Diet 2018 - Wk 34

Well, I haven't been monitoring my daily calorie intake or sticking to my diet plan since January, and it certainly shows. Rather than losing any weight, my weight has slowly increased during the past six months. My average morning weight last week was 105.0 kg, which means my BMI is now around 34.3. I certainly need to loose weight, and I also need to start doing some 5BX excercise in the evenings in addition to tracking my daily stepcount. I finally got around to tracking my eating again last week, and although I stuck to my diet plan Mon-Thu, I ate a bit too much on the weekend, including some takeaway fries on Saturday and Sunday. At least I managed to avoid buying or eating any confectionery.

My averages for the week were:
Fibre (g) Carbs (%) Fat (%) Protein (g) Sodium (mg) kcals Stepcount
40.7 58.0% 21.7% 127.5 5419.4 2637.0 3,172

My target for fat is 10-15% of total daily cals, so it was a bit too high, due mostly to the McDonalds and KFC fries on the weekend. My protein target is ~1g/kg of bodyweight, so should be around 100g/day. So this was also a bit too high last week, mostly due to having a bit too much meat with my evening meals, although I had mostly chicken and turkey breast, rather than steak, which is good. My average daily kcals were too high, but at least it was a bit lower than my typical 'ad libitum' intake (around 3,000-3,500 kcals/day). If I stick to my standard daily meal plan, my daily calorie intake would average around 1,900 kcals/day, and I *should* loose around 0.5-0.75 kg/week (a bit more if a reach my daily 10,000 step goal, and do 11 mins of 5BX excercise in the evenings). Anyhow, today is the first day of a new week, so yet another chance to actually stick to my plan...

My target is to get down to around 76-78 kg (I was 78 kg when I in High School), which would put me (just) in the 'healthy weight' range of BMI.

Over the long term (this century), I've been a poster-boy for 'yo-yo' dieting - I can loose weight, but whenever I start eating junk food again I pack on the kilos... the long term upward trend in my maximum weight is also not good.

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What business suit to buy?

So far I've never worn a suit to work. I started out as an experimental scientist, so for ten years wore casual clothes, often covered in a grey lab coat. Then when I changed jobs, I wore a leather jacket and tie to my job interview and was promptly told that the dress code was 'smart casual' and asked would I be OK to *not* wear a suit/jacket to work (they may have thought I was 'dressing down' for the interview!).

Anyhow, twenty years down the track, my current boss recently recommended that I start wearing a business suit to work (I've completed some Six Sigma 'Green Belt' training, and may doing some internal 'consulting' with other business areas in future). It's probably a sensible idea, as wearing an imitation sheep-skin jacket to work combined with a beard was probably makes me look more like a rancher than an IT professional ;) And as I should probably also be wearing a business suit when I meet prospective clients when I start up my financial planning home business, it was now time to buy a suit...

Anyhow, I Googled a few articles about suitable business suit colours etc. for financial advisors, and aside from getting some conflicting advice (one article said that brown conveys dependability and is good colour choice for establishing rapport, while another article said that brown is the least liked colour amongst male and female clients, and is seen to be mediocre), there was also the expected article recommended ridiculously expensive business suits for financial planners (https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2015/11/24/how-male-advisors-should-dress-to-win-clients). I don't care how good a suit may be, I'm not going to be spending $5,265 or $4,450 or even $2,450 (which the author called 'surprisingly affordable'!) on a suit. In the end I've ordered an off-the-rack suit and business shirt/tie combination online from Lowes for A$107.01, including free delivery ;)

The 'Perizzi' business suit and 'Robert Huntley' business shirt sound expensive, but they are obviously not. Especially when the suit was on special (50% off) and I also got an extra 10% off with a discount code for provding my email address. Obviously this sort of cheap, off-the-rack suit isn't going to impress anyone, but at least it should look 'presentable'.

'The suit' - not sure if the black shirt is too mafioso?

So, I've bought a suit for 2.03% the cost of one 'recommended' combination, and a used Jag for 6.4% of what it cost when new. I may not impress on the basis of style, but the frugality is top notch.

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Buying a Type-S Jaguar

My first car was a 1960 Mk II Jaguar that I was given for my 18th birthday. My father had bought it second hand to use in England while we were there for nine months in 1976 on a posting (he was an airline pilot), and he had it shipped back to Australia with us (he got a subsidized shipping rate). We eventually had it restored (some rust in the door panels cut out and a respray, plus all the seats redone with new Connolly leather, the chrome re-done and wire wheels added). I used it to drive to university and work during the early 80s, and my dad used it to bring DW to our wedding. I eventually bought another car for day-to-day commuting, as the old Jag was a getting a little bit unreliable, and the manual shift was tedious to use for hours each day in peak hour traffic.

