That Home Loan Hub
Welcome to That Home Loan Hub, your ultimate guide to mastering the world of home loans and property. I'm Zebunisso Alimova, here to simplify the complexities of real estate and provide you with expert insights and the latest trends.
Whether you're a first-time homebuyer, an experienced investor, or simply curious about the property market, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we unlock the secrets to property success and help you make informed decisions. Let's dive into the world of property together!
That Home Loan Hub
How To Build A Financial Operating System That Actually Sticks
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The fastest way to stay broke is to keep hunting for the “perfect mortgage structure” while the foundations underneath your money are still shaky. We’re joined by Jeff Elias, founder and wealth strategist at Future Bound in Wellington, to talk about what actually changes the game for New Zealand homeowners and why a plan only works when your behaviour can sustain it.
Jeff shares what he saw after years in mortgage advice: most people are not failing because they’re bad at maths. They’re failing because they don’t have a system they can repeat, they haven’t built an emergency fund, and short-term debt keeps ambushing every pay cycle. We dig into the traps that quietly steal your income, including credit cards, car loans, and buy now pay later, plus why “Afterpay on groceries” is a sign you’re being forced to live permanently behind.
From there, we get practical about wealth strategy. Jeff explains how his milestones create a clear order: get stable, clear the short-term debt, pay the mortgage down faster, then invest earlier than you thought possible. We talk investing options like property, shares, managed funds and business, and why property only helps when the cash flow does not bleed you dry. We also go deeper into values-based budgeting, giving every dollar a job, and the bucket accounts approach that lets you pay cash for holidays and Christmas without the January hangover.
If money feels stressful or even traumatic, you’re not alone, and you’re not stuck. Hit play, take one step, and tell us what part of your money system needs attention first. Subscribe, share this with a mate who needs a reset, and leave a review so more Kiwis can find the tools to build real financial freedom.
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Meet Jeff And Why People Struggle
SPEAKER_02This is the episode for mortgage advisors, maybe, or those that are interested in wealth strategy and how to get better with their money. Not just the mortgage advisors, but any other listener that's listening to the show. Now, I've got a very interesting guest today with me. I've got Jeff Elias. He's the founder and wealth strategist at Future Bound, Wellington-based financial coaching and previously mortgage advisory business, focused on helping the New Zealand families take control of their finances and work towards mortgage and financial freedom.
SPEAKER_00Hello, Jeff. Yeah, morning. How are you?
SPEAKER_02Good. My first interaction with you was back in the day your ads used to pop up on my Facebook. That's how I met you first.
SPEAKER_00Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. There used to be a lot of them back then. I do used to do a lot of webinars back then as well. I think 2023, I did a webinar every Wednesday night for the whole year.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was a mission.
SPEAKER_02That's a commitment.
SPEAKER_00I was always tired Thursday mornings.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I can imagine. So, Jeff, welcome to Why Can I? Thank you so much for driving all the way from Wellington.
SPEAKER_00That's all right.
SPEAKER_02It's always nice to do these things in person. Jeff, tell me about who you are and your journey so far and how you got to the future bound.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure. So as you as you probably know, like a lot of mortgage, like we start, I've been in this finance industry, this finance world now for 15 years. And a lot of mortgage advisors come through the route of working for a bank and then they find their way to being a mortgage advisors. Not all, did you work for a bank at all? Did you? You did? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did. You did, yeah, yeah, I didn't. So I never I never I've never worked for a work for a bank. But what I did do, I guess, as my apprenticeship, you know, like for about two or three years, I worked for this or contracted to this company that gave mortgage debt reduction advice. So this is going back, you know, 15 years now, 13, 14, 15 years ago. It was pre-online video calls. So I was driving around to people's houses and I used to do a 6 p.m. appointment and then an 8 p.m. appointment at people's houses, and it was a fee-based service, and I was teaching people how to pay their mortgages off faster. So I did that for two, two or three years, and then made the transition into being a mortgage advisor after that. And and when I was a mortgage advisor, I was kind of teaching people the same stuff, right? And saying this is you know, structure your mortgage like this and do this and do that. And when you're a mortgage advisor, it's kind of different, as you know, like like you journey with people and you you see them once, at least once a year, and often more, you know, versus when I was contracting to this previous company, like it was just a it was a very transactional service. It was like, here's your plan, here's your strategy, high five, see around, and you never ever saw them again, right? And so then as a mortgage advisor, though, I'm I'm working with people and journeying with them, and then I'm seeing like in reality, 90% of people aren't able to follow the plan that I was giving them. All right. And so I'm like, I'm I was just so confused by this and curious because it's like, but I've sh I've shown you what to do. Like, yeah, why aren't why aren't you why are you not doing it? Why are you not doing that? Why aren't you getting the results? But you know, some people could, you know, and it took me like uh I must have been, I don't know, slow learner or something, because it took me a while to understand this. But uh essentially what it was is that the people that had good financial behaviors were able to follow the strategy, and the people that didn't have good financial behaviors just weren't able to follow the strategy, right? And so, and so there were some people that we coached that really did have good financial behaviors already, and but they weren't going any faster than anyone else. So those people had good behaviors, but they didn't have a strategy, right? So I used to say to those people, look, you've actually got really good behavior financial behaviors, you understand it, you know, you've got good habits and you understand a lot, but you don't know how to how to score the goals, you don't know how to actually go forward, you know. I'd actually say to them, You're like a soccer team that's really good at passing the ball and dribbling the ball and you know, and hitting the ball and doing all those sort of things, but you're not scoring any goals because you're missing the strategy, all right? But that was only 10% of people because the reality is that 90% of people don't have the good financial behaviours, nor do they have the strategy, and and and they and they need to learn to do that.
