Category: Blog

Open post

What lockdown taught us about wills

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 these, risk cover and emergency funding are a crucial crutch when our finances and our freedoms are crippled.

Granted, few people have such extensive financial resources, and many experienced an even more challenging time after the economy was halted. There are legal documents that can give us extended peace-of-mind so that we have less to worry about. A will, last testament, and estate plan are documents that we can use to bolster our financial plan’s reach and health.

Here’s the thing about financial planning: we don’t plan out of fear; we plan so that we can extend our peace-of-mind. This is why wills form such a key role in our planning.

Global panic in early-to-mid 2020 led people worldwide to think about these documents, and requests for them to be drawn up or updated were aplenty. The risk of creating these documents under duress is that we can make mistakes, sometimes in what they cover and other times in their legitimacy when official procedures are overlooked (or not available as in hard lockdown).

We seldom have warning for life-changing events, and while it’s easy to say that ‘we should have planned’, we can be proactive after the event and choose to thoroughly investigate our plan right now – in our time of recovery and rebuilding.

Many of our notable companies who make these documents more readily available and ensure that they’re correctly adhered to in their compilation and execution made a plan during hard lockdown to ensure that their clients were adequately protected. This reminded us that it wasn’t impossible; it was just more challenging. 

As the pressure lifts (for however long), we have the opportunity to reassess our wills (and any other elements of our financial portfolios) and estate plans. We no longer live in the age of a handshake or a gentleman’s agreement. We live in a world striving for equality and freedoms that have the trade-off of potentially leaving us more exposed and vulnerable if we don’t have our responsibilities attended to.

As Mvuzo Notyesi, president of the Law Society of South Africa, says, “If you are a parent, a breadwinner, a homeowner and generally want to ensure that your affairs are in order, it is important that you have a valid will drafted by an attorney.”

Open post

Anxiety and our money

Most of us would gladly jump at the opportunity to have more money. Very few people are likely to say that they would prefer to have less money…

One reason for this is that we can see how our future life and our current financial status are linked. And this leads to anxiety when thinking about financial futures. 

Although it is not easy, it is beneficial to develop and maintain a positive outlook toward money to exercise greater responsibility for building our future financial stability.

In a recent email, Carl Richards shared some of the following ideas on creating a plan to continue reaching our financial goals by reducing anxiety.

Step 1: Pay attention to your spending

Mastering our finances won’t happen overnight. We need to make a habit of keeping tabs on where our money goes. In short – we need to be more aware of our spending behaviours and habits.

Here are some of the best ideas on how to pay attention to spending:

  • Create a budget and follow a spending plan 
  • Record all transactions
  • Regularly check your card statements and stay present with what you’re buying

Step 2: Find wasted money

Most of us are accustomed to the idea of saving money that remains after all the spending. Hence, we find it challenging to find more money to save. Here the answer is not found in trying to make more money; instead, it’s to try and find money that we’re wasting.

We can find wasted cash by regularly reviewing credit card statements and cutting expenditure on things we don’t need anymore.

For example, if you’re being charged 250 bucks for a subscription fee on something you’re not using anymore (like a mobile data contract), cancel it and save that same amount every month. In a year, you will have saved over two-and-a-half grand!

Step 3: Automate savings

Setting up an investment vehicle and automating your savings can help establish the habit of saving. 

Most of our banks will help you link a savings pocket to your transactional account into which you can drop a couple of bucks each month. (aside: your bills can also be automated so that you deal with less paperwork in your life and further reduce money anxiety!)

When building wealth, we need to retain a positive attitude.

Working with a professional financial adviser will enable you to make informed decisions and discern what other areas of your financial plan can be activated and engaged with in order to reduce financial anxiety and replace it with financial peace-of-mind!

Open post

Let food be thy medicine

…and medicine be thy food. Hippocrates adopted this philosophy around 2400 years ago!

Before fad diets and modern medicine, he recognised that food has the ability to keep us strong and healthy – both physically and mentally. A nutritious diet is fundamental to maintaining good health and well-being. 

