We tend to model our lives, and our financial plans, as a straight, uninterrupted line moving upward and to the right. We assume that our income, our capacity, and our circumstances will remain relatively constant, simply growing steadily over time. But life is rarely linear. It is cyclical. It operates in seasons. An accurate graph […]
Continue readingHow strong is your financial plan?
Two key goals of a financial plan are to help you grow what you have, and help you protect what you have. This is why conversations about financial planning should pay attention to your short-term cover. Everyday insurance is a critical piece of your long-term wealth strategy and helps ensure the perimeter around everything you […]
Continue readingWhy good health is a financial strategy
When we sit down to project a client’s retirement, one of the biggest variables we have to account for is longevity. Thanks to modern medicine, we are living longer than any generation in human history. From a financial planning perspective, a longer life means your capital has to stretch further. But there is a glaring […]
Continue readingDon’t avoid the struggle
Here’s why money shouldn’t buy your way out of friction. There is a common, unspoken assumption about wealth that many internalise early in life: we believe that the ultimate purpose of money is to reduce or eliminate our problems. We view a well-funded balance sheet as the ultimate shock absorber. We assume that if we […]
Continue readingEmpty nest financial planning
There is a very specific kind of quiet that descends on a house when the children finally leave. It affects our hearts, but it also affects our financial planning. If you’re in this situation, or know someone who is, here’s a little of the new reality… For a couple of decades, the home has been […]
Continue readingTalking to your family about money
As the playwright George Bernard Shaw famously observed, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Nowhere is this more evident than in our family conversations about our financial lives. We often assume that because we share a home, a surname, and a bank account with our loved ones, […]
Continue readingGuarding the basecamp
When we sit down to build a financial plan, our eyes are naturally drawn to the summit, not the basecamp. We focus our energy on the big, inspiring goals: retiring with dignity, leaving a meaningful legacy, aiming for financial independence or funding our children’s education. We engineer our long-term investments to weather global economic storms […]
Continue readingThey may not show up on your statement
One of the metrics used extensively in the financial profession to evaluate a given decision is the Return on Investment (ROI). It’s used in other areas too, like in marketing and operational planning meetings for larger companies and corporations. This metric drives us to optimise portfolios to chase the highest possible yield. We scrutinise management […]
Continue readingRedefining true financial wellbeing
When working with a qualified and experienced financial planner, you should have a partner who will be exceptionally well-positioned to diagnose a balance sheet. They can easily spot a gap in risk cover, identify underperformance in a portfolio, and structure a tax-efficient estate plan. We are taught to read the numbers like a novel. But […]
Continue readingInvisible ink
Have you ever thought about the unspoken money scripts we pass to our children? As parents, we often assume that teaching our children about money requires a formal sit-down conversation. We plan to wait until they are teenagers to explain the mechanics of a budget, the danger of credit cards, and the magic of compound […]
Continue readingThe high price of “someday”
There is a very common narrative that high-achievers tend to buy into. It is the idea of the deferred life. We work relentlessly in our thirties, forties, and fifties, pouring all of our surplus time and energy into building our careers and our portfolios. We tell ourselves that we are making sacrifices now so that […]
Continue readingThe Rule of 72
The financial world is full of complex algorithms, dense spreadsheets, and jargon designed to make investing look like a highly complicated science. You could find yourself thinking that you need an advanced degree just to understand what your money is doing. But occasionally, a piece of math comes along that is so simple, and so […]
Continue readingThe shift from reactive to intentional wealth
There is a distinct feeling that comes from being out of control with your finances. It is a quiet, low-grade anxiety that hums in the background of your life. When your finances are unguided, you spend your time reacting. You react to the unexpected bill, you react to the late fee, and you react to […]
Continue readingReclaim your future from debt
If you have ever carried a significant amount of debt, you know that it is rarely just a numbers problem. It is an emotional, social and physiological weight. Whether it is a heavy mortgage, a maxed-out credit card, or a spiralling personal loan, unmanageable debt dictates your mood, limits your choices, and introduces a low-grade […]
Continue readingThe open hand
Have you ever thought about how gratitude could be a key part of your financial strategy? Ken Honda calls it “arigato money”, which we could call “thank you” money. When we are children, the very first lessons we learn about social etiquette revolve around two simple phrases: “please” and “thank you.” We are taught that […]
Continue readingWill you enjoy the journey?
There’s a traditional approach to financial planning that relies heavily on the maths of your money. A legacy expectation of discussing asset allocation, historic yields, and projected growth. Success can be perceivably forecast with the building of beautiful spreadsheets that show exactly how a portfolio should perform over the next few decades. But a spreadsheet […]
Continue readingKeeping money in its place
We often look to our investment portfolios for ultimate security. We watch the markets, hoping the numbers will grow large enough to finally give us permission to exhale. This is so common; if you resonate with this, you’re not alone. But relying entirely on a bank balance, risk product or investment portfolio to provide your […]
Continue readingThe opportunity cost of ‘Inbox Zero’
Have you ever started off your day with the intent to mark off everything in your email inbox as ‘Read’? Sometimes, we have this perception that our emails need to be all read and sorted before we can move on to our next task. We are often taught to manage our time with the same […]
Continue readingInheritance without instruction
When families who have spent decades building a substantial financial foundation sit down to talk about money, a quiet, often unspoken anxiety usually surfaces. As they look to the future, they worry about the impact their wealth will have on their children. Will the capital empower them to build meaningful lives, or will it remove […]
Continue readingDesigning a frictionless recovery
When we build a financial plan, we naturally spend most of our time looking at the horizon. We focus on the big, exciting milestones: funding a comfortable retirement, selling a business, or leaving a meaningful legacy. We engineer our long-term investments to weather global economic storms. But in doing so, we often neglect the everyday […]
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