Annette’s story

A misunderstanding a lot of people have about what I teach is that it’s about stock picking and crypto. So someone like Annette, who had dabbled in trading stocks and lost money in the past, is the kind of person who comes to investing with a different set of doubts than my more common client who is just full stop too worried about risk to make a move. 

One of those doubts was the worry that I would try and sell her financial products. 

I was 100% gung-ho because there are a lot of gaps in my financial knowledge, then I wavered because of the fear of someone wanting to sell me a financial product, but I went ahead anyway and I’m SO GLAD I did. She isn’t selling anything, it really is an educational course and I feel like I have filled many of those gaps and have a much more solid plan in place.

Once that was out of the way, we were sailing through the peaceful fields of passive, low-risk investing. Annette was learning what some of the platforms and accounts she already had open could be used for instead of, basically, gambling. This is a kind of unlearning compared with my more typical client who has very little experience of investing. But it fits Annette because she’s a person who takes big, bold steps in business, like opening her own ELT content creation agency and a children’s book publisher. 

Sometimes the more entrepreneurial a person is, the more likely they are to be drawn to the riskier side of investing. But in business, risk-taking can pay off. In investing, there’s just no need to do anything other than play it safe and wait as the wins will come over time.

In actual fact, Annette’s investing background was one I could relate to because I too have a bit of a chequered past with “investing.” 

When I lived in Turkey, I was basically day trading Turkish stocks through my broker account. Though I couldn’t have told you any of those terms as I didn’t know what a broker or day trading, or even trading, were. As happens to most traders, it all went great until it didn’t when, suddenly, my Turkish football team stocks tanked and never recovered. I didn’t touch my finances for over 15 years because of it, wasting so much time that I could have spent safely growing my money. 

Anyhoo … back to Annette and her stellar progress from rogue trader to reliable earner.

What Annette did after the course

Once she finished the course, Annette set about putting foundations in place like an emergency fund that could be instantly available but still earn high interest. And she establishd a regular saving habit so she could still spend money but have structure to fall back on.

Instead of being scattered, she brought order to her finances and felt proud of herself. One such old account had money just sitting there earning 0.4% (basically nothing as $1000 would earn $20 in 5 years) and she wasn’t adding to it with savings. 

Taking [the chilled investor] course made me care about the numbers. Nicola had us investigate rates and NOW I add a little something to the account every month and earn the bonus variable rate. That’s a LOT OF FREE MONEY!

Just that change will earn her thousands of dollars in pure interest-driven profit. But hardly anyone stops there as their new knowledge is bursting to be put into use. 

So, she also

• started setting money aside into an interest-earning account before tax time so it’s ready to pay the bill and has made profit during that time. 
• worked out which of her old platforms were useful and started using them properly.
• perhaps, most importantly now feels as positive and in control about money as she does about business.

I am now far more confident that I can actually do this investing thing and manage my own money. 

The No-Stress Money Plan tends to have this trickle down effect on people’s general finances because, once you see the value in having money where it can grow, you see the point of saving and managing spending. 

But, if focusing on the money management side of it is where you want to start (or even if you want to hone it AFTER learning about investing), I have a course just for that too, Smart Money.