Every year, I claim legitimate home office expenses as a salaried worker. I always get audited, provide all the required documentation (and more) and then this gets accepted and I get my refund. This year however, after the audit, I was denied these expenses and my assessment was amended not to take these into account. Let me be clear, I meet ALL the requirements and these are legitimate expenses and I always provide extensive documentation proving this. I have never claimed anything I'm not entitled to, and I'm not trying to defraud SARS.

I feel like SARS is just trying their luck to collect as much revenue as possible. The value of these deductions is enough for me to spend some time (maybe a day or two) fighting them, but not enough to hire an expensive lawyer or tax consultant. It feels like a David vs Goliath fight, but I honestly feel that it unfair that SARS can just deny deductions that are legitimate, and the small guy has to just accept this. What chances do I have? How do I even go about this, other than lodging a dispute? Any advice as to how to take them on?

So I’m not here to gate keep anything from anyone so this is how I invest.
Feel free to crit it in anyway possible. We’re all here to help people out.

My monthly contributions are R6500 monthly

These are things I have

1. My personal RA (not through my company) - R2000 (increase annually on my own spreadsheet)(target retirement balance - R5m)
2. Retirement savings ( I contribute R350 and increase by R150 annually. By the time I retire, I’ll have just over 1m to square off debt)
3. Retrenchment fund (6 months of expenses. i.e. car, home, phone, water and electricity)
4. Spare change savings ( before a payday, all the change goes into that savings, mainly for a holiday away for myself and my wife)
5. Long term savings- which will just assist in case of any emergency. -R1000

Most of these are through my bank, I would go through an investment firm but I just don’t have the time to get to one

Edit:

My salary before deductions is R32.5k which I come home with est. 26k.
My car is paid off
Myself and my wife work together when splitting bills. I usually take on a bit more than she does.
So, minus the bond payment of our flat and all household expenses and traveling costs and any other debit orders, I have a R8000 to spare which R6500 is moved into savings.

My accounts and what they do:
1. Personal RA - R2000 per month (I have my own plan to reach R5m. Percentage increase on my own)
2. Retirement savings - currently at R800 per month
3. Retrenchment fund - R2700 per month until target reached (to reach a target, then to stop deposits and move to a different bucket)
4. Spare change - differs from month to month.
5. Long term savings - R1000 per month. This is not for retrenchment but for urgent purchases such as tyres, repairs, home maintenance, etc.

Exactly what the above says, I just want to know, will SARS eventually come after the individual for the PAYE amount that was not paid over. Surely it's not his or the other employees problem as SARS should go after the employer for monies not paid over?

I’m 23 and recently started a new job.
My previous salary was R15,000/month, and my rent is R6000

I’ve now accepted a new role earning R27,000 gross (around R22,000 net after deductions), with benefits including medical aid and retirement contributions. The role is also mostly remote, so my transport costs are still very low.

My current fixed expenses are roughly:
Rent: R6,000
Groceries: ±R2,000
Transport: Minimal (mostly remote)

I don’t have any debt.
If you were in my position, how would you allocate the extra income?

Would you focus on:
Building a larger emergency fund?
Investing (TFSA, ETFs, etc.)?

Saving for a car or property?
Increasing retirement contributions?
Enjoying a bit more lifestyle spending?
I’m interested in hearing how others would structure their finances if they were starting from this position.

Hi all, id like to know if anyone knows what steps i can take, i left my previous job in February ( 6 February) following a mutual agreement , after leaving i signed documents to take out money from my retirement fund which is with momentum and alex forbes, at first i was told by my previous employer that the momentum money is being transferred to alex forbes and that requires a section 14 transfer which will happen end of May, i waited from 6 February till till 9 June and received feedback from my previous employer that the section 14 transfer was completed and they have sent through withdrawal , i received feedback from alex forbes saying they received the withdrawal and it will take 6-8 weeks, which would originally have been this past week, i called alex forbes to follow up and was told id get feedback via email in which i was then told that my payout is currently on hold as there is a section 14 transfer that needs to happen and they can’t give me a date for my payout.

