This is what South Africans are cutting to save money right now

New data from Standard Bank shows that South Africans are cutting back charitable donations and holiday travel in April as the cost of living crisis in the country continues to bit.

While inflation has come down significantly since 2024 and prospects for salaries and wages are better this year, tax hikes and increases to fundamentals like electricity and water are eating into budgets.

As a result, Standard Bank said that the quick and easy cuts are the first to go—including donations.

The bank said its trend data typically shows an uptick in donations over the April period, likely due to the Easter long weekend and focus on family.

April is the only month in the year where there is a noticeable peak in charitable giving among Standard Bank clients, but this now accounts for less than 1% of total spend.

“Even in this peak month, it is still one of the smaller spend categories for consumers,” said Shené Mothilal, Solution Owner of Digital Money Manager at Standard Bank.

“When we look at a long-term trend, we also see a gradual decline in the proportion of households’ incomes going towards charity and donations since 2022.”

Mothilal said this is likely because of the economic hardships consumers have faced in recent years as South Africa’s economy has remained stagnant while the cost of living rapidly escalated.

But this downturn is showing up in other spending categories as well, the bank said. Holiday accommodation and travel—typically showing a spike in March and April—are also down.

Even with the seasonal increase over Easter, these categories are now one of the smaller spending items for consumers.

The bank said that spending on leisure time has become more erratic—again due to the economy, and this type of spending being one of the easiest to cut back on.

“That said, the decline in holiday and travel spend since 2022 hasn’t been as steep as what we’ve seen with charity and donations,” Mothilal noted.

2025 has seen a raft of steep price increases, including above-inflation hikes to medical aid and insurance pricing, as well as steep increases to electricity costs—with more to follow in the coming months.

What South Africans are cutting to save money

Standard Bank’s latest data broadly aligns with findings from Nedbank and Old Mutual in their respective household

The latest Old Mutual Savings and Investment Monitor (OMSIM) and NedFinHealth Monitor—tracking data from 2024—showed that households usually go for ‘easy’ cuts when trying to save money.

This includes things like cutting streaming services and entertainment, or switching to cheaper brands.

When it comes to holidays, the reports showed that hosueholds tend to favour year-end holidays, and direct most of their saving and budgeting towards that.

The most popular tactics used to save money can be broken down like this:

In contrast to the spending cuts, consumers appear to be spending more on essential items like transport and digital connectivity.

However, this is likely due to service providers implementing annual price increases during this time.

Increased spend on transport could either reflect higher levels of travel over Easter, or increases to annual fare hikes for public transport.

Standard Bank warned that spending is likely to come under pressure in May as many service providers, retailers and other categories prepare to hike prices due to VAT.

The fiscal framework for the 2025 budget was passed on 2 April, paving the way for a 0.5 percentage point hike in VAT to kick in from 1 May.

While political parties are now scrambling to find a way to reverse this, there is great legal uncertainty on whether this can be done, or if it can be done in time.

Several major retailers have already stated that they are ready to implement the VAT hike, with service providers like the big banks, insurers, medical aids and Multichoice already notifying customers and clients of the change.