My Financial Game Plan for 2025

episode of Sugar Mama's Fireplay. Today, I am really excited to share with you the game plan, the strategy, how I'm going to be managing my money, my income, my cash flow, and hopefully ticking off all the goals that I have set down for two thousand and twenty five. Now, before I begin, a quick reminder as to my general advice warning and my financial planning license details.

Can I know the warning, I understand it, But I can't afford a financial planner right now, or I don't want to see a financial planner right now? Can I remind you as to my book Mindful Money. In Mindful Money, I explain absolutely everything you need to know and understand about setting yourself up for financial independence, from managing your cash flow to picking the right superannuation account, from building your investment portfolio of whatever assets.

one here really judges each other. We're here to hold each other's hand, pull each other up if we're down, and of course keep cheering all the way as we go from strength to strength, even when it comes to pushing through those setbacks and challenges. Now, the reason why I want to share with you my game plan is to help you realize how important it is for you to have your own game plan for your own goals. Of course financial goals, but also all those other goals.

As I said previously, if you have goals without a plan, there's just simply as a wish floating around not really actually doing things. By having a game plan, you start setting down a strategy, and these are the key benefits. And for me, when I look at my game plan, it helps ensure that these goals are achieved. So for me, having a game plan is really important. I think you'll get a lot of value yourself from doing your own

game plan for your goals. I know myself when I have done a game plan and I've folded it to the best of my ability, even if I do fall short at the end of the year, I know that I will still feel proud about how hard I've worked, the effort that I put in, the determination, the commitment, and the passion that I have gained along the way

from my own personal growth and development. So here are some additional benefits for you to think about when you design your own game plan for your financial strategy of course your own personal growth throughout twenty twenty five.

with me. Number One, having a game plan stops you from wasting time. When I look at my game plan, I can see that there is a lot to be done. I've got a busy twenty twenty five, and the longer I wait, the longer I delay stuff around, I'm just going to end up adding more stress and pressure to my shoulders, which I don't really need or want any more. So why would I want to make life so much harder for myself? This is the value of having a

game plan. The second benefit of having a game plan is it allows me to allocate my time and see the priorities. When I look at my goals and I look at the strategy for each goal to help make sure that it's going to happen, I can actually see with a great sense of clarity as to what I need to tackle first and also what is the smartest

thing to actually tackle first. Whilst I would love to jump in and focus purely on renovating our kitchen, I know that it is far more efficient and more important to actually focus on building up our financial float and some of our emergency money funds. So having game plan really helps give you that bird's eye view on your own financial situation and what really needs to be fixed as a pressing priority, and you know to put that

at the top of your list as a priority. So it allows you to allocate your time and also you can use as a motivation to push through those responsible goals that you can quickly then move on to those fun goals like holidays and special purchases. Number three, game plan will curb your distractions.

to fall apart. And when I open up a cuver door, suddenly that point of comparison helps dissipate those sort of instant gratification, almost materialistic desires, and it recalibrates my sense of focus and what is important and what is the bigger picture here for twenty twenty five. So that is a really great value of having your own game plan.

goals is to renovate our kitchen. Now, I know that if a special sale comes up, for example, appliances, and I'm able to buy the dishwasher and the cook top and the fridge, all those things come up with an amazing sale, it would be sensible to capitalize on those opportunities. And I've given myself permission to have some flexibility there now.

By having this game plan and having that flexibility, because I've agreed with myself that there will be some give and take and some allowed tweaks and changes along the way, I know that I can safely jump on those opportunities to actually help save money and jump on some great bargains, but I know the moment I've ticked that box and made the most of those opportunities, I can then return back with clarity direction as to which goal is next,

which is my case, returning back to those emergencies, save if I haven't built them up sufficiently yet or not. So that flexibility can allow you to safely deviate if you like, but then it directs you straight back to what you need to focus on as a priority. And number five peace of mind. Having a financial game plan is like having instructions cooking instructions. You see, my game plan has been really carefully mapped out. I have not

rushed this at all. I have written it down, I've reviewed, I've changed it, I've reviewed it again, I've adjusted it, I've reviewed it again. I've then expanded it, I've reviewed it again. I've then tweaked and changed it, and then

I've reviewed it and then I've improved it. So by having these really clear instructions and this list of priorities and this understanding of time and deadlines, I have this incredible sense of purpose and a direction to follow that's going to help me, to the best of my ability achieve those goals. And I know that I'm not going

to be wayting time. And what this has given me is a great sense of confidence and empowerment, and I actually feel really excited about achieving these goals and following these instructions. As I said, it's like cooking instructions being given a new dish to try that's a little bit out of our skill set, a little bit complicated, but then the instructions are clearly detailed in front of us with steps. Having a game plan is exactly the same thing.

