The global economy is not ‘firing on all engines” currently, while growth in America is accelerating, growth in China, Japan and the Eurozone is decelerating. Although Britain is coping the Eurozone is struggling to keep up with inflation. Even more distressing is that powerhouse Japan is also struggling to keep up with inflation. China’s growth has slowed down and we could expect it to be moderate.

Since South Africa is a major exporter of raw materials to China, this will result in a slowing down effect on commodities. All in all globally we could expect a bumpy ride. South African growth could optimistically expand in 2015 however this could be hampered by labour unrest and the crippling effects of Eskom. A little ray of sunshine is that we could expect the oil price to lower but then again this may result in a weakening rand.

While the rand did have a bumpy ride in 2014 it was significantly stronger than most emerging markets. No substantial recovery of the rand is expected as such in 2015. We do however expect an increase of approximately 2.3 percent this 2015.Prime rate could rise to 10.25 percent and inflation to 6.3 percent by the fourth quarter this year.

All in all the economy may look slightly better than the previous year but this by no means translates to happy days at all (and I doubt it will be until many years to come.) The doom and gloom portrayed in the media is nothing new but how can we prevent it from impacting us on a personal level any more than it should? Well, key words of advice for this year is to tighten the spending, reduce unnecessary wastage, save and be proactive in guarding against financial risk.