As more middle-class South Africans default on credit repayments and battle to make ends meet, some of SA's lowest-income earners could teach them a hard lesson in turning a little into a lot.
Their secret? Cutting back on certain "luxuries", which has enabled some minimum-wage workers to save enough to realise their dreams.
Simple cutbacks, such as walking instead of taking public transport, making your own lunch for work instead of buying a sandwich, and ditching designer clothes and expensive cellphones can make a huge difference.
Piet Mamabolo, 25, was working as a Johannesburg petrol attendant when he met a fridge mechanic. He decided to follow the same job path but needed R50,000 to do the course - a seeming impossibility for someone earning R5,500 a month.
He wasn't put off and began saving diligently. Each month he saved his entire salary, living on the R1,500 in tips he averaged each month.
His equally disciplined girlfriend, Kgopolo Moloro, 26, chipped in. She was able to lend him R15,000, accumulated by saving R2,000 of the R3,000 a month she earns as a temporary worker at the Rustenburg municipality.
Mamabolo graduated last year and found a job as an assistant technician at a company in Centurion.
He now earns R12,000 a month, or R16,000 with overtime, but his strict saving regime continues. He saves R10,000 and lives on the rest, while the house he is building for his family takes shape in Limpopo.
He and Moloro also save money by taking their own lunch to work.
Moloro also gives her mother money for a food stokvel, and with their payout they buy food in bulk "and it lasts for months".
Moloro said she took a job close to home to cut down on transport costs.
Godfrey Mathebula's hopes of obtaining a qualification in agriculture faded after he dropped out of his Limpopo school in grade 10, tired of being made fun of because, at 20 years old, he was the oldest pupil in his class.
In 2002 he found himself in Johannesburg, renting a Tembisa shack for R80 a month and selling a mix of wares next to a road in Kempton Park.
His business grew into a small spaza shop and he managed to save about R300 a month, using the rest to buy stock and provide for his family.
Mathebula, 32, saved by buying stock in bulk and cutting out transport costs where possible by walking.
Five years later he had saved the R20,000 needed to buy Macelakuomile farm, a 3ha plot in Plange Village, Limpopo, from the tribal authority.
He now supplies to the Johannesburg and Pretoria fresh produce markets, Shoprite, and to local businesses. From his R140,000 turnover a season he ploughs R40,000 back into the business.
Port Elizabeth domestic worker Zoleka Gladile, 29, earns R3,500 a month. Last year she saved R7,800, despite having to help support five siblings in Ngcobo, contributing R1,000 a month to a stokvel and buying building materials for a home she plans to build in Ntsimba village.
"I'm not interested in fancy clothes, expensive phones and such. I have responsibilities and the only way for me to meet them is to save."
A spot near Glenhove Road in northern Johannesburg has turned out to be a lucrative spot for Joseph Leotwane, 44. Every packet of chips he sells from his makeshift trolley helps him save for the butchery he dreams of opening.
He makes on average R3,000 a week and saves R6,000 a month. So far he has saved R50,000 towards the R3.5m he says he needs for his butchery.
Warren Ingram, wealth manager and executive director of Galileo Capital, said the discipline of saving did not depend on how much a person earned, but rather on what they would do without.
"People need to cut costs and make hard decisions about what to sacrifice, before the hard decisions get made for them.
"Everyone should have an emergency fund with three to six months' worth of their expenses, so if something happens they don't get into debt," he said.
Madri Jacobs, financial planner at Sanlam, said the simplest way to save money was to "ditch expensive debt" and "pack your own lunch". She believed people who earned less but had managed to save a lot often had an internal motivation to surpass all other needs.
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