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From Teaching English to Financial Freedom: James Buchanan's Inspiring Journey in Personal Finance · That Home Loan Hub

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome James Buchanan from Palmerston North maybe.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: From the Manawatu.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Manawatu.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go with Manawatu today.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Manawatu, Pahongana Valley, a beautiful little spot, northern Manawatu.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, james, welcome to my podcast.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Lovely to have you as a guest.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: James and I go a very, very long way back.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Should we dive into that first, and then we'll dive into what you do now and what you bring to our listeners today.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: James, how did we meet?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Absolutely so.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: We met at a crazy little place called International Pacific University, ipu, new Zealand.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Back in.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I would say God 20,.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Well, hold on 2000.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I graduated in 2007 and I worked there from 2008.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: So I started in 2023.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: And so I would have been Yep 2023.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: 2003.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: And you would have come in as an international student into the degree program?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Were you my lecturer at any point?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Not at that stage, they were still getting me to teach grammar, which they realized wasn't, and I was beyond that.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Well, even I was beyond that, to be fair.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I think I was teaching you grammar later.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah well, everybody was, and then they realized I couldn't teach it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: So that's how I got into business.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: But yeah, what did you do?
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: A three-year degree.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, I did my bachelor's degree there.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: And then you ended up working there.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, correct.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I started my studies there in 2004, January 2004.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you were there really pretty much from the beginning, the same time as you.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: And I was only in my mid-20s as well, so I often got you know.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: People thought I was a student.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you were much younger then.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure about now.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Much younger then yeah.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I'm still young, you are.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I've got no hair.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: We deviate.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: So yes, so we met back in 2004.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I was a student, you were a lecturer.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Our paths didn't really cross much.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Then I graduated, came in to pick up my parcel, ended up getting a job because your wife just quit.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, she does that.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And the job was available.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: So I took her role, funny enough, and I worked there for a bit.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: But then what did you do during that time?
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Where did your career take you?
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: This is what we're going to be interested in today.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: The funny thing was is, when I came back to New Zealand after travelling for a while, I realised that when I was travelling I was doing all these different odds and bods jobs everywhere I went and I just thought, you know, I really want to focus on building some kind of a career and doing the same thing so I can build on it.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: So I came back to Palmerston North, which is where I lived, where I was originally from, and I met with somebody from IPU, new Zealand, just to find out about where I could go to teach English as a second language to international students.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And it just so happened.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: They had a job.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: It became a job interview, a bit like yours, and they pretty much employed me straight away.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: So I'd been travelling for about four years, came back home and then I was starting to work, you know, pretty much straight away at IPU as a grammar teacher in English.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: So you know it wasn't really my thing.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't your passion, right?
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: No, not at all.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: What's your passion?
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: James Well business.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: You know I quickly moved on from teaching grammar into teaching business studies and so for 10 years I taught the personal financial management uh paper, which I created myself because I saw a need amongst the students.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: They didn't know how to manage their own money and so I went about helping them try to set goals and make good financial decisions and budgeting and how to create a net worth document so they can see from their decision making if their net worth is actually improving over time.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: So you can actually use that no matter how much money you've got.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: So in theory, if you did it every quarter, for example, you should see if you're making good decisions.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: You should see your net worth improving over that period, which is just you know your assets less your liabilities.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I was about to ask you do you want to expand for the listeners.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: What is net worth?
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, like with the students, it could have been something just like a laptop.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: You know what are their general?
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Because they didn't have much or a bit of cash in the bank.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: So, instead of spending, you know, my goal to them was try and during the course of the paper, which was 12 weeks, I think okay, this is your net worth at the start of the paper.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Now we want to improve your net worth by 10% by the end of the paper.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: How can we do that?
