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 savings 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.

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.

Add to this ever growing list of rentables the prospect of renting a driverless car in the future and it was a great high level presentation; all until he made the rookie mistake and said,

‘So what's the point of owning a house today, when I can just rent one or rent an Airbnb whenever I want?’

Boom!

With that potentially naïve comment to a room of financial advisers his presentation fell off a cliff into irrelevance, all because he didn't understand the place family home ownership holds in the Australian economy.

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.

So how do you actually start setting financial goals?

By now you’ve had a chance to read the ‘thinking’ 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?

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.

If a fast solution isn’t found, ‘it's obviously the wrong option’ so we quickly browse on elsewhere looking for that dopamine hit of ‘New’ and never really get to where we need to go.

It's enough to make you want to wash your mind out

What a mess.

Well the Banking Royal Commission (aka Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry) closed in early 2019 and 76 recommendations were made spanning the Banking, Superannuation and Insurance industry and the government’s regulators a plenty.

So what is the final outcome of the Banking Royal Commission?

We’ve tried to distill the main themes down to 4 simple points below.

All the depressing and reprehensible details you can read yourself, here .

What you can't give away in your Will and why?

To give something away, you need to legally own it first.
You'd think this would be kind of straightforward, well think again.

Now I'm not talking about the neighbour's cat who has lived with you as your adopted fur-child for the past two years or the trailer your adult son still parks at your home for temporary safekeeping, 5 years ago.

I'm talking about bigger value items we sometimes own with others and often believe we can simply give them away in our Will. (And if you don't have a Will we'd love to help you out with that too.)

A problem arises when we share ownership of assets with another party.

How to leave an inheritance to your Grandchildren, but not your adult children?

The reasons why you may wish to leave an inheritance directly to a grandchild and not your adult children are as wide and varied as the motivation to do so.

Just leaving money via your Will for a grandchild to be held in trust until they reach 21 is fraught with risks; from of a challenge to your Will through to concerns of the effects of addiction, divorce and financial mismanagement.

So to help you better understand your options, here are three key phrases you need to understand.

Most Australians report preferring to talk to their parents about sex, rather than money

When it comes to the reality of talking with our parents about money and aging, there is never really a right time. But there is probably a better time - and this is what you can do about that.

If you're part of the Sandwich Generation, there's a good chance you’ll become part of the growing number of adult children who will have to get involved with their parents' financial lives as they age.

Yet, the overwhelming majority of adult children – have not had detailed conversations with their parents about their finances, their estate wishes and plans.

Have you ever thought about running a small business on the side while working your full-time job?

Perhaps you're already part of the new gig-economy and providing work-on-demand services back to your past employer.

For many people, working a side hustle is becoming more and more important in our growing world of temporary contracts and flexible working hours.

While providing flexibility (and promising better work-life harmony), growing a side business also requires a new business owner to learn new skills and new habits, before success arrives.

Here are some common financial mistakes time-poor new business owners can avoid.

If you're feeling like your life and business have been Kidnapped by the COVID-19 Virus, we can relate.

It's a difficult time affecting us all, and all in very different ways. The opened-ended nature of this worldwide health crisis fuels a sense of uncertainty. And this won't be the last crisis our world sees.

This changing environment can kidnap our thinking with the seemingly urgent and distract us from the still important.

And our hearts go out to the people who are not in very fortunate situations.

As we find our way through this time, we don't want platitudes and denial but on the same token, we need to find ways we can keep calm and focus on what we can control - and look for something solid.