Most people have some form of insurance or death benefits. This could be a policy taken out for a specific reason, or simply because they are employed or a member of a retirement fund. How these death benefits are paid and to whom, all depends on...
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Listen: The impact of Covid-19
In this fourth and final podcast of our four-part series “Life behind the numbers”, in partnership with Discovery Life, we look at the longer-term impact of Covid-19 and provide some advice as to how to adjust your lifestyle to manage the risks of...
Video: Don’t spend yourself poor trying to look rich
In her book Smart Woman, author Sylvia Walker writes about creating your "designer life." She explains that instead of being driven by consumerism, trying to look rich, we can make smart choices and start growing our wealth. For many people...
Scamsters are out in full force
There's been a concerning increase recently in the number of scamsters targeting South African consumers. This includes scamsters pretending to be representatives of your bank or your cellphone provider. There are SMS and email scams claiming your...
Listen: Cancelling out cancer
In this third podcast of our four-part series “Life behind the numbers”, in partnership with Discovery Life, we look at the importance of protecting ourselves against the risk of cancer. Cancer can affect anyone, at any age. The number of insurance...
Listen: Does the value of the rand really matter?
In this podcast Maya (@mayaonmoney) talks to Michael Kruger, Senior Investment Analyst at Morningstar, to unpack the strange emotional relationship we as South Africans seem to have with the value of the rand. Kruger points out that when the rand...
Financial planning for women
Why do we focus on financial planning for women? Isn't money gender neutral? After all, investing in a unit trust or opening a bank account is the same, whether you're male or female. So what's all the fuss about? Apart from issues like wage gaps...
Listen: Protect your child’s education
In this second podcast of our four-part series "Life behind the numbers", in partnership with Discovery Life, we look at how you can use life cover not only to provide for the unexpected, but also to save towards your child’s education. I have two...
Video: Scammers play on your emotions
In times of economic stress, we always see an increase in scams. Sadly, scammers are most likely to target financially vulnerable people. There are the loan scams, where the scammers promise loans to blacklisted consumers at low interest rates....
It takes more than ticking a box to cease tax residency
The process to cease tax residency requires that you submit extensive documentation to prove your claim that you are no longer a resident of South Africa. An ITR-12 checkbox, indicating that a taxpayer has ceased tax residency in South Africa, is...
Previous Articles
Listen: How your lifestyle choices can reward you for life
In this first podcast of our four-part series “Life behind the numbers”, in partnership with Discovery Life, we look at the data to understand how our lifestyle choices influence the outcomes of disease and mortality risk. What can we all do today to have a positive...
The two-pot retirement system explained
On 29 July, National Treasury released its draft legislation on the so-called two-pot retirement system. It highlighted that “the proposal does not include allowing immediate access to retirement funds, but rather moves to a system that can more adequately cater for...
Video: Compounding turns time into money
Have you ever wondered why the rich keep getting richer? It has a lot to do with compounding. This is where your money makes more money when you are doing nothing. For example, you have R100 000 in a unit trust fund which is invested in the stock market. That year the...
Reward programmes: get paid to spend
Reward programmes are becoming an integral part of our day-to-day financial management. It is no longer simply about getting a discount on your next purchase; these programmes have evolved so that you can now earn really meaningful rewards, which many South Africans...
Listen: The proposed two-pot system for retirement funds
On 29 July, National Treasury released draft legislation around early access to pension funds and the so-called “two-pot” system. This draft legislation aims at addressing two key challenges facing retirement savings: improving retirement outcomes by introducing...
Getting your home off grid – what it would cost
After 14 years of loadshedding, most households have found some way to make do in the face of intermittent electricity outages, but the latest wave of outages has prompted many people to wonder if they can afford to get completely off grid. Stage 6 loadshedding had a...
Video: Should I buy a second-hand car?
If you want to be a millionaire, you should buy a second-hand car! In the book The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy, the authors studied the behaviour and habits of America’s millionaires. One thing that they found is that...
Does the CPI reflect the “real” inflation rate?
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is supposed to reflect the spending patterns of the average urban South African across various categories of goods and services. Each of these categories (food, fuel, education, rent, insurance etc.) has a fixed weight in the index. The...
What the rate increase means for your investments
On Thursday, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to increase the repo rate by another 75 basis points (bps). The increase will see the repo rate increase to 5.50% per year. The decision was made on the back of the South African inflation rate surging above the...
Listen: How I paid off a mountain of debt
In this podcast, Maya (@mayaonmoney) speaks to Ntombi Dube, a remarkable woman who paid off a mountain of debt ‒ R700 000 of it, to be precise. In a recent survey, a debt counselling firm asked financially stressed South Africans: “Why have you not done something to...