Building Wealth and an Abundance Lifestyle...

What does Financial & Lifestyle Success mean to you?

Everyone's idea of an "Awesome life" is different. We also all have very different priorities, belief systems and ideas of what makes life special and meaningful.

Most of us get it that although money isn't everything, it does help to enable a more comfortable lifestyle and does enable us to do and have those special things we Dream of.

So , how do you make your money work for you to get you to where we want to be in life... 

There are obviously may ways to do this...

HOWEVER ... To be successful at anything ALWAYS takes some planning and real positive intent.  

Here's our suggested way to make a start. 

(PS - We have been using this methodology and system successfully with our clients for over 20 year now!)

These 5 Simple Steps will help you achieve Personal & Lifestyle Success:

  • STEP 1 : The BIG Picture.

Why should you plan and what makes it important to you?

  • STEP 2 : Determining Exactly what YOU want in Life.

What would you like to achieve in the Future? What are your Short term, Medium term and Longer term Goals?

  • STEP 3 : Designing Your Life - Building Your Plan.

How do you go about building you Planning correctly to achieve your goals?

  • STEP 4 : Implementing Your Plan - Creating Your reality.

How do you go about Implementing your planning so you ensure that you reach your goals?

  • STEP 5 : Keeping on course.

How you review and ensure that you maintain focus and keep on course to reach your Goals throughout your life.

To get a more detailed explanation of how we address all the steps above, take a look at a short set of videos we have prepared for you.

With these videos you will get:

  • A Simple but complete step by step overview of our full planning process.
  • A helpful FREE downloadable Goal Planning Guide.
  • Free downloadable Simple Step by step Budgeting and Assets and Liabilities schedule to get you started.
  • A whole bunch of other really useful guidance and information to help you immediately with your planning.
Take me to the Introductory Tutorial Videos

Your 5 Steps to Lifestyle & Financial Success -

(An Overview)

STEP 1 : The BIG Picture

Why should you PLAN and what makes it important to You?

We all have Goals and Dreams and many awesome things that we would like to do and accomplish in our lives...

Happy Healthy Family

Lovely Family Home

Special Family Holidays

Great Education

Without some sort of Plan to achieve these goals or objectives, it is very unlikely that we will get any where close.

It is therefore IMPERATIVE that we start with a PLAN.

So, how do we develop a PLAN that gets you to where you would like to be and achieve going forward?​

It Starts with your GOALS..​

STEP 2 : Determining Your Goals

Why is it so important to have Goals?

Goals will give you Focus and Direction.

It is important to:

  • STEP 1 : Write down ALL of Your Goals.

It is SO important to actually write down your Goals as this creates positive intent for achievement.

  • STEP 2 : Put DATES to ALL of your Goals.

If you actually think about WHEN you would like to achieve your goals this creates perspective in your mind.

  • STEP 3 : Put a monetary COST or VALUE to ALL of your Goals.

Putting numbers to your goals allows you to get a feel for the extent or size of your goals.

  • STEP 4 : Your Goals or Milestones MUST BE MEASURABLE.

If they are not measurable:

  • You wont know if you are on track to achieve your goals,
  • You wont know how far you have gone,
  • You wont know how far you still have to go
  • You wont know if you are even headed in the right direction!!!

How close are you to reaching your goals?

Bond Repayments
23 %
BOND
Kids University Savings
41 %
Education Fund
Holidays Fund
48 %
Holiday Fund
Retirement Savings
33 %
Retirement Savings
Other Debt
67 %
Other Debt

STEP 3 : Building Your Plan.

Once you have established what your Goals are, you can then start planning towards those goals.

Your needs and requirements will change as you move through the different stages of life.

Let's start with the BIG picture.

Your life can be split into 4 primary phases.

Each stage of life has special and specific needs. Take a look below.

Youth

(Creating Capacity)

Enjoying your Youth

  • Mom and Dad take responsibility for your life and needs.
  • Get a good education and learn about life.
  • Pocket money teaches you about the value of money.
  • Learn about savings, needs and wants and charity.

Young Family

(Concentrate your Attention)

Starting out in life

  • First job.
  • New car.
  • Getting married.
  • Starting a family.

Things to be aware of:

  • Financial Risk to your family:
  • New Car debt.
  • Home bond debt.

Building your Wealth:

  • Planning & Building your Pre-tax savings
  • Planning & Building your Post-tax savings.

Mature Family

(Organizing your Wealth)

Fa​mily & Lifestyle

  • At the peak of your career
  • Family are growing up and off to varsity
  • Children becoming more self sufficient.
  • You have more time for yourself & your spouse.

Fa​mily & Lifestyle

  • Your wealth should be growing fast.
  • Your costs should be dropping
  • Your debt should be reducing if not at zero
  • Your need for risk cover should be reducing.