Just remember that eating healthy isn’t just about cutting out meat and “going green” but about getting a well-balanced diet of different foods (in the right amounts) to give your body what it needs. 

While it may feel a bit expensive to maintain healthy eating habits, all it requires is a little more planning. In our modern world we have become increasingly reliant on convenient foods and have reduced the amount of time that we have for food preparation. This whole approach requires our commitment to putting a little extra time into this activity (unless we have the opportunity to employ someone to do it).

So it’s not just about reducing our current weight but more about being proactive and creating a healthy future for yourself… today.

Here are 5 more top reasons to start eating well:

1. Your self-esteem improves

Most of us don’t realise that what we eat affects how we feel and think. Much of our general health is dependent on a healthy gut microbiome, and if we’re putting heavy foods into our system that undermine the integrity of this central system, we will feel heavy and unbalanced. 

Eating more bananas, raw veggies, cucumbers, strawberries, grapefruits as well as more foods that contain vitamin B and are rich in antioxidants are good for so many reasons. Eating cultured or pickled foods are also really good for the gut! This all helps us boost our general sense of ‘feeling well’ and will improve our self-esteem.

Fresh, raw foods can strengthen hair, clear skin, whiten teeth and improve breath. We will also enjoy the anti-ageing effects of foods with calcium, vitamin A and K.

2. Your memory and overall brain function becomes better

Mariah Carey sang it best, ‘It’s all in your mind.’ Prioritizing your mental health is vital in your journey of self-development. Watching what you eat is key to that.

A nutritious diet with foods that have omega-3 fatty acids or vitamins can improve your brain functionality and memory. This includes wild salmon, blueberries, dark chocolate or avocados. 

Drinking green tea is also known to be good for enhancing your cognitive ability.

3. Improve your heart health

Studies recommend that healthier eating habits should be one of the lifestyle changes that you make. This helps reduce chances of cardiac arrest, diabetes, high cholesterol, strokes and enhances your overall heart health as a result.

Include green vegetables, almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts and sunflower seeds amongst other foods into your diet to boost your heart’s well-being.

4. Overall energy levels improve

According to the Harvard Medical Center, one of the benefits of a healthy, balanced diet is the ability to boost your energy levels. 

Some of the foods that will revitalize you and sustain your energy levels throughout the day are whole grains, vegetables, brown rice, sweet potatoes, oats, apples, unrefined carbohydrates, proteins, healthy oils and fats.

Limiting your alcohol intake and drinking more water can give you a sustained surge in energy.

5. You start to feel better

The relationship between food and mood has been studied extensively. According to Healthline, your brain responds to what you put into your mouth. 

So it behoves you to be mindful of what you eat if you want to improve your mood. Drinking lots of water and eating foods rich in minerals like magnesium, selenium, zinc, amino acids, fatty acids can help in alleviating depression and mood disorders.

Sources of these healthy minerals include eggs, black beans, soy, pork, chicken, broccoli and leafy greens like spinach, lettuce, swiss chard and collard greens.

We should embrace healthy eating as one of our essential life habits.

Open post

The next best thing for investors…

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 return.” 

So – what’s the next best thing for investors in our current market turmoil? 

Diversification.

Whilst it’s been a long standing ‘good-practice’ in financial planning and investment management, investors still find themselves overloading in areas as they follow market sentiment and forget to apply a diverse strategy to their stock, fund or asset class purchasing decisions.

Remember – much of our investment behaviour is highly emotional, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise. With global politics, world markets and local business in a growing state of volatility, emotions are running high.

In an article for Business Insider, Dalio says that “… investors shouldn’t subscribe to the “dangerous bias” that the past is representative of the future, he said. “If you go through history, when you have some of these conflicts, you might have a different result.”

Depending on where you find yourself today, you might be hearing loud messages of ‘invest in property’, ‘buy gold’, ‘invest offshore’ or ‘switch to cash’. The markets are changing constantly and Dalio’s counsel is now more prevalent than ever.

