Happy End of the Financial year!
May your year ahead be filled with achieving the financial goals you set out to.
I understand that not everyone gets as excited as me about the end of the financial year, but as a small business owner, the time marks a significant milestone.
It’s an opportunity to review how the year tracked and set goals for the year ahead.
In small business, it can be easy to be busy doing the day-to-day and keep pushing along doing what’s necessary, especially when you wear many hats.
A small business owner often has to be the director, finance officer, payroll, HR, tradesman/technician/specialist, marketing manager and bookkeeper, to name a few.
While some employees may be engaged to handle some of these components, it’s the underlying occupancy in a small business owner’s mind which takes up tenancy in the brain and requires effort to fuel.
You cannot leave work at home when you own a small business.
Big businesses are well-oiled machines at the end of the financial year, especially with entire departments dedicated to the task.
It’s not only business, though, which should use this time of year to refocus and reset; individuals can also make the most of the season.
It’s away from the busyness of the silly season and Easter too.
With all dreams in life, a solid plan is required to create an action list of things to do to make that dream a reality.
If we shift from business money management to personal, if you’re looking to enhance your skills or know someone who needs a hand, I highly recommend a book by Scott Pape titled The Barefoot Investor.
This book has created a cult-like following and, to put it simply, teaches practical strategies to anyone for managing personal finances.
An extension of this is The Barefoot Investor for Families, and now there is even a workbook-style storytelling book for children to work through, Barefoot Kids.
My 9-year-old daughter, Sara, enjoys reading Barefoot Kids each night before bed, Some of it is practical advice, and some is real stories by other young children about their journey with savings and goals.
The stories see the children share their goals and how they achieved them, inspiring other young children to do the same and demonstrating that financial literacy can be simple.
For anyone familiar with Scott Pape, you’ll know that my writing about his contribution to financial literacy for Australia and dedicating paragraphs to him is not a paid promotion.
That’s just not how he rolls.
This is my attempt at sharing something that might help someone else with money management, especially with the current cost of living crisis in Australia.
Scott is a quirky character, evident in his weekly emails where he writes about a topic and then answers three reader questions.
His Monday email is the only newsletter I look forward to because it adds value to my life and is not selling me something.
What I love most about his question-and-answer style sharing is that they are real questions from real people, and quite often, if one person asks the question, many others are thinking about it too.
Formerly a Financial Advisor and now working as a Financial Counsellor, Scott’s work inspires me because he’s so uniquely himself and openly shares his gift to help others.
Finding someone in the world who you can relate to because of how they interpret and share their lessons makes engaging in education easier, recognising education is life, not just in the classroom.
I’m not a Financial Advisor, of course, but I take a keen interest in promoting financial literacy,
especially considering my younger years and my lived experience of making the wrong choices and learning the lessons as a result.
So while ‘Happy End of Financial Year’ may not be fireworks and celebrations like December 31, it’s still a time that can be used to prompt us into taking action to reflect, review and set new financial goals personally and in business.
Create a SMART goal, build an action plan and then map to a timeline over the year and make it happen.
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Attainable
R – Realistic
T – Timely
Remember, too, that if you look closely, most overnight successes took years to achieve.
Small incremental steps in a positive direction will help you achieve what you want to eventually.
It’s not about having lots of money.
It’s knowing how to manage the money that you do have.
