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National Post – FP Money Saturday, January 8, 2005 |
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Financial Firming
By Dierdre McMurdy |
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Ayse Hogan, a personal financial coach, can whip you and
your money into shape.
Ayse Hogan does not mess around. She will sweep into
your home. She will examine every bank statement, every
credit card bill, every receipt in the dusty shoebox
under your bed.She will go through your closets and check out how many
pairs of Manolo Blahniks you have hidden there. |
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She will
take away your check book and freeze your credit card –
literally – in a lump of ice. She will even give you a
number at which you can always reach her – especially
when the temptation to make an unnecessary purchase is
overwhelming.
At a time when an increasing number of people are
seeking the guidance and support of personal trainers
for their physical fitness and life coaches for their
emotional workouts, Ms. Hogan is the latest entrant in
that market; a personal financial coach.
With over 20 years experience as a bookkeeper and a
strong streak of common sense, she is helping a growing
roster of clients to confront and correct their bad
financial habits.
“People only call me when things are close to a crisis
point, when they have been forced to acknowledge they
are in a bad place,” she says. “Like a physical trainer,
I can’t do the work for them. But I can help them set
clear targets, work steadily towards them, keep them
motivated.”
Growing demand for custom-tailored financial workouts
are on the rise, in part because more people are working
from home, filling small niches that larger corporations
have outsourced over the years.
“More people have the technology and the desire to work
at home. But they can quickly become overwhelmed by
things like GST payments and quarterly income tax
filings. It snowballs from there,” notes Briggette
Schoepfer, a bookkeeper in Calgary. “It’s always a
relief when people finally get a clear grip on where
they stand.”
Awareness of personal finance issues has also heightened
in the past two years because consumer debt is at record
high levels.
“I just love to buy shoes and clothes. When I got a
house and a car and that didn’t change. I got in trouble
juggling about 10 credit cards,” says Tricia Kincaid
(her name has been changed). “My banker ended up
literally cutting up my cards. I felt ashamed that I’d
got into such a mess, but I was also proud that I was
dealing with it.”
Although she says she didn’t listen to the financial
self-help tape her bank manager gave her, after three
years of steadily reducing that accumulated debt, she
will be free of it in August.
Kerry Blair, a Victoria based chartered accountant and
financial planner, says such impetus to take charge of a
messy financial situation is also at center-stage
because people feel the need to exert control in even a
small corner of their universe. “There are so many tings
we no longer control in a global era,” he notes. “ That
just makes it more urgent for people to get a grip on
the things that they can manage. And their personal
finances are often the first place they start.
He adds that every January, when resolutions are still
fresh, he is inundated with calls for help with
financial plans and advice. “It’s pretty much like the
drill at any health club,” notes Mr. Blair. “Memberships
go up at the first of the year. It’s easy to start a
program and feel that just by doing that you are making
progress. But the challenge is to follow through.”
That is where Ms. Hogan comes into the picture. Working
exclusively through references from Toronto accounting
firm Soberman LLP, she says her first priority is to get
a grip on the individual and their financial style and
goals.
“Most people have general goals when they first meet me
and my number one drill is to make the target very
specific. The more specific, the easier it is to
achieve,” she says. Ms. Hogan then starts organizing the
documents and scraps of paper that s man people have
stored in drawers, file folders and , yes, shoeboxes….. |
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