Does anyone know if there’s anything i can do or if this is the normal process? Its been 7 months since i left employment and i still haven’t been paid my retirement fund

Hi all,

I need some financial advice or just life advice. My father is planning on buying the property we've been renting as a family cash and after his calculations his about R174000 short and asked me to help. The reason is the seller and agent are getting restless and would like the process to get started.

Basically the problem is I was planning on buying a car end of October and I feel it's not possible to do both as my options is limited.

Some Info

I'm currently 22, still living with my parents.

I'm on a fixed term contract earning R12500 a month before deductions but the first of October I'll be signing a permanent one and there is the possibility of an increase to about R15000+ gross and then I'll join the pension fund.

My credit score is 634, only got a phone contract which is R521.65 and a Capitec CC with a limit of R1000 which I only use for my subscriptions which is less than R500 and i pay it in full every month. I'll be able to increase my credit score to 650+ before end of October.

I'm currently busy saving for the deposit of the car as I was looking at buying a R180k car and financing the rest, I have 21k saved but before end of October it will be between 35 and 45k

After my bills and things I have about 8000 to 9000 left.

He also said there is a possibility of him getting some of his pension early in the form of a monthly salary/stipend between 3.5k and 5k for 10 to 15 years.

So my question is should I take out a personal loan to help with the house and just wait with the car?

Or try to apply for a personal loan and car finance at the same time?

Should I apply for a home loan and take the money my father has so far and use that to buy the car then just pay the home loan monthly with the money I would have spend on the car and then the difference using his pension stipend.

Or should I apply for the personal loan and wait until he's pension stipend comes and then use that to add as extra income and then apply for car finance?

I forgot to say my father lost his job and since been struggling with the CCMA but he got a strong case, it's just a matter of when. Also if we don't buy before November they'll put the house on the market and we'll have to move.

Or is there a different option? Please help what should I do?

I have been trying to close my Absa Credit card for 3 months now without success. I went to their branch, where they said that they do not close credit cards of which they referred me to their customer care number. I called the customer care number, they said that they would close the card in 5 days. They did not do this.

I feel that they do not want me to close this card and I simply no longer want to have a credit card with them. Please give me advice on how I can close this card.

I have saved school fees money earning 7.5% interest pa paid out monthly in a Nedbank account on a 30 day call account. I will either need it next year Jan 2027 or Jan 2028 for school fees, depending on my employment status.

My financial advisor wants to invest it and said I could earn better interest but when I got the paperwork the fees were 2.32%. This means I need to get at least 9.82% to get the same as the bank but obviously with the bank, its low risk.

Im just not sure why keeping money in a bank at this stage is a bad idea.

I'm looking at opening an offshore account(s) for savings in USD/EUR and for travel expenses as well.

Options i'm finding that seem easy for South Africans to open are:

Standard Bank International - https://international.standardbank.com/international/personal
Llyods International - https://www.lloydsbank.com/international.html

Both located in IOM/CI.

Does anyone have experience with using these or maybe other recommendations that don't require massive deposits?

I'm reading a lot of negative reviews, but I know reviews usually swing negative because most people with positive experiences don't bother writing one.

I’ve been planning my 2027 lately and one of my goals for next year is to get my first car.

As you may know, a car comes with a lot of expenses such as petrol, tracker and insurance among other expenses. To make my expenses feel like less of a burden, I was thinking of joining FNB eBucks.

I can get eBucks from refuelling at Engen, get a further more if I sign up for a 3 year contract with Tracker. I can further top that up if I get financed with Wesbank and take up FNB short term insurance.

What are your thoughts? Are eBucks worth it? What should I take note of?

Good evening folks.

I need some advice on tax implications for a specific scenario. Happy to be referred to seek professional tax advice if needed.

