introduction
prisms connects separating and single mothers with other women around Australia who understand what they are experiencing. While that support is invaluable, you may also need to access information and advice through other channels. prisms provides separated mothers with contact details of useful services they may need as they navigate the process of separation and divorce.
These useful services are listed by state and category, in alphabetical order. This list is in its infancy, so please keep an eye out for new additions in your state or territory. If you have used a service that helped you, please let us know at info@prisms.com.au
Each month prisms will be featuring one useful service about which our users may not be aware, but which we believe will genuinely help them after they separate from their partner. Each of these carefully screened services is listed below.
• October 2006 - Professional Car Buying Service
• November 2006 - Home Friday
• December 2006- Busy Mothers
• January 2007 (NO FEATURED SERVICE)
• Feburary 2007 - Bedtime and Toilet Training Solutions
• March 2007 - HN Financial Partners
March's Useful Service - HN Financial Partners - www.hnfp.com.au
March's featured service is Brisbane financial services company HN Financial Partners.prisms: Could you please describe what your company does?
HN: HN Financial Partners Pty Ltd educate and work with their clients to provide financial advice for men and women of all ages regarding appropriate insurances, maximise superannuation, savings plans and investing, overall money management, retirement planning, mortgages and debt consolidation. We also have access to accountants and solicitors in close proximity to our office for clients to speak with about other areas such as taxation and estate planning.
P: What are some of the issues your clients face when they become single parents?
HN: Apart from the emotional turmoil, women who become single parents may find it very difficult financially for many reasons such as, surviving off one wage or having to solely rely on government benefits, childcare costs and selling off assets. Their partner may have controlled all or part of the family finances and therefore women may not understand how their finances work or even what financial situation they are in. Beneficiary requirements for their estate will change dramatically and wills and enduring powers of attorney may need to be updated.
P: How do men and women differ in their approach to financial planning?HN: Men can appear averse to asking for help when it comes to their finances. Women tend to be more practical about protecting their family from risk due to unforeseen circumstances such as illness or death and are more inclined to work with a financial planner to grow wealth and look after their super. Women generally earn less than men, are out of the workforce for longer periods raising children and tend to live longer (but may have less money than men to support themselves in retirement). As women’s long-term financial needs tend to be vast they need to ensure they have an ongoing relationship with a financial adviser.
P: What advice would you give single mothers or women who are contemplating separation or divorce?
HN: Make sure you see a financial adviser to access appropriate advice for your personal circumstances so you are aware of what options are available to you. A financial planner may even be able to refer you to a solicitor and as a team offer you help and advice.
P: How can sound financial advice change a woman’s financial situation?HN: In so many ways! Sound financial advice can give women a foundation to build on, confidence and power over their financial situation and peace of mind knowing that they are doing everything in their power to give themselves and their children the best future they can. Keeping in regular contact with your trusted financial adviser ensures you are kept up to date with changes in legislation that may benefit or affect your financial situation.
P: Is there typically a difference in the financial security of working and stay at home mothers?
HN: One of the most important differences between stay at home mothers and working mothers is that working mothers are being paid 9% of their salary to grow their superannuation whereas, stay at home mothers are missing out on building their retirement savings through their super. Both working mothers and stay at home mothers need to ensure that they adequately protect their family through insurance in case of illness, injury or death. Typically, 1 in 2 Australians will suffer a trauma such as cancer, diabetes, heart attack or stroke during their working life. Single women need to ask themselves who will look after them and their children and how will they pay medical and living expenses if they do become seriously ill. Private health insurance only covers hospital stays and some medical expenses. It doesn’t cover rehabilitation, lost wages, long-term nursing care, child care or pay debts.
P: Can you provide any case studies of single mothers who have accessed your services, to inspire and inform prisms single mums?
HN: Serena had to have radiotherapy and chemotherapy when she was diagnosed with cancer. Serena’s mother took care of her two girls initially but after a couple of weeks Serena’s mum had to go back to work. Serena’s ex partner then had the girls for another two weeks then he too had to return to work. Serena had taken out Trauma cover which pays a lump sum on the diagnoses of a specified illness such as cancer, diabetes, stroke or heart attack. Serena also had Income Protection which enabled her to have regular payments of up to 75% of her salary to meet living expenses. Serena was able to pay for an ongoing carer for her children, make rent and car repayments and concentrate on her recovery.
February's Useful Service - Bedtime and Toilet Training Solutions
February's featured useful service is Bedtime and Toilet Training Solutions. Owner Margaret Saunders talked with prisms about how she can help parents with bedtime and toilet training routines.
prisms: Could you please tell us about yourself and your business Bedtime And Toilet Training Solutions?
Margaret: Firstly, about myself. I'ma mum of two beautiful daughters. I became a mother later in life. I had my first daughter Alicia Joy just before I turned 40. I had had a lot of life experiences, travelled the world in my 30s with a small back pack and never thought I would be a mum, let alone love every minute of it. I also studied a lot of new age therapiesand did a lot of different communication courses. I had my second child Katrina-Lee when I was 43. It was obvious that the way I talked to my daughters and how they acted was making a difference.
