Financial Planning in the Hills in Baulkham Hills, New South Wales | Accountant

Financial Planning in the Hills

Locality: Baulkham Hills, New South Wales

Phone: +61 1300 302 753

Address: 1 Railway St 2153 Baulkham Hills, NSW, Australia

Website: http://www.fphills.com.au

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• Accountant
• Financial service
• Investing service
• Financial planner

25.01.2022 I have said it before, and it’s still the same story. Hire an amateur, and you get exactly what you pay for.

25.01.2022 We held our sixteenth annual client function this evening, at Cropley House in Baulkham Hills. Just on 130 people attended, and heard from investment manager John Murray, who espoused the benefits of long term investing. Yours truly also chimed in, with my observations on where we as an office have been, and where we are headed. We also found good homes for our growing family of penguins, and paid tribute to the firefighters who did such amazing things over summer.

24.01.2022 On the road again ... Hobart, via Launceston and Melbourne. 48 hours of talking ( so whats new, you ask )

24.01.2022 We live in interesting times. With everything that has happened in the last week, the last month, the last year ... we are still here and as determined as ever to be the source of trusted advice to our clients.... We have taken the decision to suspend face-to-face client meetings for the time being, until the health crisis passes. These meetings will still be done, but over the telephone ... with a few logistical twists and turns thrown in, just to keep things interesting. Whilst not quite business as normal it IS business-2020-style and we encourage all our clients to pick up the phone and ask questions, especially if recent events are playing on your mind. You can be assured that we will help you navigate this new world as best we can. We are not going anywhere, because we know and understand that you need us. Call us if you need answers.

23.01.2022 I got a present today. It made me smile, and it reduced me to tears. Its perfect.... Thank you

22.01.2022 Pure bloody insanity. 465 points in a day. Stupidity defies logic. The classic example when fear and ignorance takes over, and panic sets in. We are back to November 2018 levels.... Through it all, the same lessons remain. Use quality investments. Use appropriate time frames. Have back up emergency money. And above all ... Dont panic !

21.01.2022 A very special set of visitors dropped into our office today, for a look at our cricket caps. Battulga Gombo, President of the Mongolian Cricket Association, Oyutbold Baatar, Head of the Mongolian Cricket Association, and Rob Moran, Cricket NSW Ambassador to Mongolian Cricket.... Thank you for your visit, I hope that we meet again soon.

19.01.2022 At our client function earlier in the month, we had a small but heartfelt tribute to the wonderful efforts of the volunteer firefighters, who kept our country safe last summer. Six of our Financial Planning in the Hills family were on the front lines during this period, and another was stationed at the ambulance headquarters. And sadly, one of our extended FPH family made the ultimate sacrifice just before Christmas.... Thank you to all our RFS volunteers, and to the immediate family of Andrew ODwyer, our thoughts are with you. Our red candles burned in your memory all evening.

16.01.2022 Thank you one and all !

16.01.2022 Being COVID-safe, we have an ‘X’ to mark the spot ... strategically placed by Wyle-E-Coyote. Beep beep !

15.01.2022 Probably the most sensible article I have read, on a subject that I am already seeing as being extremely divisive.

15.01.2022 Notes from your financial planner ...

14.01.2022 I have always said financial planning is easy. Complicated, often written in quicksand, but when you understand it, its easy. And history is, after all, a very good guide. After all, its only money !

13.01.2022 It has taken 4,284 days. Eleven years, eight and a half months. The last time that the Australian All Ordinaries Index was this high, was 31 October 2007. And then the Global Financial Crisis started.... By 6 March 2009 the market fell by 54 % to 3,111 and investment strategies were generally in ruins. Today, the same Australian sharemarket touched 6,879 ... the highest point ever. It is likely to fall back from here, and climb up again. And probably, a number of times before it stays there. It is the reason why you invest for the long time, why your adviser uses only quality investments for the appropriate periods of time. Its the reason why I spent all of 2008 reminding clients to Dont Panic. Although the message has been lost by many in recent times, it remains just as relevant today. Use only quality appropriate investments over the long term. Put eggs in lots of baskets. Dont panic. So heres to touching a record sharemarket high today. I guess I told you so.

