money-meetups Savvy moves to protect and grow your money

If you're a graduate professional, you've probably worked really hard to get where you are today. You've spent years getting those degrees behind your name, and put a lot of effort into building your career or setting up your business.

Now that things are taking off nicely, you may start to wonder how to smartly deal with the money you are making? Luckily for you, because you're clearly a self-motivated and disciplined type of person, there are solutions out there designed specifically for graduate professionals. All you have to do is make the right moves now to ensure that you do not just earn money, but also protect and grow your money.

Move 1: Give yourself the certainty of income

If you're young and healthy – and used to putting in crazy hours at work – it can be hard to imagine ever not being able to do that. Unfortunately, life can happen when you least expect it. And all those school fees, cellphone bills and gym memberships don't pay for themselves! If you run a business, the show must somehow go on without you. As an employee, once your sick days and annual leave run out, how will you survive on unpaid leave.

Sanlam's Income Protector offers a steady, tax-free monthly income to maintain your lifestyle when you're unable to work because of an illness or injury. It's a product that gives you great flexibility and choice on how you want to structure your safety net according to your unique needs and circumstances.

Sanlam's Sickness Benefit for Professionals will pay out tax free if you are booked off sick for a minimum of seven days, 14 days, or one month, depending on the type of cover you choose. If you are a business owner, this will help you employ someone to run your business in your absence, and as an employee it will supplement your income when your sick days and annual leave run out.

Should your spouse or child fall seriously ill, a pay-out from the Sanlam Spouse or Child Protector benefits can also help you take time off work to care for them.

Move 2: Boost your retirement savings with a tax-friendly RA

The second smart move? Don't delay saving towards a comfortable retirement. After all, you've worked really hard for the lifestyle you've become accustomed to, so you deserve to kick back and enjoy it when you retire. What's more, you'd want to do this as tax efficiently as possible – in other words with a retirement annuity.

A retirement annuity has been designed to offer you an annual tax deduction of up to 27.5% of your gross remuneration or taxable income (whichever is higher), up to an annual limit of R350 000. That tax break you are getting, compounded over many, many years, adds up to a massive saving.

To boost your savings even more, the Sanlam Cumulus Echo Retirement Plan will give you an Echo Bonus – an additional amount of money that will be added to your retirement savings when you retire. The longer you invest and the higher your payments, the bigger your Echo Bonus will be.

And when you get to retirement age, you can take up to one-third of your retirement savings in cash for whatever you have on your bucket list – while the rest of your savings pay you monthly income or pension. All you need to do is start putting away R350 or more per month, and keep saving for the retirement you will deserve after years of hard work.