Yesterday I invited a client along to spend some time at Marriott’s head office with two of their investment managers. We debated various things around the investments and funds that Marriott manage locally plus together with their Isle of Man partners. All sorts of concepts and funny technical terms got thrown around and spoken about. It was very worthwhile.

But the conversations around value and income, reminded me of one of these newsletters that I sent out years ago – probably around 9 or 10 years ago, or more. Long enough ago to write about it again. Most of you have heard me go on and on about once you’re invested into income bearing funds, stop worrying about the value because value doesn’t determine the income. Many years ago, when spending time alone one day with the late and ex-CEO of Marriott, Simon Pearse, he related a story about his mother and her income.

His mother lived on the dividends from a share portfolio that Simon’s father had accumulated over time back in the day in the 50s and 60s and 70s. One day, when Simon noticed one of her unopened share portfolio statements that had arrived in the post, (for the 20-something year olds, this is when a piece of paper comes in an envelope delivered by a man on a bicycle that someone else had put in a red box somewhere else in the world) he asked his mother if she wanted to know how much her share portfolio was worth.

Her response to him was, “Why do I need to know that? It gives me plenty of dividends every year and I’m not selling anything.”

A simple statement, but one that I’ve always thought says so much about understanding income.

It feels like an uninteresting topic this, but if it helps one person then it was worth it. It’s about being the victim of a scam. I have received quite a few warning emails from service providers over the past few months: Liberty Life, Allan Gray, Marriott, Momentum… There are even scam emails coming from addresses looking like SARS, with an attachment for you to open. That’s another one… an attachment arriving from an email address that might be new to you. Then you open it. We don’t anymore, we send it to our IT guy first. Or I ask Adrienne, she’s the IT guru in our office.

I know of a few of you who have been scammed in some way or other, because you have told me. I too, have been a victim over the past 18 months of my airtime being scammed, as well as my bank account via the Banking App. Not proud of this. Don’t like talking about it. After one response to a call or a message, someone is beginning to tempt you to talk to them for longer. Or answer what appears to be a simple and harmless question.

All I want to leave you with, is suggesting that you are very careful about responding to any SMS that doesn’t make sense or answering any phone number you don’t recognise or are expecting, or that doesn’t come from an action you requested. Rather end the call or action and phone the service provider back yourself through their listed numbers.

I usually don’t answer anything I don’t recognise anymore. Or I answer and want to know within 5 seconds what you want and if you cannot tell me, I’ll end the call. Sounds a bit rude… I know. But it’s a scary world now. Where are those days when things arrived in your post box or you had to be home to get a phone call….

I should have talked about this a week or so ago – if you are thinking about changing plans on your medical aid. If you are, and haven’t let them know, you should still be able to get in your request on Monday, that being the 1st. Most schemes want a month’s notice, especially if you’re move ‘down’ a plan level: paying them less. They don’t seem to mind moving up at any stage of the year: paying them more!

If you are thinking of changing your plan level, go to your medical aid’s website and download the 2026 plans and contributions to compare and choose. Learn to understand the benefits you get on your scheme, line by line. Consider not having a savings account unless you get a few additional risk benefits that come with it, or you need the cash management help.

Black Friday. I think that is today. Although it has become days and weeks rather than a day. Remember, you don’t save by spending. You save by not spending. Stay home and you won’t spend what you don’t need to spend. Although you can shop from home so that point of mine is a bit irrelevant…. The banks are the big winners. Because most people are shopping with money they don’t have.

If you really needed something, and you were going to spend anyway, then the way to save is to pay the amount that you have not spent, i.e. the difference, into your bond or a savings space. Now you have spent and saved.

I have also seen quite a few warnings about scams catching you out during these specials. Be careful of emails and SMS’s and phone calls offering you things.

Retirement is a very first world and recent thing, really only beginning to take form in the late 19th century. People used to work until they couldn’t work. Or passed away. It’s not something forced upon you if you are unemployed, like me. I have no employment contract that dictates to me when I must vacate the office. People like me, or ‘self-employeds’, stop working when they choose to, or can, or don’t. But the reality is that this space of life might arrive on all of us at some time, even if only due to lack of health.

I pick up here on my last thought of last week: what are we going to do with it, with ourselves, our minds.

There are potentially heavy sides to retirement. The illusion of endless leisure (the lack of structure can become a stress of boredom); the reality of loneliness; missing a sense of purpose; you might not miss working, but you might miss mattering; the fear of becoming obsolete; the strain on relationships.

We need to find purpose. We need to provide stimulation for our minds. We need a hobby of sorts. Not just golf once a week or cycling twice a week. Need more. There are things that also don’t require too much money, or any at all. You might just have to look.

For me, opening my toolbox and servicing or fixing a motorbike is very relaxing and at the same time, often includes problem solving. For which the Americans and Aussies have produced U-Tube clips to fix anything.

Model plane building can be an excellent idea. Or sowing and knitting. These activities keep the mind sharp. They provide a focus, cause patience, exercise sequence, provide fine motor co-ordination exercises, they give purpose. Obviously the eyes need to be working.

