacation there. But I think people get a skewed perception when they go there for a holiday.
Nice, yes being open to leaving is key. I have family here who refuse to leave because of businesses they have built.
I understand the desire “to stand your ground” but it is not strategic, even if you do some mild future forecasting.
Last year was the most insanely bad year for me in terms of crime, corruption, business stress and general unease, which prompted us to get things done to bail. 2020 is nothing compared to 2019 for me. Though 2020 has not been without incident.
Anyway, my wife and I hustled and we are now just waiting on a Visa verdict for Australia.
That’s great man. Wishing you guys all the best luck in getting it sorted. Sadly, one of our developers had her visa declined earlier this year. She and her husband are both software engineers, both young-ish (mid 30’s both of them) and very healthy, yet their visas were declined. Apparently the market for software engineers became a bit saturated there. Granted, they wanted to go over on a skilled migrant visa and not a work sponsored one. But still, it’s quite concerning hearing that the traditional refuge of fed-up South Africans is now cracking down on migrants.
Australia? Yes…their whole IT industry is small. Large numbers of highly skilled people have flooded to Aus from everywhere. Unless you’re a QA Engineer or DevOps Engineer you’re likely to be declined.
Yo its been ages