Strategy to Make 2023 Great!

The start of the year, the best time to set yourself up for success from the get go, but how do you make 2023 the greatest year yet?

Ultimately, what you want to do is set yourself goals, or something to achieve, so that way you are not just going through life and feeling stagnant. You need to be able to meet your personal standards and feel like you are achieving things for yourself, that is the only way you can make 2023 the greatest year yet. Back in 2016, I had just started to get into a routine in the business, I was in a solid relationship and I was content, however I started putting on weight and deviating from my personal standards.

Everything from the outside looked great, I was running a partially successful business, I had an amazing girlfriend, we went overseas to the Philippines that year also and was loving life. But, I felt bored, I didn’t feel myself, I felt burnt out from work and the reason for this came down to, I had achieved everything I wanted to and stopped looking forward.

I grew comfortable, which led to me achieving the bare minimal day in, day out, which is fine if you are ok with going through the motions and just living life. However, I knew things had to change, because I was not happy and felt like I had lost my purpose.

There are a lot of people who grow content and will simply stop, plugging into entertainment to make yourself feel better, as I did. In 2016, I watched so much Anime and Netflix, it was beyond a joke, binge watching episode after episode, looking for anything to give me some dopamine (the happiness chemical in your brain) and to get me out of my lull. Scrolling social media was the worst thing, I guarantee you, my procrastination levels were ridiculously high that year, but it was all because I simply had nothing to look forward to, nothing to achieve for myself.

Of course, I had goals for the business, but because I had no personal goals, I had achieved them all, I simply just stopped.

The key here is to know yourself and to understand what is truly important to you.

I had to truly evaluate myself and I decided to do something that would take me back to who I wanted to be. I knew that when I was running I was happier, and in 2017, to turn things around, I signed myself up for a half marathon.

Just by simply signing up to the half marathon, that year alone I lost 15 kilograms and went on to lose 20 kilograms all up. I began to have a pep in my step, so to say, I had re-gained the spark of life, because I knew that I was achieving for myself again and was meeting my personal standards.

Therefore, truly to make 2023 the greatest year you have ever had, you could simply sit down and start to think, or if you are better at speaking it out, talk to your better half or a friend, about what your personal standards are.

Do you see physical health as a major priority in life?

Or do you hold yourself in high regard as a fashionista, but have not been able to afford the latest and greatest fashion?

Do you love cooking or want to look better physically, but have resorted to quick and convenient in the take-away meals?

We normally let our standards slip because we get too busy and we grow content, but if you are not happy, if you find yourself strolling through social media constantly to procrastinate, or binge-watching a heap of TV/movies, you may need to look in the mirror…

Look in the mirror and ask yourself this, “Am I truly living up to my potential and meeting my own standards?”

The most common example I came across as a personal trainer was for a new mother and father. Having a child is probably the best experience you will have in your life, or so I am told (Yet to have children of our own just yet). But it is also extremely time consuming, you begin to put all of your hopes and dreams into the child, and neglect yourself.

Your own personal standards begin to slip, and you either need to create new personal standards, or you will begin to grow unhappy. I did this, but in the business, I had enmeshed my own identity and personal standards into the business and probably my new relationship at the time. I had simply lost who I was, because my own identity was enmeshed in the business and my girlfriends.

You must remember, that you are an individual, you have your own dreams and goals, you have your own standards. To make 2023 the greatest year yet, simply think about who you are, who you want to be and set something down on paper or sign yourself up to a half-marathon like I did, if that is what you want to do.

The goal has to be for you alone, to get you back to feeling like you are achieving again, to feel like you yourself are growing as a person. No goals or aspirations for your partner or your child/ren, just write down one goal that is going to get you back to feeling like you are meeting your own standards.

One of the biggest goals I wrote down for myself was to own a home, therefore in early 2017 I had a conversation with my girlfriend (now my lovely wife) and we began to save for a house deposit. The best thing about having a partner is that you can share in the same goal, if that is what they want to also achieve personally.

But the key is that you must personally want to achieve it first, it cannot be something you just agree on to appease others, it must be your goal alone, your partner will just help you along the way to achieve it.

Now, you simply just need to set some time to yourself and begin thinking about who you truly want to be, what you want to achieve and set yourself a goal to achieve for 2023!!

Until next time,

Take Back Control

A New Year, A New Blog and Much More…

A Happy New Year to you all, I am hoping that you have been able to refresh, take stock and feel energised to get back into a new year.

Over Christmas, I hope that you were able to over-indulge, have too much food, drink and good company, as I certainly did, but now we move back into reality, with most people getting back to work over the next few days. What’s done is done, therefore there is no need to feel guilty about potentially being a little heavier, with a little less money in the bank or having spent the last two weeks unproductively. If you do feel guilty, take in five deep breaths, let it all go and let’s move into the very present as we are reading this blog.

You have no control of what has been done, you only have control of the fleeting moments we call the NOW and of course, you have control of choosing to behave in certain ways in the future. Hence why there is no need to feely guilty, although I am sure some of you do still, but let’s move into what 2023 could be, rather than focusing on the past and things you have no control over.

2023 is ear-marked to be a pivotal year when it comes to money, the economy and many other outside influences, such as politics, conflicts between countries and energy/resources.

What happens this year will potentially dictate the rest of this decade, as we leave a year of instability in 2022, especially with inflation increasing significantly, the biggest conflict between countries we have seen since the US-Allies-Afghanistan war and energy prices increasing significantly as we work towards a world to decrease the impacts of global warming. Change is afoot and we must get ready for big changes to occur in our everyday lives as well. The best thing about being human, is that we are adaptable, one of the most adaptable mammals on this planet.

The reason we have become the apex, the reason we are sitting on top of the food chain and seen so much progress over these last 100 years alone is due to this survival trait. Where we can adapt to most environments, imagine ways and think up ideas to solve problems and be able to not just survive, but thrive.

Thriving is going to be the main theme of 2023 for Take Back Control, we want you to thrive, I want to see you become more this year and grow into someone who has taken back control of their Life, Health and Wealth.

To do this, I am going to be sending out more content than ever before, as the environment changes, we need to adapt, so here are some of the ways Take Back Control is going to ADAPT this year:

• The number of blogs will increase from 1 per week to 2 per week - Every Thursday and Sunday

• The New Series - Your Money Storey-TBC will be sent out at the end of each month. Where we talk money and dive deeper into understanding success and failures with money, and hope to grow and understand how inter-connected money is with our lives.

• The Content is going to be more focused around the core pillars of Take Back Control - Life-Health-Wealth.

• There will be quarterly surveys to see what you would like to LEARN from the content, so you leave after reading every blog a little more knowledgeable and hopefully with some take-aways that can improve your life this YEAR!

• The first ever T-B-C Free Courses will be created and tested (Will hear more about this over the coming months)

2023 is going to be a big year, it will be a year that you mould and a year where you control what happens, if you focus on what you CONTROL not what is happening in the outside world. You simply only have control over your own actions, therefore, if you start there, you can make 2023 a year better than any other!

Until next time,

Take Back Control

Wealth Tip -The MOST Important Number to Know

The end of the year is probably one of the busier times, it is not called the crazy season for nothing, but if you look and prioritise, you will find a few pockets of quiet. Time where you can set out for reflecting and most importantly, understanding where you are RIGHT NOW!

When it comes to understanding your wealth and understanding whether you are improving it or losing it, there is no more important number to know than your NET WORTH!

Before we go into how you can easily calculate your net worth, it would be pretty poor of me not to go through a few housekeeping rules surrounding your net worth first.

Rules to understanding Net Worth

1. Your Net Worth does not define YOU and who YOU are!

Your net worth is just a number, and when it comes to understanding yourself, there is so much more to you than just a number. Therefore, when you go to calculate your net worth for the first time, you may feel nervous, or even ashamed, but I want you to take a deep breath and just relax.

YOU are not defined by a number, you are not a bad person for having too much wealth or too little. Our happiness is all based on perspective, some will be happier with more, and some with less. Hence, when you calculate your net worth, just remember, it is just a number.

2. Your Net Worth is a Metric

Your Net Worth is a great way to see where you have been and to measure your wealth building over the years. A great example of this would be if you sit down each year and calculate your net worth, you can see how much your wealth has been building over time.

An exceptionally good way to do this is by using a graph, once you have calculated your net worth over a few years. Check out the below for an example;

Liv and my own Net Worth over the last two and a half years, since I have been tracking it!

3. Leave a Legacy

Everyone should know how much they are worth, if not for the very reason that it will make leaving your legacy to your kids, grandkids or family members that much easier.

(Sure, if you are in high school and you have $5,000 to your name, you know what your net worth is straight away, as long as you have no car loans or debts to family members, you will just have $5,000 in net worth.)

Understanding your Net Worth is truly important, because when you make a will, you need to understand all the intricate details or your assets v. liabilities, not to mention insurances and a few other details. Your net worth will be the legacy you leave behind to loved ones, so why wouldn’t you want to know your Net Worth?

4. Do not compare your Net Worth to anyone else, you are playing a solo game!

I deliberately left out the $ figure in our own net worth graph above, so that you would not be able to compare, because there is no point leading your life in comparison to others. For your own happiness and sanity, it is best to be in the game without looking at the other players.

Social media has truly made our lives a lot more superficial and highlighted judgements, comparing to each other and even more dangerously, an us vs. them, or you vs. me, mentality.

We are all playing our own game, we are all just journeying through our lives at our own pace and you do not need to compare your own net worth to others. See an article that states the average net worth for your age? Don’t read it, we are all in this together, experiencing things in our own way, with our own history and perspectives.

The more you compare, the more likely you are to move into dangerous territory, like “keeping up with the Jones’s” territory, where you will take on more risks like getting personal loans and increase your liabilities. Of course, it all comes out in the wash, once you have calculated your net worth, you will know whether you are trying to “Keep up with the Jones’s”!

So, how do you calculate your Net Worth?

There are a heap of great Net Worth Calculators online, but I must say, one of the better and more simple ones has been created by the Australian Government.

The Money Smart : Net Worth Calculator

I have been using the Money Smart calculator for the last two and a half years to track our Net Worth and it has been working a treat, it is simple to use and will take you less than five minutes.

All you need to know is your bank balances, super balances, investing balances, loans and approximate value of your cars/boats/furniture etc.

During this day and age, you can come up with most of those figures at the click of a button and then once you have calculated your net worth, you can simply print the page or save it as a PDF on your computer like I do.

You have to do the work though or Hire a Financial Planner!

The hardest part of calculating your Net Worth comes down to discipline, doing it every year!

A lot of people would struggle to sit down at the end of the year or end of financial year and actually calculate their Net Worth. Which is why having someone to be accountable to is truly important, someone such as a Financial Planner who can do the calculations for your and review it once every year.

