Old Mutual On The Money
Old Mutual On The Money
Take Charge of your Finances with Nicolette Mashile
Does your budget fit your lifestyle… or should it be the other way around? Our Head of Financial Education, John Manyike, caught up with financial author, speaker and media personality Nicolette Mashile to get the inside scoop on her budgeting and money management tips. Tune in to find out how you can take charge of your finances and avoid scrambling for temporary relief from one month to the next.
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Old Mutual 0:00
Welcome to the On The Money Podcast with John Manyike.
John Manyike 00:04
Today we're speaking to somebody who needs no introduction, especially in the field of financial education and wellness. Nicolette Mashile. Let's look at Nicolette. You are the founder of “Financial Fitness Bunny”.
Nicolette Mashile 00:21
Yes.
John Manyike 00:22
Right. And that design is borrowed from somewhere?
Nicolette Mashile 00:25
Not mine, mine is cute. The Playboy one is seductive. Mine is like access.
John Manyike 00:30
You have a National Diploma in Sports Management. You have a National Certificate in Debt Counselling, but that's counselling not canceling, right? You’re busy with your MBA, but you've done a lot of other courses. I mean, there's something about communications.
Nicolette Mashile 00:51
Yes, I actually have an Honor’s degree in integrated comms.
John Manyike 00:54
Goodness.
Nicolette Mashile 00:56
Yeah. But let me tell you why. Growing up, my father really emphasised the importance of education. In fact, in my father's world, education guarantees you a better life, right. He doesn't factor in all the other things. It's black or white, it's that you go to school or you don't go to school. And if you don't go to school in his world, you're not gonna be successful, right. I agree to disagree to some extent with him, perfectly fine. Then I went to Rhodes, failed my first degree.
John Manyike 01:21
Why did you fail?
Nicolette Mashile 01:22
Oh, I was doing a, be boys, be alcohol, be life. I think I went to university at a time when I was not ready to go. But that was the trajectory of an African child, that you finish matric and you go to university, right. And then when I failed my first degree, I remember my father saying to me, “Your friends are going to outclass you.”
John Manyike 01:40
Okay.
Nicolette Mashile 01:41
And I was like, “There's no way." And I think that's when I started now doing all these other qualifications, because I had a complex, I was trying to prove to him that I'm not stupid. It was just a difficult time for me when I went to university. And that's why I struggled with that degree. So, I think a lot of my schooling has been interest in the field. But also at the same time, it was a complex to try and prove.
John Manyike 02:01
So, you were dealing with trauma.
Nicolette Mashile 02:03
Lots of trauma.
John Manyike 02:04
You want to talk about it?
Nicolette Mashile 02:06
I would talk about it, you know why? Because it bleeds into my finances.
John Manyike 02:08
Yeah.
Nicolette Mashile 02:12
And I always tell people, you need to do therapy. If you don't do therapy, you don't know who you are. So, actually, if you look at the trauma of the schooling, it's what my dad said, he said to me, your friends are going to outclass you. So, in my mind-
John Manyike 02:21
You want to prove a point.
Nicolette Mashile 02:22
You want to prove a point. And I see that trend, even sometimes with my finances.
John Manyike 02:27
That’s true. And I guess that's why a lot of people invest in shoes. I mean, they've got shoes that can stretch the whole two kilometres. Because you grew up barefoot and you're trying to prove a point. Others maybe, it's the poverty, you know, this thing of growing up in a family where you're told this portion of meat is only meant for uncles.
Nicolette Mashile 02:48
Certain people, yes.
John Manyike 02:49
Now that you're working.
Nicolette Mashile 02:52
Yes, because I worked hard for it.
John Manyike 02:56
Yeah.
Nicolette Mashile 02:56
But it's so funny though, John, because it can also work the other way. Like, I find that sometimes you grew up in the same household, same circumstances, right. Now I'm going to be like my sister, let’s just spend.
John Manyike 03:08
Yeah.
