Blog
Welcome to our Personal Finance Blog
Money bewilders most of us. How to spend it, save it, invest it, and how to best protect the person who makes it.
These questions we all face daily — a puzzle we all attempt to understand and solve just about every day. Yet despite money's centrality to our lives and businesses, it's something we all grapple with, and mostly in private.
- Money is the 'Lord Voldemort' of topics; feared by most and mentioned by a few. It's oddly uncomfortable to discuss socially and rarely even with our partners, parents, and children.
Perhaps that's because managing our money and life's risks inevitably involves the fusion of both the emotional and practical aspects of our decision-making processes. The most difficult of questions are those with both economic and emotional answers.
Our educational Personal Finance Blog is for people who want to grow and remain wealthy. And while the journey toward wealth is clearly marked, you still have to be looking in the right direction.
At Sapience, we're all about The How.
'Live Long & Prosper' in the land down under
The Vulcan salutation, ‘Live Long and Prosper’ was first made famous by Star Trek's Commander Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy).
The phrase owes its now worldwide familiarity to the fact that it does indeed reflect the hopes and dreams of all people - to live long and prosper.
Now regardless of whether you subscribe to the Star Trek universe or the Star Wars franchise view of the world (or neither - *gasp*) the good news is for the most part Australians are becoming healthier and actually living longer – 12 years longer than the global average, to be precise.
The Australian mortgage market today has a range of bank and non-bank mortgage providers all competing for your mortgage business.
While this level of competition can result in competitive interest rates, there’s still a misconception about whether a non-bank is as safe as a bank when it comes to your mortgage.
So it makes sense to understand the basics of how a mortgage contract works, how a bank and a non-bank mortgage provider make money from a mortgage contract and what happens if your mortgage provider goes bankrupt.
Are you considering asking a family member to become your Guarantor for a mortgage?
Here are some things you need to know and do- first
- One of the questions about home loans and mortgages we're regularly asked by older clients is, ‘Can a parent go Guarantor to a Mortgage to help one of their adult children?’
- Their adult children usually ask a variation on the same question, ‘When can a parent go guarantor to a Mortgage loan?'
- The real question people want to ask is 'Should you ever become a Guarantor to a Mortgage?'
Getting your Life Insurance policy and Income Protection policy can sometimes take longer than people might expect and the main reason why is simple.
Once you have this type of policy, it can’t be taken away from you or cancelled by the insurance company, regardless of any future changes to your health or occupation.
The life insurance Underwriter has to get it right the first time because they don't get a second chance to fix a problem they may have originally overlooked.
Looking for some smart super ideas in 2021?
Whatever your longer term plan is about your Super, have a shorter term plan about understanding its potential.
With the end of the financial year's June 30th fast approaching, it might be time to start thinking about your super for another year. Here are five smart strategies that could benefit you now, and help boost your super balance for later.
Teaching your kids to save is child's play
As parents we're constantly looking for ways to teach our kids. Whether that's through sharing our own culture, our beliefs and our understanding of how the world works or unconsciously by what we do, it seems that nothing teaches an impressionable mind, like watching.
But simply talking about saving money, can feel like a drag.
It's so important to remember that what and how we teach our children about money when they are young, will impact on their financial future. It's our responsibility to raise money smart kids.
- The beginner's guide to actually setting financial goals
- Living happily ever after in a rented house, maybe
- Three high-stakes risks of being a Sole Trader
- The beginner's guide to thinking about setting financial goals
- How to restart your financial life during a COVID pandemic
- Can your family get your money back from your business if it's Director or Owner dies?
- It's been a tough year… there have been some tough learnings
