GRANNY ELIZABETH CASTELLA FOURIE, AGE 87
What’s your No 1 money lesson for family and friends?
EF: Discipline your children from a young age to cultivate a healthy relationship with money and teach them that you don’t always have to be rich to do that. Set an example for your children. I didn’t make big debts and always saved, no matter the amount. I knew how to work with my money, as a mother of six. I had to. My husband and I would sit and work out how much we’d need for things like rent, food and clothing. We didn’t live beyond our means. Whatever was left over we’d put into savings for a rainy day. I didn’t want to borrow from anyone, because I grew up not always having things and didn’t want that to happen to me as an adult. I was disciplined from a young age.
What’s your proudest savings accomplishment?
EF: Buying my house in 1959. It was R7 000 and I’m still living in it today. It’s been 60 years.
Tell us what something cost when you were young.
EF: A pair of shoes that costs over R1 000 or R2 000 nowadays – I’m talking real leather shoes – would cost under R100 in the 1960s. The same with clothing and good quality items too, not like today’s rubbish. In the 1950s, I could do all my shopping for R10, which meant buying meat, groceries and veg. This is when I was a young mother of 28. When I was a teenager, around the late 1940s, it used to be 1 shilling and 6 pence for the movies and you could buy a chocolate and a popcorn. You could eat yourself full at the cinema for just a little money.
What’s your top tip for saving?
EF: Don’t waste your money on nonsense; buy just what you need and not always what you want. I taught my children this too.