Busy reading a fascinating book at the moment about “the curious science of everyday lives”. It’s called Quirkology and quite a bit of it is about human behaviour and how much of our behaviour is irrational…take for example the curious fact that most people would choose to wear a jersey that had been dropped in dog poo (and was still covered in it) than a jersey that had been dry cleaned but which was once worn by a...

Dear Sir Part of the service offering of our financial planning business involves assisting people with their tax returns (we submit over 140 each year as well as 80 provisional tax returns). Tax is not really something that we enjoy doing nor is it a profitable aspect of our business. However, it is an essential part of the service offering as more and more people become intimidated by or disillusioned with their dealings with SARS. Do you...

Now this is a mine field…and as a father of young children it is starting to become topical. How do you teach your children about money? Do you pay them pocket money and if so, how much? If they get pocket money, what is it for? Or should they work for the money? Should they have their own bank accounts (and which bank)? At what age do you start? In the interests of doing the “right thing” I would love to know what other...

Got an email from friend this week which went something like this…”Just got a mail from Nedbank to say I have 300 000 odd ‘Greenbacks’, their loyalty programme. I can exchange them for until trust investments. Wanted to know your opinion?  I’ll have to put R5000 cash to open an account but can get around R11 000 or so more through the Greenbacks I got sitting in an account.” What a great idea…I...

I have long been an advocate of people doing their own financial planning. Far too many vested interests in the industry would have us believe that Financial Planning is too complex for individuals to do their own and that as a result they need the services of an advisor/financial planner. Bollocks I say. There is so much common sense involved that just about anyone with a brain and some time and effort could do their own financial planning...

About 2 weeks ago I responded to an online advert by OUTsurance for Life cover at significantly reduced premiums (because they were cutting out the advisor and therefore the commission). Within “minutes” I received the following email from them acknowledging my request for a quote: “Thank you for requesting an insurance quote from OUTsurance! We are committed to AWESOME service and will do our best to quote a premium that really suits...