Personal finance is the entire financial world that makes your financial life. Each individual has their own set of needs, wants, desires and goals; hence the personal in personal finance. While we may understand what the word means, many of us find personal finance to be confusing.

Here are five Personal Finance tips that are easy to implement and can hopefully make your financial life a little easier.

5 Personal Finance Tips

Set a Budget And Stick to It!

Setting a budget and sticking to it is a crucial part of your financial life. Knowing where your money is coming from, where your money is going and what bills you have to pay; is a crucial part of managing your finances. Use your bank statements along with a budget diary to record your money movement. Read more on budgeting in our Budgeting Article. 

Consolidate Your Debt into Your Home Mortgage

Debt can be overwhelming, especially when you have multiple accounts to pay to numerous creditors. It can seem like an impossible task to pay off this high interest debt. Rather than feeling like you are caught in a debt trap, talk to our Bond Optimiser Team. Our team has helped many clients save up to R7000 a month in debt repayments by consolidating their debt into their home mortgage. Speak to our team to learn more or read about our debt help system.

Build an Emergency Fund to Cover Unforeseen Expenses

Life is unpredictable. Accidents happen, cars break down, unexpected and unforeseen expenses occur. In these situations, it is helpful to have an emergency fund of savings that is easily accessible to cover these unexpected expenses, rather than relying on debt or credit facilities. Start building up an emergency fund to give yourself peace of mind to handle life’s unpredictability.

Automate Your Finances to Remain Consistent

Setting up autopayments and auto transfers can help save you time. By setting up autopayments on your credit cards, loan accounts and mortgages, you can save the time you usually spend reading statements and making payments. Auto transfers are also a great way to consistently grow your savings by setting up an auto transfer to your savings account.

Negotiate Your Salary

We often speak about saving money, but what about earning more money? By working with your employer to upskill yourself, take on more responsibility and negotiate a higher salary, you can increase your earnings tremendously. The key is to ask your employer how you can become more valuable to the company and then to achieve those targets.

Personal finance does not have to be a confusing world. The best way to get better at managing your personal finances is to learn. This is what led us to create an inhouse financial literacy course called Edvance to help our clients achieve knowledge and freedom. This foundational financial course covers all the fundamentals to help our clients achieve their financial goals.

Times have been tough during recent years. A time of unprecedented job losses, health risks and financial toll. This has forced us to dig into our savings to stay afloat.

But now that things are slowly returning to normal, how do you build up these savings again? How do you save in 2021?

Saving after a crisis can seem hard. However, what we learned from the crisis is that having some savings kept aside can be very useful. When you have been without money and live on a tight budget, it can be hard to save money every month. What if we told you that there are ways that you could save money by changing the way you spend money. By doing this you can give yourself more money to put towards your savings goals and to cover unexpected expenses that may arise. 

5 Ways to Save Money Every Month

Saving money can be easy if you restructure and relook at the way you spend money. With a few simple habits, you may be able to cut your monthly spending down by a large amount, giving you more money to save every month.

These are not complicated hacks or tips but rather ways you can save money by shopping smarter and managing your money in a different way.

Save Money On Your Food Spend

We all tend to take the easy route when it comes to food. Prepacked, premade, fast and low effort food. Whether we are feeding 1 or 5, we all try to make it as fast and effortless as possible. However, this has been shown to be an ineffective way of doing things in terms of health and budget.

Rather than shopping daily and buying something that is quick and easy, switch to shopping weekly and doing meal prep. Preparing meals or your meal ingredients on the weekend can often help you to save time, money and eat healthier.

Rethink How You Commute

While the peace and quiet of your own car may seem like a bliss in the morning, it is also an expensive way of traveling. If this is how you commute, switching to walking, carpooling, or even public transport as your means of commuting may be a more efficient way for you to travel. It can also be more eco-friendly.

Buy in Bulk

Apart from food, you can adjust how you spend on your household goods. This can save you a lot of money by shopping a little smarter. Buying items in bulk such as soap, toilet paper, cleaning supplies and other usable items can help you to drastically reduce your monthly spend.

Buying in bulk does require careful planning to ensure you do not overspend. We recommend writing down your usage of these products and working out the right quantity to buy to save you money and shopping time!

Use Less Electricity

Even though we have been saving on electricity spend thanks to load shedding, trying to cut down on your electricity usage can be very beneficial to your budget. Electricity costs a fair bit of money, but there are easy ways to cut down your spend:

·        Use blankets – blankets are a great way of keeping warm on a cold winter’s night. They are also energy savers as they can help you to cut down on your use of heaters.