A Financial Planner will be able to reassure you and keep you on track with your strategies of wealth building, so that your Net Worth never goes backwards.

If you are one of those people that don’t like money or don’t like numbers, or you have a much more complex situation with investments, trusts, self-managed super funds etc. Hiring a Financial Planner will save you a whole heap of time, keep you accountable and make sure that you don’t so anything silly along the way that could affect your Net Worth.

Now you know what to do, so you just need to TAKE ACTION!

If you have any questions on calculating your Net Worth or need any help with it, please reach out to me - can do so via LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook etc.

I would be more than happy to help where I can,

Until Next Time,

Take Back Control

How to Make Sure Christmas Doesn’t Break the Bank!

T-B-C Special Christmas Edition

Here at Take Back Control, I have been running around, getting those last minute Christmas gifts and have almost finalised everything for what has to be the best time of year…

But, it can also be the most expensive time of year, if you let it. Which is why this special Christmas edition is going to focus around making sure that Christmas doesn’t put you out financially, leaving you reeling and feeling horrible when that Christmas hangover hits.

We have all been there before, when we wake up on the 2nd of January in the new year and think, wow, where did all my money go?

Or worse yet, you have to deal with paying back a heap of Buy-now Pay-later apps and personal loans, just to get those gifts that make people “feel” like you love them.

So, do you want to know the trick to not breaking the bank at Christmas time?

Ok, let’s see if I can save you a nasty Christmas hangover (and not the alcoholic kind)…

Tip 1: Communicate with Your Family and Friends

Probably the hardest task to do off the bat, because I believe in getting the hardest things done first, the rest is easy after this. You need to have a conversation with anyone who you will be getting gifts this year and having dinner’s, lunches, drinks with on Christmas day etc.

You need to talk to them about creating a budget and planning how much we will spend on gifts or food/drinks etc.

Without having this conversation, and coming to an agreeable amount, Christmas can be difficult.

You need to make sure you ask first, and don’t just tell people what to do, which means getting in early, before people have brought gifts.

Asking simple questions like;

• How much are you wanting to spend on gifts for Christmas?

• How are we pitching in for Christmas Lunch/Dinner?

• Should we just bring our own food and drinks? (Probably the best way to control your own spend)

The best way to do this is through talking with the host of Christmas this year or making a group chat. Having a family group chat can be great for many things, we have one with just my brothers in it, where we ask questions about what is everyone getting for mum and dad etc.

Coming together and discussing it, you learn more about each other and can become even closer because of it.

Tip 2 - Bad/Dirty Santa/White elephant- The game that will save you $$$

The best way to save money I have found, which has become a bit of a family tradition for us over the last three to four years, is playing a game we call Bad Santa Kris Kringle. There are many other names for it, but I will leave a link below for the description of how to play the game.

- How to Play Bad Santa -

In fact, our friends have even suggested it this year, which means rather buying a $30-$50 gift for each person, costing potentially $120 to $200 or more, you can buy one gift, have fun playing the game and enjoy each others company even more.

Let’s quickly do the math, say you have a family of ten, a group of friends that number as 8, that is potentially 16 people that you will need to buy for. Say you have a budget of $30, that is still $480 of gifts you have to buy, but most of the time if we are honest, it is more than $30. $50-$100 each sounds probably about right these days, which could make it a very expensive Christmas ($800-$1,600 just on gifts alone).

Suggesting this to generally the mother, or mother-in-law, because we all know who is boss during Christmas time, will leave you with the highest chance of success for the family.

My friends who suggested it simply created a group chat labelled ‘Friendsmas’ and we even chose a theme for the gift buying.

The game is even fun with kids, but of course, we all know Santa is coming for the kiddos.

Tip 3 - Create a Budget!!

Pure and simply, making sure that everyone is on the same page and knows what the maximum to spend is on gifts and food is pivotal to not breaking the bank over the Christmas period.

My brothers all agreed last week we wouldn’t spend more than $40 on each other this year, and that goes for the whole family now, as cost of living has really hit a few of us in the family.

We are accepting and feel better for communicating it with each other, not to mention, it has brought us closer together, without judgement of one another’s situations.

We are all bringing our own food to our little Christmas get away to Phillip Island for the Harvey family and have delegated roles and spend to everyone for our Christmas Eve dinner for the Perryman/Joyce family.

Tip 4 - Kids Gifts

The hardest part about Christmas has to be what Santa gets the kids for Christmas, and can definitely blow out to be the most expensive.

Setting expectations early is pretty important, as kids will always want more and more. I still remember wanting the most expensive thing in store, until I learned about the value of money.

If you begin buying them hundreds of dollars worth of gifts from a young age, they will always expect more. Therefore, one neat little trick that I remember from my parents is saying that Santa only gives you one gift. Every boy and girl only gets the one gift and of course you can base it around whether the child has been naughty or nice, but that is not the best way to go about it.

Because more than likely you will find Harry, the meanest kid in the school, gets the best presents and then your child will look at their gift and wonder what they did wrong.

Santa could also just get them something small, from the North Pole or something that is truly memorable and magical. You can leave the “big gifts” to those that are from “Mummy and Daddy” or “Mummy and Mummy” etc.

Instead, start teaching your children about the value of family, connections, experiences and place a lower value on material goods. You need to do this from a very young age, and you yourself need to lead by example. If you have all the latest gadgets and the impeccable furniture, your kid will want that too, but even more than that.

Maybe even start getting your children to save up for Christmas if they truly want something big and expensive and tell them you will pay the other half, what a great way to teach the kids the value of money and the time it takes to accrue it.

Tip 5 - Make a list and check it twice!!

I mean the big man himself is a list person, and if it works for Santa, why can’t it work for you too. You need to sit down, write down all the people/bad santa gifts that you are going to buy for and start brain-storming ideas.

Why waste all the time looking around the shops and dealing with the crazed people rushing about, when you can get in, get the thing you have already put down on paper and get out!!

If you are to do none of the above this Christmas, at least do this one, because if you don’t have a plan, you plan to fail!

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hopefully you can use some of the above to save some $$$ over the Christmas season, even if it is just one of the tips, I am sure it will help.

We have one more blog before the end of the year, maybe two more depending on how much time I can find during the holiday rush.

Therefore, if you don’t read another blog by the end of the year, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

From my family to yours, have a safe festive season.

With love,

Joel Perryman

Take Back Control

Your Money Story: Linking Money, Philosophy and Psychology

From an early age, I have always been interested in what other people do, just observing their behaviour and trying to understand why people do what they do. The curiosity about human behaviour has not waned over the years, in fact, the older I get the more I want to be able to learn more about why people behave.

My curiosity and innate drive to continually learn from others has led me to wanting to create a series, to talk about money and to peel back the reason why people either spend or save, why people think of the future or think in the now.

Money is linked to every aspect of our lives, from our health, to our ego, to our education, careers and even families/relationship!

However, money is not nearly talked about enough, we seem to have a shame around it, a guilt, as if you bring it up and you will either be shut down because you just shouldn’t talk about money, or people get awkward, as if they don’t want you to see who they really are deep down…

But I have come to learn from previous experience and from watching others, that without it, you cannot do anything. You will start losing everything you ever had, relationships, your house, the ability to buy the bare essentials to keep you healthy and sometimes your own sanity.

Therefore, I want to talk about money, I want to do a Your Money Series every month as a part of the blog, where I interview people from all walks of life, to talk about money, their current happiness and just their own philosophy on what they think about money.

Are you a spender or saver? A risk taker or conservatist? Do you buy for the sake of buying? Do you get nervous when you see how much debt you are in when you take out a mortgage?

The money series is not going to delve into numbers, not really, but it is going to delve into how you feel around money, how you feel when you buy things you need vs. what you want. The series is going to portray a deeper part about why we do what we do and hopefully shine some light on why some people feel guilty about money and why some don’t.

Money is nothing to feel ashamed about, if there is one thing I have learnt, Money is just an object, a tool, a piece of paper, or better yet a number in your bank account. The history of money can tell us that it is just a mechanism to trade goods and services for, nothing more, nothing less. Of course, I can understand why a stigma around money and talking about money has taken hold of society, probably since the onset of the great depression, passed down generation to generation.

Which is why, I am going to be doing my own interview first, writing to you about my own Money Story, so that I can hopefully break down the barriers surrounding the stigma that is Money and get to the heart of what truly makes us feel attached to this tool we use in our everyday to day lives.

The series is going to evolve as I evolve and as the barrier people have around talking money gets let down, but the aim is going to remain the same, no matter what.

The aim of the series is to give people a platform to talk money, learn a bit more about themselves and to just discuss what that may entail for their lives, their relationships, their education, their career, and hopefully will be able to shine a light on how our lives, our philosophy and our behaviours affects how we use money.

If we can do this, if we can start opening up about money, learn from each other and truly start to understand that money is nothing more than a means to get what we need and what we want, maybe we can all lead a life that offers more fulfilment, more purpose and less stress.

According to the Houston Hospital, the three top causes of stress are money, work and our health, and money is inter-linked with work and health, therefore we can safely assume that the increase in mental/stress related disorders originate from money. [1]

Hence why I truly want to start this Your Money series- TBC, because deep down I truly want to help build a better society and get to the crux of problems that we see in everyday to day life. Of course, I am not a professional psychologist, so don’t expect a session where you are lying down on the couch telling me all of your problems. No, it is going to be a conversation where hopefully we can learn from each other, I can offer some small money hacks where I can that have helped my life significantly, and maybe I can learn some from you.

If this is something you may be interested in, if you feel brave enough to talk about money and want to spend about 45 minutes talking to me about money, life and your view on the world, please email me or send me a message.

You can email me at: jp2901.jp@gmail.com

or

Connect with me via LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram and just send me a message.

The series will be released on the first weekend of every month, and if we can start to tear down the guilt, stigma and shame we may have around money, my hope is that people will then start talking to each other more openly about one of the biggest stressors on our lives.

Until next time,

Take Back Control

_________________________________________________

[1] - https://www.houstonbehavioralhealth.com/blog/top-3-causes-of-stress

My Key Learnings from a Massive Week

Today, the aim is to not write about any one topic, but to reflect on the week that started with helping mum decide to take the step that she needs to take for a more certain and stress free life, and ended with going to see Dr. Jordan B. Peterson live at Rod Laver Arena.

First let’s go through what the week looked like…

Monday

Work from home

Gym

Help Mum with selling her home

Tuesday

Travel to Office in city and Work

Travel to Sydney- hotel

Wednesday

Financial Planning Association Congress 2022 (All day/night)

Thursday

Travel to Melbourne - Home

Wedding

Friday

Exams

Christmas shopping (night)

Saturday

All morning spent on budget for Mum

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson at Rod Laver Arena

Sunday

Walk Dog and Market

Clearing out Mum’s house to get ready for putting house on the market

Overall, the week was hectic, full of moving from one point to the next and full of huge learnings. However, even though it was super busy and was made up of less sleep than usual due to early mornings and later nights, I am very grateful to have been able to meet so many new people.