SPEAKER_02And it takes a lot of discipline, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It takes it takes um uh some effort and it it takes the client being ready to make change, right? It makes it like the client has to want a different result, and and and it's and and I I don't want to sound um ageist, but Jesus, hard work working with under, I don't know, I kind of almost like I said to I said to my wife Jackie last week, I'm not sure if I want to work with anyone under the age of 36 anymore. Like why's that? I just like I just like there's very few of them that are like ready. You know, they're kind of like they're just there are very few that are ready, and and and it might even be under 40s. Like we've had people in their in their 30s and 20s that uh and we're working with some now that are doing really, really well. So that's a bit, you know, wrong to make that as a complete blanket statement. But as a general rule, the over 40s are starting to get a little bit scared.
SPEAKER_02I was about to say, do you think it's because they suddenly realize that retirement is actually not that far?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_02And they've just worked half of their life and they only have another half left.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's right. And often they've still got 22 years on their mortgage.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they're like, oh no, I've got to do something different if I want a different result. But it takes them to get into their 40s to kind of realize that. Yeah. So it's almost like, you know, you know how they say, like, um, because I've got two teenage boys, or boys in their early 20s, you know, it's they say that, you know, boys don't develop their brains don't develop till 25.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? Like they make a lot of dumb decisions before that, right? And and and maybe there's a correlation with just like with uh with with people, like, you know, it takes them to get to a certain age when they realize, oh, I actually need to be prepared to do something different if I want a different result, you know. And and and it's so it's getting people to understand that if you really want different financial results, you need to be invested in the process. Like it's not a tip or a hack or a magic magic mortgage structure, or you know, like like there's not there's this there's not there's not there's not quick fixes to this problem. Like this is uh this is a you know a decent sized problem and you need to be committed to it. Because I've had so many people say to me, Hey, I'm taking the new mortgage mortgage, can you um can you tell me you know what's the best mortgage structure for me so that my mortgage will be gone in eight years? And I'm like, Do you really think that a mortgage structure is gonna solve your financial problems?
SPEAKER_02Like what will solve the financial problem there, Jeff?
SPEAKER_00What
Foundations First With Clear Milestones
SPEAKER_00will so what what really does solve people's financial problems is getting really committed to having good financial foundations and like really understanding like there's a there's an order to do things. So like we we give people whoops, I just bumped the microphone, hope that's okay. Like we we work through this. These are like our milestones.
SPEAKER_02By the way, he's just showing me a chart.
SPEAKER_00I'm showing him.
SPEAKER_02For those that cannot see it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a chart, and so the milestones, like the milestones we're so we have this um an idea that you know it's important to do things in in order, all right, and and having an order. So for example, like a lot of people want to get into the investment property space, but when they do that too early, they can also get themselves into trouble, all right? And so, and so if people have got, you know, no emergency fund, they're carrying short-term debt, the you know, they've got all these um other other, you know, weak foundations, it's gonna be really hard for them to grow to grow their wealth, you know, from a weak position.
SPEAKER_02So and the statistics are there, right? I mean, how what's the percentage of New Zealanders that have more than one month of savings?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that's right. You know, like like really like like part of what we do is we work out like what's your what's your needs, like what's your core needs, right? And let's say your core needs sixty thousand dollars per year, then you should be having a fifteen thousand dollar emergency fund, right? That's 25% of your needs, okay. And and some people have got that, and most people haven't. The majority haven't, yeah. And the majority of people don't know how to save or have never saved any money in their life, like there's a there's a lot of that, and that's like and that's just a reflection on I think you know, really, there's there's very little sort of education in that space and very little sort of help around systems, and we just kind of everyone just kind of gleans a bit from their parents and a bit from their friends and a bit from their Uncle John, and then they try and figure out how do you lead a financial life, right? And so what we created at Future Bound is what we call a financial operating system, you know? And so so one of the things that I'm saying to people is that any any area of your life where you've had success, right, is because you're following a system. Okay. Like you've been a really successful mortgage advisor, you'll be following a system, right?
SPEAKER_02Like there is no system, Jeff. It's chaos.
SPEAKER_00I know, there'll be a system. There's always a system, even if it's organized chaos. But everyone's not but you know, any area of your life that you've had success is because you've worked out some kind of system to follow, right? And um, and then you just keep repeating it and you get results, right?
SPEAKER_02There's got to be a plan, right? I always go back to my analogy of having a personal trainer. Like if you want to, you know, lose weight, gain muscle, get abs, I don't know, do bodybuilding, you get a personal trainer, the personal trainer creates a plan for you. And that consists of nutrition, it consists of exercise, sleep, water, hydration, protein. So I guess the same as here. Yeah. You've got a system that people can follow to get themselves to that 2K mark, 5k savings, 15k savings, and so on.
