What The Honest Reset Is Actually For

The Honest Reset is a financial guide for single parents in South Africa, but I will say upfront, it isn’t for everyone. It’s for people, and I say people because I know there are single dads out there too, doing this exact same thing alone, who are starting over after life has knocked them sideways and they’re trying to find their feet again, something I’ve written more about in my retrenchment series. It’s for someone who needs a friend right now, someone who actually understands the place they’re sitting in, not someone talking to them from outside looking in. It’s for someone with no plan B, no safety net, just the situation in front of them and the need to deal with it.

I’m a very private person, especially when it comes to money, and you wouldn’t catch me talking about my finances with anyone, not even the people closest to me. Speaking to others about something that personal can feel incredibly exposing, and I know I’m not the only one who feels that way. This guide let me keep that privacy while still actually doing the work, facing it honestly, just on my own terms, in my own time, without having to say a word of it out loud to anyone.

There’s a page in the guide called What Is Actually Draining Me, and it’s not something I’ve ever really talked about or faced properly before, not in any real way. I live day after day carrying this guilt about not being able to provide for my children the way I’d like to, and somewhere in that I quietly put myself last, because if I’m honest, I’m the last person I’m ever thinking about. Putting that on paper was genuinely hard, actually sitting with the question of when last I’d spent money on myself without feeling some kind of way about it. When I looked at what I’d written, I remembered thinking, I can’t keep going on like this anymore.

I’m not saying that now that I’m aware of it, I’m going to go on a shopping spree and suddenly be happy. What I’m saying is, this is exactly where the rest of the guide comes in. It doesn’t hand you an answer or a fixed solution. It gives you the space to actually sit with the question of what giving to your family and giving to yourself, both at once, might actually look like for your own life.

That page is just one part of it. The guide walks you through the honest numbers too—what’s actually coming in and going out, no rounding up or pretending, the same kind of real math I’ve written about when it comes to groceries on one income—then moves into a practical, category-by-category look at where you genuinely still have room to change things. There’s also a full South African resource directory tucked inside, government assistance you might actually qualify for, legitimate debt support and NCR registered, affordable shopping, and free things to do with your kids, because rebuilding isn’t only about the spreadsheet; it’s about knowing what’s actually available to you, something I’ve tried to build toward too in writing about building savings as a single mom from almost nothing.

I’m not a financial advisor, and this isn’t financial advice. It’s built by someone who’s actually sitting in it, not watching from a distance, and it’s here for anyone who needs exactly that.

You can actually see this exact page, along with a few others, in the free sample on Payhip. If that sounds like where you are, this is what I built.