As for me using the ‘never loved us’ quotable, I’m merely trying to connect with the more vibey don’t care about financial articles readers, the ones who need it the most. I’m proving to be flexible right? I might just self proclaim myself as a yoga master; lets meditate.

So I’m at work right, a call comes in and guess who it is, the bank. Steve from a bank that I shall not name greets me by name, no better yet by surname. “Morning Mr. Maloma”. By this time you can imagine I’m feeling official…. “If you are the type of person who cares about your financial well being and would love to have some extra cash to spend on your Father this Father’s day we have a loan well tailored for your financial needs”. If I was of a different mind and had no education on financial literature you can imagine I would be sold thinking these people know me individually so far as tailoring their products to suite my financial needs. Truth is this is how they make their money and manage to get millions of poor South Africans into taking out massive amounts of credit that they can never afford to pay back and before you know it they taking your house, household items and your car.

Just a week ago I got a similar call from the bank about how good my credit standings are and that I qualified for an increase on my credit card limit. Once every week I get a message on my phone from a random Financial Services entity offering me hectic amounts of credit that I look at and go damn how reckless can this people be? If I were to take out a loan now that is over R100 000 that means a lifetime of being trapped in the rat race, barely trying to pay back the heavy interest that these loans come with.

The normal interest from a loan could be anything from over 10% to 30% depending on your credit rating, obviously these banks target the vulnerable people and especially the new players in the market, that is your Graduates or anyone with one to three years working experience. Why? Well if I as a Bank want to be sustainable I would want to attract the young players in the credit market place because that is guaranteed cash inflows from interest over a prolonged period of years. Also take into account that most of the people that they tempt with credit are people with no financial literacy, soon as they get their pay month end its balling one way and come the 10th of the month they are out of cash flow, now they turn to their credit cards, that is now 18% to 21% interest that locks you in.

Most youth don’t care, so long as they are able to get that GTI and show the world ‘how much money’ they have they are happy to hide away the dark side to that fancy car, flashy clothes and bottle wars they keep winning come from Friday to Sunday nights. I’m out there balling on a budget with my Castle lite draft and no honies while starring away at this chronic balleritis infection and I’m thinking what do these gents do? I need to be getting paid like them.

I once received in my mail a credit card from one of these insurance companies, this is a card that I never asked for nor inquired about; then you wonder why consumer unsecured credit is on the massive rise in SA. everyone has seen the high earnings from interest that most companies are moving into it, you can now get a Discovery Credit Card, Just the other month when I was travelling back to PE via British Airways, the pilot makes the normal announcements and right after that he goes on to introduce a new BA credit card that ‘is tailored to meet your individual financial needs’, I was like damn! Be it you on the ground or airborne the credit offers will find you, there is no hideaway.

The problem is that we as South Africans especially us blacks are very young at heart with regard to financial literacy, the definition of making it is understood differently in our own perceived reality. Get that car everyone likes, wear the finest clothes, drink the most expensive bottles and roll with beautiful dimes. Problem is all these is usually made believe and financed by hefty credit, and it’s usually just for show, just maybe people will think you the man and girls will come your way. The legend of Bhuti Madlisa.

Vusi Thembekwayo once said “We black people are the only race that measure our success by how many failures we see around us, our normative measure is how ahead am I from the people who are not doing so well!!”

What the above does is, it limits your potential, you there in the hood cruising with that fresh German exquisite delicately designed beast of a machine, on gear one and music blasting out with 3 of your boys. The danger of these is that it limits your potential, the environment and people you hang with have a profound effect on your success. Because all you see around are your old high school class mates who are hanging by the corner either smoking some weed or playing dice you assume you have made it. The ladder stretched further than you can ever imagine.

Always ask yourself as to how far you can take it; are you playing in the junior league? Why not go Pro? The environment that you limit yourself to just so you feel safe and superior always manages to drain all your super powers, you then end up having no input when Pinky asks you ‘what we doing today’.

What we need to do is empower each other, the one thing that these misguided bunch need is role models that will guide and show them the right path to follow. I’m not seeing that happening, our leadership encourages such stunts by doing the same thing that youngstars do.

Let’s take a look at the adventures of Sipho aka Cheese Boy and his finances. Here at Genius Level, we will be using Sipho’s financial standings to help others realise the trap they are locking themselves in by using up huge levels of debt and choosing not to save up for a rainy winter day.

Sipho is 27 and works for a Mining company, below find his income statement on a monthly with exception of car servicing fees. We can all harness something from Sipho’s bad spending habits.

This reflects a typical income and expense statement of a young professional with no financial literacy in SA who has just got a taste of the good life, by the time they realise the importance to save its all too late.

At the end of paying all his expenses, Sipho is R5K in the negative, and his lifestyle gets an upgrade with every pay cheque he earns; from here on its only gonna get worse and he will keep pilling it all to his credit card until he clocks up the limit. Will he cut down on his spending habits? Imagine how bad his P&L would look like if he stayed alone and had to pay rent, electricity, water and buy his own groceries.

There is no Genius Level at all here!! Imagine how his credit will be looking like after a year, will he catch a wake up call or will he continue to swim with the loan sharks? To be continued………….

Oh hi, I’m Kagiso and unlike Sipho I believe in sticking to your Financial Lane.

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