The holidays are here and it’s time to celebrate the festive season with family and friends. At Libertine Consultants, we are all for that Christmas spirit, but we’ve also had to assist many overindebted consumers who spent too liberally over the Big Days, and later found that they had trouble making ends meet for the rest of the year.

Silly season is upon us and the holidays are so close we can almost taste them! Are you ready to kick back and relax with the rest of South Africa? At Libertine Consultants, we realise that after a long year of hard work, a period of rest and recuperation is just what the doctor ordered. However, we’ve also seen how unexpected vacation expenses can put a lot of strain on our clients’ budget come January.

At Libertine Consultants, we understand that debt review is not an easy process. Even though our clients realise that they need to make big changes in order to get their finances under control, it can still be tough to tighten a belt that was already pretty snug to begin with. As such, we often hear the question ‘Can I cancel by debt review?’.

Today we’ll take a look at how a recent South Gauteng High Court ruling has impacted on the laws that were already in place pursuant to the South African National Credit Act. We have found out more information about voluntary withdrawal from debt review

At Libertine Consultants, we spend a lot of time helping clients to get to grips with their day-to-day budgets and find a sustainable spending model that allows them to live within their means. As such, we are extremely opposed to the notion of needless ‘retail therapy’, AKA shopping for no particular reason.

However, when it comes to retail events like Black Friday (an annual occasion that falls on the last Friday of November each year, when stores offer consumers a variety of discounts), there are ways to make it work for you if you play it safe. Here are a few top tips to help you shop like a pro at the 2019 Black Friday sales:

At Libertine Consultants, we spend a lot of time helping clients to revise their household budgets to make their financial lives easier. This is why we know that one of the first things that normally fall by the wayside when our clients struggle to keep up with their bills is self-care. However, this is actually one of the most important things you should be focussing on when you are going through periods of immense personal strain.

Fortunately, there are simple, cost-effective ways to safeguard your health that does not have to include expensive supplements, gym contracts or trips to the doctor. Here are a few things you can do at home to take care of your health without breaking the bank:

Growing up, we all got report cards to take home to show our parents how well we were progressing with our schoolwork. As working professionals, annual performance assessments play pretty much the same role – it tells you how well you are performing your role at a company, and where you can improve. Did you know that as a South African consumer you have another report card that tells potential creditors how well you manage your finances?

It’s called a credit report. These reports are compiled by the credit bureaux that operate in South Africa and serves as a record of your previous credit management behaviour. Here are a few things you should be doing to ensure that your credit record is as clean as possible:

The fourth article on our consumer rights series is ready for your perusal! Our first article dealt with your right to apply for credit, and your right not to be discriminated against when applying for credit. This was followed by a second article that took a look at your rights to be given reasons for credit being declined, as well as the provision of documents in an official language that you understand.

Our third and most recent article unpacked your right to be given documents related to the credit transaction, and the fact that these documents have to be presented in plain and understandable language. Today we’ll take a look at two more rights you have as a consumer in South Africa, in accordance with the National Credit Act – namely, the right to confidential treatment and the right to access and challenge information held by a credit bureau.

Do you get nervous when you hear the terms 'credit score check', 'credit bureau clearance', or 'blacklisted'? Does your debt seem like an insurmountable hurdle that keeps you from reaching your potential in life? If so, you may have been the victim of reckless lending. Today we take a look at this unscrupulous business practice and what it means for the South African consumer.

At Libertine Consultants, we spend a lot of time helping clients to revise their household budgets to make their financial lives easier. This is why we know that shopping for healthy food can be a challenge when you’re trying to cut down on your expenses. However, it doesn’t make any sense to let your health deteriorate due to an improper diet – that will only lead to expensive doctor’s bills later down the line.

So, what is a budget-savvy South African to do if they want to eat healthy, but also want to keep their grocery budget in check? Here are a few top tips:

Hello, and welcome to the third part of our blog series discussing your rights as consumer in South Africa in 2019! In our first article we took a look at your right to apply for credit, and your right not to be discriminated against when applying for credit. We followed that up with a second article that broke down your right to be given reasons for credit being declined and your right to be given documents in an official language that you understand.

