Get your money to work for you

As I write this, it is the last working day of the financial year-end for most business owners. The mad rush to get your finances into final shape for the close off is almost complete and you are looking forward to just kicking your shoes off and relaxing after what might have been a stressful time.

Whilst you might be justified in taking a short breather, this is the best time to focus on your businesses’ performance over the last year and to reflect on how the performance has contributed to your overall wealth plan. After all, one of the main aims of being in business for yourself is to use your business to drive your wealth plan.

For many of us, we give far too little attention to reviewing our wealth plan and rather than ignoring it we should use this time to reflect on the following points:

1. Do you have a formal wealth plan?
2. Do you have a clear and accurate understanding of what your Net Asset Value is currently and what it needs to be when you plan to retire?
3. Do you make use of skilled advisors who are trained to advise you on your investment strategy? Just as we make use of business coaches to hold us to account for our business performance, so we should make use of advisors to guide our decision making and to hold us to account to make the right decisions
4. One of the primary elements of any wealth plan is to have a plan to get out of debt as soon as possible. It is therefore critical to have a debt reduction (elimination) plan
5. Once you have your debt under control one can then start using those same funds to invest in a number of investments dependent upon your risk profile
6. Are you making effective use of any tax concessions that are provided in many of the investment opportunities? If you haven’t used those opportunities prior to the financial year-end, I would suggest that you plan to maximize the opportunities in the next financial year
7. A key element of your wealth plan has to be the acquisition of assets that are able to provide you with passive income from your assets. The ideal position is to be in a position that you are able to replace your market-related salary with income from passive income earned from your assets that have been built up

This month should be used to review your business performance and to make the necessary decisions and changes to your business plan, to ensure that your financial performance in the coming year will allow you to build and accelerate your wealth plan. Committing to a wealth plan and making the correct decisions consistently requires real discipline.

Time in the market is the best investment strategy. If you haven’t developed and formally committed to a wealth plan, the next best time to do so is today.  You owe it to yourself as well as your family and the generations thereafter.

Enjoy the journey!!

Pieter Scholtz, Country Partner for ActionCOACH Southern Africa

Photo by Dan Freeman on Unsplash