In an article recently published on Moneyweb Today (by Paul Leonard, CFP, Regional Head, Citadel), several points were made that succinctly provided useful insight for those considering the options about investing in a TFSA, and deciding whether or not it would be the most appropriate savings vehicle.

Before making any final decisions, it’s always best for us to meet and assess your investment plan based on your financial needs analysis – but these pointers should help you understand the nature of this product and how it would work inside of your financial plan.

The use of tax free savings and investment accounts is generally most appropriate in the following circumstances:

1. Achieving long-term investment goals
2. Saving for retirement when your income is below the income tax threshold, and you’ll consequently not enjoy any personal income tax relief contributions made to retirement funds
3. Topping up retirement savings over and above the maximum amount per annum (namely R 350k) that one can receive tax breaks on. Given that most South Africans are under-funded for retirement, there is a need for most working people to play catch up and contribute more than the deductible limits in retirement funds. It is generally recommended that investors make use of all the tax breaks available for retirement funding investments before using TFSA. This is in line with the government’s objective to ‘complement initiatives and incentives to promote retirement savings”
4. Savings for retirement when you are uncertain about your long term income or job security and therefore may need to access the capital should you become unemployed
5. Saving for retirement if you are uncertain as to where or not you will emigrate, in which case you may want to realise the investment to expatriate your capital should you leave

In short – when you have a large amount of money that you can nest away for an extended investment period, a TFSA should most certainly be one of the options that you consider.

Some people are amazingly good at bringing order to chaos and organizing their lives in such a way that makes the rest of us simply stand and gawk, thinking ‘How do they do it?’.

Finding just the right amount of order in your life will not only help you minimise waste – but it will also help you reduce stress!

When you can find what you’re looking for, quickly and easily, you will have more time to be creative and work on projects that will help you grow, but you also won’t need to go out and ‘buy another one’…

There are so many great ideas on the web – but here are some of them from 100+ Ideas:

USE ONLINE GROCERY SHOPPING

Think about it: do some clicking in the comfort of your own home at night; select your delivery option – and it’s done. The groceries magically appear – you (and your family) don’t even have to get into your car.

Most of the local online grocery options also enable you to order previously purchased products, keeping a list of your popular items – making it quicker and easier to top up your fridge and pantry each time you log on to your account.

USE HANGING SHOE HOLDERS

Whether it’s behind the bathroom door for extra toiletries and medicines, hanging inside the broom closet with your detergents or in the garage with tools, paints, chemicals and odds and ends – these simple, ridiculously cheap, organizers can be hidden away and hung almost anywhere discreet and give you considerably more shelf space – and allow you to see the full scope of what you have.

You’ll never buy too much jik, or lose your spare razor blades again!

USE A TASK SCHEDULER THAT IS DIFFERENT TO YOUR EMAILS

This is a goodie for your work ethic!

When you’re trying to be super productive at work, nothing is more disruptive than an email coming through that is asking you to ‘quickly’ do something. It breaks your creative work flow, slows you down and increases your stress levels.

Many of us allow our emails, texts or phones to govern our task scheduling. We start off the day with one project in mind – and then if a message comes through, instead of prioritising and scheduling it for later, we deal with it now because we know that if we close that message… we might forget.

Having a task programme that is separate to your emails, allows you to transfer requests, schedule them and stick to the job at hand. And you won’t miss a beat.