Winter makes saving money and keeping to your financial plan a little more difficult! All around the country temperature gauges are plummeting about as fast as the electricity meters are lighting up. If you, like many South Africans, have an electricity box that you recharge, you’ll be acutely aware of how much faster the usage light starts to flash during the icy winter days ahead. If you’re billed after the month, you’re probably anticipating a hefty […]
Continue readingMore Tag
LOVE YOUR HEART (II)
Last week I wrote about the importance of managing your blood pressure in order to keep your heart and vital organs healthy. One of the biggest dangers of hypertension is that it often goes unnoticed until it is too late and serious problems arise. These could include heart failure, a heart attack or kidney failure. As with my previous blog, I’d like to share some fantastic information that I recently read on Dischem’s website as it […]
Continue readingMore TagLOVE YOUR HEART (I)
If you’ve ever owned a pool you’ll be keenly aware of what happens when your pump and filter breaks; the water flow stops, dirt builds up, algae blooms and you have a big problem on your hands. Most car owners are also vividly attune to the costs, complications and annoyance of their petrol pump breaking and their filters being dirty. How about fish tank enthusiasts? They’ll quickly tell you how important their pump and filtration systems […]
Continue readingMore Tag
FRESH SAVING TIPS FOR THE END OF THE MONTH
We all want to save more, right? But then why aren’t we? I have found that one of the biggest secrets to saving is to be creative in the way that you spend, or don’t spend as the case may be. Saving is often hard to do because it’s not an immediate gratification. We are conditioned from a young age that saving involves putting your money in a ceramic piggy bank that only gets smashed when […]
Continue readingMore Tag
RECOVERY MONEY
Unless you’ve already had a debilitating illness, the last thing you think about is your health failing you for anything longer than your hospital stay. As a result, we tend to only include a hospital plan, and perhaps some GAP cover in our financial planning. But what happens if the accident means that you can’t work for six months? Your hospital and GAP cover may take care of most of your in-hospital expenses (costs incurred whilst […]
Continue readingMore Tag
2014 GOALS – BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
We’re almost at the middle of the year! Some will look forward and see the potential stashed away in the seven months that lie ahead, but others will look at the five months passed and be overwhelmed by how little they’ve accomplished. Perhaps you had such a motivated two weeks in January where you felt like 2014 was going to be your year: a year where you made the changes that you’ve been dreaming about. But […]
Continue readingMore Tag
CRITICAL ILLNESS | ARE YOU SUFFICIENTLY COVERED?
Women submit more critical illness claims than men. RISKSA published an online article that shed some light on an area of financial planning that appears to be largely overlooked, or at least, underestimated. A key consideration for every financial portfolio is to insure your most valuable asset – your ability to earn an income. Traditionally this lot has fallen to the ‘man of the house’ to earn an income. Although this notion is seriously outdated (by […]
Continue readingMore TagEND OF THE MONTH SAVING TIPS
With the first quarter of 2014 safely stashed away, how can you build and improve your financial habits going forward? Perhaps you’d like to work on the way that you spend and save your money? The fun with making and saving money is that you can be creative and monopolise on really simple ideas that would work well for you. You don’t have to simply rely on your job for your income, you can explore other […]
Continue readingMore Tag
PLANNING FOR THE UNEXPECTED
How can you plan for the unexpected… and, if you’re expecting it, then how can it be unexpected? Well, those are good questions! Planning and arranging your spending plan to include the ‘unexpected’ is a wise approach to take. When we talk about unexpected costs we generally mean services or commodities that are over-and-above what you would normally expect, but might be able to find out with some deeper digging. UNEXPECTED ACCOMMODATION COSTS Electricity and municipal […]
Continue readingMore Tag
DON’T THROW YOUR MONEY AWAY
The number of people who are currently saving is declining, research shows. Last year MasterCard conducted a survey to discern consumer purchasing priorities and the research revealed that saving is a forgone priority in an increasing amount of household budgets. The biggest barrier-to-entry in any budget for savings is the belief that there is no ‘extra’ money to save, and as a result, the money is channelled into commodities, accommodation, groceries and other expense pockets. In […]
Continue readingMore Tag