Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
77. Enhancing Life Quality Through the Wheel of Life
What if you could identify the areas of your life that need improvement and work towards achieving a perfect balance? Join us, Bronwyn, Warren, and Craig, as we explore the Wheel of Life, a powerful visual tool designed to help you assess and enhance ten critical segments of your life: money and finances, career and work, health and fitness, fun and recreation, personal environment, community, family and friends, partner and love, growth and learning, and spirituality. Through our discussion, you'll learn how to rate these segments from one to ten, recognizing your strengths and pinpointing areas that could use a little extra attention.
In this episode of "Know Your Money," we not only guide you through the process of evaluating your Wheel of Life but also illustrate how improvements in one area can create a positive ripple effect in others. From enhancing your financial stability to fostering better personal relationships, we provide practical insights and actionable steps to help you achieve a harmonious and fulfilling life. Tune in and discover how balancing your Wheel of Life can lead to overall well-being and satisfaction. Don't miss this chance to learn how to have it all!
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www.growthfp.co.za
Welcome to Know your Money, where we will explore our relationship with money and how the psychology of it impacts our financial decisions, as everyone thinks about money differently. In our podcast, we'll be presenting a variety of financial topics in an easy to understand way, which we hope will assist you with managing your money. Hello everybody, welcome to Know your Money. Warren Craig, how are you guys today?
Speaker 2:Very well, bronwyn. How are you, craig? All good Thanks.
Speaker 3:Warren Bronwyn how are you doing today?
Speaker 1:I'm okay. Thank you, Bronwyn. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I'm okay, thank you. Nice studio clean, looking good.
Speaker 2:Craig, do you expect anything less from us?
Speaker 3:And now we're talking about or we chatted this week, Bronwyn, about what the next few episodes look like, and we came across the Wheel of Life and I think that came up last year and we spoke about that and we want to share with our audience 10 different areas of life that hopefully you can get this wheel in balance.
Speaker 2:It's like a visual representation of where you're doing well and where you're not, isn't it the circle?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, so basically that that circle page is still a free download on our website so you can go to wwwgrowthfpcoza and download it there. And the wheel of life is. Our belief is that you are allowed to have it all. You are allowed to be balanced and have the career, have the love, have the money, and the way that that can be achieved is by really looking at the different areas and seeing which area you may not be successful in or focused on right.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, warren, if you drew a circle, a wheel, and you cut that wheel in a pizza way, you know you made….
Speaker 2:You're speaking my language, craig, yeah.
Speaker 3:So you know, you drew little pizza slices, making up 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And each of those will represent what we're going to speak about in the next 10 weeks.
Speaker 2:Okay, what are the 10 then, bronwyn?
Speaker 1:So the first one is money and finances. So where are you at with that?
Speaker 3:Always money, eh Bron.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, this is know your money.
Speaker 2:That's a good starting point.
Speaker 1:I think so.
Speaker 2:Moving on.
Speaker 1:Then career and work, health and fitness, fun and recreation, personal environment, community, community, family and friends, family and friends, partner and love, growth and learning and spirituality. We believe that if you can sort of feel balanced or feel okay in all of these different areas, you will have that life where you have have it all.
Speaker 3:If one of them don't resonate with you, that's also okay, but we want to help you to try have all of them right yeah, so I think then then what you do, warren, you write, say, one to ten in each of those compartments, or pizza slices, and then you rate each of those areas. So if you think your money and your relationship with money is very good, you might give yourself an eight. If you don't think it's very good, you might give it a two. And then, if you've given it a two, then we hopefully want you to work on it to make sure you get up to the eight or the ten, so that eventually your whole wheel is a perfect circle, which is probably impossible because in all the areas you're going to have weaknesses. But you know where those weaknesses are, you work on those and you make them better.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I would say, looking at that list, there are probably ones there as well where, if you're able to make significant improvements on particular ones, there's a virtuous sort of circle in itself where it will not exacerbate but make better other ones.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely. I mean like if your health and fitness gets better and you feel healthy and you have more energy, you can do more in your environment or with your family and friends and you know exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 2:And if your spirituality is better, you probably find that you are a bigger part of the community so your family and friends improves. It's all part of a good thing. Correct 100%.