13.01.2022 Goodbye to a really good man. I have had the pleasure of looking after Warren for nearly fifteen years. Many times we have laughed, we have solved the worlds problems, met up and shared coffee and cake. I have watched as he moved through retirement, and into all sorts of adventures.... Rest easy, it was a life very well lived. See more

12.01.2022 My visit to the a Royal Flying Doctor Service Base in Broken Hill. Financial Planning in the Hills donates money every month to help keep this amazing organization in the air.

11.01.2022 The world has officially gone mad. The so-called money expert on the radio just made a statement that investing in LEGO is a better investment than stocks, cash or bonds. I kid you not. Seriously.... In the midst of one of the most dramatic financial / investment issues in living memory, we get that kind of shit on the radio from idiots who have no idea. Sadly, I have heard this woman on radio before, many times. I have wombats on my farm with more financial sense than this peanut. Bloody hell. After what I have gone through in the past two years just to provide legitimate financial advice, and thats the level of discussion on the radio. Fair dinkum. The lunatics are among us. You never have a sub-machine gun when you need one.

11.01.2022 At the going down of the sun, And in the morning, We will remember them. Lest we forget.

11.01.2022 The word for the latter part of 2019, and clearly into his new year, is PERSPECTIVE. In case anyone has been asleep for the past year-and-a-bit, the Australian sharemarket has piled on nearly 1200 points since wanna-be opposition treasurer Chris Bowen famously said if you dont like our policies, dont vote for us. The market opened this morning at just under 7200. Its down 100 because, apparently, a new virus named after a beer is going to kill us all. And ruin the econ...omy in the process. But markets work in mysterious ways, going up and on one belief and one belief alone ... will I or wont I make money in the future ? I wrote a few weeks ago, when it passed 7000 for the first time in history, that it wouldnt stay there ... yet. Now that its having its inevitable wobble, once again the media tells us the worlds going to end, and were all going to die. Get over yourselves. Its a sharemarket movement. They happen. Lets move on.

11.01.2022 A little bit of useful information.

11.01.2022 Far too many to mention ... It has been a really difficult nine months, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you all. Despite the turmoil, it has been an uplifting journey.

11.01.2022 You tend to hear and read a lot of really stupid stuff in my industry, the kind of comments that have you rolling your eyes in disbelief, and wondering who ties their shoelaces in the morning. Just now, one of the best. Volatility in sharemarket investments isn’t a new phenomenon. In fact, it is present every moment of every day in these markets, and has been since the dawn of time.... Volatility stretches right back to the days when a farmer brought his stock / produce to town, when he gathered under the towns’ market cross with the other traders. When the prices they got depended on a wide range of things, like availability, quality, weather, other sellers, perceptions, and so on, and so on. Volatility cannot possibly come roaring back, if it has never left the building. The only reason that this article was written, was because Chicken Little is at the controls again, and he doesn’t know what else to say. Volatility is, has and always will be a major characteristic of investment. To think otherwise, is just foolish, and ignorant. Chicken Little needs a new job.

11.01.2022 Speechless. Just tuned into a different radio station, to be told $ 30 billion was wiped off the sharemarket today, as the market fell just over 100 points. Yeh, the market went down today, we get it.... What you dont hear is that the market is still UP 1100 points since this time last year .. a staggering amount of around $ 330 billion .. after this dramatic fall today. Oh, the pain, the pain. Problem is, nobody cares, or understands, or could be bothered looking at the facts. The difference between long term investment, and short term speculative gambling. There are enough problems floating around, without this kind of idiotic commentary.

11.01.2022 Whilst I urge everybody to stay safe, its as close to business as usual here, working from home at the Medway office. Looks like I may have to put another staff member on the payroll, though !