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: And often the only way they could do that was they get x amount of money sent, sent from their families.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: So don't spend don't spend it.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was about to say that'll be the easiest way, yeah absolutely, um, and that was, that was the most obvious thing for most, for most of them to do, but you can apply that to everything you know to anybody from any any walk of life and you taught them budgeting, which is very important, because this is what we see right today that not many people are able to take control of their finances, purely due to lack of budgeting skills that are not being taught.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it's just because I got the budgeting message across quite well, I thought.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: But I think people just get too busy.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: So if we're going to do budgeting or speak to people about budgeting, we need to make it really simple and easy to do.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: You know how do we do that, james?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Well, I've got templates that I use and I would share with somebody.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: So what I would do is I would just show people that I talk to, I would just give them an honest appraisal.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: This is what my budget looks like.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: This is what my net worth looks like.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Do you want to be like me?
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Or maybe you don't want to be like me, yeah well, I'm just really honest.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Look, I've made mistakes.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: You know you can learn a lot from other people's mistakes.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: You can save tens of thousands of dollars just by watching the people around you, rather than years of your own life wasted because you make a big financial mistake.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: So I try to share those mistakes, not many people do that.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I think you I think this is just amazing of you and I know you're such a good guy and I'm not just saying it because I've known you for so long, but I think because I've known you back in the day and I got to know you again now, like you're still the same good old James, like you just got a heart of gold.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: You've got a cool energy around you and I think you genuinely want to share and help people.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I do get a really big kick out of sharing, especially when I can see I'm connecting with somebody and actually taking it on board, because I think they really appreciate the real advice or the real suggestions, I should say, and they can see how they can apply it to their own situation.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: So, especially if the person is motivated and wants to learn and stuff like that, I'm really happy to share.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I always have this phrase.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: You know, like I love helping people that want to be helped.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I love helping people, but I struggle if they don't want to be helped.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: If they don't want to be there, you can't help them.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and I've met with people, a lot of people, that say they want to be helped and I'm really keen to help them, but then they don't.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: You do the initial thing and you know I don't make anything from it, I'm just doing it to help them and then, but you can see, they lose interest really quickly because they actually have to do something.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: So if you're willing to put a little bit of extra time into it every week, it doesn't take much, then you can see huge benefits.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, every week it doesn't take much, then you can see huge benefits.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you've got the budgeting templates that you came to share with people.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: What else have you been up to like over the last few years?
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: What have you worked on?
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: So other than the 20-odd years I spent in tertiary education, I gradually moved into teaching and education, investments and research and things like that and personal financial management At the same time.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: I was able to.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: I was also very keen on the practical side of things.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: So over the last 15 years I've been building our own family's investment portfolio.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: So I've had this really good balance of the theoretical in the classroom but the practical element of actually creating my own fund for my family.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: And this fund is not a.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: It's about creating opportunities for my family in the future.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: So I recognise kind of early that as you get older you want to make sure that you're earning money not just from your job.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Especially if you're out there and you don't really like your job very much.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: You want to be moving into the investment side of things sooner, probably so that you can get more money from that side of your life rather than just having to work more hours or go to the boss and get a promotion and suck up and do whatever you have to do.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: That was because I wasn't really career orientated in that way.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Do that was because I wasn't really career orientated.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: In that way.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: I was much more interested in the actual building up my own investments which I manage, and it's pretty much a full-time gig and it has been for, say, seven or eight years.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: There's been a few hiccups.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I was about to say how did you go through in COVID?
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: So this is where the honesty comes out.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: So I had a really good period leading up to COVID, and what tends to happen is you get overconfident.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Things start going really well, you start making lots of money and you think, oh, I can carry on doing this, I don't have to put the same amount of time in.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I started traveling a lot, spending all my money on my property as you do, and then my investment positions were not great ones going into COVID.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: They had a lot of debt, and so those positions didn't come back.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Those investments didn't come back like a lot of the other investments came back.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: You know how.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: There was that big crisis and everything fell 40%, 50% nearly Most of it came back.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: You know how there was that big crisis, yeah, and everything fell.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: You know, 40%, 50%.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Nearly Most of it bounced back.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: No, mine didn't.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Oh no.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: So I was pretty lucky because I didn't always put all my money in the end you know, 100% of my money into investments.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I always kept 50% to myself, so I was able to ride out that two or three year period but it wasn't fun, you know.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: But obviously some massive learnings, massive takeaways from that one right that you can share yep with people and you just don't know how you're going to react to something like that if you are down so much money.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um it's.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: It takes emotional at toll on you.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: It is it does Because my next question was going to be are you still married?
