CAPITEC'S MONEYUP CHALLENGE EMPOWERS LIVES
We find out more about the MoneyUp Challenge created by Capitec to empower South Africans to take small actions to make big changes in their financial lives.
Capitec’s MoneyUp Challenge is an exciting new campaign created to educate and empower South Africans to improve their financial lives by adopting healthy and sustainable money habits.
The Insider SA caught up with Sarah Bassett, Financial Education Programme Lead at Capitec to find out more about the campaign. “The MoneyUp Challenge is designed to inspire and motivate people to take action in their financial lives. It’s based on the idea that the surest way to reach a big ambitious goal is to take one small step in the direction of your goals every single month.”
Anyone can join the MoneyUp Challenge – all you need to do is sign up on the Live Better Academy website, Capitec’s free online learning platform that teaches the fundamentals of money management, and then based on your goals you can choose to participate in the budgeting, debt management or savings challenge.
Communications Consultant, Kabelo Kgobisa-Ngcaba, and Financial Educator, Kristia van Heerden, weigh in on the difference financial education has made in their lives, and the value of a challenge like this.
“My financial journey started around the time when I was a Candidate Attorney. I was making about R12 000 a month living in the Cape Town City Centre, which was quite the expense but I was lucky to have my family supporting me,” shares Kabelo.
Around the same time, Kabelo met her future husband and this got her thinking more seriously about her life going forward, and what each of their respective financial situations looked like. “We worked through our agenda of paying up our debts, getting our savings up, getting life insurance, retirement, medical aid, and then once we sorted that stuff out, we started looking at things like saving for our wedding and honeymoon.”
Kabelo learnt the value of taking action, of keeping a spreadsheet for all her expenses and budgeting.
“The most important thing about taking care of your own financial future, for me, has been peace of mind… I can’t think of anything more tragic than going through your entire working life and having nothing to show for it. But in order to have something, you will have to plan for it,” ends Kabelo.
Financial Educator, Kristia van Heerden shares one of her earliest experiences with money management, which quickly spiralled out of control.
“When I just started working, I got a store card in the mail that said that I had R3 000 store credit. All I had to do to access it was go in store and activate the credit. Before I knew it, my debt was more than my monthly income and I was in about R100 000 worth of debt by the time I was 26/27 years old.”
From personal experience, Kristia can share this: “The process of repaying debt begins with finding money within your lifestyle. This only happens when you get to a point that you prioritise your financial safety over the things you had been spending money on to get into debt in the first place.”
“What I love about the Capitec MoneyUp Challenge is that in addition to really encouraging you to take action in your finances, which is really where the change happens, you also learn some basic concepts that will help you going forward. For example, you’ll learn how interest can work for you, but also against you. Then you realise that the habits that it takes to repay debt are the very same habits that enable you to save for your emergency fund, or to invest money for your future,” says Kristia.
As the saying goes ‘A penny saved is a penny earned’. When it comes to our finances, small changes can grow into new habits that help us achieve big goals.
Join the MoneyUp Challenge, which runs from April through to September 2021, and commit to one small, consistent action to start building your financial future. You can even stand to win R50 000! More information is available on livebetteracademy.com.
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