Speaker 1:And I mean this 10-part series what we want to try and do is, if you go and download that website and money, for example, which will be the first one today is one of those ones that isn't so great we want to give you some questions or tools that you can use to improve that, because that's essentially what we do with our clients when we meet with them.
Speaker 3:Bron, what about that? Well, your concept about the seven relationships with money Isn't that key to it?
Speaker 1:Well, your concept about the seven relationships with money is the key to it. So, for me, if you, in your slice of pizza, put your money on, let's say, five or lower, or Warren, what would yours be, do you think?
Speaker 2:For money.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Currently it's like a one.
Speaker 1:Yeah or a house.
Speaker 2:I got nothing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you want to improve that relationship, like how can you improve it? Like, yes, you do this wheel of life and then you must improve it, but what should you do? So that's where we want to come in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I'd probably teach my wife to spend less. Is that part of the wheel?
Speaker 1:Definitely can be.
Speaker 2:Could be right, yeah, maybe.
Speaker 1:But how we see the money pizza slice is back to those seven main relationships again. So the first thing is your earnings. You know and that would fall into the next one, which is career, which we can chat about how you potentially want to increase your earnings. But we believe that it is possible for people to become financially independent. We believe that it is possible for people to become financially independent and that is moving from a space of earning, which is exchanging your time for your money, to a place of receiving, which is you receive interest or dividends or you invest in properties or something like that and get money back. So we want to help you get to that space. The only way you potentially do that is looking at those five different areas of spending. So the first spending area is spending on day-to-day debts, debit orders, all of those kind of things. And how would you suggest, craig? A client can.
Speaker 3:Improve on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that the envelope concept is a fantastic one, where you've, like you've done in your banking app, you compartmentalized all your expenses and when your salary comes in, you put it into those different envelopes or compartments, pots, pots, exactly, and each pot has got a purpose. So your clothing pot will never you'll never take money out of your clothing pot to go to your holiday pot. Your pot keeps that money and then you use it for that specific purpose. And if you set up those pots and you can do that on the banking apps it's a fantastic way of keeping that discipline and you'll achieve your goals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think a big area of money is understanding your budget and like we say we don't like that word budget it's about being conscious of how you spend. So we generally assist clients in understanding that sort of spending. But I feel like an area that some people struggle in is we say all these things but they could be in debt and they're like, well, I can't put anything away because I'm in debt. And I think if you are in debt, it would just be kind of being able to face that and look at where it is. And again, you know we talk about the snowball, but in the positive way you really can do the snowball effect with your debt. Do you want to explain that a bit?
Speaker 3:Well, if you're not earning interest, you're paying across interest. So it's the same concept the more in debt you are, the more interest you're paying, the longer it takes to get out of debt. So if you have no debt, you can use that money to invest and the investment will work with compound interest the snowball effect as we've spoken about it and that'll increase by. But exactly the reverse happens with debt you're paying it away and you you're getting poorer by it. Somebody's getting richer, the banks are getting richer, the finance houses are getting richer, the car companies, where you could be getting richer Warren, if we said to you like, okay, you're at one what do you think you need to question or look at or do?
Speaker 2:The reason I'm at one is because my wife and I overextended ourselves and things have happened with like health, which has cost a lot of money recently for my little boy, and generally things happen in life and we didn't have the pots for them. So that was the mistake is I used to call it the rainy day fund and we knowingly spent the rainy day fund on things on the house that needed work, which was a big mistake, and that's why we're in the one right now, because we never actually stuck to the rules, so to speak, or stuck to a good system of saying, like my car tire blew out the other day.
Speaker 1:Typical.
Speaker 2:I was on the way to Kruger and I had to use the spare, and I'm still use the spare, and I'm still using the spare because I'm on a one. So not having money in a pot for the car tires for car emergencies, let's call it has kicked us in the butt.