SPEAKER_00Clearing the short clearing of the short-term debt and getting themselves in a position where they can pay their mortgage off faster. You know, this is stuff that mm, Jackie and me, like we run our business together. Like we did all of this ourselves. Like we we developed the system, we made some mistakes on the way, we tightened up the system like we did it. Like we like we only bought our house eight eight years ago, I think it was. And you know, we paid off that mortgage in seven years, and it was just doing this, and the mortgage is now completely gone. And then uh and and what what a lot of people don't realize is that having your mortgage gone is not the destination, it's the it's the platform to launch the rest of your financial life, right? And so the real action happens when you've got no mortgage because now you've got money in your pocket, right? And if you're not paying credit card bills and you're not paying car loans, and you're not paying other short-term debt, and you're not paying a mortgage, you've got money, right? And then you can really get really accelerate progress in a really significant way. And so I get I I want people to understand that you don't need to take 30 years to pay off your mortgage, you know, like like nearly everyone can do it in under 10 years, and then that launches them like for the for the rest of their financial life where they can really, really go fast after that.
SPEAKER_02I love how passionate you are. Like, I'm sitting across you and I can just feel the energy and the passion that you have for this because you and me, I think we both believe that New Zealanders will be better off with more financial education. And the more we give it to them, the better they'll be. I mean, there are reforms at the moment with the government to launch the financial literacy into schools, which is great. But as you say, the people between 18 years old to pretty much now, they all missed out on all that financial education, right? Because they didn't have it. And it's and it's a way for them to learn by having all those mistakes and bumps and whatever, yeah. But they can actually come to someone like you and I and get their plans sorted.
SPEAKER_00Well, more you than me. And just speed, and just speed things up, just get more efficient, you know, just get a lot more efficient, you
Afterpay And Short-Term Debt Traps
SPEAKER_00know. Like a lot of a lot of like where we come from is this coming from this idea that our incomes are our most valuable asset. And so if our incomes are our most valuable, you know, if we actually genuine, genuinely believe that our incomes are our most valuable asset, why do we want to make repayments to buy now pay later, to Gem Visa, to Q card, to you know, to all these other places, car loans and stuff, like like let's see it for what it is. You're giving your income away.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a trap, right? People get trapped in it. And I see so many clients that get the afterpace and then the afterpace. I mean, even with me, I think I got something on afterpay like seven years ago.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And because I never shut it down and it just sits there, they keep emailing me that they're gonna increase my limit and because you're a great client, so they want to increase your limit. And I'm like, I haven't even used it all this time. Yeah, but it's amazing that it just how enticing it is, and they keep sending you all these emails like, hey, you can get the latest shoes or you can get the latest whatever, and you don't even have to pay for it right now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you can pay for it later. Get it now and pay for it later.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think we just live in such a consumer world that it's so easy to to fall into that trap. But the worst thing for me was to see Afterpay available on groceries when I saw it at Pack and Safe, you know, it's fuel now.
SPEAKER_00You can you can pay petrol with it, and that really It's outrageous.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's outrageous. It really made me angry because I feel like if people are gonna start doing that, that's just a down spiral into the absolute black hole. Because the moment you start putting your groceries on after pay, you're always behind.
SPEAKER_00Always behind. That's right. You're always playing catch up, you know. And those in the and all those companies, or the you know, the after pay type companies and the credit card companies and all of that. Like to me, I've I've just always seen them as being fair weather friends. Like they're your friends when you pay them on time and you play to their rules, then they're your friends. They're not your friends once you go outside of their rules, right? And then they they'll penalize the heck out of you, and and that's kind of their business model. It's hard to make money. Yeah, it's kind of like the uh the school, the schoolyard bully who wants to steal your lunch. Like, what do you want to be friends with that guy for? You know, like that's how I see those companies. They're just you know, they're they're not there to help you. No, yeah, they're there they're there to take.
SPEAKER_02He just dropped a microphone. I love those moments.
SPEAKER_00Get back to your microphone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But you're right, you know, and I think the more we can help New Zealanders understand how to get out of that trap, the the faster I think we can accelerate the wealth of this society.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that's right, because you you you've got to have the mindset that you want to invest yourself wealthy. It's very, very, very hard to save yourself wealthy. You want to invest yourself wealthy. So, like we have three steps in our program, and really the first step and the second step is just getting people to a position where they can invest, right? And often and often when people have followed our step one and our step two, it means they're now investing sometimes 10 or 20 or you know, even 30 years uh ahead of schedule, right? So if you can invest let's just say a decade or 15 years faster or earlier than what you would otherwise, like that's super powerful. That makes a massive difference, right?
SPEAKER_02When you
Investing Earlier Without Derailing Life
SPEAKER_02say invest, do you mean property or do you mean managed funds, shares, key service?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the the the client chooses is really what whatever whatever uh they are intended to do. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Do you find a lot of people now getting turned off by the property market?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's a there's a bit of that, but I don't agree with it. I I think to me the property market is always going to come back, you know. Uh like it's just it's just you have to be patient and and the New Zealand property market has been rubbish at other times before, you know. But we like for people that are going to invest in property, like we have quite a narrow, quite a narrow avenue that we that that we suggest that house we suggest that people do it, right? Because I've seen a a lot of people that have bought properties that are just so far negative cash flow that it's just kind of like destroying their lives, right? And then I'm like, well, it's losing 20 grand a year, that's $400 a week. Why why would you want to own that? You know, that like that to me is a fail, you know. And so and so you talk about, you know, they talk about you know yield properties or growth properties, and and yield properties are easier to find in the regions, right? Going out to the regions and and going out to you know Wanganui and Palmer North and the and smaller parts of New Zealand.
