Financial planner and mother Canna Campbell saved $32,000 in twelve months by using her unique strategy of bundling – saving and earning extra money in small, achievable parcels of $1000. Now she wants to empower you to get the same results. Here, we share an extract from her new book 'The $1000 Project', which is like is like a diet and exercise plan for your finances...
“My passion and determination for showing you how easy it is to manage your own money was what triggered the creation of The $1000 Project. I really believe that having control over your money is easy – and, more importantly, so many emotional benefits flow from self-discipline in this area of your life. It will give you positive feelings that you deserve to have and carry with you every day of your life, and it only takes a few small changes to create an empowering result. My background is in financial planning – I talk personal finances every day. I worked in financial planning part-time while I studied at university and after graduating I worked for various financial planning companies, including a major Australian bank, before going out on my own at age 26 to set up my boutique practice, SASS Financial. I’ve always been passionate about inspiring people and demonstrating how simple it really is to achieve financial health. But recently I realised that if I wanted to really wake the world up – to ignite excitement and motivation in the full and overwhelming area of cash flow, budgets and savings – I would have to lead by example. And that meant getting out there and showing people the very powerful effect of small savings that accumulate and compound over the long run.
So I set a very ambitious goal for myself, which I announced on my YouTube channel, SugarMamma.TV. I shared it with my subscribers so that I would feel accountable. I explained that I wanted to build a passive income of $2000 a year and that I would do that by saving, earning, creating and building parcels of $1000 at a time. Every time I had $1000 saved up, I would invest in some blue-chip Australian shares and international Exchange Traded Funds. These are investments that pay dividends, a form of passive income. I gave myself a twelve-month deadline, by which point I wanted to have saved and invested enough money so that my investment portfolio was earning $2000 p.a, the average dividend yield for the Australian share market, which meant I would need to come up with and invest $40000 – all within twelve months! So the goal I set myself with the $1000 Project was forty ‘parcels’ of $1000 in one year. One of the best things about the $1000 Project is that you can start small, work with what you have and work at your own pace and with your own rules – and you control everything. It is simple and easy to follow. And it will teach you a lot about yourself: what you value, what is important to you, and how much strength and determination you really have inside of you. It is empowering. If you get on board with the $1000 Project, I promise you will not regret it.
Why we need The $1000 Project
What is different about this project is that it will finally give you something to show for your hard-earned money. When you add up how much money you’ve actually earned so far in your working life, from the moment you started your first full-time job to right now, and see the accumulated dollar amount of your gross salary, most people baulk in horror. The average Australian salary is $75 000 p.a. So if you are 35 years old, you would have earned roughly $1 000 000, assuming that you started work at 21 and averaging that salary out over your working history. When people do their own more accurate calculations, they ask themselves: ‘Where has all my money gone?’ This project helps stop that feeling of being clueless and out of control. Next time you ask yourself that question, you will be able to proudly point to a share portfolio that you have built and which is still growing, or to the mortgage that you have paid off, or to the student loans that have evaporated. Or maybe you will simply point to your passport, full of stamps and valuable memories. One thing is for sure: you can choose how you use the $1000 Project to your best financial advantage.
“ Financial stress can be toxic ”
Financial stress can be toxic. Toxic to our health, to our relationships, our careers and our sense of security. But this is an area where we have so much more control than we realise. When we are at peace with money – by which I mean that we feel like we have enough, we feel no negative feelings such as fear, we have trust that it will continue to flow in, we have control over how we choose to spend it, and we use money with respect – the weight comes off our shoulders. This gives us more energy and time to focus on what makes us feel really wealthy: connections to the people around us and living with a sense of purpose and value in the world. I call this ‘money mindfulness’. This isn’t a book about materialistic gain. It is about creating financial harmony in your life so that you are freed up to focus on being the best person you can be. It will help you to know and understand what is important to you and what you value, and then you can choose to live by that. In dreaming up the $1000 Project, I wanted this challenge to help people learn golden lessons about their finances and their relationship with finances. I really wanted to show people how to save money, how to understand the flow of money, how to be more respectful of their cash flow, and how to make better financial decisions and how to feel proud of their finances. And, as a flow-on effect, I was hoping to educate people about how to consciously use their money in a healthier and more efficient way, which would help them to create a more harmonious financial future. Whether you use the $1000 Project to pay off student debt, credit cards or car loans, or to save for a deposit on a home or an investment property, or, perhaps most excitingly, to build a passive income stream – this is life-changing stuff.”
Extract from The $1000 Project by Canna Campbell. Pre-order your book here Images: Grace Alyssa Kyo