We hear it all the time. Stereotypes about the financial planning world come by the 100s…no 1000s! More often than not, people don’t realise that a financial planner can be a useful asset to any and every stage of their life.
​
 “Oh! But working with an adviser is just about spending less than what I am earning.’.

​We don’t like to think about it, those ‘what if’ scenarios that could put a really unexpected spanner in the works. Those not-so-nice things are unfortunately things we have to consider when we look at entering a professional partnership or starting a business with someone else.

​
​Calling all medical professionals! We are here for you because we get it. Your schedule is tight because your career takes up a lot of it, but somehow you have to also make time for your family and your future. Have you ever taken a moment to pause and reflect on how well you are keeping on top of your finances? *insert hair-pulling* Yes, this can sound like too much at once, being a maestro at all of this is a hard pill to swallow.

​OKAY CHILL! Breathe in, breathe out and have a slice of your favourite guilty pleasure. ‘Wait, what? I thought that was doing me more harm than good?’. Sometimes it is okay to take the guilt out of those guilty pleasures. The point of saving and budgeting is not to live like a pauper and miss out on quality life experiences – that is extreme, even for us!

​So you’ve made the call; “I am going to be honest with myself and take a look at where my money is going! But where am I going to hide all my bad habits..?”

We hear you loud and clear! Putting your financial situation and spending on display can be a daunting task. Perhaps you have been doing a little too much online shopping lately, you went out for dinner a handful more times than anticipated and I mean, you really did neeeeed that new phone. We have all been there, don’t sweat it. Even the best of us have had times where we spent everything we earned, and when we went to check our bank balance, we were less than ecstatic.

​We have all been there. How often do you check your back account, blissfully thinking – ‘oh yea, I have at least $300 in there.’. With utter confidence you open your bank app and see, *GASP* only $3.21? Suddenly that confidence morphs into denial, panic, anger and even…. tears.

‘You’ve got a friend in me’ sang the Insurance Broker to the Financial Adviser. The duo realised that their new-found friendship was an everlasting one, and so they lived happily ever after, making clients happy. Who doesn’t love the good old tale of the Insurance Broker and the Financial Adviser?? Two people who love guiding their clients through mishaps.

You are in a remote location for sometimes up to a month, thousands of kilometres away from home and are paid a fat six-figure salary. That #fifolife includes making an appearance at the airport in your hi-vis and heading back to site like clockwork. Ah, the dream, right? But then why do most FIFO workers have no more than $10k in their bank account? Even though just about everything is covered for onsite?

FIFOs often start with the idea of doing it short-term. Their primary objective was to make a large amount of money for a few years, in order to pay down the mortgage or set themselves up. When speaking to FIFO workers, we have found that a lot of them are years down the road and are actually no closer to where they want to be than they were when they first set off to site.
 
We have found that FIFO workers are often at the mercy of spending more and giving in to those cravings as they see money in their bank grow past a certain “comfort buffer”. So how does one get out of the FIFO financial mindset, and get on track?