Why Every Household Needs an Emergency Fund
Job loss, medical bills, broken fridges—life happens. That’s why a well-structured emergency fund is one of the smartest financial moves you can make. Here’s how to get started.
As a financial planning practice in Bowral and Sydney, you may be surprised to learn that our goal for our clients goes beyond solely financial success.
Our goal is to be a trusted partner that you can rely on to achieve not only your financial goals, but your lifestyle goals as well.
Our wonderful clients come from exciting and varied backgrounds. They lead fascinating, unique and busy lives, ask intelligent questions and are motivated to better their future – including their financial position. They are all incredibly joyous to work with and we aspire to help them secure their dream lifestyle.
The meaning of success is a very unique thing that looks different to every single one of our clients. This is why we wanted to share a range of client success stories, some of our most memorable ones of 2021 that we are particularly proud to be a part of – our good news stories.
Adviser: Anthony Poole
A married couple aged in their early 40s with one child approached Poole Advisory with the financial objective of accumulating their wealth and establishing an effective estate plan. Their goal was to ensure their assets are best protected in the event of their passing, providing them with peace of mind knowing their wishes will be carried out accordingly.
These clients had a family income of $350K, $3.3M of investment properties, $500K within their super fund (combined) and a $600K investment portfolio.
First, I established what these clients’ current lifestyle is and what their future lifestyle goals are. I also identified that these clients didn’t require income from investments and had a strong cash flow surplus, however, some discipline to managing cash flow was recommended to better maximise their savings.
My advice around how they could better manage their cash flow was by utilising the bucketing cash flow approach. This is done through offset accounts – a primary bill account, a day to day living account and a holiday account – the basis of bucketing accounts was to provide discipline and ability to utilise surplus effectively and maintain quality of life.
As a result of the advice, these clients were able to restructure their cash flow, had clear accounts for income and expenses which resulted in them being able to easily stick to a budget and utilise surplus towards further creating their wealth. By using offset accounts, these clients were also able to reduce interest costs resulting in additional debt repayment.
I conducted an estate review and had a discussion with these clients regarding their current estate plan and the impact of their current estate instructions.
It became clear that their existing plan would leave one of the parents carrying a large amount of debt if their partner was to pass away. These clients expressed asset protection as a top priority and wanted a plan in place to ensure that if either parent commenced a new relationship, the assets they built together would not result in a family law situation and affect their child receiving an inheritance.
As a result of the estate planning review, and with the goal of building/ accumulating the clients’ wealth to support their future lifestyle goals, these clients were recommended to invest through investment bonds.
As high-income earners, the investment bond allowed for a tax-effective investment approach with estate planning benefits. The daughter was listed as primary life insured, so the bond did not mature in the event of either client’s passing.
Additionally, through the estate plan, we restructured the jointly owned properties to tenants in common and provided a new will with a testamentary trust to be formed for each. This provided their child with the appropriate asset protection and discretionary planning that the clients wanted.
These clients were able to invest for the long term in a tax-effective environment, and have flexibility over estate plans within their investment bonds. The estate planning advice resulted in this couple:
Superannuation advice to minimise tax and maximise wealth
Superannuation advice was also provided to maximise the tax-effective environment to grow wealth and to reduce some assessable income tax.
Both clients maximised their super contributions to the maximum limit, reducing their assessable income and reducing their tax. These clients were able to utilise unused contributions for the past three years and reduce assessable income further and build their wealth in a tax-effective manner.
Insurance advice was also provided, which enabled this couple’s current personal insurance policies to be more aligned to their current situations. Together, we discussed product and insurance cover options that would leave their family well-protected in a cost-effective manner.
The couple decided on high-quality products with benefit amounts that would provide desired outcomes to each client in the event of the unexpected.
These clients were over the moon! They felt comfortable with the investment recommendations and the holistic view of the investments, in line with their preferred estate instructions and wishes.
This incredibly hard-working couple felt good to be saving tax, have control of incomes and a clear direction of how they will utilise their wealth and assets to achieve their lifestyle goals for now and in the future.
