Financial Life Coaching

Financial planning and the work I do as a financial planner is very much misunderstood. Many think it’s all about promoting get-rich schemes and selling people products they don’t really need, that usually end up with the buyer losing a lot of money.

Having worked in the industry for some 20 years, I can tell you nothing is furthest from the truth. There may be financial planners still around that do that, but they never stay in the industry long and they certainly don’t spend decades in it.

The work I do as a financial planner is really more akin to being a financial coach. I work full time in the industry and spend a large chunk of that time keeping up with legislative changes, so I can help my clients make the most of whatever money they do have.

It’s about getting the structure right. That is getting your savings into the best structure to minimise your tax liabilities as much as possible and for the average person that usually means putting money into super.

If you think on it that just makes common sense. If you can reduce your tax bill on an investment return from, say your marginal tax rate to just 15 percent or even zero, that’s going to leave you with more money in your pocket.

It also means you don’t have to be chasing high risk investments to get the sort of returns you might be looking for. It means you can look for safer, more secure investments better suited to want you are really hoping to achieve.

It’s about choosing the right investments given your overall goals in life. If you’re earning big money and are still in your thirties, you might decide you’re happy to take a few risks to get big returns and if you lose some money along the way, you’ll just put that down to experience.

If that’s what you’re looking for I would say straight up I am not the financial planner for you. After getting the structure right, I think the next most important skill I bring to the table is to choose solid long-term investments that are in line with your financial goals.

Finally, perhaps the most important skill I bring to the table is providing reassurance that the strategies and investments you are embarking on are right and regardless of what financial storms might sweep through, that everything will be fine.

That’s easy to say when everything is fine but harder to say when times suddenly turn upside down and all you are hearing about in the media is doom and gloom. That’s where having someone knowledgeable in your corner can help.

Having spent the past twenty years as a financial planner and before those, ten years as first the banking writer and then senior economics journalist for The Age newspaper in Canberra, there is nothing much I haven’t seen before.

Sometimes that experience and knowledge, that ability to see over the horizon so to speak, can be invaluable when it comes to making big financial decisions or knowing what to do when times turn against you.