All who are travelling along a similar journey to my own as I study Financial Planning and take the first step into the profession. The presenters at the congress and also listening to Dr. Peterson was truly a pivotal moment of the year, taking a lot of key lessons that I wish to share with you today.

Key Learnings from Congress and Dr. Peterson

• Longevity- Our generation are more likely to reach 100 years old than any other generation before us. Longevity and an ageing population is going to create a whole range of different problems, which will need a range of new solutions. Creating massive opportunities to helping more people with their life, health and wealth, especially as they age.

• Markets move in cycles, but don’t try to time- The share market, which is the greatest builder of wealth across all the different asset classes, simply moves in a cyclical manner. Main learning is that you cannot predict the cycles of the share market or the economy, and history shows us that this will continue for as long as there is a share market and economy.

• Understanding that all Managed Funds/ETF’s will aim to beat/follow the market, but you need to watch out for the trend followers- Majority of Asset and fund managers will not beat the market, most of which will try to get you to invest with them. Therefore, you need to be able to discern between the fund managers that could truly see your wealth grow and those who may see your wealth fall behind the market. One of the presenters detailed how you can see what managers and funds may in fact be charlatans who just want your money. The best way to tell the difference is to research previous performance and whether they have beaten the market consistently over many years (10-20 years). However, the other way to do this is to also be careful around funds that may in fact be trend followers, such as Managed Funds or Exchange Traded Funds (ETF’s) that may try to create a product that simply is created due to a trend, such as Cryptocurrencies or “green metals.”

• Truly learnt that Financial Planning is the profession for me- Through talking to so many emerging professionals like myself, we are all very similar and like-minded, even though we live all across Australia and come from all walks of life.

• You can only truly be Grateful if you KNOW SUFFERING!- Dr. Jordan Peterson presented to Rod Laver Arena on Saturday night and lectured on the last rule of his new book, which specifically talks to being grateful in the face of suffering and to resentment. One thing that really hit home was that being grateful is much more than the airy fairy gratitude that we think about, such as just thinking we are grateful for the birds tweeting or the sun shining. But, for you to feel true gratitude, to truly feel happy and be content, you need to know suffering, because the world can be truly cruel. If there is one thing that you get from this blog, is that you need to know that the world and the history of humanity is truly cruel and full of suffering. You can use this knowledge and understanding of other people’s lives to create true gratitude, where you can be truly grateful for the life you have, the family around you.

• Reflection is key, key to being able to be more self-aware and for personal growth- Sometimes having extra time to talk philosophy and about society as a whole, such as the time my brother and I had travelling via train to Dr. Peterson’s lecture, presents with some learnings as well. Just the back and forth with my brother led to a realisation that reflection through journaling or talking it out is imperative to deeper understanding. Which leads to more personal growth and being more aware of your own behaviours.

• The future is scary, and yet super exciting at the same time- When you think about the prospect of what the future entails, you can think as extreme as a scenario where we are stuck in virtual reality, living out the life we truly desire and there is no more suffering in the world, but also no more purpose… Or you can think as simply as improving people’s lives through combining advanced technology with human connection, such as A.I creating better medicines to eradicate diseases or creating more efficiencies in industries that can improve services significantly, decreasing cost of living.

Overall, there has been a heap of learnings and take-aways, more than I could pack into this blog, however the above are the main golden nuggets that I wanted to share with you. Truly, I am excited to see what the future holds, all you need to do is have hope and forge your path your own path by Taking Back Control,

Until next Time.

Health is Holistic: Sleep/Recovery

There is no better way to start this post then with a story of how sleep and prioritising recovery led to an improvement in overall health, stress reduction and weight loss in the majority of my previous clients. [1]

Sleep takes up a third of our lives, but just like the subconscious rules our decision making and habits, sleep plays a vital role in neural development, digestion, memory, cardiovascular and metabolic function, as well as overall health. We all know that sleep is good for you, but just how good are we talking here?

Well, based on my own experiences and previous clients experiences, here are the results…

For myself and those clients who were only getting 5-6 hours sleep, the likelihood of a decrease in performance at training was significant, not only that, but a decrease in metabolism as well, whereby the body just did not efficiently take in and digest food. Which led to an increase in body fat, impaired judgement leading to poor decision making, less energy and therefore less productivity and increased stress/anxiety. These are results that I have seen over the span of ten years of training people, hundreds of people, just by simply asking how much they sleep on average and noting it down and tracking all of the above.

I myself, fell into the trap of only sleeping 5-6 hours per night when I was younger, thinking if I had more time in the day, then I would be able to get more done. When in fact, what was happening was the more time in the day led to more distractions and procrastination, impaired judgement and lack of energy.

Now, what happened when clients started sleeping the recommended 7-8 hours a night, or 7-9 hours a night for athletes? [2]

Well, of course there was an increase in energy levels almost instantly, weight loss occurred over the first few weeks and bowel movements were regular (based on my own experiences, didn’t have the guts to ask clients about their bowel movements, probably should have though on looking back).

Of course, this led to a significant impact on overall health and performance in training, whereby results were happening faster. So to re-iterate, we all know sleep is good for you…

How do we start sleeping the recommended 7-8 hours per night and getting a good sleep which is not disturbed, where you sleep all the way through?

First thing is taking a look at your environment, is it set up for a successful nights sleep?

Your sleep environment, generally speaking, your bedroom, is truly significant to getting a good nights sleep. Here is how to set up your environment for success.

1. Get rid of all artificial light! Including any electronic clocks or anything that may disturb your sleep.

   Increased artificial light in your room decreases the onset of melatonin (think this as the wind down chemical in your body), which in turn will mess up your circadian rhythm. (A fancy term for your natural sleeping pattern) [3]

   Which includes decreasing the amount of artificial light before bed as well, a lot of smart phones will automatically switch to night mode these days, whereby the blue/white light, which the brain sees as daylight, becomes a yellow/grey light. Just a simple change like this is powerful, as the brain will start to onset melatonin levels and naturally start signalling bedtime. If your smart phone does not do this automatically, you will be sure to find an app that will do it.

2. Go to bed at a set time each night!

   Studies have proved over and over again that going to bed at roughly the same time each night will improve your sleep throughout the night, but also improve your ability to fall asleep.

3. Not able to get a full nights sleep? Napping throughout the day is just as effective!

   Studies have shown, especially in athletes, that if you are not able to get the full 7-9 hours sleep for recovery and performance. According to Mathew Walker, sleep specialist and international best seller of “Why we sleep?”, napping throughout the day is just as effective, however timing is key for this one. As you should aim to nap between the hours of 11am-2pm, depending on when you wake up. You also should aim for no more than 10-20 minutes sleep or you will need to sleep for at least an hour to two hours depending on the person to stop the grogginess and drowsiness you get after a nap.

4. Eating and drinking affect sleep!

   Your nutrition and what you drink will affect how you sleep, the main reasons for a hangover is not so much the alcohol consumption, but due to alcohol being a somnogen (chemical that induces sleep) it actually makes you sleepy, but affects the second half of the night by causing major disruptions. [5]

   Therefore, what you eat and drink does affect how you sleep, ever get the meat sweats or have too much food and start to get drowsy? A similar affect occurs, and it is this disruption of sleep that actually is worse than getting only 5-6 hours of continuous sleep. Hence, eating a naturally balanced nutrition and limiting alcohol consumption will also improve your sleeping habits.

5. Exercise will help improve your sleep!

   Incorporating daily movement into your life will help to improve your sleep as well, by incorporating 3-4 sessions of training per week at a moderate to high intensity, of only 45-60 minutes per session, you will be well and truly on your way to a great nights sleep!

Finally, I want to end on this, 1 in 2 Australians and nearly 60% of Americans will not be getting enough sleep or have sleep-related issues. [6] If you are not getting an uninterrupted 7-9 hours of sleep at least five to six days a week, you should be looking to change a few small things here and there right now, to help improve your sleeping habits. Taking one to two steps out of the five steps I have given you bove will help dramatically.

My advice, is to start with one or two things, make it easy and simply convenient. You could just start with downloading an app or checking your smart device for the sleep mode, and maybe setting a time for sleep each night.

By doing this, you are not only going to be improving your health, but increasing longevity, productivity and energy levels across the board. All it takes is a simple decision and taking action on that decision!

Until next time,

Take Back Control!

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References:

[1] - https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/10.1164/rccm.201504-0767ST#:~:text=Sleep%20is%20an%20essential%20biological,removal%20(2%E2%80%935).

[2] - https://www.sclhealth.org/blog/2018/09/the-benefits-of-getting-a-full-night-sleep/

[3] -https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26375320/#:~:text=Exposure%20to%20artificial%20bright%20light,cardiovascular%20and%2For%20metabolic%20functions.

[4] - “Why we sleep?” Mathew Walker, published 2018.

[5] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4427543/

[6] - https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/risk-factors/sleep-problems-as-a-risk-factor/summary

Health is Holistic: Movement

I had written this great blog about how and why you should move, it took me about 45 minutes with references and everything…

Of course, when I click saved, it logged me out and didn’t actually save any of it!

So instead of the amazing blog, which I had taken time to research and was pretty proud of, I will break it down for you into five tips that I believe will help you to start moving more.

1. Set a Schedule and Prioritise Your Movement.

   Set your clothes out, make sure you are ready to go and put it in your calendar, no matter what, you must make a commitment to yourself.

2. Do Something You LOVE!

   You are more likely to exercise and move if you find something you love to do. Which will change as you grow as well.

3. Find a Coach

   A friend or coach is there for accountability, because we all have crappy days where they are needed most.

4. Never give in to outside pressures, your movement, your life.

   You are in control of your life and must prioritise your body and health. If you don’t, no one else will. To be a fit and healthy person, you need to say no to other things sometimes. There is no free lunch as they say.

5. Ease into it, the small wins are better than the big fails.

   The small wins are going to keep you going, the big fails will be a sure way to throwing your hands up in the air and quitting. Therefore, make sure to ease into it and celebrate the small wins no matter what!

I wish I had the time to re-write the blog for you today, but unfortunately, I only had forty-five minutes to complete it. Hopefully the premise of what I was just trying to say is embedded in those five tips.

Want more about how you can get moving and feel better, comment below or shoot me a message!

Until next time,

Take Back Control

Health is Holistic: Nutrition

When you read the word nutrition, what do you think of?

Just take ten seconds right now to think of anything that pops into your head…

Alright, what were they? I can tell you mine, diets, shakes, fat loss, restrictive eating.

