We start learning about money long before we earn it – often by watching whether a parent saves religiously or spends on payday, or whether money is discussed openly at the table or handled quietly behind a closed door.
September is Heritage Month, which makes it a good time to consider the lessons and habits that have been handed down to us by our parents and grandparents. Money relationships and habits are part of that inheritance, but we rarely examine them in the way we scrutinise other traditions passed down by older generations.
The Nedbank 2025 NedFinHealth Monitor Report shows the financial health of employed South Africans improvingfor a third consecutive year, rising from 54.8 in 2024 to 56.4 in 2025. But the score for meeting long-term goals remained at just 44.5, almost unchanged from the year before. So, our day-to-day money habits are improving, but our confidence about the long term is not.
“Most of us were taught how to get through to payday because that is what our parents had to be good at,” says Sisa Nkatu, Head of Deposits at Nedbank. “But thinking and planning 30 years ahead is a different skill, and it isn’t one many of us watched being practised at home.”
Nkatu highlights five lessons a lot of us inherited, and how they hold up now that we are the ones making the money decisions for ourselves:
Lesson 1: Save what’s left at the end of the month
There is usually nothing left! Which makes saving the first thing sacrificed rather than the first thing secured. Nkatu explains that reversing the order is the better approach. “A set amount moving automatically into a savings account on payday means long-term security doesn’t have to compete with everything else. It’s an approach that’s working for a growing number of South Africans. The Monitor found 30% of respondents could cover six months or more of expenses in 2025, up from 27%.
Lesson 2: The safest place for your money is cash
If money was tight growing up, keeping it within reach made sense and it still does for emergencies. But that instinct can become costly when applied to everything. With inflation around 4% in 2026, money in an envelope or even a low-interest account is actually losing value over time. So, keeping your money as cash is not actually risk free – the loss just builds up over time.
Lesson 3: You need money before you can start investing
“Investing often gets treated as something you graduate to,” says Nkatu. “But putting it off until ‘you are ready’ is actually expensive.” Time does more good work growing your money than a big opening savings amount, because returns begin producing returns of their own – known as compounding. Small contributions started now and increased later can provide also give you good returns and help you build a culture of investing, little is always better than nothing.
Lesson 4: Property is the ultimate sign of financial security
Home ownership carries particular weight in South Africa, largely because it represents something that many people from previous generations were denied. A property can build real wealth but it isn’t a magic money machine. In fact, often property is slow to sell, costly to hold and concentrates your wealth in one asset in one place. Owning a home can be part of a good money relationship picture but it’s still only one part – not the whole picture.
Lesson 5: Money is a private matter
Nedbank’s NedFinHealth Monitor research also found that more than 40% of South Africans still avoid moneyconversations while 51% named financial matters as their biggest source of stress. Silence and stress are not a coincidence which is why Nedbank has spent this year encouraging people to examine their relationship with money. “Talking about money doesn’t mean announcing what you earn,” says Nkatu. “It should gradually lead to a ritual of paying your future self first.”
Previous generations passed down money lessons based on what worked for them. Many still make sense. But the way we manage money has changed and some of the rules we grew up with need to change too.