Award-winning financial journalist, BrightRock Change Agent, and author of âMaya On Money: Implement your Money Planâ Maya Fisher-French grew up in a home where her widowed mother once had to sell the family piano to put food on the table.
Maya sat down with Ruda Landman to talk about small change and big change, the power of money, and how to turn your financial fears into your brightest tomorrows.
This video and article first appeared on the Change Exchange, an online platform by BrightRock, provider of the first-ever life insurance that changes as your life changes.
Hello, and welcome to another session of The Change Exchange, where today my guest is Maya Fisher-French. Sheâs just written a book called âMaya on MoneyââŚ
Yes, âMaya on Money â Implement your Money Changeâ.
And youâ have a very active website and you write for City Press? On financial matters?
Yes.
So good to have you. I think this is a really important conversation to have. But when did you know you wanted to go into finance? Because your other major was still English?
You know, I feel so sorry for 18 year olds today. You leave school, and now suddenly you need to know what youâre going to do for the rest of your life. So actually, what happened was, I was going to do Law. I was going to be a lawyer and I got some really good advice from a lawyer who said: âDonât go and study a plain law degree. Go and do a broad BA and spend the extra year doing law, because itâs the only to get an opportunity to study and do other things.â So I went to university and it was like a sweet shop for me. I would think: âOoooh, these amazing subjects!â And I did philosophy and English and I did Italian and there was a subject called Economics and I thought: âWell, that looks interesting?â And I took it and I suddenly had this aptitude for it and this passion for it and I landed up getting my honours degree in it. So you never know when you start exactly how it is going to turn out.
So coming from school, your strong suits was the languages?
It was the languages, exactly. I did French, I did English, I did all of those and then I landed up⌠you know, we werenât exposed to economics in those days at school.
But also economics is a long way from personal finance and planning your budget and that kind of thing? When did that happen?
I think a lot of it⌠You know ⌠again youâve gone and chosen your subject based on some random process. And then I finished studying and I had two job offers. One was for an advertising agency and the other was for Investec Bank. I had no clue, so I looked at them and all I knew was there was a lot of drugs in advertising, so I decided to say no to drugs. Little did I know how much drugs there are in the financial industry! But that is how I landed up at Investec and I was at Investec Private Bank and got involved in personal investing. So it was the unit trusts, individuals, the retail investing side. And it was obviously where it all grew from and my interest grew and where I learned so much.
Did you ever regret that choice?
No, never.
Because itâs quite radical?
Itâs very radical, but when I look now at what my strengths are and also the incredible need for financial education in South Africa, and I donât think I could have delivered as much in terms of going into advertising as I have been able to in this sector.
Did your parents talk to you about budgeting and personal finance? Not at all?
Not at all! What I do remember growing up is that my mother always used to complain that there was not enough money for groceries, that my father didnât give her enough money, and my father always just feeling that my mother spent money unnecessarily. And that was pretty much it. And then when I was 16 years old, my father died. And we were left with terrible debts. And I think that thatâŚ
And you were aware of that?
And I was aware of that. Well, we lost everything. We lost our home, I remember one day coming home my mother had to sell the piano just to buy groceries. So we went from having what appeared to be a good lifestyle to literally having nothing. And I mean, can you imagine? I look now, a mother, a single mom now, with two teenage kids to support? She hadnât worked for 20 years. Sheâd been a housewife. And suddenly she had to pick herself up andâŚ
What did she do?
You know, she went to a recruitment agency and she came back and she said: âThereâs only one thing I have going for me â I donât smoke.â But what could she do? She had been raising four children, my two older sisters had left home by then, but she cooked a lot. And she went into catering and she started her own catering business. And then later on she became a national tour guide â sheâs fluent in Dutch. And I watched my mother literally build her life from nothing to where she is today, which is financially secure and happy and all the rest. So sheâs an inspiration for me.
Well sheâs also an education.
Sheâs an education.