SPEAKER_02But the problem Did you just call Palmy small? Excuse me. I'm from Palmy. Oh, okay. I'm the Palmy girl.
SPEAKER_00Okay, let's say uh I'll change it. Ty Happy, Ty Happy You're Palmigir. I don't know that. Right, yeah, yeah. But you know, these smaller you get better yields in those places, but you're also buying 1950s houses and 1960s houses, higher maintenance and and a in a in an overall a smaller pool of potential tenants. Yeah. You know, and and then you then you're so for then if you want to go growth properties, then you're looking at the bigger cities, say Auckland, Hamilton, Christchurch, maybe Dunedin, but then they're often more negative cash flow, right? Because they're they're in better locations, they get better capital growth, but they get worse cash flow. And and that example that I just gave to you, that's someone that I'm working with right now who bought an apartment in Auckland for 800,000 and and it's I think you get $700 a week in rent or something, and and anyway, they're paying $400 a week out of their own pocket, right? And so that to me is a fail as well. So so I kind of got really I'm gonna I'm gonna say demanding in that space, right? And because we're coming from this point of view where we're saying to people, we want you to prioritize paying your mortgage off faster.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So if we've just like helped you find the money to pay your mortgage off faster, but then you go on investment, buy an investment property that soaks up all that money. That's bleeding you. It's bleeding you, and you've got no money now to pay your mortgage off faster. That's that's a fail, right? So we went looking for this is about five years ago. I I went looking for places that would get good capital growth, but would also do a really good job of covering their own costs. Okay. So a lot of our clients are still buying property, but these are one are probably properties that are negative cash flow, you know, 130 bucks a week or something like that, not 400 bucks per week. You know, so they're still negative cash flow, but then we we help them to do a calculation to say, okay, this might cost you seven thousand dollars a year out of your own pocket. How are you going to fund that? What does it do to your mortgage debt reduction plan? Does it ruin it or not? You know, we have some sort of guidelines within that space, so then we can say to people, yeah, we think that you're in a position to do both. And to some people, we'll say, we don't think you're in a position to do both. We think you just need to focus on on paying off your mortgage, you know. And um, but then you're making these informed decisions and you're not making, you know, in that investment space, it's quite exciting. And people get magpie syndrome really easily where they see something and it's oh, this one would be great, and then they're gonna buy it, and then you know, and then two years later they're selling it because it's costing them, you know, 400 bucks or week.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I had to do that sometimes with my clients. I've got this one particular one, I call her naughty. Um, we're good friends now, but like she would send me some most ridiculous prop properties from Auckland, and it's like uh, oh, it's only you know 200,000 for this apartment. I'm like, there is a reason why, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Lease hold land or something, yeah, something you know, silly.
SPEAKER_02And she's like, Yeah, but I can rent it out for this much and I can make all this money back, and da-da-da. And I'm like, Yeah, but there is a whole can of worms that you just have no idea about, yeah. If it's something that's super cheap, again, that's also you know, red flags, unless yeah, you're buying in bulls, yeah. That's right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's right. And I and I don't want to buy in small town New Zealand. No, so so I kind of went looking for ourselves, and you know, and so we like we do you invest? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we went so what I went looking for is uh I I I wanted like new build properties because I don't like maintenance. Like I can't make sense. I don't do maintenance, like I'm not a you look like a handy guy. I'm so not handy, man. I came from I come from a line of men that aren't handy and uh and I'm gonna pass that on.
SPEAKER_01The gym skip. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I don't want I don't want to know about leaky taps or squeaky doors or things like that. Okay, so I wanted low maintenance, so I wanted so I wanted brand new, the L VR rules or so, like were more lenient on brand new. Yeah, but I also wanted um high high yielding, so they did a really good job of paying for themselves. So so we went looking for properties that are new, but they've got like two tenants in them, like two sources of income in them. So they're getting quite high yields, right? Five and a half percent sort of type gross yields, and then they do a really good job of paying. So this is paying for themselves. So this was kind of like our version of having having your cake and eating it too, right? But like I spoke to a lady just yesterday, and she's saying to me, she's saying to me, What if I don't want to invest in property? I'm like, yeah, that's fine, you know, it's your your life and your money, you decide, you know, I'm just gonna help you get to a place where you can invest, you decide how you want to invest, right? And so there's really only, you know, like in New Zealand, you can either invest in property or you can vis invest in the share market or you can invest in business, right? Like, you know, and so and so, you know, and and I and I do say to people, like, business, if you do can do business well, like as in do your no grow your own business, like that's the that's the got the biggest upside out of all of them, you know. Like you can make there's there's no it's just a forever upside on business if you can have a have a good business. Like that to me is still the ultimate investment, and then property and shares sort of fight it out for what's the what's the what's the best in that space, or you know, what are people more most comfortable in that in that space, really. But the important thing, like if I if we can get people to the point where they can become successful investors and do well, then I kind of feel like we've done our job, you know, like we've got them to that point maybe 15 years ahead of schedule, and so that's like that's the win, you know. That's um that's something that's like uh a massive win and really satisfying for us, and then cool, they're kind of like free after that, you know.
