Sam Beckbessinger’s Manage your Money like a F*cking Grown Up: The Best Money Advice You Never Got is a clear and engaging basic guide to managing your finances.

The book covers topics from compound interest and inflation to ‘Your brain on money’, negotiating a raise, and particularly local South African phenomena like ‘black tax’. The book includes exercises and ‘how-to’s’, doesn’t shy away from the psychology of money, and is empowering, humorous and helpful.

We never get an instruction manual about how money works. We never have to pass a test to get our Money License before we can take a new credit card for a drive. Most of what we learn about money comes from advertising or from other people who know as little as we do.

The book you wish you’d had at 25, but is never too late to read.

‘One of the most ridiculous and terrible things about personal finance in South Africa is that no one teaches us how it works,’ Beckbessinger says.

‘There’s no class at school you have to take, you come out of university or high school, you get your first job, and the first thing that happens is that people start throwing credit at you. We’re not prepared for these things.

‘No matter where you are in your life, whether you’re starting out or whether you already at the point where you’re in debt and you’ve got kids and responsibilities, I think being able to take a step back and spend some time understanding the basic principles of money is helpful to anyone.

‘It can be so hard when we’re just trying to scramble through, month to month, and just make it to payday, but unless we can take a step back and confront some of the bigger picture things about what’s happening and put together a plan, we’re never going to be able to get out of that month-to-month cycle.’

Watch Beckbessinger’s interview with Polity SA:

Categories Non-fiction South Africa

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