Simple Money 4 You Author Helen Hutcheson

I had the pleasure to meet Helen Hutcheson, an accountant who became a self-published author with her book “Simple Money 4 You”.

Helen discussed with me why she felt so passionate about writing this book in a brief interview when we attended the Myob Partner Connect conference in late 2016.

Helen and I at Myob Partners Connect Gala Dinner Night

The Author of Simple Money 4 You

Hi, I am Helen Hatcheson and I am actually an accountant by trade and an MYOB certified consultant.

I have a masters and I have recently written a book called Simple Money 4 You. It is designed to help the very basic person understand all the areas of accounting, everything from bringing up their own children all the way to their superannuation and retirement. We cover business, employment, anything to do within the financial world and its written very simply so the people can get a little bit of understanding before they work out into the world.

What made you have this light bulb moment that you are going to write a book in the first place?

Not really a light bulb moment, it’s over many years of working as a consultant for small businesses and going in asked the same question.

Trying to teach people about profit and loss, how important that one document is, and how simple its to actually manage  your own account if you have got the right information. It comes from talking to a lot of people and I have tried to help them through those basics.

Can you just share the process that you took to go from an idea to actually put it out in self-printed book?

The actual writing for me was quite easy to develop because I worked it on a timeline. . Sort of having children and the processes you can do with children, walking through getting you first job, buying your first car, having your business, etc. But then actually trying to get it published was a very different kettle of fish, I went to a company to company, in the end I went to one in America and I regreted that because its very difficult to do something overseas, its easier to do it here. But it’s a very different process to get that written, and I write like an accountant and of course it needed to be scripted and developed from then. The publishing process is a lot more involved than I thought.

The illustrations are quite cute, so who did the illustrations for you?

My sister did the illustrations so we didn’t have to buy any of those. I wanted them to be really simple characters that would relate to people.Since we have published the book, we have taken a lot of those illustrations and put them into magnets.

A lot of people are very visual aren’t they?

Too many numbers on a page, doesn’t work for everybody so you need to simplify that.  I found that a lot of accountants tend to expand and put more and more figures on the page. The pictures that we have in there give you something to breakup the writing when you are reading through it.

What would you like them to get out of your book? The main thing?

The main thing is that its simple, you can learn to manage your own finances and it isn’t as hard like you think it is.

One thing that am intrigued about is I can see that you have a natural progression where you are start from children to young adults, to business. Who is your target audience?

This book would help anybody of any age, obviously it suits school aged children. But it really would help anybody as a reference book.

Its not a book you read cover to cover, its something you sit on the shelf and if you want to go open a bank account, you read the bank page.

if you want to go into investing in property then you read the property page.

If you want to retire then lets have a look at the retirement section, so it s really a reference book for almost anybody depending on where they are in their life.

What is your dream for your book to achieve?

I want it to be in every school.

I believe you got to start from the kids with just the basics of finance. We teach kids how to write and add up, but we don’t talk about money.

We can openly talk about sex and politics, but we don’t talk about money. Nobody sits down at the dinner table and says do you know what? My electricity bills came in and I saved so much money on this. We  don’t share how I have made a really good investment or I have made a really bad investment.

I really feel that what I would like to achieve is that money and finances is more generally discussed in the general population, so that everybody can make good decisions. It would be good to avoid those horrible situations where someone is borrowing from a credit card and is paying to much interest.

Want to connect with Helen Hutcheson?

Go to her website http://www.simplemoney4you.com.au/

Like and follow her Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/Simple-Money-4-You-285521968259678/

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Amanda Hoffmann

Amanda Hoffmann is a registered Tax Practitioner / BAS Agent No.18613005, Associate of Finance, Xero, Myob & Quickbooks Proadvisor / Trainer and a Consultant for the Australian Taxation Office.

She says she is more than just a bookkeeper with experience in real estate investing, social media, podcasting, blogging and recently recording monthly youtube episodes

Amanda loves to teach smart, easy online cloud solutions and fix messy bookkeeping. Follow her on social media and say “Hi”