I’ve always been a very active person and have always appreciated the benefits associated with staying active and fit. However staying active was a lot easier when I didn’t have responsibilities such as mortgages, bills and kids. If you’re like me and work in an office then you’ll understand that I don’t move around much at all during work hours and laughing doesn’t really count as exercise. Also throw in there the complications with public transport such as all the delays and cancellation of trains and all of a sudden finding the motivation to exercise becomes a monumental task. So it really does come down to the passion I have for exercise and staying fit, which pushes me to find new ways to keep active.

It was only after our second child was born that I started to take notice of how little exercise I do every day. My pre–kids weekly routine would be going to the gym between 3 – 4 days a week and sometimes I’d play a quick game of indoor soccer with the boys. However after our second child was born, that dropped to a nice round number of 0 days at the gym. As my partner doesn’t work and looks after the kids all day, she can’t wait to unload them on me as soon as I’m home. The kids in turn love hanging onto daddy as he’s the one who bends easily and gives them unlimited treats. Then on the weekends, it would be either taking the family out, gardening or visiting friends and families. So there really is no time for exercise.

I figured if there’s any time to fit in exercise it would have to be during the weekdays. The question was how? One fateful day the trams weren’t running, due to ‘another’ fault. As such I was forced to walk the entire 2 kilometres to work. After walking the distance once I figured it wasn’t such a big deal and in fact it worked in my favour as walking the distance was a form of light cardio. Also during the weekdays I’d notice that sometimes by the time I get home, the kids would be fast asleep after a day of running amuck. This gives me clear passage to grab my gym gear and run out the door. Although it’s not consistent I usually get 1 -2 days of gym a week. This meant I was getting 1 -2 days of weight exercises as well as 3 – 4 days of light cardio a week, by walking to work.

As personal trainers would tell you, training hard is not enough you also have to eat right. Having the correct and balanced diet also plays a crucial role in staying fit and active. In my case however, I can’t help but eat all the foods which are on top of the food pyramid. So what do I do instead? I just eat less during each meal and reduce my sugar intake to bare minimum, except for Fridays where I treat myself to chocolate at work, with the promise that the JBS team will do Tough Mudder training the following week. The training never seems to go ahead as planned for some reason.

Trying to stay active and fit in our modern lifestyle is never easy. However if we have a reason to stay healthy and active, we will always find ways even if it’s by accident. For me it’s not just for myself but also for my family. After all I still want to be able to keep up with my son at physical activities when he gets older so he can’t laugh at me.

– Andy Lay –

What makes you want to get out of bed every morning and makes you do that you love? What is that thing that you wouldn’t mind doing everyday for the rest of your life? Yes probably that thing is called passion. But I feel passion shouldn’t be limited to one particular activity. Some of us are passionate about few different things and I don’t think that’s wrong.

For me, I have a couple of passions:

– My work

– Trekking

1) My Work – So since childhood whenever someone asked me what I wanted to become when I grow up, my answer was a Pilot! But slowly I found myself getting interested in the business and finance news section of the newspaper that came home daily (and I realized how hard the science subject in school was!) Coming from a nation (India) where financial literacy is weak, I became interested in ideas that would help people understand finance in a way that is more than just their salary. So long story short, after completing my studies in finance, here I am at JBS trying to help our clients manage their wealth better along with a team that is equally passionate about the client’s best interest. Every time we witness clients achieving their financial goals, I realise how our passion helps others better their life. It’s a win-win for all. I haven’t ever thought twice about waking up and going to work because I go to bed at night looking forward to it!

2) Trekking – Being a part of the Scouts group at school gave me the knack for trekking, camping and trail hiking. I went on my first hike as an 11 year old and I don’t think I am going to stop till my legs give up. As I mentioned at the start that some of us are passionate about few different things and so I can’t go on treks or hikes daily but I have made it a point I do it as regularly as possible so that it fills up my hunger for trailing the outdoors. Be it climbing forts and mountains tops in India or camping in tents under chilling winter or just bushwalking around different trials in Victoria, there is not one aspect of it that I have or will hate. Reaching the top of a mountain peak gives me a high that makes the trek worth it.

I have tried to share 2 of my passions in a very short manner, but I would like to add that yes I am not the best at them yet. There are people who do the above better than me and have far more experience in it, but that does not deter me to stop pursuing these. For me my passion is about enjoying and loving what I do even if I am not the best at it, yet! I may not have climbed the Mount Everest, but will that stop me from going on treks? No. I may not be a finance expert yet, but will that stop me from learning more and working for my clients? No. These are my passions and I will pursue them because they make me happy 😊

– Aakash Mehta –

Some of the more common things that people are passionate about are family, work, their favourite sporting team but very few are actually passionate about investing. There is the occasional person you find who loves the markets, is constantly reading the financial papers and analysing financial ratios, but is this beneficial. Do passionate people make better investors?

