5 ways you can stretch your rands to survive the festive season

South African consumers have been facing tough times due to recent increases in fuel prices as well as rising interest rates and inflation.

These price hikes coupled with the spending that consumers will be doing during the festive period, including Black Friday and Christmas shopping, mean that South Africans need to practise their good money management to stretch their money.

Here are five ways that South African consumers can stretch their rand:

1. Budget

A budget is a plan to help you with your monthly or weekly spending. It will take into account your current and future income and expenses as well as create room for you to start saving.

With a budget, you can ensure that your spending is in check and that you have a good amount of savings.

If you are unsure about how start your own budget, there are online templates available.

Sebastian Alexanderson, founder and debt counsellor at National Debt Advisors, said: “When you budget, you know exactly where all your money goes, where you can make adjustments to save even small amounts, and also how to effectively save and leave enough money for unexpected expenses and emergencies.“

2. Tracking your spend

Tracking and monitoring your spending is an essential step in stretching your money.

Consumers can track their spending by reviewing their monthly transactions on their bank statement to see how they can cut down on unnecessary expenses.

Kutlwano Mogatusi, a WesBank communications specialist, said that tracking your spending does give you a realistic understanding of your income and expenses.

3. Financial literacy

According to Nomi Bodlani, head of strategic markets at Allan Gray, financial literacy is the understanding of concepts.

Bodlani said it is the foundation of being financially savvy and being able to make financially responsible decisions that will allow you to take control of your future.

If people want to get a better grasp of financial literacy or improve their understanding of financial terms, they can get financially educated with online courses that can teach them about working with money and investing.

People should check with their bank or a financial institution to see if they offer financial literacy courses.

4. Plan ahead

With rising costs of petrol, people should try to reduce their petrol consumption.

People can reduce their petrol consumption by doing the following things:

– leave for work early in the morning to avoid traffic congestion;

– plan their shopping trips so that they can get groceries from one store instead of making multiple trips to different shops;

– try to do all of their errands in one trip such as shopping and meeting for lunch with a friend.

5. Save

According Justin Asher, head of Marketing & Strategy at upnup, saving can seem like an impossible task to people who have never saved before.

You can start saving money by putting aside small amounts of money in a savings fund every month. As your financial situation improves you can increase your monthly contribution to the savings fund.

It is important that people keep the savings contribution aside before they take care of other expenses.