What if I told you that what we get told about nutrition and eating is a complete farce, just a lie the new fad diet company wants you to believe…

Would you believe me? Or maybe you already know this, deep down and that is why you actively rebel against any kind of restrictive dieting after about a few days from starting it. Some of us will continue for a few weeks, those who are disciplined and really want to change, however the majority will always fall back into old habits, that is human nature for you.

And it is not your fault either, we are wired that way, when you go on a diet, you are literally thrown in the ring against your brain and thousands of years of evolutionary traits and you have to fight yourself!

I am not going to tell you what is right or wrong here, as I truly don’t think it matters, but I do want to tell you the truth about nutrition and how you can start to work with yourself to start eating better, by changing a few simple habits and behaviours.

Firstly, I want to share a story about why I am so passionate about making sure the truth is heard about nutrition. In 2015, I opened a gym with a business partner and I was running the place, working sixty hour weeks and trying to make ends meet. Running a business can be extremely difficult, especially when you are starting out and don’t have a team to lean on for support.

I found out the hard way when my days got so busy, I forgot to eat lunch most days and being a gym owner, I had to train and make sure that I was leading by example. Demonstrating that I was fit, healthy and full of inspiration, however it went downhill pretty quickly.

And of course, being young and reading up on nutrition, I was swept away with the fads of the time, one of these being a “no-sugar challenge.” The challenge was on the extreme side, whereby you were not allowed to eat any processed sugars, the only sugar you were allowed was the sugar in fruit, and even then, you could only have one piece of fruit a day.

I felt really good about two weeks in, I had lost a few kilograms, and was down to 82kg, the lightest I had been since I was eighteen years old. Everything seemed to be going really well…

Enter the fourth week of the challenge, and I started losing energy, holding myself up with a stick when taking classes at night to make sure I didn’t collapse from exhaustion. I had dizzy spells, blurred vision and my productivity went down-hill very quickly.

I was at the point where I was scared, I didn’t know what was wrong with me, was something more sinister happening to my body?

I went to my local GP and got a series of tests done, starting with blood tests, they came back fine, in fact better than fine. I completed a diabetes test, if you haven’t done it before, you get to drink this syrup, pretty much pure sugar/glucose and then have to wait around for two hours. Testing to see whether my blood sugars would crash.

The test came back on the borderline of pre-hypoglycaemia, my blood sugar levels I remember were 4.6mmol, which is deemed quite low, and on the borderline of diabetes. However, the doctor said you were fine, so I got referred to test my heart and get an ECG done.

After a month of testing, they still had not figured out why I was having dizzy spells, blurred vision and was just exhausted all the time. I had stopped training at this time, which was also affecting my mental health as well.

The ECG came back fine, my heart was as strong as an ox they said, so the last test was an MRI, to get some imaging on my brain. I have had plenty of MRI’s in the past before, due to having a benign arachnoid cyst since birth, so there was no problems from that part, however concern that the cyst had caused my symptoms were definitely playing on my mind.

The imaging came back all clear, the cyst was still the same size as it had been when they found it when I was eleven years old, and that was when the head doctor at the hospital came up to me and told me the words I needed to hear…

“Everything is fine, you are really healthy, you just need to eat more!”

From that moment, it clicked, and I did begin eating more, getting my health back in order and it really helped with the exhaustion, dizzy spells and I felt myself again after a month or two.

Of course, as I do, I went a bit far and actually started eating too much, until I blew out to 105 kilograms at the end of 2016.

The heaviest I have ever been!!

Looking back on it now, I actually don’t remember how I started putting on so much weight, but running the gym, just starting out officially dating my now wife and everything else in between, I got into a slump and looked after everyone else but me…

Now, going from one extreme to the next, how was I able to balance myself out and find the happy medium that I have today you ask?

I am happy you did, because it was a combination of factors, where I started studying a nutrition course, I started looking after me again and went back to running. There was multiple factors that pulled me from the two extremes from improving my sleep, nutrition and movement, however I want to focus on the nutrition for now. I will come back to sleep/stress management and movement in later articles.

The doctor said I needed to eat more and I saw that as a license to simply just eat more and eat anything I wanted really. Not great for me, especially considering I am a fat kid at heart. It was not until I started studying nutrition and realising how much the food we put in our mouth change us on a cellular level…

Let me give you a second to let that sink in, I mean truly, what you put in your mouth actually affects you right down to the trillions of cells you have in your body.

I don’t want to trouble you with the science of it, it will take too long to discuss and comprehend, however if you do want to understand more about how food changes your cells, and therefore your body, check out this article by Stanford Medicine.

The old saying, “You are what you eat,” really comes to mind here, as we truly are what we eat. As your skin cells die off and we produce new skin cells every seven days, the food and fluid we ingest literally become us!!

Interesting isn’t it, well you may not think so, but I do, anyhow the relevance of understanding this comes back to the bigger picture, nutrition is pivotal to your holistic health.

The best way to start to get a handle on your nutrition is to break down old habits that have been wired into you and build up new ones, which takes effort and planning. You simply cannot just start a diet like I did, because as you can see, even a fitness professional of four years fails, therefore, what chance will you have?

The reason I am telling you all of this is to make you think, to hopefully break down some of the beliefs you may have around nutrition and eating. And maybe, just maybe, to get you to start thinking of nutrition differently, rather than thinking of nutrition as diets and restrictive eating, think of nutrition for what it truly is…

Nutrition is a source of life, no more, no less, it is energy going in, energy going out, but it also a celebration of culture and life as well.

Therefore, the next time you think of starting a diet, I want you to stop for a second and think about doing this instead…

1. Slow down and THINK about your eating/meals. Slow down you eating as well, scientifically proven to make you feel fuller. (Opposite for those who need to put on weight, eat faster to fit more in).

2. Make life SIMPLE, do this by planning meals before hand and having it prepared before you start cooking.

3. Eat healthy 80% of the time (More vegies, wholefoods, less packaged stuff), and leave the 20% of eating to whatever you want!

4. Drink more water!! You are 65-70% water, therefore you need water!

5. Fuck Diets and if you are feeling guilty about eating a burger, ask yourself why? Life is too short not to eat a burger. Just don’t eat burgers ALL THE TIME.

Hopefully that helped and has given you a light bulb moment when it comes to your health, because when the doctor told me that I needed to eat more, something clicked in me, I realised that nutrition and eating was the single most important thing when it came to weight gain/loss.

However, when I just focused on eating more, and neglected the other things, I put on weight and went the other way, therefore I will be writing about movement next week.

We were born to move, our bodies need movement to stay strong and young. Without movement, you are more prone to multiple diseases, I cannot wait to share with you why I love movement more than anything else.

Until next time,

Take Back Control

T-B-C Turns One & FPA Uni Student of the Year Finalist!!

What a way to celebrate the first year of blogging and starting Take Back Control, by getting told that I made the top 3 in the inaugural award of Financial Planning Associations “University Student of the Year!”

You could imagine the surprise I was feeling when I got the call, it started off with myself wondering “who was calling me on a Friday morning?”

Other than my mother or wife, no one calls me during work hours, so I thought about just leaving it, but I just felt like I should pick it up. I am glad I did, because the next thing I know, I am getting told…

“Congratulations, you are a finalist for the FPA university student of the year!”

I was a little dumbfounded at first, and a bit unsure, but as the conversation continued, it started to hit me. The main thing that I felt when it hit me was how grateful I am to being recognised as a finalist. Being acknowledged for all the extra work that I put in and the passion I have for the Financial Planning profession, it is a rewarding feeling.

Of course, a lot of people have spent a heap of time with me, talking to me about the financial planning profession and teaching me what I needed to know to get me to where I am right now. The acceleration in my growth is all thanks to each and every Financial Planner who took time out of their day to talk to me over the last two years, to all the industry professionals and mentors who have made it their mission to see me improve, all of this and more led me to applying for the university student of the year award,

I couldn’t list all of you here, but you know who you are, so thank you for spending the most precious commodity we have on this planet, your time, to nurture my growth.

Now, the plan was to write about the previous year and to write about some of the most read blogs of the year, but the news caught me off guard and I just had to share it with you guys. As my loyal reader’s and to anyone looking to Take Back Control of your Life-Health-Wealth, you can make it happen, you can become better and take back control.

All you need to do is change a few behaviours, set some goals and dream big, really big…

There is more to it than just that, but its a great starting point, so I will leave you with that and link you to one of my favourite articles I wrote very early on, based on how you can start to dream big yourself, and also a link to the most viewed blog article I wrote as well.

My favourite Article written (Has nothing to do with the fact that Hugh Jackman is a favourite actor of mine…):

https://www.takebackcontrol.com.au/blog/let-me-give-you-the-freedom-to-dream

The most read article of 2022: Holiday Budget: We just got back from our Honey Moon

https://www.takebackcontrol.com.au/blog/holiday-budget-we-just-got-back-from-our-honey-moon

Until next time,

Take Back Control

Health is Holistic: Intro

Speaking from experience, after training people for ten years straight and for training myself for nearly 15 years, I know a little bit about health…

Not just physical health, but mental health too, I have seen a lot when it comes to people feeling the weight of the world, bearing down on their shoulders. The world can be harsh and suffering/chaos is just a part of life, and humans, we are wired to fail and to fall back into old habits.

Hence, I wanted to write a short series on health, not just how to eat or train, because to be honest, most people know how to do that.

If you went to a school from the year 2000 onwards, you have been taught the five food groups and you have been taught what is good for you.

You don’t really need to be told to eat more vegies and less packaged/processed foods. You already know this!

And training, we know the benefits of movement, we know that it is good for us, we know we were made to move, but it is painful and not something most people want to do.

Therefore, the Holistic Health series over the next few weeks is going to be a journey about breaking down barriers, learning how to shake the foundations of your beliefs and attitudes, to hopefully help you take back control on the one aspect we all have control over…

The single most important thing in the world…

Your Health!

Truly, I hope that you can strap in for this one and let me take you on a journey, a journey about previous clients, my own story and how I learnt the single most important factor that has kept me coming back to eating healthier, training and moving everyday.

Which has helped me to be more productive, change my mindset and kept me positive over the last fifteen years.

The next blog will be talking about nutrition, but I want to assure you, it is not going to be a blog where I tell you what to do, in fact, I hold this one pretty close, as I will be discussing my own personal story and why I ended up in hospital in the year 2015!

Until next time,

Take Back Control

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Ps. Take Back Control turns One on Friday of this week!!

It is hard to believe that the blog is turning one, whereby I have written one, sometimes two blogs every week for the last year.

I will be doing a special edition article on Friday of this week, looking back at the year and going back to why I decided to start Take Back Control. Make sure you look out for it!