There are a lot of emotions involved when you become passionate, both good and bad, and these emotions generally help us become better at something. If we look at sport for example being passionate and emotional can improve our performance, if we win we feel good and we like to repeat the feeling and hence we try to win more. In contrast losing creates that sadness and disappointment which feels terrible, something we may wish to avoid in the future and hence we look for ways to improve be it practise or implement a different strategy in order to avoid that disappointing feeling in the future. Investing however is a whole different ball game.

If we have a positive experience our emotions are high and we tend to want to repeat. In investing terms, we buy more. In contrast a bad experience causes us to do the opposite, if we lose money we want to sell to avoid losing any more money. What this means is we tend to buy high and sell low, the complete opposite of what we should be doing.

How the stock market and your emotions influence each other. Source: Manulife.com

DALBAR Inc. a US company completed an annual Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behaviour. Although it is based on US investors the results are staggering.

So in one year the average investor has underperformed the US Market by over 4%, however the long term statistics are even worse.

Over 30 years, while the market has increased by just over 10% per year yet the average investor’s performance has been just below 4%. In dollar terms on an initial investment of $100,000, the average investor has missed out on $1.5 million dollars.

While it’s well and good to state that in order to be a successful investor we need to remove emotions and not be so passionate it is easier said than done. Markets will continue to go up and down and it’s how we react to those situations will determine how successful we are at investing. Having an adviser by your side to help navigate you through different market conditions will prevent you from acting out of impulse decisions and increase your overall returns.

Here at JBS our team is accredited to provide holistic investment advice including direct shares, so feel free to contact us to look at your investment strategy.

– Liam Rutty –

This year has definitely been a big one for us in relation to expenses, firstly we bought and moved into our new home, then came our engagement and the need to save for our wedding, and throw in there a new oven which we weren’t expecting, and on top of all of this we still need to have a social life. Then our cars became unreliable and expensive to run (my fiancé’s was 24 years old!) so it then it came time to upgrade our cars, which at first seemed daunting and expensive and we just didn’t know whether we could afford to do it.

Luckily the guys at JBS Salary Packaging were able to help and explain to us the benefits of a Novated Lease. Without going into too much detail on how one works, we’re effectively paying for our new car from my pre-tax dollars (with a small contribution of after tax dollars), which helps to reduce the impact of the costs. The best part of it for us is that our car is fully budgeted for; we don’t need to set aside money for registration, petrol, maintenance etc. as it’s already being taken care of in the background from my wage.

Although it took a little bit for us to get our head around how it all works, thankfully the reliable team at JBS Salary Packaging were able to give us piece of mind that we could in fact afford a new car. In saying that, we still needed to work to find one that didn’t stretch our budget. The one thing I’m still in disbelief about is that we only took a very small hit on our savings each week, yet have a brand new car in the drive-way. Sure in light of this we could have spent a bit more on a car, but in the end the important thing was making sure we could afford our car without it impacting our other goals.

Now we’ve ended up with our new toy, the Honda HR-V. Now we no longer fight over whose turn it is to drive so the other one can sit back and relax, we now fight over who gets to drive!

– Peter Folk –

The Australian & Securities Investment Commission (ASIC) have outlined the level of insurance claims which are declined each year by insurers:

ASIC revealed those who implemented their insurance via an adviser had a higher percentage of claims approved compared to an individual who purchased a policy direct from the insurer.

The value of obtaining advice when seeking to protect yourself and your family against the unthinkable should never be underestimated. The levels of insurance cover regularly run into the millions, and our clients are often surprised of how financially exposed they are should death, illness, or injury occur.

We are talking big numbers here, and when it comes to protecting your family, professional advice should always take precedence.

Without professional advice it can be very difficult to determine the level of cover required, which insurer to use, how the policy should be owned, and which type of premiums to select. Add to that going through the application and medical process it’s no revelation that many Australians are under-insured, especially those who choose to implement the insurance themselves.

In many cases, were it not for the adviser, those clients would likely either not start the process, or give up part way through.

There is a lot of value that advisers add to the insurance process, however in our experience, helping a client through an insurance claim is where we make the biggest difference.