SPEAKER_02Hmm, I like that. And you know, when I was first buying a house in New Zealand, I knew nothing about the financial industry, I didn't even work at the bank at that time. And for me to go from oh, I'm renting and I'm paying all this dead money to someone to oh, we can buy our own house and we only need 10% deposit. Well, you know, how do we get to that 10% deposit? And then what we shortly figured out was that a lot of sacrifice was required. We had to save a lot of money in a very short time of sacrifices. Space. Yeah. And I found all the skills that I had and hustling and you know, different side hustles, getting various things that would bring me the money as fast as possible. And once we bought our first home, I've discovered oh, there's actually a whole world out there that you know you could then buy next property and then you could have an investment portfolio. But again, like I've come from a background where money wasn't really talked about. So and when we were buying our first home, we just got married and we had credit cards and we had personal loans because we got married and we had to travel overseas and stuff like that. So so yeah, it was a lot of a whole new world really opened up. And I'm glad that I was just in my 20s at that time when I discovered all of that because I still had time to recover and pay off all that debt and then get on that property ladder. But I feel like it's so much harder now for people if they're in their 30s and suddenly they're doing it and they have no idea what they're doing. So having that coach absolutely helps to steer you, and it's sort of like on steroids, because like you, I had to learn a lot of it myself and make a lot of um mistakes along the way and learn from those experiences. And so when I tell my clients, look, if you want this, but you've got to be prepared that you've got to do XYZ, and some people go, Oh no, I don't want to do that. Yeah, or I want a million-dollar house, but you know, I yeah, you can't have boss.
SPEAKER_00You can have that's right.
SPEAKER_02Sometimes like you just have to make certain sacrifices. I mean, my first home was 69 square meters with no garage in Palmer North, super tiny. But like, you know, and now I I'm in a position where I've built myself a much bigger home because I've got a bigger family and my finances change and stuff like that. But we're talking like 15 years in the making.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, like I like I I often say to people, like Jackie and me, have got ourselves to a really strong position now, but it took us 11 years, right? Like, like, like that wasn't an it wasn't, you know, it's a marathon, it's not a sprint, and and it's a and it's a lifestyle, it's being prepared to just live your financial life a different way, you know. Like, you know, I I mentioned before how we have like three steps in our program. Like
Values-Based Budgeting For Every Dollar
SPEAKER_00the the the first step is if I abbreviate uh if I abbreviate it, the first step is around about understanding what people's values are and what's important to them and what do they want, and then looking to see is that reflected in the way that they spend their money, and and it's almost never the case, right?
SPEAKER_02And so what do you find like what are the most common values?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, people often have got important values around their family and wanting to and wanting to give their kids opportunities and and and and all of that, but like you know, like like Jackie's working with a couple at the moment and they're and they're like that, you know, they they uh they've got really good, strong, awesome family values, and then but you know, she she had a look at okay, well, let's see how are you spending your money right now, and they just could not believe how much money they were spending on pies, takeaways, and eating out, right? It was just like you know, seven seven dollar fifty coffees every day, you know. And then so when you see like when they looked in reality, okay, where actually is our money going? And let's like now let's be serious here, let's be grown-ups, right? If you really want to get results, you've got to look at where your money's going.
SPEAKER_02But that's so confronting, Jay.
SPEAKER_00It is really confronting. It is, and that's why this is a game for grown-ups, it's not a game for kids.
SPEAKER_02People hate it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a game for grown-ups because you need to be prepared to look at the truth. So then you can look at the truth and you can say, oh my gosh, we're spending $800 a week on food. That's 40 grand a year, and that is stopping us from doing all these other things. Okay. And so that and that's step one. Essentially, what we're doing is we're making a plan for every dollar that you earn. All right. And so you've got to be like the general of an army, and you've got to be like, I'm the general of the army, and all every dollar that I earn, they're like all my soldiers, and I'm gonna give every soldier a job, all right? And if half your soldiers are running around in circles or sitting on the couch, you're not gonna win the war.
SPEAKER_02I love that.
SPEAKER_00Like, you're not gonna win the war. Like you're you're you're a dreamer general, all right? If you want to win the war, you've got to put your soldiers to work. That's your dollars. You've got to give them all a job, and you've got to like have it in line with your values, and you've got to be like, these are the financial results that I want, and by giving every dollar a job, I can now reach that goal, all right? And people can, like, people get amazing results, all right? But it starts with this sort of like come to Jesus moment when I'm like, yeah, maybe I need to like do something different, and I'm and I'm and I'm ready for that now. That I think that's what leads back to my under 40s comment before. Yeah, because they probably they haven't probably made enough mistakes yet.
