Using a tried and trusted guide to the eight simple steps for financial success Directors Jeff Thurecht and Marshall Brentnall spoke freely about why these strategies are important to always go back to.
What is it about these steps that are important and continue to be relevant?
Financial advisers, accountants and solicitors seem to have a habit of taking otherwise simple strategies and making them complex. Our team take a different approach, and do all that we can to ensure our messaging and advice is delivered in an easily digestible format.
Advice that is understood leads to better engagement, and in time, this translates to a greater likelihood of financial success.
The importance of this approach was highlighted to Jeff and I throughout the Global Financial Crisis, and has been reinforced throughout every subsequent crisis or period of economic instability.
Whilst all clients have different goals and objectives, the majority if not all of these can be achieved with the considered use of eight steps for financial success. Many of these steps are tenets that have been passed down through the generations, and several can even be found in the text by Richard S Clayson, The Richest Man in Babylon.
Step 1: Spending less than you earn
Whether you’re a business or individual if you are consistently spending more than you earn it is unlikely you will find financial success. That’s why all Evalesco advisers, and all of our financial plans, stress the importance of consistently spending less than you earn.
Once you are consistently spending less than you earn, it opens the door to the remaining seven steps for financial success. Some, but not all, of these include owning your own home, managing your borrowings wisely, making the most of superannuation, owning an investment portfolio and building a professionally managed share portfolio. The purpose of this blog is to provide you with a glimpse of these steps and over the coming month we will explore them in more detail and where possible reference some client stories as well.
Given what’s been going on in the world and the volatility and the challenges are these simple steps still holding their own?
This is what Marshall had to say:
“If we go back to when we first started our partnership, Jeff and I took on number of clients that (before they came to us) really hadn’t adhered to a number of these steps. These are investors that didn’t have a firm grasps of their spending patterns, had not prioritised home ownership, borrowings were entered into taxation outcomes in mind and personal anxiety levels were high. It took a considerable effort by all parties, however over a number of years, we supported those clients to make sure that they were adhering to the 8 steps for financial success.”
“Since the onset of COVID-19 we have dramatically increased the frequency that we communicate with our clients and expanded our touchpoints via messaging, newsletters and webinars. In all of these touchpoints we have been reinforcing the messaging we have delivered for twelve years, namely to put money aside for a tough times, consistently pay down your personal debts, own your own home, regularly invest in a professionally managed share portfolio with your money (not with a margin loan). By following these simple steps, and others, our clients have had much less, if any, ‘financial’ anxiety and instead have been able to focus on their own personal health and happiness.”
It may seem boring sticking to these simple strategies but Jeff says “they have stood the test of time and from the GFC our learnings were to stick to the simple things and that’s been fantastic over the last 10-12 years.”
If you’d like to hear the full conversation that Jeff Thurecht had with Marshall Brentnall click here
