You don’t need an inner-city address, Caren will help you tackle money matters in the ‘burbs, through a better understanding of all the important issues – investing, superannuation, budgeting, tax, insurance, mortgages, gearing, shares, managed funds, small business, food, home, fashion, travel, and much more.

A fun and entertainingly educational forum, specifically designed for Australian “suburbanites".

Monday, September 15, 2014

Are you protecting your family? 5 myths BUSTED!

I'm not very tall.

Ok, that's an understatement, I'm pretty short.

5 foot nothing to be honest (perhaps still being a little dishonest).

Anyway, that may be the reason I have so many soapboxes (short-girl syndrome!!) and you guessed it, I'm about to share one with you right now.

For anyone who's been to one of our Family Finance presentations, you'll have heard me waxing lyrical (ok - ranting) about the fact that with everything we're taught in school, basic household financial management is not part of the curriculum.

Think about it for a moment - who was it that sat you down and taught you step by step how to manage money?  Things like:
  • Budgeting
  • Shopping
  • Credit cards
  • Getting a loan
  • Compound interest
  • Living out of home
  • Earning income
  • Investing
If you were lucky your parents trained you, but in most cases no one did.  And even if it was your parents, in many cases they were winging it themselves!

So we're given no formal training, is it any wonder then that we often find managing money complicated, challenging, frustrating?  And that it's the cause of many family arguments, not to mention tears?

And by the way, if you have young children and you think the arguments you have with your partner about money are bad, wait until you have teenagers...(BTW - affordable boarding school options is another one of my soapboxes tee hee).

Today I want to focus on protecting your family's lifestyle because it's an area that's often neglected and it's really important.

Insurance tends to have a bad rap for the wrong reasons, mostly being that we'd rather not talk about it.  Because let's face it, insurance is something that we're only ever going to get value out of if something pretty bad happens right?  The problem is that by not talking about it, or not doing anything about it, we still can't stop that bad stuff from happening - it just means you could be financially devastated if it does.

Anyway, rather than focus on all the reasons you should have insurance cover, because I think most people know them even if we don't like to talk about them, I thought I'd dispel the top 5 myths instead!

Click here for my top 5 insurance myths - BUSTED.

And if it's reading that whets your appetite for information, then click here for a copy of my article "Is it time to review our dinner time conversation" and/or click here for some VERY interesting facts on critical illnesses...

Of course, if you'd like to hear more of what I have to say on the matter, click here for a recording of my most recent "You & Your Money" radio segment on 98.1FM Radio Eastern.

Talk soon,
Caren

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

One word can make a difference - creating great offers

What does it take to create a great offer for your clients or customers?

Remember that advertising slogan "oils ain't oils"?  Well I'd also like to submit that "offers ain't offers". Most businesses make special offers to their customers or clients at some stage, and of course the objective of doing this is to entice them to buy your product or service.  But an offer will only do that successfully if it's constructed properly, and to do that you need to first understand the psychology behind offers.

You may not consciously realise this, but when you make an offer what you're trying to do is overcome human inertia.  You're trying to create a set of circumstances that will motivate your customers or potential customers to take action.

An offer gives people a reason, an incentive, AND an opportunity to try your product, service, or business for themselves.  They no longer have to take your word for it - they can try the product or service or your business as a whole and find out for themselves what it's like to deal with you.

Better yet, it gives them a reason to act NOW rather than later.

Click here to read more, including important factors to understand when creating your offer, and ELEVEN offer types to consider.

And if you'd like to hear more of what I have to say on the matter, click here for a recording of my most recent "You & Your Business" radio segment on 98.1FM Radio Eastern.

Talk soon,
Caren