Today we’ll take a look at two more rights you have as a consumer in South Africa, in accordance with the National Credit Act – namely, the right to be given documents in a plain and understandable language, and the right to be given documents related to the credit transaction:

According to recent statistics released by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) in its last quarterly bulletin, average South African household debt stood at 72.7% of disposable income. That means that many households in SA are using up to three-quarters of their income to pay off debt, leaving then with only 25% of their salaries to manage their other commitments.

This type of debt can be crippling; it can seem completely impossible to overcome it. However, there are steps you can take to improve your situation. These include:

President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a number of important bills at a recent sitting of the South African parliament on 13 August 2019. This includes the National Credit Amendment Bill Act No 7 of 2019, which is poised to have a positive impact on the lives of our nation’s most severely overindebted citizens.

Welcome back to our series discussing your rights as consumer in South Africa in 2019! Are you ready to find out more about the forward-thinking safeguards that exist in accordance with the National Credit Act? Let’s jump straight in. In our previous article we took at look at our right to apply for credit, and our right not to be discriminated against when applying for credit.

Today we’ll take a look at our second set of rights - the right to be given reasons for credit being declined, and the right to be given documents in an official language that you understand.

Nelson Mandela International Day is an annual international day declared in honour of Nelson Mandela by the United Nations in November 2009, and celebrated each year on 18 July, which was this great man’s birthday. Today, South Africans honour the 67 years Mandela spent in prison by devoting 67 minutes of their time on this day to make the world a better place.

As dedicated debt counsellors who take great pride in our efforts to help overindebted individuals to regain control of their finances, the Libertine Consultants team has had our fair share of disputes with South African banks who offset the accounts of our clients, leaving them unable to meet their monthly financial obligations. This highly contested practice has been a major issue in our industry since 2007, and has caused waves throughout the debt review industry for the past 12 years.

This is why we were so heartened to learn of the landmark ruling passed in the High Court of South Africa in June 2019 that deemed that the common law right to set off will no longer be applicable in respect of credit agreements which are subject to the National Credit Act. Here’s a breakdown of what this means.

Living in sunny South Africa can be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster sometimes – there are many things to be happy about, quite a bit to frown about and lots of challenges we have to face as a nation on a daily basis. However, when it comes to our National Credit Act, we have it very good. South Africa’s NCA is seen as one of the most progressive in the world, and has been tailored to look out for the consumer.

Father’s Day 2019 is right around the corner – have you decided on a gift for the special dad in your life? If you’re feeling a little cash-strapped and unsure about how to find a suitable gift that won’t leave you broke, we’ve got great news. At Libertine Consultants we always advocate for budget-friendly gifts – after all, no parent in the world would want their kids to go into debt to show their love and appreciation. To this end, we’ve rustled up a few gift ideas that are easy on the pocket.

In the 3-month period between December 2018 and February 2019, the number of default judgments for debt recorded had increased by 3.5%. Do you know what a default judgement is and how it affects your credit profile?

At Libertine Consultants, one of the services we offer is credit analysis, which offers our clients a report of their credit history so they may understand how potential creditors view them. One of the first things a loan institution will look at is whether you have a default judgement.

When Finance Minister Tito Mboweni delivered his budget speech in parliament on 20 February 2019, there was one group of South Africans who were listening avidly, and a second group who were busy sticking their heads in the sand as far as it would go. If you form part of the second group, we get it 100% - it can be very disheartening to get bad news every time you switch on the evening news. This is why soapies and cooking shows are so popular; it whisks us away from reality to enjoy a brief reprieve.

However, if you want to stay on top of your financial planning in South Africa in 2019, it pays to know what’s cooking in the national budget. Here are a few key take-outs from the Minister Mboweni’s speech in March to get you up to speed:

We recently published a summary of the most pressing changes that were addressed during the 2019 South African Budget Speech. While some of these shifts were positive, and others were less so, the fact remains that consumers have to be nimble in their response to the national budget allotment if they want to remain ahead of the curve and keep their spending in check. Here are a few simple ways in which finance pros are adjusting their spending after the 2019 Budget Speech (and you can too!):