Page 22 - Smart Money

CHAPTER 1

Money matters

Attitudes toward money
In this chapter we are going to talk about the cultures of spending,
attitudes towards spending, people living beyond their means to keep up
appearances – there are lots of those people – people not managing money
on an ongoing basis, and generally, people not budgeting or managing
their money properly. These people don’t value or don’t understand the
importance of financial education, or who is actually teaching them about
finance, which is a big thing.

Often, people listen to others who actually have no idea about finance.
Clients will tell us about a friend who got a loan, but they have not taken
into consideration their own future needs. As I said before, everybody
wants money, but people have not been taught the value of actually
looking after their money.

The first thing we generally do at FinanceCorp is take an assets and
liabilities statement from the client, and once we actually sit with them
and show them their liabilities and their earnings, quite often they realise
that their liabilities are higher than or very close to their earnings. They
have been wondering why they can’t save anything. It is because the
repayments on their debts are pretty much what they are earning. They

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