All Articles
April 12, 2023
4 Ways Higher Interest Rates Impact Your Share Portfolio
You’d have to have been living on a deserted island for the last 18 months to not know that interest rates have been on the rise. Central banks around the world are endeavouring to return rates to normal levels, following sharp cuts through the pandemic. Normalising rates is not without pain however, as many who … Continued
Investment
April 12, 2023
Mean Reversion’s Applicability for Long Term Investors
I try my best to avoid financial jargon, but “mean reversion” is one piece of jargon well worth being acquainted with. The “mean” is just a fancy way of saying the average. The concept of mean reversion then, is that investments and markets tend to want to pull back to their average over time. This … Continued
Investment
April 5, 2023
Navigating Decision-Making: A Guide to Managing Choice
If you’ve listened to a few of our podcasts, or read our weekly email, you will know that our core theme is helping you Gain Choice in life. This focus came about after working as a financial planner for several years. Particularly in my early years, the bulk of my work was facilitating people moving … Continued
Investment
March 29, 2023
6 Core Personal Finance Concepts
This week we’re going to look at 6 core personal finance concepts. These are concepts that it’s easy for those of us working in the space to assume everyone understands. It might also be that your understanding of what these terms means differs from industry definition. So let’s run through these core concepts together and … Continued
Investment
March 28, 2023
What is Luxury?
I came across a great story recently that got me thinking. A successful woman in her 50s observed that several of her younger colleagues at work, all in their 20s, were furnishing very expensive handbags. She realised that she’d never had a luxury item like that, and if these young folk could afford one, then … Continued
Investment
February 28, 2023
Stepping Stone: Navigating the Property Market as a Parent-Child Team
It’s not uncommon for our clients to want to assist their children get into the property market. Particularly in our major capital cities, we all know that prices are at levels that make it very difficult to accumulate an appropriate deposit and be able to service the level of debt required. Usually parental assistance into … Continued
Investment
Property
February 22, 2023
Stock Market Smackdown: ASX200 vs S&P500
The Australian share market has gotten off to a great start this year. Indeed the last 12 months have been fantastic. If you’ve been following along via the gaining choice email you will know that over the last 12 months, investors in the Australian market have gained around 11% inclusive of dividends whilst those investing … Continued
Investment
February 8, 2023
Finding the Balance between Lifestyle and Long-Term Goals
The goal of this podcast and the work we do with many of you one on one in our financial planning relationship, is to help you gain choice in life. This goal implies at its heart that having choice is a good thing, and in the context it’s intended, such as having the choice to … Continued
Investment
January 17, 2023
5 Tips to Set Yourself Up For A Fantastic 2023
The new year has arrived, you’re re-charged, it’s time to release the hand brake and get moving! Welcome back for another episode of the Financial Autonomy podcast, where our goal is to help you gain choice in life – perhaps that’s the choice to cut back to working 3 days per week, maybe it’s making … Continued
Investment
December 21, 2022
Why is record low unemployment a bad thing? What is driving markets right now?
Last week in one of our progress meetings I was asked by a client a very sensible question “why is record low unemployment a bad thing?” His question arose from a news report that was attempting to explain the economic challenges currently faced and the concerns for 2023 and beyond. One of the explanations offered … Continued
Investment
November 22, 2022
What can we learn from past market downturns?
I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that investment markets around the world have been experiencing challenging times over the past year. Shares, bonds, and property, everything is down and there’s been few places to hide. So this week I wanted to consider what we could learn from past market declines. What can … Continued
Investment
November 16, 2022
How to Manage Sequencing Risk
What is Sequencing Risk? If we’re asked what sort of return should be expected from an investment over the long run the tendency is to rely on the long term average, or perhaps lean on the conservative side and round down a percent or two. The reality however is that from one year to the … Continued
Investment