Michael O'Hara

Michael O'Hara is a Financial Planner operating out of a boutique advisory service in East Perth, Western Australia.

(Un) Sustainable, Socially (Ir) Responsible Investments

What is socially responsible investment and how does it operate?
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A greater social awareness of global impacts from day-to-day activites is encouraging higher levels of engagement from investors. However, in the step up to identify ethically and socially acceptable investment ideas, care should be taken to ensure the outcomes are what we want them to be.

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Financial Planning in Strange Times

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Australian’s are currently faced with a range of difficult global factors that bring uncertainty and fear into visions of the future. How do you plan in times such as these? Firstly, by ignoring the vast bulk of the material presented as news and getting back to working out what makes you happy, what will make you happy in the future, and how much you are prepared to do to make these things happen.

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Why is the global economy so messed up?

Why is the global financial outlook so clouded?
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  It has been an eventful couple of weeks. Time is short at the moment, so todays’ post will make comments without directing you to a lot of the underlying data. In other words, we are going to mainly consider my thoughts and judgements  as opposed to facts and analysis. There is an enormous level…

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A retirement Sea Change?

Waylen Farm
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  When faced with the prospects of retirement, and in deciding on how to best live the non-working life, one of the more popular choices recently has been to opt for what has been termed a “Sea Change”. In the case of one of our clients, the phrase has taken on a new meaning – as in,…

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Is it better to buy or to rent a home?

Is it better to buy or to rent a home?
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For most Australians, there isn’t even a question in this statement. Retate the question as “when to buy a home”, and you’re probably closer to the mark. Maybe even “how to buy a home”. It is borderline heresay to phrase it as “don’t buy a home if…”. If you don’t want to read my background…

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Weekend Reading on the impact of austerity measures

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Everyone has most likely heard enough about the European Union and their problems with the debt loads of Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece. There has certainly been enough in the news over the past year. i have posted a comment or two on the issue to try to provide a little more balance on the…

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Rip-off or not a rip-off?

Are new car prices in Australia a ripoff?
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This is not something i am remotely familiar with but it IS Friday, and the start of a new financial year so why not look at something a little bit different? There is a group called Private Fleet, who offer a vehicle buying service. Their website has recently published an article suggesting the prices Australians are…

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Why you should ignore headlines

Ruins in the Sanctuary at Delphi
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We all know that news headlines are there to catch our attention. We know that they simply cannot possibly convey all of the minutae and context of what is actually going on in any given event. However, in a time deprived world the news headlines are often all that we get to see or notice.…

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Love this idea!!!!

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Isn’t it great when someone actually gets around to doing something that you’ve been nagging friends and family about? You know, when Great Idea No 726 actually comes to life? Well, here is my example… The New York Times has being doing its patriotic duty, and following the trials and tribulations of US politicians trying…

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