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Our second Women in Focus webinar shone the spotlight on Planning Your Financial Future. Principal and Senior Financial Adviser, Adam Hone, built on the stages of life outlined in the debut Women in Focus event last month, highlighting the different needs in your 20s, 40s and 60s.

Essentially, it all comes down to having some basic financial literacy, goals and a plan. The Financial Planning team at CountPlus One works closely with the firm’s other services, Including Accounting and Advisory, to provide holistic solutions for each individual situation.

Women in Focus seeks to educate a new audience on the basics of managing finances through each of the life phases, or refreshing the knowledge you may already have.

Each month, CountPlus One will introduce another of its leaders to step you through financial information you can use as the basis for conversations with the rest of the family, or your friends and colleagues.

You can get to know the latest presenter, Adam Hone, more here.

A recording of the September Webinar can be found at https://youtu.be/HABEmS8xZdA

Here’s a brief recap of Adam’s presentation:

While women often want to take a more active role in managing their finances, there are some road-blocks in their way, including:

• Reduced financial literacy compared to male counterparts, in part because they don’t find the finance industry relatable
• Wage inequality
• More career breaks (for milestones such as having children)
• And women are time starved, typically taking responsibility for running the household and with little time left to prioritise planning finances.

“There is a clear financial detriment that is suffered by women”, said Adam Hone. “It is both an education issue and an action issue.”

To try to close the financial literacy gap, he said having a plan and knowing how to implement it is the key. The first task is setting the foundation by defining your goals.

Too often people aim to grow wealth, setting that as a goal, but they do not think through the specifics of what they actually want to achieve. What do you want to achieve when you have additional funds?

Set a timeline by dividing your goals into short, medium and long term (longer than three years)

Next, quantify your goals. How much will the objective cost? E.g.: in the short-term, school fees will be $20,000, the medium-term investment property is $500,000, and long-term, you want to retire on $80,000 p.a., etc.

Assess reality and prioritise. Can you realistically achieve the defined goals based on your existing financial situation?

Then you can begin creating a wealth plan. A financial planner can help you to model different scenarios and strategies to help achieve your goals.

Our goals, broadly speaking, align with our stages of life, ie:

• 20s and 30s – the growth phase – ensure the surplus of funds is working for you,
• 30s and 40s – the establishment phase – minimise risk and protect and streamline your finances to ensure your family is provided for,
• 50s and 60s – the retirement prep phase – building your nest egg for life after work.

Adam gave a general overview of the superannuation, tax and insurance needs and implications at each of these life stages. All of this is general advice only, and has not taken into account your personal objectives and needs. Please reach out to us if you wish to assess whether this information is appropriate for your needs before making any investment decisions.

For more on recent webinars, to ask questions relating to your personal situation, email [email protected].