Investment strategies and advice
Investing does not need a large lump sum. These guides explain how to start with a small monthly amount, how exchange traded funds and REITs work, how offshore investing works from South Africa, and where tax-free savings accounts and retirement annuities fit in.
Everything here is general information, written to help you ask better questions. It is not personal financial advice. For advice that fits your situation, speak to an authorised financial adviser, and check the current rules and limits on the SARS website, because they change.
Fund fees are quoted in fractions of a percent, which makes them sound trivial. Over twenty years they are not. Here is how to read the TER, the transaction cost and the effective annual cost, and what the gap is worth.
A TFSA taxes you before you invest and an RA taxes you after. Here is how to decide which one gets your next rand, with 2026/27 limits and worked numbers.
You can own a slice of shopping centres and warehouses without a bond, a tenant or a burst geyser. The catch is a tax rule most people only discover at filing time, and a TFSA rule that trips up REIT shares.
Offshore investing sounds like something that needs a private banker. For most people it needs neither paperwork nor a foreign bank account. Here is how the 2026 allowances and the tax rules actually work.
Exchange-traded funds are the simplest way for most South Africans to own shares without picking companies. Here is what they really cost, where to hold them, and how to start.
Retirement annuities, pension funds and provident funds share one tax deduction but differ on access. Two years of two-pot data show what that means in practice.
You do not need a lump sum to start investing. Here is a realistic way to put R500 a month to work in South Africa, and what to track once you do.