Financial Autonomy

Financial Autonomy is about managing and planning for major transitions in life.  A transition that many of us face unfortunately is divorce.  I understand researchers have found that going through a divorce can be one of the most stressful things you can experience in life. As a financial planner, I often work with clients who have been through or are going through a divorce, and assist them in the planning necessary to get them back on their feet financially. In this post I’ve broken down the things you need to be thinking about into 4 key strategy elements.  If you can work through these, you’ll be in a position to get your financial life back on track, and with this stress removed, hopefully your life back on track too. Divorce is certainly no fun.  But it does offer the opportunity to hit the reset button in your life.  With some good financial planning, this next chapter in your life can be the best yet.   Fortunately the days of couples sticking together in relationships that no longer work are behind

Many people that I speak to seek freedom from the need to clock on and clock off.  To not be answerable to a boss. To not having to devote time and energy to things that they’re not passionate about, just for the pay. The dream therefore becomes to retire early, and the sooner the better. In Australia superannuation is the primary vehicle that we use to save for retirement, and access to superannuation is available from age 60.  So, when we’re talking about early retirement, we’re referring to retiring earlier than age 60. But what does being retired before the age of 60 actually mean?  Does that mean sitting at home all day looking at the TV?  I certainly hope not. Of the people I talk to with the ambition to retire early, I believe their goal is to have choice and freedom.  To be able to say no to things they don’t want to do in a work sense.  Early retirement links very strongly with financial independence, and that is where we will be focusing the attention of today’s podcast. So your dream of early retir

I’ve known Nish for over 25 years.  He was there when I started my first job out of school, and over the years our careers and lives intersected. These days, as well as being a friend, Nish and his family are also clients.  For many years Nish was a financial planner, even running his own firm for a period.  To have someone with that professional skill and background decide to engage me and my firm to act as their financial planner is to me, one of the greatest professional compliments you can receive. Today I’m really excited to share with you a little bit of Nish’s hugely successful transition from the corporate world to running his own photography business – Nish Photography.  But it doesn’t just stop there.  Because Nish and his incredibly supportive wife Janine made a second transition a few years later by making a sea-change.  Leaving the big smoke with its big mortgage and hecticness, and moving the family to a small seaside community about an hour out of Melbourne.  Nish and his family have never been

Starting a family is a huge step in a great many of our lives.  Bringing a new little human into the world.   So much hope.  Scary too!  Completely life changing. Financial Autonomy is about you taking control of your finances, and not being controlled by your finances.  The focus of this audio blog is to think through the financial implications of taking this big leap, and what you can do to prepare for this major transition in your life. Also, if you’re reading or listening to this during the pregnancy phase, and are anything like my household was prior to the birth of our first child, you’ve probably read enough books like What to Expect When Your Expecting, and Up the Duff.  I promise there will be no references to what pregnancy will do to your body, or any of the seemingly infinite ways we can be a terrible parent and ruin our child’s life. My name’s Paul Benson, and thanks for listening to Financial Autonomy, the audio blog.  Let’s dive into today’s episode, how to be financial ready to start a family.

One fantastic and I find often overlooked way to achieve financial autonomy is to buy an existing business.  In comparison to starting your own business where cash flow starts at zero and you need to support yourself whilst the business becomes self-sustaining (refer episode 1), when you buy an existing business, you have cash flow and customers from day one. Buying a business is something I can talk about with quite a bit of experience.  I’ve bought two businesses, and for a couple years I was a licensed Business Broker as a side line to my financial planning practice.  The thinking at the time was that my business owner financial planning clients would need to sell their businesses when they retired, and so perhaps offering business broking services was a sensible expansion.  I ended up concluding that the two services weren’t especially complementary, but I picked up some great learnings that make me a better advisor for my business owning financial planning clients, and for those seeking financial autonom

I’ve named this podcast Financial Autonomy. So what is Financial Autonomy? What does it mean? Well that’s what we’re going to explore in today’s podcast I’ll give you a big hint – Financial Autonomy is about gaining choices in life. Buckle up – let’s dive in! Financial autonomy or financial independence if you prefer, is about being in a financial position to have CHOICE. In my role as a financial planner, every day I talk to people about their financial plans.  In almost all cases, amongst their financial goals will be retirement plans.  For the past 50+ years, most people in developed countries such as Australia have lived on an expectation that they will enter the work force in their late teens or early 20’s, and work through until somewhere in their 60’s, whereupon they will cease work entirely and live out their remaining days in “retirement”. This scenario is perhaps a bit male centric, as for many women, paid employment is often put on pause when children arrive.  But none the less, in more recent tim

Redundancy – not something most of us like to contemplate. Yet it is a reality for many of us in our working life. So rather than redundancy being seen as something negative, let’s flip it around - your redundancy could be the best thing that has ever happened to you. Financial autonomy is about building financial strategies to give you choices in life. And very often these choices present themselves at moments of transition. In this case, your transition is leaving the comfort of a work place you’ve been at for many years, maybe even decades, and moving onto the next chapter in your life. Today’s podcast will explore how you can make this transition a successful one. I’m Paul Benson and you’re listening to the Financial Autonomy audio blog. Let’s dive in!   It’s not you, it’s them. Over the years I’ve dealt with many people who have been made redundant and so I know it can be a huge confidence sapper. But I want to tell you, if you are currently facing redundancy that you being made redundant is almost neve

So you’ve decided you’re ready to take the big plunge and start your own business.  Congratulations.  Having transitioned from being an employee to running my own business, I can tell you, you will be in for some challenges, but also many rewards, not least of which is flexibility in how you manage your time.  I know of self employed people who like early morning, quiet, thinking time, and so choose to work for 2-3 hours from 6am, then take a break, do some exercise, have something to eat, and sit back down to continue working late morning.  Others work better at night, hitting full stride at 10pm and working through until the early hours.  Of course many businesses require you to be on deck during normal business hours to respond to customers, but even here you have flexibility, especially when you employ staff, to decide when you will be “at the coal face”. So you’ve made your decision, but how to be financially ready to start your own business?  You need a roof over your head and food on the table.  Perh

A brief outline of what we'll be doing in the Financial Autonomy podcast.