Larry and Debbie Fennell are debt free after just 2 years.
‘We first attended Ellerfield and met Aaron in 2009 not realising that we would be debt free within two years.
We both work for the Queensland Government, married with two teenage children earning a combined income of $130,000 a year. We had approximately $55,000 debt and have had this same amount for some time as we were paying it off fortnight to fortnight.
Aaron showed us how we could become debt free and save enough money through investments to have a VERY comfortable retirement, even retiring at the young age of 55 years! At the time we didn’t believe it was possible.
We are now in 2011 and for the first time in our married life, we are debt free and setting goals that we never thought we could afford, even a European holiday and a new car!
Aaron and his staff presented us with the tools to achieve financial security for the rest of our lives and we highly recommend Ellerfield for anyone who needs assistance with their finances.
Steve Haynes shares his experience of engaging a financial planner, and the benefit it has bought to him and his family.
My wife Jen and I came to Ellerfield at a stage in our life where we were both in good jobs, earning over $140000 a year.
We had a house with a modest mortgage, two car loans and some furniture on lay-by, but every fortnight we were using our visa cards to pay for day to day things. Slowly we blew our three visa cards to maximum, adding another $3500 to the debt and not getting ahead in life.
A friend recommended us to Ellerfield and we attended with only a vague idea about financial planning, but we knew we needed to take control of our finances and hopefully improve our quality of life.
Aaron and his staff, were helpful and took us through our finances and options. What impressed us most was the feeling you got that Aaron and the rest of Ellerfield were on your side and were working towards your goals. The budget they worked out for us, at first seemed extreme, but we quickly found that by following it, we not only had money left over but were still enjoying a great quality of life.
Yet this isn't what made me appreciate the advantage of coming to Ellerfield. That moment was while standing in the accident and emergency ward, with my wife in terrible pain, despite two shots of morphine and being told by staff, it would be up to two years on the waiting list to see a surgeon.
It was then I realized that thanks to Ellerfield we were ahead on our loans, we had paid off all our credit cards in about three months, and could not only afford to pay for the surgery out of our own pocket, but it would only delay our budget plan by a month!
Ellerfield enabled us to break free from the circumstances and take control of our own lives. It was an amazing feeling, a mere three months early we would never have had that option.
I highly recommend Ellerfield to anyone who wants to take control of their finances and life.
Ellerfield would like to introduce Rachel Hutchison, who has been kind enough to share her family’s experience of working with a financial planner.
Rachel is married to Stephen Hutchison and lives and works in the beautiful Twin Waters here on the Sunshine Coast. Together, they have two primary school-aged children – Emily and Thomas.
What prompted you to consider working with a financial planner?
We were doing our tax returns and had a couple of questions for our accountant at Keating and Associates regarding the best way to redirect some extra money we were trying to save, as well as the CPI increase in our salary. He recommended that we have a chat with Ellerfield as he realised that he was not able to answer some of our more involved questions and they were best qualified.
Why did you choose to work with the financial planner you selected?
We had several meetings with the Ellerfield team before any firm plan was implemented or any fees discussed. We felt that they wanted to get to know us on a personal level first and then on a professional level. We have made, and will continue to make all decisions together with their team – nothing is assumed, and everything is discussed at length to make sure that we are comfortable with their recommendations.
What were you hoping to achieve by working with a financial planner?
We knew that we could afford to repay our current mortgage, but it was probably going to take until we were approaching retirement the way we were going. We needed to consider how we were going to afford to retire and still live the great lifestyle we were used to. We also needed to look at being able to afford private schooling for our kids – this was always our dream, but we were not sure it was financially possible with such a short time frame as our oldest child was already in Year 6.
Has your financial planner helped you achieve these goals?
It is a work in progress but we are now able to see that all our goals are very possible. Ellerfield has been very proactive in showing us how we are going to be able to achieve our longer term goals in regards to a comfortable retirement, private schooling, and also how to have that overseas holiday we have dreamed about.
Could you explain how “ellerCentral cash flow management” has helped your family on a day to day basis?
We have always had a budget, and we follow budgets and forecasts at work, so we knew what they were. Ellerfield made us realise that unless you are constantly reviewing and following it, it is easy to just spend the extra cash in the bank account on a whim. I now know exactly where we spend our money on a weekly and monthly basis. We know that we are rapidly reducing our mortgage and also making more conscious and informed decisions on whether we really need that impulse buy. I still can go shopping and buy the clothes I like, the household bits and pieces, and the gifts I like to spurge on, but I also make sure that it fits the budget we have created.
Could you explain what the Ellerfield “MRP” is and why you chose to implement this strategy for your home mortgage?
Ellerfield’s Mortgage Reduction Plan is tailored for each client. For us, it meant small but important changes to how we could reduce our morgage quicker and more effectively without having to sacrifice. We had the standard variable rate home loan but changed it to a line of credit. We now have our salaries paid directly to our line of credit each week, which in turn reduces the interest calculated on a daily basis. Our day to day expenses are all paid for on our credit card which we pay in full at the end of the month. I also update our monthly budget regularly so I can see how much we have spent for the month and make sure we are not overspending. Simply by doing this for the past eight months we have already made big inroads into reducing our debt.
Has you financial planner been able to help you in any areas that you did not expect?
We had no life insurance, income protection insurance or serious illness insurance, so if anything had happened to either of us we would have had to sell our beautiful home just to keep going. Ellerfield is also about to help us with improving our superannuation situation – that is the next step.
Would you recommend your financial planner to friends and family?
Without hesitation! They have certainly made us feel more in control of our financial future and we are very much included in all the decision processes. They have the expertise to guide us, but we do not feel that they have taken over. We feel more in control of our finances and future than ever before.
Prue Simmonds, husband Andrew and their three young children, live in Buderim on the Sunshine Coast.
Prue has kindly agreed to share her family’s experience of deciding to engage the services of a financial planner and what differences this has made to their lives.
What prompted you to consider working with a financial planner? Why did you choose to work with the financial planner you selected? What were you hoping to achieve by working with a financial planner? Has your financial planner been able to help you achieve these goals? Could you explain how ‘ellerCentral cash flow management’ has helped your family? Your financial planner also helped by referring you to another business here on the Coast. Can you tell us about this? David Weir is your planner at Ellerfield, and you have said you were surprised by how he looks after your affairs. Could explain this?David has been great for us. We really feel we have someone watching our back on our financial affairs. Would you recommend Ellerfield Financial Planning to friends and family?
Andrew and I have three children and we wanted to make sure we had a good start on a plan for the future financially.
When we met with Ellerfield we were not sold products. David Weir at Ellerfield Financial Planning really worked with us to develop a plan to achieve not just our financial goals but also our life goals.
We wanted to have a strong financial future and not to just live month to month.
We couldn’t be happier with Ellerfield as we now have solid direction on not just our short-time goals but also our long-term goals.
EllerCentral is great. It really helps you keep on track with spending your money on a day-to-day basis and it makes you think before you spend. So much so, Andrew now enjoys entering all our receipts into our budget daily. Within the first couple of months of using Ellerfield’s EllerCentral budgeting process we have saved a substantial amount of money that we would not have done otherwise.
We needed a solicitor and Ellerfield put us in contact with the correct kind of legal specialist at a local Sunshine Coast firm, which was a great help to us. Ellerfield genuinely takes a holistic approach to its clients’ needs and David’s attention to this matter was well beyond what we had expected a financial planner to do.
Absolutely. It has been the best move we have made for our family and our future.
Listen to the Debbie Buckley (client) interview
