By Dionne Lee
My interest in money and financial independence was sparked by playing a board game when I was 12 years old! What caught my attention was how I could create more income passively than by working a job and trading my time for dollars.
Then, when I finished high school, I fell into a financial services traineeship working for a credit union. I quickly learned about different products such as term deposit investments, how home and investment property loans were approved, and the basics of money management from my manager at the time — and I was only 17 years old!
By the age of 20, I took a significant step forward in my financial journey by acquiring my first investment property, and then quickly expanded my portfolio with the acquisition of a second and then a third property within the following two years. This is really what marked the commencement of my endeavour into the realm of real estate-driven passive income, and the purchase of many properties over the coming years.
Fast forward to my late 30’s – three children, many properties and two successful businesses in mortgage broking and financial coaching. Like a lot of people, at that time I went through a divorce, gave up most of the assets to keep life amicable for my children, and ended up back at stage one starting again trying to get back into the property market. Having gone through this experience myself, I was then realising how many other women were at that same starting point (including girl friends of mine), but a large proportion of them didn’t have the financial experience I had acquired over the previous two decades, and they had no idea where to start of what they should do first. This was where A Woman Inspired began.
Although I had been coaching my existing clients (male and female) to help them build investment property portfolios with the smarter lending structures and passive income, I had never tailored it to women as such. This is where my passion kicked in, and full financial literacy and coaching began.
Today, I help ordinary everyday women learn for themselves the tools I have learned since I began my financial career and personal financial journey at 17 years of age.
I encourage, and allow women the space to dream and think much bigger about how they want their life to be. Once I know their desired lifestyle and financial destination, I can then work from their end goal backwards, to where they are beginning from today. I start with educating my clients on the basics of budgeting, money management, money mindset, passive income, property types and investment types, to then calculating the numbers on each of these to understand if each particular investment they will consider will give them the highest and best use of their time and money – before they jump in. From there I build their income producing assets to give them enough passive income, and become debt free, to then set themselves up for a financially stress-free life. It is all about arming women with financial knowledge and financial literacy to ensure they understand exactly what they are investing in and not just believing what the different professionals tell them.
Part of that literacy is not just in terms of thinking bigger and calculating numbers, but understanding what questions to ask and what stipulations they need to give the professionals assisting them. Remember – a professional may have the qualification to advise, but not necessarily the personal experience to really give that crucial part that makes all of the difference sometimes.
For example, everyone should have their lender structure their lending the smarter way that benefits the consumer. The loan product, the interest rate type, and how the lender ties the client to them when there are multiple properties involved is all so important to understand when borrowing money. Unfortunately for the consumer, the banks are there to make money for their shareholders, and don’t necessarily train their staff to help a client structure their lending in the best way for each individual client. The banks may be very helpful in approving the clients’ loans application, but unless the client knows to state how they want their lending structured, the loan may be structured in the best interest of the lender, and the client would be none the wiser. Structuring your lending the smarter way, can save a client thousands of dollars of interest without paying any extra off the loan itself.
When borrowing money, it is not all about the interest rate and fees, although the majority of the population only compare these two aspects of the loan!
Just imagine having your own home but paying out that mortgage in half the time or sooner just by having that financial literacy. The savings in interest alone could be the equivalent of buying another property. We are talking about potentially some really large numbers here for the normal single woman. It is just understanding that you don’t know what you don’t know and being prepared to learn!
Most of my female clients come to me because they need someone they can trust, and have been referred by another one of my clients who is already fully or part way through the financial literacy process. They need someone who is walking the walk and talking the talk from their own personal experience. Someone that is out there doing it themselves and being completely transparent telling and showing them exactly what they do themselves and why.
Money and a person’s financial position is not one widely spoken about because it is a private and sometimes an uncomfortable topic to talk about. It doesn’t need to be an uncomfortable topic – it is just one that many people don’t have enough knowledge, literacy and understanding about. Money is simple to understand when you think about it logically; and with the correct guidance and education around it, your understanding and confidence can exceed well past your own expectations.
I know my job is done when I see my clients understand what I am teaching them. I see the excitement in them when they start to reap the rewards, achieve their goals and begin teaching and educating their own children and friends to have the life we all deserve.
Queensland Broker of The Year Dionne Lee, Financial Coach and CEO of A Woman Inspired