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, Well, I didn't tell Rebecca.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I hope she's not listening to this.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: No, she'll be listening.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: You know we've got a partnership going on.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: She can see what I'm doing and during that period I was working full time on the investment side and you know she was working full-time and I'm investing the money.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: But yeah, you have to be open and honest with the key people in your life.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: And I was always very careful with what I was doing and Rebecca always knew what I was doing.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, when things go wrong, you've just got to say, look, this is what's happened and this is how we can fix it, what we need to do, and we just need to hang tight and be cool for a little while.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: So it's been a tough few years.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Things are looking a little bit better now.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, great to go through that, because what happens is, if you don't go through that, you keep making the same mistakes.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so as the portfolio was growing and growing and growing, I was going to make that mistake, I was going to make bad decisions, um, and I was just lucky to get the lesson early enough, when there wasn't too much money involved yeah, I was about to say that, yeah, I could come back I was able.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: You don't want to make financial mistakes that are going to ruin you.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: That's the key, I think.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be really cool, like over time, for you and I to sit down and expand on various case studies and talk about you know what exactly?
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: You did here and exactly what went on there.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: I would love I've got all that, because I evaluate everything I've done, everything I've done so um, and because I share it with my kids because I'm trying to get them to make sure how important this is, because if you start this is at a nice early age, you know, in your teens or whatever you've got you're just in such a much better position.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: I didn't start until my mid-20s, but, yeah, yes, this is one of the things I really want to do with people.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I've kept all my financial capability resources.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: I evaluate all my investments.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: It's already there.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: As long as people understand, it's not financial advice, you know, I am happy to share my learnings with people, because one of the things I learned very recently actually is that what I was doing, because I, when I just recently, I finished a fixed term role for about a year where I was filling in for somebody at university, um, after I wasn't able to do my invest, monitor my investments so well, the first thing I did when I finished that role is I evaluated all my investments over the last four or five years and what I realized by doing that is that I was selling way too early.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Most of my investments were going up 30%, 40% if I'd held on to them when I was selling them at 10%, 15%.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Why were you selling them early?
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, because I was doing it as a job.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I needed money every month to pay the bills, so I needed to, in a way, since COVID be trading, which is not really my thing I'm more of a two or three year investor.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: I buy, buy and hold.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah and hold for two.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: I buy something that's out of favour at the moment Still a good business.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: It's got good longevity, but there's going to be at least a 30% payoff.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm looking for, but I was selling at 10%, say, when they were going up a lot more than that.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: So I just needed to be a little bit more patient, and that's one of the things that brought me to this role.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Because I realized I needed a role that's complementary to that.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: So let's step back, because you just said this role.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: So we're going to make a little announcement here, but before we do that, let's go back to where it all started, a few months ago.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: So Rebecca, your lovely wife, I hope she's listening.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: She is lovely Good one there, james.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: She reached out to me out of blue going hey, I just got a new job with Gigi Gardner.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: It would be cool to catch up for coffee, and I was like cool.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: And then she goes oh, can James tag along Because he knows you and he wants to ask you some questions.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: So, this is where we reconnected again after not seeing each other probably for like 10, 15 years, something like that.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: So we meet for coffee and I have a good chat with Rebecca, but then you hijack the whole conversation over to you Because you were doing what?
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I was doing my study, I think, at that point, and another entity that I'd been dealing with had, because my initial intention was investment advisor, because that was just what I was into.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: So, I wanted to.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: But then the people I was dealing with sort of said, well, why don't you do the mortgage advising?
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, you know that actually looks.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: I started looking at the study and it looked really interesting and I could still see there's a connection to the investment side.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: So I quite quickly changed to doing that study.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: So I cancelled the investment study and I did the property lending study.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, I found out Rebecca was coming down to see you and I was like, you know, it was probably in my best interest to come down and actually talk to a mortgage advisor and see how everything rolls, because otherwise, you know, I'm sort of in the dark a little bit with what.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be doing.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: And then I just realised that and I think you did too that there's an opportunity here and I think I was very quick to jump on that opportunity because you know, waii Kanai is an awesome place.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Firstly, and you know, we've got a good history.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: You know, I just want.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Two good humans?
