What we believe about money

At Rising Tide, we believe good financial advice is fundamental to doing well in life.

Money touches almost everything. Where you live, how much you work, the time you get with the people you love, how well you sleep at night. With good advice, a lot of the worry goes, and far less is lost to the decisions nobody got around to making.

We’ve been helping families since April 2005, and the question they bring us is rarely “what’s the best return?” It’s quieter than that: are we going to be okay?

This page is how we answer it. Every recommendation we make has to trace back to one of these beliefs. If it can’t, we question the advice. And if a belief turns out to be wrong, we change it in writing, not by quiet exception.

How it fits together

Every plan we build has three parts, and they only work together. Your goals sit around the outside of all of it.

Why advice

Doing nothing is still a decision. It’s just the one nobody costs.

Most people work out what advice costs. Very few work out what going without it costs. Cash sitting in an everyday account while inflation takes a slice each year. Super left on default settings for a decade. Tax paid that didn’t need to be. Insurance that wouldn’t cover the mortgage. A home loan that’s never been reviewed.

None of it shows up on a bill, so it’s easy to ignore. But the years you don’t use are the ones compounding can’t give back, and for a family in their 30s or 40s there are a lot of them still to come.

Good advice makes the complicated, uncomplicated.

There’s a lot of noise out there: media, social feeds, the bloke at the barbecue. Our job is to cut through it, tell you the hard truth when you need it, and explain things in a way that makes sense the first time.

We only do well when you do well.

Our ongoing fee is a flat monthly amount plus a small percentage of what you’ve invested. As your wealth grows, so does the work, so our fee grows with you, not ahead of you. It also means we’re pulling in the same direction you are. See our fees.

Cashflow

Cashflow is the lifeblood of every plan.

It shows where you are today and, linked to your goals, where you’re heading. Get it right and everything else gets easier. Get it wrong and no investment strategy will save you.

Structure beats willpower.

Every dollar gets a job. All your income lands in one place, your Yes account, which holds your cash buffer (usually your offset if you have a mortgage). From there, automatic transfers fill the accounts that run your life. What’s in Flexible each week is yours to spend, guilt free. And because it’s automated, it actually happens. If a plan relies on you moving money by hand every month, believe me, it won’t.

The biggest threat to your plan isn’t the market. It’s overspending.

A pay rise disappears into a nicer car. Two brunches become a habit. Nobody plans to steal from future them, but it happens a little at a time. So we track it, we talk about it honestly and we never judge.

Don’t let perfect get in the way of good.

A plan you actually follow beats a perfect one you abandon in March. We’d rather get you moving this month and refine it as we go.

Wealth

A strategy isn’t a goal.

An investment property, a share portfolio, extra super: they’re tools. Before we talk about any of them, we talk about what you want the money to do. School fees, a bigger home, one of you stepping back from work. Then we pick the tool that gets you there.

Set it up properly, then leave it alone.

Every time you switch funds, chase last year’s winner, sell in a panic or try to time the market, a little more of your money washes away in fees, tax and bad timing. The families who do best usually aren’t the ones who check their balance every day. They’re the ones with a sound plan who let it work.

In practice: we rebalance on purpose, on a schedule, not on a headline.

Invest, don’t speculate.

Markets are competitive and prices reflect what’s known. Trying to beat them by forecasting, stock picking or timing rarely works for long. We’d rather capture what markets deliver over time, and keep your face off A Current Affair.

Spread it around.

A handful of shares, or one country, is a bet. We spread your money across asset classes and markets. Nobody knows which one will lead next year, and you don’t need to.

It’s not what you earn, it’s what you keep.

Costs, tax and structure are the drags you can control, so we control them. Our starting point is low-cost, index-based investing, held in the right names and the right structures.

Your values, your call.

If ethical investing matters to you, we’ll help you work out what that means and build it in. We won’t judge, and we won’t push an agenda.

Patience is the edge.

The gap between what markets return and what investors actually earn comes down to behaviour. Holding steady when it’s hardest is one of the most valuable things we help you do.

Plan B

Cashflow, a buffer and the right insurance come first. Then wealth.

We insure our cars, our homes and our holidays without a second thought, then forget the thing that pays for all of them: you. A plan that only works if nothing goes wrong isn’t much of a plan. If insurance is a dirty word, call it your Plan B.

Plan B only works as a whole.

There are three ways to deal with a risk: hand it to an insurer, hold cash for it, or limit it with a will and the right legal documents. Insurance without a will, or a buffer without cover, leaves a gap that can undo everything else. So we look at all three together.

You should need less cover over time, not more.

As the mortgage shrinks and your assets grow, you start to insure yourself. We size cover to where you are now, review it every year and wind it back when it’s no longer needed. Insurance is a tool, not a fixture.

Staying on track

A plan is only as good as the follow-through.

Life changes. Babies arrive, jobs change, markets move. So every year we go round the same five steps with you, and we keep you accountable in between.

You’ll always know where you stand.

Every review ends with a simple scorecard for each part of your plan. No jargon, no 40-page report you’ll never read.

What it’s all for: the Freedom to Say Yes

The holiday. The private school. Working four days instead of five. Saying yes to the things that matter, because the numbers already work. That’s the point of every belief on this page.

See it in action: family financial planning, high income financial planning, pay off the mortgage, put more into super or invest?, our debt philosophy videos and our values and culture.

This page is general information only and doesn’t take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Consider whether it’s right for you before acting.