Living the Kiwi dream: from single income to securing financial freedom

How Jess & Cory achieved financial freedom as a single income household

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Clients: Jess & Cory**
Time with MyFuture: 6 years
Average Net Position* Gain (per year with MyFuture): $37,108

*this figure does NOT include their home as an asset, but includes their home mortgage as debt

**the names have been changed to protect privacy

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Meet Jess & Cory, who have been working with MyFuture for the past 7 years.

Jess and Cory’s original goal was to live in a freehold property with some form of income other than NZ Super, KiwiSaver and their savings in order to sustain their current $136,000 per annum lifestyle into retirement. They had a nice amount of time (35 years) to achieve this goal but along the way they also wanted to build a “smart home” which they expected would cost at least $1 million.

Since debt management and wealth creation are two sides of the same coin, we developed a financial plan for them which had their existing mortgage paid off in 5 years (instead of their projected 9 years) which meant they could start investing even earlier for their longer term goals.

One of Cory and Jess’s challenges though was that they were essentially a single income household. Jess was at home raising their two young children which was important to them as a family but meant they didn’t have a huge amount of surplus cash to help achieve their financial goals. The key to their financial success was making sure they were on the most efficient structure for their home mortgage so they were able to minimize interest costs and reduce the term of the loan as much as possible, while finding them suitable investments which did not require a huge amount of their surplus cash to maintain.

As we find with most clients, Jess and Cory’s goals changed once they started to realize their wealth creation potential.  Interestingly, even though they had the potential to create over $10 million in income producing assets over their 35 year wealth creation phase (which would have required them both working full time), they actually needed a lot less than this in order to maintain their existing lifestyle into retirement. Knowing this, Jess and Cory made the conscious decision not to pursue wealth creation and instead chose to focus on enjoying their lifestyle now, with their young children.

In practice, this meant that after securing the investment assets they needed to achieve their retirement income goals, they quit the rat race, sold their home and moved to a beachside community where they are now both focused on building a career around their personal interests but have the freedom to actually enjoy their time with their children. They really are living the dream!

Jess & Cory continue to benefit from our ongoing support and guidance as their trusted advisers today and should their situation change again, we’re here with them every step of the way.