Overview
Helping Australians afford their dreams
Life is busy and with so many competing demands, it can be hard to find the time to focus on your long‑term lifestyle goals. When it comes to something as important as managing and growing your wealth, it makes sense to speak to a licensed and qualified professional.
A sound, strategic financial plan – if acted on early enough – can deliver peace of mind, not to mention the freedom to pursue your dreams.
We educate our clients and help them make informed decisions about their future. So whether you’re just starting out or approaching retirement, we will help you by defining a strategy and assisting you to navigate through financial products and to minimise complexity – making the complex simple. We will do this by providing you with a written plan that can give you greater control over your financial future. And the sooner you get started, the better.
Apart from providing traditional accounting services, Tilenni Stiles & Associates advisers help our clients in the following areas:
Our advisers will work with you to define your dreams and goals, and then create a written plan tax-effectively tailored for you to create, build and preserve your wealth – without undue risk. You can feel comfortable that your plan will help you move closer to your goals. And it’s your financial plan, so you decide whether you want our help at this point in time only, or on a regular basis.
We Listen
We want to understand your goals, immediate needs, financial situation and level of comfort with risk so that our advice is truly tailored and earns your full confidence.
We Explain
It’s your financial future we’re talking about. That’s why we explain, in everyday language, what’s involved in your financial plan and investment strategy, what it costs and how it will help you achieve your goals.
We’re Committed
Financial planning is a long-term partnership. And if you choose to be a part of our total financial care service, we’ll stay in touch regularly so that we can review your progress together.
We offer access to quality products
Our financial advisers offer you access to quality investment products managed by some of Australia’s and the world’s leading financial institutions, as well as quality insurance products.
When weighing up whether or not to get advice you need to also consider the personal and financial costs of doing nothing – or not getting advice. How much could you afford to lose through bad or impulsive decisions if you don’t get professional advice?
Why Us?
- Peace of mind. We can give you the guidance, security and confidence to weigh up different investment strategies and make better informed financial decisions.
- Tailored advice from a qualified professional. We, as licensed, qualified professional advisers can give you a personal financial advice tailored to your needs and requirements and aligned to meet your goals and budget.
- Greater control of your finances. Your adviser can create practical and realistic strategies to reduce your debt and grow your savings – using a combination of easy to follow budgets, debt management strategies and sound advice.
- Financial understanding. Your adviser helps you tap into the latest market research and better understand the current regulations to ensure your financial plan and strategies are robust and stable.
- A comfortable retirement is closer. Your financial adviser has the knowledge and experience to help get your super and investments working harder to achieve your retirement goals sooner.
- Avoid bad investment decisions. Your financial adviser is also a sounding board to ensure you avoid making investment decisions you may regret later. They can give you practical, objective advice on what is in your best interests and recommend the most suitable path.
- Potential tax effective investments. Your financial adviser can give you a better understanding of which investments are tax effective for you. Also, expenses you incur while earning assessable investment income may be tax deductible. These expenses can include fees for financial advice, account-keeping and management fees. Your tax adviser can provide more information.
- Transparent and simple fee structure. Your initial consultation is obligation-free and any fees and charges are clearly disclosed to you in your first meeting, as well as in your Statement of Advice, so you know exactly what you will be paying upfront.
- Turn ideas into action. A well thought out financial plan will help motivate you to get started and take the necessary steps now to live the life you want.
- Time saving. Your financial adviser does all the groundwork for you, this includes detailed analysis to match your investments to your risk appetite so you can achieve your goals at a pace and level of volatility you are comfortable with.
Your financial planning steps
Our financial planning process is straightforward and tailored to your needs. We will discuss each step of the process with you and is available to discuss any points you need to clarify.
Step 1: Meet and greet
In the initial meeting, we will introduce you to the financial planning process and provide you with a Financial Services Guide (FSG). You should read this document thoroughly to ensure you understand the steps required to help you meet your financial goals.
Step 2: Understand your goals
We will help you to establish your short, medium and long term goals by completing a Financial Needs Analysis (FNA) during the initial meeting which will involve asking you a number of questions. We will provide an overview of how you can achieve your goals, outline the benefits and also discuss how much this will cost.
Step 3: Analyse and assess
We will then review your current situation, consider your goals and then design a plan tailored for you.
Step 4: Recommendation
We will share your financial plan or Statement of Advice (SOA) with you and explain clearly how this relates to your goals and how they could be achieved. You’ll also be provided with a Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) if a particular financial product is recommended. Together with the Statement of Advice, you will have all the details you need to make an informed decision about implementing the advice.
