Get cheap personal loans with Justmoney
Beware the debt hangover
Ho Ho Ho, 'tis the season to be jolly, or as many will find out in the New Year jolly silly feeling.
With more of the anxiety and paranoia normally attributed to a hangover.
This kind of hangover is not one that goes away with a couple of pain pills and two litres of water the morning after.
This is a debt hangover and it can linger around you for the whole year.
Justmoney doesn't normally like to get all negative but it is all too easy to just forget about tomorrow today and decide to have fun and splurge anyway.
Then come New Year you wonder where all your money has gone. Justmoney has a handy budget planner that will help you keep track of your cash, don't forget that January is a long month as most people are paid early in December.
Your money will run out sooner than normal, so maybe it's best to budget over two months, so you don't forget those school fees or new uniforms in January.
IOL reported today on this. Household debt is falling as a percentage of disposable income, but debt repayment is still 75% of our disposable income. This is a very scary figure and if you were a business leveraged at those levels, you would need a really strong cash flow to have any sort of confidence.
Last year in January and February there were nearly 150 000 civil judgements for debt, which came to over R 950 000 000. That was during the 'good times' when although interest rates were high, the pressures being faced were nowhere near as onerous as they are now.
IOL carried a further story about this from the retailers' perspective. In Pretoria (unlike Durbs, see yesterdays JM News) consumers are not spending as freely as usual and that shoplifting has been on the rise.
There has apparently been a last minute rush taking place. According to market research firm Experian 'This strong performance follows seven weeks of negative performance, so this final rally by consumers will be welcome relief for most retailers, but not sufficient to save the season for some'.
The article interviewed a few shoppers and on the whole they were buying less, particularly those with children who had to budget further at the expense of their own treats to ensure their kids got a present or two.
The article also asked bus and taxi operators what their volumes were like and they noted that they were down this year as less people were travelling this season.
Although it's not all trials and tribulations, as reported by iAfrica, the petrol price may be slashed early next year by a further R 1.40 based on the daily under/over recovery rates.
Now that would be a lovely little post season present.
But in the meantime check out Justmoney's list of savings accounts and check which is the cheapest credit card on the market. Justmoney News will be off until Monday the 29th, so until then...Remember its Justmoney.