The World is Full of Turbulence Right Now- Creating Opportunities!

“Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful,” a quote from the great value investor, Warren Buffet, the owner of Berkshire Hathaway.

Even if you have not heard of Warren Buffet, even if you have heard of him and you don’t like his methods of investing, you must admit that he has built up some wisdom over the last 57 years since taking over Berkshire Hathaway and building it into the holding company that it is today.

Currently, at time of writing, the ASX 200 (the top 200 listed companies in Australia), is down 13% year to date [1], the S and P 500 (the top 500 companies in the US) is down 25% year to date [2], displaying the fear that we are seeing across the world.

The fear is well-founded, we have no idea what is going to happen next, just look at last week, whereby the British Pound crashed and the central bank had to step in to buy up bonds (bonds are like a loan, being handed out to the government) to save the UK from certain financial catastrophe. [3]Which would have reverberated around the world, even hitting us here in Australia.

Investors are uncertain about what the future entails, and when investors are uncertain, they become fearful, it is known that humans have “loss aversion,” whereby we experience more feelings and emotions from losses than we do from gaining something. [4]

Which generally speaking, losses compound on each other to the point where more people become fearful and will sell down on investments, so that they don’t lose more on their portfolios. Some investors are in need of the cash, therefore they are selling down, due to a myriad of reasons, however most would be selling due to fear of loss right now.

Moving cash from equities/shares to the safe haven of bonds and cash, especially as the cash rate increases.

But, and this is a big but, the companies that people are selling down are still performing, still running their business as usual. The companies are still making money, some are still profiting and handing out dividends, some companies are still pumping into research and development to improve products to become the next Tesla.

All this fear of losses and selling down of assets, it is finally creating opportunities for those willing to do the hard yards and research the companies that are doing well, to understand the companies that are going to do really well in an inflationary environment.

Now, this is not an article to tell you that you should start buying the S and P 500, because it is down 25% this year. No, it is an article just stating the facts, because no one knows just how bad things will get. Or whether the fear is founded on nothing at all and we will see the share market bounce back quickly, as it did in 2020 due to COVID-19 (the bounce back came due to the massive amounts of money that has been pumped into the system, called “quantitative easing”).

However, if you are interested in doing the hard work, and being greedy when others are fearful, you could find some absolutely great companies that are on a fire sale right now.

The worst may not yet have come, we could see further falls in the share markets, but depending on your circumstances and your risk tolerance, there is no reason why you should not be doing your due diligence right now and sifting through the wreckage to salvage some gold.

And just for your knowledge, across time, the share market has always done well, the great companies of the US, Australia, China, Europe, Africa have continued on and forged ahead. Even through wars, famine, droughts and other natural disasters, because nothing can stop human nature. As long as there are still humans on this Earth, there will always be a push for the advancement of the human race, HOPE is what keeps us moving forward.

Hope of course will not see a company or the share market do well, but history shows even after Black Monday, where the Dow Jones crashed by 22.6% in a day, that it will recover. And generally speaking, will do better over the long term, because human progression still keeps marching forward. In the case of Black Monday, half of the losses on that day were made up in just under two days, and it surpassed its previous highs two years later. [5]

Which is why understanding this one fact, that owning a stock is owning part of a company, will help you in these turbulent times. Owning a company or the S and P 500/ASX 200, it is not a gamble if you understand the company and history, if you do your research and hold for the long term, short-term fluctuations will not concern you.

Still, you need to do your due diligence, not just put down money on some company because it has been doing well over the last twelve months, that is when gambling really does come into play.

**If you are unsure of how to value a company and don’t know what to search for in a companies annual statement, that is when talking to a financial advisor could truly help you, or talking to an educated fund manager or investment broker.

I want to leave you on this note, on the 2nd of January, 1950, the S and P 500 opened at 16.660. [2]

Just 72 years later, the S and P 500 is sitting at 3,587, which means you would have $219,309.34 in terms of 1950 dollars if you invested $100. [6]

Not a bad return for just $100. Not to say that historical returns will replicate again, but still, we can learn from history and understand it better, to put ourselves in a position to make better decisions.

Until next time,

Take Back Control

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[1] - Yahoo Finance- search asx 200 (charts)

[2] - Yahoo Finance - search s and p 500 (Charts)

[3] - https://www.barrons.com/articles/bank-of-england-federal-reserve-rate-hikes-51664403126

[4] - https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2015/01/gains-losses

[5] - https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/stock-market-crash-of-1987

[6] - https://www.officialdata.org/us/stocks/s-p-500/1950#:~:text=If%20you%20invested%20%24100%20in,%2C%20or%2011.19%25%20per%20year.

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Disclaimer:

The information on the Take Back Control Website is intended to be general in nature and is not personal financial product advice. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information, you should consider the appropriateness of the information provided and the nature of the relevant financial product having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs. In particular, you should seek independent financial advice and read the relevant product disclosure statement (PDS) or other offer document prior to making an investment decision in relation to a financial product (including a decision about whether to acquire or continue to hold).

The Most Important Number to Know if You Want Financial Freedom!

We all want to be able to live a life on our own terms, to be able to wake up one morning and say, '“I am going to do what I want to do today…”

Getting to the point where you can wake up, go for that two hour morning hike, or go to the gym whenever you want to, eat breakfast at your favourite café or be on a plane to your dream holiday destination, it takes knowing a certain number.

That number comes down to some simple math really, it comes down to knowing your net worth and whether your net worth can pay for your dream lifestyle (or dream expenses).

What is your net worth? You hear about Jeff Bezos having a net worth of $140 billion USD, but what exactly does that mean? Does that mean that he has $140 Billion dollars sitting in a bank account? Imagine if he had $140 Billion in cash, how many rooms would that fill up in his mansion.

No, net worth comes down to whatever you have in assets minus liabilities, meaning that whatever you own which could potentially reap monetary benefit in the future minus the debts or mortgages that you have taken out to own those assets.

A great example would be a house, you may have spent $950,000 on a new home, let’s keep it a nice round figure and forget about stamp duty, conveyancing fees etc.

You have $250,000 in cash to pay for said home and you acquire a mortgage from a bank to pay out the difference, in this case $700,000.

The asset before you signed on the dotted line was $250,000 in cash, and you had no liabilities. Now that you own your home, you now have $950,000 in assets, but you have a liability of $700,000.

In both instances, you still have a net worth of $250,000. Scenario one, you had cash only, scenario two you minus the debt/mortgage from the asset, so $950,000 - $700,000 to make a net worth of $250,000.

Now you know your net worth, you can start to create a plan around building the net worth you will need to be able to gain enough financial certainty/independence to be able to live your best life, without worry of running out of money before you die.

That is all retirement is, isn’t it? The ability to pay for your living expenses, without concern of outliving the money you have. Unfortunately, not everyone who retires actually has enough net wealth to be able to do this. Which is why knowing your number is so important, what number do you ask?

The amount of net wealth (net worth) you will need to be able to live in retirement, which takes a bit of planning and understanding of the average lifespan in Australia (the endpoint).

You have to start at the end point, when it comes to attaining or achieving any goal, you need to know what the end will look like.

How do we know how or when we will die though? Well, you don’t and who would want to know anyhow, imagine if you were told that you would die tomorrow, and you had no way to change it?

But, we can make estimations based on statistics and averages, whereby the average Australian male life expectancy right now is just over 81 years old and females are just over 85 years old. [1]

Now you know that you will most likely live until the age of 81-85, we will add on 7 years, just in case, so that if you are a male, you will most likely live until age 88 and female to the age of 92 years old.

We have the end date, not to say that it is concrete, you may live to 100 years old, but based on the stats, that is unlikely, for now…

Once we have the end, we will need to ascertain your dream life’s living expenses, how much will it cost you each month to live the life of your dreams? $5,000 per month? $10,000 per month? Maybe $20,000?

Let’s say that you have a simpler lifestyle and don’t have big plans to travel the globe and party everyday, you simply enjoy the presence of family and friends, will go on a few trips a year and just want to be able to go out once or twice a month to a nice restaurant.

Lets assume for now that the holidays will cost you $10,000 per year, gifts for children/grandchildren may come to $3,000 per year, living expenses may come to $2,200 per month (assuming that you own your home and don’t rent.) Maybe you still have children in schooling, education costs may come to $10,000 per year. Entertainment spending comes to $300 per month.

Adding all of that up, your number that you need to know before you can truly find your net wealth number that you need to attain to retire is…

$53,000 per annum or $1,019.23 per week.

You would need to be earning that much from investments/drawing down from assets per week or annually to be able to survive and that does not include inflation that continues to increase living expenses each year.

Not to mention, things can go wrong, emergencies or accidents occur and that costs money too. Therefore, you may need extra cash to fall back on, just in case.

Continuing with the example above though, we won’t include any more emergency cash bucket or include inflation etc.

Assuming that you are 50 years old, how much would you need in net wealth to survive off of $53,000 per annum? (Not including your home, I mean, you need somewhere to live.)

Based on the life expectancy averages above, a male will live another 38 years and a female another 42 years.

A male would therefore need… $2,014,000!

And a female would need $2,226,000!!

Sounds like a hefty sum of cash, but of course, that is why you would invest and make your money work for you. By investing your money and making it work for you, most couples would actually only need $402,000 to drawdown $64,000 per year, according to the Super Consumers Australia. (Assuming retirement at age 65 though, not 50 years of age) [2] I will not go into investing today, but I will touch back on investing in some future blogs again.

Therefore, in our example above, the net wealth the individual would need to be able to live in their home and live the life they want, would just be the number above plus the $950,000 from your home. For the male, the net wealth would be $2, 964,000 and for the female, it would be $3,176,000 **Again, not taking into consideration increase/decrease in home value for simplicity sake.

Now you know the number you need, you can track how far off or how close you are to attaining the goal through your net wealth.

A great way to do this is to use the money smart net worth calculator, it is a simple and easy way to calculate your net worth once a year to see how you are tracking on your way to attaining the number you need to live your best life!

Just click on the link to take you to the site - https://moneysmart.gov.au/managing-debt/net-worth-calculator [3]

By calculating your net worth once a year, you will be able to keep track of how you are doing, and by doing that, you can change behaviours to keep you on track.

As long as that net worth is increasing each year, you are on track to achieving that retirement goal and taking back control of your life fully.

Until next time,

Take Back Control

**All expenses are examples only, and do not constitute a real life scenario, so please do your own due diligence and work out your own living expenses and net wealth. Or speak to a trusted professional advisor who can help you do that as well.

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[1] - https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/life-expectancy-hits-new-high

[2] - https://www.superconsumers.com.au/retirement-targets

[3] - https://moneysmart.gov.au/managing-debt/net-worth-calculator

A Review of Dr. Jordan Peterson’s “Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life”

The first of many book reviews I am hoping, where I might be able to take out the most important aspects of the book and pass it on to you, the reader of this blog. The reason for this? I truly believe that it can help you to Take Back Control!

