Don't wait to achieve your goals!

Hi there! We are Tristan, Cindy and Harper – a little family of three who recently returned from the adventure of a lifetime thanks in no small part to the OakWealth team.

Almost a year ago to the day, we took extended leave from work and packed up our home in Toronto ready to embark on a six-month long trip through all 50 states of the USA. Our little Harper was just six weeks old when we started our journey and was soon to become the youngest person to visit all 50 states. But how did we get there?

We love to travel. If we could do it all the time, we probably would. But, even though we love and value the experience of travel, we also know we don’t want to spend our life worrying about how we can afford to live. So, like most people, we have regular jobs and save and plan for that one special getaway each year. This trip was different though because we would be off work for over six months. Not only did we need to know that we could afford the extended time off work, but also that we wouldn’t be compromising our future financial security for this one adventure. So we went to see Yihsing…

We first met with Yihsing in 2014, as a newly engaged couple wanting to set ourselves up for the future. We shared with him our goals – you know, the usual ones about wanting to get married, buy a house, and to achieve that elusive financial freedom at some point. But we also told him we had so many other hopes and dreams and didn’t want to give up living our lives now, only to get to live out our dreams in our retirement.

For us, seeing a financial adviser was not only about planning for the future, but also about having the confidence that we had a plan in place and were going to be okay. It wasn’t just about making a budget to make our money last, it was also about giving ourselves permission to spend the money we had budgeted to get the most out of our adventure.

And for us, it definitely paid off. In our first year as new parents, we got to spend quality time bonding with our daughter and doing what we love 24/7 as we ventured far and wide across the USA. We saw where the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the majestic mountains of Montana and Wyoming, and even the place in the middle of the desert where Forrest Gump stopped running. We tasted the delicious food of New Orleans, drove on the old Route 66, and stood no further than 50 metres from a black bear (this last one comes with a caution: “Don’t do this at home!”). Follow our trip (and Harper’s travel milestones) on Instagram here.

Now we’re back home here in Australia, settling back into ‘normal’ life and have checked in with Yihsing. We are a family of three now so our plan is a little different to our first visit – but it still has room for lots of travel.

Travel might not be your thing. But whatever your ‘thing’ is, make sure you tell Yihsing so he can help you plan to make it happen.