Today, we close off financial literacy month with the results from the test some of our readers took a few weeks ago. We appreciate everyone taking the time to do the test. The financial literacy rate of our readers is 80%! I’m thoroughly impressed and pleasantly surprised. The question that some of our respondents struggled with was the last question which tests your understanding of diversification. 3) “Do you think the following statement is true or […]
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Effective ways to improve your financial literacy
Personal financial management concepts are fairly easy to grasp. Often, it’s the lack willingness to do the work that holds people back. Improving your financial literacy level does not have to break the bank or consume a lot of time. We have summarized a few easy ways to get financially fit in no time. READ/GOOGLE The world wide web is your gold mine. Just google ‘financial literacy’ and almost everything you need relating to this subject comes […]
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A test for you
Director Annamaria Lusardi and Professor Olivia S. Mitchell developed 3 questions that test an individual’s financial literacy. In their paper, “Financial Literacy Around the World: An Overview”, they found that the lack of financial literacy was a global problem, and that women consistently scored lower than men. In South Africa, roughly 4/10 of our adult population surveyed were considered financially literate. Since April is financial literacy month, we’re conducting our own survey to see if our […]
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A grim picture
In simple terms, financial literacy is the ability to make sound decisions regarding saving, borrowing and investing. It is the basic comprehension of the principles of personal financial management. April is world financial literacy month and a time to highlight and reflect on the importance of financial education and its effects on the citizenry as it is widely accepted as one of the biggest contributors to the inequality gap. The less an individual knows about the […]
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Finding balance while being self-employed
Load-shedding. Unemployment. Uncertainty. Fear. Things are looking bleak and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight to the bad news. Self employed individuals will probably feel the pinch the most during this period and many businesses may not survive the crippling effects of intermittent power supply, among other things. There are many challenges facing self-employed individuals but two of them are of interest to me – how to manage personal finances, particularly during this […]
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For better or worse: The financial impact of divorce (part 3)
Bontle admits that finances were the undoing of her marriage. ‘The strain of our finances weighed heavily on us for 11 years. Throughout our marriage, we had financial peace for about 3 years. We even started entertaining buying our first house together, but that idea was short lived.’ They fought about money all the time. This is what led to their divorce. Neither of them had the money for a protracted divorce battle so they went […]
Continue readingMore TagFor better or worse: The financial impact of divorce (part 2)
Bontle completed her matric with average marks and could not get into varsity. She went to KellyGreenoaks for a 1-year course in Public Relations. It took her 6 months to find her first job which paid R1500 per month as a Secretary / Receptionist for a new firm of attorneys. She started studying part time through Unisa for a BA HR degree and her career in HR was born. In 2004, she met a nice guy […]
Continue readingMore TagFor better or worse: The financial impact of divorce (part 1)
I know very few people who enter into holy matrimony with the view to get divorced. Marriage is often entered into with a positive outlook and big dreams for the future with hardly any consideration of the potential for things going pear-shaped. The reality is that divorce is more prevalent than ever before, not just in South Africa but internationally too. According to Stats SA, 44,4% of the divorces registered in 2016, were of marriages that […]
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When the tax is black
Our country’s history of segregation and economic exclusion has led us to this point. Many young people who now have tertiary education and the many who have moved out of the homes and townships they grew up in are usually the first to do so in their families. This comes with a lot of pressure and expectation to support and assist their siblings, ageing parents and often, extended families as well. This, and quite obviously so, comes […]
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A new way
In our culture, when a woman gets married, she gets called into a room by aunts and other older female relatives and gets given the ‘lay of the land’. She’s taught never to question her husband about his whereabouts, to dress modestly when in the company of her in-laws, never to nag etc. I know this because I went through a similar process myself. It’s done in good faith and intended to help you navigate the […]
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