Tag: personal finance

Sustainable change does not occur in one giant leap. We all make plans, set goals and enthusiastically imagine a better future. Unfortunately, most people never achieve their goals, whether they be personal or financial.

Your Rich BFF is here to reveal the secrets to financial success that the wealthy have been gatekeeping for generations. For too long finance has been male, pale, and stale and that's why Vivian Tu, ex- Wall Street Trader and now Your Rich BFF, is here to bust the myth of hard work and reveal the rules of the Rich.

Like it or not, money lies at the very core of modern society. When considering financial wellbeing as the balance point between life hurdles or hardships and comfortable adjustment, the importance of money matters is apparent, explains psychologist Dr Erika Hitge.

South Africa commemorates Youth Day on 16 June 2023. With this in mind, we thought it prudent to tackle the importance of establishing good financial habits from an early age. The Oxford Dictionary defines the word habit as “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up”.

Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people. Money-investing, personal finance, and business decisions is typically taught as a math-based field, where data and formulas tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet.

It’s incredible how many people make resolutions about getting themselves in shape when a new year begins. Very few of us, it seems, think about the ‘financial hangover’ that we are dragging into a new year and how much getting personal finances back in shape could benefit our lives. 

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. 

When we think of gender inequality in the realm of money, the perennial pay gap springs to mind. It remains a problem. The 2020 Momentum/UNISA Household Financial Wellness Insights report estimates that, on average, women earn around 30% less than men in similar jobs in South Africa. 

In his previous budget speech, Minister Mboweni mentioned a host of different taxes that the revenue man would soon be collecting from us. From personal income tax, to fuel taxes, corporate and carbon taxes – the list was long. But one tax he didn’t mention – and to his credit it is not an official tax (but I would argue it should be) – is behaviour tax.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many individuals to significantly adjust their lifestyles. The personal finances of most South Africans have been greatly impacted by job losses, salary cuts or no bonuses/increases, so much so that their livelihood have taken a significant knock.