If you watch the pennies the pounds take care of themselves

Many years ago I was working for a really good manager and one day we were talking about money and personal finance. Chris taught me one very simple rule - “If you watch the pennies the pounds take care of themselves.” I’ll translate for the current currency - “If you watch your cents the dollars take care of themselves.”

When I first heard about this saying many years ago when I worked in a corporate office, it was pretty self-explanatory.  Applied to one’s personal life, basically it means that if you pay attention to the smaller financial issues in your life, then the larger ones will take care of themselves.

What I also take it to mean is that managing your money is more of a mindset and a frame of mind than anything else.  If you watch how you spend your money during your weekly trip to the grocery store, then the big things in life (lowering your mortgage payment, buying a new car, etc) should be no-brainers.  You simply adopt the same attitude to the former as you do the latter.

It also reminds me of one of the ways that I used to look at money and how it came in and went out of my life.  Back then, I would utter the phrase, “It’s only money” all the time.  You know, spend $10 a week on lottery tickets and rarely win?  So what? It’s only money.  Have an area of your life where you could save significantly but are too lazy/busy/whatever to actually implement the change?  No worries-it’s only money.

I had a client whose only goal was to go on a decent holiday. I asked to see this client’s budget and a list of everything they spend their money on, no matter how small the item. This client’s budget was tight, there was not a lot of disposable income. I found one thing that was not on the client’s budget and was not budgeted for.  The client was a smoker and so was their partner. At that time, a pack of cigarettes was around $30 a pack and they were smoking two packs a day, $60 a day, $420 a week, $1,680 a month, $21,840 a year in cigarettes. When the client saw how much they were spending on smokes every year they were speechless. I suggested to the clients, “Cut your smoking in half and enjoy your holiday”

My own personal, “If you watch the pennies the pounds take care of themselves” was coffee. I really needed that first long black in the morning to get the pistons firing. I was spending anywhere from $3.50 to $7.00, depending on the number of cups I would have per day, $2,555.00 a year on coffee. Now I was not going to give up coffee, that would be ludicrous! To save some money I bought an inexpensive expresso coffee machine, a coffee grinder and some beans for around $170.00 and now I just have to buy a bag of coffee beans every few months and I am saving around $2,400.00 a year in coffee and the coffee I make is so much better that what I could ever get in a cafe.

“If you watch the pennies the pounds take care of themselves,” I am sure there are small items in your household budget you can do away with or adjust to help you save money.

See what possibilities exist for you to take the next step and align your life so you feel like that same old routine is broken into more excitement and passion. Book yourself in for a free 30-minute consultation session where we will both get to see if you are ready for the next step.

Visit www.butterflylifecoaching.com or call +61 0407 460486 so we can help you.

Butterfly Transition Life Coaching

“Like a butterfly transform yourself into something great and powerful.”

It's Your Money

With the constant increase in the cost of living and the lack of pay increases, it’s just getting tighter and tighter on the household budget. Saying that, it seems looking for a better deal on home loans, health insurance, car insurance, mobile phones and even pay TV seems to go into the too hard basket or we are just brand loyal and don’t want to switch? Let me tell you about brand loyalty - the loyalty only swings one way and if you think these companies care about you, then you deserve to be gouged. If these brands really cared about you, they would give you a good deal without you asking for it. Here are some of my prime and personal example of finding a better deal.

The Bank -  I was with the same bank for over twenty years, I had all my accounts, including my mortgage and credit card with them. After doing some research I made the hard choice to swap banks and lose the brand loyalty mindset. With my new bank I was getting an extra 1% on my interest rate, which was worth around $100 per month, ($1,200 PA).  I was paying $5 a month per account, $180 a year in bank fees just to have the privilege of banking with them. With my new bank there were no monthly bank fees.

