Here for the long haul - a bit about me.

Hot topics come and go in the press and social media and one topic that is copping a bit of air time at present is the way in which “ageism” is treated by employers, government, families, young people and “the aged”, whoever they are or choose to be.

I started paid work at the age of 14 – that was 68 years ago. That was an age at which, I think, you were allowed to leave school for“real” work, 40 odd hours a week. In my case I did stay at school and then went to University and started full time work after I obtained the first of my three degrees. The last of these I got at the age of 48.

A couple of years ago my two much younger co-owners and co-directors of the company that I had established at the age of 56 (and partly sold to them ten years ago) decided that it was time to retire and the business was subsequently sold so that they could fade into the commercial background. I reckoned that I still had something to give to the community and to those clients who prefer to get financial advice from someone who has been around for a while. As a result I shifted camp and have started another new phase of my working life.

I do not expect my two great  grandchildren, or their as yet unborn siblings and/or cousins, will ever be able to work with me, which in some sense is a great pity because I took special joy from working for 16 years in a company that my grandfather had established and where some of my co-workers and subsequent co-directors shared the same parentage line and where a small number were able to tell me stories about working with my grandfather……. who died when I was four! It is a great pity that so many of the “family companies” that were the mainstay of our nation in the first part of the 20^th Century have simply slipped into history.

With no work place to travel to each day I have now converted the back bedroom (no one has ever slept there) to a somewhat cluttered office which is starting to look functional and professional with the direction and help of a much younger lady with skills that I will never acquire, however much I try. The morning tea my wife makes for us is a great change from the tea trolley service for which I said “No, thank you for the offer” at least 700 times during the 80s and never once “Please, white with one sugar”...

Years ago I communicated with the public through a regular brief program on radio styled “Rodney Gibson’s Tax Tip of the Week” and subsequent talk back radio on a weekly basis. It is my intention to use this current method of communication to offer the training and work experience that I have had for the last sixty odd years to allow my brains to be picked and my professional and academic experience to help anyone who cares to ask for help along the path to “comfort with money”.

How comfortable you are with your money, or the money you do not have but would like to have is a highly personal matter. I am happy to advise anyone who cares to ask how they can meet their financial goals including how to set financial goals and how to ensure that they meet the reality test.

My technical co-ordinator (that’s one of her titles) invites you to use this branch of social media to make comments, ask questions or give me your problems and or concerns. I will be happy to respond.

I hope I am here for the long haul. If I am not you can rest assured that my business plan includes a backup that will continue long after my obituary ( or at least my funeral notice ) has appeared in the Courier Mail.