Nicolette Mashile 03:08
You know what I mean? Attitude is if we need it, let's just buy it.
John Manyike 03:11
Yeah.
Nicolette Mashile 03:11
I on the other hand, six months down the line. Like even in my business, I try to have six months’ worth of salary put away, because I don't like uncertainty. So, you also then find that sometimes that same trauma that makes one person be prepared or it makes you stingy.
John Manyike 03:29
But what inspired you to get involved in financial education?
Nicolette Mashile 03:34
Mistakes. I made so many. I can't believe how my decisions then are affecting my life now, you know what I mean? A simple thing, like buying a laptop on credit while I was in university. Laptop gets stolen. I can't pay for a laptop I can't see, John. So, I stopped paying, right. That first month, they debited my account. I was like, “Yoh, I can't be paying for a laptop I don't have any more”. Second month, I withdrew all the money.
John Manyike 04:05
Yeah.
Nicolette Mashile 04:05
And then what happens? Bounce debit order. So, they charged me. Upset again. Third month, I was like, throw away the whole account. Let's just open a new account. So, I got away with it for years. I mean, this is what 2007, all the way to when I first financed a car in 2015. Then they reminded me of that date when you took a laptop.
John Manyike 04:24
They didn't know it all, but you know it's prescribed?
Nicolette Mashile 04:29
No. So, when they bring it up, I'm like, “Oh no, oh no.”
John Manyike 04:34
Talk about that. What is prescription?
Nicolette Mashile 04:36
Yeah. So, prescription is obviously it's a legislation. We've got what is called the Prescription Act, right. And basically, it says that there's a stipulated amount of time where a debt can be legal and enforceable, right. And I think on one side, it's to protect the consumer to say, “Look, you've got an obligation to pay and you've got a certain amount of time to pay.” But if you don't pay in that amount of time, and the creditor does not come to you and say, John. And if you're not going to pay, we're going to take the allowed legal steps for us to recover that money. If they don't do it in three years, let's say from retail date, it means that you then have the right to have that date become prescribed. Why? Because imagine the interest that builds up on that date, if they wake up one day after five years and say you must pay, the amount of interest that that loan or that debt would have accumulated is just unfair for you to be expected to pay it. So, that's why there are certain prescription periods for certain date. Now, of course, people will then say to me, so I don't have to pay NSFAS, no, you must pay. Or I don't have to pay a government debt. No, you must pay because those are still debts, and they have their own prescription time and actual effects. For some of those, the prescription is so long that it's just not worth it. You know, but then people didn't will say, so I don't have to pay for my debts. No, guys, what happens in that three years? One is too long for you to leave a debt and not pay it back, right. So, what it will do to your credit status is just it's just not worth it. But the second thing, also, it's not guaranteed that the creditor is not going to do anything. So you don't want to leave a default on a date and say, You're hoping this thing is going to prescribe, it's best to just follow up on your credit obligations, as you have committed when they did advance you that credit, yeah.
John Manyike 06:25
And also I think people when they, people hear this, they think it's automatic.
Nicolette Mashile 06:31
Yes, because you can get caught out.
John Manyike 06:32
Yeah. Because if the credit provider is making follow ups, they're calling you, you're ignoring and they're sending you emails, whichever way that they're contacting you, it cannot prescribe, you know, but the point at which they stopped communicating, and there's no summons, there's no legal action, and then you can talk about prescription.
Nicolette Mashile 06:52
The problem, John, is that they've now sold your debt, and they trying to recover some monies from that debt. And that's why people need to be vigilant about understanding their debt. And that means you need to check your credit report, so that you know, what debt you have, because also, you may take a retail debt, they stopped communicating with you, you can't actually remember when you took out the debt, it might be prescribed, you don't even realize it is. So, that's why checking up on your credit report is also important, and making sure you've got access to it. It's actually still, for me, wild how many credit active users we have in this country who have never seen a credit report.
John Manyike 07:28
That's true.
