By Izak Odendaal and Dave Mohr, Investment Strategists at Old Mutual Wealth South Africa’s economic recovery is rightly in the spotlight, and important questions need to be asked. We need to know not only how we bounce back from the...
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Lower medical premium increases thanks to lockdown
An unexpected side-effect of lockdown has been smaller-than-usual annual medical aid premium increases. Despite fears that the outbreak of COVID-19 would result in high claims from medical scheme members, and a resultant increase in the cost of...
Don’t let your life policy lapse
It is important to understand how your life policy works and what your options are if you find that you are no longer able to afford your premiums. While the outbreak of COVID-19 raised awareness around the need for life cover, especially for those...
Offshore investing: Go direct or use a feeder fund?
By Colin Archibald, Regional Manager at Glacier International Offshore investing has been in the spotlight again recently, but diversifying your portfolio across regions, currencies and industries has always been a good strategy. Maintaining your...
Listen: How to pay off your home and car
If you are confused about how advance payments work when it comes to your home loan and car finance, you are not alone. In this podcast, Maya (@mayaonmoney) and Mapalo (@womanandfinance) unpack exactly how access bonds work and when advance...
What #alcoholban panic reveals about human behaviour in times of uncertainty
By Sharon Moller, Financial Planning Coach at Old Mutual Wealth In August, South Africans formed long queues outside liquor stores across the country, hoping to stock up on alcohol before a rumoured ban came into effect. But, as it turns out, the...
Video: Financial resilience for self-employed people
The economic lockdown revealed how financially vulnerable self-employed people are. People in formal employment have certain protections stipulated by their employment contracts and UIF, but if you work for yourself, you must create your own...
Understand your tax liability if you have multiple sources of income
By Peter Stephan, senior policy adviser at the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA) South African taxpayers with different sources of income are often shocked when they discover at the end of the tax year that pay-as-you-earn...
Monitor those payment holidays
We have received several complaints from readers who have been unhappy with the management of their payment holidays. Many bank customers believe they were not fully informed about the consequences of taking a payment holiday or in some cases were...
Video: Make interest-rate cuts work for you
When we began 2020, who could have imagined that mortgage rates would fall by almost one-third, decreasing from 10% all the way down to 7% percent. Economists are even predicting further rate cuts this year. While this has been great news for...
Previous Articles
Could technology revive the lay-by market?
I remember as a teenager buying on lay-by. Jet stores had a red and orange jersey that I had fallen in love with. I didn’t have the money to buy it, and in those days store cards were uncommon ‒ and certainly not available to a teenager. I bought the jersey on lay-by...
Listen: How financial advisers choose their insurance
Maya (@mayaonmoney) and Mapalo (@womanandfinance) speak to independent financial adviser Markus Bauriedl on what to look out for when selecting life insurance to make sure it pays out as promised. Not all cover is equal, and some products work better than others....
Stay on top of your repayments
Most agreements to suspend debt repayments or monthly premiums have come to an end. Make sure you understand how this will affect your finances. In the initial stages of lockdown, most banks, insurers and retirement product providers offered installment or premium...
Video: Create a debt repayment plan
We often believe that the only way to pay off debt is with a windfall like a big bonus or winning the lotto. But this thinking gets us caught in an anti-wealth trap. We spend on our credit cards all year and use our bonus or 13th cheque to settle the debt, only to...
Criminals want your personal information
With criminals constantly trying to access our personal information, we should behave as if our identity is compromised and act accordingly. In late August, credit bureau Experian notified the public that there had been an incident involving a fraudulent data inquiry...
Where would investment managers put their money for a five-year return?
If you had R1 million right now and a five-year time horizon, what would you do with the money? This was one of the questions posed to a panel of investment experts at the recently held Allan Gray Offshore Exchange. The two-day offshore investing webinar brought...
Video: Review your insurance and save
We should be in the habit of regularly reviewing our insurance cover, but if you haven’t done so for a while, COVID-19 lockdown is the perfect opportunity to make sure you have the correct cover in place and even save on premiums. You may find that the cover you have...
Consumers’ biggest complaints
The Consumer Goods and Services Ombud recently released its annual report. Over the past year, it resolved over 8Â 600 complaints of which 65% resulted in a favourable outcome for consumers. The average turnaround time was 42 days. The CGSO is not an adjudicative body...
Listen: Know the difference between good, bad and ugly credit
Is there such a thing as good credit? What forms of credit should you avoid at all cost? In this podcast, Maya (@mayaonmoney) and Mapalo (@womanandfinance) discuss the good and dark side of credit and whether the concept of the lay-by will come back into fashion as...
Borrowing from days already worked
A salary advance could be an attractive alternative to a traditional payday loan. A few years ago, I came across an article about how Walmart in the US allowed its workers to access a portion of their already-earned salary before month end. For example, if you have...