Financial Autonomy

How long since you've taken a step back from your professional life and considered where it's taking you?  Is your current professional activity taking you to somewhere you want to be in 10 or 20 years?  Is it leading you towards inner happiness? It's easy with the pressures of mortgage repayments or rent, perhaps kids, and just the normal expenses of life, to push on, head down bum up.  The probl...

When thinking about financial autonomy we are typically talking about medium to long term goals, and then developing strategies to get to those goals. The transition then is a planned one. What if your transition was thrust upon you? I met someone recently who faced this challenge, and with her permission, I thought it was worth sharing with you a little of her story and the learnings that we can...

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...

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 superannu...

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 fir...

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 prep...

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 t...

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...

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 themsel...

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 choo...

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