While most advice about budgeting concentrates on trying to find ways of helping people not to spend too much, there is another group of people that has the opposite problem. These “tightwads” find it very hard to spend at all.

This can be debilitating in many ways. For example, it can lead to people withdrawing from doing many things with their friends and family because they are worried about having to pay for anything.

In this article we look at what might be behind this anxiety and provide a practical way of trying to ease it.

Equity markets are the most exciting of the asset classes because they offer investors opportunities to create real wealth. 

But they are also fraught with booms and bubbles, and only those who stay invested for the long term derive the full benefits of their inflation-beating wealth creation potential. 

The best measure of how a stock market is performing is a benchmark index, like the JSE All Share Index. In this article, we explain why they are helpful and which ones to monitor. 

We’ve all heard (but perhaps not all of us have remembered!) how online scammers worldwide have been targeting property transactions because of the substantial amounts of money involved. 

But it’s not just conveyancers and property buyers and sellers who are being targeted. Anyone involved in high-value transactions, is fair game. In South Africa, for example, inverter installations are currently big business (thanks Eskom!), and online criminals have taken note.

In this article we discuss how these scams work, how to spot them, how to avoid them, and the legal aspects of who is responsible (and who must bear the loss) if you are scammed.

It’s normal not to want to prepare an antenuptial contract, as it feels like you’re preparing for divorce – absolutely the last thing you want to think about when you’re caught up in the thrill of planning a wedding.

But realistically all marriages end eventually because death is inevitable. And you don’t need us to tell you how prevalent divorce has become. 

Read on for an overview of the choices available to you – and their financial consequences.