Financial Planning for Welders and Metal Trades

We’re invested in your long-term success. What we do is personal, and we take it personally.

Your financial decisions connect, so we consider the parts of your financial life that are relevant to the advice you need:

• Property & Investing
• Career & Income
• Tax Strategy
• Insurance & Protecting Your Family
• Super & SMSF
• Wealth & Investments
• Life Events & Changes
• Business & Wealth
• Legacy & Future Wealth
• Retirement Planning

This is how we help you make decisions today with your longer-term goals in view.

Everybody’s situation is different, so we listen first, understand what matters to you and explain your options clearly before we make a recommendation.

Shutdown work can bring extra pay in a short time, followed by a stretch with less coming in. One approach is to plan around the pay you can rely on, then decide where each shutdown’s pay goes before it arrives:

• Bills for the weeks until your next shut or regular work.
• Tax, if any is likely to be owed, worked out with an accountant.
• A buffer for gaps that run longer than planned.
• Debts, super or a goal such as a home deposit.

We can set the amounts with you and adjust them as your mix of work changes.

Your accountant and financial adviser bring different expertise to the same decisions. Your accountant can advise on tax reporting, structures and consequences; we help you plan how cashflow, debt, super, investments and protection work towards your goals. We can coordinate before important decisions.

What an accountant does

• Prepares and lodges tax returns, BAS and financial statements
• Advises on tax structures such as companies, trusts and partnerships
• Manages bookkeeping, payroll and ATO compliance
• Provides tax advice on the consequences of a transaction

What a financial adviser does

• Sets a long term strategy across retirement, investing and cash flow
• Builds wealth from early in a working life, starting with cash flow, a first home and super
• Recommends specific super funds, investments and personal insurance
• Operates under an Australian Financial Services Licence, which is required to give personal advice on financial products
• Handles retirement planning, Centrelink and aged care strategy, and estate planning considerations

Professional roles and authorisations matter. We provide financial advice within our authorisations and work with your accountant for specialist tax advice and lodgements.

Where they work together

• Tax position. Your accountant confirms your marginal rate, deductions and carried forward losses, which shapes decisions on super contributions, investment structures and the timing of asset sales.
• Business and entity structures. Your accountant advises on the structure itself and your financial adviser works within it for investments, insurance and succession planning.
• Cash flow. Your accountant’s figures can help us understand what’s available for debt repayment, protection and longer-term goals.
• Before key decisions. We can coordinate with your accountant on contributions, asset sales and other material choices in time to consider relevant tax consequences.

It depends on how the closure happens and how you’re employed. Points to check:

• If the Manufacturing Award covers you and you’re moved to lower-paid duties because of redundancy, it provides for notice of the transfer, or the pay difference only for notice not given.
• If your employer goes into liquidation or bankruptcy, a government safety net called FEG can cover some unpaid entitlements for eligible employees, but not unpaid super.
• Your super statements, to see what’s been paid. An insolvency practitioner is required to report unpaid super to the ATO.
• Any cover through your employer or super, and whether it ends with the job.

We can plan the financial side with you, including any payout, and award questions can go to the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Not necessarily. The insurer makes that decision, based on what you tell them when you apply. Insurers usually ask about your job and medical history, then decide whether to offer cover, the premium and the terms. With an existing condition, possible outcomes include:

• Cover on standard terms.
• A higher premium.
• An exclusion, which limits cover for specified conditions, events or related claims according to its wording.
• Cover being declined.

Answer every question fully and accurately, since what you disclose can affect a later claim. We can help you prepare an application and compare suitable options, and the insurer makes the final decision.

A recruiter or labour hire business can tell you the rates, hours and length of a shutdown, which helps you decide whether to take the work.

Advice looks at what the work means for the rest of your finances: the budget for the weeks before and after, any tax to set aside with an accountant, whether super is being paid on it, and whether your cover still suits the duties involved.

We can set the offer against your plan with you before you sign on.

What shapes the timeline is when you can reach super and how you’d fund any years before that:

• Preservation age is 60 for anyone born from 1 July 1964, and super can generally only be accessed once you meet a condition of release, such as ceasing employment at 60 or over.
• Any years before then need funding from outside super, such as pay, savings or income from a different role.
• A second career, such as inspecting, supervising or teaching, may keep income coming in for longer.
• Any cover in super ends at an age set by the fund’s terms.

We can map these against the age you’d like to stop.

It depends on how the course relates to your work, and an accountant can confirm your position. The ATO says self-education is generally deductible if it maintains or improves the specific skills or knowledge you need in your current work. It’s generally not deductible if it helps you get new employment or change employment.

So a course that builds on the welding role you hold now may be treated differently from one taken to move into a new job. Keep receipts and records either way.

We can plan the course costs, any change in pay and your super with you as part of the move.

Yes, whether you’re in your first year as an apprentice, welding in a shop or on site, running a mobile rig or thinking about a new role.

There’s no cost for the initial conversation. Any advice after that is a paid service, with its scope and fee agreed with you in writing first.

Useful things to bring: recent payslips or invoices, your latest super statement, details of any cover you hold and any redundancy or transfer letter. We can meet in person or by video.