Remember when P200 used to be a big deal? P200 at the supermarket made you feel like a responsible adult. It was like a VIP pass to life. You walked into Choppies with P200 and came out looking like you owned the store. Bread, milk, chicken, cooking oil, snacks, airtime and you still had change for a cab home. You’d walk out carrying enough groceries to feed a family, impress visitors and maybe even donate to a cousin who ‘just needs a few things.’ Now? P200 is basically a suggestion. You walk in with it, and the cashier looks at you like, ‘Aww, that’s cute. What do you want... a loaf of bread or a bottle of Coke?’ The first casualty of inflation is impulse buying. Those days are gone. Remember those snacks (at the gondola end as you await your turn at the till) that stare at you until you pick them? Well, we just stare back nowadays.
You stand in front of a packet of Doritos calculating whether the flavour justifies financial ruin and hobble off faster than a man after hearing the pregnancy test results. Nobody in Botswana casually tosses snacks into the trolley anymore. We are in an age where shopping isn’t retail therapy anymore—it’s survival training.
