{"id":136625,"date":"2016-09-14T21:25:56","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T19:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=136625"},"modified":"2016-09-14T21:25:56","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T19:25:56","slug":"what-south-africans-are-doing-to-make-their-money-stretch-further-every-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/136625\/what-south-africans-are-doing-to-make-their-money-stretch-further-every-month\/","title":{"rendered":"What South Africans are doing to make their money stretch further every month"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crushing debt is keeping South African consumers from saving\u00a0 money at the end of each month, and forcing them to get creative in order to stretch their salaries further.<\/p>\n

This is according to\u00a0the Old Mutual Savings and Investment Monitor which shows, in 2016, debt as a % of income spend is outpacing savings across most household types in South Africa, eating into savings, as consumers tighten their belts.<\/p>\n

While saving levels as a % of income spend is at similar levels to 2015 (at 15%), debt has increased by 4 percentage points to 16%, while household consumption has dropped by five percentage points to 63%.<\/p>\n

In just five years, the cost of living has increased dramatically, while saving rates have declined, the report showed. According to the monitor, only 42% of South African have banked cash savings.<\/p>\n

Worryingly, personal loans are on the rise across all income groups, with all types (from banks\/financiers, friends and relatives, and micro-lenders) at the highest point in years.<\/p>\n

This is what South Africans are doing to stretch their budgets and save money each month:<\/p>\n

\"saving-money\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The group also listed the things South Africans were most willing to sacrifice to save money<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Head of Old Mutual Investment Group’s Economic Research Unit, Rian Le Roux said that the over-reaching message is clear: people need to save more.<\/p>\n

“It is already hard for many people to save – and it is going to get even harder. Investment returns will be lower in future; so, just as it becomes more difficult to save, it becomes necessary to do just that,” he said.<\/p>\n

According to Le Roux, people who can save, simply don’t save enough, and when they claim they cannot save, it’s more often the case that they just prefer not to.<\/p>\n

This attitude, he said, has potentially dire consequences for the future, as many experience a “painful” drop in living standards in retirement.<\/p>\n

More on consumer debt<\/h3>\n

One expense cash-strapped South Africans are overlooking<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is what stressed-out South Africans are willing to sacrifice to cut costs<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africans owe billions in debt that they simply can\u2019t pay \u2013 and worse is still to come<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Should I use my investments to settle debt?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crushing debt is keeping South African consumers from saving enough money at the end of each month, and forcing them to get creative to make salaries stretch further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":100928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-136625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136625"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136717,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136625\/revisions\/136717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}