The cost is relative!” they say, as they giggle gleefully into their cravats, extinguishing their cigars on the soft leather of their high-powered sports cars and driving off to their coastal holiday homes… You know certain things in life are going to be expensive. Caviar… Champagne… Perfume. But those are luxuries – and you’d be shocked to see how expensive everyday items can be, when you compare them by volume. Nobody’s picking on producers or retailers, not everyone will agree on the pricing and yes, we’ve ignored processing, packaging, transport and marketing costs, but a broad-strokes examination of per-volume cost of some essential items will make you consider caviar as a viable everyday lunchtime snack!

Health

It’s always been expensive to eat healthy – but checking out the per-volume pricing of healthy alternatives to normal food is going to give you indigestion. Love adding Almond Butter to your smoothie or using it for cooking? R25 for a 250g jar doesn’t sound like a lot, until you look at it by volume – R200/kg, compared to normal butter at R68/kg.

Baby Marrow spaghetti is a great LCHF option – but it costs R85/kg, compared to R22/kg for the spaghetti your mom used to boil up. Rice crisps? A steal at R29 a packet, which gets you 100g. The same amount of actual uncooked brown rice rice would cost you 89c. Garden variety Canola oil is about R23 for a litre – but what’ll stop your heart long before the effects of cholesterol is the fact that Coconut Oil costs around ten times that.

Toiletries

Toiletries are never cheap… Dry lips? A popular lip moisturizer seems a bargain at R20 for a tube – until you consider that that tube contains 5g of product, putting a price of R4 000/kg on your perfect smooch. Do you use spray-on or roll-on deodorant? The former will set you back R180/litre while the latter is double that, with 150ml and 50ml in the average can and stick, respectively.

If your other half uses too much gel in his hair, a great way to get him to stop is to tell him that it’d be cheaper to use coconut oil to slick his fringe back – a 150ml tube works out at nearly R490 per litre. And if he’s using it by the litre anyway, you have bigger problems. And don’t think you’re getting off any more lightly if one of you dye your hair – the average box of hair dye contains 177ml of liquid and costs around R99 – that’s R559 per litre!

Scents can remind you of a very particular time and place in your life. The cost of that memory? At R1 500 on average for a top-brand eau de toilette or perfume, you’re looking at nearly R17 000 for a litre… How about makeup? The average branded tube of mascara holds around 13ml and retails for around R316. That’s a mascara-streaking R24 307 per litre.

Feeling sniffly? A menthol chest rub will set you back R839/kg. If you opt for the tiny tube inhaler of the same product, you’re looking at R28 000/litre for the active ingredient. It’s hard to put a price on protecting yourself from being bitten by mosquitoes, but the producers do – R966/kg. Indigestion remedies will set you back R453 for a litre and protecting your skin with sunblock – also important – will cost you R633/litre.

Clean teeth and fresh breath are a no-brainer – everyday toothpaste at R16 or so for a 75ml tube averages out at R219 per litre. If you suffer from sensitive teeth, bite down now – you’re in for more than double that at R493/litre. On the topic of things you swirl and spit with, a decent mouthwash will also cost you around R175 per litre. You could buy almost fourteen litres of petrol for the same price, though we don’t recommend gargling with unleaded.

Ready for some intimate time? Nobody ever said take it easy on the lubricant, but at R1 760/litre you may have second thoughts. If you think that’s steep, consider the per litre cost of a popular nerve-calming tonic: R3 200/litre. One of the principal ingredients in that natural remedy is alcohol, but you can get a decent enough bottle of wine for R100 – meaning you could get 32 bottles (almost 6 cases) of Cabernet at the same cost!

No parent would ever deny their child anything that was important to their health or their future, if they could possibly help it. As if private school wasn’t expensive enough, nappy rash cream comes in at R2 666 per kilogram. Pureed baby food? R98 per kilogram. And baby oil for the whole family? Just R185 per litre – not bad going, considering the same amount of crude oil costs something like R3!

Food

A good old-fashioned government-issue loaf of bread averages out at around R10 for 500g of dependable sustenance. Popular wisdom has it that shops sell stale bread as tubs of breadcrumbs for coating and cooking. Urban myth or not, the really funny story is that a 150g tub of bread crumbs from a top retailer will cost you R22 – or R146 per kilogram, which is 7 times as much, by weight. Love chilli in your food? Nobody’s brave enough to eat it 1kg at a time, but at R333/kg, it’d be cheaper to season your food with biltong than jalapenos.

Convenience food is always expensive – but breakfast bars are right up there with the scariest. A 1kg box of breakfast cereal is about R60 – a kilogram of breakfast bars made of pretty much the same stuff will cost you about R260. Baking is, similarly, not cheap. A price of R50 on a 50ml bottle of vanilla extract sets the per-litre cost at R1 000. Food colouring? R175 for a litre. It’s also important to know what you’re buying when you pick up a bottle of syrup. ‘Maple-flavoured’ syrup comes in a R49 or so per kilogram. A kilo of the real deal is almost ten times as much, at R439. Bottled water? Just over R9 per litre, while the perfectly good stuff that comes out of your kitchen tap costs between 3 and 16 cents per litre.

Nobody seems to be able to decide whether sugar is good or bad – but the answer to the question ‘would you pay R9 189 per kilogram for artificial sweetener?’ should always be ‘are you nuts?’. But we do. And on the topic of sweet treats, a chocolate-covered ice cream on a stick averages R22 for a 110ml serving – that’s R200 per litre of ice cream. Milk, the main ingredient of that ice cream (or so we’d like to hope) should cost you around R11 per litre. Your favourite little bottle of flavoured milk is approaching three times as much, at R28 per litre. A pocket of potatoes works out at around R10 per kg, but a packet of flavoured potato chips is more like R95 per kilo. There are also few things more indulgent than dark chocolate, at around R800/kg.

Spices and condiments aren’t necessarily everyday items, and at R380/kg for pesto and R425/kg for bay leaves, that’s not going to change anytime soon. Even the sacred spicy red sauce that everyone loves to season their food with, comes in at over R520 per litre. Like nutty chocolate spread on your toast? It’s a comparative bargain at R117 per kilogram!

Office Supplies

Want to know why your office manager guards the stationery cupboard so viciously? R279 per litre for glue is pretty steep, but not as bad as fountain pen ink at R1 129 per litre. But the greatest hit in the supply cupboard? Printer ink. The average cartridge costs around R400 and can contain as little as 5ml of ink. The cost per litre? R80 000!

*A shortened version of this article was published in khuluma.