Month: November 2018

Living Annuity Platform (LISP) Comparisons in South Africa

stephen Finance

In this post I will be finding giving an overview of Living Annuity Platform Comparisons.

A living annuity is an investment product that usally takes a single big contribution once as a lumpsum, usually from the proceed of the death of a family member. It must pay you an income in the form of monthly payments from 2.5% to 17.5% of the total value each year. It is important to choose a living annuity provider that has low fees and the ability to invest in many different funds.

What are Living Annuity Platforms?

A living annuity lets the owner choose where to invest the money inside it. The money will be deposited into a living annuity platform, which is usually a website that you can use to view and manage your investments inside the living annuity. Often people that are not too savvy with money and financial matters will use a financial planner or asset manager to set up and control the funds.

The correct terminology is a LISP, a Linked Investment Service Provider. These financial intermediaries provide access to a range of funds from different management companies. There is alot more information on LISP’s and what they are on the Asisa website.

The Pitfalls of Letting a Fund Manager Control your Living Annuity

Most people think they can just leave the management of their money to a financial planner or asset manager to grow the money in their fund. They will pay a fee for the advice and investment choices and everything will be fine until retirement.

This is not how it works. In life things are rarely this easy. Asset Management companies are for profit, they will look to maximise their profit through fees and are not your friends that are going to be looking out for you.

Why you should manage your living annuity fund yourself:

  • The EAC (Effective Annual Cost) of the whole investment including the investment management fee, advice, administration and other costs make up the Effective annual cost. This can be as high as 4- 5%. Which means if youare drawing the minimumof 2.5% per annum your fund manager is taking (stealing) more than you are each month.
  • Fund Managers and Advisors will recommend and sometimes lock you into using their funds, even though other funds are of a higher quality, have had better returns and may be better suited for your portfolio. You will be using under performing funds simply because the fees on this fund go to the company of the person advising you. For example if you use PSG asset managers they will advise you/manage your investment to be fully invested in PSG funds. Which means they get 100% of the fees.
  • The highly specialised buying and selling of assets is not a highly specialised thing. Most people trading on financial markets do not know the future. They are simply investing in a diversified set of companies, portperties and bonds which usually track an index. The amateur investing in a market / passive fund tracker like an ETF outperforms active investment management professionals on average. Warren buffet $1m for a charity with this call.
  • The number 1 reason is that it is your money, you should be responsible for it and understand exactly why, what and how things are happening the way they are. You can’t simply believe the tricks of fund managers showing you fake predictions for the future. Most of these don’t take into account the reality that markets sometimes do badly.
  • Fees are constant, your returns are variable. Whether you make lots or little you will be paying a fixed amount of fees each year that can wither away the value of your living annuity.

Living Annuity Platform Comparisons

I have looked around the web and there aren’t many comparisons of Living Annuity Providers / LISP’s (Linked Investment Service Provider). There providers are usually part of the asset maanger themselves and seem to only offer funds from their own stable. Nonetheless I have searched for the different paltforms and will show you the comparison in fees and eligible funds below.