It gives you instructions to follow, and particularly the beginning of the year or throughout the year, when there are natural setbacks and challenges, coming back to those instructions can really help boost your confidence and actually allow you to see that you might quite possibly be able to do this, that is, achieve all of those goals and dreams that you set for yourself. This is the power of a game plan. All right, now you understand why you need to have a game plan, and you now feel excited

about working on your game plan. Let me share with you my game plan to achieve my goals, because I'm sure some of you will have very similar goals to me, and maybe some of the ideas.

all the ongoing expenses that come with school holidays. So I now know what I need to do, and my game plan to rebuild those is to go back to our budget and look at tweaks and changes that we can make to help shift more money as a priority

into our financial float. And just so you understand, if you've done my budgeting and cash flow course, a financial floats is designed to help prepare for all those ad hoc expenses like birthday presents, Valentine Day, any sort of religious festivities that you choose to celebrate such as Christmas, and it's for all those kind of irregular bills that

kind of throw us off guard. Like you know, when the retro comes through, all the car insurance, the CTP, that's what that financial float is designed to help you get through. So I need to go back to the budget, which I've already done, make some tweaks and changes, and I'm also going to be including one month the weekend where we have a no spend weekend, so it can really help us boost additional money that can be shifted across in rebuilding that float and of course rebuilding our

emergency money. The second goal that I have shared with you is our goal to have a holiday, a family holiday skiing in Queenstown, New Zealand. Now I'm excited to share with you. Already in the process of doing this, so we're booking all of our flights on Frequent Flyer points.

We are also issues a little bit controversial, but we're going to be pulling the kids out of school now by traveling outside of school holidays, the cost of accommodation and the amount of points that we need to book those flights is significantly cheaper, like twenty percent up to thirty percent cheaper. I'm also going to be looking at buying package deals, especially when it comes to our lift passes and skier gear rental. There are some great offers

going at the moment. I'm going to make sure I lock those in before those prices start to adjust and change as we get closer. So the key points are obviously using frequent fly points. Tom and I pretty much fly religiously with one particular airline that we both love, and we both cross share our points to help maximize

booking as many tickets as possible for free. And because Tom flies so much at work, he's got a great status with one of the airlines, which means it gets the opportunity to book flights with less stress less drama. It also means we potentially get upgrades along the way. But the most important point that I also want to share here with you is a holiday savings I always recommend that everyone have a lifestyle goal account, and this is something I go into detail and explain who the

Sugar Mamma Budget and cash Flow Academy. So this is a separate online savings account that you contribute to every time you get paid, In fact, the moment you get paid.

there is sufficient money. They're ready to go. And it means that you have not only money paid for the accommodation and the airfare and all those spending money things like food and activities entertainment whilst on holidays, it means that you then come home without the stress and drama and guilt and embarrassment and shame of having debt. I have never gone on a holiday and come back to debt.

It would actually ruin all the benefits and blessings and pleasure that comes from traveling and taking yourself away from groundhole day. So we be using those approaches to make sure our holiday is booked in, it's paid for upfront, and we come home with absolutely no debt whatsoever. And

again this is a non negotiable. And anyone's interested in doing the Sugar Mamma Budget and cash Flow Academy, which does include a one on one session of me, I've popped the enrollment details in the podcast notes for you. Goal number three and that is renovating our kitchen. Now I'm going to share something with you, and I do have a bit of an I guess an unfair advantage

you could save from this particular goal. But one of my goals from last year was actually to save up money for this goal, and we got so close to achieving this goal by regular savings, Tom and I both taking on additional ad hoc work to help boost the funds that went into this savings account. But something really frustrating happened at the end of twenty twenty four. Kitchen

renovation savings took a massive nose dive. We had some unexpected expenses that were not our fault, completely out of our hands, and we weren't told about them, and literally got sent a huge bill with ten days to quickly pay it. And it was a small business behind this that had actually helped us, and we just went, Okay, it's Christmas time, everyone's suffering with cash show, we need

to make sure we paid this as a priority. So as heartbreaking as it was and frustrating it was, we just took the money out of our kitchen innovation funds and paid it. It was a bitter taste in my mouth. I won't lie, but I share this with you to let you see that I am human just like you. This was so disappointing. I was so upset and disheartened because it did come out of the blue and there was nothing we could do about it. And it's just part of life's rich tapestry. You know, nothing is ever

smooth sailing onward and upwards. It's top twitsts and turns backwards then you might leapfrog again. So anyway, we had a bit of a we have a bit of an advantage, you could say, because we are returning back to the remaining savings that are still in that account, even though they've obviously been eaten away substantially, And we're already hitting the ground running with taking on some extra work that Tom and I both can do as we juggle family and friends and some sort of sense of normalcy and