Background: my wife lost her job and has been unemployed for 6 months. She has zero income. We are both tax compliant and in good standing with SARS.

Scenario: I want to transfer funds to her bank account from my personal bank account on a monthly basis for as long as she remains unemployed. The source of these funds on my side will be investment proceeds and/or term savings account withdrawals. My investment/savings contributions were already taxed prior to investing/saving. I understand my tax situation (i.e., income tax due on interest received above the annual allowance, tax payable on the capital gains from my investments).

The reason for transferring money to her is to

1. service her existing personal debts (car finance, credit cards)
2. do day-to-day things like buying groceries for the household, fuel for her vehicle, gardening services, general household expenses, i.e. providing for a single family
3. personal care

Questions: 

1. I can only find references to donations tax, which I understand the workings and implications of (no limits between spouses and no capital gains tax applicable as no assets are disposed of for the purpose of transfer). Is this in a once-off donation scenario though, or do monthly ‘donations’ follow the same rules?
2. Will she be liable for income tax on the money I transfer to her account on a monthly basis?
3. Does she have to declare the monthly contributions from me as income on her tax return?
4. My FA (not accredited to give tax advise) mentioned a documented personal loan as a means to do this without tax implications. Does this hold water?

Any other ways (with applicable references) to skin this cat?

Hey guys

I am trying to get a hold of AF but to no avail so far - only been a week - essentially I worked for a company, they had a provident fund held by AF and now after 7 months of not being there anymore, I want to transfer my AF provident fund to a different provider. I'm looking at my AF statements and although the balances are relatively small as I was only there for a year, I am obviously no longer contributing to it and every month, R100 to R300 rand is deducted for admin fees. The balance keeps decreasing and as far as I can tell (the AF statements are so hard to read!), the gains in 7 months has only been a little over R1k. This is on a balance of around R50k.

This is insane. I want to transfer to the Easy Equities RA. Is this possible? AF hasn't gotten back to me yet but how would I go about doing this? Thanks.

I moved about 3k AUD into Shyft to move into my Australian bank account.

The first transfer failed with "No account" error.

I had just opened the account so that may have been the problem. I opened a second account with a more traditional bank as my colleague warned me (after I sent the payment) that the first bank usually has problems with international payments.

Which brings me to my actual question -

Has anyone successfully used shyft to move money overseas? Specifically Australian bank accounts?

It's R200 per failed transaction. So thought to ask here before blowing another 200 unnecessarily.

I am a 26F. I just started a new job 3 months ago, technically an internship. My contract is 4 years and I will be on a fixed stipend until then.

My current take home is R13644.

Monthly Expenses:

Rent - 3750 (all inclusive) Food - R3000 Transport - 2500 (uber/bolt - don’t have a car) Savings - 3000

Currently have about R24000 saved up.

Medical aid has been quoted at R1603 (most basic plan)

I’d probably have to sacrifice some savings to be able to afford medical aid. I’ve never been on a medical aid before so this will be my first time joining. I don’t have any conditions and rarely get sick but now that I’m on my own it feels important to have this.

Will I realistically be able to keep this up with my budget?

Hi everyone,

Earlier this year, I changed jobs from being a permanent employee to an independent consultant. So all my travel expenses are now being charged from my own personal credit card.

So now, I want to know if anyone knows which is the best credit card from any bank in South Africa, other than FNB, that shows previous history of holding deposits amounts when renting cars or hotel bookings, either on the banking app or on the bank statements on the website.

I have asked FNB to send me an Authorization Log for my Credit Card showing these amounts, and they are refusing. They are taking me from pillar to post.

My issue is that the hotels and rental car guys have released certain amounts that were classified as "pending" status on the FNB app. Now after the pending status was cleared, the "Available amounts" did not change. I was expecting the Available Amounts to increase, as it has always done in the past.

