As 2014 has rolled over into 2015 people have invariably affirmed some New Year’s resolutions, but did you know that around one out of four people abandon their resolutions after one week! Seven days is all it takes to swerve off course. This isn’t because they have changed their minds about what they want, it’s because they haven’t properly envisioned how they will achieve their goals. There was a study done, showing that writing down your […]
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A FRESH START, TO YOUR CREDIT RECORD
Having an impaired credit record is an affliction suffered by almost half of the 21 million consumers in South Africa. This ranges from consumers with defaults, judgements, administration orders and consumers who were three months or more in arrears with account payments. Recently, between 1 April and 31 May 2014, the South African government implemented a credit information amnesty that benefitted at least 3.1 million consumers. This is great news if you struggle with poor credit […]
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WHAT WILL IT REALLY COST ME?
The current SA stats for breast cancer reveal that one in thirty-six women has breast cancer. My blog last week spoke about the general costs and overall statistics of cancer, but today I’d like to get a little more specific as to the expected ‘realistic’ impact that breast cancer will have on those who may be diagnosed this month. Whilst it’s a scary reality, the sooner breast cancer is diagnosed the higher the chance that it […]
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A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO DREAD DISEASE COVER
One of the reasons that I have my blog and Facebook page is that this industry changes about as regularly as the price of petrol. A financial solution that we relied on five years ago may still apply, but it also may not. There may be better options, better approaches; better products, for your needs. This is a place for me to share some of the newer ways of looking at financial planning. When it comes […]
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WOMEN NEED TO PRESERVE THEIR FUND BENEFITS
Why do women need to preserve their fund benefits? Deep inside every man is the knowledge that women are stronger, more clever and just all-in-all better than us. Men seldom admit it, but they know it. What’s more is that women live approximately seven years longer than men do, which means that a woman aged 65 will need approximately 15% more than a man of the same age to provide the same pension for the rest […]
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THINKING ABOUT VITALITY? NOW’S THE TIME TO CHOOSE!
Whilst I work with a variety of products – every now and then a super-duper deal comes along that I simply have to share on my blog! Discovery Life’s Integration philosophy of incentivising health and wellness management has resulted in powerful outcomes. Engaged clients experience 40% fewer claims than non-Vitality members and lapse rates of engaged clients are 65% lower than non-Vitality members. In order to ensure continued engagement, Discovery Life is introducing the Double GuaranteedPayBack […]
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LIMBO WITH THE LINGO
Whether you’re casting your line off the end of a pier or buckling your seatbelt, we all deal with risk and return. Somehow, when it comes to emerging markets, nominal vs real, risk-adjustments, multi-asset portfolios, protection strategies and bull vs bear markets we panic amidst an onslaught of lingo that overwhelms us. Basically, when it comes to investments, it helps to bring things back to casting your line off the pier or buckling up, because we’re […]
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GAIN CONTROL OVER YOUR MONEY
There is a myth that Ostriches, when faced with danger, bury their heads in the sand. Although it is not found to be true in nature, many of us tend to behave like this when faced with our monthly budget… Financial behaviourists actually call the avoidance of perceived risky financial situations by pretending they do not exist, the Ostrich Effect. This tendency to pretend that all is well or ‘bury our heads in the sand’ instead […]
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CHECK YOUR RETIREMENT PLAN TODAY
We’ve written several blogs on planning for retirement and this is yet another to add to the quiver. Why is this so important? Because financial planning and provision for retirement is often relegated to the bottom of the budget and is only seriously considered when it is seriously too late. Current reports tell us that only around 6% of South Africans can retire comfortably. That means that three out of every fifty are comfortable in their […]
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THE CURRENT REALITY OF RETIREMENT
One of the most difficult elements of any financial portfolio is saving for retirement. For most of us, retirement always feels so far away and we feel like we’ll either have plenty of time to save for it, or we simply have other priorities that are currently higher on our list. Products like short term insurance and health cover seem to take the priority in our financial plan. Currently, most South Africans are not ready to […]
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