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely yeah.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: You just want to have a good time.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: You know, I just want Two good humans.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely yeah, you just want to have a good time.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: You want to.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: You know, you want to work hard, but you also want to enjoy yourself, yeah, so, and that's what I'm looking for, and I also want to help people, and I also want to use my experience to help you know people.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: I think that's why you ended up being a lecturer back upon the time.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I feel, like I wanted to become a teacher as well and I think as a mortgage advisor now I can see that I do a lot of teaching through my thing.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Like, mostly we're patient and we're happy to pass on that knowledge, and I think that's what makes a good mortgage advisor is when you are patient and ready to pass on and no question is a dumb question.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I've got you know a policy of when clients go.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: You know I'm going to ask you this but it's probably going to sound dumb.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: No, it's not going to sound dumb, because if you don't know, you don't know, and that's my job to teach you.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: So I think you've got the same sort of values to me where we know, if we can, if we know just a little bit more than the other person, if we can help that person.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: yeah, to learn that, that's awesome everyone's winning and we can do it in a supportive way.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: We're not looking down at you going well.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: This is what you should do, because we're actually sharing our own mistakes as well so, um, my students always notice with me.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: When we're talking about finance or money, they just said you're a different person to when you're talking about tourism, because I I got roped into teaching some tourism.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah I remember that.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I remember you were doing tourism.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: My wife left that's right so I had to take over her job.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: So my students were really confused about who was this guy, because I was two different people.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I took over her other role just to make it clear yes, that's right.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: So she was doing two roles.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: She was doing marketing and recruitment.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: She went back at a later time, as you do, as you do at ipu, went back at a later time to teach tourism, and I was actually the manager.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: I was the assistant dean at the time, so I was her manager oh, so that was quite.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: That's why she left right.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: No, no what happened.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: No, um, I think she enjoyed me being manager because I just left her, because she's you know she's doing if doing.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: She knows what she's doing.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: She's doing a great job.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't need to do anything.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: No, rebecca is awesome.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's the approach I bring.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we had a coffee.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: We quickly discovered that might be an opportunity for you to join me instead of some other firm far, far away from Palms North and especially with your family living around Carpety.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: And I was excited to have a guy join the team because at the moment I have pretty much a female run business.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I've noticed You're a bit outnumbered here.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Which is cool, because I think again, you bring that really cool perspective on things, but in a very gentle manner.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's very nice.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, don't think yeah, I'm a bit soft really.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know yeah, I didn't want to say that no, I mean, I get told what to do at home, I get told what to do here, so great you know, it just works it's pretty much normal so the announcement is basically james, you joined me now um, as a mortgage advisor, which is really cool.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: We're going to help heaps of people.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I'm very excited about that.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: We're going to share your budgeting templates with them.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: You know we're going to work with people to help them get ahead, so this is really really cool and exciting.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: But tell me about your own journey in terms of getting the financial advice.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Growing up and in the last sort of 20 years, you know when you were buying your own first home and getting ahead Like how was that for you being on the other side?
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I've been incredibly lucky in a way because I guess, like a lot of the people that you've talked to on these podcasts, my parents did it really tough when they were young and I could see how tough it was for them because they were farmers and they would have their crops wiped out for a whole year and they had all these bills coming in all the time and no income.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: So I could see the stress involved in doing that kind of thing and how close they went to going to the wall, you know, and into their 50s really Wow, to go into the wall, you know, into their 50s really.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: But now all that work that they did, because they invested that money, they focused on property and commercial properties and things like that.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: You know, when they went to retire, they retired early and they were earning more in retirement than they ever did during their lifetime Wow so.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: That's powerful.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: So, seeing that and this is what I always used to tell my students and then you compare it to other retired people that I know who can't spend, they've got nice houses but they can't spend any money so, just being able to see what my parents could do, they could do exactly everything they wanted to do.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: They had the beautiful house, they lived in a beautiful spot, but they went without throughout their life a very much a similar mold that I'm following.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: So we are not big spenders.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I would love to have the latest car and a big house.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: No, I saw you have avocado on toast the other day.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I'm sure I don't mind a bit of avocado on toast actually.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean we eat good food.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: To be fair, we probably spend $1,600 a month on food, but that's our big expense.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: So my parents are my, my biggest, my best mentors, really um, and, and I guess the the the moral here is that you're not keeping up with the johnses, right?
