I made the move from Investec to Capitec in March of this year and this saved me a significant amount of money. You can read more about that in my March finance update. Before making the switch I did a lot of research to find the cheapest bank account because moving banks is a crapload …
When we invest in different asset classes, each is taxed differently. Depending on where your money is invested when you retire, your effective tax rate will differ. This got me wondering, how badly can you fuck this up? Will you, by investing in the wrong asset classes, keep yourself from living the good life? About …
I had a conversation this week about the performance of Unit Trusts (UTs) in South Africa and how unfathomable it is that Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) could outperform UTs. UTs are actively managed, obviously they should have superior performance over an investment vehicle that simply buys and holds indices. Still, the latest (December 2018) Standard …
I recently switched our car and household content insurance to Discovery Insure with the included Discovery Drive. I was sceptic since I don’t like the idea of having to do things in return for discounts. I’m lazy like that. The thing with incentive schemes is to make sure that you will earn points without having …
I’ve wanted to do an Easy Equities review for a while now since they won the Intellidex Top Stockbroker award. When I started investing, I knew about Easy Equities and their affordable offering, but I still chose to go with a trading platform offered by a bank. It is strange how the mind works sometimes. …
This week I had a look at the best savings interest rates to ensure that you have all the information when you decide on a savings vehicle. When we invest money in cash products at a bank, the bank loans 8 to 13 times that amount to other people. This is either as home loans, …
I recently found an article that categorises you based on your income. According to this, I form part of the middle-class. I decided to investigate what the middle class South African’s household budget looks like. Then to compare my budget over the last 3 months to each item. This will help me identify areas where …
When you don’t need to submit your tax return With the deadline for income tax submissions approaching fast, everyone is scrambling to submit their tax returns. Not everyone is required to file their tax return, but today I want to convince you to do it anyway. According to the South African Revenue Service (SARS), you …