Nicolette Mashile 07:28
And the thing is, if you know what's on your credit report, if you know which debts are prescribed, if you know how much you owe, if you know what you owe, it just gives you that negotiating power. You know, if a dealership comes back to you and says, look, the bank is saying 11%. But you know you've got a good credit score, you know you've got good affordability, you must be like, ah, go back, go back. But you can't do that if you don't know.
John Manyike 07:54
You know, there's something, Nicolette, you know, people look at you and people who are doing financial education commentary and educating people about money. They think, ah, these are angels, they don't have financial challenges.
Nicolette Mashile 08:11
[Laughs] Oh sweetie, I wish! This is what I always tell people, financial literacy and financial education are two different things. Because you can be financially literate, but are you financially educated? Because those are two different things. Right? You learn the concepts. So, you know, and I'll give you a very practical example that just happened to me over December. You know risk mitigation. You know there's a potential loss. If you bump your car, there's a potential loss. If you die, it's a potential loss. If you get injured, it's a potential loss. But where's the educational part that says do something about it? Because the educational part is the actionable part, you got to now go get car insurance, you gotta go get medical aid. So, that's the difference that I think a lot of us get lost in. And then it's also the secondary part, which is, it doesn't matter how much information you have emotions. That's why we talk about therapy. Sometimes you know, better but you don't do better. Because there's certain things that come into play, whether it's your emotions, whether it's advertising, whether it's whatever the influences. But let me tell you a story, 22nd of December, I go on a date. I literally fell for him, John. I ended up in hospital. Get into the hospital, private hospital. First thing they asked me is, are you a private patient or are you medical aid? I'm a private patient. He said, “Oh, no problem. If you're a private patient, and you're gonna pay private rates.” I said, “Okay, cool. That's not a problem.” The lady comes back to me with a piece of paper, not even a full quote, it's a piece of paper. She wrote these numbers. I want you to hear them and tell them out loud: 150,000.
John Manyike 09:39
150,000 goodness.
Nicolette Mashile 09:44
That is just for admission. The doctor has not seen you. He hasn't even come, though, the orthopedic doesn't even know what my X-rays look like. 150,000 Rand is for you to just be admitted and given a bit.
John Manyike 09:56
Yes.
Nicolette Mashile 09:57
300 Rand per minute in theater. The problem is they want it on the spot.
John Manyike 10:02
Yes.
Nicolette Mashile 10:02
Yes. 9:00 o'clock that evening, I paid that money. I slept. 12 hours later, 9:00 o'clock the next day. But, oh, we're going into operation at 10 o'clock. But the doctor won't touch you if his fees not paid. 80,000 Rand for an orthopedic surgeon. It's an estimation. He says to me, it could go higher depending on how many hours we spend in theater.
John Manyike 10:22
150,000 already banked? Now 80,000 loading?
Nicolette Mashile 10:25
Yes. Okay, then another 20,000 something for the anesthesiologist.
John Manyike 10:30
Okay, that's 250,000 Rand.
Nicolette Mashile 10:33
Mind you, every time you do an X-ray, these are the X-rays that the doctor just comes up with, oh, she needs to do a CT scan, you need to do this X-ray, holding the card machine. You gotta pay on the spot. If there's a complication, you got to stay in hospital longer, which means you're still paying out of your own pocket. If there's a complication in theater, you're in theater longer. Now start calculating the 300 Rand per minute. My biggest problem with medical aid was every single time I tried to get a quotation, that would put me on a waiting period. And in my head, my mathematics was just like, so on a 12 month waiting period, but I'm paying throughout the year. It doesn't make sense. Let me be clever.
John Manyike 11:10
12 months waiting period, that’s a pregnancy.
Nicolette Mashile 11:12
I've never been pregnant, John.