balance in life. So we are slowly and steadily building this up, and we plan to hopefully be able to have enough money by July so that we can get the whole kitchen paid for upfront without taking on any debt. Now, I know some people were thinking, why wouldn't you just like redraw off your home loan, like, there's surely extra money sitting in your redrawer facility. Well, no, I know a lot. It's really tempting to do that, and trust me across my mind plenty of times, but our home

is non deductible debt. The more I can focus on paying the home down by also taking a mindful flow around money and making sure that we add value to the home and increase the equity in our home by a new kitchen will hopefully add value to the price of the home.

at least mortgage free. So that's a really strict boundary that I've set in place, and that one is certainly definitely not flexible. I'm saving up for this kitchen and nothing is going to stop me. And hopefully I have no more setbacks along my way. But here you can see, hopefully how normal I am, just like you in working on your goals. I have setbacks, I have things that just happen, and I feel the same frustration that you feel when these things do happen to you, as they

do to everyone else. No one is immune from this goal number four and this is the big one again to remind you of that. You know advice of going to see a financial planner, and this is not a strategy I recommend for everyone. It's a higher strategy and that is my goal to invest one hundred thousand dollars into the thousand dollar project portfolio. Now, the way I'm

going to be doing this is by debt recycling. That is, taking out a separate investment loan secured against our family home to go and buy more shares for the thousand dollars project. Now, as I said, this is a high risk investment strategy. It is powerful though for the right people that use it at the right time and for

the right reasons. I would only ever recommend someone do this after seeing a mortgage broker that can specialize in this area that has a huge amount of experience in setting this up the right way the first time and under the guidance of a quality financial planner that actually

specializes in wealth creation strategies like this. And if you need a recommendation to either a good mortage broker or for a good financial planner that does this, send me an email or sorry, send me a pre dm is what's best on Instagram and I will happily pass some contacts over to you for you to have a chat with them and get some personal advice. But this is my game plan as to how I'm doing it to

help manage it in a smart, intelligent, wise way. So the first thing is I'm actually going to leave this towards the end of the year. I have a lot of goals to achieve. My number one priority is rebuilding our float, rebuilding our emergency money, obviously, going on that family holiday which will ideally do as frugally as possible, and of course retivating our kitchen. So I really want to get those things ticked off first. I will then come back and see what the cash flow is actually

looking like after we've done the kitchen. Now, assuming I am able to save up enough money by July to do our kitchen. All that money that I was then saving up and redirecting towards the kitchen or even the emergency money, can now go towards building up some savings. Because what I plan to do again, this is not personal advice whatsoever or strategic advice. I want to do

this in a really sensible way. So when it comes to applying for this investment loan, hopefully seeing the kitchen being renovated, and we do a bank valuation, hopefully the value of our home will be higher because they can see there's a brand new, shiny kitchen and some few other things we've done around the house to help.

I will be using this one hundred thousand dollars to add value to the thousand dollars share portfolio, which is a three hundred dollars diversified investment portfolio. So by adding another one hundred thousand dollars, I'll make sure that I'm going to include new investments in this share portfolio, which is going to add the diversification, which means it helps

reduce my investment risk. I'm also going to make sure that this investment loan that I'll be used setting up with my mortgage broker, Adam mcabe, and making sure it's set on principle and interest. Now this is not normally advisable, but because of me and the way that I look at money, and my focus is very much about building

long term, growing passive income. For me, I prefer to see that debt slowly and steadily coming down, even if it is a little bit of a cost to reducing our mortgage our cash flow, and I may even have to pay a little bit more, maybe on interest, especially as I might be potentially fixing it.

investment strategy like this of debt recycling. Another thing that I will be doing is with the dividends earned from that one hundred thousand dollars invested, and we'll use a very simple formula here of a five percent yield, which is not too dissimilar from the average yield of most Australian industrial shares. I'm actually reinvesting those dividends. That extra dollars per year doesn't really help me that much in paying off our mortgage. I'd rather use our cash flow instead.