Generally speaking, there is a lot of reading in my life, from work to uni studies, I am sure you get the picture, however, most people will generally just read the contents and not take anything in. By my being able to take out the most important aspects of the books I read and pass it on to you, I also hope to be able to gain some fresh insights as we travel along this journey we call life together.

Now, the book, “Beyond Order,” is not your ordinary book in which I would give to anyone or suggest for anyone to read. It is some truly heavy content, where Dr. Jordan Peterson draws from his past experiences as well as experiences of clients (being a clinical psychologist) to flesh out twelve more rules for life, discussing the more darker and chaotic aspects that happen in life.

There is a definite theme of “good” v.s “evil,” “yin and yang,” “order against chaos…” These themes run throughout the book in each chapter, told through story form. Where Dr. Jordan Peterson utilises his past experience as a clinical psychologist to explain these themes, but he also uses many alternative stories to do so as well, such as the Bible, Disney princesses and evil queens, drawing from millennia of human communication through our favourite past time.

Which has got to be one of the main reasons I love this book so much, even though you can tell that Dr. Jordan Petersons methods of fleshing out the ideas and themes are long and drawn out, he does it in a way that engages you and to make sure that the themes are drummed into you. There is not a moment in the book where his long drawn out method bores you, where you want to put the book down, although you may want to have a break every now and again from the barrage of information and to take in the content.

Now the real reason I wanted to write a review on this book in particular is due to the fact that it is a book in which most people need to read. We don’t get taught in school the things that Dr. Peterson writes, things like taking responsibility of ones life, to stop and take in the beauty of the world, that the world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows…

There is evil and malevolence out there, in which Dr. Peterson describes in great depth, and goes on to use previous client accounts to explain what happens if you do not draw up the courage to face these evils and malevolent forces in the world.

One of the most important aspects I have taken from the book is that sometimes, great trauma and pain happen. And not for any reason, apart from wrong time, wrong place, just down to pure misfortune or luck some may say. We cannot become victims of these traumatic or painful experiences, we need to utilise these experiences to build ourselves up, to face the great unknown and chaos.

Therefore building resilience and growing from these events that happen in our lives, now there are some who truly have more misfortunate lives than your or me, these people have a choice to make. A choice between choosing to be a victim of fate, or to Take Back Control of their own lives, through choosing to grow stronger and be more resilient.

The same goes for you or I, no matter what happens in life, we can be better, we can learn and grow from traumatic experiences, if we face up to them, and now just cower away holed up in the corner. Be Courageous!

Now, before we finish the review, I just wanted to list out the main chapters that I really liked and took a lot from. These chapters are also the very rules in which Dr. Peterson believes you should live by to be able to build that resilience and make it easier for when traumatic events happen to you, as they are sure to.

Because that is what life is, a balance of joy and suffering, chaos and order.

So the list of rules are not in order of my favourite rule to least favourite, but just listed out below so that you can get understanding of what the book could be about...

• Rule Two: Imagine what you could be and aim single-mindedly at that.

• Rule Three: Do not hide unwanted things in the fog.

• Rule Eight: Try to make one room in your house as beautiful as possible

• Rule Nine: If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely.

• Rule Ten: Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship.

• Rule Twelve: Be grateful in spite of your suffering.

Now these rules are my favourite at the moment, but that is due to what has been happening in my life over the last twelve months. Your rules may be different, depending on your previous experiences and your inner most desires.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, just as much, if not more, than his first book “12 Rules for Life.”

I would give the book an 8/10 if there were to be a score associated with it, only reason I would not give it a full score is due to the fact that the book is drawn out and convoluted. But well worth the read!!

In my next series, I will be writing about nutrition and go through my own story of figuring out why what you put in your mouth truly makes a difference to your life!!

Until next time,

Take Back Control

How To Deal with Life When it Throws You Curveballs!

Taking back control generally requires a level of knowledge, planning and action. However, life is not all about control, sometimes life needs to be generally about letting go of control to refresh and re-calibrate. Especially seeing as life has a knack for throwing curveballs when you least expect it. That is why today, I want to write to you about actually learning to let go, as holding on to something, and trying to control every aspect of your life is only going to land you in a depressive state or full of anxiety.

Over the past week, in fact, over the past two months, I have had to let go of a whole heap of things, including an identity I had built up for the past nine years. Which is not something that is easy to let go of, and moving towards the unknown can bring up all sorts of emotions, emotions that generally you are not able to control. As emotions are primordial, they are connected to our flight and fight, where ten-thousand years ago, it was either run away from a sabre tooth tiger or protect your young children from a stalking predator.

Unfortunately, if you are not emotionally intelligent, it is hard to discern and make out what is fear, what is anxiety, what is stress or what is nerves, excitement or a mix of all. I will save emotional intelligence for another article, because I could go on a whole tangent about that, in fact I may write a series about emotional intelligence.

But what I want you to understand is that you have to learn to be able to let go of many things in life, including emotions, identities, relationships, businesses, careers, money etc.

Letting go is difficult though, as it is a sign of quitting, you could be afraid that you may be seen as someone who didn’t leave everything on the table, you could be shunned from social circles for letting go of a relationship that was harmful…

The list could go on, letting go, can sometimes be harder than holding on to the remnants of the known!

Especially in our modern day where GRIT and Hard Work, or HUSTLE, have become buzz words that the media throws out to make us feel something, generally to make us feel bad for not working harder.

You listen to a motivational speaker and they will throw out these words quite often, but not many westernised speakers or thinkers have given enough credit to being able to let go and just go with the flow of life. Due to the fact that it is the opposite of their own philosophy, the very opposite of what they are trying to sell you, because for you to be motivated, you need to work hard and not quit.

You need to be the one to work from dawn to dusk and hustle hard, so that you can get a semblance of control back in your life, so you can beat the system or “the rat race.”

However, letting go requires you to stop, it requires you to reflect and look backwards at memories that can sometimes be truly traumatising. Some memories could bring up that flight or fight response, it is so powerful it could leave you paralysed with fear!

When it gets to that point, you may not be able to do it alone, and that is when a councillor or psychiatrist may be able to help, as you just might not be able to let go of the past without strategies to do so. We are not taught how to let things go, not really, we are actually taught to keep moving forward, to suck it up and get on with your day.

Which is why I wanted to talk about how I have been able to learn to let go of things from my past, which has helped me to move forward and become a much more emotionally intelligent and less stressed individual. Not to say that I don’t feel stress, we need stress to keep us moving forward and for change, but letting go helps you to manage your stress so that anxiety and depression is not a constant in your life.

1. Write down your memories, whether they have been brought up from something happening in your life or maybe it has just happened to you. Journal about how you feel about the experience, what made it traumatic and put yourself in the other persons shoes if there was someone that brought on that experience. Ask WHY?

2. Talk to someone about it, someone who is a family member or friend. Being able to talk it over, may shed some new light on the scenario or the experience. It may make it seem less daunting.

3. STOP! Just be in the now, stop what you are doing right now, take in five deep breaths and with each breath out, expel all of the air until you have none left. Another way is to actually take in your surroundings, rather than just pass things by, be curious about the things around you.

4. Which leads to my last point, BE CURIOUS and let wonder enter your mind on a daily basis! Children, especially young children, are generally always happy and worry free. Due to the fact that they see everything in a different light. They do not just see a tree on the footpath, they see a place to climb and play. They see the flowers blossoming in spring, they see a fantastical world, full of new things and adventure. The spark of adventure and curiosity is what can keep your mind young, which means you will need to STOP to allow your adult filter to stop running, because who can be curious if you are thinking about the next thing all the time.

I am sure there are multiple other strategies that can help you to let go, but I have found these to be the best and healthiest way to do so.

I truly hope that this has helped in some way, it has helped me in my life up until now, but if you have something else you use as a strategy, please I would love to hear about it.

Until next time,

Take Back Control

(I am no psychologist or psychiatrist, I am no doctor, but I have a good level of general knowledge from having a curious mind and from being taught through many mentors in life and through reading books. I just wish to pass on my knowledge, so I hope this can help you as it has helped me.)

The Sexiest Money Topic: Part 3 (Must Read for 35-65 year olds)

A little bit late to the party, I know, normally I blog at least once a week, however I would like to ask for forgiveness to those that wait for my blog releases every week.

The last two weeks, I have had two exams that I have been studying for like crazy, one on superannuation and one on macro-economics. Not to mention, I just started a new role as a client relationship manager, whereby I will be helping an advisor to implement their client’s strategies and completing admin tasks for them.

Therefore, I hope you can understand why I have take a short and unexpected hiatus from blogging and giving you the education on the sexiest money topics ever…

Superannuation, we can all agree is not actually all that sexy or interesting for some, however, it is one of the biggest drivers and tools used to help you to achieve retirement!

However, superannuation can be super complex and there are a lot of laws and regulations that encompass the industry. Therefore, if you have not already, it is best to start at part one and part two of this little super series, if you have not already read them.

Now that you have read those, let’s begin…

Self-managed super funds (SMSF) are essentially a fund that is owned by its own members, meaning that all the members within the fund are responsible for returns, compliance and mostly to meet the sole purpose test, which all super funds are primarily made for.

(Sole purpose test is legislated under the SIS Act 1993, whereby all super funds sole purpose is to provide benefits upon meeting a condition of release, ie; upon turning 65 years old, retiring or death. Which is a core purpose, there are also minor purposes as well.)

The main reasons you would look at taking on the management of your own superannuation is if you had significant sums of money under management within your superannuation and wanted to take control of your own investment strategy, rather than rely on the strategies of bigger superannuation funds.

Another reason is if you wanted to invest your super into other alternative methods of investment, such a crypto or art/paintings, real-estate, and you would even be able to buy the premises you currently run your business out of as well, depending on whether conditions are met.

Hence, there are a heap of reasons why you may want to look into a self-managed super fund (SMSF), however there are also a heap of disadvantages as well…

Such as, the time it takes to manage and meet compliance of running your own SMSF, the risk of persecution for not meeting compliance, the do it yourself investment losses that could come with not have diversification… etc.

I would highly recommend that if you are interested in looking into self-managing your own super, you should look into acquiring the help from a trusted advisor who specialises in SMSF’s, as they will have all the up to date regulation knowledge and also which product may suit you best.

So when is a good time for you to look into a SMSF?

A general rule of thumb is if you have more than $500,000 under management within your superannuation, you may want to start looking at a SMSF. However, if you do not want the extra burden of running your own fund, but still want the extra benefits, a small APRA fund may be more beneficial. Again, best to talk through your circumstances with a trusted Financial Advisor.