Estate planning was incredibly important for this couple and went hand-in-hand with their investment planning. This made sure that the assets they had worked so hard for were protected in the result of the worse case scenario. No matter what, their child will receive an inheritance as per their wishes.
After all, there’s no point spending time, money and effort to grow your wealth without putting the right wealth protection measures in place!
Adviser: Anthony Poole
A married couple with one child approached Poole Advisory for financial advice that would help them utilise their cash flow for wealth accumulation, but also to ensure their lifestyle wouldn’t be impacted in the process.
They also both wanted to develop retirement plans and seek strategies to maximise their superannuation investments. They needed a review of their current insurances and they wanted to review their estate structure to align it to their current needs and wishes
In these clients’ case, they had a Self-Managed Super Fund (SMSF) with commercial property and limited recourse borrowing arrangement. However, they had no clear investment strategy in place for their SMSF and their contributions were sitting in cash.
They were efficient at saving, with a few hundred thousand dollars sitting in their savings account. They also had insurances in place, however, the clients were unsure of the benefits that their purchased insurances were providing them.
Use a bucketing approach of certain accounts being used for certain expenses. This was to provide discipline and also ensure clients retained the lifestyle they were living but also to stop cash flow leakage.
This recommendation was established in line with a focus on cash flow management that ensured these clients lived their best life today and in their future.
I recommended that the clients contribute to their super funds and take advantage of their unused contribution limits. This resulted in the clients saving considerable personal income tax. The client was able to save on the adviser fee for the next two years purely through the tax they saved.
The client also utilised other contribution types towards their SMSF and cleared the limited recourse borrowing arrangement, this resulted in lower risk for the SMSF and increased cash flow for the SMSF of which they are now utilising towards diversification within the fund.
This advice resulted in the client having lower expenses, a diversified portfolio and an investment strategy aligned to their objectives and values. Additionally, the superannuation advice has resulted in these clients saving in a tax-effective way for their retirement.
After further getting to know these clients, it became clear that some form of personal insurance was necessary due to health reasons. Without the right relationship and trust in place, this information may have one unknown but I’m so glad these clients trusted me enough with their personal information so we could get the right financial strategies that best suit their needs.
From here, we reviewed their current policies and made some adjustments to ensure appropriate protection was in place and they had access to all the benefits they needed at the right price.
The right insurance solution has reduced their fee costs and given these clients peace of mind that their personal protection plan is aligned to their desired outcomes
Overall, these clients were so pleased with their new financial plan. Holistic financial advice has left these clients in a better position with disciplined cash flow structure and a debt reduction plan in place to achieve their debt-free wish.
These clients finally feel they have a clear and well thought out financial plan that is tailored to their preferences and goals. They also feel on track to meeting their goal of achieving a comfortable financial future that will support them living their best and enjoying life.
I am so glad I was able to help them on their financial journey.
We feel privileged to have been able to help so many of our wonderful clients create their version of success this year.
It’s been another year of uncertainty with challenges but it has been incredibly rewarding to be able to deliver much-needed financial security in all of our clients’ lives.
If you’re looking to achieve the same financial success in 2022, we can help you establish a financial plan which is not only simple, but can provide peace of mind for you, your family, and your financial future.
Contact us today to book your complimentary, initial consultation.
This information contains general advice only, that is, advice which does not take into account your needs, objectives, or financial situation. You need to consider the appropriateness of that general advice in light of your personal circumstances before acting on the advice. You should obtain and consider the Product Disclosure Statement for any product discussed before making a decision to acquire that product. You should obtain financial or credit advice that addresses your specific needs and situation before making investment or borrowing decisions. Taxation information is based on our interpretation of the relevant laws as at 1 July 2018. While every care has been taken in the preparation of this information, Prosperitas Partners Pty Ltd does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information. The case studies are hypothetical, for illustration purposes only and are not based on actual returns
Poole Advisory Pty Ltd ABN 15 642 040 604 is a Corporate Authorised Representative (No. 001282603) of Prosperitas Partners Pty Ltd ABN 30 662 654 453 AFSL 544 917
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