My business Bedtime and Toilet Training Solutions provides a way to get children to bed happily and to fall asleep quickly. It is also a toilet training method that takes only one day. I also provide methods which not only allow children to stay the Angels they were when they were firstborn, but also give parents and families more time together by introducing them to concepts similar to those as if they lived in the country, or had a country lifestyle.
P: How did you come to start your business?
M: Well my business first started out when I became a mum coach - coaching mums to be better parents. I then began to write a book and as you know writing a book can take a while. So when I finished the first part - about bedtime - I thought, why not get that out to other parents as a smaller package? That worked so well that I soon was asked how about a toilet training packageand so I developed the one day toilet training concept which I actually had used very successfully with both my girls.
So my business combined the information booklets plus one on one coaching consultationsto iron out the individual problems or issues that a mum or parent might be having in any of these areas.
P: How long has Bedtime and Toilet Training Solutions been running?
M: My manuals and packages first came out in 2002 and have been revised since then. I was mum coaching for a little while before that so you could say 6-7 years now.
P: What are the major problems parents face that you help solve?
M: This is such a good question. In relation to bedtime I think the main problems are not having an easy to follow routine every night and children going to bed and falling asleep later than you'd really like.
With regards to toilet training there can be a lot of pressure to get a child toilet trained within a certain time frame and my one day method certainly achieves that. Also, there are problems after a child might be toilet trained with other methods or taking too long to grasp the concept of going to the toiletall the time.Another problem they can have is a child can happily wee into the toilet but don't get their poos down the toilet. So I have a special package for that problem called the Poo Land Package, which gets poos down the toilet every time!
P: What ages are the children you help?
M: Most children I get to help are between 18 months and 7 years. However the average would be more like 1-1/2 - 4 years.
P: Why is Be dtime and Toilet Training Solutions helpful for single parents? How long does the process take?
M: I think the main reason that Bedtime and Toilet Training Solutions is helpful for single parents is the follow up that is available. With every package, say either the bedtime or the toilet training package, you also receive follow up consultations by either email or telephone. For a single parent this is invaluable to have a caring person at the end of a phone or via the computer to encourage and support you to get the results you want. Also just to have someone to talk to who knows what it is like for you can be a big help.
The toilet training process is designed to take one day and has follow on suggestions to keep the process going that can include the whole family. The bedtime process takes a couple of weeks or moreand the results are fantastic.
P: Are there any special needs that single parents need to be aware of?
M: I am a single parent myself. I actually think that sometimes that is a huge advantage when applying new systems such as toilet training or bedtime routines. With these processes you know exactly what you are doing, when you are doing them and why. There are fewer diversions and I think it can often be easier for a single parent to carry them out, particularly with the email and phone consultations and advice.
P: What causes bedtime and toilet training problems? When should parents seek help or advice?
M: These are excellent questions. I actually think parents should seek advice before problems happen. I get a lot of parents wanting my manuals and packages for the information and advice when their children are young, so that problems do not happen or escalate.
This is a big advantage particularly for toilet training. Get the package before you need to toilet train and then you can start with this system. The same applies with the bedtime package. However, the systems also work if you have tried other methods and systems and are having problems.
As you know, problems can arise for many reasons. Bedtime and toilet training problems can be handled and helped by starting afresh with these programmes. Often there is an easy solution to any problem included in the manual or with a follow up telephone call or a quick email.
Some common problems for both toilet training and getting a child to bed and sleep are moving house, changing circumstances, health or stress and worry on behalf of a parent or just the style and character of the particular individual child. Or it can even be as simple as where the beds are placed in the bedroom.
P: Are there any other things parents should be aware of?
M: Most things have been covered already in the questions above. However, I haven't talked much about my other two packages, ‘How To Have An Angel All The Time’ and ‘How To Have More Time’. The ‘Angel’ package is about acknowledging the Angel within your child and how to treat them in a way to bring that out more. The ‘More Time’ package is about how you can have more time to be with your family, your children and adopting a slower lifestyle. Today’s rush, rush lifestyle and ‘spend, spend, spend’ lifestyle can be made easier by the techniques, routines and suggestions in these manuals.
P: How can Bedtime And Toilet Training Solutions be contacted?
M: The
best way to contact Bedtime And Toilet Training Solutions is to go direct to
www.BedtimeAndToiletTrainingSolutions.com.au
My
packages which include manuals and email or phone consultations are:
The
Ultimate Bedtime Package
The
Ultimate Toilet Training Package
The
Ultimate Have An Angel Package
The
Ultimate How To Have More Time Package
Andto
getthe FREE 2007 report, "How To Get Your Child To Happily And Easily Go
To Bed And How to Toilet Train In Just One Day"click on www.BedtimeAndToiletTrainingSolutions.com.au
P: Thank you Margaret. We hope many single mothers out there will benefit from your practical, helpful advice!
