Sanitise your hands and finances

There are interesting parallels between looking after physical health and developing habits to protect personal finances.

Aneesa Razack, CEO of FNB Share Trading, shared six personal hygiene habits for finances, on November 25.
Philisiwe Kobeli, FNB’s public relations consultant, said Covid-19 has provided valuable lessons for the future, as devastating as it has been to both the health and economic well-being of people across the world.

Aneesa said five personal hygiene habits to follow are:

1 -Take regular stock of your financial health.

“Covid-19 has highlighted that prevention is better than cure,” said Razack.

She recommended investing some time regularly to give your finances a thorough check-up and ensure that the goals you set, and habits you have developed, are still serving you well as your circumstances change.

2- Sanitise your spending.

“Thanks to Covid-19, most of us are more aware than ever of the need to regularly wash and sanitise our hands to prevent infection,” Razack pointed out.

“We now need to wash away any bad or impulsive spending habits that are impacting on the health of our money.”

She said spending sanitisation is important as we approach the festive season, where the allure of sales and special offers can easily cause us to forget about our financial hygiene and spend money we shouldn’t be, which inevitably leads to a financially challenging start to the New Year.

3- Mask your money from debt infection.

Masks are now largely accepted as an effective way of protecting ourselves, and others from infection.
Razack added it’s just as important to protect our finances from a form of infection that can also be devastating to our money – debt.

“While debt is not all bad, and it can be a useful way of accessing what you need, the importance of managing it well, and avoiding exposure to too much of it can’t be overstated,” she explained.

4 – Keep your distance from bad money decisions.

Health experts advise that the best way to prevent infection is to minimise exposure to the virus through social distancing or avoiding direct contact with people who have been exposed to the virus.

“The same rule applies to avoiding infection of your finances by bad money habits,” said Razack .

“The best way to keep your distance from those bad habits is by making sure you have a detailed budget in place and that you stick to it as much as possible.”

5 – Avoid fiddling with your investments.

Experts remind us to avoid constantly touching our eyes, mouth and nose, as one of the precautionary measures against infections.

According to Razack, the same advice applies to any investment portfolio, and we need to avoid the temptation to tinker with our asset allocations and our investment plans every time the markets change.

“The best way to do that is to avoid allowing yourself to be influenced by short-term market movements and keep your eyes firmly on your long-term investment goals,” she said.

“In the end, the keys to enjoying healthy money aren’t that different to those we use to ensure a healthy body and just by building a few basic hygiene habits into the way you manage and protect your money, you can ensure a healthy, happy and resilient financial future for yourself and your loved ones,” said Razack.

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