A financial mentor at the end of the phone
When Dale Brackenhofer met Julie Nipperess about 18 months ago, Dale was simply hopeful that she could get her financial affairs in order.
With two jobs – one full-time and one part-time – as well as ambitions to complete another degree, Dale was keen to sort out her super and start saving a bit more.
“They just don’t teach this stuff in school,” says Dale. “I knew I wasn’t managing my money as well as I could, but my initial conversation with Julie blew me away.”
More than just numbers, she gave me ‘real life’ examples
“Julie opened up a whole new world for me. She explained things clearly. She gave me lots of potential scenarios and outcomes – not just numbers but ‘real life’ examples that I could totally understand. And she filled me with enthusiasm and excitement about the fantastic opportunities that were ahead of me if I could put some plans in place.”
Julie has helped Dale with her superannuation. She also helped Dale to understand the importance of insurance (even when you’re young and feeling invincible!). Dale is now also saving for a home and is on track to reach her deposit target within the next couple of years.
“I’m in my late 20s, and to think that by the time I’m 30 I’ll be ready to buy a home is really amazing,” says Dale. “In the meantime, I’m still living life. And that’s what Julie’s advice is about. It’s about saving, but not so much that you’re just sitting at home on the couch because you don’t have any money to spend. Julie’s realistic about balance and enjoying life now, while you’re also planning for the future.”
Advice, anytime
Recently, Dale needed to replace her broken down car and it was a significant, unplanned expense.
“I rang Julie for advice,” she says.
“And… can I just say, I’m really impressed that I can do that! She’s a great mentor in that way, always happy to talk things through.
The truth is that without her advice, knowing myself, I probably would have been impetuous and over-spent. I probably would be heavily in debt to a car finance company right now. But I’m not. Instead, Julie helped me work through some spending limits, and I ended up buying a great car … reasonably priced and unlikely to cost me massive amounts of money to keep on the road.”
“All of these decisions along the way make a difference to the bigger overall financial picture,” says Julie.
“In Dale’s case, she has a budget and a savings plan, and the need for a new car came out of the blue. These things tend to happen unexpectedly sometimes, but it’s my job to help my clients to understand the financial impact of their decisions and to make good money choices,” says Julie.
“I sometimes talk to my friends about what Julie’s done for me, and they say things like ‘Wow, you’re really sorted,’ and I say ‘…well you can be too’. I can’t recommend Julie highly enough. She’s down to earth, she knows what she’s doing, she tells it, ‘like it is’. And, she’s really warm and friendly. She actually cares about what I’m doing and where I’m headed.”