I mean, sheâs a walking example, a case study.
Exactly. Sheâs a case study. And I think thatâs why Iâm so fiercely independent about my money and my own finances and why, when it comes to women and money, I have a really big passion. Because I think women often choose to leave those decisions to their partners without understanding the real implications of that.
We kind of drift into things very often?
Exactly, and I ⌠You know what I do think sometimes? Itâs if you donât know you donât have to take action. Sometimes itâs easier to put your head in the sand.
You donât have to take responsibility?
Exactly.
Itâs his decision.
Itâs his decision and itâs his fault. Ja, letâs be honest.
So when did the shift come towards journalism? How did that happen?
I had been working in stockbroking by now, so I had left Investec and I joined a stockbroking firm and I fell pregnant. Well, I chose to be pregnant â it wasnât an accident or anything, but I got to a point where I decided that I didnât want to do the 14-hour days. Stockbroking is very long. It was also at a time â it was the late 1990s when the dotcom bubble was really brewing, and I just got quite tired of the avarice that I was seeing around me, and people wanting to double their money in a month and it really became an unpleasant environment to be working in, from my point of view.
I decided to become a stay at home mom. It lasted a year. I learned a lot about myself then, and one of them was financial independence. I wanted to be able to pay for my own facials. I donât want to have to ask my husband for money and I also had a need to work. So then I did various things, including financial recruitment. I recruited for the financial industry. Then there was this advert in the newspaper for This Day, the newspaper. Do you remember This Day?
Yes I do!
One day, any day… I happened to know the consultant that had brought the group to South Africa, so I phoned him and said: âYou know, this sounds interesting. Can I come chat to you about it?â And he said sure. And I popped round to his officesâŚ
âI do have English 3!â
I do! So I sat down and there was John Madison who was the managing editor of the newspaper. I wasnât expecting to meet him, and he looked at me and he said: âWhatâs your experience?â I said: âI have no experience at all in journalism, but I worked in the financial industry for x amount of years.â They hired me that day. And you know, Ruda, it sounds like a clichĂŠ, but I found my calling. I loved every single minute of that experience and I have ever since.
So whatâs the lesson out of that? Go? Try? Step forward?
Go. Try. You donât know. And I think it is something, I suppose, in a personality. I take big risks. I think: âWell, okay. It sounds like fun. Iâm in!â âWow, that sounds like fun!â I didnât have a clue what I was doing. But there you are.
But youâre saying you found your calling. Was there a moment that someone responded or you got a phone call or a friend said over dinner âI read this and it changed my lifeâ? When did you know that this was it?
I think it started off with just the intellectual capital that I was working with. Journalists are extremely intelligent people and I donât think I ever realised the wealth of knowledge. A lot of people who go into journalism have incredible knowledge. And they love investigating things and they love finding out. So I sat in this team of amazing people â specifically at This Day at the time. They hired the crème de la crème of journalism. To be surrounded by this intellect was so stimulating for me on one level. The other, then, was this opportunity to educate people, but without being in the product system. Being outside the financial industry. To have the independence. I have the knowledge, but now I have the independence as well to say what I actually think, and I really enjoy that as well.
And the book? How did that happen?
Well, I think the book was inevitable in one way, because obviously itâs a conversation with readers over the last 12 years, and itâs really putting it all together, the many articles that Iâve written, and many of them in response to readersâ queries. But the publishers came to me and said to me would I consider a book. And I thought about it, and I thought about the books that were already on the shelves. And weâve got some excellent money-books on the shelves, but they tend to be more about the psychology of money and money attitudes and approaches to money. And what I found readers were really looking for was the practical stuff. Okay, how do I? How do I open a bank account? How do I get a credit record? How do I budget? And it was those How do Iâs ⌠and I think I first wanted to call the book âAnd now what?â because I want to do all the right things, but now what? But the publisher said that wasnât a very good ⌠And I think they know better than I did. So thatâs how it came about â the need for a lot of practical information.
