Why working yourself to the bone is not the answer

When July hit each year, I would work lots of hours and prepare hundreds of tax returns as an accountant, while also trying to take advantage of the great weather in Karratha and go camping or fishing on the rare weekend off. “Tax season” sucked up so much of our lives – late nights, Saturdays, and I was too tired to do anything else. I remember going to work and crying most days during tax season.

I was a full-time working mum working 32-35 hours a week and doing most of the household jobs.

I was stuck. My mental health suffered and I was a volatile boss and parent, at times yelling at my staff & my kids.

Whenever I was in a bad mood, the atmosphere permeated the entire office, and everyone had to tiptoe around for fear that I would snap. Although I could see it, I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t know how to say no to tax returns, especially when I was constantly booked for 3 weeks in advance, from 2nd July all the way through to the end of October. It sucked the life out of me, we never seemed to make any progress, and still finances were not as abundant as I would have liked.

Something had to change.

So I started looking for other options… how could I support my clients and help them out? How can we support our business clients when all I am doing is tax returns?
I wanted to be more proactive rather than reactive to support my clients. I studied Life Coaching and then Personal Development. This was brand new to me. I had only ever heard about Professional Development where you learn more to help your career!
Around the same time I took a trip to Fiji to a Business Chicks conference. I had never been overseas by myself before, nor spent this much money on something that was not 100% work related. As I was going all that way, I decided to add a couple of nights to the end of the trip to stay on a tiny island hotel by myself. This allowed me some space to unwind and relax all on my own. It was during this time that I drafted a 6 week course that would help families learn more about how to manage their money but didn’t yet take any action.

Then we found the purpose for our money!

After I read the “Barefoot Investor” by Scott Pape, the penny dropped.
Two things hit home the most – ditch the credit card and stop paying interest when you can afford to pay the loan off. Finally, we had a purpose for our money.

We decided that paying down our debts will be a priority, so that work was no longer a “must do” but rather a “want to.” Suddenly we knew what we were doing with our excess funds. We worked out that if we could put extra money aside onto the loans, we would be debt free within 10 years while also taking holidays, travelling and buying all the goodies that make life great. We still had boats, kayaks, a camper trailer, four wheel drives and the best backyard in the Pilbara to use it all in. We didn’t implement all of the accounts of the Barefoot Investor, because I already taught people how to manage their money and we were doing ok.

Around Christmas 2019 one of my husband’s colleagues committed suicide. After he passed it was my partner’s job to review all of his emails and it seemed that there was financial pressure and unpaid bills that may have been one of the stresses that led to his death. He earned good money and if someone earning this sort of money can still have financial pressures and live from pay to pay, and get so stressed there seems to be no way out, then I have a duty to educate people, to help them make better choices and to set up their finances so that they can move forward and not stay stuck.

I declared that it would be his legacy, to promote my services and help people who earned good money to stop wasting their money and be more on top of their finances. Mental health is a huge issue in remote areas – and I think some of it comes from not feeling like there is control over aspects of life such as how money is used and what you do at work and how it impacts the way you live your life.

As I reduced the number of hours I prepared tax returns, I stepped up to do more of what I loved – training and teaching – and then I heard about Profit First. This was the solution to cash management that I didn’t know existed!

It’s a bit like Barefoot Investor but for businesses, making sure that businesses always have enough money put aside for bills, wages, staff, taxes, profit and most importantly themselves. I signed up to be a Profit First Professional and this spring-boarded my learning and my skills at helping my clients.

How can Profit First Help with Family Budgets?

As I help clients to implement Profit First in their businesses, I find that there is a simple structure that they use to easily talk about bringing money into the business, reducing expenses, and spending money in the right areas.

One of the foundations of Profit First is that the business always makes a profit, which is like a family budget having a buffer or emergency fund. When businesses aren’t cash-strapped, owners start to invest more in their business and themselves, paying themselves a decent wage, and start saving for the future, and best of all, start to have a life outside of the business.
I find the same with families. By making sure that the family has a buffer account in case of emergencies, as well as a chance to spend on themselves in a way that suits them, it gives freedom to think about more than just working to make ends meet… but rather having a way to enjoy themselves.

What Does Life Look Like Now?

In our family, this is what we are doing now. There’s a focus on reducing debt so that our next stage of life will be semi-retirement – to do work that we want to do so that we don’t have to make big bucks to make the mortgage payments, but rather top up income to give us something to do that we love, while having fun.

We are investing in different things (assets, personal & professional development) so that we can make more money for the future but also enjoy what we are doing now – I love finding adventures for myself for the weekends.

By having a structure for our money we can make quick decisions about what’s important and where we want to make changes to allocations. It keeps things simple. The great thing about the structure we use is that it’s quick and easy to check and tweak every few months, and we can take advantage of opportunities that pop up and realign priorities when life throws curveballs at us.

As interest rates continue to change, we are keeping in front of our home loan payments by paying more than the minimum amount as well as using offset accounts to keep funds available for new opportunities. We use a financial adviser to help with shares, managed fund investments and super, and we chat regularly about what we want for the future, and make plans to ensure that as many of our dreams we have can come true, which makes keeping to our allocated funds for bills and essentials really easy, because we want to achieve our goals.

This is what I share with my coaching and courses and community hub. How to build your dream life with great financial structures that support you and your family!

Click here and book a chat about simple, practical help with achieving your goals! https://calendly.com/intentionalmoney/15minzoom