Plastic Money – I decided to bundle my credit card with the new mortgage and I saved $345 on the annual renewal fee. As you can see, by me swapping banks my annual saving was around $1,725, not bad, and on a side note, did my previous bank call to see why I was changing banks or try to win me back? Of course not. 

The Savings Bug- Looking at what I saved by switching banks, I got the savings bug and started looking at other areas in my household budget where I could save money. I had all my insurance policies clear in my cross hairs.

Insurance - Like most people when the insurance renewal came, I just paid it until one day I decided to go to the company’s website and do a requote, and guess what? I got a cheaper price.  How do you justify that same insurance company, same policy but cheaper price, other than making me royally mad? I started to shop around and found a similar car insurance policy cheaper by $500 per year. I kept going and found better deals on pet insurance and a few other polices as well.

Telco’s - No savings are too small, by bundling my pay TV and broadband and some pressure I put on my Telco provider, I made a saving of $20 a month, ($240 annually). Making a phone call to my mobile phone provider and asking for a better deal found me getting a better phone plan with a higher GB allowance and $10 cheaper per month - multiply that by two and it comes to another $240 in annual savings.

It’s your Money!! - You work too hard and you have earned every dollar, so why allow companies who are not loyal to you to keep your hard-earned cash? As you can see, in one year I found close to $3,000 savings in my household budget. It’s my money, and every year now I go through this exercise. I have a spreadsheet that is separated by monthly, quarterly and annual bills/payments, this gets looked at every year.  The following year after reviewing my spreadsheet I found another $600 savings, not has big as the first savings but still something.

I understand it can be time consuming and cumbersome to look at switching banks and insurers. I’m not going to lie, there is some work involved in swapping providers, and in particular with moving banks, however a good provider will help you through the process. My suggestion is take one bill at a time and see if you can find something better.

There is so much competition out there, all competing for your business. Do your research and look at the small print before agreeing to anything.

I am not a financial advisor or claim to be one, I just took the time to look for a better deal. Remember, “It’s Your Money”.

See what possibilities exist for you to take the next step and align your life so you feel like that same old routine is broken into more excitement and passion. Book yourself in for a free 30-minute consultation session where we will both get to see if you are ready for the next step.

Visit www.butterflylifecoaching.com or call +61 0407 460486 so we can help you.

Butterfly Transition Life Coaching

“Like a butterfly transform yourself into something great and powerful.”

“Is life really like a box of chocolates”?

Like most of us I enjoyed the movie Forrest Gump, the story of Forrest resonated with us on so many levels. Forrest had to overcome so many adversities to become a champion and successful in so many ways!

Although I found the movie great entertainment and very uplifting, I only have one problem with this fantastic movie -  “My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.” To be clear, mamma is always right!! However, “Is life really like a box of chocolates”? I know when I open a box of assorted chocolates I make a conscious decision to pick a chocolate that looks the best and appeals to me.

Much as in life, we make a conscious decision that is the best and appeals to us, like picking the chocolate we will find the most enjoyable. Picking a chocolate at random and hoping you get something you like it not what most people do.

Most assorted chocolate boxes come with a map guiding you to which chocolates you want the most. As in life, some of us have a map guiding us to make the right decisions so we can get the most out of life, while other are unsure of their life direction and working without a guiding map.

Are you just plodding along, is what mamma said right? “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get?” Or do you want to choose the life you want and not leave it up to random chance?

See what possibilities exist for you to take the next step and align your life so you feel like that same old routine is broken into more excitement and passion. Book yourself in for a free 30-minute consultation session where we will both get to see if you are ready for the next step.

Visit www.butterflylifecoaching.com or call +61 0407 460486 so we can help you.

“Like a butterfly transform yourself into something great and powerful.”

Golden Rules of Goal Setting

Well we are almost at the end January, where are you at with achieving your goals?

Have you thought about what you want to be doing in five years' time? Are you clear about what your main objective at work is at the moment? Do you know what you want to have achieved by the end of today?