Maybe you can do woodworking or take it up. You get to go outside to your garage or workshop every day. You have ‘a place to go to’.

Join your local rotary or participate administratively in a club or a church.

Learn to understand cricket, so that you can enjoy watching it on TV. The process and strategy will be good for the mind.

Maybe you’re a fisherman. It’s good for patience. Gives your mind space. Making your own flies can be a hobby.

Working gave you conversation. It gave you company: on the way to the toilet; in the kitchen getting coffee; someone to complain to about the boss. Now you might have to rediscover or work on or create friendships. This can be scary and feel lonely.

Getting a dog can help here. The companionship this creates is healthy. And you know what happens when you walk your dog: it’s a licence for people to talk to you.

Work at choosing happiness. And joy. And not complaining and being negative. We alienate ourselves from other people and friends if we do this too much.

Hopefully somewhere some of these thoughts will mean something to some of you.

We often say how fast time goes. And that it seems to go faster. Which it can’t do. But there are things that, when they come around in our lives again, make it feel as if time has indeed past quicker than before.

It might be when it’s time to fill our weekly pill boxes again. Or when it’s take-the-refuse-out day again. Or time to go to the pharmacy for a repeat of your chronic meds. And when it’s time for your annual medical, a year has gone by!

And so it is that we wake up and find that life appears to have passed by. That time seems less. That all those things we were going to do, might never happen. Because there won’t be time left…. time left with enough health.

I believe in finding joy in the very small things in life. Like stopping to pick mulberries while paddling up my river on Wednesday. And fortuitously seeing a Giant Eagle Owl, perched high up in a tree, up the same river the day before. A rare experience.

Not all joyful experiences in life need money. Most don’t. We might just not know how to find them.

That brings me to looking ahead at being ‘retired’, and what are we going to do with it, with ourselves, with our minds.

Yesterday I had lunch alone with Marriott’s CEO and my consultant. I took a particular question to him, based on how I look at and plan for a client’s income: To discuss the reliability, of the predictability, of the income from their funds. If my English works here.

Meaning, the income anticipated from an arrangement of funds in your annuity or income focussed accounts; how much I can reply on that. He said with a very high degree, to within 5 years over a 30 year timeline. That was good to hear. We discussed it further.

Then we talked about some current market conditions and valuations, in particular what global equity returns have been over the past year or two. Concepts such as market concentration and over-pricing was discussed. He explained how the 10 largest global stocks have a weighting of 35% of the market, and that this was too high. He expects the ‘bubble’ of overvaluations to come off and prices to decrease. This opinion was the same as what I listed to from Allan Gray Fund Managers on a live presentation last week.

Marriott are currently invested in only a very small amount of two of these companies, and he says they won’t buy more because the prices are too high for the very small income they provide. The concept of ‘don’t pay too much for an income stream’, is what’s at play here. Like for us, don’t pay too much for a property you are going to buy vs. the rental income you will get.

Always great to get alone-time with someone like him.

Wax on… Wax…. Sorry, Vat on… Vat off. Vat on… Vat off. …for those of us old enough to have watched the Karate Kid…

Taking a toll on the GNU, this is. Parties desperately seeking stability on weak legs.

A new US ambassador is a delicate point right now too. Gary Player or Charlize Theron might be good candidates.

A fund manager from Ninety One recently gave a good Trump statement: ‘a rational decision made today based on irrational information, could prove to be a very irrational decision tomorrow.’ He went on to say that ‘In markets, the best days tend to occur around the worst days.’ What he’s implying, is that there are buying opportunities.

And so everyone and the world is navigating the chaos. While we all spend our money in exactly the same places and feel nervous to invest because we want markets to become expensive again first. At least there is entertainment every day.

I said last week that this week I will write about what I suggest doing with money that you receive that you would never have had. My dread disease claim being one example, inheritance being another.

There are ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ and exceptions to my suggestions, one of them being people who have so much wealth and income already that they don’t need a plan like these. But my basic principle is not to lose the money as a whole, as an entity of capital. You want to preserve this money you received and make it count in your life.

I usually say these funds must either be used to get rid of debt, or to provide income, either now or in the future. If we use it to reduce debt, then we need to continue paying the same amount we were paying each month into that debt. And when you settle the debt earlier than you would have, keep saving the same amount each month to build some savings wealth up again.

A possibly better option in my mind, is to put the funds into an income bearing investment and use the income to pay into the debt. In this way, when the debt is settled, you still have the vehicle that provided that income. Here my point of do not lose the money as a whole is now illustrated. You can continue to use the income after the debt is gone for whatever you want: a new car, a holiday, for saving, for income in retirement, to re-do your kitchen… but, the vehicle providing the income, the money you would never have had, has not been lost.

