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I believe that my job as a financial advisor is to give relevant and holistic cover. You can't give holistic cover if you're not including spouses along the way.

Very often, I find that I get to meet a client - the husband or wife who is the primary breadwinner – and the other spouse is sitting at home. They are the one who looks after the children and running the home. They are organising the holidays. They're the ones that actually know more about the day-to-day side of things and not just the finance side of things.

So, I do prefer meeting with clients with the wife and the husband; going through everything together so that both parties understand what are the pitfalls, what are the problems that the financial needs and what's the financial abilities on the client and so on. Because at the end of the day that's just as important.

Then of course the children. When the child starts getting to 16 to 18 years old, giving them a bank account from Discovery Bank, getting them involved in understanding how Discovery works. Are the utilising the Vitality through their parents medical aid or their parents Life policy. Because that is a future client for me. That's somebody that I'm going to be able to chat to in the future and grow with them as individuals.

I know at school we weren't taught these things...we didn't understand them. We got out into the real world and so being able to teach a youngster these things really is very important.

From an investment point of view, I really like to use endowments. I start this when a client has a new baby, we start with the first endowment. Then every year we open a new endowment going forward. Whether its R850 or R1000, whatever the client can afford, at the end of every 5th year one endowment will be paying out. So the first will pay for their Grade R, the next will pay for their Grade 1 and so on. Building up all these little endowments help my clients to pay for school fees.

And then yes, the Global Education Protector. In case something does happen like a death or a sever disability, you have the security that your childrens’ schooling is 100% paid for.

You’re leaving that peace of mind. That your child’s full schooling and great education is covered and they will never have to worry about it right into tertiary education. So that to me is very important to financially plan investment wise and risk wise should something go wrong.

When I sit with clients and ask them what do you do, what do you earn and so on; this is all very important. But I also ask: How are your parents doing? Are your parents self-sufficient? Do do they have wealth? Some will say, my father works, but my mother doesn't work -she sits at home. If your father passes away tomorrow; does he have enough Life insurance or investments that he's going to be able to support your Mother going forward? Or is that going to fall on you?

And if it’s going to fall on you, how does that impact your lifestyle? Your children's last style going forward? So possibly planning a risk event taking and saying, let’s take out a Life Policy for your father, so that if he does pass away, that money will come to you and you can utilise that to maintain your mother's lifestyle without affecting your own lifestyle.

So it’s all about bringing that type of information into consideration and very often it's a matter of the breadwinner might not be the one who has the problem but it’s the spouse sitting at home who is worrying about their parents. So that's why you need to see both to help them understand the dynamics of the family as a whole. Do you have a disabled brother or disabled sister? And maybe if your parents pass away, that disabled person is going to become your financial worry.

How can we look for solutions beforehand. So that’s why I focus on cover that is holistic and relevant to the whole family. It's not just looking at one person sitting in a room and saying I'm going to give you this and walking out.

~ Gary Farinha - 1.618 Financial Advisor ~

Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/RrYRB0Umqtc