John Manyike 11:14
No, I know. But I'm saying-
Nicolette Mashile 11:15
No, no, no, no mine, because of all the other things I've had in the past. And the thing is, that's my problem. Because me I'm honest. So, when I get asked, have you had tonsillitis in the last 12 months? I'm like, yeah, because I have. The exclusion. And the next, have you had a kidney infection in the life? Exclusion. So, it was for all the common things that I commonly get every single year. So I was like, “No, guys, it's not gonna work for me”. But I realised that you know what, yes, it might have been a convenient excuse, then. But it doesn't really work. And what scared me the most was the fact that I had no control over what happens in theater, what my post op was going to look like. And if I had complications, I said to the doctor, I said, basically, you're saying to me, I can go into this operation and wake up and owe you guys half a million?
John Manyike 12:03
Sjoe.
Nicolette Mashile 12:04
Because I don't actually know. Like, literally, these things require money. And I was like, there's no way I can save enough money to be able to come back that you know what I mean, so medical aid then becomes your next available. But I realized also through the medical aid thing that we don't spend enough time looking at our own needs, and what is out there. Because for the first time I got to understand this medical aid, this gap cover these hospital insurance, this hospital cover, and they're all different, you know what I mean, yeah.
John Manyike 12:34
And especially gap cover, it's not a common type of solution, maybe you want to talk about that.
Nicolette Mashile 12:40
So, basically, gap cover is almost like a shortfall cover. Same with your car, right. So, the gap cover will cover you for any shortfall that you have. If medical aid doesn't pay 100% or medical aid doesn't pay the rates that the doctors are charging us. So, let's say the doctor charges you 80,000 Rand for this surgery that I had, but medical aid says we'll pay 60,000. So, that 20,000 Rand is the shortfall that you have. So, you then have this insurance product called a gap cover that will come into the short term insurance cover. So, it will come and pay for that shortfall that you've got. People don't realise how often that happens. Sometimes you go to a hospital where your medical aid is not contracted to the doctors that are there. So, they charge 150,000 outside of the medical aid rate, or anesthesiologist, mainly most of the time the biggest culprits because they charge 500%, 400% out of medical aid rates. So, you do end up with that shortfall that you need to pay. And you think, oh, medical aid paid for everything. And then two months later, you get hit by an invoice. And they're like, “Oh, no, you still owe this much because your medical aid only paid a certain amount of money.” And that's what you'll get covered and kicks in.
John Manyike 13:47
And they don't play, they send you to lawyers.
Nicolette Mashile 13:55
I don't know, they probably are the fastest people between them absolute and real estate agents, they are the quickest to get you to lawyers, they don't have time, and they don't play.
John Manyike 14:02
Yeah. So, I think it just highlights the things that we take for granted. You know, your medical aid your car insurance. Because the last time I heard it was about 70% of the cars on our roads are not insured. And so you imagine, you know, how many of those people actually paying an in car installment because they finance the car? Because in most cases, they take insurance first month, they cancelled this, but there's a problem. We have a crisis. Why do you think it's we're having such a problem where people don't see a need for these things?