“The most important thing investors can do to manage this risk is to diversify by asset class, country, and currency. Diversification doesn’t cost you anything. Because when your asset classes are going to – if you balance them right – have approximately equal expected risk-adjusted returns, so you can balance them, because they all compete with each other, so not one is necessarily clearly better,” he said to Business Insider.

The exciting thing about investing is there is always opportunity – we just have to know where to look, and cover our bases. There are no quick wins or shortcuts to growing our wealth.

Open post

Who wants to save more?

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, may take a slightly more cynical response off the bat, realizing that saving often feels like an impossible task in our current world-economy.

But deep down, most of us want to save more. We don’t have to be sold on the benefits of saving.

What we need is a workable solution to actually saving more! 

Self-help books on this topic are a dime a dozen, but here are some ideas from Behavioral Economist Wendy de la Rosa. She wasn’t happy with how much she was spending, and like many of us, felt like she couldn’t stop. Here are two behavioural changes that she employed in her own life to reduce her spending and increase her saving.

  1. Take aim at your small, frequent purchases

Big purchases are easy to reign in – but it’s the small ones that are a doozy. 

Eating out is a frequent purchase that many of us make regularly, but, savings-wise, it’s death by a thousand cuts. A lunch here, a smoothie there — it all adds up and decreases our savings ability. It’s not just the big dinners or take-outs for main meals, it’s the small snacks and convenience foods that we spend on when we haven’t put proper planning into our meal prep.

You may have other small ‘luxuries’ that you afford yourself, but if you spend longer than 30-seconds thinking about them, you could probably avoid them.

A helpful hack to reduce these is to switch from using a credit card for daily spending, and using cash or a capped debit card. Using a credit card to pay for meals on the fly or last-minute lunches keeps us detached from the accumulating costs until we receive our statement a month later. But, spending a finite amount of cash from our pocket or seeing our balance drop on our debit account keeps us far more in tune with just how much we’re spending and influences our behaviour.

  1. Commit your Future Self

De la Rosa says: “Fundamentally, we humans think about ourselves in two different ways: there’s our present self and there’s our future self. We have an optimistic view of our future selves. Our future selves are the one who will work out, who will call our parents more, who will save for retirement. And one reason we don’t save is because we believe that our future selves are going to take care of it. We forget that our future selves are actually the same as our present selves and that our present selves need to start doing this good thing now.”

Here’s a great hack that she offers – plan to save a percentage of your tax refund. It doesn’t have to be a massive amount, but it’s something! In their research they found that if they asked clients how much they would like to save BEFORE they received their refund, it was 10% more than those who were asked after they received their refund.

Our present self… is actually more likely to make better decisions than our future self! 

We can apply the same to our annual bonus, or payback from our rewards schemes. Deciding today, and committing to that, is far more effective than saving as an afterthought.

One of the key points to saving more is looking at the behaviours that need to change in our lives. Financial success is based on financial behaviours – not just knowledge. There is a lot of time spent on financial education, but if it doesn’t change our choices for the better – they’re just words on a page or sentiments in a conversation.

Start with one thing you’d like to change, and take it one behaviour at a time.

Open post

Why Mental Health needs our attention

The journey of developing your life can be challenging on your mind and overall well-being. Prioritizing mental health can help us build the resilience we need to find fulfillment at work and in our personal relationships. 

Often we focus on physical health and the list of things we want to accomplish. It’s important to remember that our body and mind always work together. We need to take care of both!

What is mental health?

Being mentally healthy is defined by having positive characteristics in terms of how we feel, think and behave in daily life. It also influences our ability to cope with stress and conquer life’s challenges.

This doesn’t mean we no longer feel anxiety, frustration or stress. Rather, we learn to accept that hardships are part of life. Holding a healthy mental space empowers us to find ways of reacting better to whatever pain or challenges we face.

Learning to pay attention to your mental health will teach you to reframe your mindset – from preparing for the worst that could happen, to expecting the best that could happen.

