Week four of the One Rand Man experiment was a colourful one. A break-up with his girlfriend (not related to his month of coins), a couple of unexpectedly big nights on the town and some long lunches – he is definitely not living a dull life. But the week ended with a slightly hungover and exhausted One Rand Man sadly contemplating his two remaining bank bags of coins. “I’ll be in real trouble if an emergency comes up before the end of the month, like a flat tyre or something.”
The One Rand Man has received plenty of support and encouragement from friends and experts. They really want him to learn and grow through the experience. One close friend commented: “You need to start thinking about a normal month, and how you can start making your money work for you.”
Expert Johan van der Merwe, CEO of Sanlam Investments, is full of respect – and wise words – for the One Rand Man’s brave participation in the experiment:
• “The One Rand Man deserves a pat on the back! It is very admirable that he has done it this way.”
• “Millennials are all about early gratification and maybe one needs to look at a little bit of delayed gratification. Not take away all the nice things in life, but maybe just compromise on a few things, and start saving – today.”
• “A while ago I did a little calculation. If you put R1 000 away per month and earn 1% interest on it per month, which is 12% a year; after five years, you will have R82 000, after 10 years, R232 000, after 20 years, you will have just short of R1 million. If you borrow money, and you have to pay back that compound interest, that is how much you will be in the red.”
• “He really is teaching everyone of us, including myself, a big lesson in life about what the value of money is.”
• “You can’t say at the end of the month, this is what I have left to save, let me put that away. You have to put your money away first, and then make sure that you spend only what is left.”
The One Rand Man is a social experiment by Sanlam where an ordinary South African lives entirely on R1 coins for the month of July. The aim is to discover how far removed we have grown from our hard earned cash. The project is linked to National Savings Month, an annual event on the South African calendar designed to highlight the importance of savings for the long-term financial health of the nation and its individuals.
The fifth and final episode of the One Rand Man will be posted on Sanlam's Youtube channel this Saturday, 2 August. Hopefully he will make some decisions about the way forward with his finances, having been exposed to lots of expert opinion about how to make his money work harder. Follow the One Rand Man’s story at here http://onerandman.sanlam.com, here https://twitter.com/onerandman, or here http://instagram.com/OneRandMan.
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