If the source of money is going to be inheriting a living annuity from your parents or some other family member, then do not cash it out. Firstly, tax is paid on the lump sum coming out – but not if preserved – and secondly, you will probably spend the money in a way that will result in you no longer have the money as a whole. The annuity can be divided between the number of inheriting people/children, who will then each have their share continue in such an annuity investment. They can receive the 2.5% or 4% – or whatever percentage of income – and spend it how they want: on funding debt, on school fees, or payments for a new car, or partying on Saturday night… But again, the source of income is not lost. In this way, with these annuity investments, we can create generational wealth. They can be passed on. This is a massive benefit in the long run, but not initially recognized by someone who suddenly stands to inherit a couple of million Rand and just sees a new car or house or holiday round the world.

With a dread disease claim, another sound idea would be to keep the funds in such an income bearing investment and use the income (and at times even some capital if need be) for helping to pay for medical expenses. Here you are ring-fencing the funds to help along the same lines as to why you received them in the first place. For many of us reading this, you might well not need to use a claim payout in this category for paying for the medical reason you received it. This because our private medical aid probably paid for most, if not all, of the hospital bills and chronic meds. In my case, I paid for the GP, then the dermatologist, then the GP again, and then most of the lab fee. Medical aid paid for some of the lab fee. (Remember if your savings account paid for something, you are still paying). So I was out of pocket for a couple of doctor’s appointments, but I didn’t really need this money to cover any medical bills. [Hence on a side note, dread disease is not a vital benefit for folk with a good private medical aid and disability benefits.]

However, I am doing something slightly different with my R81,000 of early cancer cover claim. I am going to add it to my Allan Gray Retirement Annuity. But next week, for the 2026 tax year. I will be preserving the money as a whole; I will be helping myself get closer to the maximum tax contribution benefit for the ’26 tax year; the funds will be destined to give me income one day when I move them to a Marriott living annuity; they will be tax efficient; and another reason for me, I will be increasing my creditor protected wealth. [Money inside a retirement annuity or living annuity is creditor protected money.]

I would love to add this money to my dream of buying a 1960’s British sports car, like a Triumph Spitfire or an Austin Healey Frogeye. But it’s not sensible spending, because I am not in the category of people who don’t need a plan.

That was a lot of ramblings about what to do with funds you would not / should not / might not have had. Good for thinking about. I will dream of the British sportscar that I will probably never have.

This story began in May last year and ended this month. The conclusion was a R81,027 payment to me for a dread disease claim.

It all began with my annual medical check with my GP. He looked at a small ‘mark / spot / thingy’, on my back that I could feel. He said he thought it was nothing but let’s go visit the dermatologist and check. After waiting three months to get an appointment, the Doc said she (also) thought it was nothing but she wanted it out to check the histology… was the new word for me.

So back to my GP for him to practice with his scalpel and take a chunk out of my back. There went a piece of me in one of those small lab bottles with a green lid.

The results came back, and it was a basal cell carcinoma. Which in English I think means an early-stage cancerous tumour that could become skin cancer. But the tests showed that my GP had got it all out so that’s good and nothing more to do.

I only wondered a couple of months later if I could get a dread disease payout. I read my policy documents: my Liberty Life policy I could see wouldn’t pay anything: the terms were from stage 1 cancer upwards. My Hollard policy had a benefit called ‘early cancer cover’. But I submitted a claim to both companies anyway.

A claim takes effort. You need to get the claim forms for yourself to complete, as well as for your doctor to complete. I pre-populated the doc’s forms as much as possible and delivered them to her rooms. I paid the admin fee myself for her to complete them – because the companies take long to pay or might not pay and then it holds things up – and personally collected them afterwards.

The result was Hollard paid me a percentage of the benefit category for early cancer cover and liberty said no, as I thought. I wasn’t bad enough yet. Sometimes we should view an unsuccessful claim as a good thing…. It means you don’t have something you don’t want.

Next week I will write about what I suggest doing with money that you receive that you would never have had: this sort of money…. also inheritance… money like this.

This week, my point is about reminding you to do that good and full annual medical. You will avoid, prevent, or better manage to treat, so many things with better results. So I have learnt for myself.

And secondly, a claim takes effort, and you have to drive it.

I suppose I shouldn’t call these ‘Weekly Thoughts’ anymore but rather ‘Monthly Thoughts’…. Seeing as I haven’t been writing often enough.

We’re a month and a week into 2025. Nearly halfway to the Vernal Equinox. The days are getting shorter. This year will go faster than last year: it has one day less.

I could add thoughts around Trump’s dramatic and immediate stop to the US Aid program. How many people will stop getting help of one form or another, plus the number of people who suddenly lost their jobs because they work for some or other direct or funded Aid project.

I could add thoughts about the Chinese entering the AI game with DeepSeek and the resultant Magnificent Seven value loss / repricing. Depending on how one views this.

I could talk about the Sona of last night. I’ve often wondered about the title… ‘State Of The Nation’. If the title, why not talk to exactly what the title says.

But I’ll leave those topics.

Make it a year of getting your medicals done correctly. Reduce your sugar and processed food intake and walk up and down a hill every second day. I am seeing the consequences of the lack of these practises.

Take one day at a time. Make the decisions you make that day be the right ones. Tomorrow will take care of itself and yesterday you can do nothing about.

Take steps to reduce and eliminate the things that cause you stress. Get your life simpler. You will feel better for it.