By Raffique Shah
December 06, 2025

If you are a robust 50-something-year-old with no known affliction, which signals that you are a healthy specimen, then you may well be concerned mostly with the cost of living.

You will have noted the runaway prices that affect the average householder by way of increased prices for basic goods and services. You’ll wonder how people who earn less than $10K a month, who are breadwinners to their families, fare in this jungle where the hunt is for lower prices. Not only does every dollar count, but a man or woman will walk the proverbial mile and a half to save $5 on one basic food item such as rice, flour, corned beef, etc. If, however, you are stricken by diseases that are all too familiar-some might say rampant-you will have noted the leap in prices of pharmaceuticals which will have quadrupled over the past year.

This is no joke. In families that have to meet costs of educating younger members and caring for their older members, the cost of living would be prohibitively high, and worse, if you have to hire a geriatric nurse, you’ll sink deeper in debt than you ever imagined. Last week, yet another vocal scuffle broke out when pharmaceutical interest groups claimed that not only were they out of the loop on medications critical to the infirm and those with incurable but medicable conditions, but they were also out of the loop when it came to the importation and pricing of these drugs. To give it some context, imagine having a neurodegenerative disease like Parkinson’s and having to purchase upwards of $2,500 worth of medicine every month. And that’s just Parkinson’s-who knows what the cancer patients pay, the dementia patients, and the list goes on.

Set aside the medication and look at the prices of services. In your old age, you simply cannot own a home unless you jointly own said property with a younger, ably-employed relative who is capable of managing and maintaining the household. With home ownership comes an additional cost of living. By additional, I mean, bills (electricity, water, phone, etc.), and the cost of maintenance and repairs. I recently paid $3K to clear a drain on my property, a further $800 got two walls of my house power-washed, and $300 to clear the clogged guttering at the front of my property. I don’t know how reasonably priced these were, but I do know that living on a fixed income with prices like these, the only thing I can afford to do right now is to die. The cost of semi-skilled labour is murderous, especially when I can no longer cart my old, decrepit geezer self, up and down a ladder even to change a light bulb.

Food remains the greatest contender when it comes to cost of living. I have heard the complaints over and over again. I have one simple rule my family and I live by: if it is too expensive, do not buy-we can do without it. That has worked for us over the years, but there are things that are unavoidably purchased because they are necessities. Prices vary from one supermarket to the next. There is one particular big-chain supermarket which has a sale on its products almost every day. And people arrive in droves to pick up on these sales, even going so far as buying in bulk everyday items just to save a few dollars down the line. Snacks are the proverbial “elephant” in the room-especially my room. I have been a notorious snacker from day one, and 80 years on, nothing has changed. At the grocery, I must have my fill of snacks, as I am sure many others do. But since I no longer make the trip to the grocery, I charge those with that responsibility to not purchase any. If they don’t buy, I can’t eat, since I am no longer mobile enough to burn it off. Sure, there may be a tantrum or two, but my daughter says: Don’t worry dad, you’ll get over it.

Finally, when the end of your life comes knocking at your door, better hope it’s a swift process, because if you are to languish on a bed for your final days-which can run into months, or worst case, years-either you or your family will be “pauperised” after that. Palliative care, which is not widely available in this country-and if it is, it is through private individuals and institutions-will become exorbitantly expensive if it extends beyond a few months. This is why many families have resorted to using relatives during such times, but while that may be cost-cutting, it is mentally and physically overbearing on the individuals involved.

It’s an absolute wonder that more people in my age group haven’t found ways to humanely exit this life. We do it for animals; why not us?