Nicolette Mashile 14:39
I genuinely don't think people don't see a need, John. But I think what we have in South Africa is a general money management crisis. Which actually, if you look at the foundation, it's budgeting right? If you earn 15,000 Rand and you have to fit your life into 15,000 Rand take home, it means that it tells you what car you can get. The problem is we want to do it the other way around. We want to buy the car and fit it into a 15,000 Rand budget. So, what if you have to do that, to make space, you start cutting the things that are important. Insurance, a lot of people start they buy insurance. And that's where the big problem is. The problem is that we do it the reverse way. We want to fit our life into a certain budget, instead of saying the budget must actually dictate to us what kind of life that you've got, right. And I think that's the things like, you know, sometimes men complain about, oh, we took a girl out on a date, and she ordered everything on the menu. Yes, because you took the girl and tried to fit into your budget instead of the other way around. Can I date this girl? I can't. So, for me, that's the biggest thing. I think budgeting is a very important thing that many of us don't do in this country. And when we do it, we often don't prioritize very well. Because when we have to make cuts, I mean, in a budget, there's two ways that you're gonna go, right, you either earning enough money to have the disposable income to be able to channel to see your lifestyle, or you've got a budget that does not allow, which means that you either need to make more money, or you need to reduce your spending on certain things. And the issue is that when we do make those changes, we often make the changes that are very important, which is part of your risk mitigation strategy, part of your savings, because what people do, they think, Okay, I won't have an accident. So, let me cut the car insurance out this month, you know what, actually, I actually can't see if things are not looking good. I can't say instead of saying, “Okay, how do I make a little bit more money?” Let's say your insurance is 1000 Rand, all you've got to do is find something that can give you 1000 Rand in the month. I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm saying it's possible, because we've seen it be possible. The problem is we also have a very skewed idea of what additional income streams look like at this country. In fact we've done a very bad job of pushing this additional income streams, because we make people believe that because I earn 15,000 at work, I must also make 15,000 Rand as my additional income stream. No, your additional income stream must be, or you must ring fence a certain thing for it. So if it's insurance, all you've got to do is to try and make an additional 1000 Rand. So you've got to think about it that way so that you don't cut out the things that are very important because you cut it out now, and it’s a temporary relief.
John Manyike 17:17
Let's talk about dating, because this is where a lot of people lose money. There is false marketing on either side, by the way, men and women. Number one, let's start maybe with the men.
Nicolette Mashile 17:30
Okay.
John Manyike 17:38
Like the point you made earlier. I know I can't afford you. But I want to take you to an expensive restaurant in Sandton. And you're trying to create an impression that you can afford that, you are loaded. Now, this false impression, isn't this what's causing a lot of problems, even in marriage? Because how you started and now you're married, you're struggling to maintain this impression that you created upfront.
Nicolette Mashile 18:11
It's a difficult one, John, because you know, when people make decisions to date, and who they want to date, it's fueled by a whole lot of different factors, right. Some of us want to impress our friends, the type of person that you are dating, you think is supposed to have an impression, but it's never the impression that is probably the most important one, does this person have the greatest characteristics that you need in a person because actually, if you look at dating these days, it's too quick. So, that's why we don't even take enough time to actually invest properly, and see if this person is worth it. There's a guy that I was seeing, and this man impressed me so much, because he met me, we met in a very, very nice location where you would have gotten the impression or we are both a certain type of person. But our first date was a walk. This man spent no money, you came to my house, we parked and we went on this walk, and we got to know so much of each other. And on that walk, we realised that this thing was never going to work. But now he wants it the quick win and the impressing, he could have taken me back to another restaurant that look exactly the one we spent huge amounts of money. I would have spent on makeup, I would have spent on a new outfit, you know, I must carry a certain bag to give a certain impression. And we both would have lost and that's why people get so upset when they stick around with the wrong person because I've already spent. I have already spent the money on this person. I do really think that we need to get away from this idea of get rich quick schemes, even in relationships, it does not work.
John Manyike 19:39
So, you have developed quite a number of platforms. I mean, games, tools, you've written a book out of these things. Which one do you think is a lot is more effective? In terms of getting the message out there.
Nicolette Mashile 19:56
I was pleasantly pleased and surprised at how well the book did. Because we were given this narrative that like people don't read, you know what I mean? Like, maybe we're not. People are not writing stories for us. Maybe that's the other issue. You know what I mean? So, when I wrote the book, and I put out stories about an ordinary black girl navigating money and the mistakes that I made, the book did really well. So I'm quite impressed. Because a lot of people come to me and they'll say, “Oh, I read your book.” “Oh, I love this chapter about relationships or the chapter about black tax or whatever.” So, I think it works for a certain group of people do. YouTube was shocking to me, also, because when I got into YouTube, I was looking for entertainment content, you know, the lifestyle content is the content that we all think is going to do really well. And then you just surprised that this community that builds around learning, people are hungry for this kind of information. So, I think there's different types of people. I get people who say to me, please do more podcasts. You know, we don't have time in the morning to watch, but we are on our way to work. We can listen to you, you know what I mean?