Now, you may have just read all three parts of the superannuation series and gone, that is all super confusing…

Which is completely fine, super is confusing, convoluted and full of potential mis-haps if not done correctly from the start.

(And I have only gone through the very basics of superannuation, the must knows for anyone who lives and works within Australia.)

That is why it is recommended that if you are either earning a full-time wage, looking to buy a home/start a family, retiring in the next fifteen to twenty years or just want to minimise tax, you should seek out a trusted financial advisor.

You will seriously reap the rewards later down the track and it will help you to Take Back Control of your wealth, and consequently, your life at the same time.

Until next time,

Take Back Control

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Disclaimer:

The information on the Take Back Control Website is intended to be general in nature and is not personal financial product advice. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information, you should consider the appropriateness of the information provided and the nature of the relevant financial product having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs. In particular, you should seek independent financial advice and read the relevant product disclosure statement (PDS) or other offer document prior to making an investment decision in relation to a financial product (including a decision about whether to acquire or continue to hold).

The Sexiest Money Topic: Part Two (Must Read for 25-60 year olds)

The investment that is Superannuation is probably the biggest investment you will have your whole life, other than your house. Therefore, it is really important to get it right, especially from a young age!

Within this article, it will be explained why investing in Super can be tax efficient for you, how contributions to superannuation works and I will run through a few hypotheticals that will hopefully make it easier for you to understand.

First and foremost, let’s run through how and why Superannuation is so tax efficient if you were wanting to invest in Super.

Have you ever thought about investing money in the Sharemarket? Well, what if I told you that you were already investing in the markets, you are already investing in real estate, you are already investing in term deposits and bonds. All these instruments that can help you gain wealth, but you probably have no idea what that all means. Which is ok, there is nothing really wrong with that, all you need to know is that your Superannuation fund manager is taking 10.5% of your income every year and investing it based on the investment mix you have chosen or they have. (Check out my part one blog here to learn more.)

Now you know that you are already investing, why invest in super, rather than in the Sharemarket? Put simply, investing in superannuation is more tax efficient.

The government has made it more tax efficient, so that people truly save for their retirement, as the social welfare system is the biggest government expenditure there is, therefore super was created to take the pressure off of the government budget. Hence, you will find that what you invest in super is only taxed at 15% (As long as your fund is compliant), rather than your marginal tax rate.

What does this mean?

If you earn $100,000, you get $10,500 in superannuation guarantee from your employer, which goes straight to your super fund. The tax rate on a $100,000 per annum income is 32.5% of every dollar over $45,000, which is 17.5% more than the 15% of income earned in superannuation.

If you were to invest $10,500 every year in the sharemarket, instead of super, any income earned from your shares in your portfolio (basket of companies) would be taxed at a higher rate. Let’s say your income from your portfolio is $500 per year, $162.5 of that would be taxed, whereas in your super fund, only $75 would be taxed.

That means investing in your superannuation fund means that you will actually save $87.5. Now as your investments increase, of course that figure would increase significantly as well.

There are many other ways in which your super fund can help you to minimise tax, one way is using concessional contributions.

Understanding how contributions to super works can be tricky, as there are so many laws and regulations, however you need to know the basics so you can utilise the system to your advantage, to set you up completely for when you retire.

So, what are the different types of contributions?

We have two main ways you can contribute to your super, outside of your employer transferring your super guarantee to your fund. You can do concessional contributions and non-concessional contributions to your superfund at any time.

Essentially, concessional contributions are when you can contribute up to $27,500 per year, which can be claimed as a tax deduction from your income. Now, your super guarantee is already included within this $27,500 figure, therefore, as long as you do not claim over this cap, you can reduce your income and therefore reduce your tax.

Using the $100,000 example again, of which $10,500 is already contributed through your employer. Therefore, you can contribute up to $17,000 more into your super, and when you submit an intention to claim from your super fund, you can reduce your income and therefore reduce your tax. (Do not forget that what you contribute to super, you will most likely not see until you retire.)

Your income has gone from $100,000 to 83,000, by claiming the contribution and therefore, you would be saving $5,865.

(after tax savings outside super: $24,967-$19,102 = $5865) [1]

Not to mention, the $17,000 is only taxed at 15%, which means your superannuation would be taxed $2,550 from the $17,000 contributed over the year, but that still means that you would be making an overall saving of $3,315 for the entire year (inclusive of super tax).

Now, there are also non-concessional contributions, whereby you are not claiming the contributions for tax purposes, however you are just looking to invest within super. The contributions are after tax, therefore, they have already been taxed and will not be taxed again within your superfund, other than on the income your contributions make.

All income from your investments, again, is only taxed at 15%, which I explained above, so we won’t go there again. But just to solidify why investing in super is better than outside of it, let’s run through some scenario’s together, a few hypotheticals so you can truly understand it.

We will run some scenarios for a 25 year old, a 45 year old and a 60 year old, to hopefully give everyone some great context on the tax efficiencies and how the contributions work for you!

25 year old, a comparison of investing outside of Super v.s investing in Super?

Let’s look at a new scenario and a new person, we will name her Sally, and Sally earns $65,000 per annum as an employee. Which means her Super Guarantee, of which her employer pays to her superfund is $6,825 per year.

Now Sally lives at home and doesn’t actually have many expenses, she socialises with friends, has a boyfriend and they are saving for a house currently. (Potentially could look at the First Home Super Saver Scheme, I would talk to an advisor about this before doing so though.)

Sally has $10,000 she would like to invest, but she is unsure of where to put the money. (The $10,000 is not apart of her house deposit that she is saving with her boyfriend currently, she wants to invest it for longer term savings.)

Sally is tossing up on whether to invest the $10,000 into an index fund or to contribute to her super. Let’s say for an example, the index fund has a 30 year average return of 7% per annum and her super fund has returns of 7.8% per annum, but fees of 0.8%, making the real returns exactly the same as the index fund.

Sally wants to invest the $10,000 for 30 years.

Option 1) Sally Invests into the index fund

Over 30 years, thanks to the beauty of compound interest, her return will be $66,123, minus any costs for buying the units in the fund. Giving her a total of $76,123 at the end of 30 years.

However, all the income she receives year after year is taxed at her marginal tax rate. Let’s just say she receives $300 per year from her investment, to make it super simple. $97.5 of the $300 is taxed every year, meaning that she gets taxed $2,925.

Now, I have tried to make this super simple to understand, as it can get really complicated when adding in income every year to add on top of returns. So lets just see what the total return would be if we add the $202.5 of income after tax to her returns outside of super.

Sally is sitting at a total return of $95,204.

Option 2) Sally invests in her superannuation

Now, we have already done the math, the only difference is Sally gets taxed at 15% within her super on any income, rather than the 32.5% through the marginal tax rate.

So only $45 of the $300 is taxed, now lets see how big of a difference that makes over 30 years…

Sally would have a total of $100,210 within her super fund, meaning she would have saved on tax and made returns because of it. Of course, the figures are well and truly off when it comes to the earnings, you would see the increase in income each year make a much bigger difference over 30 years. But I wanted to show you using nice simple numbers.

45 year old, coming up to retirement and unsure of how much you may need for retirement? Let’s dig in to what you should be aiming for…

First and foremost, how much do you need to retire, the numbers are all over the shop, but according to two main associations, you would need roughly $70,000 by age 67 years for couples and singles to live a modest lifestyle. Based on couples having living expenses of $39,788 per year or singles having living expenses of $27,754 per year. [2]

Of course, if you would like to live a very comfortable lifestyle, you would need $640,000 for couples and $545,000 for singles, according to the Association of Super Funds Australia. Which is a major difference from the $70,000 you need for a modest life.

The Super Consumers Australia have a bit of a different amount, whereby to live comfortably, you only need $62,000 per year in expenses for a couple. Which means you only need to save $409,000 for a couple to live fairly well, if aged 57 or below. [3]

Of course, these numbers do change yearly, therefore it pays to seek out advice where you can to make certain that you have a solid plan for retirement and everything will be fine.

60 year old, retiring in the next year to five years, what are the ways in which you can contribute to top up your super?

There are few ways in which you can truly top up your super before you retire, to make sure that you have more than enough to get you through the next 20-30, maybe even 40 years!

One of those ways is using the bring forward rules, whereby you can bring forward up to five years of concessional contributions or up to three years worth of non-concessional contributions.

The bring forward rules are complex in nature and I would truly suggest that you talk to a professional financial adviser about these rules and how you can top up your super before retirement.

Another way is the down-sizer contribution, whereby you can use the sale proceeds of a house to top up your superannuation as well. [4]

Again, before deciding to go down this track, I would highly suggest talking to an advisor before doing anything.

And finally, you can also complete co-contributions to a spouse, whereby you can contribute to your partner, who may have less super and this could make you eligible for some tax offsets.

I did not want to go into too much detail, as the closer you get to retirement, the more important it is to see a Financial Advisor and truly get a good grasp on your financial future as you move into the unknown that is retirement.

Due to regulations and laws are always changing, I would highly advise anyone to make sure they speak to a professional first before making any decisions or actions. Hence, I always suggest that you should always look out for a trusted Financial Advisor who can create a sound financial plan for your future, and for the future of your family. Someone who can be in your corner when deciding on the big decisions in life, such as marriage, kids, first home, second home, retiring etc.

I truly hope this has helped you to understand super a little bit more and why it is so much advantageous to invest in super that outside of it, when looking at tax.

For the third and final part to our superannuation blog, the next article is going to be on Self-Managed Super funds and a few more scenarios to help you truly wrap it all and understand Superannuation.

Until next time,

Take Back Control

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[1] - https://www.ato.gov.au/rates/individual-income-tax-rates/

[2] - https://www.superannuation.asn.au/resources/retirement-standard

[3] - https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d2828f4ce1ef00001f592bb/t/62d4b629b09b0b30b6fd9410/1658107438289/Consultative%2BReport%2BRetirement%2BSavings%2BTargets.pdf

[4] - https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/super/growing-your-super/adding-to-your-super/downsizing-contributions-into-superannuation/

Disclaimer:

The information on the Take Back Control Website is intended to be general in nature and is not personal financial product advice. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information, you should consider the appropriateness of the information provided and the nature of the relevant financial product having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs. In particular, you should seek independent financial advice and read the relevant product disclosure statement (PDS) or other offer document prior to making an investment decision in relation to a financial product (including a decision about whether to acquire or continue to hold).

The Sexiest Money Topic- Part One (Must read for 18-45 year olds)

Here we are, finally at the moment where we get to spend a bit of time together on what some would say is the most “boring” part of your life. Some of you may not ever even look at this until the age of 50 years old, it is just not on your radar or priority, which is ok, but you should make it so!