11.01.2022 Yes folks, they walk among us. Beware. Once again, it’s the dumb and dumber investment class in session. And as the disruptive, difficult kid at the back of the class, I have a few questions.... Who are these some people you refer to ? Do they have any understanding of how the world works, or are they taking a really great theory and forgetting to actually analyze it. I don’t know a single person anywhere, who has made a living by buying gold ( different if you actually go out and discover gold ... but that’s not what we are taking about here ) So what interest rate, what dividend rate does gold pay ? How often does gold actually pay a dividend ? How do you decide the value of a chunk of gold, and what does it cost to buy and sell it ? And how easy is it to buy and sell anyway ( I guess the internet will tell me it’s easy ) Do you actually get the real gold, or do you just get a certificate saying you own it ? A lot of gold is pretty heavy, so how do I carry it around with me ? How do you pay for your groceries, your petrol, your bus fare if your only investment is gold ? Do you just whip out your gold bar, and nick off a few shavings to cover your dentist bill ? I’m pretty sure Toyota don’t yet have a facility to exchange gold for a car service. Anyway, I had better go, the dumb kid at the back of the class is getting THAT stare again from the teacher. Must be wonderful to be the smartest kid in the room.

09.01.2022 Fresh eggs Our chickens have been very busy, and we will have six dozen eggs for sale at the Baulkham Hills office tomorrow. Six dollars a dozen.... First in gets the goods !

09.01.2022 With all the turmoil of the last few weeks, the FASEA exam that I sat last September has faded into the background. You remember the one, they didnt know if I was a boy or a girl, but if I failed the exam and didnt get a pass by the end of next year, I couldnt be a financial planner any more. Well, I found out today that I passed.... Just for the record, it was pass or fail, thats all. Thank you to all those who had enough faith in me, to ask why i was ever worried.

09.01.2022 Road trip diary ... day nine Well, that was a day with a difference. I received a text message during breakfast, asking if I was ok, which is not quite what you expect when eating Vegemite on toast.... Greater Brisbane had just been put into a three day lockdown, meaning my plans were rapidly changing. No Tuesday morning flight to Cairns, no overnight stay. If I stayed in Brisbane, I was stuck for three days, at least. I changed reservations to the GoldCoast, cancelled Cairns and checked out of Brisbane, heading north to pre-arranged clients on the Sunshine Coast. I left there at 8pm, and arrived here three hours later, booked in now for four days. What happens next is in the lap of the gods, and the whims of a politician who ( according to reports ) had a sleepless night before shutting her capital city four days before Easter. Listening to the radio this morning on the way up to the Sunshine Coast, and tonight on the way home, the first reaction is disbelief. Long awaited holidays are already being cancelled in the hundreds, travel plans destroyed, small businesses who had hung survival hopes on a good Easter full of patrons, are now counting a cost estimated at over fifty million dollars. I’ll survive, life could be a lot worse than what I have been dealt. But geez, for an awful lot of people, it really sounds like the straw that may break the camels back.

09.01.2022 From all of us, to all of you, thank you for everything during 2019. May you enjoy a very merry Christmas.

09.01.2022 Yes folks, they walk among us. Beware. Once again, its the dumb and dumber investment class in session. And as the disruptive, difficult kid at the back of the class, I have a few questions.... Who are these some people you refer to ? Do they have any understanding of how the world works, or are they taking a really great theory and forgetting to actually analyze it. I dont know a single person anywhere, who has made a living by buying gold ( different if you actually go out and discover gold ... but thats not what we are taking about here ) So what interest rate, what dividend rate does gold pay ? How often does gold actually pay a dividend ? How do you decide the value of a chunk of gold, and what does it cost to buy and sell it ? And how easy is it to buy and sell anyway ( I guess the internet will tell me its easy ) Do you actually get the real gold, or do you just get a certificate saying you own it ? A lot of gold is pretty heavy, so how do I carry it around with me ? How do you pay for your groceries, your petrol, your bus fare if your only investment is gold ? Do you just whip out your gold bar, and nick off a few shavings to cover your dentist bill ? Im pretty sure Toyota dont yet have a facility to exchange gold for a car service. Anyway, I had better go, the dumb kid at the back of the class is getting THAT stare again from the teacher. Must be wonderful to be the smartest kid in the room.