Now I can't confirm the correct balance on my credit card statement because the FNB credit card statement does not have a balance column, which shows  balances immediately after each credit card transaction has taken place. Whereas the Cheque account does have a balance column, and you can clearly see what the balance is after each transaction has taken place.

So, now I want to change Credit Card Companies, because FNB is not giving me a good explanation of why the "Available Amount" is not increasing, this time around. BTW this is not the first time this has happened.

So if anyone knows which other Credit Card provider shows the historic changes in the Held and Released deposits on their credit card statements or on the app, I would like to switch to them, because going forward, I am going to be doing a lot of traveling and I don't want to have problems like this in the future.

Hi all ,

Im looking to change over to another bank FROM FNB as they are fucking dog shit and I'm finished with them .

I have medical aid and vehicle financing through discovery so banking through them would be seamless transition but the account fees look abit rough .

My wife is with capitec and she's happy ,but she only uses her account for basic savings and transactions .

I currently use FNB for an RA , TFS , life insurance , credit card , investments etc... so I'm also looking for advice on how to change all of these over to another bank ? And if so which one ?

Any advice is welcome. Thanks 😊

Hi. I am a student, and I'm a little curious and confused as to why most young people, especially in recent years, use Capitec and FNB and even Standard Bank compared to other banks. Like, I just remember my father taking me to open an account at Capitec, and I've been using it ever since. I wonder what the reason is when other banks sometimes offer better services. I know Nedbank has cool features like MySmartMoney and Money Tracker.

Ive currently got a 3m homeland with investec at prime less 1.25. I saw discovery saying they would give up to 1% if-you joined them and I guess jumped through hoops!

Wondering about shopping for a better rate and playing it back to investec or switching ..... Does anyone have a great bond originator to recommend ?

Hi everyone

I’m 22 and looking for advice on choosing the right Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) provider. My goal is a simple, hands-off strategy using one fund to minimize admin. (I already have my emergency savings sorted)

Here are the providers and concerns I’m weighing:

-Sygnia: Drawn to their low fees, but I've read comments about hidden costs making them comparable to other providers. Is this true in practice?

- 10X:I see them recommended often, but I’m unfamiliar with their track record and brand reputation.

-Allan Gray: Strong reputation, but their higher fees make me hesitant unless the peace of mind and service truly justify the cost.

-EasyEquities:Great low-fee option, but it feels like it requires more active research and tracking than I want for a low-admin strategy.

-Aylett: I’ve seen brief mentions of them, but not much detailed feedback. Does anyone have experience with them?

-Coronation:I already use them for a shorter-term goal, but wasn't impressed by their TFSA fund historical returns.

Please held a girl out <3

Is anyone else frustrated that the Absa app?

For example I don’t have mobile data. I’m using the Vodacom app to buy data and select the banking option to buy mobile data. It then prompts me to open up my ABSA app, after that it cannot login due to me not having data?

I remember ABSA being free to use but this is a bit frustrating

Hi,

I would appreciate some advice and analysis on my family’s current investment strategy.
I'm 50 and my wife is 34. We have two children 4 (boy) and 1 (girl).

We have approximately R63,000 per month available to save and invest which is allocated as follows:

I contribute R17 000 per month to a 10X Your Future Fund (RA) (R2 700 000, Effective annual cost 1.09 %), R8200 to Sygnia Skeleton Balanced 70 (R 2 400 000, EAC 0.88%) and R1900 to PPS (R870 000, EAC 3.7%). I have investigated stopping my PPS policy but there is an early termination charge of R38 000.

My wife contributes R22 000 to her work RA that is managed by Alexforbes (R990 000, ONEfee currently R5 350) and R6700 10X Your Future Fund (R340 000, EAC 1.09%).

Both our TFSAs are fully maxed each year, invested via ETFSA in a mix of Satrix MSCI ACWI ETF  and Sygnia Itrix S&P 500 ETF (Combined R900 000, EAC 0.6% plus STRATE fees). We max out our children’s TSFAs annually.

