It is the job of a salesperson to convince you you can’t live without the thing they’re selling. This is as much true in personal finance as in consumer products. If engaging with your money scares you too much, your only hope is finding someone whose approach to your money happens to be legitimate, effective and affordable.

If you hope to manage your own money, collecting information on the best thing to do with your money is also tricky. If you ask someone with a vested interest in a product, they are going to try to convince you it’s the best product. If you ask someone who recently over-committed to a certain type of investment, they are going to try to convince themselves it’s the best decision by trying to convince you it’s the best decision.

This week’s episode of The Fat Wallet Show is very special for two reasons. First, we recorded it live at the JSE as part of our JSE Power Hour series. Secondly, One Lappers Njabulo Nsibande and De Wet de Villiers joined us as guests. Our hope for this episode is to illustrate that there are many ways to construct an investment portfolio and all of them can be right. De Wet doesn’t manage his own investment portfolio and he’s happy with that. Njabulo manages three investment portfolios and he’s happy with each one. What matters most is that you understand your portfolio, that you have a strategy and that you remember what it is. We’re all making it up as we go.

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Clean swearing bleeped out show is below.

Win of the week: Roxanne.

A year ago I was retrenched, sitting on my couch, wondering how I was going to get through the next month as I was living pay check to pay check.

My husband was earning a gross income of R18,000 a month and things were looking grim. We had medical bills, store accounts and a student loan. A truck had also hit the side of my car – we had reached rock bottom.

I started listening to your podcast all day, every day. My family started to think I had joined a cult!

I started putting a plan in place and started working on my FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE to not be at the mercy of any employer, bank or creditor again!

Since then I have done the following:

• Found a new job and career path
• Started an emergency fund
• Drew up a budget and started budgeting every single rand!
• I discovered EasyEquities thanks to your show and started investing
• I have paid off R40,000 in debt. I still have a student loan of R33,000 left which I am attacking – Balls to the wall on this one!
• I cut up my credit card and lived without it. I cut up all my store cards and have lived without those. I never thought the day would come for this.
• I have eaten a lot of peanut butter and 2 min noodles – thanks Shoprite!
• Used every student discount I can find. Shoprite is good with this

But where to from here!?

I would like to invest in a tax free account but don’t know where to start – if I choose the coreshares S&P 500 – how do I work out the fees I would be paying?

The naspers weighting in the Top 40 index makes me weary.

How much insurance is enough insurance?

Life cover, dread disease cover, home contents insurance, retrenchment cover, car insurance, gap cover, cellphone insurance, pet insurance – why are there so many products!!