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.

The best gifts are the one’s that show deep consideration for the recipient. That means that Valentine’s Day is not just about flowers, chocolate, biltong and a cute travel mug… it’s about knowing your partner and buying them something that they would truly love!

So here are some pointers for this Valentine’s day for expressing your appreciation!

EXPERIENCE OVER EXPENSE

The best gifts are memories, not expensive trinkets. If you plan it right, your entire Valentine’s treat could revolve around a unique, personal and breath-taking experience! You could plan to have the element of spontaneity, showing attention and forethought whilst keeping it romantic and exciting.

If you go this route – maybe you’d like to arrange an instant film camera where you can take polaroid-type photos that capture and print the moment without needing your phone or digital camera to distract you. Instax offers a great, novel option for this – you could buy one as part of the experience, or borrow one from a friend and simply purchase a 10-pack of film for the date.

LESS OVER MORE
Try not to go over the top – remember this is Valentine’s day, not a 50th birthday party. Whilst you might want to simply shower your partner with lavish gifts, when you buy too much, the gifts overshadow the sentiment… and Valentine’s Day is all about the sentiment!

PERSONAL OVER PRICEY
When a gift has personal meaning, it becomes a gift without a price tag. When your partner opens the gift – gets the reference and looks at you with that priceless look of ‘You remembered!’… don’t tell them how much it cost or what a good deal you got!

However you are planning to celebrate this Valentine’s day, have fun!

[attach 1]

Every year we see an internal migration of individuals and families between the major cities of South Africa – mostly for work reasons. These decisions are sometimes thrust upon us due to simple economics, but other times we are able to explore the opportunities and the pros-and-cons of living in a new city.

But how exactly can you make informed decisions without relying mostly on hearsay or the perceptions of friends and colleagues.

Which cities are on the higher scales of cost of living (relative to income) and which are lower down?

It may be safe to speculate that many people would rate Cape Town or Johannesburg as the most expensive place to live in South Africa, and they wouldn’t be far wrong – but according to the latest surveys by Expatistan.com, Benoni has the highest cost of living, with Cape Town ranking 4th! (at the time of publishing this post)

Check this link out for the full details:
https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/country/south-africa

Once you’ve clicked through to the each city, you can view a comprehensive presentation of living expenses ranging from a lunchtime meal in the business district, through to data costs and the hourly rate for cleaning services. Being able to consider the rental of small housing units, utilities and transportation costs are extremely helpful – even the cost of a TV and microwave are there!

You can also find comparative costings for basic goods like milk, eggs and chicken as well as clothing options and personal care products.

Remember, these expenses need to be weighed against your earning potential whilst living there – so every presentation should be in context of your unique situation. If you need advice or guidance, then send me a text or email and let’s make a plan to go through your options, together!

By making the most of your income and implementing some savvy financial thinking even an ordinary salary earner can grow an impressive portfolio of assets. Investment success is primarily due to behaviour – not luck. As you will probably know, one of the mature investment perspectives reminds us that it’s not so much about timing the markets as much as it’s about time in the markets.

Let’s look at some of the behavioural traits of a shrewd investor:

They don’t worry about keeping up appearances
Wealth is what is left after you have expended your income. There is no point in seeing yourself as a smart investor if you don’t leave yourself anything to invest with at the end of every month. If you worry what people will think about the car you drive or the house you live in perhaps you need to rethink your priorities.

They clearly define their investment objectives
Investment is not a one-trick pony; investments need to be sorted according to objective and managed accordingly. We all have different goals with different time horizons, but smart investors know that different timelines mean different asset allocations and tax implications.

They know the difference between a trend and a classic
We are all driven by either fear or greed to some proportion. If you are chasing better returns on a hot tip or folding out of fearsome unknowns, and find yourself making numerous fund switches in the year, you may need to take a step back and decide which of these factors are driving your investment decisions.

Is your portfolio diverse enough to ward off your fears and focused enough to reach your investment objectives on time? If not, let’s take a look and get you on the right track.

<source>

For most of us, November started off with a bang! But unfortunately remembering the redemption from explosive chaos does little to help us manage our time, stress, skills and finances over November and December. It’s like we just go from one event to the next, our limited weekends disappearing under the demands of a myriad of social events – all costing us ‘a little here and a little there’.

Before we know it, we look at our bank balance and somehow our budget figures seem to be quite different to the reality – this can drive us crackers!

Here are some financial planning tips for the next 54 days…

1. Make a calendar with budgets: It’s easy to assume you’ll have enough money when you’re only spending a few hundred here, and a few hundred there. But when they all add up, you’ll find that what you thought would be a couple of hundred bucks, turns into a grand or two.
   Itemise all the events you have to attend and put in an estimate cost for each one. It’s okay if you go over, this is simply to help you understand where your money will be going in the next 7 weeks so that you don’t have an unhappy surprise!
2. Keep & capture your slips: Keeping your slips will help you check how accurate your budget calendar has been and will enable you to make decisions about the next event as to how much you should or shouldn’t curtail your spending. Knowing where your money is going empowers you to not spin into a panic when it’s suddenly less than you thought. Also – if you have extra left over, you’re able to enjoy some more guilt-free luxuries over this festive period!
3. Use cash instead of cards: If you budget R300 to spend at an event, and you have it in your pocket in cash, you’re far less likely to overspend. But if you simply swipe your card… it’s way easier to add on and extra R50 without even ‘feeling’ it.

Part of having me as your financial advisor, is that I’m here to help you plan and manage how you earn, save and spend your financial resources. If you feel like you’re going crackers… just drop me an email and let’s hook up!

Have you ever wondered what causes the rise and drop in commodity prices? While there are several factors at play, the most significant cause is the fluctuating value of a country’s currency.

We’ve seen this happen with our own rand in the past few months as our currency has tumbled and gained momentary reprieves, so has the price of certain commodities.

As things currently stand our currency is doing better than it was in January of this year, but with the ominous threat of ‘junk status’ around the corner we can’t be sure what the future holds – and the recent political instability poses some unknowns. However… if the political decisions move in a constructive democratic direction, our Rand will strengthen.

So what causes a currency’s value to fluctuate?

There are quite a few factors at play. These are just a few of them:

• Trade balance is one of the main factors. The trade balance helps to understand the strength of a country’s economy in relation to other countries. This is based on the calculation of a country’s exports minus its imports. When a country’s imports exceed its exports, the subsequent negative number is called a trade deficit. When the opposite happens, a country has a trade surplus.
• Another factor is the political climate of a country. Political stability, especially in emerging economies is very important. But not just in emerging economies – look at what happened in the UK in the wake of Brexit. A political decision to leave the EU ended up having huge ramifications on the pound.
• Inflation also plays a part. If your inflation rate is very high, then the value of your currency is going to be eroded. South Africa’s inflation rate is relatively high compared to the US.

Countries like South Africa operate a flexible exchange rate system, which means the value of the rand is determined by the market forces of supply and demand. In some other countries, like the United Arab Emirates, they have fixed exchange rates. Such countries, mainly oil-producing countries and ones with small populations, have very stable and predictable economies.

The strength or weakness of a currency always reflects on the prices of goods.

If commodities are imported for manufacturing processes, then the cost of finished products will be significantly higher in a country with a weaker currency. However, if the country is producing more raw materials and goods locally, there’s a better chance of keeping prices stable and inflation low.

The moral of the story from this blog…? Local is lekker!

<source>