Here are 3 practices to help develop and maintain a healthy mental space:

  • Remember to look inside

Introspection is a healthy habit to integrate into your daily routine. Being introspective also teaches you to be mindful of your thoughts and feelings as well as your actions.

Through practising introspection you’ll learn to identify thoughts and the physical or emotional sensations that tend to contribute to your cycles of stress and dis-ease. From there you’ll look to find solutions on how to address those sensations to more positive ones.

Meditation is one of the best ways to look inside. You learn to control your breathing and focus your mind. You discover that your thoughts are controlled by you and not the other way around.

  • Become more active

Again, your mind and body always work together. Improving your mental health comes with improving your body.

The wonderful thing about working out is that it can be done at home. The Coronavirus lockdown may have kept you indoors but you could still keep fit. Apps and videos of effective 5- to 10-minute daily workouts are in abundance. 

Keeping fit doesn’t only mean you need to pound weights or run long distances. Dancing, playing activity-based games with friends and family can also help you become more active and improve your physical health. The hormones that are released during these activities boost your mental health considerably.

Simple things like gardening or cleaning your home also contribute to your physical and mental health.

  • Have a purpose

Finding purpose and establishing a vision can help you create meaning in your life because you’ll have something that drives you. An inspiration that pulls you towards all that you wish to accomplish.

Purpose can be found in your work. You can choose to focus on work that challenges you to be more productive and improve your service to others. Volunteering in old-age homes, charities and non-profit organisations are other heartfelt ways to establish purpose in your life.

It’s also possible to find meaning in the relationships you build. Focus on building fulfilling and mutually beneficial relationships. Socialise more with people who will be empathetic and supportive and less with those who put you down and are constantly in competition with you.

Manage your expectations. Be patient and compassionate with yourself. Results will come even though it doesn’t seem like it now. We need to pay attention to our mental health because that is what helps us reframe our minds and look towards a happier future instead of focusing on the uncertainty and stress of our current situation.

Open post

The difference between Medical Aid, Medical Insurance and GAP Cover

It is easy to think that the terms Medical Aid, Medical Insurance and GAP Cover refer to the same thing. Although they all serve to help you afford medical care, there are some subtle differences. 

Getting a clear understanding of these words will help you get savvy with your options. If you already have health coverage you’ll be more informed about the benefits and extent of your health plan. However, many of us sign up for this type of cover, but over the years (especially if we don’t claim often) we can easily forget the massive role that these products play in our financial portfolios.

Medical Aid or Medical Insurance, it’s all medical cover, right? 

Yes and yes. But, one of the key differences is that medical insurance products are not governed by medical aid regulations. In 2018, updated Demarcation Regulations stated the following:

  • Medical aid schemes fall under the Medical Schemes Act No. 131 of 1998.
  • Medical insurance products are governed by the Short-term Insurance Acts No. 53 of 1998.

 

The guidelines of these laws actually play a crucial role as they differentiate the offering and extent of the cover of these two types of medical cover.

For instance, medical aid schemes are required by law to pay in full for Prescribed Minimum Benefits – a.k.a PMBs. The payment may be limited when you go to a doctor who is not on your medical scheme’s designated service provider network (the one they choose for you).

They’re not required to offer funeral cover, personal accident disability or cover for any loss of limbs.

Moreover, payments of in-hospital benefits are made based on the National Recommended Price List and healthcare professionals use this price list to determine the base price of their services. 

In addition, there may also be yearly limits for procedures.

How does medical insurance differ?

The purpose of medical insurance is to protect your financial assets as well as promote a lifestyle of health and wellness. It is considered more affordable because it mostly focuses on out-of-hospital expenses including prescribed medication and meetings with your GP, optometrist or dentist. Often the amount you would be able to claim is based on a set procedure cost, not what the hospital or doctors actually charge you – which means that some procedures could leave you well covered (with money in the bank) whilst others could leave you heavily under-insured.

Other benefits include cover for funerals, accidental injuries and/or disability caused by an injury.

