Prevention is Power: Why Check-Ups Matter

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I did my annual medical check-up near the end of last month. All things ok. My doc then sent me for a carotid artery scan the week after, because I had had a brief vision blur moment the week before. Tells me our carotids won’t be clear if we have tiny clots or bad stuff going on elsewhere. But all clear.

This month I also do my next dermatologist check-up. That mole and skin looking over thing. My next colonoscopy is in 8 years’ time, I think. My heart gets monitored every night. A cardiologist showed me last month how to read the printouts from the Heart Centre. It showed that without my pacemaker, I would be at a resting heart rate of 26. A not-alive thing.

I had my annual optometrist check-up in May too, following the vision blur episode. Looked into my soul…. Hopefully I was on a good day. I’ve learnt from her (the optometrist) over the years, how the blood vessels in our eyes talk about our health.

Ticking all the medical check-up boxes.

As usual, most of my aim of talking about the above is to highlight the need for all this and to nag you to go if you’re due. Prevention and/or early detection is so much better.

So book and go.

Escaping the Comparison Trap: Real Wealth vs. Appearances

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For fun today, let’s have a look at what car you could buy if you only have R150,000. In cash. Because you must change your view of buying cars to being only what you can pay cash for.
I have written of this before and found another journalist who wrote about it last week. He called it ‘the comparison trap’. About people adjusting their spending based on what’s happening around them in society and their social circles. With a desire to keep up.
One area where this is very prominent is the desire for a car that you shouldn’t buy, with the excuse that you must buy a new one – or almost new – for the maintenance plan or the safety features when it’s often really about looking cool and showing the ability to buy it. I would bet that most cars on the road under 4 or 5 years old still belong to the bank.
So, what if all you had in cash was R150,000. I looked on Auto Trader this week and went straight for one of the best cars in the world: Toyota Corolla Quest. I found a 2018 model in Sandton with 134,000 km on it for R149,900. This car will last another 300,000 kilometres. It will be more reliable all the way than many newer cars, has enough safety features and will cost you less on maintenance and insurance. It’s all most people need. And if you don’t have R150,000 there is one for R85,000 with 270,000km. It will last another 200,000km.
Am I writing about cars today? No, but I should a bit more one day, because they’re a wealth trap.
I am writing about the danger of material wealth being a dangerous non-verbal way of communicating achievement. To remember that real wealth is not about the items other people can see, but rather in the quiet accumulation of savings and investments that provide you with options in the future.

Marketing Debt as a Goal: A Dangerous Message

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I recently received a message from my bank (better not say what colour bank) telling me that I have available funds in my home loan account that I could use to reach some of my ‘financial goals’. Borrow more and reach your goals. It’s telling me.
Then I noticed similar messages from the other colour bank I use, telling me that I may qualify for a personal loan of R300,000 or a credit card with a R90,000 limit.
I think putting these sort of messages in front of consumers should not be allowed. Yes, a bank makes most of its money by lending money. And so maybe that’s marketing and selling. Like a supermarket advertising, whose worst lines are ‘spend and save’. But this is different. Putting a message in front of a consumer to borrow more money might not be helpful.
It is very good for those with property bonds to put in extra each month and reduce it faster, but not with the purpose of withdrawing and spending again. The only other reason to use available funds from your access bond, should be as an emergency fund. Although from what people are accessing their retirement savings for, emergency means different things to different people.
Encourage yourself, encourage your children, encourage your friend, not to access their bonds. Not take to take out short term loans. Not to use funds like this for a new car or a holiday or painting their house.

Investing Through Turbulent Times

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For those of you who looked at your investment values at the end of March and didn’t like the returns for the end of the first quarter of this year, since then, many values have already increased again. Anything between 4 and 6-odd percent in two weeks. Values are not yet back to ‘pre-war’ numbers, but nothing we can control. The ups and the downs in the Middle East are not over. Mind you….. they’ve been there for thousands of years.
I ran the numbers for one client, showing how his additional investment that went in, in late March, bought more assets for him because of values being down than it would have bought for him if values hadn’t been down. More assets means you own more units in the fund; not that your investment is worth more. I said to the client: ‘you bought 103,500 units, instead of 95,840 units at the last pre-war price. I would rather have 103,000 assets than 95,000 assets.’ This is what times of depressed values bring to your money going in. We need them.
Anyway, at least the other side of the moon was quiet.

Investing Through Uncertainty: Perspectives on Conflict, Markets, and Resilience

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There could be an expectation for comments on ‘The War’. It must always be remembered that there are many far worse off in the zones than us worrying about our investment values having reduced by 1 to 12%.

As I’ve said before, besides the fact that we can’t do much about this, price reduction is not a problem if you don’t need the value of your investment right now. Meaning you don’t need to take money out. It becomes a good time to put money in, because assets are cheaper. It’s good for our retirement annuity debit order this month and next month and maybe the next too, or for your excess income reinvesting and buying more units than it would have.

But inflation will hit us. The oil price is something we can’t get away from. $110 today. Interestingly, listening to one asset manager speaking this week, he mentioned that the ‘Futures’ price of Oil for 12 months is $75.00. This means, if you want to buy oil today, to be delivered in 12 months time, it costs $75.00 per barrel right now. Meaning markets don’t expect the price to be where it is for too long.

However, there is an uncertainty around the conflict that is obviously not nice, and no one knows how long it will go on for.

Sad that man has to fight so much. That some men have to be evil. That there is so much intentional unkindness.