Step 6: Ongoing review
If you agree to proceed with the advice provided, we will implement this for you. You will then begin your journey towards achieving your goals.
Wealth protection: insurance
What is personal risk insurance?
Most people know the benefits of insuring their car, home and other possessions. But too few people realise the importance of insuring their biggest income producing asset – themselves. If you suffered an accident or injury and were no longer able to work, would your family still be able to pay the bills? A personal risk insurance policy lets you insure against the chance you won’t be able to earn money. It makes sure your basic living expenses continue to be paid if an accident or injury means you can no longer meet them yourself.
What types of personal risk insurance are there?
There are four main types of personal risk insurance:
Life insurance
Pays a lump sum if you die or suffer a terminal illness so your family can continue to maintain its standard of living or pay off any debts.
Total and permanent disability (TPD) insurance
Pays a lump sum if you suffer a disability and become totally and permanently disabled.
Income protection insurance
Pays a monthly income to support you if an illness or injury means you’re unable to work.
Trauma insurance
Pays a lump sum if you’re diagnosed with a specified medical condition (such as heart attack, stroke or cancer).
What kind of insurance do you need and why is it important?
As your lifestyle and financial position change over time, so do your risk insurance needs.
Choosing the right type of personal risk insurance also depends on your current income and your existing financial commitments.
Superannuation
What is super?
Most Australians would already be familiar with superannuation – it is a specialised type of investment designed to help you accumulate a significant level of savings for your retirement. The government also mandates that employers must contribute a percentage of employees’ earnings towards super to ensure that the vast majority of Australians have some savings when they retire.
To encourage you to save for retirement, the government provides special tax advantages for super investments. For most people, these tax advantages make saving through super more tax‑effective than saving outside it, which means their savings can grow faster. Once you reach 60, any benefits you take out of super will be tax-free.
Why is super so important?
Super is such an important form of savings because it gives you the chance to enjoy the life you want in retirement – taking away the need to rely purely on a government Age Pension to fund your lifestyle. With the average 60 year old man living another 23 years and the average 60 year old woman another 26 years, it’s more important than ever that we plan for a long retirement as well as a happy one.
Growing your super
There are two main ways to contribute to your super:
- concessional contributions which come out of your pre-tax income
- non-concessional contributions which you make from your after-tax income.
If you’re employed, your employer generally makes concessional contributions equal to 9.5% of your salary (known as Super Guarantee or SG contributions). You can also make concessional contributions and claim a personal tax deduction up to a cap.
In addition to this, you can make non‑concessional contributions from your after-tax income and even contribute to super on behalf of your spouse.
Gearing
What is gearing?
Gearing is the strategy of borrowing money to invest. Broadly speaking gearing works in much the same way as a home loan – you borrow money which is secured against an asset or assets. You then pay down the loan in the same way that you pay off a mortgage. However, depending on what you use to secure your loan, there’s a chance you might be asked to pay down part of it ahead of time (known as a margin call) if your investments fall below an agreed value (loan to value ratio or LVR).
What is a Loan to Value Ratio?
The base Loan to Value Ratio (LVR) is the maximum amount you can borrow expressed as a percentage of your total investment value. The current LVR is the total amount you have borrowed on your variable and/or fixed rate loan expressed as a percentage of your total investment value.
What is a margin call?
A margin call occurs if you have a margin loan and the value of your investments goes down sufficiently to exceed the base LVR (plus a buffer). For example, if markets fell significantly. If this happens, your lender may need sufficient funds from you to bring the loan back in line with the base LVR.
If you receive a margin call, you may need to make a loan repayment, invest more money or sell some of your units or shares to reduce your gearing level.
Why use a gearing strategy?
Gearing can be a great way to build a larger, more diversified portfolio of shares or investments than you’d otherwise be able to afford. It also allows you to boost your investment earning power by increasing the amount of money you have available to invest.
Who is gearing appropriate for?
While investing with someone else’s money sounds like a great strategy (and it can be), there are high risks involved, so it’s not suitable for everyone. However, gearing can be a very successful investment strategy if:
- you’re in it for the long term (more than five years) and are looking to create long term income
- you invest your borrowed money in assets whose value is likely to grow more quickly than the rate of inflation over the medium to long term
- you diversify your investments to minimise the risk they’ll fall in value or their growth will fall behind the rate of inflation
- you have a reliable income flow to pay the costs of borrowing as well as the ability to meet any rise in interest rates.
For financial advice you can trust,
Tilenni Stiles & Associates