Pre-existing conditions may not be covered by your medical insurance. Just like your home insurance can only pay for damage that happens to your house after you’ve joined and not for damage that happens before that.

These are just a few differences – these products are highly complex so it’s always best to chat through your personal situation before making and decisions to shift or change products.

What about Gap Cover?

Gap cover is also an insurance product. It does not cover the full amount for hospital procedures as it works in conjunction with your medical aid – covering where your medical scheme falls short. 

For instance, in cases where your chosen doctor charges more than your medical aid’s rate, the difference will be taken care of by Gap cover. It literally covers the gap. (this gap can be as much as 400%)

Depending on your medical aid options, Gap cover can be provided for:

  • Oncology shortfalls
  • Sub-limits
  • Medical aid co-payments

These differences do not mean you should take up everything at once. Whilst GAP cover is generally considered a must-have, helping you choose medical aid or insurance options that are most suited to your lifestyle and your family setup is what we will do together in your financial planning sessions.

If you haven’t reviewed your medical cover, it’s best to do so towards the end of the year as most medical schemes don’t allow for changes or upgrades during the year. 

Open post

How much is enough?

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 remain a crucial part of our financial planning.

Unforeseen medical expenses can completely decimate our savings and future opportunities if we don’t have some form of cover in place.

The tricky question – for EVERYONE – is how much cover is enough?

Often we think of really hard scenarios, like a freak accident or the life-changing diagnosis of cancer or another dread disease. But the reality is that there are so many scenarios and we can’t possibly plan for them all. And, if we have a run of good health, we might feel like we have the space to reduce our medical cover – especially given that budgets are being stretched tighter than ever and private medical care doesn’t come cheap.

Everyone’s situation is unique, so it’s never 100% appropriate to base financial planning on averages, but a good understanding of trends is helpful in guiding us to making prudent decisions when there are so many variables to sway us.

In a late 2018 article for New24, Jillian Larkan (then head of health consulting at GTC), advised that their benchmark is around 10% of the household income, for the whole family. This is less if there is higher confidence in the state-provided medical care.

It’s quite easy to understand how this will become a grudge-purchase for those who reach the end of a tax year having had zero claims on their medical aid. For those who have benefitted, it’s a no-brainer.

The general rule-of-thumb is that for those members who are younger, healthier and have no dependents, a lighter medical plan is sufficient. It’s not all-encompassing but the average risk for that member is considerably lower. For members who are older, have dependents and may have developed underlying health conditions, a more comprehensive (and more expensive) medical plan would be most likely.

Inside of a good financial plan, a contingency should be made for possible short-falls in all scenarios. It’s wise to remember that in every scenario there will be unforeseen outcomes, if we think we are ‘completely’ covered for ‘any eventuality’ we are setting ourselves up for frustration and disappointment.

We are now living in a world where even the best government or state-provided medical care is not the first choice for most people. Having access to private medical care gives us increased autonomy in our decisions when a health tragedy has already placed strain and stress on our lives.

You may not need to spend as much as 10%, or you may need to be budgeting closer to 15%. Depending on your lifestyle and your current responsibilities, your personal financial plan needs to have a medical cover review every year around November as most providers only allow for changes and upgrades once a year.

Open post

Pre-Lockdown vs Post-Lockdown Spending Trends

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 can’t forecast all the transitional events in our life, nor precisely when they will happen – so attitude and external factors also play a role, but even these two can be considered influencers of our behaviour.

22Seven recently conducted research on the top 10 spending categories in the City of Cape Town (and certain out-lying suburbs and metros) to understand how the Black Swan of COVID-19 and lockdown influenced consumer behaviour in those areas. Whilst these are geographically unique they help us understand the trends in other major cities too and can help us find deeper meaning in our own spending habits.

Unchanged habits

Spending on groceries remained a top priority both before and after lockdown. This is partly because we can’t go without food, and also because they were the only stores which we could, and needed to, visit during the lockdown period. Two other consistent areas were on cellphone (and data) and transport costs. 

