Earning good money, but kept finding ways to spend all of it (plus some)…
I’ve really loved being part of Sarah and Ryan’s story. Yes it was great to meet two people who appreciate puns as much as I do, but I also met a couple whose situation was so common for people at their age and stage of life.
They were earning good money, but spending most of it and they couldn’t make a dent in their debt. Like a lot of people, this issue wasn’t related to their ability to earn money, but they just needed a plan and some targets so they could start saving money to achieve their joint goals; to buy a property and for Sarah to take some time off when they started a family.
Our work together was a matter of prioritising these goals, working out which was most important and what was achievable in the short term vs. which ones had to go on the backburner for a while. We put a plan in place to start clearing their debt and saving money, with an initial goal of allowing Sarah to take a good chunk of time off work when they had their first child.
But you know what? Getting them to change their spending habits was TOUGH! We all know change in any area of life can be challenging, but when Sarah, Ryan and I started working together, they were struggling to stick to our plan. Every month there was a reason why they hadn’t hit their savings target, which gave us a great opportunity to have a candid discussion. The way I saw it, they had two options; the first was to change their goal and keep the same saving / spending behaviours. Or, if it was important to them that Sarah could have some time off once their baby arrived, they needed to change the way they were spending money. This level of accountability to a plan is what I see missing from a lot of situations, especially for young couples. You need someone in your corner who is happy to ask the tough questions or have the difficult conversations when they’re needed most.
A couple of years later, I’m so proud of the fact that they decided that their plan was too important to compromise, and since our honest conversation, they have really hit their savings targets. Now little Georgie has come into the world, and Sarah and Ryan hit all their targets so Sarah was able to take the time off work to be a mum that was so important to her. I feel really privileged to have been able to help Sarah and Ryan get some direction, focus and forward motion with their finances, a change which is about to have a profound effect on their new family’s life.
Here’s what Sarah had to say about her experience working with us:
“My husband and I are young professionals with decent incomes but were finding our financial goals eluding us. Typical Gen Y, we were spending all we had and our plan to get into the property market was becoming more and more unattainable. A colleague referred me to Pivot Wealth and we clicked with Ben right away. It didn’t feel like talking to a typical financial planner, we had really open discussions about what we wanted to achieve working with him and once we’d committed, we received support right from the start.
Ben took us through the ins and outs of planning for our future, simplified previously confusing financial concepts like taxation and negative gearing and laid some solid foundations to bring our financial goals to fruition. 6 months on and we’re excited to see our wealth growing and value our relaxed monthly catch-ups to keep us on track. It’s a relief to know our budget is now fully automated so we don’t have to worry about paying bills or putting savings aside, it’s all working in the background and our goal to own property is now finally attainable. Big thanks to Ben and the team.”
– Sarah