Wealth, Humanity, and the View from the Road

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I was in Cape Town for a couple of days this week. Seeing a few of you. If you drive anywhere in and around the Western Cape Peninsula, one cannot help seeing, at close quarters, what we call ‘squatter’ housing. Khayelitsha, Mitchell’s plain. Others. I drove for a number of kilometres right alongside these folk’s homes. In some places there is no space left for a single shack to fit in between the others….. for hundreds of meters in any direction. That’s how densely they are laid out. That’s the desperation of people to live somehow, somewhere. There is hardly space to walk between the shacks. Where is their water. Where are their toilets.

I think we need to redefine wealth. It’s a relative thing. I am going to say that you are extremely wealthy, if, you have a flushing toilet, indoors. If you have a separate room for this toilet, which includes a bath or shower and a basin. If you have hot and cold running water, indoors. If you have a place to prepare and eat food, with a fridge to preserve this food, and safe electricity to cook it. If you have a small garden for your dog and / or child to play in. If you are able to lock a door at night to keep your child safe.

There is a powerful Oscar acceptance speech given by Angelina Jolie a while back:

“I have never understood, why some people are lucky enough, to be born with the chance that I had, to have this path in life, and why across the world, there’s a woman just like me, with the same abilities and the same desires, same work ethic and love for her family, who would most likely make better films and better speeches….. only she sits in a refugee camp, and she has no voice. She worries about what her children will eat, how to keep them safe, and if they’ll ever be allowed to return home. I don’t know why this is my life and that’s hers…..”

Why ‘Tax-Free Retirement Annuity’ Should Be the New Buzzword

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Following our budget speech a week ago telling us of the increases regarding contributing to savings spaces and increased exemptions on capital gains and donations allowances and etc and so forth, I finally read a journalist saying the same thing I say: That Retirement Annuities are also tax-free investments. Which they are. And even more so than tax-free savings accounts because not only is the growth inside free of interest income tax or dividend tax or capital gains tax, (just like a Tax-Free Savings Account) but the contributions into the Retirement Annuity are an additional tax benefit in terms of reducing our taxable income. Yes, the introduction of and the label of ‘tax-free savings’ has created a lot more savings, which is good. But retirement savings is a greater crisis and I think we must call them: “Tax-Free Retirement Annuity”.

I believe in maximising our retirement contributions first, from a tax benefit point of view, before contributing to a tax-free savings account. It’s the greater benefit. Yes, there might be exceptions and people will point this out to me, but very few people maximise their retirement contribution allowance levels and they must do this first, and then if they still have the available cash flow, now contribute to a tax-free savings account.

Why is retirement savings the bigger crises…. There are already figures out regarding the number of withdrawals from retirement savings as soon as this new tax year started. Which was only Monday.

Investment Managers See Bright Prospects for South Africa

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Over the past 10 days I have listened to quite a few investment managers.

Last week Wednesday and Thursday, Allan Gray hosted their annual 4 hours-a-day, two-day online thing that I ‘attended’. They had their own investment gurus talk, plus they always bring in managers from other houses to present as well: we had Ninety One, M&G, Coronation, plus one or two others.

They began the first day with one of their own guys talking, but he was given the topic of speaking about where South Africa had come over the past year, both politically and economically.

Then yesterday I attended – in body and spirit this time – a presentation by Marriott. A guy spoke about how they (Marriott) are incorporating AI in their research on companies they own. Very interesting. He is a Scotsman, with a strong accent, you have to concentrate hard to hear the words properly. But extremely bright. Also waiting to hear if he is selected for the SA Masters Hockey Team. A good chap.

Both last week and yesterday, all the investment teams were all pretty positive about South Africa, for both the past year and the year ahead. Some points that came up by various speakers:

• Most felt that the GNU is pretty stable
• No loadshedding
• A tiny drop in the interest rate
• We’re off the Greylist
• Improved credit rating
• Inflation target of 3% (yes, the real ‘basket’ inflation is still higher than that)
• High resource prices

Let’s hope this coming year keeps some positive things going forward.

Maximize Your Tax Savings This Month

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It’s tax month. Where those of us who are provisional taxpayers have to do our estimates and contribute to the nation’s divided spending. My accountant has been onto me this week. I think I have my numbers correct. You must be accurate within 80% or 90% – depending on your total income.

It is also the month to add a lump sum to your retirement annuity if you have not maximised your full 27.5% of taxable income. A few of you have already done this with me in the past weeks, and others I will remind you if you did this in the past years.

I will be doing an addition into mine too. You have to have the cash lying around to do it, but you end up reducing your tax paid. And you’ve saved more.

Weekly Thoughts 23 January 2026

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I thought to talk briefly about some something that I saw a financial journalist write about earlier this month, just because I think it is different to what one expects would be written about, and because it is also so true. It is talking about the emotion of envy, financial envy. The article spoke of Forgetting about the Joneses, about what they have, and what you don’t have.

A good way to reduce financial stress is to not to compare what you have with others. The ‘apparent’ wealth of others should not be our yardstick to measure our own financial achievements. I often say, remember that that person in that expensive car might not actually own it. There is a good chance that their car and their house is owned by the bank. There might also be a lot of other financial things going on in the life of someone with huge apparent wealth than you know. Huge credit card debt, for example, or a business in trouble.

Never underestimate the value of non-material wealth: Do you have time for yourself, that someone else might not have…. you might also have better social, physical, and mental ‘wealth’.

Don’t be envious. Keep your financial life simpler, rather than letting it get out of control. The less you owe, the greater your financial freedom. Get this right, and the guy in the fancy car or house might envy you.