Tag: cost of living

Retirement planning is one of the most important parts of your financial journey, but it is often neglected or postponed until close to retirement age. Starting to plan for retirement is easier when you are still young, and you have few financial responsibilities.

Given the current high cost of living and uncertain economic environment, being caught off guard by an unforeseen life event may place one in a far worse financial position if no insurance policies are in place to safeguard themselves and their assets.

Access to quality information has never been more important than it is today. We’re living through a pandemic; seeing a cost of living and energy crisis; witnessing a horrific war in Ukraine; and experiencing increasing climate crises across the globe.

Property subletting is becoming popular in South Africa, largely because of aggressive interest rate increases and the high cost of living. Many people look for subtenants to help them pay their rent, while others seek to sublet if they’re moving elsewhere and can’t get out of their current lease.

Amidst the rising cost of living, interest rate and fuel price hikes, and load shedding, the elephant in the room remains persistently high rates of unemployment. Much fanfare tends to surround any announcement of a small decline in the quarterly unemployment rate as it did at the end of November 2022 when Statistics South Africa revealed that the official unemployment figure had decreased by one percentage point between the second and third quarters of 2022 from 33.9% to 32.9%.

Innovative models are bridging the gap between employee pay and evolving consumer behaviour. A fairly new yet ground-breaking fintech offering, Earned Wage Access (EWA) is a financial technology that allows employees to access a portion of their earned wages before their regular pay cycle.

Earned wage access (EWA) is rising in prominence as a powerful HR tool for employers to retain and attract talent. This statement is supported by a new report issued by J.P Morgan titled Financial Inclusion Through Payments. We are a contributing author to the report.

Saving money is all about sticking to very strict budgets, sweating while crunching numbers, and skipping out on fun to get serious about your finances, right? Well, according to South Africans it doesn’t necessarily have to be. Savings goals don’t have to equate to life becoming all work and no play. 

While corporate travel is starting to recover, the pandemic continues to impact the industry, and industry players can see a change in booking behaviour. For example, the shift to last-minute bookings, necessitated by the uncertainty of the past two years, hasn't subsided as quickly as expected.

Central banks around the world are hiking interest rates to battle rising inflation. Recessions are now expected in the US, UK and Europe in the next year. Interest rates around the world are rising at an alarming pace, as central banks admit that inflation is becoming more ingrained, rather than just a series of transient shocks.