Many of you come to us fresh as daisies. You start listening in anticipation of your first pay cheque. A clean slate means you can set your financial situation up in a way that makes sense to you at the outset.
Those of us who aren’t so lucky have to turn our financial patchwork into a structure of some integrity. This episode is about that. Inspired by 39-year-old Dunga, we help you figure out what might be missing from the financial setup you already have. We cover everything from debt as a risk to protecting your assets to how to analyse your ETF portfolio.
Amazingly, we don’t touch on fees. Since that’s most of what we talk about most of the time, why we miss it in this episode I can’t say. We do, however, cover the amount at which you should consider moving your retirement annuity to OUTvest, who is our preferred partner in all things retirement. (Because we’re cheap and they’re cheap.)
Cheers!
Dunga
My biggest fear isn’t the markets or that my portfolio isn’t balanced enough, but that I may be stuck in the habit of withdrawing my investments every 3-5 years.
The temptation is to withdraw my investments and use them for short-term needs. I've never had or received twenty, thirty or forty thousand rand. The longer my investment grows, the bigger my temptation becomes. What I feel I really need are ways to avoid this temptation because I think it will only become bigger as my investments grow.
He has disability cover, a hospital plan and he’s taking out critical illness cover in July. He has 8 ETFs and 1 ETN, an RA with iTransact which is made up of 8 different ETFs. He holds Satrix Indi, CSSP500 and 1nvest SP infotech in both.
He also has three long-term savings products with Old Mutual. One is to save for a house deposit, one is to save for his kids’ education and one is to save for a wedding.
My motivation for still buying Old Mutual is that it gives me the discipline to save because of the penalties for early withdrawals. The etfs are a welcome distraction so I end up forgetting about the old mutual products.
In August he wants to start a new portfolio with an additional 10 ETF products, which includes gold, palladium, rhodium, Africa and Global property, the Nasdaq 100 and world government bonds. If he implements this strategy, he will hold 27 different ETFs.
My reasoning for buying so many ETFs is first diversification and secondly to see for myself those which will perform better than others. in 3-5 years I may weed those which I feel are not doing good.
Win of the week: Zola
I was listening to the latest podcast episode and I was shocked to hear Javid wanting to invest in defence stocks, because of the war that could have taken place between the US and Iran. I know that by listening to this podcast we are all capitalists trying to make money but goodness, surely, we shouldn’t be trying to make money off people being bombed.
Which brings me to my question: how does one try to invest in ETFs that are in line with one’s beliefs? Is there a way of finding a collection of stocks for example that invest in renewables or even companies owned by women? Something like Shariah-compliant funds?
Gregg
So I have an RA with 10x. Recently Outvest have released an interesting product in the RA space.
Can you possibly do the number crunching for me, by virtue of an example, and tell me at what minimum value should my RA with 10x be before I switch it over to Outvest?
What I’m implying is that up until a certain value, my RA will do better with 10x. But then when it surpasses that value, it will do better with OUTvest.
Rudolph
I bought a property last week. I’ll have to put down a big deposit within the next 2 months. In order to pay my deposit I will have to sell my ETFs and unit trusts. Because of the Market crash I lost a big chunk of my Investment that is needed for my deposit.
Would you recommend I sell my investments ASAP because markets might get worse or do I wait it out for another month and a half with the hopes that the market might kick back?
Robert
My sister has fallen on hard times. She attempted to emigrate but things didn't work out. She quit her job and rented out her two properties, which still have substantial debt outstanding.
Because of the long period of unemployment with costs in foreign currency her emergency fund has run out. She now has a shortfall every month. Her rental income doesn’t cover all the costs of owning the properties. She has no other savings or retirement funds to draw from and is unemployed.
I suggested that she sell at least one of her properties and reduce her debt exposure, but she is adamant that with no pension plan, owning these properties is her retirement plan. We don’t think she will be able to clear all her debt with the sale, however, the outstanding amount will be much smaller (and less scary).
She says that her unemployment situation is temporary and when she does get a job she will easily be able to cover off the shortfall. She has been job hunting for a year unsuccessfully. In the meantime she is living cost free with friends and family. She plays cat and mouse with the banks every month and is currently negotiating to either pause her installments for some time or get the period extended so she pays less every month.
My question is, therefore, is it better to live cash positive today with zero debt (sell the properties) or is it better to go through the pain today with huge debt, in the hope that one day in the future everything will work out? I’m so passionate about getting out of debt myself, but I do wonder if my sister’s short term pain view has any merit at all.