08.01.2022 The Financial Planning in the Hills family is incredibly diverse, and full of remarkable people. I often rejoice in watching their adventures far and wide, and the stories behind them. And this one really had me going oh wow, and I just had to share ( and in doing so, taking NO credit whatsoever ) London is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Beatles legendary Abbey Road album, and the iconic photograph.... The photograph on the crosswalk has been recreated today, as millions of people have done before, as part of the celebrations. The gentleman being Ringo in the photograph ( second from right, in case you dont remember ) is not only an accomplished drummer in his own right, but is one of our clients, and was flown to London for the event ( we were due to review their stuff next week, but the review was postponed because of the trip ) Six degrees of separation, I now have a connection directly back to the legend of the Beatles. And that is very cool indeed.

08.01.2022 Driving home from clients, and once again the ABC Radio is putting its own particular brand of lunacy on their recap of the sharemarket today. The Australian sharemarket plummeted. Worst day, apparently, since December. Billions wiped off investments.... So I headed for the app to have a look. Its down 135 points, less than two percent. A bit like plummeting from the bottom step of the escalator really, but who am I judge. Person trips on bottom stair of escalator isnt really a great headline to lead a news bulletin with. I am sure I dont need to remind anyone that the very same sharemarket hit a record high only a week ago. A complete, NEW height for the All Ordinaries Index. That was good news. Didnt hear about how many billions were added to the markets since the previous record high twelve years ago, but thats ok. Good news never sells newspapers. And yeh, I did suggest back after the election in May when the market was 6400 that this new mark would happen ... a record high relatively soon, followed by a fall, then another high, another fall, and so on, and so on. Probably 7000 by Christmas, and it will fall again, and hit 7000 again, and fall again ... pretty much the same pattern until it decides its safe to stay above 7000 permanently, probably in a year or so. Maybe longer. Will probably hit 7500 too, but it wont stay there. Yet. And yeh, the markets fell the last couple of days, but they are STILL five percent higher than the day before the election, and ten percent higher than the beginning of the year. So thanks once again, ABC Radio, for proving that you know absolutely nothing about investment markets, and that as long as you get your cheap headline, nothing else really matters.

08.01.2022 The best reason yet, why you dont listen to the money experts of the media, when it comes to anything at all about finances. Last week we heard the insane opinion that buying LEGO was a better investment than cash, stocks or bonds ( yes, really ). Today, the MoneySaver section of the newspaper has two stories on the one page, discussing the Governments draw-from-your-super scheme, in response to the Coronavirus issues.... Article one, on the left, says dont. Article two, on the right, directly contradicts article one by saying its no big deal. Now, I am the first to agree that both are right. But it depends. Both are wrong, as well. You see, it depends on the individual circumstances of the person, and a whole range of things. My advice, stop listening to the experts. Talk to your financial advisor, the one who has been guiding you for years, the one who knows your individual circumstances and can explain the reasons in plain English. There are enough problems at the moment, without trying to be guided by numpties who have no idea.

07.01.2022 In many ways it has been a tough few weeks, and in the midst of it, we received word that one of our much-loved clients was indeed stricken with the CoronaVirus. In and out of hospital, chest xrays, bloods, covid virus swabbing and MRI for suspected blood clots . . . and today I received the news that they are back home and recovering, and that all is clear. A little good news.... Wishing you a speedy recovery, and many more years of having to listen to me babble on. Ill look forward to catching up as soon as the travel restrictions are lifted. See more

06.01.2022 I think back in June, not long after the Federal election result, I said that the Australian sharemarket would hit a record high before the end of the year, and probably 7000. I also said it wouldnt stay there, not right away, but bounce around for probably twelve months or more before 7000 became an acceptable level. Its history now that we hit a record high last July, before falling, and hitting another only a few weeks ago.... Today we passed 7000 for the very first time in history. Dont get excited, it wont stay there ... yet. But its a good reference point. Just another milestone in the life of long term investments. Quality investments remain quality investments, but only if you are prepared to tolerate the downside as well as the upside. So heres to long term investing, and the advice and strategies that make it possible.