And itâs been out there for a couple of weeks. How is it going?
Itâs going incredibly well. The feedback I must say has surprised me, and again it comes back to filling a need, which is financial information. Practical, unbiased financial information when you want to make a choice or decision, to have access to that information immediately. So the response has been phenomenal so far.
Why do you think people find it so difficult to talk about money? Because we do â itâs not something ⌠You know, sex, money and politics youâre not supposed to talk about.
I think money is such a fear-based thing. We fear not having money. We fear if we have money what other people will think of us or want from us. I think to me fear is a big part of money and I think thatâs why we donât want to talk about it. People also on the other side, if you donât have money and youâre struggling, or if youâve got debts, thereâs an embarrassment. If you swipe your card at the teller and it doesnât go through? How that makes you feel at that moment? These are conversations people are very uncomfortable about having, and then thereâs this whole belief that itâs wrong to want money, or wrong to be rich.
The whole moral..
I think thereâs some sort of moral approach to it. So people also then donât want to talk about it if they are successful, when money is a particular goal for them. So I think to me money is just a big emotional sort of mess, and fear is the overriding emotion in there.
And why should we talk about it?
Well I think we should talk about it because money is one of the most powerful things in our life. It is powerful in its ability to destroy your life, and itâs powerful in its ability to build wealth for you. And I think we need to harness that power. You know, my children watch these Disney programmes about the Power and the evil guy and the good guy and thatâs money. Money has power. Itâs how you wield that power and you choose how to wield that power. And I think the more we talk about it, the more we educate people on how to wield this power â how better our societyâs going to be.
It can be Thorâs hammer, but he must decide how to use it.
Exactly.
So do you talk to your children? You have two young boys?
We have a lot of money conversations, partly because of what I do for a living. And in fact, I took them to my book launch in Johannesburg. They came with me. And my eldest afterwards was very impressed. He didnât know that he had R100 000 saved up. Do you know that? R200 a month, I have been putting away since he was two years old in Satrix.
And you never told him how much it is?
Well we always told him we have the investment, but the actual amount ⌠I never really ⌠I was preparing for the book launch and I mentioned it and all the rest. Well his eyes went this big! And my little one was a little upset. He wanted to know where his was. And I said: âWeâve also got for you.â But he ⌠The next day after listening to my presentation, my little one was playing a card game. He took a pack of cards.
Heâs 10?
Yes. Heâs 10. And he said: âMommy, look. This man has so much for emergencies. So much for insurance. This moneyâs for his rent. And this is his day to day money.â And I thought well, there you are! And my conversations with my children, which I have written about in the book ⌠I think they just open my eyes to how much children can engage about money if you let them. And you know, to see how easily they can assimilate that information. If youâre teaching your kid at 10 those kind of principles, theyâre going to have a better start in life.
Absolutely! And when that happened with your mother, when she was in such dire straits. Did she talk to you and your sister?
She did speak to us about money, but then again it was more out of the fear-based stuff. It wasnât a positive conversation. There was a lot of anger. There was a lot of resentment. I wouldnât say it was positive. But we knew there was absolutely no money.
What is interesting to me, is now I look at my money attitudes and my money issues, and I do still have that fear of not having money, despite doing the right things and all of that. Overnight things can change. Thatâs the message I got, that things change. IÂ think with children, whatâs so important, is to educate them with money, but not to put fear in them. And I have made that mistake with my own children, where I would âI canât afford this and I canât afford thatâ and you suddenly realise that youâre making them nervous and scared about money. Thatâs the one emotion we really donât want to be putting into our children, so I think those money conversations need to be positive. If you are struggling financially, it doesnât necessarily need to be translated directly to your children. It can be about: âWe need to focus on this at the moment. We need to be cutting back there, or whatever because we want something better tomorrow.â I think we have to be very, very careful about passing on those fears to our children.