SPEAKER_02I think also we're in the funniest space in life, right? Where people want to have fun, they wanna go on holidays, they wanna do all the fun stuff because YOLO.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I see that a lot of that, yeah, and they but we want them to have that too, right? So so often what comes up in those values is they want to have the uh holidays all go away, right? So we're like, cool, let's put that in the spending plan, all right? And so I'll give you an example. Like we spend at at um at our house, we spend fifteen hundred dollars every year at Christmas, and we that's for presents, that's for food, and we I've got five kids, we like to do a big Christmas event every year. Okay. So if I get out my calculator now and I go fifteen hundred bucks divided by twenty-six, because we pay ourselves fortnightly, that's fifty-seven dollars and sixty-nine cents a fortnight goes into our bank account for Christmas. All right. So when we get to Christmas, there's fifteen hundred bucks of the Iridian waiting for us for us to spend on those things. Okay. I've got another bank account like that for firewood, because I'll spend $1,200 a year on firewood. So, like right now is the time that I buy firewood for next year. I'm paying for it in cash because I've been putting a little bit aside every pay cycle for that. And this is exactly the same for holidays. All right. And so we've had a lot of our clients have said to us, you know, words to the effect of my my friends at work say to me, How can you keep affording to go on these overseas holidays? Right. They've put it into their spending plan, they've got a bank account for their overseas holidays, it builds up, and then they pay cash for that holiday, right? And they come home and there's no financial hangover, they've paid cash for everything, and then they can start the process again and do another one next year, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I'm sure you've seen it like me as well. Usually January is the month where we do a lot of debt consolidation loans because if people haven't planned for that properly, they spend a ton lots of money in December. Yeah. And then January they come in and they go, Oh my God, I've overspent.
SPEAKER_00I know, yeah, yeah, that's right. And and and and and I say to people all the time, if you can afford to pay something off, you can also afford to save up and pay cash for it. It's the same thing, but without interest, right? So it's just it's just being organized, you know, it's just been organized. And and people just kind of have to accept that if you want success in any area of your life, you need to be organized. You know, like you need to have a plan, you need to have a strategy, you need to be organized. And that's the key to success. I don't think it is at all, actually. It's it's um because you because it's kind of like like this is another couple that we're working with at the moment, like like we we worked out how much money that they've got to invest, yeah. And and and and they had had a go at doing it themselves first, and then when Jackie helped them, she showed them you guys have actually got $40,000 a year to invest, right? And they couldn't believe it, right? But maths doesn't lie, right? And they're like super excited now.
SPEAKER_02That's what I usually say to my clients, numbers don't lie.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, numbers don't lie, right? Like this is a we're working with a spreadsheet here, right? Yeah, the numbers don't lie, but it's really hard to do that stuff yourself. Like, like like we do like a we call it our 90-day launch process, and you're doing you're doing a uh three one-on-one sessions with Jackie to like help you do all that stuff, right? And and and we realize that people need that one-on-one support at the beginning just to help them with it.
SPEAKER_02Is there wine involved?
SPEAKER_00I don't come to those ones, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do the strategy sessions, so I I start people off with a strategy session, here's your plan, and then uh Jackie does all the the nice stuff. Yeah, she's uh she's way way way more uh so I see you've got a good cop, bad cop situation going on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00I'm definitely the bad cop. But yeah, yeah, yeah. I just no, I just I set people free with a strategy. She comes along and helps turn it into a reality. And you know, people say to us, like guys, a guy two weeks ago said to Jackie, Oh my gosh, I just feel like I'm floating now. I feel like I'm set free.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, it's a massive burden off your shoulders, right? Yeah, that's what a lot of people don't realize that they carry so much load with them day in, day out, because it's not organized, because there is no system. But the moment there is a system and the moment it's organized, then you know where you're heading, and then you can just take off that stress levels come down a lot, right?
SPEAKER_00There's a lot more peace that comes with that. The cortisol levels go down because you can you can see the plan and you can see how it's gonna work as well.
SPEAKER_02I think there is an element of stress right at the beginning when you have to face the truth and face what's going on.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_02And that's where it's gonna get the most stress hike, yeah. I would assume.
SPEAKER_00Yeah,
Money Trauma Readiness And New Habits
SPEAKER_00yeah. From my example. And we and we have some people that flunk out.
SPEAKER_02I was about to say, how many people actually drop out?
SPEAKER_00And they're gonna stuff you, Jeff. Yeah, there's some people that flunk out who are just who are just aren't aren't ready to, you know, to to look at how they're spending their money. And all that really means is they're just not ready yet.
SPEAKER_01All right.
SPEAKER_00But they will be ready at some stage, but they're not ready, that are not ready then. And you gotta like like we, you know, we we look at people's money personalities, and a lot of New Zealand are like money avoiders or kind of like got anxiety around money, and we have to be really sensitive to that, you know. Like, like, like it's it's kind of almost a little bit traumatic for some people, you know. They might have had you know traumatic experiences. This this guy that we just dealt with have been uh still dealing with now, he said to me, I grew up in a household where we had a lot of money, and there was like it was it was um you know really comfortable, heaps of money, lots of privileges. And then when I was about 18 years old, the IRD turned up when we realized that dad hadn't been paying any tax for the business and they lost the house and they lost everything. And it's a real trauma for him, right? And I and I never would have known that if he didn't tell me, you know, but but that's just like that's quite an extreme situation. But a lot of people grew up in different states of poverty, or you know, when dad got paid, they ate well, and then at the end of the week or the fortnight they ate really badly, and there's lots of hurt in there, you know.