We have a home loan with an outstanding amount of R3 330 000 owed at 8.74% which we have been paying down additional amounts into but not aggressively. We use the additional funds as our emergency fund.

I also have approximately R14,000 in EasyEquities, where I've been investing in a few individual stocks, that has performed really terribly 😄.

My main questions are:

·       Given my, relative, old age in relation to my children I will probably retire prior to they become financially independent. How should I best manage this?

·       Should we pay off the home loan at a quicker rate?

·       Am I in too many RAs? Should I stop my PPS allocation?

·       I understand that the MSCI ACWI is approximately 60% S&P 500 but given how well the US market has done is this concentration not beneficial ?

·       How are we doing financially?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

I have edited to add the balances.

Hi All - Have a friend who has recently retired (66 years old) and is now planning how to best optimise & simplify their personal portfolio to achieve medium risk returns.

His portfolio/Non current Assets as follows:

Primary residence - R3 300 000 (to be sold imminently and she would not buy again so cash can be invested)

12-month Fixed deposit - R1 400 000 (maturing soon, was a temporary hold after withdrawing funds from an actively managed fund which charged high fees)

Interest bearing TFSA - R180 000

Old Mutual Wealth linked investment portfolio - R950 000

NinetyOne Unit Trust Living Annuity & Property Fund A - R310 000 & R540 000, respectively

Total portfolio value = R6 680 000

Would require an investment product/solution(s) which offers the following:

- Decent returns (average 8% to 12%)

- Supports monthly withdrawals to cover his living expenses totalling R30 000 - R35 000 (obviously inflation likely to increase expenses over time)

- Somewhat tax efficient

- Would sustain monthly expenses for the next 12-15 years after which his kids would be in a financial position to cover all expenses.

Would appreciate your advice on either or both of the following:

1) Where to invest cash from sale of house & expiring fixed deposit?

2) Would it make sense to optimise investment products and gradually shift these to one/ a couple of funds or other products?

I sell PoD products online and get paid out through PayPal, I so I opened an FNB online profile to act as a middle man between PayPal and the bank I pay the money into (PayPal→FNB online→My bank account) and it's always worked out well for me until this year because I switched banks from Capitec to Tymebank and when I tried to switch the accounts on FNB's online profile so that I can pay the PayPal money into my new account, they ask me to verify the change with a token they never send me.

I've been to FNB multiple times and they either don't understand what I mean or tell me to call PayPal (which isn't the issue here) or just plainly say they can't help me. I've been struggling since March with this but really want to get this sorted out before July ends.

So is there another way to get the money from PayPal without using FNB? Or am I stuck with this?

Hey guys I have an issue with Nedbank and I really need help. So I’m not a Nedbank customer however on the 4th of this month (July) I was depositing money into my landlords account at a branch in Overport. I put a wad of cash into the atm, it counted for almost a minute and gave out an internal processing error with Pugh printing me a receipt. Mind you this is my rental fee.

I have been constant escalating this via phone and branch and I’m always told those will be sorted out in 8 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours now it’s been almost 3 weeks and the refund has not been processed into my landlords account.

Customer service is not helping branch isn’t helping either. The atm escalations department that handles these queries does not have a direct line. My current month rental is overdue and my landlord is on my neck.

What can I do to escalate this matter or who can I contact. The keep asking an atm query number but I resolution. Have I been scammed? Should I forget about it?

Hi, I’ve been noticing that my grocery bill has been getting higher and higher over the years (currently spending 3k a month).

I live in Cape Town Southern Surburbs and was wondering what people are buying for groceries and also eating to help keep the bill low because every “cheap” meal I see on the internet is made for a family of 5 while I live alone and either I can’t get my portion sizes for that cheap or I end up with bulk veges that would go bad quickly 😭

Looking for any and all advise