Speaker 1:And that is my total thing with that emergency fund, that rainy day fund. It's a great concept, but I just truly believe that you can't. You can't actually get yourself any further if all of that is in one thing, and that's why the putts is a system. But I agree lesson learned, I guess well, I think that's.
Speaker 2:The problem is, you know, I've been hearing about this for a long time, we've been doing these podcasts, but it didn't hit home until it happened. And now I've also had to service my car recently and the cam belt needed replacing. So everything went horribly wrong. And if only I'd been putting money away for servicing, and if only I'd been putting my money away for new tires every three years or whatever, I would have been fine. But I haven't been.
Speaker 3:But the beauty of what?
Speaker 1:sorry Craig. The beauty of what's happened now is you've learned which pots, so you know. Now a tyre pot.
Speaker 2:We've identified the ones you know a health pot and there are going to be other ones that you'll identify Exactly.
Speaker 1:But you just start. You start with three and then it becomes four, and then it becomes five, and if sometimes you have to take out the other pots to fund that one, that's sort of okay, but at least you've started the journey as long as you're meeting a reasonable level in each of them.
Speaker 2:You know To make the assumption that at some point I might have a blown tire or a flat that can't be repaired. So how much is a tire for my car? How much is a tire for my wife's car? Right, we need that much in the tire thing all the time.
Speaker 3:Agreed car right, we need that much in the tire thing. All the time agreed. But you've also been hard on yourself because you bought a house, you renovated that house. It's going to be a beautiful home and those costs are like a one-off cost when you're younger. And one day it's and it's not going to be a long time before that those costs all behind you and you will be able to go to the pot and in a weird way, craig, I agree with that because you know we bought the house for X and it's probably worth 20% more after the work we've done to it.
Speaker 3:But it is also an investment, because I did the work myself as well.
Speaker 2:It didn't cost as much as having contractors over, so there's been a gain in value there. But being cash poor is never fun. No.
Speaker 1:And that's why we always think that this is where it first starts and everything we've kind of spoken about is based on these other areas. So, like physical environment, that is where you're going to be at a nine or a ten now because you have done the home renovations I love it.
Speaker 2:Do you know?
Speaker 1:I mean so that area of your life is excellent, but because of that, it affected this area, and if you look at all of them all the time, this is where we're trying to get that balance in the rest of the series, I guess.
Speaker 3:And I think, well done that.
Speaker 2:you've looked at it in a very harsh way and you realize, I think you have to when it comes to money, because it's caused a few arguments between me and my wife. A lot of people don't do it.
Speaker 3:A lot of people never look at it. They never look at this conscious spending plan. They never do the buckets and the pots. They never have that sorted out, Craig.
Speaker 2:I love the fact that this is the first thing on the list, because it affects all the other ones. No, it does A hundred percent Because, again, it's as horrible a world as we live in that without money you can't do anything. It affects your mental well-being. It affects your relationships at home your community, everything I mean.
Speaker 2:It was funny. Actually, on our WhatsApp group for the estate we live in, somebody the other day said oh, wouldn't it be nice if we all put some money in and had some street lights, because at night it's like pitch black in the estate. And my instant reaction was like don't you dare. Are you gonna pay for mine? Because I can't pay for mine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it is. It's a good place to start, but at the same time, I also think it's a good place to end, because sometimes, if this is where you start, you feel overwhelmed because this might be your one and the other ones are your 10, but it's just understanding that they all are interlinked.
Speaker 2:But if you can get this one decent, you can work on the other ones.
Speaker 3:Correct Much easier.
Speaker 2:It's hard to do anything if you've got nothing financially.
Speaker 1:Agreed.
Speaker 3:But let's hope you change. I'm looking forward to the rest of these ones. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thanks everybody.
Speaker 3:Have a great day, thank you.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye-bye.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening. If you have enjoyed this podcast and would like to subscribe, please visit our website wwwgrowthfpcoza. The information we have provided in this podcast is our personal opinion. For more detailed information, please discuss your financial situation with a financial planner.