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Stuff from Johannesburg

How to use your bonus responsibly

01 December 2022: Receiving a bonus is an exciting event and a time for celebration to recognise the hard work you put in throughout the year. Bonuses also provide us with an opportunity to achieve our financial goals. When we think about spending the money, we need to do so responsibly.

The 80/20 principle is a good one to adopt. This is where you use 80% of the bonus money towards achieving financial goals, such as reducing debt or saving and investing. Then the remaining 20% as a reward to yourself for those nice to have items.

Here are some practical tips on how to spend your bonus responsibly:

  • Reduce debt – make additional payments towards debt and try to reduce higher interest-bearing debt first. Reducing debt helps you to save in the long run, by freeing up cash that you normally use towards debt repayments.
  • Saving for emergencies – put some of this money towards emergency savings or add to your emergency savings. You should aim to save the equivalent of 3 months of your expenses in emergency savings.
  • Invest for the future – speak to a financial advisor about investing for the future. Higher interest rates mean the cost of borrowing is higher. However, it also means you will earn more interest on saving and investments.

Interest earned on positive balances means you have the opportunity to earn additional income in the form of regular interest income. If you haven’t already started on the investment journey, it’s a good time to start. Speak to an advisor or your bank, do your research and empower yourself with information and knowledge about investing. Learn about the different types of investment vehicles and look to match your investment goal with an appropriate product.

We strongly advice consumers to consult financial institutions or financial advisors on how they can better manage their money. Banks also have services and educational content on how consumers can better manage their money. Contact your bank to see if they are able to assist.

By Dhashni Naidoo, FNB Consumer Education Programme Manager

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Top Star Drive-In: Destroyed by What Created it

However, the very thing that created the Top Star eventually destroyed it. Because the early miners had used crude methods, the Ferreira Dump—and dozens of others like it—still contained significant traces of gold. As the price of gold rose and new chemical extraction technologies (like the carbon-in-pulp process) made it profitable to “mine the waste,” the ground beneath the Top Star became more valuable than the cinema itself. In 2006, despite fierce opposition from heritage groups who argued that the dump and the drive-in were culturally significant landmarks, the projectors were turned off for the last time.

The reclamation of the dump was a staggering industrial feat. Starting in 2008, mining giant DRDGold used high-pressure water cannons to “monitor” the dump, turning 5 million tons of solid earth back into a liquid slurry. This slurry was then piped 40 kilometers across the province to a processing plant in Brakpan. By 2011, the “mountain” had completely vanished. The 50-meter-high plateau that had dominated the southern skyline for a century was reduced to a flat, dusty crater.

The disappearance of the Top Star is a poignant symbol of Johannesburg’s “extractive” nature. It is a city that consumes itself to stay alive; even its historical landmarks are subject to the fluctuating price of minerals on the London and New York stock exchanges. Today, if you drive along the M2, there is an empty space in the sky where the Top Star used to be. While the reclamation removed a source of toxic dust and “acid mine drainage,” it also erased a piece of the city’s collective memory. The land where the gold-flecked mountain once stood is now being rehabilitated for light industrial use, proving that in eGoli, even the horizon is for sale if there’s enough gold hidden inside it.