Times of festivities and celebrations are often paradoxical in that we want to see friends and family, but we find that when we’re with the ones we don’t often see (only for big occasions and end-of-year-bashes), they have opinions that challenge our own and they’re all too willing to offer advice that we haven’t asked […]

There are three things we should never discuss around the dinner table: money, politics and religion. Ironically, the three things we normally always talk about around the dinner table… are money, politics and religion! One reason for this is because they’re all connected, and they’re all HEAVILY influenced by you, me and everyone that we […]

Every holiday season, the search begins for gifts that keep on giving. From music to cooking classes and other hobby-related courses – scores of us try to find a gift that won’t be tossed onto the pile of unwanted, unused and under-appreciated thingy-me-bobs. We look for things that are ‘cool’ or ‘trendy’ – but ultimately, […]

Anyone with a mediocre knowledge of investing will be familiar with the term “stock”.  But few people are aware that there common stocks and preferred stocks. And they’re fundamentally different. Stocks have been traded for over 400 years – the first common stocks were made available in 1602 through the Dutch East India Company. They […]

What do you do when a bear attacks? For many of us, we don’t live near any bears, so we’re likely to be unprepared. When it comes to a bear market, the situation is not too different. No one can predict a bear market, and for some it’s not even easy to recognise when a […]

When lockdown happened, it happened fast. For some, there were only a few days to prepare for an indeterminate time of severe restrictions. For others, they had more to do and less time in which to do it. Travellers were stuck abroad in foreign countries and had to follow equally foreign regulations. At times like […]

Ray Dalio is an American billionaire hedge fund manager and philanthropist who has served as co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates since 1985. As a thought leader and industry pioneer, he also founded the world’s largest hedge fund and firmly advocates that “diversification is a wonderful, mechanical, good way to reduce risk without reducing expected […]

This is not such an easy question to answer. Many of us may shoot up our hands, quickly realizing that what follows is a tough call-to-action: “Then start saving!” So we shrivel back and think we’ll rather start saving next month, or when we get our next increase. Others, already encumbered with tough monthly expenses, […]

Medical aid (including insurance products) contributions need to form part of our overall financial planning. Every year these products are adjusted slightly – both in how much they cost in monthly premiums and in what they cover. These increasing costs can feel burdensome and unnecessary to those who seldom use their medical cover, but they […]

The largest factor in our wealth creation, and our wealth protection, is our behaviour. How we choose to save and how we choose to spend are the habits that will determine if we are able to grow our money over time, or if we will erode it over time. There are other factors, certainly. We […]