Thursday 9 May 2024

Decided to switch from being a 'financial planner' to a 'wealth coach'

I finally decided that paying over $20K pa in licence fees to my AFSL, ASIC fees, etc. simply to remain on the FAR (financial advisers register) to be able to provide personal financial advice was not worth the expense. Having a full-time salaried job that was totally unrelated to financial planning, plus doing PhD candidature part-time, made it practically impossible to spend enough time and effort 'prospecting' for clients to even cover the 'running costs' (especially since the AFSL would keep another 20% of any fees charged to clients, plus I would have to pay a few hundred dollars per client to have my SOA documents reviewed by the AFSL (or else pay even more to have the SOAs drawn up by a contract paraplanner service).

Rather than provide personal financial advice (taking into account the client's situation and details to provide a written 'statement of advice' recommending particular financial products), I think I will just offer my services as a 'wealth coach' providing education regarding DIY financial planning techniques, retirement and investment projections, budgeting, information about the tax and superannuation system and common strategies, and all the other things that go into planning ones own financial strategy -- without recommending any particular financial products (or class of products) and making specific recommendations based on the details of the person's situation, or providing personalized taxation advice (otherwise you risk running foul of ASIC requirements to provide 'general' financial advice).

As there will be $0 overheads I should be able to do this 'for fun' and only charge a reasonable hourly rate, rather than the thousands of dollars it costs to provide compliant personal financial advice. I might even do some general topic youtube videos.

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