SPEAKER_02And I think, and this is what I'm discovering a lot through this podcast when I interview people, you know, all the money habits that come from your childhood, they come from your upbringing, and then you get to a point where you go, I don't want that life, I want something different for myself. How am I gonna face it? It's yeah, like the money therapy, you know, the whole journey that you have to ongo. And the thing is that I always say to my clients that money is so intrinsically closely related to everything that you do every day. Like we need money, yeah, but it's not fun not to have money, and it's not fun to have friends that have no money because you can't do anything. Can't do anything, yeah. And so, how can you get better with money? And what I've noticed as well is that when we can get one person better with money, then automatically people around them will get better with money. That's right. Because then they're passionate about it. Like you and I, we we go, oh, this is what I've learned, this is what I did, this is how much my life has improved. And it didn't really cost me that much.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, that's right. It's it's just uh realigning your values, you know, or getting aligned with your values so that your money is uh is in line with that. And and then you you know, like you actually you go through that process and you live a way better life as a result. You do more of the things that are actually important to you, and you do less of the things that are not actually important to you, and so there's actually a way better life, and you don't even need to wait till the mortgage is gone to have a better life. You can it can you can be there within months, yeah, right? Of just you know, getting getting everything aligned.
SPEAKER_02But you're right, like building habits. You know, one of the things I did throughout the last few years of my life was always put money aside into shares, right? I didn't I don't know much about investment in terms of shares and managed funds and whatever, but I've discovered shares awesome platform. I can just chuck 50 bucks into it. Yeah, and that's what I was doing. So every week I would just put $50 away, even when I didn't have that money, even when the months were really, really tight, yeah, I still managed to put away 50 bucks. I found that money. I hustled, I did all sorts of other things. You know, I sold items that I didn't need at home, but I would find that $50 to put away into shares because I didn't want to break that habit. Break the habit, yeah. And now when I look at my balance and I go, oh my god, I managed to save seven grand over the last two years and now I've got $700 return on it. Like, yeah, it's kind of exciting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And this is separate to my other bigger plans, right? I still have properties, I still have Kiwi Saver and all sorts of other things. But shares this for me was more of a discipline to work on me to see if I can do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and and you know, like in our role, we have to we have to be gentle with people because we know everyone comes from these different backgrounds, different backgrounds and and and different traumas and you know, different understanding, and you know, and it's it's a process, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, correct. No, I love it.
Teaching Kids Buckets And Percentages
SPEAKER_02How are your kids with money? How much have you taught your children?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so so so we um have a uh future bound um bank account bucket system, and so we've been running that for about six years in our own house. And so, for example, our kids, and we we've got five kids, like that we would all give them that they had their own clothing bank account, like their own clothing budget, and every fortnight a bit of money would go into that, and that was like the money that they could spend on clothes, and so we trained them in the system because they learned very quickly not to ask me, Dad, can I have a t-shirt? That ask me, Dad, how much money's in my clothing account, all right? And if there was enough in their clothing account, then sweet, you can buy that t-shirt. And if there's not enough, tough luck, you have to wait for it to build up.
SPEAKER_02Love it.
SPEAKER_00Right? And and we and Jackie and me do the same system for ourselves with our own spending money. Like if there's not enough in our spending accounts, tough luck, we can't buy it this week. I have to wait for it to build up, and then we buy that thing when when when the money's there because we pay cash for everything, right? And so, and so my and so my kids, my kids, if I look at like one, two, three of them are working, or as in part-time working, you know, they're still like young, like sort of student age, and one of them's still at school and one of them's only five, all right. And so when I look at the when I look at the say the three older ones who are earning money, like I would say I would give one of them an A plus, I'd give the other one a B, and I'd give the other one a C minus.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_00So they're not they're not all like you can you can you can lead a horse to water, they still have to want to do it, right? Correct. And the one that I'm giving a C minus, sadly, he used to be an A plus. Oh and then he's just like fallen off the Waka, right? And he's not kind of quite ready to get back on it yet.
SPEAKER_02How old is he?
SPEAKER_00He's he's that's a 22-year-old, that's the oldest one.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yeah, interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so only three years ago, you know, he's 22 now, but three years ago he had like a little little bit under 10 grand in his bank accounts, and he was doing really well, and you know, every time he got paid, he was, you know, he was sending money off to his different bank accounts in according with his bucket system, which um would set up for him. And then about I don't know, two years ago, I don't know, something happened.
SPEAKER_02That you met a girl.
SPEAKER_00He was he was with a girl at that time. Yeah, I don't sure if I can blame her or not. I I think because they're not together anymore, and he's still and he's still living bad habits right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02He's compensating.
SPEAKER_00Something, eh? Yeah, something.
SPEAKER_02But that's the thing, like you know, you gotta sometimes go through life, make mistakes, learn, rinse and repeat. Yeah, you know, figure out what works, what doesn't. And I look at my 40 almost 14-year-old, and my god, every time he gets paid from his work, he goes and spends money on lollies.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But he did surprise me the other day. He showed me his app because I was harping onto him about putting money aside, and his dad takes portion of the money aside to put into shares for him.
SPEAKER_01Right, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because all the kids have shares his account. Yeah, and he did surprise me. He said, Look, Mom, I do actually have a savings account there, I put money aside too. So I was like, Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's doing something there.
SPEAKER_02This is really cool. And I was like, How did you do that? He goes, I just did it myself. I figured it out. So that was cool because I was most worried about him and his spending habits. But then at the same time, I thought it's better for him to make these mistakes now when he's 13 and 14, yeah, and realize that you know, buying lollies all the time is not the answer, and eventually, you know, that money can add up to more things. And now he wants to go to various competitions and like Olympics and things like that, and he knows it costs a lot of money. So I'm trying to get him to save towards those costs as well. Yeah, because I said, look, the dad, the the bank of mum and dad cannot cover not forever all of that. You know, you're right. If you want to be a professional athlete, you've got to take responsibility for that as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And lollies are not a good diet.