Retirement

(Securing your Wellness)

Lifestyle & Changes

  • You're handing over the baton at work.
  • Kids leaving or left home.
  • More time with your spouse.
  • Time for your hobbies.
  • Time for travel, Grandchildren etc.

Financial Independence

  • Your wealth should be in place.
  • Your savings provide for your income needs.
  • No liabilities.
  • No direct need for risk cover.

From a "Wealth" perspective, your life can be divided into 2 primary phases:

Pre-Retirement

Pre-Retirement: - (Your Accumulation Phase)

In this part of your life, you earn an income which you then use to provide for your living expenses and lifestyle and hopefully you also allocate some of the income to your Savings.

Post-Retirement

Post-Retirement: - (Your Savings provide for your Lifestyle needs)

In this part of your life, you no longer have an income and your Savings then become responsible for providing you with an income for the rest of your lives.

Based on a FULL understanding of your and your families needs and requirements, we then develop a tailor made plan for you, which will look something like this.

(The below is a case study and is for illustration purposes only.)

CASE STUDY : 

Here is a very short summary of the family's position and lifestyle to put you in the picture:

The family we have described below is a Mum and Dad and 2 kiddies. Mum and Dad both work. The kiddies are at school and both plan to study after leaving school. Dad is 35 years old and Mum is 33. They plan on retiring at age 60.

  • Monthly Incomes: The table adjacent shows that both spouses work and earn a total income of +-R55,000 after tax.
  • Monthly and Lifestyle Expenses: Once again, the table adjacent gives an approximation of the family's lifestyle expenses. Other expenses which have been built into this plan but not shown here are provision for tertiary education for the children as well as replacement of cars into the future. (There are also various other inclusions to ensure a real and comprehensive picture is built of the family's situation and requirements but as you will understand these are not shown for sake of a simpler illustration.)
  • What they own and what they owe: (See Current Family Assets and Liabilities table) The family have a home that they are currently paying a bond on. They plan to have paid their bond in full within the next 13 years. They finance their cars while working and are both contributing towards pension funds as well as saving a portion of their earnings every month. They are saving a total of +-15% of their Gross earnings every month.

NOTE : 

  • Although this example is rather simplified, it is based on very real data and underlying returns & inflation assumptions.
  • The intention is to give you some idea of how you can plan your finances and ensure that you can fully understand your position and build a plan that will allow you to be informed and build a life that is secure and makes you happy.
  • Saving 15% of your Gross Income is an approximation of the minimum required savings level recommended for the average household to reach financial independence. (this is based on a +-40 year accumulation period)

Current Monthly Income:

Earner

Frequency

Amount

Comments

Spouse A

monthly

R34,200

escalate at inflation

Spouse B

monthly

R18,480

escalate at inflation

To​tal

monthly

R52,680

Current Lifestyle Expenses

Expenses

Frequency

Amount

Comments

Living Expenses

monthly

R17,000

escalate at inflation

Bond

monthly

R10,000

Paid in full in 13 years

Medical

monthly

R3,400

escalate at 2% above inflation

Education

Annual

R45,000

escalate at inflation

Car expenses

monthly

R5,300

Provision made for future car requirements

Holidays - Local

Annual

R10,000

escalate at inflation

Holidays - Overseas

Every 3 yrs

R60,000

escalate at inflation

Current Family Assets & Liabilities:

Asset/ Liability

Amount

Monthly costs/ Contribution

Comments

Home

R1,500,000

escalate at inflation

Pension fund

R400,000

R4,050

escalate at inflation

Savings

R110,000

R4,020

escalate at inflation

Bond

R10,000

13 years to go

Car Finance

R5,300

60 month agreement

The graphs below show the projected Nominal and Real capital Investment values for the family we have described above.

You will notice that they will be able to maintain their lifestyle and will have sufficient savings/Capital to last them through to age 90.

Doing these types of calculations for yourself will help you ascertain what you need to do to ensure that you are in a position to retire financially comfortable.

The outcome and benefits of your Planning.

You will be able to answer a number of critical questions such as:

  • How much should I be saving right now and into the future?
  • How much do I need to save in order to retire Financially Independent and Secure for the rest of my/our life?
  • Am I currently on track to reach my financial Goals?
  • What are the best ways for me to save?
  • Do I need Risk cover and if so what type and how much?
  • What Estate Planning should I be putting into place, based on my planning and wealth profile into the future?
  • And many many other questions that you may have....

STEP 4 : Implementing your Plan.

It is vitally important that you implement you plan at all stages during your life.

A Plan with no Implementation is useless and irrelevant!!

This is where the Rubber hits the Road"...  Where you take ACTION.

So, how do you actually  apply and Implement this planning in your life?

Below are some examples of Families in different phases of their lives..