I would much prefer to reinvest the dividends with all the other dividends that are being reinvested in this investment portfolio for further compounding growth opportunities. So what I'm trying to explain is by reinvesting those dividends again, I'm increasing the loan to value rape. So I'm decreasing the loan to value ratio because the share portfolio is growing, but at the same time, the investment loan attached to that

portfolio is reducing. So again, as time goes by, with dividends being reinvested and me chipping away at that underlying loan principle one hundred thousand dollars, my financial strategy is getting safer and safer and more robust, and I'm really focusing on building that long term growing passive income. But again, to come back to that concept of flexibility and keeping

it fluid, nothing is set in stone. If our cash flow is looking scared or looking maybe not as consistent and stable as I would like, I understand that it is okay to park this idea for some time, and whether that be one month, three months, or even a year so bit. However, by having this in my game plan, it means I keep a very close eye over this particular goal and of course over this strategy, and it may not necessarily mean that I do invest that full

one hundred thousand dollars. If it's not quite right, or it's the loan is not necessarily approved, I can perhaps look at doing fifty thousand dollars or twenty thousand dollars. Again, the game plan helps keep me focused and helps give It keeps me thinking about how I can achieve my goals with what I've got going on in my life at that point in time. And then finally the fifth goal, which I don't think I mentioned in too much detail in last week's episode, and that is our mortgage.

a new shiny kitchen. That cash flow after I've saved up the six and a half thousand dollars to help prepay that one hundred thousand dollars investment loan, the cash flow can now be redirected to making extra mortgage repayments on our home. So you can see with our cash flow in helping achieve our goals. This game plan is also almost making me feel like and look like a traffic control director. I'm directing the surplus cash at the

moment towards rebuilding our financial float and emergency money. I've also got at the same time ticking around nicely in the background or cooking in the background our holiday savings fund. I'm also obviously aggressively trying to get money into our kitchen renovation savings fun, but of course not before making sure that financial float and emergency money is addressed as

a priority. And then I'm obviously stockpiling with my goal to have six and a half thousand dollars up front ready to prepay interest on a new one hundred thousand dollars in debt recycling investment loan, so beyond, as soon

as I've ticked all those things off. All that extra surplus can then actually be freed up and go purely to pay off our home sooner and making those extra payments on a consistent basis as well as those ad hoc savings that we can do picking and choosing with les pressure because we've got so many of our other goals hopefully sorted, that we can decide okay, well, actually there's an opportunity for me to do some extra work.

I could actually focus on getting this done over the weekend, and there's be some an extra thousand dollars or two thousand dollars for example, to go onto the homemone. We have a lot more space and flexibility and that fluidity to then work on that goal. Now, a great hack I would love to share with you on that I love using all the time and is actually something I've built myself is a special calculator on the sugar mom ol website. It is called an extra lump sum repayment calculator. Now,

this is not your normal extra lump sum calculator. It'll actually allows you to show you the power of making extra repayments on a consistent basis as well as those ad hoc repayments so you can see the power of those two debt reduction strategies and how powerful they work in combination with each other, really saving you huge amounts

of money and a huge amounts of valuable time. In fact, the other day, Tom was talking to me about the idea of taking some money out of our rede or facility, and I quickly shut that idea down because I jumped onto my calculator, plugged in our mortgage details, the interest rate, how far are we into our term, and what is sitting in our red or facility, and I showed him the impact of taking that money out, and it actually was going to cost us a year on our mortgage

if we did that, and almost ninety thousand dollars in interest. So when I was able to see this in the calculator because it shows you in a visual way through a graph, I took a screenshot of it emailed it to Tom, and then Tom agreed, you know what, we don't want to do that that is detrimental to our finances. It's an undoing all the harpwer work we've done so far,

and no, we're not going to do that. So this is a really great tool to help explain things to your partner, your loved ones or even a friend as to what you're doing, but also as a great tool to help keep you motivated, to help keep you focused, but also help you create your own individual game plan

for your financial goals and dreams. And of course in the Sugar Mamba calculators, there are so many of the brilliant calculators like my superannuation sweet Spot calculator, as well as the dividend investing calculator, where you can see the power of investing say, for example, ten thousand dollars with an average yield of say five percent, and an average dividend growth rate of say five percent, and you can put in the capital growth as well, and you can

see how those dividends, when reinvested in compounding over time, can actually really help contribute towards your financial freedom goals such as building up passive income. So please use all of those free resources, and again to remind you, everything I've just spoken about is general advice only and for educational purposes. But me sharing with you my game plan, obviously I'm making myself a little bit accountable here.

every single day. Make sure you have a detail world cooking instructions to follow, the recipe, the ingredients, everything you need to make sure that what you cook up in twenty twenty five is financially delicious, financially fulfilling, and leaves you feeling financially fabulous, so that you can take a break in December, switch off, relax, reward yourself along the way, and of course you have all the great hacks, habits, insights,

strategies from your previous successful game plan that you can then apply for twenty twenty six for even greater financial success or at Everyone. It has been an absolute honor to be able to chat with you and connect with you this morning. I wish you a fabulous week and as always, I would greatly appreciate it if you could make me a rating and review, and please feel free to send this episode to any of your family and friends that needs some financial assistance.