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: you're not out there buying the flesh's car, the boat, the jet skis yeah well, we spend money on what's important to us, not what other people think is important to us.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: So the big thing that we the big piece of advice I would probably pass on to young people getting their first home is try to get a.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: It's much harder nowadays, but try to buy a property that you can almost afford with one income, because when you've got kids, you want to have the opportunity to be able to one of you look after the children if possible if that's what you want to have the opportunity to be able to one of you look after the children if possible, if that's what you want to do.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: So when we bought our property you know it wasn't the most expensive place we could buy we went for a place that we could afford on one salary, just so that Rebecca could look after the kids without having to worry about going back to work, because that was important to us.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: It might not be important to other people, but that has meant our kids have had quite a cool upbringing.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: No, that's really good advice, James.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I think that's the.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: In a way, I see and I already touched on that before in a previous podcast where the problem of the today's world is what you see on Instagram, right, you see on social media, people putting up all these beautiful reels of their holidays, their amazing houses, and you're like, oh, I want this, you know, I want to have that, why can't I have this?
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: And then you get yourself into a dead position without building the future.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Or the other side of the coin is where people go.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Well, we only live once, so I might as well blow it all now.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: And they just blow a lot of money through their 20s and 30s, possibly 40s, and then they get to their 50s and they go oh crap, you know, I'm retiring in 10 years' time to 15 years' time and I have nothing to show for it.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: And, as you said, like they'll retire, yes, they may have a beautiful house, but the upkeep on those houses people don't realize that pension will not cover that.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: The rate the insurance is increasing, the insurance cost, the rates.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: You'll be forking out $20,000 a year, $30,000 a year for the expenses just to get your house going and you might receive the same amount of pension, but you still need to buy food and maybe travel and, you know, see your grandchildren and do other things.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: So we see a lot more people working past the retirement wage.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think another thing as well is if we can get people learning how to invest at a young age, it puts their funds more in their own hands as they get older.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: So when they do retire and they get these lump sums from KiwiSaver or whatever, they've got some idea of how to manage their own money.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: So it's something that you can do.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: As you get older, as you build up your own funds, you can actually develop your investment know-how.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: That would be another thing that I would quite like to work with people to do.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: This is why I was excited to have you on board, because I feel like having a teacher in here and I think I've got the teacher soul in me is.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Together, we can create these beautiful courses for people that they can undertake in here.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: And then I think I've got the teacher soul in me is together, we can create those beautiful courses for people that they can undertake and you know and learn with us, and then we'll learn with them as well how we can improve those, those courses going forward yes, well, I've got 15 years worth of resources that I built myself and I just you know, and I've kept it in pretty good you know, I mean, I've been going through it recently.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: So it's all really practical and there's something for everybody there.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And this is incredible because obviously you were building it before AI was even out there, so you had to do a lot of work yourself typing in.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: It's not just a matter of hey, Chad Jeppety, give me blah, you know.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Well, the great thing was is that it was something I really am interested in doing.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: So when I was teaching personal financial management I'm already doing all the background reading and research and when I was teaching the investment papers, you know, it was just they were easy to teach because I'm spending hours every day doing that kind of thing anyway, so I wasn't really.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I was almost able to wing.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: That sounds wrong, but I was almost able to wing a lot of those courses you have to follow.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Nowadays you have to follow very strict NZQA guidelines, but for a while then it was quite relaxed.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, no, I have them't and, at the end of the day, like isn't it better for people, for students, to learn from real life experience versus just a textbook material that may not be even applicable to them?
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: I could see them and you know when they're engaged.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's just so obvious.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I remember being being a student and sitting through some lectures of, oh you know, this absolute drain, all the ones that, like whoa, that fires my soul.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Yep, and you can see if you make the work relative and practical, like, for example, once I gave students a project.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I was selling, I was subdividing my land on my property and I said, okay, the project is what should I do with this land, how can I make the most money from this piece of land?