These illustrations will give you some guidelines as to what YOU could include in YOUR Financial Planning...  

As well as your next ACTION steps...​

  • Young Family starting out: Age 25 - 35

You are a young Family between the ages of 25 and 35.

This is a time in your life where there is a lot going on and a lot of new experiences.

  • You are starting out in a new career,
  • You buy your first car on higher purchase,
  • You get married,
  • You buy your first home,
  • You start your family
  • Your children start school.

So, what are the things you should be looking at in this phase of your life?

There are 2 broad aspects which are important and need to be addressed at this stage:

Immediate term : Your Risk cover requirements need to be addressed i.e. (Life cover, disability, dread disease and Income cover)

You may ask Why?

  • The answer is, what if something happened to you and you are no longer there to support your family, what situation would you leave them in … Would they be able to keep their current standard of living or would you leave them in a compromised position and struggling with debt and bills to pay.

Longer term : A well planned Savings and Investment strategy needs to be put in place.

You may ask Why?

  • The longer term starts right now. Unfortunately, most people leave their savings to whats left after paying their monthly bills instead of planning and budgeting to save what they need to first and then living within their means. This leads to more than 90% of people not being able to retire financially secure.

“The earlier you start saving the better as the benefits of compounding are HUGE“.

Take a look at one of our FREE Explainer Videos below. 

Young Couple starting out - Age +-25
Young Family - Age +-35

You may like to make contact with us directly?

Please give me a call

STEP 5 : Keeping on course.

Implementing your Plan is just the start. Your Planning is for life and needs to be kept relevant at all times.

This is often a very overlooked part of ones planning. In order to build the ongoing review process into ones daily life, we have set out below a recommended review process. We implement this process with our clients and aim to build it into their lives as a "good" lifestyle habit.

Our Suggested Review Process.

Ongoing - Monthly Reviews:

Savings & Withdrawals:

Accumulation Phase: Based on your Planning, you would in all likelihood, assuming you are in the Accumulation phase of your life, have a monthly contribution strategy towards your portfolio. This strategy would be in line with building your portfolio on an ongoing basis.

You would need to make sure that you follow that strategy or even get ahead if possible and reasonable within your circumstances.

If you are Retired: it is important to ensure that you test and stick to your recommended income/withdrawal parameters, based on your best case planning outcomes.

Keep up to date :

There are 2 main area you want to be alert to on an ongoing basis:

Economic : Ensure you have a good understanding and feel for what is happening from an Economic perspective, both locally in South Africa as well as around the world.

Legislative : Keep up to date with current and new legislation that is introduced and that could or would affect your portfolio or portfolio structures..

Quarterly Reviews:

   There are 3 areas to review at this point.

Portfolio Performance:

A : Compare quarterly, annual and since inception values within your portfolio. This will give you an overview of portfolio performance which can then be compared with indices and markets generally to assess performance.

B : It is important to take a Longer term focus and outlook for your portfolio. No one Asset manager, asset class or fund is always a winner. We would suggest you evaluate your funds performance based on a 3, 5 and 10 year performance record.

If you are Retired: it is important to ensure that you test and stick to your recommended income/withdrawal parameters, based on your best case planning outcomes.

Economic :

Review the broader economic outlook for South Africa and the world (Past as well as Future).

Watch our Blog posts for regular updates on Economic reviews and commentary that will help give you perspective on markets locally and internationally.

Legislative :

Keep up to date with current and new legislation that is introduced and that could or would affect your portfolio or portfolio structures..

Annual Reviews:

There are 5 areas we would recommend you review at this point in time.

Portfolio Performance:

As per your quarterly review, compare quarterly, annual and since inception values within your portfolio. This will give you an overview of portfolio performance which can then be compared with indices and markets generally to assess performance.

Financial Planning :

Review your Financial Plan and compare current costs etc (Income, Expenses, Lifestyle, family situation and changes, etc) against projected values in the Plan to ensure that you are on track or ahead of your planning goals. If adjustments need to be made, implement after due analysis.

Estate Planning :

Review your estate planning and Wills at these meetings. It is vitally important to make sure that should your circumstances change in any way, that you ensure that your Wills and Estate planning documentation are updated to accommodate these changes.

Medical Planning :

Most medical schemes allow you one review per year. Make sure that you carefully assess what your needs have been over the last year and ensure that the Plan that you are on is the correct plan to take you and your family forward through the year ahead. If you feel that you may need other facilities in your plan, investigate what options are on offer and adjust your plan according to your needs.

Asset Risk Planning :

It is important to review your asset values annually and to ensure that your insured values are in line with your current assets values. If not, this could lead to a problem should you need to claim. You also don’t want to be paying a higher premium than what is necessary.

So, there you have it. 

If this all makes sense and you would like to implement similar planning into your Financial Life, you can make contact with us below.

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