Meet Lachlan Sedsman
I’m Lachlan, a software engineer and business owner based in South Australia.
I began my business, Wageloch, with my wife, Kobi, while working at a bakery part-time: my boss wasn’t that technically literate and struggled with rosters for the staff, so I created a piece of software to help him.
The company that handled our payroll was impressed, asked to meet and we ended up going into business together. My wife and I bought him out in 2017 and eventually sold the whole company in 2023 to a big Canadian software corporation, allowing us both to go back to university.
Why I decided to trust Stockspot with our investment portfolio
It’s that idea of financial freedom that inspired me, so I began researching investment strategies to give me the best preparation should we sell the business.
My grandmother was a great saver – in fact, when she died, her share portfolio was outpacing her living expenses.
I was never good at saving, but I was always on top of my loans as I hate being in debt and Kobi has great budgeting habits and made me realise that if I didn’t have a budget I couldn’t ever work out what I could afford.
Developing a budget allowed me to understand exactly what our household expenses were and thus calculate what size my share portfolio would need to be in order to support that and account for inflation over time.
My investing experience with Stockspot
I opened a test account with Stockspot to familiarise myself with the system and see how it worked. I’d read articles by the founder, Chris Brycki, and his writings on investment theory made a lot of sense to me.
In particular, I liked the security of knowing that I owned the underlying investments, that they were registered in my name, just in case anything happened to Stockspot in the future.
Beyond that, I was aware that I am not an investment expert and was happy to leave managing the portfolio to those that were at Stockspot so that I could focus on what I did best.
What I like about Stockspot
The sign-up process was straightforward and now, I am achieving my investment goals. The portfolio is performing exceptionally well at the moment.
Best of all, it is set-and-forget, which was a major drawcard for me. Stockspot automatically rebalances my portfolio, so I don’t have to worry about trading, and I can see how it is doing in the app. All I do is hand the tax figures over to my accountant at the end of the year.
It’s easy to use, I feel confident in the product and the level of customer service is high.
My money tips for those considering investing
If you stick with a bank for your savings, inflation will eat away at your interest, whereas investing over the long-term provides better average returns and allows you to grow your money.
The longer you invest, the more risk you can take with your portfolio, too, allowing for potentially better returns.
It is vital to draw up a budget that isn’t punitive, so that you can stick to it, and to use multiple bank accounts to set cash aside for bills and the like.
It also helps to plan for the future with investments. Put a small amount away and let compound interest to the rest. Inflation will reduce the value of your money over time, but you can reduce that risk by having a balanced investment portfolio and continually rebalancing as stocks rise and fall.
You also have to have some liquidity so that you can weather out the inevitable storms without having to sell when the market is low.
