SIMPLIFY FINANCE - WITH THE ‘STUDENT INVESTOR GUY’

BY CARMEL ROBERTS

The Association for Savings and Investment South Africa says the country has one of the lowest savings rates, a trend that has persisted for several years. And StatsSA says household saving rates dropped to 0% by the end of 2022.

But a University of the Western Cape (UWC) law graduate, master’s student and graduate tutor coordinator, Ivyn Sambo, is looking to change this culture on campus. Known as the “student investor guy”, Sambo’s passion for financial literacy has made him an influencer in the space, on and off campus. He has one of the highestrated podcasts in the country.

His inherent love for investment, budgeting and money matters dates back to his high school years when he lived in Mpumalanga with his grandmother. She worked as a messenger and driver for the Human

Settlements Department. “She was strict. I wasn’t allowed to play with the children in the street. She often brought home a lot of financial pamphlets from workshops and roadshows her department conducted and told me to read them,” says Sambo.

As his hunger for financial knowledge grew, so did his desire to improve financial literacy. Now described as a financial content creator, scholar and thought leader, he has 200,000 TikTok followers, 170,000 YouTube followers and a weekly podcast that secured him an invitation to the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants Africa Members Convention in Johannesburg last December.

The convention brings together about 1,000 leaders in finance from the public and private sectors and Sambo says: “It was eye-opening to network with Africa’s greatest accountants and learn how they utilise their profession to ensure growth and stability in government across Africa.”

Sambo’s most recent passion project is his wealth calendar. The 100-page document, which helps students, working professionals and even retirees, is a financial planning template aimed at keeping people accountable for their finances.

“I always did my own template on financial matters, and during a TikTok live I was asked to

explain more. This led me to creating a wealth calendar on how to track your investment, debt, credit score, budgets and spending in the form of a book which has all those templates.”

Sambo says that while it’s not the first of its kind, his version has a simpler format that’s easier to understand. “My calendar is free to download and is simple to follow. It’s important that this calendar is user-friendly for high school learners, students, working professionals and even retirees. The feedback has been amazing. There have been about 12,000 downloads and the feedback on social media has been exceptionally positive. One of the things that I am proud about is that this template provides people with ways to budget for a trip and understand what costs to expect when they want to travel.

“The calendar can also be used as a reflection, containing a journal where people can review their finances on a monthly basis and write a letter to themselves about what they want to achieve, and also to reflect the positive and the negative. This is important because your finances can evoke a lot of emotions. If you journal about your finances and you see what you may have achieved, you will feel validated.

“I really want to simplify financial matters. That’s the whole aim of my YouTube channel. When you simplify financial matters, you create a bridge for people to understand their finances.”