If you want to succeed, you need to set goals. Without goals you lack focus and direction. Goal setting not only allows you to take control of your life's direction; it also provides you a benchmark for determining whether you are actually succeeding. Think about it: Having a million dollars in the bank is only proof of success if one of your goals is to amass riches. If your goal is to practice acts of charity, then keeping the money for yourself is suddenly contrary to how you would define success.

To accomplish your goals, however, you need to know how to set them. You can't simply say, "I want" and expect it to happen. Goal setting is a process that starts with careful consideration of what you want to achieve, and ends with a lot of hard work to actually do it. In between there are some very well-defined steps that transcend the specifics of each goal. Knowing these steps will allow you to formulate goals that you can accomplish.

Here are our five golden rules of goal setting:

1     1.Set Goals That Motivate You

2.       2. Set SMART Goals

ü  Specific.

ü  Measurable.

ü  Attainable.

ü  Relevant.

ü  Time Bound.

3    3.Set Goals in Writing

4    4. Make an Action Plan

5    5.  Stick With It!

See what possibilities exist for you to take the next step and align your life so you feel like that same routine is broken into more excitement and passion, then book yourself in for a free 30-minute consultation session where we will both get to see if you are ready for the next step.

Visit www.butterflylifecoaching.com or call +61 0407 460486 so we can help you.

“Like a butterfly transform yourself into something great and powerful.”

GOALS ARE DUMB!!

GOALS ARE DUMB!!

A very profound statement, “GOALS ARE DUMB”. If you are like one of many millions of people who are, or who have set your goals for 2018, and by February you will have abandoned your 2018 goals for many reasons, there is one reason and one reason only you have failed in you goals for 2018 - YOU have set D.U.M.B GOALS!!!

Dateless -  Your goal does not have a beginning or end date for you to achieve.

Unsupportive  - How are you going to support and manage your goals until you have reached success?

Muddy – Your goals are unclear, you are unsure of what you really want to achieve.

Beyond Reach – You have set a goal that is unrealistic and out of your reach.

Don’t get me wrong, I think goals are great and every successful person sets goals, however for goals to be achieved they need to be S.M.A.R.T Goals.

Specific - What exactly do you want to achieve? The more specific your description, the bigger the chance you'll get exactly that. S.M.A.R.T. goal setting clarifies the difference between 'I want to be a millionaire' and 'I want to make $50.000 a month for the next ten years by creating a new software product'.

Measurable - Measurable goals means that you identify exactly what it is you will see, hear and feel when you reach your goal. It means breaking your goal down into measurable elements. You'll need concrete evidence. Being happier is not evidence; not smoking anymore because you adhere to a healthy lifestyle where you eat vegetables twice a day and fat only once a week, is.

Attainable - Is your goal attainable? That means investigating whether the goal really is acceptable to you. You weigh the effort, time and other costs your goal will take against the profits and the other obligations and priorities you have in life.

Relevant -Is reaching your goal relevant to you? Do you actually want to run a multinational, be famous, have three children and a busy job? You decide for yourself whether you have the personality for it, or your team has the bandwidth.

Timely -Time is money! Make a tentative plan of everything you do. Everybody knows that deadlines are what makes most people switch to action. So install deadlines, for yourself and your team, and go after them. Keep the timeline realistic and flexible, that way you can keep morale high. Being too stringent on the timely aspect of your goal setting can have the perverse effect of making the learning path of achieving your goals and objectives into a hellish race against time – which is most likely not how you want to achieve anything.

For further information about how to set S.M.A.R.T Goals please contact us.

Butterfly Transition Life Coaching can help you to become educated as to how best to navigate this sea change in your life. Begin by understanding the stages you can expect, and making the most of each one through proactive strategies.

Butterfly Transition Life Coaching is here to support and guide you through the unknown sea of change.

Visit www.butterflylifecoaching.com or call +61 0407 460486 so we can help you.

“The only time you should ever look back is to see how far you have come.”