We Started Where You Are
Back in 2014, our founder sat at a kitchen table in Orange, sorting through bank statements and feeling overwhelmed. That moment sparked something bigger than just fixing one budget.
Today, we help people across Australia find that same clarity. Not through complicated formulas or generic advice, but through real conversations about money that actually make sense.
Built From Real Experience
We spent the first three years working with just seventeen families. Some people thought we were crazy to move so slowly. But those seventeen families taught us everything about what actually works when someone's trying to understand their spending patterns.
One client kept a spreadsheet with forty-three categories. Another wrote everything on paper scraps. A third just avoided looking at their accounts entirely. Each approach told us something different about how people process financial information.
By 2018, we'd developed a framework that could adapt to different thinking styles. That's when things started clicking for more people. Now we've worked with over 380 families, and the core approach remains the same – meet people where they are, not where we think they should be.
In 2023, we analyzed outcomes from our programs and found that 84% of participants were still using their customized budget systems eighteen months later. That matters more to us than any quick wins.
Since 2014, refining our approach through real client experiences and continuous feedback
Each with unique financial situations that shaped our flexible methodology
Participants still actively using their budget systems after eighteen months
Based on 143 reviews from program participants across regional Australia
The People Behind the Process
We're not financial advisors in the traditional sense. We're educators who happen to be really interested in why people struggle with budgets and how to fix that disconnect.
Fionnuala Strand
Lead Financial Educator
Fionnuala spent eight years as a high school maths teacher before switching to financial education in 2016. She noticed students could solve complex equations but had no idea how to structure a monthly budget. That gap bothered her enough to do something about it. Her teaching background influences everything we build – if someone can't understand it within twenty minutes, we're doing it wrong.
Dagny Søndergaard
Program Development Director
Dagny joined us in 2019 after working in adult education program design. She's the reason our materials don't sound like financial textbooks. Before creating any new resource, she tests it with at least five people who aren't finance professionals. If they get confused or bored, she scraps it and starts over. Her perfectionism drives us slightly crazy, but it's why our programs actually work in the real world.
How We Actually Work
Our process evolved from watching what helped people versus what just sounded good on paper. Here's what ended up mattering most.
Start With Patterns, Not Numbers
Most people know they're spending too much. They don't need us to confirm that. What helps is understanding the patterns behind the spending – when it happens, what triggers it, what needs it's actually meeting. We spend the first two sessions just mapping these patterns before touching any budget categories.
Build Systems That Match Your Brain
If you're visual, spreadsheets might frustrate you. If you hate apps, forcing digital tracking won't stick. We've seen successful budgets tracked on notebooks, whiteboards, banking apps, and yes, elaborate spreadsheets. The tool matters less than whether you'll actually use it consistently.
Review and Adjust Every Month
This is where most budget attempts die – people create something in January and never look at it again until December when they wonder why it didn't work. Our programs include monthly check-ins for the first six months because regular review is what transforms a budget from a document into a actual habit.
What Happens Next
If this approach sounds interesting, our next intake for the comprehensive budget review program starts in September 2025. We keep groups small – usually eight to twelve participants – because the personalized attention matters.
Between now and then, we run monthly workshops in Orange covering specific topics like income variability, managing irregular expenses, and couple budget coordination. These standalone sessions give you a feel for our teaching style without committing to the full program.
You can also reach out directly if you want to chat about whether our approach might fit your situation. We don't do hard sells – honestly, we're pretty selective about who we work with because the process requires genuine engagement from both sides.
Our office is tucked in the Orange City Centre, Shop V5-7. Come by if you're in the area. We're usually around Tuesday through Thursday, often with coffee brewing and actual budget spreadsheets visible on screens. It's not fancy, but it's real.
