We all want the best for our family, particularly when it comes to financial security. You can play an active role by encouraging your adult children (or other family members) to become more financially aware, develop goals and plan towards a secure financial future.
Find out how you can help your adult children set the essential foundations for an enjoyable and fulfilling life where, most importantly, they have choice.
People in their late teens and early adulthood who are financially unprepared or unaware may miss out on opportunities or face unnecessary financial distress. A little financial knowledge can make a huge difference when it comes to setting savings goals, buying a house or knowing how to have healthy conversations about finances in their long-term relationships. Changes to legislation associated with super and first home buyer schemes can create positive financial opportunities, so it’s important to help keep your loved ones informed and aware.
Here are my THREE TOP TIPS for encouraging your adult children to be financially responsible.
#1 Financial Goal Setting
While building wealth is relatively straightforward, it does takes time and effort, and this starts with the setting of financial goals. For your adult children, setting financial goals provides focus, increases financial knowledge and confidence and creates a sense of purpose as milestones are achieved.
A helpful introduction to financial planning with Stratus Financial Group is to use our secure Five Minute Financial Health Check online tool.
Effective financial planning can help your adult child articulate their short and long-term financial goals and create a balanced and achievable plan for reaching them. For example, many young professionals get into the habit of spending most, if not all, of their income without a thought about their future wealth. In contrast, learning to manage their income and cash flow helps create understanding about how much money will be needed for regular fixed expenses, savings, discretionary spending, tax payments and other expenditures.
Stratus Financial Group offers varying service levels for our cash flow management program; from providing access to the myprosperity platform to holding a monthly cash flow coaching call for those that require additional discipline and support to meet their savings goals.
Setting goals and putting financial strategies in place for cash flow, insurance, super, savings, debt management and estate planning is the essential foundation your adult child needs for achieving their financial and lifestyle goals… and having the freedom to enjoy life.
#2 Build Financially Savvy Relationships
‘Money’ is often a common cause of relationship breakdown, so the ability to know how to have healthy conversations about finances in long-term relationships is an invaluable skill for young people. How couples beginning a long-term relationship handle money can make or break a partnership. If a young couple sidesteps money issues at the start, the relationship may suffer in the future when financial pressures are likely to increase.
At Stratus Financial Group, we help couples to ‘finance proof’ their relationship from the damaging effects of money worries that can so easily become destructive disagreements. We can work with couples to help them understand their goals and financial situation, plan for the future and develop a bespoke financial plan tailored to their situation.
This is a written financial plan that a couple puts in place and then reviews regularly with the help of their financial adviser. The process helps to bring money conversations out in the open and get ‘on the same page’ with their finances. A way for them to reiterate their commitment to their shared dreams, a financial plan can also create pathways for the achievement of individual goals such as starting a business or buying a house. You can help your adult child take financial control in their relationship (and in their life) by letting them know that your financial adviser can help them build a strong, shared financial future.
It’s also important to consider your own financial relationship with your adult children and the importance of reducing the chance of being forced to use your hard-earned savings to support them in a crisis. We can help your adult children create a safety net and establish appropriate personal insurance coverage and further develop their financial independence.
#3 Take advantage of the First Home Super Saver Scheme (FHSSS)
Your children may be eligible to take advantage of this recently introduced scheme that provides a tax-effective means of saving for a home deposit. The First Home Super Saver Scheme (FHSSS) allows individuals to make voluntary superannuation contributions with the ability to withdraw them (plus associated earnings) for the purchase of their first home.
Designed to help first home buyers save faster, and accumulate more, the Scheme enables your younger family members to benefit from super’s concessional tax treatment at each stage in the process:
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- when they make contributions;
- as earnings accumulate on those contributions; and
- when they withdraw their funds.
There are conditions and eligibility considerations associated with the Scheme, so we can help guide your children to make the most of the Scheme based on their overall financial circumstances and goals. Read more about the FHSSS.
Your next step…
At Stratus Financial Group, our aim is to ‘Make it Happen’ and this means helping you and the young people in your life to gain financial CONTROL. This will provide choice, opportunity, clarity, confidence and, most importantly, a LOT less stress.
We can talk with your adult child or other members of your family about how to plan for the future and how to put appropriate financial strategies in place to achieve their goals. Please get in touch today by phoning 3007 2007 or emailing bcribb@stratusfinancialgroup.com.au, snicholas@stratusfinancialgroup.com.au or jmarshall@stratusfinancialgroup.com.au
At Stratus Financial Group, we help families, professionals, executives, business owners and retirees manage their complex financial affairs and coordinate their professional advisers.
Related Reading
7 Steps to Financial Success
What I Wish I’d Known – Financial Advice for My Younger Self #1: Three Golden Rules for Money Management
Take CONTROL in 2019: How to Manage your Cash Flow
Stratus Financial Group and its advisers are authorised representatives of Fortnum Private Wealth Ltd ABN 54 139 889 535 AFSL 357306. The information on this website is of a general nature only and neither represents nor is intended to be personal advice on any particular matter. Stratus Financial Group strongly suggests that no person should act specifically on the basis of the information supplied and should obtain appropriate professional advice based on their own personal circumstances.