Response able; what a great way to live your life. When you are feeling that all your money is going, no flying out before your eyes, it can make you feel sick to your stomach. There is more month, to the money you have available. Understanding exactly what your position is puts you in a position of seeing ‘what is’ and determining if where you are is where you want to be. If you want a change then take stock, and look at where your money is going. Do you have more money than you need or do you have …

It is really funny, I hear so many people tell me that they want a change. That the results they are getting are not the results they want, however they insist on creating the same behaviour patterns and expect a different result. If you want a different result then you need to be prepared to do something different. Opportunities for growth present themselves to us every day: The thing is do we recognize the opportunity? Do we want to take advantage of the growth situation? Are we prepared to do what it takes? How best do we take advantage? What …

Recently we had a couple of incidences which caused discussion and through the discussions, thoughts and then came some reveling facts. After looking at the facts we then made decisions. We have been using a particular car mechanic for years; in fact most of the family used his services. When we first started using him, our car was serviced, we got phone calls when things needed to be completed, important things such as transmission oil was changed as part of the ordinary service. In fact the car was looked after in such a way that you felt good driving it …

Have you ever been so busy with so many things to do; you cannot fit another thing in your day? You feel utterly exhausted. Most of us have had that feeling. Where can I get another hour? Have I got the energy to use that other hour? Why is it that others can do it? Why can’t I? What’s wrong with me? Notice the progression of our thoughts; we take our thinking from the problem and make a judgment on our ability, no, even worse on ourselves. Earl Nightingale said, ‘You don’t manage time, you manage activities’ Sometimes we are …

Several months ago one of my clients came in and said, Irena, I am going to pull all my money out and put it in the bank, I feel safe with it there. I said to him, OK, it is your money, you have been with me for over fifteen years, you know how I think, if this is really what you want to do, you know what will make you feel good, and you know what your money has done for you to date. Sitting on my desk under a glass top is information. The information is related to …

I was chatting with a client on Skype and we were discussing the fact that times change and so do opportunities. I believed that I was discussing options and offering different solutions. Because I had not come to actual solutions, I was still going through the evaluation stage; my delivery sounded more like ‘bouncing ideas’ not like ‘solution finding’ The client said something that really threw me; “It seems to me that you don’t know what to do and that makes me loose confidence in you” I thought on that statement and I believe that it may be one that …

What we did in the past will not work for the future. I can remember my first fore into the Financial Planning industry (funny, they called it Financial Planning but there were so many aspects that were not dealt with in the early days) it was basically, here is a product you can use.   We  just had a few types of investment products; bank instigated investments, insurance bonds, Whole of Life insurance policies, Endowment Policies, investment trusts, then came the wholesale trusts, then, the different types of investment platforms and the variety of products grew. The array of products, platforms …

See the financial planning that changes  when we change a few habits; the debt reducing, the savings increasing, the investments growing. It is amazing how you find ways to increase the money you put away and it makes you feel so good, you are in control. My daughter was telling me how they are paying extra off their housing loan, putting extra away in their investment account, and they still have their buffer account which they do not put anymore into because they have reached their target. It continues to grow because of the effect of compound interest. The decision …

One March many years ago, I was feeling as though I was at the whim of every incident that occurred. I visualized that I was in a dinghy and was in rough waters. I was drifting, making the best of every situation and because of that I became a great problem solver. I was proud of the fact that I could find solutions that were working. I vividly remember thinking of where the tide was taking me, I had no idea, and I just kept doing what I needed to do to keep myself afloat. I started thinking and started …

It is so much fun when you read, this morning I was going through my daily ritual and read a piece from The Maxwell Daily Reader. This piece comes from author H. Jackson Brown Jr. He said ‘Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.’ I laughed and then thought about it. How many times have I done just that? So much activity on so many different fronts and no real results. Why no results? What was the problem? Taking the …