A Mark II Jaguar similar to mine

My current commuter car is a 4WD Ford Escape that I bought new in 2006. It still runs fine, but I decided I might get a more 'luxury' vehicle to use as a financial adviser (although a) I haven't finished my DFP yet, b) I haven't started a financial planning business yet, and c) I'm not sure if having a 'posh' vehicle makes one look like a successful financial planner, or just one that is 'ripping off' his clients?). Anyhow, I was originally looking at some 2008-2010 Type-X jaguars, as they look quite nice and only cost $5,000-$10,000 depending on condition and mileage, but then I decided that the older Type-S looked a lot nicer and were more 'luxury' for the same sort of money.<- a="" ii="" jaguar="" mark="" mine.="" p="" similar="" to=""> 

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A Type-S Jaguar similar to the one I'm buying

I eventually found a 1999 Type-S for sale (asking $9,500) that had only done 120,000 km. As the vehicle registration was about to expire, I suggested a price closer to the 'redbook' valuation of $5,700-$7,900 was more appropriate, so eventually the owner agreed to sell it for $7,900 and to also get the registration renewed for 12 months before I buy it. It comes with a removable tow-bar already installed, which might come in handy when I go up to the lake house and need to tow a small box trailer or our boat. The car has a few minor scratches on the front and rear bumper bars, a small dent at the back of the roof, and the electrochromatic rear-view mirror is permanently 1/3 black (apparently these type of mirrors are prone to faults, but as a second-hand replacement mirror costs around $150 I'll just live with it 'as is'). The interior leather is all in very good condition, and the rear seats looking as if they've never even been used.

I took it for a short test drive, and the owner says it runs fine, so hopefully it won't cost a fortune to maintain. Anyhow, at under $8,000 it seems pretty good value for money, especially considering it was originally bought for $133,000 in 1999! I've paid a $2,900 deposit, and I'll EFT the remaining $5,000 when I collect it next week after the registration has been renewed.


By strange coincidence the Mark II Jag I have is one year older than I am, and this one is one year older than DS1 ;)

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How many Financial Advisers are there in Australia?

Given that I'm currently doing a Diploma of Financial Planning course and have also enrolled in a Master of Financial Planning course with the goal of eventually starting up a Financial Planning business, it seemed prudent to do some research into how many financial planners (advisers) there are in Australia, and whether the market is under- or over-supplied. While the aging and growing population suggests an increasing need for financial advisers in Australia, offsetting this is the fact that the number of financial advisers seems to have been growing rapidly - from around 18,000 in 2009 [Ref: Ripoll Report] to 25,386 registered advisers on 1 April 2018. However, the supply of registered financial advisers may dwindle in coming years due to the combination of more stringent educational and other requirements coming into force on 1 Jan 2019, and the aging of the existing cohort of financial advisers. (And the current 'bad press' from the Royal Commission combined with removal of commission-based fees is making financial planning much less attractive proposition to new entrants).

Comparing the number of medical practitioners to the number of financial advisers is quite interesting:

In 2015 there were 102,805 registered medical practitioners in Australia. Of these 83,427 were GPs and 49,060 were specialists. This equates to a rate of 112 FTE GPs per 100,000 population in 2015 [ref:1].

In comparison, as at 1 June 2017 there were 25,386 financial advisers registered in Australia [Ref:2], which corresponds to a rate of around 34 financial advisers per 100,000 population. Then again, most people would see their GP a lot more often than they consult a financial adviser!

Estimates [2] suggest that around 30% of the Australian adult population use, or have used, a financial planner or adviser. From this, one can calculate roughly how many clients the 'average' financial adviser has serviced:

100,000 x .3 (have seen an adviser) x .8 (ratio adults in population)= 24,000 adults per 34 financial advisers, or 705 clients per adviser on average.

Of course, many adults will have only seen an adviser once in their lifetime, so the number of clients serviced per annum per adviser would be significantly lower than this (on average).

The number of prospective new client's per adviser can be roughly estimated by the 48% of Australian adults that have indicated that they have unmet financial advice needs [2]. This corresponds to 100,000 x .48 x .8 = 38,400 adults per 34 financial advisers, or roughly 1,130 prospective new clients per adviser on average. Of course many of these prospective client's would not be willing to pay for financial advice, despite having a perceived 'unmet need' for such advice. Similarly, many client's would only require a single SoA from an adviser, or perhaps an update every 5-10 years. So the average number of new client's per adviser per annum is more likely to be around 100, which seems a realistic 'guestimate'.

The total revenue of the financial planning sector is around $4.6b pa [2], which equates to approximately $181,200 per adviser. Again, this seems in line with advertised pay rates for financial advisers, allowing ~50% for costs and AFSL fees/revenue sharing. (In the US the median annual salary for financial advisors was $90,530 in 2016).

ASIC noted that 2.3 million adult Australians had received advice from a financial planner in 2015/16 FY, which corresponds to 90.6 clients per adviser, which is in close agreement with my estimate from 'first principles' above ;)

So, a long-term goal of having 1-2 clients per week seems realistic. The somewhat depressing statistic is that apparently a response rate of 2% to marketing campaigns is common, which means a *lot* of marketing is required to get any prospects, and only a fraction of prospects may become a client. For a start-up financial planning business run on a part-time basis, the question then is how many clients, and what fee structure, is required to 'break even'?

References:
1. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/workforce/medical-practitioners-workforce-2015/contents/how-many-medical-practitioners-are-there
2. https://financialservices.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/Documents/features-of-the-australian-financial-planning-industry-paper-6.pdf