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Editor's Note

The last few weeks have been making my head spin. Every day there seem to have been new announcements and news articles about VAT (it will change, it won’t change, it might change, and now, it won’t). 

At the same time, there has been so much talk (behind the scenes) about political coalitions and shifting agreements in government.

Coupled with that have been stories about Mr Trump and his mighty tariff chaos. Tariffs went up, came down, disappeared, reappeared, went up and then went up more, and honestly, I am a bit confused about where things stand right now. My brain hurts.

You see, our brains hate change. We like things to stay the same. Its predictable, its stable its familiar. This is much easier to handle than uncertainty.

People don’t like uncertainty and neither do the markets.

‘Entering debt review is often a time of intense change for consumers’

Entering debt review is often a time of intense change for consumers. They have to trust someone else with their finances, they have to change the way they bank and spend and switch to a cash lifestyle, that’s a lot. And those changes all happen in a very short period of time, which makes it even more stressful.

Some people are not even able to make the adjustments needed to get to their first debt review payment.

Others who do successfully make it through the period of initial change, later begin to subtly shoot themselves in the foot. There are many small decisions that can slowly tip the scales against you. In this issue we dive into some of those choices.

We also look at other role players in the industry, and the things they might be doing that could mean they are bad at debt review.

But we hope that you are good at debt review. That you have avoided any of the things that could mean that your debt review, or your practice are in trouble.

This is an amazing process and industry to work in, despite the challenges and changes. Our team have been busy with Debt Review Awards Peer Reviews and event planning. We look forward to being in KZN this year on the 24th of October. Even the Awards process is subject to a little change over time (but we like to do it slow and steady). We are excited about the incremental changes that are set to make the Awards even better this year.

So, if your head is spinning like mine, take a deep breath. Change can also be good. Like if you are heavily in debt and use debt review to change your future. A change from debt slavery to becoming debt free.