The most important aspect of your financial life is your superannuation and retirement, and if not planned well, can leave you with tens of thousands, and in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars less for when you do retire.

Therefore, today I am going to try and simplify superannuation for you, so that you don’t get all perplexed and overwhelmed by the staggering amount of information that you need to know when it comes to your super.

Firstly, the most important aspect of superannuation that is a need to know would be the Superannuation Guarantee or SG for short.

To understand the SG, you need to know what superannuation is first. In all essence, a super fund is a fund that manages your money and invests it based on the return you are looking for and the risk appetite you have. It is simply a vehicle to help you save and achieve higher returns to set you up for retirement, which the government put in place due to the strain on the budget for the pension system.

The government also created the SG scheme, for this very reason, whereby as of this financial year, 10.5% of your before tax take home salary goes towards your superannuation.

In fact, that rate of SG will be going up 0.5% every financial year until it hits 12% in the 2025-26 FY. For an example, if you currently earn $60,000, you are actually earning $66,500 every year, whereby your employer is contributing $6,500 (10.5%) to your superannuation.

Hence, you should be checking your super account at least every six months to make sure that you have been getting your SG from your employer, and if you are a sole trader or self-employed, you should be setting aside some of your pay every week to go towards super, which can come with nice tax incentives. (I will go through tax incentives in part two of the series)

**If your employer has not been contributing to your superannuation, you are entitled to get that back from them, with interest as well. You can call the Australian Taxation Office, who will not only help you to get your super that you are entitled to, but will also calculate the returns that you would have got in the time that your employer had not paid super as well.

Secondly, you need to have some understanding of the different types of super funds/products.

The two main super funds would be an accumulation fund, which is the most common type of fund these days, and a defined benefit fund. The difference, one is simply where you accumulate funds over your working life which is invested to grow a lump sum to draw down from at retirement, and that is the accumulation fund.

The other, the defined benefit fund, which is generally only used in the public/corporate sector of employment, is a fund whereby a formula is used, based on your average salary over the last few years before you retire, the funds you and your employer put in and the number of years you worked for an employer. Most of these funds are closed off now, due to the success of accumulation funds.

Understanding that your fund is most likely an accumulation fund is quite important, if you are unsure, it is best to speak to your employer of super fund. If you do have an accumulation fund, your employer is most likely contributing to your super through the funds My Super product.

The My Super product for most super funds is a low cost, lower risk, diversified option, however as of late we have seen that some funds My Super option has been underperforming compared to their balanced/growth options. That is why knowing the options that your super fund has available for investment, as well as the returns your fund is getting is really important. Which leads us to the third and final thing your need to know… [1]

Thirdly, you need to decide on the fund that is right for you, and knowing what funds have performed best over the long term, whether they have low fees or high and potentially whether they are ethical when it comes to their investing.

The best way to do this is to seek financial advice from a trusted advisor, they will be able to work out your objectives and create a plan that will suit for your retirement or the investment mix that suits your circumstances. Your Super fund actually gives you two free planning sessions, one of those sessions is to allow you to create an investment mix that is right for you or to get your ready for retirement, and the other is for insurance within the fund. Just call your super fund to ask for these added extras.

Another way is to utilise the “YourSuper Comparison tool,” which has been made to compare your superfund to others that are potentially performing better over the short, medium and long term.

You can check out the “YourSuper Comparison tool” here. [2]

You can of course do your own research, however, based on all the products out there, it would take hours of research and trawling through length product disclosure statements. If you have the time to spend 10-30 hours doing that, go for it, but I know most people would opt for the two options above.

Now you are equipped to ride the super train, you have everything you need to at least decide on a fund and understand that superannuation can be made simple. Of course, as you get older, understanding the complexities of superannuation is more important when entering that pre-retirement phase between the age of 45-55 years old.

Therefore, in the next article, I will be explaining the tax incentives you can get out of super, the different ways you can contribute to your own super and most importantly how you can save on tax within superannuation!

Until next time,

Take Back Control

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[1] - https://moneysmart.gov.au/how-super-works/types-of-super-funds

[2]- https://www.ato.gov.au/Calculators-and-tools/YourSuper-comparison-tool/

Disclaimer:

The information on the Take Back Control Website is intended to be general in nature and is not personal financial product advice. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information, you should consider the appropriateness of the information provided and the nature of the relevant financial product having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs. In particular, you should seek independent financial advice and read the relevant product disclosure statement (PDS) or other offer document prior to making an investment decision in relation to a financial product (including a decision about whether to acquire or continue to hold).

Life Happens… It’s Not What Occurs That Matters, It Is Your Reaction!!

My last blog, I promised that I would write an article on a quick guide to Superannuation and where to find some comparison websites that would help you to choose a great fund.

Unfortunately, as the title states, life happened, and I have had a massive last two weeks. I won’t go into details just yet, but let’s just say that there will be many changes taking place over the coming few weeks which I am hoping will be a great learning experience for all of us.

Therefore, I wanted to delve into the fact that life is always going to happen, in fact, it was the great philosopher, Gautama Buddha, that said life was about embracing suffering, to let go of the idea of seeking pleasure.

Of course, I am not a Buddhist monk, nor will go to their level of devotion, however, I do believe that life will always include some suffering, because without it, we would never have the direct opposite, pure joy and happiness. Just like there cannot be light without dark, we cannot have happiness without suffering.

Therefore, I have always been able to maintain a pretty optimistic outlook on life and that has always challenged me to react better than most. Which is why I am writing this blog today, because I wanted to share with you that it is ok for things to happen, it is ok for life to happen.

It is not the happenings of the past or the challenges that arise that define you, no, it is rather The Reactions you have to those scenarios.

Your reaction to life, to pressure situations, to challenges, to change, that is what makes you who you are. You can learn to take control of your reactions, which in turn, will help you take control of those situations.

All it takes is for you to let go of your fear, of your doubt, of the failure that occurred or the very identity that you cling to.

Which is much harder to be done, and it may take a very long time, but I always believe it starts with letting go of your EGO, the very essence of your belief’s and ideals.

I want to run through what I have done over the last two weeks that has helped me to get through what has got to be one of the more difficult stages of my life. In the hope it can give you some tools to help you react better, to help you grow and be a better person for it.

1. Step One is Simply Accepting the Scenario or Circumstance

No matter what happens, being able to accept it goes a long way. The way I work towards accepting it is through journaling, whereby I write down my thoughts, feelings and reflect on my goals. Journaling may not be the thing for you, therefore, you need to find what works best, whether that be drawing, painting, walking in nature, writing poems, coding data or answering difficult mathematic problems… Something where you can shut off from the world and fall into the flow of your creative/intellectual side. (Intellect can be just as creative as drawing a field of flowers.) It may take you time, depending on what has happened, but in the end, you will accept what has happened.

2. Step Two, Comes Down to Letting Go…

Probably the most difficult part of the whole process, which is letting go. Letting go of the person you are, the identity you held on to, the ego you have. We all have an ego, and according to Sigmund Freud, we have a superego or collective ego, as well as an individual ego.

Now, when it comes to ego, understanding that life is in a constant state of flux, nature is forever changing, your very cells are dying and being replaced as you read right now within your body.

Therefore, being able to learn to let go, let go of old ideas, old identities that you have built up to survive in a society/world that you have been so use to…

That is the next step, and like I said, the most difficult, especially if you are clinging to old identities or friends, family, potentially money even etc.

The best way to learn to let go is to stop, something we don’t do much within western society. Being able to stop and breathe, being able to take in all of your emotions that are buried deep within, now boiling up to the surface. And just simply let them go. You can start by simply taking a deep breath in and holding your breath, wait until you are struggling to keep it in and then exhale deeply, until you have nothing left.

Do that three to five times, which will take no more than three minutes. You will learn to be able to let go pretty quickly, you learn to relax your muscles, which are tensing due to the anxiety building up in your chest. You will learn to breathe and potentially might learn something about yourself.

3. Step three requires you to TAKE ACTION!

You have now taken the time to get clear on the difficult circumstances and you have accepted it and let it go, now you need to take action. What is going to be the best next thing to do moving forward, that will align with your goals and who you want to be in the future.

Of course, that requires you to ask the question of who you want to be and where you want to be in the future…

However, if you do not know that just yet, which majority of people do not, that is ok. You do not need to know all the answers, this is where asking for advice from a mentor/coach/advisor who has no emotion attached can help significantly. Once you have a clear path forward, you simply just need to take the first step, no matter how hard it is.

No matter how scared you are, fearful of failure or success, with self-doubt resonating, you need to push that to the side, as you have your ego and just take the first small step forward.

I truly hope that has helped, as it has helped myself being able to move forward and not get stuck in the past.

I would love to know if I have been able to help you, if I have, please let me know in the comments below.

Until next time,

Take Back Control.

The Sexiest Money Topic Ever Discussed… Superannuation: Intro

Yeah, Superannuation is not the sexiest of topics…

But, it is probably one of the most important topics and the vehicle to get you to retirement, and most importantly, through your retirement!

Therefore, I am going to brave the boring world of superannuation and educate you on the most important aspects of Super that is a need to know if you want to;

• Live the life you want to live in retirement (I know it is 30 years away for some of you, but I can guarantee what you do now will change your life forever when you retire)

• Minimise the tax you pay right NOW!! (Probably the main reason you should read this blog, if you don’t want to think about 30 years down the track.)

• Minimise tax on investment income.

• Feel secure when you stop working, not having to worry about paying down bills or buying gifts for loved ones, because you know you can afford to!

• Go on holidays and see the world, or if not for you, be able to do WHAT YOU WANT with little restriction on finances!

If all of the above sounds pretty amazing, or even one point of the above, you need to read the next three blog articles over the next three weeks!

We are going to go on a journey to discuss the most important investment vehicle you will ever have!

In part one, we are going to go through what Super is and do a quick intro on the types of Super accounts there are, just a beginners guide to Super and where you could potentially find some really good comparison sites for super products and what to look for in a fund!

Part two is where we start to look at the juicier stuff, whereby I will run through different contributions and how you can maximise the full affect of contributions to minimise tax and how you could potentially get free money from the government or ATO.

Who doesn’t love FREE MONEY?

Part three, we are going to go on a bit more of a detailed and deep dive, mainly into the world of Self-managed Super funds and also a few hypothetical scenarios to wrap it all up!

I know Super is boring, I know it is something you would rather not think about, but it is still your money and it is going to be the driver of your retirement, therefore the earlier you learn and understand it, the better your retirement will be!

So buckle up, or leave the seat-belts off, because we are about to partake on a journey that is not really bumpy or fun like a rollercoaster, but that is what your Super should be!!

Boring and discipline is what accounts for most success, therefore, your Super should be just that, boring and disciplined.

Until next time,

Take Back Control