Category: LIFE

Whilst the holiday season holds many treats and treasures, one of the most stressful errands is shopping for gifts. Finding the perfect gifts for your family, friends and colleagues isn’t a simple job. In addition to trying to find thoughtful and affordable gifts, battling the queues and parking frenzies only adds to the stress. Thankfully […]

With all the treats at the social gatherings, watching both your budget and your diet during the festive season can be a challenge. Whether we’re talking about savings goals, or weight goals, it’s easy to get a little carried away. It’s wonderful to treat your loved ones and enjoy yourself, and during a holiday it’s […]

The first benefit of medical cover is peace-of-mind, the second is that you will be protected from potential financial ruin should your hospital bill be more than you can manage. It is important to be on a medical plan that suits both your monthly affordability and caters to most of your medical requirements. Since changing […]

You’ve learnt lessons throughout your life. Some of them are unique to you, but many will apply to others too. Being open to sharing these will benefit those nearest and dearest to you – and help you reflect on what you’ve learnt. This is profoundly true when it comes to how we make decisions around […]

Retirement (as well as education and the job market) is one of our greatest future-unknowns. We know it will happen… but we are finding it harder to understand and predict what it might look like. This doesn’t mean we should abandon planning for it. If anything, it simply means that we need to change the […]

One of the less-pleasant facts to face about life in your 60s, 70s and 80s is the fact that you’re more likely to have health issues. The biggest and most expensive, if you read the claims statistics by insurers out there, is definitely cancer. However, there is good news to be had here, even for […]

It’s a well-known and accepted fact that the best time to plant a tree was twenty-years ago! It’s easy to look back and wish we’d started or learnt something years previously, being able to see how it could have benefited us in the long run. It follows, then, that if we didn’t start something years […]

When it comes to building your wealth, it’s not about how much you make, it’s about how you work with what you have. You do not need a larger paycheck, you only need to invest and use your money wisely. Yes, more money gives you a larger budget to work from but that simply needs […]

A lot of people are quite financially stressed right now. It’s understandable – it’s been a hard few years for most of us, and the uphill climb back to a bustling economy, both locally and globally, is far from over yet. Does that mean that we have to be stressed with where SA has been […]

Most of us know someone who has emigrated, or is about to emigrate. After several hard years for our nation, it can sometimes seem like the bad is overwhelming. And, the South African media often seem to talk about nothing except the next new ‘sure disaster’. But it’s not all bad. There are some great […]

The ancient philosopher Aristotle came up with a single word for what every person wants: ‘Eudaimonia’. Eudaimonia means happiness but more than that it alludes to a sense of fulfillment. Many people have viewed financial planning as the management of financial goals and resources. Typical conversations would include questions like: “How much will my assets […]

A lot of people misunderstand the term ‘dread disease cover’… and with that name, it’s enough to take the smile out of anyone’s day. But dread disease or CI (critical illness) insurance is a powerful tool to ensure that health emergencies don’t trip up your financial dreams or weigh heavily on your family.

What you think you can do and what you can do are not the same thing. What would you try with your finances if you couldn’t fail?

When it comes to the things we want in life, most of them are inextricably linked with our finances.

It’s not for nothing that cyber crime and hacking was considered 2019’s number one “major risk” by the world’s largest insurer, Allianz, in their latest Risk Barometer Survey. These days, it’s not if the security of your electronic identity and assets will be tried by a criminal, it’s when.

Are you the type of person who puts in a little petrol here, a little petrol there, or enough to last you the week based on calculations you’ve done of what you need, or are you someone who fills your tank up every time you visit the garage?

‘Tax season’ elicits in most people the kind of shudder you’d imagine ‘open season’ to elicit in hunted animals. We all hate doing our taxes and, because of this, we often postpone the inevitable, sometimes with horrible consequences like penalties and waiting hours at SARS.

Last month we talked about interest rate risk – the risk of your investment devaluing and you losing money due to changes in interest rate. In a sense, this is about an investment’s possibility of flailing due to macroeconomic conditions. This month, we’re going to look at credit risk.

It’s a cold world out there this June. As the thermometer temperature drops, the price of fuel and cost of living keep rising… but it’s not all doom and gloom.

It’s Father’s Day time, and we would like to honour the men, and the women too, who have been parents to us. Our dads.

… And by ‘Dad’ we don’t necessarily mean our fathers. Ever seen the Omo Father’s Day advert that went viral on YouTube? It showed a little boy reading a Father’s Day card, with all the important things dads do listed in it like providing financially and teaching right from wrong, to his grandmother. She was his ‘Dad’.

One of the most important reasons to save throughout our working life remains retirement. It’s shocking how few people afford themselves the ability to live with dignity and independence, without sacrificing a huge drop in standard of living.