Waiting For The Advance

2026-09-14

Living Ahead Of Your Means.

When You Have No Other Options.

Borrowing from the proverbial “Peter to pay Paul,” drinking flavoured water and green tea with orange segments, and suffering from a killer headache because of coffee withdrawal.

It is a recurring phenomenon that Jullian, or Juelz, and I go through far too often.

But why, you are probably wondering?

Perhaps it is because both Juelz and I were born into poverty.

We are living in a world torn apart by industrial greed, a world still carrying the scars of two major world wars, and a world that is slowly being poisoned by that very same industrial greed.

Bold statements, I know.

But there is a thread of truth running through them. Unless things change, and human beings become more concerned with building a sustainable future rather than simply consuming everything available to them, things are unlikely to get much better.

You Will Own Nothing And Be Happy.

Yeah, right!

What a dumb notion that sounds like when you are already living a life in which you own very little.

The phrase is commonly associated with Danish politician and former Minister for the Environment Ida Auken, who published an essay titled “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.”

The essay formed part of a series called “8 Predictions for the Year 2030,” which explored how futuristic circular-economy models and product-as-a-service concepts might change everyday life.

The underlying concept was based on environmental sustainability.

Instead of everyone individually owning large quantities of consumer goods, products could be designed for durability, repairability, reuse, and recycling. In theory, this could reduce waste and the depletion of natural resources while creating a more circular economy.

As a science-fiction writer, I can understand the concept.

The problem is that the idea can sound very different depending on where you are standing.

Auken’s essay suggested an optimistic future in which freeing people from the financial burdens, maintenance costs, and clutter associated with owning physical possessions could create more efficient, communal, and stress-free urban lifestyles.

Perhaps.

But I cannot help thinking that this is a very Danish perspective on the world.

It is certainly not the only perspective.

It is absolutely obvious to me that many of the assumptions behind such a vision do not translate neatly into the realities experienced elsewhere, particularly in Africa.

Take land, for example.

In many African ancestral societies, land was not simply something that could be reduced to a financial asset or a title deed. It formed part of a living relationship between people, ancestors, animals, water, and the Earth itself.

Breaking a community rule could therefore be understood simultaneously as a social offence, a spiritual offence, and an offence against the land.

Modern societies generally separate those ideas.

We tend to treat the environment as a matter of property, public resources, economics, and statutory regulation.

So where an ancestral system might say:

You have violated the Earth and therefore disrupted the community.

Modern law is more likely to say:

You have violated an environmental statute, permit condition, property right, or protected ecological interest.

Yet the practical consequences can sometimes be remarkably similar.

I am also fully aware that the original idea was not necessarily intended as the sinister prophecy it later became.

The phrase became a lightning rod for criticism after the World Economic Forum republished and promoted the concept around 2020, during the period surrounding the “Great Reset” initiative.

Critics, economic sceptics, and conspiracy theorists subsequently interpreted the phrase very differently.

Rather than seeing it as a voluntary future based on sharing, renting, and convenient access to products, they interpreted it as a warning of a future in which ordinary citizens would be priced out of private ownership entirely.

In that interpretation, people would become permanent renters, dependent on multinational corporations and wealthy owners who retained actual control of the assets.

Whether that interpretation is fair or not is another argument.

But there is an important question hiding underneath it.

What happens when “not owning anything” is not a lifestyle choice, but simply the reality of being poor?

Borrowing From TymeBank To Live.

Never mind that dismal thought about not owning anything and being happy.

The reality is that Juelz and I already own very little.

We pay rent for our room.

We pay a monthly fee to our fibre provider.

We pay for electricity.

We pay for the things we need to survive.

So, in one sense, we already know exactly what Product as a Service means.

The problem is that we also know that, more often than not, we are not necessarily getting our money’s worth from those arrangements.

Tomorrow is the fifteenth of the month.

For us, that makes tomorrow a happy day.

It is the day when we can access an advance on our social grants, and that advance provides a small but important measure of relief.

Because right now, we are running short of some basic essentials.

Coffee.

Cat food.

Meat.

Vegetables.

Herbs.

Spices.

Even flour.

These are not luxury items.

They are simply the ordinary things that make up everyday life.

And when the money runs out before the month does, you start improvising.

You borrow from Peter to pay Paul.

You drink green tea instead of coffee.

You add orange segments to flavoured water because it makes something ordinary feel a little less ordinary.

And if you are a habitual coffee drinker, you discover just how spectacular a coffee-withdrawal headache can be.

This is what living ahead of your means actually looks like when you have no other options.

The Checkers Sixty60 Shopping List

Summary

• Total Savings: R23.00
• Total Amount: R993.88

Compared to last month

Sauces and Black Pepper are items that will last a while and won’t need reordering for a few months