05.01.2022 Oops. He used a private investment company. Maybe he should have talked to a professional.

05.01.2022 You know you have something special when the people who are associated with your office, do extraordinary things. With fires raging all around New South Wales at present, no less than five of my clients ( and yes, my darling Hannah IS a client too ), have been out helping, as part of volunteer bush fire brigades. Thank you from all of us, for an outstanding job in a time of great danger. Sara McMillen, as part of her local Berrima brigade... Robert Thompson, as part of his local Empire Bay brigade Willem Neggers, who has manned the radios because an injury has prevented him joining the front line with his Shoalhaven brigade Michael Gilkes, as part of his local Colo Vale brigade Hannah Hawkins, as part of her local Berrima brigade. See more

05.01.2022 After you celebrate 26 years in the industry, there are very few experiences that you can call ‘a first’. Today however, I managed a first for my business ... it’s the first time ever, I have conducted a client interview, dressed in a Cold Chisel tour T-shirt. With a bottle of Drambuie left on the table to remind us of Chisel legend Jimmy Barnes’ Scottish heritage, I was very tempted to belt out the interview in typical Barnes fashion.... SO LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR SUPER ... YOUR RETIREMENT PLANS ARE ON TRACK .... YEH, OH YEH ... Maybe I could start a theme here ... book your next interview in the theme of your favourite rock band !

03.01.2022 After a very successful first day of induction training, we are off to dinner. Having the whole Melbourne experience.

02.01.2022 How can you not love your job, when you get to visit lovely people who live in some really beautiful parts of Australia.

02.01.2022 Just a reminder ... COVID-19 tests are free. If you are contacted by telephone saying that you may have been in contact with someone with the virus, beware. If you are being asked to get tested, please get tested.... BUT ... if you are asked to provide your address, or credit card details ( to maybe have a test kit posted out ), hang up. This is, without question, a scam. Please, do not under any circumstances give over personal details. COVID-19 testing stations are popping up wherever they are needed, and are NOT being done by post, and certainly not with a credit card payment.

01.01.2022 This one brings a tear to my eye. Maree passed away twelve months ago, but her wonderful legacy lives on. When people ask why I continue to do this job, in the face of such wholesale criticism of my industry ( dont get me started, 90 % of of was both valid and warranted ). This is why. People like this.... People who trust me, and my office, to build their financial futures and make them secure no matter what may happen. And to be right there beside them, when the shit hits the fan. The last eighteen months have been incredibly difficult, but we survived. The word of the year for 2019 is perspective, because although it has been unbelievably challenging to just do the simple day-today mechanics of financial planning, I know a lot of people are facing futures far more uncertain than ours ever was. We are not going away. We are not giving up. Its quite simply not my style to quit. We want to continue to be the financial planning office that you can rely on. We want you to be proud of your association with us, and know that when you need us, we are there. I have the best job in the world. Merry Christmas to you all. ( and Maree, may you continue to Rest In Peace ... you deserve the very best )

01.01.2022 We are about to enter a whole new era with work, as we plunge headlong into our new license with Capstone Financial Planning. At the half way point of our induction process in Melbourne, I have been able to take my amazing staff out to dinner. To eat, to laugh, to celebrate survival of a very difficult year, to at last look forward with confidence to the next year and beyond. I am fortunate to have an office filled with the most wonderful people ... my staff, my support crew, my clients and most definitely my wonderful family. The new world has begun ( and for the record, dinner was seriously delicious, and geez we had a good time )

01.01.2022 We have had a wonderful week learning to become a new office, having now completed our license transition from where we were, to Capstone Financial Planning. We are still Financial Planning in the Hills, we have the same wonderful staff, the same commitment to excellent financial advice and the same office location. It has been a fabulous week, in so many ways. The new world is here.