·        Replace with Energy Efficient Light Bulbs – we are not saying that you should replace all your lights with energy efficient ones. What we are saying is that as you replace lights and bulbs to opt for more efficient versions as a replacement.

·        Switch off – By switching off lights, appliances and plugs that you are not using, you can save a lot of electricity.

Consolidate Your Debt

Carrying lots of debt can be very expensive on your monthly budget. Interest can quickly add up, especially when you are paying off high interest debt. But what if there was a way in which you could consolidate your debt into one affordable monthly payment at a lower interest rate?

Our Bond Optimiser team has been working with our clients to save them money by consolidating their debt into their home mortgages. We have helped many clients to save more than R7000 a month!

While 2020 may have been a tough year for us all, we have all learned a lot. Now is the time to take these learnings and apply them to our everyday plans. Planning for the unexpected is a crucial part of this plan. This includes having sufficient savings.

While saving may seem hard while you try to make ends meet, there are ways you can save and cut back. You may be able to save money every month giving you more freedom in your budget.

Have you found yourself in the position where you cannot or are struggling to afford your monthly debt repayments? This is a tough situation to be in. However, this will not equip you to make better financial decisions in the future. 

Education is said by many to be a catalyst for change, this is why Bond Optimiser’s foundational financial literacy program, Edvance, has made way for change.

Does Debt Consolidation Provide You With Education?

Debt consolidation is aimed at taking your debts and combining them to make one affordable repayment. While some consolidation loans carry a high interest rate, our Bond Optimiser system is designed to help use the lower interest rates given to home mortgages. Another key difference compared to other systems, is we provide you with both debt consolidation and in-house education. Our clients come out with a more affordable payment plan, a better credit record and are more financially savvy. 

Some highlights about the Bond Optimiser System:

• Our team will negotiate with your creditors to reduce your monthly payments
• We will put you through our in house financial literacy program, Edvance
• Our team will work with you to repair and improve your credit profile
• Over a 12 month period our team will help you to consolidate your debt into your home mortgage, improve your credit score and then we will switch you over to a traditional mortgage provider.

What is Edvance?

Studies have shown that the route of many financial and debt problems, start with a lack of financial literacy. Bond Optimiser's Edvance program is here to change that!

Edvance is a foundational financial literacy program that can help you to save money and manage your money better. Our financial literacy curriculum forms part of the Bond Optimiser Program. The program aims at assisting our clients to better manage their debt and finances better. Results have shown much lower rates of unsecured debt and  improved credit scores, leaving our customers financially savvy to make the right choices to achieve financial freedom.

Our Bond Optimiser team is ready to assist you in getting out of high interest debt, out of debt review, and to educate you on how to live a smarter financial life.

Contact our team today!

Times can be tough. Be Covid related or not, surviving financially can lead to us taking out high interest, unsecured debt in order to fund our lifestyles. While at first this may seem harmless, it can quickly develop into a mountain of debt that can seem impossible to get out from under. But what then? What do you do if you can’t pay it back?

One method many lenders use is to put you under debt review. But what is debt review? Is debt review the only option?

What is Debt Review?

Debt review is a formal procedure to help those who cannot afford to pay off their debt. It involves dealing with debt counsellors who will access your debt and deem you to be overly indebted. They will then work with you and your creditors to arrange a structured payment plan.

While in this process, you will be heavily restricted on financial activity. For example, you will not be able to take out more loans, Credit Cards, Cell Phone Contracts, Internet Contracts, etc. This is due to the fact that the bank and service will view you as having too much debt.

This level of restriction can limit your potential of reaching financial freedom. Many people under debt counselling and debt review have also complained about being treated like a number and not like a person. This leaves many people feeling stranded and wondering how they will ever get out of debt review.

How to get out of Debt Review?

The only way to get out of debt review is to pay off your debt and show yourself as being able to pay off what you owe. However, this can seem impossible when you are barely making ends meet as it is. But what if there was a better alternative?

Our Bond Optimiser product has been specially designed to cater for people in your situation. Our team is ready to assist you in getting out of debt review and clearing any of the judgments against your name. We work to get you out of high interest debt and into a more affordable monthly repayment. Our surveys and studies have shown that our average customer saves R7 000 a month by using our service! We can help you in the following ways:

• Getting out of High Interest Debt and switching to a more affordable option by using your mortgage backed facility.
• Clearing Judgements against your name
• Getting you out of Debt Review
• Get cash for important life events such as your child’s university, weddings, and unpredicted circumstances etc.
• Settle your accounts in arrears.
• Increase your monthly cash flow.
• Become more financially savvy and financially independent.
• Give you the personalised financial treatment you have been looking for.

