There has been a lot of good news to start the year with.  The most important of which is undoubtedly the petrol price, where after substantial decreases in recent months, we now have the biggest decrease ever.  It is pity that the Rand has not been strong and is typically weak during this period because we really could have seen the petrol price coming down even more.  

Petrol feeds directly through to inflation and hopefully this can help keep inflation down.  In many respects, and particularly for those who don’t travel much, we don’t appreciate how cheap food for example, is in South Africa.  Yes, we do get ripped off on cell phone calls and internet, etc compared to the rest of the world, but amongst the places where we score is the cost of owning or building a home in South Africa which is far cheaper than overseas and certainly the cost of food with particular reference to the basics like vegetables and fruit are far cheaper here.  I am not going to go into the fact that we have a better climate than most places, because that is true as well – because the focus of this blog is the financial situation.  I certainly hope that we continue to see petrol decreases, but I cannot see the price of oil staying so low for too long.  We need to see some Rand strength to back it all up and hopefully, although unlikely, we can pray for no tax increases in the budget speech in the third week of February.