Volunteering with Ed Connect: Gary Howell’s Rich Life Story
Gary Howell has been a Gilkison client for many years now and truly leads a Rich Life. When we meet to discuss his finances, we always love hearing about the work he is doing in our community through mentoring as a part of the Ed Connect program each Wednesday.
The Ed Connect program connects volunteers who want to make a difference with kids in disadvantaged schools. The program aims to equip young people with the life skills they need to succeed by building positive and supportive relationships with the broader community. Ed Connect volunteers work face-to-face with the same student each week to provide mentoring sessions, assist with reading and maths, teach them social skills and provide emotional support.
We thought you might like to hear more of Gary’s story too, along with any advice he’d give his younger self and the value of financial planning.
What is a Rich Life to you?
A rich life for me is one of contentment, without pressure of time or finances.
I have been retired for about four years now and feel much more relaxed with plenty of time for family, gym, and golf. I guess Covid has changed many things lately, but I hope that life will eventually get back to normal and we can travel again as we would normally go to Japan every year and annual wine trips to South Australia.
As we live in East Perth a morning walk around the river is a great pleasure.
One of the things I enjoy doing is volunteering at a primary school where I mentor a seven year old Russian boy. We enjoy doing things together, one project was to build a scale model of the Titanic as he seemed quite fascinated with the history of the vessel. I have been supporting the same boy since 2019 and will probably continue to help him until he graduates primary school.
What financial advice do you wish you had when you were in your 20’s?
I think we all look back and think that we should have been smarter with our money when we were younger, but I think that is just a part of the growing up process. I left home quite young, so I did not have parental guidance on finances but on the plus side I became quite quickly aware of saving for what I wanted.
What is the value you’ve received from receiving financial advice?
I have received great value in having a financial advisor. It has given me the feeling of security knowing I have enough money to last me for life, I don’t think this would have been achieved without the guidance from Gilkison.
Teaming with Gilkison has been a major positive in my life and has enabled me to focus on and grow my superannuation to what it is today.