WORKING POOR: This is what it is like to have a job but unable to pay bills

Zimbabwe’s economic crisis continues to bite terribly and while the Finance and Economic Development Minister Prof Mthuli Ncube will have you feel differently, it doesn’t feel as if we are in a better place economically than we were a year ago.

As it stands there is a growing number of people who have a job but can’t afford to pay bills, the very thing they basically leave home for, hours on end, away from their families and passions.

While the argument over 1:1 not being 1:1 subsists well for those export or have access to US Dollars, for the majority, whose salaries have not gone up by the street rate of 1:3.5 that you get, the cost of living in Zimbabwe is now beyond them. In short they just can’t afford to Zimbabwean and what is worse, pensions paid in USD for years are being called worthless by clever economists.

Most people are embarrassed to talk about money but we will give an example of what many get as a salary. Let’s call it $300. And it is in RTGS not USD cash because even if your boss has started charging services strictly in USD you’re getting paid via transfer Kemosabe. And before Mthuli decided to change the haircut for the tax bracket a part of that was gone.

Now to get to and from work in Harare can rise to as much as $4 a day. And if it rains thrown an extra $1 onto the final bill for every day. But let’s go with four and 22 working days. That means $88.

So we still have $222. Meat at $12 for 2kg of chicken and let’s throw in $30 for 2kg of meat. $42 gone. So we have 180.

Rent takes $150 (and we are being generous here) and so you have $30.

We need mealie meal, so that takes us back say 10kg which is about $5. $25 left.

Vegetables of all sorts accounts for another $10. We can’t even dream of the great deal at Fresh-In-A-Box. We just retweet that fam.

And the rest? Well that goes to the 2% tax for the different purchases along with bank and mobile money charges.

Now we have not included city council rates, electricity and the tithe if you go to church. Neither have we put in any money for medicines, which come in USD these days. No savings, really nothing.

So what happens?

Your council rates go up not because you don’t want to pay, but because you can’t afford it. That bill keeps getting bigger and you’re worried daily. Your dignity is out the window.
You or your child got sick and the doc wants the money and you fell behind on your rent.
You can’t afford to borrow money from anywhere because they look at your salary and say, nah, you can’t afford our bill. Because you don’t make that much, your circle of friends makes as much as you or less.
You can’t network to get out of the poverty cycle because you can’t afford to even get to those lovely venues they hold events at these days.
You now buy clothes from the bhero system. They still look good, so from an image perspective you look nice, but your dignity is in the bin.
Your eight year-old now sells vegetables on the street corner after school to supplement the family’s income
The eight year-old’s school fees have not been paid for a year
Remember that meat option? No, now you dream about that.
Weekends are for extra hustles. Because remember you owe money.
The cycle starts hurting and you drown deeper in debt and you now drink beer daily spending money you do not have.