Month: February 2021

Have you ever noticed how you can feel anxious, angry, resentful or afraid when you think about your money situation?

When you get a bill that you don’t know when you can pay? When an unexpected cost comes in that blows your budget or financial plans?

Money and emotions are very connected, and when you don’t have control of your money situation overall, things will always come up that create negative emotions and add to your stress levels.

The only way to manage this flight to negative emotions is to master control over your money. That doesn’t mean you can change your whole financial situation quickly, and stop the stress. What it does mean is that you are prepared for the unexpected, and can deal with bills and life by knowing what position you are in today financially.

To get this control and peace of mind you have to do some work.

It is not the most exciting of jobs, but you need to take a look at what your life costs per month to run. There is a great tool for calculating all your expenses on the moneysmart.gov.au website.  This will also ask you to put in your quarterly bills like electricity and gas etc, and it aggregates them into a monthly cost. Only when you have a complete picture of your money situation can you start to make clear decisions about taking control of…

Continue reading the article >

Vanessa Stoykov writes for Secrets of the Money Masters, a programme she founded, now owned by tech giant Iress for the education of financial advisers

Until next time,

Something I have learned about money over 22 years of running a business, is that money usually delivers to the ‘set point” you ask it to.

What do I mean by that? Well, usually business owners have a number in their head that they need their business to deliver on to stay afloat – the ‘just enough’ number. And, time and again, that number is achieved. Nothing more, but not less.

It is as true in your personal life as it is in business. If you know how much you need to earn every week or every month to pay your bills, most of us can find it. And if we can’t, we use credit cards, or fall behind on bills, which creates a whole other set of problems to deal with in the future.

So I encourage you to start thinking – what is your set point? What is the number you have in your head that you know you cannot fall below?

Everybody is different. Some people may be happy to put bills on credit cards, but not to have a debt collector chasing. Others may have a set point that means every bill is paid on time, but there is nothing left for savings. Whatever it is that you are used to operating at, think about it, and then start to think about what would happen if you changed it.

When my business was very new, I knew I had to raise $12,000 a month to pay all my staff, my rent, and still earn enough to pay myself. That number was my focus and my obsession. Every decision I made was about chasing that $12,000 per month. Just when I was getting desperate that I wasn’t going to be able to achieve it, a big client who had been talking to me for many months decided to start their retainer service – and the number was, you guessed it, $12,000 per month.

That is just one of hundreds of examples I could share with you over the past 22 years in business around my set point, my focus on achieving it, and the exact amount of money coming that I needed. Enough, but never more than enough. It was only when I started focussing on…

Continue reading the article >

Vanessa Stoykov writes for Secrets of the Money Masters, a programme she founded, now owned by tech giant Iress for the education of financial advisers

Until next time,