Here's something you don't often hear about millennials: We are better money savers than our elders, but does that translate into long-term wealth?

By not taking a long-term saving approach, you miss out on the beauty of compound interest. Described as "the eighth wonder of the world" by Albert Einstein, compounding is when the interest earned on a sum of money is added to the original amount so that the interest also earns interest, dramatically multiplying the value of your investment.

As investors there is a lot we can learn from marathon runners that can assist us with our own "ultimate human race" - the challenge of retiring financially independent. Borrowing from a marathon runner's training guidelines, here are five top tips on how to retire financially independent.

A week after South Africa's fifth democratic election and the election results reveal that the country has made the pragmatic decision. Voters have given the ANC a sufficient majority to comfortably form a government, both nationally and in the eight provinces it previously ruled... While the short-term boost is welcome, the longer-term outlook will be determined by the choices South Africa now makes.

It is easy to find oneself in the midst of a raging debate about which of the two types of fund management approaches - Active and Passive - is best, and the arguments are generally skewed towards the approach chosen by the company for which the writer works.

What is an active and a passive fund management approach, you may be asking?

Actively managed funds have a fund manager who delivers returns based on specific mandate. That person is responsible for selecting which investments to make, when to sell those investments amongst a myriad of other responsibilities. Passive funds on the other hand, simply track a certain index and are not actively managed. As a result of the human capital required to constantly manage the funds under active management, the fees charged by these asset managers are generally higher than those charged by their passive alternatives.

Tax-free savings accounts can help you save more for the long term because you don’t pay tax on the growth of your investment. There are quite a few providers that offer these types of investments, so where do you start?