Michael Uses PocketSmith to Budget for the Life He Wants in His 60s

Read how Michael uses PocketSmith to turn four years of spending history into a clearer plan for semi-retirement.

Tell us a little about yourself?

My wife and I have just hit milestone birthdays, and I’ve recently moved into semi-retirement. I’d been leading large IT projects for the past several years, and when the company I was with invited me to stay on for another 12 months on a new project, it became the catalyst for us to ask how we really wanted to spend our 60s. With three grandkids and a love of travel, full-time work didn’t feature very highly on the list!

How would you describe your role in your household?

We’ve divided things up pretty evenly throughout our marriage, although I’ve always taken the lead on tracking our spending and paying the bills.

What drew you to PocketSmith?

I’d used a product called MoneyBrilliant for a couple of years, but one of the banks bought it and eventually shut it down. I came across PocketSmith not long afterwards and haven’t looked back. I particularly liked the depth of functionality and the flexibility in how you can categorise and analyse your spending.

How long have you been with us?

For four years (and 12,258 transactions!).

What do you primarily use PocketSmith for?

Primarily expense tracking and, now that we’re in semi-retirement, budgeting.

How has PocketSmith changed the way you do money?

It’s made us conscious of how we spend in a way we’d never been before. Having four years of categorised transactions gave us the confidence to step away from full-time work because we understood what we could comfortably afford to spend on the things we love (hello, Far North Queensland), and where we might choose to cut back a little (hello, wine).

Got any tips?

I’ve recently started exporting data from selected expense categories into Excel, then using ChatGPT to help identify trends in our spending and suggest areas worth looking at more closely. It has surfaced some genuinely useful insights and patterns that I probably wouldn’t have spotted myself.

What’s the best money decision you made in the past 12 months?

We rearranged some of our retirement savings so that our mortgage is now fully offset. It’s amazing how freeing it’s been not having to make a monthly loan repayment on the house. I don’t think we’d have had the confidence to make that decision without the detailed understanding of our finances that PocketSmith gave us.