Financial Planners

If you work with a financial advisor in our Perth office, one of the first things you will probably be asked to do is to figure out your monthly expenses. There is also a pretty good chance that your financial planner will advise you to create a budget.

Knowing monthly income and expenses is one of the first steps to getting a handle on your financial situation. The better you are at this, the easier it is for a financial planner to provide you with your desired results.

Why Track Spending?

Usually, when someone tracks their spending accurately, it is a true eye-opener. They usually find a lot of surprises and have no idea they were spending so much money on entertainment or any of many other things. Accurate tracking allows you to see exactly what you are spending instead of guessing based on what you want to remember.

What to Do

Spending is easily tracked on your smartphone. Both iPhone and Android have plenty of apps to help you easily and accurately track every bit of money you spend. If you don’t like any of the apps, you can create a spreadsheet or just use a piece of paper.

Financial advisors in Perth are nearly ubiquitous. There are seemingly so many financial planners around that we can get “placed on the back burner” by many. As a result, people who have worked hard to make a good amount of money may just be letting their money sit in bank accounts and making a minimal amount of passive income.

Our Process

At Approved Financial Planners, we make it easy for you to invest. We require an individual consultation and some basic information. We will assess your risk tolerance. When we have taken all of your individual factors into consideration, we will devise a financial plan that makes sense for you.

We will present that plan and with your permission, execute it for you. You spend minimal time and effort but are able to reap the benefits of our financial planning. After we know what you want, we can research investments for you and do all of the paperwork. That means all you have to do is sign the documents.

At Approved Financial Planners, we help minimise your market risk by diversifying your investment portfolio. We do check in on a regular basis so that we can adjust your investment strategy to fit your goals, current lifestyle and financial situation.

We provide a full range of financial planning services to our Perth clients, but one of the first things we will probably ask about is your level of debt. At Approved Financial Planners, we have a firm belief that the road to effective financial planning begins with taking charge of your debt level and your monthly expenditures.

We can help you set up debts such as credit cards, student loans, leases, mortgages and personal loans in a way that helps you minimise interest payments that could be spent towards securing your future.

Debt Reduction: the Plan

We will recommend that you ask yourself a series of questions to determine how much you know about your current debt load. This will help you determine exactly where your money is being spent and how much interest you are paying each month. If you don’t already have a debt reduction plan, we can help you formulate one.

We can work with you to create a plan that includes a date for paying off your loans and how much money you want to owe at various milestone dates such as five years from now.

We offer a full menu of financial services from our Perth office. We have financial planners and financial advisors who can help you plan your financial life from now through retirement. We can’t give any specific advice on this blog, but we would like to give you a general idea of what it takes to build a solid financial foundation.

The more solid your foundation, the easier it is for us to help you attain your financial goals. Here are some of the fundamental techniques that we can help you execute.

Budgeting

If you aren’t satisfied with your budget or your ability to create one and stick to it, we can help. If you have a consistent income and can stick to a consistent budget, it allows you to know exactly how much you can afford to invest every month. Once we know that, we can offer further assistance.

Managing Cash Flow

This is tied into budget, but also into your investment strategy. For many, budgeting and cash flow are a constant tug-of-war between enjoying life now and having enough for retirement later. Our financial advisors can take a look at your finances and help you come up with a plan that is comfortable for you.

At the beginning of the year, most of us reassess where we are in life and make resolutions. This is especially true when it comes to financial planning. Financial planners in Perth are quite busy at this time of year, helping our clients reassess and re-calibrate their goals.

This year, many of the questions revolve around falling oil prices: how long they will last and how they will affect our economy. We recently found a piece in the Sydney Morning Herald that contained a nice summary of current information along with quotes from some respected economists.

The Fall in Oil Prices: How Big is It?

On 19 June 2014, the price of oil was $115 USD per barrel. As of 13 January 2015, the price has fallen to $47.43 USD per barrel. Consequently, Societe Generale and Goldman Sachs have both lowered their oil price forecasts.*

When oil prices fell in the 1980’s and 1990’s, there was a rise in the US economy. This resulted in a corresponding rise in both the global and Australian economies. This has caused many fund managers to predict rising share prices for the latter portion of 2015.*