John Manyike 20:58
So, in your quest to spread financial education, financial literacy, I mean, what have been some of your biggest challenges?
Nicolette Mashile 21:04
Adult population.
John Manyike 21:06
Yeah.
Nicolette Mashile 21:09
Mindsets are there already, they're set in stone. They've crystallized. You know, when I first started, I learned a very important lesson, I guess that the lesson was that not everything is according to my perspective, right. So, on its own as a challenge to Nicolette was that I made the assumption or the way money was presented to me in my family and the way money played a role in my family. That was a blanket approach to every other person in the country. So, if you look at my first couple of videos, you will see I am very absolute. I'm very, this is how it's supposed to be done. This is the way it should be done. And then over the years, you learn and I guess that's probably also one of the greatest powers that I've got is that I've been in this for quite a long time. But I had to learn or manuscripts, many believes I really built from a very young age relationships with money, you know, are built from a very young age, the people who are influential in your life, really play a big role in shaping those. And you sometimes have to really go against the grain. So, I think over the years, the biggest challenges has been mindsets, trying to get people to see financial education differently. But also that thing that I spoke about early, financial literacy, we teach you budgeting, we teach you to save, we teach you to invest, we teach you the concepts, but then we have to teach you the education. What does the law say about this? You know what I mean? What are the products are going to help you with this? That's the educational component that I think is not coming out strong enough, because we almost swap it around. We try to teach people concepts all the time, concept, concept, concept, some people's mindsets are just stuck. Teach them to maneuver, because they've got the right financial products. They've got the right policies. They've got the right principles. So, I always say it's the three things, its products, its policy, and its principle that we've got to teach people.
John Manyike 23:00
You also reach out to a lot of young people.
Nicolette Mashile 23:03
Oh, I love them.
John Manyike 23:04
They have their own lingo. How do you get the message across to young people? Because you are able to talk to them ,very little ones but you're also able to pitch into tertiary institutions.
Nicolette Mashile 23:16
Yes.
John Manyike 23:16
How do you get the message, especially to the tertiary students?
Nicolette Mashile 23:21
Give them what they want. The kids in university are excited. Gen-Z's are excited, they excitable, they go against and centers. So, they really just want to feel like they are contributing to their own personal finance success. And how do you do that? It's you got to look at the quick wins for them. The quick wins is not get rich quick schemes, but it's showing them practically this is what your life is today. You have the control to make this tomorrow. And, I guess, that's where the disconnect sometimes happens with the more elder population, right. Because they living in realities. It's difficult to tell someone who's in debt right now, but it's easy to tell someone who already you're not in debt yet. But we can help you manage that you don't find yourself in a situation where you are 10 years down the line, or in full debt, right or in debt that you might not be able to manage. It's also the thing the possibilities for young people now are so amazingly so great. You can literally become an influencer in this country, a content creator, and you can win it live. Whereas we were also taught that being able to go to school, get a job, it was very pa-pa-pa-pa and timeline based, you know what I mean? For them, they know it's not timeline right now, I am in control. And I think that's the biggest thing you want to teach people, right, especially at that young age is that you can be given the tools to be able to create the control that you need you need for your finances, and the contingency plans. So, one of the biggest things that I always say to young people is financial literacy is not a nine to have, and I need brands to also understand that especially brands that work in the finance sector, it's not a nice to have, you're not doing people a favor, you're giving them tools to even make your life a little bit more easy. It's easier to sell life insurance to someone who understands why they need life insurance. But to just simply say, our South Africans are taking a funeral cover, they're not taking up life insurance and we don't understand why. No, you don't understand why because you didn't put in the investment to teach people to understand why life insurance is important. So, with young people, we have that opportunity to tell them why budgeting works to show them why it works. It's another thing we need to do the center the idea of wealth in this country, we've got a very skewed idea of what wealth looks like. Wealth is doing the mundane things because it is inevitable. If you budget, if you've got the risk contingencies, if you save and invest, if you speak to a financial planner and create the route to be able to get you to the goals that you are trying to achieve. If you do all of those things, it's inevitable that you are managing your finances well, and you're on your way to building wealth.