And do you think you have managed to do that with your kids?
No, not successfully enough. I must tell you this story. I hope I am, but I certainly made a lot of mistakes. When we were moving from Johannesburg down to Cape Town, my husband was between jobs, so things were a bit tight. Obviously thereâs the cost of moving and those things. I had cut back on the extra-murals at school, and we were selling our house.
My little one, who was 6 at the time, one day burst into tears and he said: âMommy, are we poor? Are we going to have to live out of a car?â So I said to him: âWhat are you talking about?â And he said to me: âMommy, you say thereâs no money and weâre selling our house and weâre climbing in the car to drive down to Cape Town? This is it!â And I suddenly realised how careful you have to be.
I do think not in a million years could I have thought that was how he could read it, but still that was a huge reflection for me on how careful one has to be about talking about oneâs finances negatively. What I did is I actually sat down with him and I showed him, he literally wanted to see the bank statements and everything and I was able to explain to him where everything was, that we had insurance policies, that we had retirement policies and we had emergency funds. What I also realised, was that I was very fortunate to have all those in place. So that when my child asked, I could make him feel safe. And thatâs one message I would like to get out to parents. If your finances are in order, you make your children feel safe, and thatâs important.
Itâs real safety. Iâm thinking of friends of ours who through circumstances quite late in their lives lost almost everything. And they protected their children against all odds. They called up all the investments to keep the kids at the private schools that they were at, et cetera et cetera, so that they shouldnât be touched. How do you feel about that?
You know, I think if they were doing that at their own expense, then thatâs a problem. So it all depends, because if now you have wiped out your future to just protect your child today, what legacy are you leaving for your children in the future? Because they now, I do imagine, will be dependent on their children. They will have nothing. And only then will the children realise what actually happened.
I think one must also be prepared as a family to deal with issues and to take challenges together as a family. And you can sit down and you can say: âWe have a financial difficulty. Weâre still together, thereâs still food on the table, we can celebrate that. But weâre going to have to look at what makes sense for us. And if the private school doesnât make sense for us, we need to look at other options.â I do think the biggest gift â and I look at my mom â and the biggest gift sheâs given me is that sheâs not dependent on me. Thereâs not a lot of families nowadays where the children are not having to support their parents in their retirement. And again it was all her own doing. She could very easily have been in that situation, but I donât have that financial pressure of supporting elderly parents. So one has to sometimes look at what gift are you giving to your children if youâre not preparing for the future. Is it a bit of a Trojan horse?
What is the best thing about doing your job as a journalist, about writing in the City Press and your writing on your website?
You know, I think thereâs two sides to journalism that I just love. One is I get to meet amazing people and I get to interview incredible people, and I enjoy their stories and it really, really is a highlight of my job. And the other side in the educational side. When I get an e-mail from a reader who says: âYou changed my life.â Or âI think differently because of an article you wrote.â I know itâs ⌠Thatâs why weâre here, isnât it? To make a difference? And that feeds me. That feeds my value system or feeds me.
It doesnât sound as if youâre the kind of person who makes 10-year plans, but is there a vision board?
Iâm the worst! I was asked the other day this, actually someone said to me: âSo now what?â And I said I have no idea. I have never in my life woken up with any grand plan. But I think what I do is, I look at the opportunities that come about, and I think, okay, does the opportunity interest me? Where is it going to take me? So Iâm always open to opportunity. And I think that means that you have to always be open to change, and be prepared to change. So I think sometimes those 10-year plans actually are the opposite of that. Theyâre not celebrating change; theyâre not allowing you to change if something comes along. So that is how I work, so yes, opportunities come. I weigh them up. Is this what I want to do? Is this taking me along the path that I wish to be on? And I make the decisions. But I can tell you there is no 10-year plan!
Youâve been married just about 20 years. Can you remember meeting your husband and deciding heâs the one?
