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.
So how do you actually start setting financial goals?
By now you’ve had a chance to read the ‘thinking' A Beginner's Guide to Thinking About Setting Financial Goals’ part of making financial goals and decisions, it's time to start the ‘doing’.
It's no secret the COVID19 pandemic has hurt many Australians and has either derailed many of us from our financial goals or has forced us to re-prioritise our current situation.
With historically unusually low interest rates, many Australians are now prioritising their debt and looking for strategies to consolidate and pay down credit card debt much faster than they previously had planned.
This is a great step, but how do we make sure it's just not just another stand-alone opportunity to take and miss the chance to pause and refocus our thinking about what we all actually want to be doing?
Living happily ever after — in a rented house, maybe
At a recent business conference the presenter, a young speaker from Generation Millennial made some insightful comments about changes he saw occurring in Australia - the rise of the sharing economy (ride-sharing, home sharing and job sharing) and how these new approaches to ownership were changing the way people thought about traditional forms of ownership.
Some interesting insights, I thought.
He went on to list emerging business examples of the new sharing and rent-on-demand economy including renting music through Spotify, accessing movies on demand from Netflix, renting a community car (or van) from the Car Next Door and renting movies online direct from YouTube.
Three high-stakes risks of being a Sole Trader
Most people going into business for themselves cite a desire to provide more opportunities for their family and greater personal freedom.
But working for yourself involves more personal decisions, greater risks and depending upon your business structure, greater personal liability.
And if you're making this decision based simply on cost alone, this is the question you need to answer, ‘What could possibly go wrong?’
Thinking about setting some financial goals this year?
Sounds simple enough right? But simple doesn't always mean easy
When it comes to managing our personal debts and credit cards, savings and investing, many people are quick to look for a sequence of simple steps to follow (or a three-minute blog to read) to achieve what can usually be a complex outcome.
Goodbye 2020
Now that 2020 is behind us, it's time to check in on the emotional and financial damage suffered by the millions of Australians affected by COVID-19.
Job losses for some, reduced work hours for others, still, others forced into early retirement - ready or not - many small businesses surviving one month at a time and families trying to make sense of lockdowns and restrictions - it’s safe to say there will be many COVID-19 flow on effects yet unseen.
We’ll all need to work through in some way.
What happens when business owners use their own money in the business?
Most small to medium business owners will tell you they went into business to provide for their family, in greater flexibility, time, increased resources, and leaving a legacy.
Like most long term plans, building a self sustaining business takes time; time to mature, time to stabilise in the market, and time to return the capital invested.
To achieve this, the majority of business owners use debt and overdraft facilities as ongoing business tools.
And these types of financial tools can quickly work against you and your family if you're unprepared.
- It's been a tough year… there have been some tough learnings
- Can you still get life insurance living with a mental illness diagnosis?
- How to leave an inheritance to your Grandchildren, but not your adult children
- Are you remarried with adult children from a past relationship?
- What you can't give away in your Will and why?
- How to start the talk about money with your parents without being a jerk
- What is an account based pension and why should I care?