Bond Optimiser allows you to get back on your feet and live your life again. By using the positive value in your mortgage, our team can work with you to use that value to consolidate your debt into your mortgage. This can lead to lower interest rates and a much more affordable monthly payment.

What are the requirements for Bond Optimiser?

We try to work with everyone, however there are a few things that do make our jobs a bit easier. The best way to find out if Bond Optimiser would work for you is to speak to one of our attentive consultants. They are ready to assist you.

Some of the things that make the process easier:

• You need to be permanently employed – being permanently employed and being able to show a stable income makes it easier for our team to negotiate with our creditors. Without being permanently employed, it is hard to prove your ability to pay off your debt.
• You need to own a property – using your mortgage to reduce your debt and debt payments therefore giving you a lower interest rate on all your consolidated debt.
• Positive value in your home – the positive value allows our team to work with you to use this value to settle your debt. If you are uncertain if you have value, contact our team and they will be able to lead you through the process of checking and finding out.

Debt Review can sometimes feel like more of a mountain than being indebted. The lack of personal service and restrictive environment can make it difficult for you to thrive. However, this does not need to be the case thanks to Bond Optimiser’s Debt Repair program.

Our team is ready to assist you by using your home mortgage to consolidate and reduce your debt. Partner this with Edvance, our in-house  foundational literacy program and you will come out of the program with less debt and a better financial literacy.

Contact Us Today!

Debt can become a trap that can seem to be impossible to get out of. It can seem like a hole that is too deep to climb out of. It can also seem like many of the debt help systems are not really there to help you. But what if there was an alternative? What if there was a way to consolidate your debt into an affordable repayment with a reasonable interest rate?

This may seem too good to be true, but for many South Africans who meet the criteria, they can take advantage of our debt help system. Our Bond Optimiser system has been designed to enable South African families to have financial stability. Less stress, less worry, more time planning and growing.

How is Bond Optimiser Different?

The debt help system often experienced is to put people under debt review and restrict their future chances of financial freedom. These customers are now restricted, often left with bad credit scores, and will struggle to get back on their feet.  These customers also are often sold high-interest consolidation loans to help them, but in actual fact it makes their monthly budgets even tighter.

Instead of high interest debt, putting you under debt review and restricting your future; Bond Optimiser helps you to make affordable repayments and puts you through an education course that will help you to manage your money better in the future. Bond Optimiser has been shown to have improved our clients credit scores by 20% on average.

Using our system, you can avoid cashing out those pensions you have worked so hard to build up. Work with our team to build longevity and stability in your financial life. We will help you build a strong payment history to ensure your credit score increases.

Our team at Bond Optimiser will also help you to reduce your monthly payments and get onto a better debt plan. Here are some of the steps that you will be assisted with:

Create A Budget

Working out what you earn, what you owe and what you need to spend to survive are very important. Putting these into a monthly budget can help you to manage your finances in a better way. It allows you to step back and see the big picture of what is happening with your money.

Creating a budget also allows you to see areas you could cut back or areas you may be wasting money. This can in turn help you save money every month giving you the power to use the money how you see fit. The Power is back in your hands!

Set Up A Debt Payment Plan

Now that you have drawn up your budget, you will be able to see what you can afford. You can look at your debt and work out the best way to tackle this.

By using your property, our team can work with you to restructure your debt into one affordable and sustainable monthly payment. Statistics have shown that our average customer can save up to R7000 per month.

Lowering Your Interest Rates

By using your bond value and considering your high interest debt into your bond, you can massively reduce your interest. This is a key feature of the Bond Optimiser system as this can help make your monthly debt repayments more affordable.

Lowering Your Debt-to-Income Ratio

Reducing your debt while remaining at the same level of income can help you to have a lower debt to income ratio. Lowering this ratio can help lift the weight and burden you feel allowing you to be free! All we want is for you to be and feel free.

Reduce Future Unsecured Debt

By going through the Bond Optimiser’s in-house financial literacy course, you will be able to learn how to manage your money better. This system will help you to switch out to a traditional mortgage lender after the program. After taking the course, we have found our customers to make better financial decisions and be more financially aware.

The result is less unsecured debt in the future.

While many people have had bad experiences with debt help systems, it does not mean that they are all bad. Bond Optimiser has been designed to help you, not restrict you. We want you to have a full and free life, not one that is burdened or restricted due to a bad credit profile. Our team will offer you the best service when you need it most.

Speak to a consultant today to see if Bond Optimiser can help you!