You know, we knew each other for a while before we started dating. And we were so young! We started dating when we were 19 and we were married at the age of 23. And I remember when he proposed to me, I was 22 when he proposed. And I thought: âWeâre so young! This is crazy! What are we doing?â And you know what he said to me? He said: âWe can either build our lives apart and then get married, or we can build our lives together.â And I fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Iâm very glad I did! I always said the best thing I ever did was say yes!
How do you think, has marriage â itâs so difficult to say that after 20 years because itâs more than half oneâs life â but how did it change you?
You know, if I look at what I get out of my marriage, perhaps, and itâs that partnership, itâs that sharing something with somebody. And I have now more memories with my husband than I have without him. And you know, if I go away somewhere and heâs not with me, I donât have someone to share that moment with. And especially when the children come along â you have somebody to share those moments. Those joys that â the opposite of joy â those moments of Iâm pulling my hair out! And I think itâs for me â itâs the sharing. The ability to share your life with someone. And I think thatâs really important. And again, I probably wasnât an adult long enough to say was there a massive change, but for me I think marriage is the sharing.
And how does one keep it together? How do you keep enjoying the other person? So that itâs not just a habit?
I think there will be many aspects to it. And I always look and think what is it thatâs kept us together, because weâre really happily married. Weâre not just married because we have a certificate. And I look and I think what is it thatâs made this work, and we both respect each other deeply. And not just superficially â we have an incredibly deep respect for what each other does, for our value systems, who we are as people. And I think any sound relationship begins and ends on respect. If you canât respect your partner or your partner doesnât respect you, it will not be a happy marriage. And the other thing we do is we have date night. Every week. Since my son was six weeks old â my eldest â we have date night every single week. It is a complete and utter non-negotiable, and I must tell you there are weeks where I feel like I can breathe, just because of that one evening with him. When youâre raising children and youâre both working, itâs just chaos. And you know, you can just touch base again, catch up on the week. Itâs very important.
And what youâre saying there is you have to focus on it. It doesnât sommer happen.
No, marriage doesnât just happen. You do. And I think weâll get to a point where we realise we have been drifting, and weâll focus again on it and weâll say: âHold on a second, weâre letting us drift. We need to pull ourselves together. And we need to come together again.â And again it comes back to the fact that we actually like each other. We actually do! We enjoy each otherâs company, we want to be together, so we must make it work.
And the kids? How did they change you?
Children change you radically. You know what children do? They teach you so much. They first of all teach you that they are individuals, and parents have some notion when they give birth to this little child that they have anything to do with anything. They donât! This little thing comes out and it has a personality and it is an individual and you get to guide this child. To watch this personality evolve, to see the world through a childâs eyes. You know, you go on a hike now with your little five-year-old and suddenly you see the small flowers and the little bugs and a childâs perception of the world is amazing. And I think the other thing that it really did as well is it challenged my belief system. Not from a ⌠I donât believe in saying to my children âbecause I say soâ, I have to have a good reason. So I had to once analyse why do I think manners were important. I couldnât just say because. I had to think what is it. Why do we have this ritual of greeting people, why do we have these things? How does it affect society? So I go into these very deep philosophical discussions within my own head to prepare myself to explain this to my children and I find that also a wonderful journey.
It must be. When I did Maths 2, my lecturer once, I had to do an oral exam. And he said to me explain matrixes to a grade 10 class, because you canât explain something unless you understand it. Now to understand your own values to such an extent that you can explain it to a small child â dit wil gedoen wees! Youâve just recently made quite a big move from Johannesburg to Cape Town as you were saying. How do children experience change as opposed to adults? Because in the first place, itâs your decision. Not theirs?
I think that was quite a difficult parenting experience as well, because my eldest child was so angry with us for the move.
How old was he?
