How do you make the most of your money

[K4shy]

As the title says what are some finance tips that fellow South Africans can share, to make more money? how to enjoy life with a little money? how to save efficiently? etc

 

[Kosmik]

Best advice, get some software that lets you monitor your spending trends and work from there. Budget is a ugly word but its the easiest place to start and the most effective. I bought a piece of software years ago called YNAB4 ( You need a budget ). Easy to use and its saved me a fortune over the years and managed to keep us going on single income household. The newer version is cloud based and there are other products in the market but one of the nice basic tenants of that software was, give every cent a job, even if its to sit idle and save interest.

 

[zulucat]

I was very fortunate that my grandfather and subsequently my father left me quite a fortune (cash, assets and farming and trucking businesses), being the only child, mom and I are continuing the family's farming and trucking operations in Northern KwaZulu Natal - we hired a handful of professionals to help us take the businesses to another level. That is where most of my money comes from. I am also a qualified dietician - I do not make much use of that qualification other than to lecture part time at various institutions. I made a few investments which yield yearly returns as well. I do have a few good dietetic clients who consult privately... I am based in Pretoria currently doing consulting work for a large insurance provider.

 

[Gtx Gaming]

I abuse as much reward programs as I can

 

[grok]

I have a unit trust account which I pay in a small amount every month. Only a few hundred so don't really miss it in my budget, but I've been doing it for years - it's my way of building up a little nest egg on the side.
When over Xmas the opportunity came up to visit Thailand, the unit trust account paid for the trip, flights, spending money & then some. And I haven't stopped the debit order I'm still continuing to put that amount away every month..

The financial gurus might propose a better account, like a savings pocket with more returns or something, but I got this when I started working years ago & it works for me because it's so low key.
I honestly sometimes forget I have the account, but on the other hand, it's so convenient, all it takes is one phone call & the money is in my account the next day.

 

[Gaz{M}]

Forget investing.

Just pay off all your debt as soon as possible.

 

[cguy]

1) Pay off the highest interest debt first. This is just mathematically better.
2) Don't spend money on nonsense. Especially, anything that involves showing off: expensive car, expensive clothes, jewelry, flat that takes half your income, etc. If you buy the envy of others today, then one day, all you'll have is envy.
3) Try live where the money is. If you're going to be an 80th percentile earner, rather be one in Cape Town or better yet, New York, rather than East London.
4) Cost of living scales sub-linearly with income. Once you have your home sorted, the benefit of being in a higher paying area is enormous.

 

[pboy]

There is ONLY one answer here:
SPEND LESS!

This has 2 effects:
1. If you spend less, you won't need a lot to get by on.
2. If you spend less, your "number" ( the figure you need to reach till you can live off investments) becomes more easily attainable, sooner. So you get out of the rat race sooner! Stress is a killer man, I'm seeing way too many young guys dropping like flies!


Thank me later.

 

[pboy]

1) Pay off the highest interest debt first. This is just mathematically better.
2) Don't spend money on nonsense. Especially, anything that involves showing off: expensive car, expensive clothes, jewelry, flat that takes half your income, etc. If you buy the envy of others today, then one day, all you'll have is envy.
3) Try live where the money is. If you're going to be an 80th percentile earner, rather be one in Cape Town or better yet, New York, rather than East London.
4) Cost of living scales sub-linearly with income. Once you have your home sorted, the benefit of being in a higher paying area is enormous.

I have some comments here. perhaps this is the one thread we can be mature enough to agree to disagree without getting into a cockfight!

1. debt > paying it off is not correcting the behavior. correct the behavior first.
2. I agree 2million%
3. I do not agree with this one. earn more money and live near it so you can spend more money? let's flip this around. how about live where the money isn't. Mr East London cruises into work, no traffic, probably only gets 2 or 3 hours of actual work in. goes home for lunch, leaves early, no weekends. its not as competitive as being in the top 80th percentile world. He works the same job all his life. and retires with a meagre pension that just about leaves him comfortable for life. whats wrong with that? vs Mr NY: who probably dies from stress, or does not live long enough to enjoy his money. and where does My NY retire to anyways: a nice quiet seaside town like.... EAST LONDON!
4. I didn't fully understand this one, honestly.

 

[cguy]

I have some comments here. perhaps this is the one thread we can be mature enough to agree to disagree without getting into a cockfight!

1. debt > paying it off is not correcting the behavior. correct the behavior first.
2. I agree 2million%
3. I do not agree with this one. earn more money and live near it so you can spend more money? let's flip this around. how about live where the money isn't. Mr East London cruises into work, no traffic, probably only gets 2 or 3 hours of actual work in. goes home for lunch, leaves early, no weekends. its not as competitive as being in the top 80th percentile world. He works the same job all his life. and retires with a meagre pension that just about leaves him comfortable for life. whats wrong with that? vs Mr NY: who probably dies from stress, or does not live long enough to enjoy his money. and where does My NY retire to anyways: a nice quiet seaside town like.... EAST LONDON!
4. I didn't fully understand this one, honestly.

