6 TYPES OF EXPENSES ONLY THE BLACK MAN WILL IDENTIFY WITH
Seizenina? translation what have we done? Well we the unlucky ones entrusted with the responsibility of building something from nothing… meaning using credit to create and build wealth. Wealth is generational, meaning it gets passed on from one generation to the next, in the case of us blacks, we need to first be creating wealth as currently we have non of it so as to eventually be able to pass it on to our children and their children’s children. Conditioning is a deadly virus, if your parents never had any form of financial literacy then chances are you too will eventually adopt their money mismanagement ways, then on and on such traits are passed on to the next generation and thus the black man is forever and will be forever broke and in debt…
We have certain type of expenses that are only identifiable mostly with us black people, lets call all these expenses Black Tax, there are different types of black taxes. These expenses further place a burden on us and viciously plunges us deeper into debt. With this it becomes mostly important being at the bottom of the food chain that we dramatically change our spending habits and start saving.
Different Kinds Of Black Taxes…
1 Black Education Tax
This relates to extremely high fees that are incurred while in University in the form of loans, most black parents cannot afford the high university fees. It takes about 3 to 5 years before a student can earn any income from the qualifications received, that’s if he eventually gets employment. So this means for the 3 to 5 year period the loans taken out are incurring interest on a compounded basis
2 Black Relative Tax
So you have managed to get through university and by the grace of the African Ancestors you finally get an Internship or land yourself into a Graduate Programme and finally finally stop depending on your parents and you start making your own money. But remember you still inexperienced and most corporate companies only just hire you because it helps up their BEE rating and also because they get incentives from the government if they have a Graduate Programme.
But now your parents are near broke and heavily in debt because they had to pay for your accommodation and all, or because generally most blacks are in debt so you are now the cash cow of the family, you have semi made it and are then naturally obliged to help out with certain expenses at home. The idea around it is we have spent so much money on you, now we expect for you to support us, kinda like how you invest money and later expect returns…
3 Black Rental Tax
So in my case you leave Limpopo and go work in Johannesburg or other big cities in South Africa, for most kids from say Limpopo, Eastern cape, Northern cape and North West who migrate to Jhb, Durban or CT for work, they have to find a place to stay meaning they will incur rental expenses on a monthly. Not all of us are that privileged to have parents who stay in this big cities or have a flat they bought in the 90s for us to go stay in while we try find our feet with this little graduate or internship salaries we get.
4 Black Car Tax
Now the thing is, you need to be at work on time and sometimes you godda be putting in some extra hours and leaving work late, we all know our transport system isn’t that reliable, so certain companies require you to have a car… But we black right, no generational wealth as yet, so there are no extra cars just lying around at home for you to take, your parents cannot afford to buy you a car… So you soldier on, approach Wesbank or Absa… You have no credit history, you are young black and are a high risk, so the bank approves the vehicle finance with a 17% interest rate… At this point you just might be the first in the family to buy a car so you just don’t quite have anyone to help you pick out the right car that’s economical, durable and will hold its value in the future.
That’s not the end of it, you recently got your licence so you a high risk, insurance costs are also gonna pile up. Like most of us who are like Sipho, we go for expensive cars so the insurance premiums are also gonna be just as high…
5 Black Self Inflicted Gratification Tax (Incurred by the likes of Sipho)
– You Got it BALL OUT!!
Ok this one isn’t really a necessary expense, a self inflicted burden really for instant gratification purposes, you wanna feel like you’ve made it so as to blend in with other kids, lifestyle inflation is what it is… This includes the Markham and Zara store credit that piles up because you wanna look good, this includes those overly expensive nights out at Kong and Sandton. This also includes the expensive cars that we buy that we cannot afford, the blesser tendencies most of us guys adopt and the expensive weaves we now see…
6 Black Marriage Tax
I’ve talked about this in my previous article titled Married In Community Of debt’ – Why The Black Man Will Forever be Broke
In the article I mention the strain the black man goes through having to pay Lobola, having to do both the Traditional wedding and White wedding.
Phew… What a time to be alive in south Africa. Just to conclude, we being a young nation at heart, we really need to evaluate our spending habits, what we do today will evidently hurt the generations to come, what we need to be doing is striving to build generational wealth and it really just starts with us being honest with ourselves. Most people think financial literacy or managing your money is the hardest and most complex thing ever.. No it isn’t, its just a simple rule of do not spend more than you earn, a simple trait and habit or responsible spending, we are in a race for power, true power is wealth, and wealth of a few blacks will not give us that power. As a South African it becomes your responsibility to correct the things you do not like about your country, just imagine the impact we as the youth would have if we shared the same vision of building for the future, a vision that will eliminate instant gratification in sacrificing for a better future. The main objective of this piece is to create much needed awareness of what our current spending habits are, what are the things that steal from the future generation so that we address them now lest they jump over into the next realm and eventually become a state of emergency.
By realising and having awareness of what our current state of affairs are, we will be able to see that being at the very bottom of the wealth chain, we need to start fostering a new way of thinking, start thinking like a wolf pack as we have the numbers on our side. Can we start thinking about starting our own banks? our own insurance companies?? I was having a chat with a friend the other day that all this insurance costs one incurs on a monthly all go to white monopoly capital, can’t we as a group of young financially literate professionals start our own self hosted insurance fund? Say there is 10 of us and we start saving a thousand each a month for car insurance money into a central investment account that earns compound interest, that will be R10k a month, R120K full year. then we do the same for medical insurance, R2K a month each, now that’s R240K a year excluding the compounded interest. Hell if we manage to recruit a 100 young black people into our Genius Level fund the numbers will be such that they would give our president a field day in trying to pronounce them. Lets do the numbers based on a 100 young RESPONSIBLE South Africans creating their own insurance fund. I feel this deserves a whole article on its own…
So do stay tuned to part 2…
On that note, we launching a property investment club/initiative next week on a website that will go live next week under www.propertystokvel.com so stay tuned and please sign up next week if you interested in being part of the stokvel. For updates on this, visit Mzanzi Humor FB page on Monday and Genius Level FB page or simply lookup the hashtag #propertystokvel for updates. Generational wealth!!
#motivationmonday
#propertystokvel
#moneymonday
#geniuslevel
Article by Kagiso Maloma