We have had an unfortunate number of our clients claim on their insurance policies over the years. These have been due to death, permanent disablement where the client was unable to ever return to work, as well as a large number of claims due to cancer, and other illness / injuries where those clients were unable to work for a period of time.

Almost all of these client’s said the same thing to us upon receiving their claim payments, ‘there is no way I could have completed the claims process without you’.

There are a number of reasons for that. Claims require medical and sometimes financial evidence to be provided, and the forms can get quite technical. Paperwork isn’t fun at the best of times, but when a family is dealing with serious illness or death, it’s good to have the professional support of a Trusted Adviser.

We at JBS know we play a critical role in developing a protection strategy, and our true value shines through when a claim occurs.

It’s comforting for our clients to know they can rely on JBS to provide appropriate insurance advice, and be there to provide comfort, support, and take the pressure off at a very challenging period in a client’s time of need.

When it comes to insurance advice and claims, that’s the type of reliability you want.

Sometimes when you read an article that resonates with you, well you just have to make a video about it!

In Warren’s latest #RetireRight video he shares some of the take outs from an article on Brandon, a 34 year old young man who achieved financial independence at the age of 34 and freaked out on his first day of retirement.

“Brandon wrote that financial independence was something I talked about and thought about so much that it just became this abstract concept in my mind and didn’t relate to anything in real life. It was a long-term goal that I guess I never actually pictured achieving.”

Check out Warren’s video where he discusses some of the learnings that are critical to giving yourself a choice about retirement. Here is the link to the article where Brandon is featured.

You’re never too young and never too old to start thinking about your retirement!

– Warren Hanna –

In order to make your investment decisions, it is important that you consume the right information from the right sources and then take steps towards investing your hard-earned money in a specific investment or range of investment avenues.

Reliability on different sources of information is crucial but too much reliance on one newspaper, online blog or friends or family can prove to be damaging to your portfolio. Just the way diversification helps you get higher returns with less risk, consuming market information from various dependable sources helps you make an informed decision in order to make those intelligent investments.

Deloitte’s ASX Australian Investor Study 2017 report found that most investors are self-directed and choose to conduct their own research. Seeking some form of professional advice (financial planner, stock broker, accountant or lawyer) is the second most popular choice. The below chart shows sources of information used by investors as per household income of those of Australian investors:

Source: Deloitte.com

It can be seen that the majority of the investors rely on their own research – which makes me think, where are we researching from and how reliable are those sources? The answer to this lies in the type of portfolio you have or the portfolio you want to build based on your investment goals.

For example, it is not necessary that whatever Warren Buffett suggests would be an ideal investment for you, hence there will be little relevance in that news for you because his investment goals can be different from yours.

Similarly relying on the so-called market experts that make headlines would not be recommendable as well. We touched on this in one of our Monday Markets, but to reiterate it, have a look at the below comments that made headlines in the leading financial newspapers at the end of Financial Year 2016:

–  ‘Investors are bracing for another year of event-driven volatility on the Australian share market, against a backdrop of subdued growth and earning’
–  ‘Parts of the Australian market are already in bubble territory’.
–  ‘The Australian market would at best struggle within a narrow range in 2016/2017, caught between bouts of market paranoia and a sobering backdrop of low growth, low inflation, and low returns.’

What happened though? The ASX 200 accumulation delivered a return of more than 13% in the Financial Year 2017!

Some of the reliable sources to stick to would be:

–  Your financial adviser
–  Proven academic theories that are easily available online
–  Company’s financial statements
–  Fundamental & Technical Analysis tools

With the advent of real time data and social media, information is available at your fingertips, but the extent to which it can be reliable is still a question.

If you would like to discuss any of the above with us, feel free to contact us. Don’t worry, we are licensed to be reliable!

– Aakash Mehta –

When we strive for better outcomes, it is important that we not only reflect on our failures to determine what we could do better but also acknowledge and celebrate our successes.

An important reason to acknowledge our success is it can help us continue to achieve. If we reflect back on what worked well and why, we can often repeat the process and hence continue to benefit over and over again. We essentially develop a formula, a formula for success.

Whatever we want to achieve, whether it be weight loss, debt reduction, reaching savings targets or other goals, it’s important that we reward ourselves when we successfully achieve them. This can be in the form of treats such has having a nice piece of cake after achieving a certain weight goal, or going on a holiday or to a nice restaurant once we achieve our financial goals (just don’t blow the budget and end up back where you started). Using rewards helps build a successful mindset as it creates our drive to really work hard and get to where we want to be.