He was 10. And he was at a school that he was happy at. And he had friends, my family is all up there. And here we were, for no good reason, uprooting him from his life. And transplanting him down somewhere called Cape Town, because we thought it was in his best interest in the long term. And he didnât really have a say in that. And ultimately parents will make decisions. Someone has to be the adult and someone has to make the decision, and that was also to say well, okay, we are the adults. We have decided this is the best move for us as a family, but I understand how you feel. And I think thatâs what I learned from that. Itâs that I canât change the reality. Iâm making those decisions, I am the adult. But I can hear you and I can understand you. And when you tell me you hate me, I understand that. Because he did! He swore he would never forgive us. Fast forward, and heâs very happy down here I might add, and heâs got his friends and heâs settled. But, you know, it was a very, very tough transition for him. And I think that change for children as implemented by parents is challenging. But itâs also life. Itâs about the journey.
But itâs so important to allow them the space to say how can you do this to me and I hate you and I am never going to speak to you again et cetera, et cetera. In our generation, that was not allowed!
Absolutely. But I understood that he was grieving and we understood that. We knew it would have to come to an end and it did. But you know, there was a process. He ⌠It wasnât his choice. It was an interesting one.
And you actually built a house? What is that like? That is on my bucket list.
We were very fortunate. We had a really amazing builder â and thatâs all I can say. Get a really amazing builder, because we were very fortunate and it actually wasnât the most traumatic experience in our lives as it has been for many people. But we ⌠We loved where we lived in Hout Bay, but we were renting and the landlord didnât want to sell. But the property behind, two roads up from us, was for sale. And it was, it is on a slope like this. And fortunately we didnât ask the engineering costs, what it costs to build on a slope like this! We have spectacular views as a result, but believe you me, we will survive a tsunami. Weâll survive an earthquake with the amount of steel and concrete that goes into building on a slope like this. So we built the house, and as everybody says â Iâve written quite a lot of columns out of it â it will cost you more than you expect.
It will take twice as long?
Thatâs what it didnât for us. And that was the one tick that I can give you, as I say, we were very fortunate in having a great builder. And the actual experience was quite painless, apart from the financial side.
But when you briefed the architect ⌠What did you say? What did you want?
We loved the place we were living in already, and I said we like this design. So that started off giving him a concept idea.
So what was it? Space? Big windows?
Space. Big windows. Beautiful views. Very open plan. Our house is very open plan. And then what we did â this is the thing of building a house when your family is a bit older. I know how my family works. I know the dynamics. And I said I know that my children are not going to sit at a desk in their bedrooms to do their homework; they want to be near me. So we need to have the space here. The kitchen â itâs an open plan kitchen â but there must be a room off there for homework and for TV and all of that, because children want to be near you all the time.
Theyâre like cats in that sense.
In all those dynamics and all the way that we work and we want to be â and I think thatâs the bucket list â why people, why do you want to build? Are you mad? It will cost more than buying a house. There is the trauma of it, because you will get what you want. And it will be a reflection of your family. And it will work. And itâs quite interesting â I spoke about my elder son â he really struggled with moving down to Cape Town, and we were worried about the move. We thought he doesnât like change, and we thought moving into another house. Do you know he settled immediately? And I think it was because it was designed around him and us as a family. And I think that is the pearl of a house. And I got very good advice â if you ever, ever want to build a house, the best advice I got was donât land up hating your home. And what happens is, I think you go through the process and the windows in the wrong place and the builder does this and you start to build up this anger and resentment, and eventually when you move in, you just notice all the mistakes.
You accept things that you actually shouldnât accept?
No I think you should. I think itâs the opposite. I think at the end of the day youâve got to say: âYou know what, no-one else knew that that window should have been one centimetre that way. I accept it. Because it will bug you. You sit there every day. âOh that window! I wish I had put it here! I wish I had put it there!â The house you have, the house that will come out is the house you should have.
Well, I hope youâre so very happy!
Thank you.
And I hope that whatever doors open physically and metaphorically, you step through. Good luck.
Thank you.
Till next time. Goodbye.