Tag: personalfinance

Before your South African Revenue Service (SARS) refund disappears into a holiday or shopping spree, consider how that lump sum could change your financial future. Who doesn't love that little ping telling you SARS has just paid your tax refund into your account? Suddenly, Mauritius is calling, and you can already hear the clinking of ice in your cocktail.

South African professionals facing sudden career transitions, such as resignation or retrenchment, find themselves at a critical financial crossroads. The first 90 days after resignation or retrenchment can determine their long-term financial security. Although this period represents a high-risk financial window, it can also create valuable opportunities for recalibration and growth.

As millions of South Africans struggle with debt, simple financial habits can improve long-term financial wellbeing. South Africa's household debt burden has climbed to an estimated R2.4 trillion. This places increasing pressure on households already grappling with rising living costs.

Retirement annuity contributions can carry forward when taxpayers do not claim them. However, most taxpayers never check whether this happened. From today, taxpayers who received a South African Revenue Service (SARS) auto-assessment this month can submit a corrected return if they find something inaccurate or missing. One of the most commonly overlooked corrections involves a contribution that a taxpayer made months, or sometimes years before this year's assessment was generated.

Most parents spend decades building generational wealth, but few spend the time preparing the next generation to manage it. That is often where things fall apart. We are very good at transferring assets, but we are not good at transferring judgment.

With geopolitical conflict, elections, oil prices and inflation risks dominating headlines, it is easy to believe everything is beyond your control. However, that is not the case. The most important drivers of long-term investment success are often the factors you can control. They start with understanding how you behave when markets feel uncomfortable.

If you're eager to get into the stock market because you've heard it's a fast track to wealth, think again. The reality is that most individual stocks result in losses over the long term. This finding emerged in a recent article by Hendrik Bessembinder, which analysed the investment outcomes of 29,754 common stocks listed on the US public markets from 1926 to 2025.

South Africa should carefully assess how short-term instalment products are interpreted before Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) data shapes access to mainstream credit. The country could risk turning BNPL into a product that shuts people out of mainstream credit rather than helping them into it. This could happen if BNPL data enters credit-scoring systems that were never designed to interpret this type of product fairly.

We live in a world of information overload, and it can be challenging to know what is real and what is not. When it comes to money, social media is littered with "finfluencers" who present information and share "secrets" about managing and growing money. Some of it is real, while much of it is fake. As a result, it can be very difficult to know the difference.

The role of the nine-to-five is changing, and South Africa’s financial reality reflects this shift. According to the South African Reserve Bank, household debt levels remain high at around three-quarters of disposable income. Meanwhile, savings rates remain persistently low. This leaves many households with little room to absorb shocks, build long-term security and provide for retirement.