
Meet Charmaine, 49
The Scenario
I am a Business Graduate and run a successful homeware business that I started from scratch. I earn a good salary from the business. I have never been a fan of ‘brokers’ – I always felt they were out to make money from your money. I have a big home loan which funds much of the working capital in my business. Like most entrepreneurs I would imagine, I believed that my business was worth a lot more than what someone was willing to pay for it!
The Challenge
- I needed to better understand the role of a financial planner so that I could trust them to help me do the right thing for me.
- Financing your business and your life while waiting for ‘your ship to come in’ is risky and can lead to high levels of personal debt.
- It’s dangerous to have a plan that relies on one big event (in my case, the sale of my business) for everything else to fall into place.
The Veritas Solution
When I met with the Veritas planners, they really listened! They took the time to understand my unique situation, rather than feeding me a bunch of template solutions.
They challenged my thinking around my business and thanks to them, I now:
- Value their role in helping me to understand my financial situation and the options available to me (I know that their focus is not the sale of financial products)
- Understand concentrated risk and the power of diversification
- Have separated my personal finances from the business’s finance
- Am transferring assets away from the business as the profits are produced so that I can start saving for my retirement
- Save in a tax efficient manner (and am no longer paying SARS as much)
Veritas helped me to realise that I need to plan around the worse-case scenario, not the best. They also showed me that I need to put my personal needs before the business – ultimately, it’s about my health and happiness!
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