Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
I used ‘gooi gooi’ to furnish my home
“GOOI gooi”, also known as an informal stokvel, sees women across South Africa banding together to extend and accessorise, and in some cases, buy their homes.
Where do you begin a financial plan to gain equity that will see your house turn into a home? Well, in South Africa. For Bongi Makeba*, it began on a minibus taxi ride to work.
“I travel with these women almost daily for about two hours a day for years now,” says Makeba from Khayelitsha.
“We speak about our hardships and how, on our salaries, we will never have a beautiful home. This is how our group of women came together to start a stokvel (pooling of financial resources to aid those in a community, traditionally to buy groceries or pay school fees), to help us stretch our money and also make ends meet.
“We also helped each other a lot during hard lockdown,” she says.
From their origins, stokvels – informal savings schemes that started more than 100 years ago to help people stretch their money in difficult times – became an important part of black culture and have evolved into a credible means of building and extending houses and buying property.
And it is women who are leading the pack here. In fact, of the property stokvels focusing on homeownership and building homes for its members, 89% of members are female.
The National Stokvels Association of South Africa says the stokvel economy is estimated at R49 billion in South Africa.
“I saw how my neighbours were creating better lives for themselves and I was curious,” says Makeba.
“This is how I heard about stokvels extending further than just helping people buy groceries.
“I have been divorced for many years and don’t get any money from my ex, which is why I knew I had to find a way to be independent. I earn less than R5 000 a month, so financial independence seemed like a distant dream until our ‘gooi gooi’.
“We call it ‘gooi gooi’, which in English is ‘throw throw’, because every month we throw money into the pot.
“There are six of us and we each contribute R1 500 monthly. That way, you know that twice a year if it is a stove or fridge you want, you will get it with the R9 000 you get. Everyone gets a chance to get that money twice a year. We mostly use the money to extend our homes and buy furniture, groceries and stuff.
“I have a fridge and a couch from this stokvel, and my next step is to build an extra room. However I know some big groups who actually buy property and sell it to make a profit – these are the big stokvels.”
Property stokvelsare becoming increasingly popular in South Africa as more people realise the benefits of pooling capital to purchase assets.
The Old Mutual Savings and Investment Monitor believes property stokvelling has an “enormous” potential for disruption.
Generally, most stokvel members investing in property use the funds to buy, build or extend their own homes but, increasingly, they are using surplus money to buy affordable property to let for rental income.
“My group and I have been able to beautify our homes through our ‘gooi gooi’. Being unable to access money unless through a loan share, it’s made a big difference to us,” says Makeba.
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