If Mr East London wants to live in East London for the rest of his life and hope that his family is untouched by violence, that his savings, the country’s infrastructure, medical, etc. last for the remainder of his life, while simultaneously not really being able to react to an emergency situation in his own life, or within his circle of friends and family, or offer financial support to causes he may care about, well then he’s good.

Mr New York could certainly have some work stress, but there are few things better for work stress than being financially secure. A state that he gets to really quickly, if he manages to earn enough to get past the high costs of housing. Mr New York gets to travel around the world, send his family to world class medical experts, or help them out financially if things go to crap. He gets to holiday anywhere in the world, put real cash towards the causes he cares about, and ultimately can retire young, and probably go anywhere in the world at all for retirement or just keep on traveling as he sees fit.

He also gets to live in New York.

You’re really arguing that (3) doesn’t matter if you’re happy to just self subsist. Which is certainly a valid position to take, but not something I think most would opt for, given the choice.

The reasoning that usually takes people down this path (earning little, but living frugally) is that they themselves don’t perhaps care about the material aspects of wealth, however, wealth is so much more than the ability to buy “stuff” - it includes, safety, freedom, time saving and an enormously enhanced ability to help others.

4) is just the observation that places that are “high cost” are usually just so because of immovable property (houses/flats), and that if someone in a low CoL area nets R240k a year and spends R10k/m on a bond, then someone who nets R2.4m a year (so 10x) in an expensive area is probably going to spend considerably less than R100k/m on their bond, and even if they did, their disposable income is still R100k/m, as opposed to R10k/m, which even in an expensive area can buy them sooo much more.

Eventually, they both pay off their house, and now the one person has R20k/m disposable and the other has R200k/m disposable, and the PPP gap diverges even more. Not to mention that the person in the expensive area now also owns an expensive house outright.

 

[hjst45]

1) Pay off the highest interest debt first. This is just mathematically better.
2) Don't spend money on nonsense. Especially, anything that involves showing off: expensive car, expensive clothes, jewelry, flat that takes half your income, etc. If you buy the envy of others today, then one day, all you'll have is envy.
3) Try live where the money is. If you're going to be an 80th percentile earner, rather be one in Cape Town or better yet, New York, rather than East London.
4) Cost of living scales sub-linearly with income. Once you have your home sorted, the benefit of being in a higher paying area is enormous.

There's much more money in East London than you'd think

 

[ArmatageShanks]

Monitor your spend in detail, put it on a spreadsheet or use an app so you can see where your money is going, you can then decide from that where you can save etc.

Something I still need to do.

 

[pboy]

cguy you making some very good points there buddy.
still, the OP should ask rather how to make the most out of life. its very subjective, but it will be interesting what different people hold dear.

 

[3WA]

As the title says what are some finance tips that fellow South Africans can share, to make more money?

Get an illegal electricity connection and don't pay electricity.

 

[CamiKaze]

Excel, monitor every cent.

Make better decisions each month based on the previous months' expense.

 

[clickingbuttons]

No clothing accounts. No store accounts. Pay off credit card balance every month. Pump all your spare money into your highest interest loans first. Downscale your car to lower your monthly payment if you have one. Don't every buy takeaways or eat at restaurants. If you can, try replace a lot of the meat you eat with offals. Buy the best cellphone you can for cash. Go on prepaid cellular. Whenever you're contronted with a take-away option that you have to take due to whatever reason, always choose the cheapest option. Cancel all ridiculous contracts, like gym contracts etc. Cancel DSTV. Install a geyser timer to turn off your geyser during the day.

Or/And

Make more money by adding more value to the world around you and demand to be paid more for the privledge.

 

[MirageF1]

1. learn to save
2. save
3. save some more
4. keep saving...

Occasionally enjoy the benefits of the interest by treating yourself/others.

 

[saturnz]

knowledge is power

if you know how the economy works, what is happening in terms of current affairs and so on, you can navigate your way through the pitfalls

so start off with understanding what money is, and no, its not the pieces of paper that is rands

 

[konfab]

I decided to make the (extremely) hard decision of going from 100Mb/s fibre to a 10Mb/s connection. Saves R400 a month. Simple fact of the matter is that a 10Mb/s fibre connection is all we really need. It is still fast enough to stream Youtube and Netflix, which is what we mostly use the connection for.

 

[RedViking]

Pay me a R1 000 and I will give you advice that can potentially make you R10 000.