We use my long-awaited holiday to catch up to some user questions for the next three weeks. We hope you enjoy the shorter episodes as much as I plan on enjoying my break! Willem  I have an endowment in my portfolio which was a five year investment which started in July 2003 with the last ...

With Simon celebrating his birthday on the beach, this week’s episode is a tax bonanza. De Wet de Villiers, King of the Tax Elves and Great Guy finally shares with all of you what he shares with me for free every Monday. I love talking about tax, which is why this week’s episode is much ...

We spend a lot of time thinking about building an asset base and which assets we should be buying.  As you approach financial independence, getting rid of assets starts to present problems. Which assets should you get rid of first? How do you manage your capital gains liability? How many of your assets should you ...

I find it odd that so many people fear the stock market and then get lured into financial scams. Inspired by James, who is trying to keep his clan from being conned, we help you figure out when something is just not right.  Here are some tips to get you going: Find out if the ...

When you’ve got your debt and spending under control, it can be comforting to hold on to your free cash for a while. Taking the leap from that safe pile of money to the Big Bad Market is not easy. However, as we’ve discussed before, cash is not a risk-free investment. The longer you sit ...

Often the fear of making a mistake keeps us from starting our investment journey. It feels like everything is on the line when we make our first investment, but missteps can be corrected fairly easily. Even the mistake of waiting too long and starting too late can be corrected. This week we think through some ...

I’ve been avoiding talking about endowment policies, because what even are they? I haven’t come across one in my own investment life. This week, a question from Sandile sent me down the endowment road. I had fun with it. I got the Tax Elves involved. They had fun with it. Fun was had by all. ...

Most of us kick our 20-year-old selves for spending all our money making poor decisions in Melville instead of taking full advantage of compounding. The financial independence, retire early (FIRE) movement has given us valuable tools to reach our financial goals despite those late nights in Melville. I discussed that with FIRE-man Patrick McKay here. ...

There’s more guesswork involved in retirement planning than we’d like to admit. If you’ve ever gone through the retirement planning process with a financial advisor, you know what I mean. To calculate how much money you’ll need for retirement, you need to factor in the expected inflation rate as well as the expected growth rate ...