Good goals are hard to achieve, they don’t just happen, and sacrifices need to be made. The more you reward yourself at the end, the happier you become and the more likely you are to make the necessary sacrifices to get you there. It’s a way to stay sane, think of professional athletes and their cheat meal. Usain Bolt was known to eat 100 chicken nuggets a day.

Finally we don’t need to celebrate on our own. We can share our successes with others, causing them to also feel motivated and allow them to achieve success. It becomes contagious with everyone feeding off other people’s successes. Have you ever noticed how successful people tend to hang out with other successful people?

We may feel that we never ever get to where we want to be. We always strive for more, never satisfied with where we are. While this can propel us to future successful endeavours, the one goal we should all strive to achieve is to be happy. What better way to be happy than to reflect back on our achievements and celebrate the little successes that have got us to where we are today.

– Liam Rutty –

The start of the new financial year provides the opportunity to reflect on your current salary and what this means for the future.

It is important to reflect on your future earnings potential as your income is the lifeblood to your dreams. Your income allows you (and your family) to enjoy the lifestyle you desire today and the lifestyle you want in the future, and this future income is likely to run into the millions. So it only makes sense to allocate appropriate time to reflect on what this means for you.

Many people we deal with at JBS have a demanding lifestyle, and through helping these people we have observed a lack of personal financial protection. A lack of insurance coverage to protect their most important financial asset, their ability to earn an income in the future. It takes a lot of effort to raise children, meet the family’s demands, work full time, play sport, live life and so on, so we can excuse these people of sometimes being a little ignorant to their personal protection needs.

However, that doesn’t excuse the need for appropriate financial protection.

The following table shows the potential earnings to age 65 for a person based on different levels of income per year.

*Salary increased by 3% per year

See where you fit on that table, and think about if injury or illness suddenly prevented you from following your passion and doing what you loved, what would the financial impact be?

You have a large earnings potential if everything goes to plan, and this earnings potential should be protected adequately at all times.

Think about the last time you reflected on your future income earnings, and what steps need to be addressed to ensure it continues in the future. Can you really afford the ramifications and the impact of your income not continuing?

– Glenn Malkiewicz –

It is said that when you really want something from all your heart, then the whole world conspires to make it happen. I can happily say that it has happened to me here in Australia. Getting a Vice- Chancellor’s 100% Scholarship to study at Deakin University was one such want.

Benefits of studying abroad cannot even be counted on fingers, trust me. Especially coming from India where I was raised in a typical family where mom took care of the house and dad made sure we were financially supported. After coming here, having to cook for myself, sign my own house lease, opening a bank account, paying the rent, doing my laundry, studying, working part time and don’t even get me started with the everlasting assignments. The 2 years of Uni have been extra ordinary and it has made me more responsible.

Australia has made me a ‘Global Citizen’ in the true sense. I have been able to study, volunteer, lead a student mentor program with international focus, tutor and work alongside people from diverse background. Coming from a cricket crazy nation to a footy crazy nation, I have certainly enjoyed the aspect of internationalisation here. I have made friends from a range of countries like China, Turkey, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Greece, Malaysia, Mongolia, etc. Melbourne is such a multi-cultural melting pot.

Now working full time as a Client Services Administrator at JBS Financial Strategists is fun and challenging as well, because everyone except me is an Aussie, so apart from learning about superannuation, there are a lot of new Aussie slangs that I am learning! My knowledge about footy has certainly increased – Go Hawks! JBS is truly an amazing place to work and everyone there has accepted me as I am and I have also tried to fit in well. I am getting used to calling afternoon ‘arvo’, breakfast as ‘brekkie, the MCG stadium as ‘The G’ and to call my professors and boss by their first name.

Waking up early morning, travelling in the train with other office goers nicely suited up and rushing to work, I enjoy every bit of it. But I don’t know why people here cry about the crowded trains; I mean if you have travelled in the trains of Mumbai where you have to stand on one foot sometimes, getting to travel in the Metro with air-con and automatic doors is actually a luxury.

I believe there were challenges throughout, but if you love what you do, you will be rewarded for it. And to make it even more rewarding, I was awarded the Dean’s Merit List award by Deakin Business School along with other graduates who were in the top 2% of their course. Can’t ask for anything more than that!

The saying ‘it takes a whole village to raise a kid’ is very appropriate in my situation as Deakin has raised me as it’s child and I am getting a similar opportunity at JBS as well. All thanks to my parents and friends for supporting throughout.

Shukriya, meaning Thank you!