This week’s advisor is Ben Wauchope, from Wealth Health Co. Here’s what he said in response to Eddie’s question:

With anything life, preparation is often the key determiner between success and failure. Navigating through these major life events should start many years before the event i.e. increasing your earning capacity through education (trade certificates, university or other non-traditional types of education) or ensuring your compatible with your partner in all areas before tying the knot (i.e. you’ve rode both the highs and lows over an extended period of time).

Your finances will impact the success of many of your life events as well – so ensuring you’re financially prepared is key. I’m a big believer in the phrase ‘you should be either earning or learning’ and if you’re not, then it’s probably time for a change. This both applies to formal education and whilst in employment. You need to have the ability to earn money if you’re going to accomplish buying a home, getting married and/or starting a business – as all these things cost money (a lot of money!). So this starts early in your career by first learning, and then earning. This ability to earn money will generally take many years to get you to the point where accomplishing these things is a reality (it doesn’t just happen overnight or without hard work!).

Once you are prepared from an earnings capacity perspective, then you need to prepare by the way of savings perspective. This will involve ensuring you are spending less than you earn (think cash flow plan) and putting money away to fund these big ticket items – i.e. a deposit on a house, the funds to pay for the wedding or a having a cash buffer to cover your living expenses in the start-up phase of your business when you may not be generating a lot of revenue.

Your ability to save money will really come down to a lot of trade-off’s and will require you to prioritise.

It’s currently August in Australia, and most of our social media feeds are filled with your followers travelling around Europe and having the time of their lives. These trips were obviously filled with preparation as well – money saved, flights booked, itineraries mapped out. Most of you will also have those friends/family/acquittances who have had great experiences travelling the globe throughout their 20’s.

Travel is one of those great trade-off’s when it comes to achieving some of life’s key milestones – as they will generally be negatively correlated. Spending time and money on Travel will allow for less time on money focusing on those other key life events.

In summary, navigating through major life events requires preparation – prepare yourself to be able to earn and save money over a prolonged period of time so that these dreams become a reality. Along this journey you will also need to determine what are your priorities – is it travelling the globe throughout your 20’s at the expense of purchasing a house, is it spending money now on things you enjoy or putting that money away so that you can invest in your own business?

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