Raphael John-Lall

Ex­ec­u­tive coach and lead­er­ship con­sul­tant, Max­ine At­tong, is con­fi­dent that her lat­est book on fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy will help cit­i­zens be­come more re­spon­si­ble in man­ag­ing their per­son­al fi­nances as T&T and the rest of the world cur­rent­ly face eco­nom­ic chal­lenges that are forc­ing cit­i­zens to change their spend­ing habits.

At­tong, who is al­so a past pres­i­dent of the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (HRMATT), told the Busi­ness Guardian that the ti­tle of the new book is “Mon­ey Mas­tery - Be­come the Chief Rev­enue Of­fi­cer of your life” and it will be pub­lished in the first quar­ter of 2025.

The book will re­tail for US$14.95.

She said the book is not just for busi­ness­peo­ple but for every­one from young peo­ple who have just en­tered the world of work to those who are plan­ning their re­tire­ment.

She ex­plained that this book is a com­bi­na­tion of her per­son­al and her client ex­pe­ri­ences and it is ground­ed in ac­count­ing prin­ci­ples and ap­plied through hu­man­is­tic psy­chol­o­gy.

The book con­tains work­sheets, ex­am­ples and some ques­tions that will prompt read­ers to take a long hard look at their fi­nan­cial lives and de­cide if they like what you see.

At­tong, who has spent al­most 30 years in the field of ac­coun­tan­cy in the oil and gas in­dus­try, said she got the idea to the write a book about per­son­al fi­nances dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“I have writ­ten two oth­er busi­ness books be­fore, so I am stay­ing in that lane. This book cel­e­brates my ac­count­ing pro­fes­sion meet­ing my coach­ing pro­fes­sion. I have been an ac­coun­tant in gas and oil for al­most 30 years and I start­ed coach­ing around 2012. I re­alised that af­ter the pan­dem­ic, a lot of clients were com­ing to me to talk about their fi­nan­cial hard­ships. So, I had to put on my ac­count­ing hat and re­al­ly de­vel­op a pro­gramme or a set of steps that would help them to get from where they were to where they want­ed to be.”

She said in 2022 and 2023, she taught class­es to young pro­fes­sion­als who want­ed to know how to save their mon­ey, then there were oth­ers who were ap­proach­ing re­tire­ment and were look­ing at how to do that. Oth­ers were in the mid­dle of their pro­fes­sion­al lives and re­cov­er­ing from the COVID pan­dem­ic era and want­ed to know how to se­cure their fi­nan­cial fu­ture.

“The worst type of anx­i­ety is fi­nan­cial anx­i­ety. Be­cause of those ex­pe­ri­ences where peo­ple were giv­ing me feed­back and say­ing that the pro­gramme helped them, they were able to un­der­stand their mon­ey bet­ter. They told me why not doc­u­ment it and so I start­ed to write this book in Oc­to­ber.”

Out­line of book

She re­vealed that the book has ten chap­ters and it an­swers ten ques­tions that peo­ple of­ten ask:

1. What is an in­di­vid­ual worth now? They start at the very be­gin­ning and take a fi­nan­cial self­ie so that they can see their fi­nan­cial worth now. This is about rais­ing aware­ness of their fi­nan­cial state so that they can make some com­mit­ments to their fu­ture;

2. Can in­di­vid­u­als af­ford their life? Read­ers will look at their month­ly spend­ing and de­ter­mine if they can sus­tain these pat­terns in the long run. They will al­so be asked to match their in­come and ex­pens­es;

3. How does an in­di­vid­ual have more dis­pos­able in­come? Read­ers will learn how to in­crease the amount of mon­ey that they have at their dis­pos­al, by lookng at ways to in­crease in­come and re­duce ex­pens­es;

4. How does one make fi­nan­cial de­ci­sions? Read­ers will learn how to con­nect ques­tions 1 and 2 to make the best fi­nan­cial de­ci­sions at any point in time and how to change those de­ci­sions when they no longer suit them;

5. How does one re­duce his or her debt and in­crease their worth? Read­ers will learn strate­gies to min­i­mize fac­tors that de­crease their fi­nan­cial val­ue and am­pli­fy the ac­tions that build fi­nan­cial worth;

6. What are their pat­terns around mon­ey? All fam­i­lies have pat­terns and tra­di­tions, which they un­con­scious­ly re­peat if they have nev­er stopped and thought about it. This chap­ter helps read­ers to un­der­stand their own pat­terns around mon­ey and how they may re­flect our fam­i­ly pat­terns. This is the au­thor’s favourite chap­ter;

7. How does some­one change their mon­ey pat­terns? Now that read­ers un­der­stand their pat­terns, they can be­gin to mit­i­gate the neg­a­tive im­pacts of them and am­pli­fy the pos­i­tives around their pat­tern. This chap­ter will al­so look at how peo­ple may self-sab­o­tage and some ways to lessen the im­pact of their sabo­teurs. This is about cre­at­ing a new path for­ward and de­ter­min­ing how you want to spend and live;

8. How does one plan for their fu­ture? Now that read­ers un­der­stand what they do and why they do it, they can cre­ate a per­son­alised plan for their fu­ture. They will make a one-year plan and a five-year plan for their fi­nan­cial fu­ture;

9. How does one stay on track? – They will learn ac­tion­able steps to­ward fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence. Some tips and tricks for them to stay on track; and

10. What’s next? Now that read­ers have read the book, what’s next for them. Some sug­ges­tions and pos­si­bil­i­ties for them to ex­plore.

She as­sured that read­ers will be guid­ed on the specifics of how to cal­cu­late their fi­nances.

“Once you get a copy of the book, there are tem­plates that can be used ac­tu­al­ly to cal­cu­late your fi­nan­cial worth to see if you can make fi­nan­cial de­ci­sions and from there will be dif­fer­ent we­bi­na­rs where we check in with every­one to see how their fi­nances are go­ing. If some­one wants one-on-one coach­ing, they can al­so do that.”

She re­ferred to the eco­nom­ic hard­ships that not on­ly T&T cit­i­zens are fac­ing but what is hap­pen­ing glob­al­ly and urged cit­i­zens to be more pru­dent in how they man­age their per­son­al fi­nances.

“Our dol­lar does not buy as much as it did be­fore. If you trav­el to the US it used to be like every­thing in the U.S. used to be cheap, but go­ing to the U.S. is a choice now. We are see­ing that in T&T with the trick­le­down ef­fects as we im­port so much of our food bill. The ques­tion is now rel­e­vant, our salaries have not in­creased as we would like it and we still have am­bi­tions and chil­dren to send to school. We still have to take care of our pen­sion plans. The ques­tion is how to I make my dol­lar stretch and this is what the book of­fers. It calls for a change in peo­ple’s mind­set.”