SPEAKER_00Teenagers often um their incomes are often erratic, right? It's often like sometimes higher and sometimes lower, and then at certain times it might be zero and stuff like that. So with uh so when our teenagers all started working, like we did a it was a really basic, like something like a basic five bank account bucket system, and we're like, okay, you need some for saving and you need some for they all wanted to buy cars, so can you have a car account? You're gonna put a percentage in the car account each time you get paid. Are you gonna need some for sp for spending? You know, there's about five categories, but like it was kind of like you're gonna live your life by percentages. Yeah, right. So these here is your percentages, and I wrote it down for them, and then every time that you'd get paid, you'd send off, you know, 30% went here and 20% went there, and da da, and you divide it up into those different accounts according to your percentages. So yeah, so my Lily, she went and bought a $7,000 car with cash just last year. Wow. You know, 18 years old. And I'm like, that was that was a that was quite a um quite a proud dad moment when she goes and buys a I think it was like six, six or seven thousand, can't remember. That's amazing. But you just did it, just putting aside, you know, yeah, I think it was about 20% of her income went in the car account and then she paid cash for it.
SPEAKER_02And
Feeling Behind Start With One Step
SPEAKER_02so Jeff, if someone's listening right now and they feel behind financially, where would you tell them to start?
SPEAKER_00Well, I'd say to them, come and have a chat with me. I'm really nice.
SPEAKER_02This is your plugin.
SPEAKER_00This is my ad. Yeah, come and have a chat with me. And and you can just send me an email first if you want to. This is just Jeff J-E-F-F at futurebound.co.nz or go into our website, futurebound.co.nz. You can book in a book in a call from the website as well.
SPEAKER_02Is it free?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, free, free to have a chat. And um, our program isn't free. Like we do charge fees for our program, but you know, it's certainly free to have a chat. And and when I have a chat with people, like I really just want to understand their situation and check to see that I think they're that they're a good fit for what we do, and also they can check us out and check that that that that they think we're a good fit for for them. And but but the the reality is is that it doesn't really matter what your situation is or where at which point you're starting from, like it's making a start that's important, you know, it's it's taking some action that's important because humans are transformational creatures, right? Like what your income is now is different to what it's gonna be in a year's time or two years' time. Like things can change and and it starts with thinking differently. And so if you start thinking differently, the results come afterwards, right? And so you have to start that process of and invest in I'm gonna start thinking differently and following different strategies and stuff like that, and then and then the changes come, you know, pretty, pretty quickly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I loved it. I absolutely loved it because I think the first step is the hardest one to take. Yeah, it's the one where you know you'll be thinking about it for ages, you you'll lose sleep over it, but the moment you do it, yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_00A lot more peace comes and you can get on with your life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I love that. So I've got the last question for you here.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_02What's one financial decision or habit that could make the biggest difference for a homeowner over the next 12 months?
SPEAKER_00For for a homeowner over the next 12 months. I think I think I'll just go back to like the the financial the the financial milestones that we have in our step one. Like I just really encourage people just to get their foundations strong. You know, I'll often use the analogy, it's like building a house. Like pay paying your paying your mortgage off faster or being in control of your mortgage. That's like the walls of the house. And investing is like the roof of the house. But the thing that makes it all possible is the foundations of the house, all right? Like if a builder said to you, I know that other people other builders like to do the foundations and then the walls and then the roof, but I'm different. I'm gonna start with the roof first. You'd be like, I'm not sure if you're the builder for me, all right. But that's what people do with their financial life all the time, right? They invest before they're ready, they're putting up the walls of the house before they uh built the foundations on the house. And then everything collapses. And everything collapses, right? And so just like just like doing things in a certain order makes a huge difference. And so if you want to start that journey, we're just gonna like start on the foundations of your house, of your financial life, right? And we're gonna like make a plan for every dollar. And you'll be amazed once you just if you can just master that, which you know everyone can, you can build your house after that. You can do everything else. Yeah, it's just for like what are you pointing it at after that, right? But that, you know, that's a process that takes some months to put into place, it takes a bit of time to put in place. You need to be prepared to like make a bit of an effort. But once those foundations are in place, you can handle your mortgage way easier, you can handle your investments way easier. Everything else comes as a result of getting those foundations right. So I would just encourage people, don't be thinking of too far ahead. Don't be thinking of all those 10 investment properties that you want to buy or the millions you want to put into um shesies or whatever. Just like get your foundations right and then those things will come.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I
Closing Thoughts And Next Chats
SPEAKER_02love that. Jeff, thank you so so much. I feel like this conversation took us everywhere where we could, but quickly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We looked into every little corner.
SPEAKER_00We covered a lot.
SPEAKER_02We've covered a lot, and I would love to have you back and we could expand on certain topics a little bit more. And I know Jackie's coming back to uh That's right. You're gonna have Jackie as well.
SPEAKER_00So um, yeah, she'll give a different um perspective. Yeah, and um you can uh listen to what she's got to say as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thank you so much, Jeff, and I wish you a wonderful journey ahead with future bound.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Pleasure.