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: And I got all sorts of different ventures and things.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: This is clever.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: You had like three researchers at your fingertips Exactly.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I just needed some ideas, really.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is brilliant.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I loved it.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe this is what we should do.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah well, I ended up selling it just before COVID.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: And, as you know it, doubled in value within a year which is quite a large amount.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: But you know, I've got great neighbors now who I sold it to.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: So I'll make sure they're aware of that.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: They doubled the value immediately.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Now this is awesome, so um.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: So what's next for you in the next 12 to 18 months?
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: What are your big goals and ambitions?
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: okay, well there's, there's two or three things.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: So obviously, to build up a really good network, um here with you, um, I'm really interested in road cycling so I'm going to be getting involved in that a little bit more in the Kapiti area, so that's quite cool and doing a bit of networking, doing all those events.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: The other thing I'm going to do is I want to create some kind of platform for educational resources for the people that we work with that might be interested in investing or developing their financial capability.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Those are two big areas.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: You know I also manage my own investment portfolio, so I follow a lot of the, especially the Australian business news.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: So we could have like a weekly you know, share your investment, Absolutely.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Investment tips of the share market.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't call them tips, I would call them something else, because I don't want my colleagues losing money because of me.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: So we could say for educational purposes this is what I'm doing, and this is why I'm doing it and you know I make mistakes.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: you know, out of every 10 investments, you know you might have one or two that don't go very well.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: You might have four or five that go well and the others are pretty average.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: So I always share the bad ones as well.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: We'll call it James shares.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: How about that Okay?
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: That will be a fun spin on words.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: I think I've already shared one with you, haven't I?
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: So I'm watching that carefully to make sure it doesn't go down.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Well, not a good look, eh?
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: No, the boss, it was a bit early on really.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's okay, I'll forgive you for one slip only Now.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: James, thank you so much.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: It was awesome to have you on board.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: So we touched on your background, we touched on your goals, we touched slightly on your hobbies.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Do you want to tell us a little bit more about your family dynamics?
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I know we touched a little bit there, but do you want to tell us a little bit more?
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I've got a lovely wife.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: We've just had our 20th wedding anniversary.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, Congratulations.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: So we've survived 20 years, which has been quite exciting.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: I suppose you would say We've been in the same house for nearly 20 years.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: So I've got two awesome kids, hannah-marie and Cole.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: They're both doing really well.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: They're interested in canoe polo.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I did Hannah-Marie's baby photos.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Right, you did, that's right.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, I remember that.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: That was we're still living in that same.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: You still live in the same house, wow.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Hopefully we haven't done much to be fair, but we've done a little bit.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: So most of you know most of the things I do is about setting up my family, you know.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: So you know, even when I'm thinking about investing, it's like I'm investing this money so that we can, so the kids are going to be able to go and do canoe, polos, events overseas, or whatever Cole does, bagpipes.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: So, he does bagpipe competitions, which is quite unique.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: That's really cool, because I guess this is what I always ask my clients of what is your why?
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what is your why?
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: And it sounds like you have your solid why why you do what you do.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Okay, so my why is definitely with the investing.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: I love investing, so it's really easy to do it.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: But the idea of the investing is I want to generate funds for my family so they can do the things they want to do, and my dream is to.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: You know, because I love road cycling, I want to be able to travel to different places in the world and do really cool road cycling events, like, for example, there's a race called race to the sun in hawaii it goes up this big, big volcano, um.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: So I, that's, that's my idea of I hope you have life insurance.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, do we need to review that?
