Saving for a rainy day should be one of your financial priorities.
Putting away a small amount of money every month and watching it grow is often the only way to pay for something like an overseas holiday.
Good money management means having money for contingencies, but it is important that money is easily accessible while, at the same time, drawing the best interest.
Rather than stashing your money under your mattress, where inflation will erode its value, open a savings account.
With a multitude of financial institutions offering savings accounts, choosing the right one can be tricky. The only criteria should be the interest you can earn and what it is going to cost you to operate the account.
Pick 'n Pay recently launched a cash account which offers the flexibility of a transmission account, the preferential interest rates of a call account, reduced banking service charges on certain transactions, and the option of conducting transactions over the telephone.
The new service is available from September 10, initially only in the Western Cape.Within months it will be offered to the rest of the country.
It may, for the purposes of transferring money between accounts, be convenient to open a savings account at the same bank where your other accounts are held.
But before you opt for convenience, examine what your bank is charging you for operating your savings account and shop around.
Nedbank, for instance, will charge you a monthly service fee of R14,25 if your balance is under R199 and R5,70 if it is between R500 and R1 499.
The Perm charges a R13,68 monthly service fee on its most basic savings account. NBS charges you a flat fee of R14 or you can opt to pay regular charges on individual transactions.
Yet Absa, First National Bank and Standard Bank let you get away with no monthly service fee at all.
Before you get your hopes up, keep in mind that Standard Bank charges the highest fee (R2,50) for electronic account payments.