EASLEY — A local financial adviser is promoting a plan for personal resource management that he says is faith-based and helping people who have fallen under heavy debt.

Robbin Broome promoted the idea through a gather of existing clients last week at Smithfields Country Club, telling them that he is turning the focus of his business with a system of management he calls SMART Lifestyle.

He describes it using the SMART acronym, defined by the words, Soundness, Maturity, Action/Accountability, Restoration and Transformation.

“The process is founded on Biblical principle. I don’t try to hide the fact that this is faith based,” Broome said. “It is a matter of changing the heart.” You can treat the symptoms, but what I want to do is get at the underlying disease,” he said.

“You can use these principals for anything, raising children, but we use them for financial issues. It is about what motivate. We take them through these principals, but it has to start with them realizing that they need to change. The advantages flow from the change of heart,” he said.

One client, Carl Hiner, spoke at the Smithfields meeting about what he sees as the advantages of the process.

Hiner was within weeks of losing his home following successful years of employment with a manufacturing firm. He lost his job due to health problems as he approached retirement age.

“I couldn’t pay all my bills. I heard an ad on the radio about eight years ago, and I called saying I needed some help. Robbin said I would have to file for bankruptcy, but I didn’t want to do that. I filed Chapter 13 and I felt a little better about that,” Hiner said. That allowed him to keep some cars that he wanted to keep and to pay off all the principle that he owed on debts and “most” of the interest.

“My parents and my wife’s parents had come out of the Second World War and the Great Depression. We just expected that we’d be living paycheck to pay check. We didn’t think investing was for us. Investments and the stock market were for rich folks,” we thought.

“We worked with Robbin, and we began a process of saving a little every month. You have to be on a budget so you know what you can do with what you have,” he said.