December's Useful Service - Busy Mothers
This month’s featured service (and also one of our latest book reviews) is www.busymothers.com.au
The Busy Mothers Companion is a great resource for your busy home. It is full of practical resources and a wealth of tips and ideas for managing your family life. You will get; menu planners, shopping lists, medical information, household charts, budget planners, direct debit schedules, reward charts and much, much more. All for the low price of $29.95*.
The Busy Mothers team, comprised of two mothers who between them have seven children, understand the demands of parenthood and provide lots of advice and support to help you get organised and make the most out of your time with your family! They promote that all-important (but all-too-often-elusive) work-life balance. If you need help getting organised, this site will revolutionise your approach to managing your family life.
November's useful service -
Home Friday - www.homefriday.com.au
Do you need help around
your house with childminding, plumbing, gardening or anything in
between? We know about a service that can help you find someone to do the jobs
you need done, all through the internet, and it’s this month’s prisms featured
service. homefriday is a new national service provider that has revolutionised the way householders find quality service providers online. It stems from a simple philosophy – get the right people together and the job done well. They approached the concept in a straightforward manner. They extracted the best features of directories, the good things about newspaper classifieds, mixed them together, a dded some funky features to make the system more effective, slashed the costs involved and put the result online where it was easy to find and use.
The homefriday directory provides information in well-organised categories that are easy to reference. Also, you can get someone’s direct contact details without going through an agency or other middle-man. This is where some other online directories play “secret squirrel”, hiding contact information and shooting themselves in the foot with their users. Usually, directory listings are expensive, insubstantial and the only thing you know about the quality of any business is that one paid more to get a bigger ad. Nothing about a person’s skills, experience, availability, cost or whether they left a trail of destruction on their last three jobs!
That’s why prisms recommends homefriday to single mums everywhere – we like the transparency and the choice.
homefriday makes it easy to find service providers in an instant with Quick Search, but then they still offer Advanced Search for more detailed queries. They allow all their tradies and other home service providers to give lots of information about themselves, which they can update whenever necessary, not locking them into an old-fashioned, telephone-style directory they can only change once a year. They have feedback ratings as the knockout blow. So, householders can give ratings and make comments on the performance of the service provider, which helps the next person choose to employ them based on real information, not just guesswork. And it means that service providers can build their reputation on the site and use the endorsements of others to find more of the sort of work they want. The system has been compared favourably to word of mouth, but it’s actually an improvement. Instead of taking your neighbour’s opinion, with homefriday you can read the views of multiple people and get a clearer overall picture. What directory offers all that? The answer is – none.
There are some good things about newspaper classifieds, too, so homefriday incorporates this for householders. You can post a job on the site if you choose not to call people in the directory. This is a good service if you have a bit more lead time for your household job or perhaps there is a lot of detail to explain, so it is best to get it all down and have only the right people contact you. Or, like many of us, you haven’t got time to leave and track a bunch of messages and it is more convenient to “tender” the job. Your job ad can be as simple or detailed as you like. You can write the longest ad on the homefriday site for one consistent price – nothing. All of this is completely free. Where else do you get to advertise free? Maybe there is such a thing as a free lunch after all!!
So, we see homefriday as offering flexibility and choice – two simple things which have traditionally been denied you, but exactly what people demand and expect today. Their system lets people take control of their working life. Traditional directories, even online ones, can be stuck with traditional thinking. On the other hand, homefriday is intuitive and responsive. This is a fantastic working tool to achieve an objective – getting people hooked up with their preferred jobs – but it is also built with your lifestyle in mind. We hope that homefriday's services can help make your life easier.
October's Useful Service
- A1 Car Broker
If you need to buy or sell a new or used car but don't know where to start, help is at hand.
Have you heard of such a thing as a professional car buying serivce? Did you know that it is possible to have someone else do all the research and legwork buying or selling a car? Many women do not have much experience choosing, buying or selling cars, and it is common for women to feel intimidated or overlooked by car dealers when dealing directly with dealerships. It can be difficult to master the processes of buying and selling cars, particularly if time is limited (or if it's not really your area of interest.) If you don't know much about cars, don't want to be taken advantage of by car dealers or don't have a lot of time or money to find a new or used car, we know of a Professional Car Buying Service that can help make the process easier for you. We think this is a fantastic service and we like its transparency. It operates around Australia, so wherever you are, you can access this service.
The way A1 Car Broker
professional car buying service operates is as follows:
1. A1 get the exact specifications from the client about the car they would like to purchase, or helps the client decide the car they may wish to buy.
2. A1 researches the best possible price from the dealers.
3. A1 presents (via web based interface) the price. In presenting the price, they disclose exactly what their fee is. (i.e. the fee they get from the dealer.)
4. A1 let the client decide whether to buy or not.
5. They can also sell your used car, either outright or as a trade-in.
6. Their average dealer fee is $360 (which the client does not pay.)
