Grant Clifton

Most people spend more time planning their holidays than they do their finances.

So every year, touch base with your broker and go, hey, can we catch up for half an hour and just review where we're at?

This is a true story.

I had a guy, he was an Irish fella, and he came to NZ.

He'd worked in New York, actually.

They owned a pub in Ireland and went and worked in New York, made a lot of money, came to New Zealand with a couple of mil.

and got a truck and a digger and started building houses and stuff, you know, and this is the sad side of life, really, and he ended up retaining, I think it was about six or seven properties, probably had about, I don't know, at that stage it was about three and a half mil worth of houses, and I did all the finance and helped him out and that, and all of a sudden I didn't hear from him, and what's going on?

Then I get a call from him,

And I said, where are you?

And he goes, I'm in prison, mate.

And I said, what's happened?

And he goes, oh, you know, I got involved with the wrong people and drugs.

And into the old peak.

And I've had a few clients do this.

And he basically lost the lot.

And last I heard that he was walking around the streets picking up smoke butts off the ground.

And this guy, he even flew us in a helicopter once down to watch the MotoGP one year.

He was just making really good money.

So you can go from being really bloody good to nothing.

And I've had other guys that I've helped in business.