Platform NameMin Platform Admin FeeFees on Local FundsFees on external FundsNumber of Funds AvailableExpense ratio on R11.8m (external)Notes
Sygnia Alchemy00%0.5%620.25%Fee on external funds over R2m is 0.2%
Glacier by Sanlam (Partner of Satrix)R640.84%0.84%9270.275%0- R350k: 0.84%
R350k - R800k: 0.56%
R800k - R1.05M: 0.39%
R1.05M - R5.05M: 0.28%
Above: 0.22%
Inclusive
Allan Gray Platform00.2%0.5%670.238%0.5% on the first R1.5m invested, 0.2% on the next R3.5m and 0.1% on the
balance over R5m. For any investments in Allan Gray unit trusts we charge a flat annual administration
fee of 0.2% (excl. VAT).
OPN/PPS LIVING ANNUITY00.5%0.5%?0.238%On the first R 1,500,000: 0.5%
Thereafter: 0.2%
PSG Wealth00.350%0.575%4600.217%0 - R1.5M: 0.575% (0.350% on local)
R1.5M - R6M: 0.23%
Above: -0.115%
Absa Linked Investments (AIMS)R2280.75%0.75%?0 - R250k: 0.75%
250k - 750k: 0.5%
Above: 0.25%
Ashburton Investments00%0.46%970.261%R1m:0.45%
R2m: 0.35%
Above R3m: 0.22%
Coronation Fund Managers Living Annuity00N/A23 (Only Coronation Funds)0%Locked in to only using Coronation Funds
Alexander Forbes Global Platform00.7%0.7%10 - 200.7%
Capricorn Asset Management
Cidel
Discovert Invest
INN8 Offshore
INN8 Onshore00.5%0.5%https://inn8.co.za/offshore/#our-proposition
Liberty Bold1%0.5%0.5%1900.25%0.5% for investments up to R1 million,
- 0.35% for investments greater than R1 million,
- And 0.25% for investments greater than R3 million.
Nedbank Private Wealth Focus
WealthportR200.5%0.5%

 

How to fix a Brother DCP-J105 Print head not printing Black and other Tricks

stephen Hardware

Ever replaced and ink cartidge on a Brother and it stops printing that colour? I had that problem after not using it for a while and the Brother DCP-J105 would no longer print black. I now have the solution of How to fix a Brother DCP-J105 not printing black. After a few weeks of trying, found success and can help you if you having been having issues. Let’s start

I have one of these damn great things (Brotehr DCP-J105):

brother-dcp-j105-fix-not-printing-blackI had left it in an outside room for about a year and ants had got into it and layed eggs etc. So I unpacked it and opened it up and cleaned it out as best I could.

I then saw that it was not printing black, so I bought a new cartridge. After putting it in and printing it still was not printing black.

I did a test print and all other colours worked except black.

It is always a good idea to at least try the manufacturers website and see what they suggest to fix black on a Brother DCP-J105. The solutions didn’t work for me.

So I tried a youtube video that showed a cleaning kit and using a syringe to push cleaning fluid into the palce the ink usually goes. I did that with my home made cleaning fluid (alcohol) and a syringe and it didn’t really work. Still no black. In that video the british bellend said that if it does not push black ink out the print head your printer is most likely dead. Well joke is on him, all is not lost, it still may be alive.

I search the internet again today and found a post on how to clean a Borther DCP-J105 not printing black:

It was to blow compressed air into the same place where ink goes and that would unblock it.

I did this with a straw and my own breath (pauper lifestyle) and miraculously a few lines of black now print. After doing a print test page a few dots of black now print.

I cleaned it and printed a few black ink test pages and it is gradually getting more black spots. The goal is to have that entire block coloured black.

So I cleaned it 2 times in a row now and a few more dots/lines appeared. Note: Cleaning the Brother DCP-J105 does waste ink.

I’m now going to clean it 5 times.

Dammit, now it is worse. Went from 70% full to 5 dots.

I printed a few pages and now I’m back to square one. Not a single black spot.

So I blew smoke up the ink shoot again and nothing.

I cleaned it 2 times in a row manually and it now was 95% filled.

I printed pages and in 5 pages ink decreased to nothing.

Other Tricks

Ink running low, Ink Not Detected Error

I got this information from this video:

Basically Brother tells you it no longer wants you half filled ink cartirdges. To them, half full is empty. Yet more evidence on how printers companies are legally scamming of regular people.

The error will say Printer Ink Not Detected for a specific colour when it is low (but not empty). Now you can’t print anything.

So all you need to do is black out the ink level window to trick the printer into thinking the cartridge is full. This will make your printer work.

This also has an added benfit in making your Brother DCP-J105 printer not show annoying out of ink or low level popups as they will always be full. You will of course need to refill or replace the cartridges when ink is not showing up on printed documents.

That said, the saving on printer cartidges and ink will more than pay for that inconvenience.