Having learnt from bitter experience, I suggest you make sure all your banking and insurance business is taken care of BEFORE you leave SA. And don't just take their word for it, cancel your debit orders at least a month before you leave and then check that they do in fact stop going through your account. I have been fighting for months to get debit orders cancelled. The biggest culprit is Outsurance. And when a debit order bounces because of insufficient funds (I really just left enough in the account to keep it going for things like tax refunds), Absa hits me with a whopping R125 per bounced debit order! They also claim that debit orders can only be cancelled if you PHONE the relevant company, e-mailing isn't good enough. The same goes for changing addresses, you have to prove your new address with a utility bill and certified copy of your SA ID document. Quite a nightmare! One even suggested I go to the embassy in Bern to have documents authenticated, they didn't want to take Swiss notary authentication!

Ha!
Another thing: cell-phone contracts!
Luckily I knew about this and cancelled my cell-phone contract waayyy in advance. Despite this, and having made sure it will be cancelled, MTN still continued to bill me!

if you have told the authorities i.e. the visa/permit people that you are leaving definitively they will stamp your permit and probably give you a letter confirming you are going. take/show this to anyone you have a contract with and they are obliged to end you contract and you are not liable for after the date of departure.

have you cancelled your tv licence? what a nightmare to get rid of it!!!

Thanks Bill, that is useful to know. Except I didnt know at the time that I would find a job and stay on. And that's when the trouble started....

Hi Sandaleen, I did cancel my TV licence and funny enough, they were the most efficient of the lot. Except they wanted to know the name and address of the people who bought our TV! Well, so far anyway. They may still sneak the debit order through in September!