Financial Planner and Wealth Coach, Paul Butler 5 Step Financial Workout

Fostering a financially healthy environment is paramount for the overall wellness of both employees, directors and the organisation. At Skybound Wealth we believe that by instilling positive money habits, we can empower your workforce to navigate the complexities of personal finance with confidence.

Senior Financial Planner and Wealth Coach, Paul Butler has worked with a number of medium and large businesses in the UAE including IBM Middle East, NASCO Insurance and Cigna providing educational group seminars and workshops as well as individual coaching sessions covering a range of topics.

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What Are The Five Steps of Paul Butler's Financial Workout?

1 Audit

A deep dive always unearths things you may have completely forgotten about that are slowly draining your bank accounts. The audit is an opportunity to get rid of what you definitely don't need.

What about your existing investments and assets - What have you already got? Are they fit for purpose? Are they in the right places? Are they optimised?  This ‘get it all on paper’ exercise might show you some things you don’t like, but getting fit always involves some sort of pain, right?

2. Budget

A good start is to allocate your money as follows - 50% to ‘Needs’, 30% to ‘Wants’, and 20% to ‘Savings’. Don’t pin your hopes on the 20% being the answer though. Working with a professional will help you understand what you actually need to do, or at least work towards and is an opportunity to ensure you're making a ‘profit’ each month and not overspending.

3. Planning

What steps one and two should give you is the headspace to start asking the bigger questions; Why am I doing what I’m doing? Where am I headed? What are the key points in life that will have a financial impact and when are they coming? How many pay days are left until each one? This step is about setting, or reaffirming, objectives and goals, and really understanding what they mean to you, and how you would feel if you didn't achieve them versus how would you feel if you did.

4. Automate

Far from being automated, items such as retirement planning, kids’ education, paying off debt, are all down to you, especially as an expat. Ensure it’s not a negotiation! Saving for your next property, retirement, university fees, or just to build up some emergency cash? Great, set the budget and automate it.

5. Review

Circumstances change, locations change, earnings change- hopefully for the better, although there might be some challenges along the way. Equally, with any fitness program it's key to make those small increments that get you closer to your goals. The same workout, week in week out, would see initial improvements but would eventually plateau and perhaps even go backwards over time. So it’s key to keep taking those small steps forward. A regular review will ultimately go a long way to ensuring you stay on track

A Dubai resident of 10+ years, Paul Butler is a senior financial adviser at Skybound Wealth who has 30 years’ experience both in the UK and Middle East providing independent, holistic financial planning and advice to enable clients to build a coherent, joined up financial plan that makes sense and empowers clients to achieve the future they desire, while having some fun along the way.

Find out more about Paul - linkedin.com/in/paul-butler-acsi-427bb115

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