John Manyike 25:54
Can you just tile and pack these two concepts, you know, life cover and funeral cover?
Nicolette Mashile 25:59
So, funeral cover is for the day. It's an insurance policy to cover you for the potential financial loss of a death, it's going to be a financial implication for the family to bury the deceased, right. That's the actual loss that comes in. Life cover is a finance as an insurance policy that covers you for the potential financial loss when this person and their potential and their ability to generate an income is not taken away from the family. So, you've got to look at it both ways. So, John, touch wood, passes on and now John has left children and dependents, these kids still have a long life where they are dependent financially on John. Has John put in the right contingency that they’re not gonna suffer, because John is no longer the breadwinner actively in this family. But John can be a breadwinner from underground, because he's put in this financial insurance policy that continues to pay for his children. And that's why it's important to educate our people. Because let's be fair, in some communities, people are not even aware that there's a life insurance cover. They don’t even aware that there's a policy that exists. Why? Because the funeral cover is a quick win. It's ingrained in us as especially as Africans to not want that type of shape of you couldn't bury our own, we need to make it a little bit more accessible to people. But most important, as I say, now, one of the things that I believe in with my whole heart and soul, John, is if you tell someone you have a gap, fix the gap and showed them what the gap can potentially do they have a willingness to fix it. Now that you've got the willingness press play on making it easy for them to access this thing.
John Manyike 27:39
Yes. Last question, your thoughts about how women can handle the money issue better?
Nicolette Mashile 27:47
You know, women do handle money issues better. Statistic have shown that women are better investors. Statistics have shown that women are better money managers, one of the things that they said is women don't earn enough money. And that's a fact. We've seen it the salary disparities. So, most women are trying to make do with the little bit that they've got to try and do all of those things that need to be done. They are actually far better money managers. But in them being my better money managers, the other problem that comes in stems is a lot of women are anxious around money issues. And because of that, it causes other problems for them to be able to long term invest. They want to fix things right now. So I think if we can help women identify in themselves, what are their pitfalls, what's my blindfold as Nicolette, when it comes to finances? Where are the parts of my money management where I'm struggling and not necessarily because of the finance issue but because of other things, scarcity issues, poverty has also played a very big role, and gender inequality has played a very big role. So I think if we can do that one part, first of all, pay women more money, let's just be very frank with it pay women more money. The second part is let's also encourage women to have the confidence to control and be confident to manage their money. How do we do that? We've got to educate as many women as we can in terms of money management, right. Because confidence plays a very big role. It gives you the capacity, and the comfort to be able to manage your finances. If you I hear a lot of women say to me whenever I have, like if I'm doing a financial coaching session, I'm speaking to women at an event. One of the biggest things women say is, “I'm scared.” Because of that I said, “Why don't you invest?” I'm scared. “What are you scared of?” You can only be scared of what you don't know, right. So fear is also another thing that a lot of women, they don't know where the money is going. I mean, investing, but I don't know without actually going. So it does need a lot of education. I think if we can instill a whole lot more confidence in women to start businesses, women will rather be 150% qualified for a job before they apply for it. And men just apply. Men are 60% qualified. Do you know Excel? So, those are things that I think just generally from our past as women and having some liberties and rights taken away from us, we almost want to overly compensate for certain things. It's a good thing on one side, but on the other side, it does allow some opportunities to pass us.
John Manyike 30:23
Nicolette Mashile, thank you so much. I'm sure if you were going to campaign for elections now, a lot of votes will come your way. Thanks for joining us.
Nicolette Mashile 30:34
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
John Manyike 30:35
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