Are you wealthy or just pretending?

We’ve all seen them in the parking lot at school, malls and even at braais. They talk big, they name-drop and, importantly, bucks-drop. A flashy car, an expensive house and a wallet full of credit cards may suggest financial success, but none guarantees financial security.

Bestselling author Sam Beckbessinger said that South Africans have confused looking rich with actually being wealthy, often at the expense of savings, investments and personal freedom.

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In her book Manage Your Money Like a Fucking Grownup, she challenges conventional ideas about financial success, the pursuit of wealth and how much money is enough. She spoke to The Citizen about the difference between owning expensive things and having genuine financial independence.

Is financial freedom genuinely achievable for ordinary South Africans, or has it become another middle-class fantasy?

Financial freedom isn’t binary (it’s not that either you’re financially free or you’re not). Even a little bit of savings can make your life radically better. It might mean being able to take a day off when you’re sick so health problems don’t spiral. Or, it might mean being able to walk away from a job that’s destroying your sanity. It might mean moving out tonight from a home you can’t stand living in any more.

Money can’t solve every problem, but a financial buffer gives you space to make better decisions in the realms that matter most in your life. Money that buys you freedom is worth more than money that buys you stuff.

A lot of financial advice doesn’t acknowledge the real circumstances of ordinary South Africans at all. The scripts about how to get ahead financially generally come from America or other wealthy countries. We import the dream but not the economic conditions that make it possible.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that owning a house, driving a nice car and having a credit card are signs of success.

There’s a difference between being rich and being wealthy. The car and the bling tell people you’ve spent a lot of money, but they don’t tell other people anything about the state of your bank account.

Being wealthy, on the other hand, is about having savings, investments, choices, security, and more control over your time. It’s the stuff that’s invisible but can utterly change the trajectory of your life and your children’s.

The book title says it all. Picture: Hein Kaiser With inflation, debt and the rising cost of living, is telling people to save money still realistic when many are struggling just to survive?

Everyone’s circumstances are different. If you’re in a debt spiral, just restructuring your debt payments so you’re not spending more than you earn every month might be your first big goal. For other people, saving R100 might be a huge achievement. If you’re unemployed, money management skills are not going to magically conjure some money for you to manage.

The truth is, you will never get out of that month-to-month survival scrabble unless you can find a way to start building up an emergency buffer for yourself. But I get it; it’s hard. 90% of South Africans earning R20k-R40k don’t have R10k saved.

My book discusses strategies like debt counselling, enveloping, side-hustles and the “Save more tomorrow” plan that apply even if it’s simply not possible for you to save any money right now.

Is there a moral difference between being wealthy and being greedy?

For me, the main problem isn’t wealth but inequality. Inequality undermines democracy and destroys the social contract and gives some people far too much power over others.

Obviously, South Africa is one of the most unequal economies in the world, which means it’s harder to ignore the moral question of wealth here than it is in many other countries.

How wealth is obtained also matters enormously, and what people do with it.

Most people don’t actually want money; we want what money allows us to do, but when money becomes the goal in itself, I think that’s troubling.

Defining “enough” for yourself is the only way to create a sense of abundance. The world will never provide that definition for you.

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