While waiting..

Reached early for my appt, so decided to pen my thoughts about this appt. The client that I will be meeting has been my client for 13 yrs. She was not a friend, but a referral of another referral. I was a young adviser and I started out by recommending small savings plans to common folk like me- people who just started work and has study loan and mayb other commitments to handle. She too had her commitments. The savings plan she got from me is roughly about $35/mth. It may seem v small in today's context and some may even feel that based on the success I have now, why am I still meeting her ? $35 might not be a lot to u and I, but it is a lot to her. And it was my bread and butter when I first started. Juz focusing on doing small bite bite size plans, so that people could just save  a dollar a day, for the future. That was what I believed, then and now. So yes, I still do meet up with her for reviews. Even though it meant crawling to the west. Even though i know that there's probably nothing much she could afford now. We are of the same age and we got married in the same yr and had our firstborn in the subsequent yr. Over the yrs, I've seen her struggled financially. She doesn't earn much, coupled with with some unwise financial decisions, and increase in the number of dependents make making ends meet tough.  And there was nothing I could do, but to pray that God strengthen her in her walk.

She told me last week during the appt that she was hospitalized last yr, but bcoz her bill was lower than the deductible, she ended up paying for it, via cash/cpf. I was so angry with myself, that I had failed to remind her of my presence, that I could have told her to claim via her company insurance etc. She told me that she would like to spare another $80/mth to get a life insurance plan or to do something for the family. I relooked her plans and there were a few areas that required attention and she had limited resources.

I told her the areas during the appt. In fact, I had questioned myself over the past few days, what is of more importance? Getting a rider for the hosp plan so that if another of such incident occur, she won't need to pay much of the medical bills; or getting a life insurance plan ? Or reducing her current commitments like a home contents insurance that she bought fr the bank ?  Seriously, I'm not sure. I've thought of so many permutations and the possible implications. I explained to her my recommendations and she say she needed time to consider all. Fair enough. She commented that I must have thought of all the possible solutions coz I had considered all the diff methods or ways to find money. This is true. I wanted to make every cent worth for her. That what she eventually decides/pay for is worthwhile or worthy. I guess $10 hold diff meanings to everyone and I just wanted to help her stretch her monies as many possible ways as possible.

Moments like this make me feel helpless but thankful. Helpless bcoz I couldn't help much; thankful bcoz this are moments that breathes life to the job. Not the super big cases that I close this mth , or the fact that I probably hit my incentive trip 1mth after the launch or the glamour/ pay that comes with being a sales job; or the occasional complaints by some clients. No. It's being able to help people that remains my conviction why I'm here. I love my job. And I'm thankful for moments/ appts like that. I wish I can reach out to more people like that, to be able to help them. I pray that God give me the wisdom to help them too.