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: James, I do have life insurance actually um.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: When we were in japan recently, I rented a bike over there and I rode up in the snow up Mount Fuji which is pretty cool, so I just like doing things like that.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: You should look up some cycling in my country.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: That would be a cool trip.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Yep, go to Tajikistan.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Ride some mountains there because yeah, we have.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: We've got some pretty big ones.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've got amazing mountains, I think like one of the tallest.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: It's kind of weird that I like doing stuff like that, but it's just what.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: But I guess this sort of ties in with your investing because it's all about risk-taking.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: If you think about it in a psychological way, well, I'm into road cycling.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: I do road cycling, not mountain biking, and people think you're a little bit nuts, but there's something about being out there on the road.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: With people honking at you.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Get off the road.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: You've just got Lycra on.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: I'm probably a little bit heavy for my Lycra at the moment because you know just getting back into the cycling again, okay it doesn't look great.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Road cycling.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Pardon.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Road cycling, yeah, road cycling, although I go on gravel and stuff like that, but it's a great community you know, because you ride in with other people and you get to talk to them.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Can you talk while you're cycling?
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Absolutely no, yep, wow, you just nod your head.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: I don't always understand what they're saying.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: You just go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, just nothing different to your marriage.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Really, the funny thing is when people take their helmets and cycle gear off, you can't recognize them.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: You know it's really weird when you see somebody in person that's a cyclist.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Because it just takes a while to you know.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: To recognize where you know them from.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, this is exciting.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, so some big goals here, james.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Absolutely so and like it's pretty simple goals Family investing, cycling, and I include mortgage advice within the investing segment.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: So what I'm trying to do basically and I'll try and suggest other people do is try and do as much as you can every day the things that you love doing, because one of the things I learned is that when I went back to work in a normal organization this is not so much fun getting out of bed and going to a big bureaucracy-type place, whereas at the moment you know this is not.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: This is fun.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: You know you get out of bed and you're ready to go and you're looking forward to the next day.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: And you never know what the day brings Like.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: As you can see, you know we're dealing with all sorts right?
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: We?
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Next day, and you never know what the day brings Like.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: As you can see, you know we're dealing with all sorts, right?
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: We're dealing with first home buyers, we're dealing with a person buying their 15th property, or we're dealing with trusts and companies.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: We're dealing with separations.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: We're dealing with unfortunately, death sometimes as well.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different stuff we deal with.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes people don't realize how much we deal with and how much we take on and the complexities of the financial advice these days and how much we try to simplify it for them.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: I guess we have to be very adaptive of people's situations, don't we?
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: And empathetic, and I think that's what I can bring as well.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Totally, james.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: I'm absolutely delighted to have you as part of the team and can't wait to see what we can achieve together.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: And yeah, let's start our James Shears episodes Cool.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: All right, better start getting in that research over the weekend.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Start getting ready.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I'm really looking forward to it as well, zepany, so I think it's going to be awesome, and you've got a great team of people here, so it's going to be a lot of fun.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Yes, no, I definitely have no dickhead policy.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Did I just say that?
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Beep.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: This is a great policy to have, because there's nothing worse than one of them.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can take the fun out of it a little.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the fun out of it a little.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my vibe, my tribe, you know I'm I'm building a family vibe here where we might have some sibling rivalry but at the same time we all know that we love each other.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: There will be some banter, you know, but everyone is there to support each other at the end of the day, well, you've got to be able to argue a little bit, but not be sensitive about it.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: I think that's, you know.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's you know, yeah, I think that's really important.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: So let's do that.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: I mean I'll just do whatever I'm told.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've noticed that.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: But the rest of you can argue.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Whatever you decide, then I'll do that.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: The thing is, nobody really argues with me.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: No, they're scared of you.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: I think they just know, I know it, I know it better.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: It's like I'm the mom, I feel like I'm the mom in my team as well.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: We're the little ducklings, yeah, yeah.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: And then I see all the team members, they're arguing about something, and then I go in I'm like no, it's actually, this is what it is.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: And they go.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she knows.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of cool to watch, because for me to see where I've years ago being at ipu and then, um, never, ever in my life back then did I imagine that I will end up here today.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Um, and even with you joining my team.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: It's like so bizarre how, like 20 years later, you it is funny how things just fall into place because I've been looking for something like this for a very long time you know,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: what I mean, and and it just feels right yeah, it's like fate just um brings people together and has its own um ideas for people this is really cool now, james, thank you so much for coming today and um, yeah, let's get.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Let's get it started.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Awesome sounds cool.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you, bye, see ya.