Spending habits that dropped

Entertainment and takeaway meals pretty much zeroed out, but started showing more growth as industries opened up and lockdown lifted – but the caution of consumers has clearly played a role in reshaping this habit. With many informal traders and small businesses unable to operate, ATM and cash withdrawals also bottomed out. The fact that cash is a physical payment method, and the virus being contagious, and that ATMs require public touchpad engagement would have played a considerable role in the change of this habit too.

22Seven also said that: “Home & Garden and Health and Medical also dropped off the list completely post lockdown. Home & Garden spending decreased mainly because those who offered the services were not allowed to operate and many of us had time to attend to those services ourselves while we were at home.

You may [be] wondering how counterintuitive it is that spending on Health and Medical related expenses dropped off the list during the lockdown? Well, it boils down to two things mainly: firstly, the health-seeking behaviour of [those surveyed] would have dropped during the lockdown period. People would’ve put off any non-emergency trips to their healthcare professionals to avoid contact with people. Fewer trips to your doctor also mean fewer trips to the pharmacy, which equals less spending.

Secondly, people would’ve stocked up on their essential medication before the lockdown period started to avoid having to visit pharmacies, and increasing exposure to others, once the lockdown commenced.”

Spending (saving…) habits that improved

According to 22Seven, “Investments, Savings, Insurance and Card Repayments all climbed up the list. While there was a portion […] who saw a reduction in or lost their incomes completely, those who had stable incomes during the lockdown suddenly had extra money left over – mainly because they could spend their money on fewer goods and services.“

This proved to be a good habit-forming contributor as debt and card repayments increased and both long- and short-term investments were bolstered with the extra money that was available to those still earning salaries.

It’s helpful to take some time to review how big events have affected us, not just financially, but emotionally, relationally and mentally too. All of these will play into the habits that we form and reform around our wealth, and to our perception of value. 

Some habits we may have forgotten through the trauma of an event and would want to work on again, other habits we may decide to release and form new ones that have greater meaning to us and our family.

If you’d like to read even more, here’s the link to their article:

https://blog.22seven.com/2020/07/visualised-pre-lockdown-vs-post-lockdown-expenditure/

Open post

Why we need losers in our portfolio

There is a strange behavioural effect where investors tend to sell winners early and hold onto losers for longer. You would think that investors would offload their losers as soon as possible and hold onto their winners so that they keep winning, but the opposite is often found to be true. This is known as the disposition effect.

This effect is thought to occur because people value gains and losses differently. Specifically, people dislike losses more than they like gains. This explains why it is easier to sell a winner and hold onto a loser. If you are holding on to an unrealized loss, then selling that position would prove that you made a bad decision picking that stock. On the other hand, selling a winner immediately affirms your investment guile.

The curious nature of the disposition effect lies in the fact that even seasoned investors make emotional financial decisions. It’s not to say that selling realised gains and waiting for underperforming parts of your portfolio to mature is necessarily bad. We could argue that you NEED some losers in your portfolio.

If your entire portfolio is doing well at the same time, then it probably means that your investments are relying on the same social and economic factors. This, in turn, means that if those factors trend downward then your entire portfolio will react in the same way.

Eliminating any underperforming parts of your portfolio eliminates the potential for them to do well in the future, when the current lead performers take a back seat.

The name of the game has always been diversification. In fact, you should be EXPECTING some elements to underperform at times. There is a difference between a bad investment and one which is not currently shooting for the moon. By placing your eggs in multiple baskets you are spreading your risk and protecting your wealth.

This is also why it’s crucial to have options that are both local and offshore. Local may feel like a loser when offshore is appearing stable, but the balance of volatility and stability helps create more predictable returns in the long run.

Your portfolio is like an orchard, harvest the fruit but be weary to raise an axe to the trees. Some trees require a longer time to bear fruit and the long-term strategy is often the best one.

Posts navigation

1 2 3 … 27 28 29 30 31 32
Scroll to top