About Me

Hi there!
I'm an Aussie guy in my 30s with a strong desire to reach a position where we have the choice to FIRE (Financial Independence and Retire Early). At this point I have no interest in actually retiring early but it's good to get in tha position to as you don't always have the opportunity to go out on your own terms. I'm sure many of us have friends or know people that got laid off during the pandemic. 

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Yes yes I know, not another one of those "people".

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My Job and life
I'm a white collar professional with full P&L management in an executive position with a very satisfying responsibility of creating all the products that accounts for >90% of the revenue.

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I've got a wife and one kid <1  (keeping details light to keep my identity anonymous but Mrs. FIRE-nance also has a job with a similar income to mine).

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Outside of my job and my FIRE interest, I've got a strong passion for all things sports related (even lawn bowl and golf) but actively only play Ultimate Frisbee and Indoor Soccer. I've also got a nerdy side and love my strategy board games and computer games. I want to host/cast showmatches between top players/teams one day as I love the esport scene. I also have a special interest in relationship and behaviour economics. I will also be reacting to/writing about articles (potentially videos) of interest in the future. I would love to host debates/discussions between top FIRE bloggers/personalities in the future. I also love my apps/responsive websites and would its my dream to build a business around that one day and this will hopefully be just the start!

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Whether the above becomes a feature of my Website will depend on you, my readers!

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My Strategy

My method is basically to buy enough ETFs (enough properties for now), specifically VAS to reach my FAT-FIRE number of $100k+/year which is an investible networth of at least.$2.5m. I will not necessarily be spending this amount, but this gives me a comfortable buffer of 2x our projected annual household expense. Currently we are 50% of the way there on our net rental income alone. I foresee that ETFs/side hustle to make up the majority of the passive income in the future by the time my 9-5 job winds down.

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I am not planning on selling any units but relying on the dividends gives me the flexibility to do so if I need to. People may think this is not tax efficient, but it is if you have it in a trust structure and you're earning a high income.

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My relationship with money

The best description for my relationship with money is a rollercoaster ride. I grew up in a family of spenders which I believed had a lot to do my miser ways with money.

My parents owned a restaurant throughout my schooling days, earning no more than $40k/year combined. It always felt like we were tight (budget wise) which made me the same with money. My anxiety worsen with my parents asking to borrow $20k+ on two separate occasions by the time I was 20 which luckily was repaid over 1.5-2 years each time. It did put pressure on me to ensure that I always had enough just in case.

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I used to get nervous if my savings drop below $20k. The money I saved was earned through helping them since I was ~12 and also years of saving birthday/Christmas/New years/festival money. Unfortunately my younger sister is now in her 30s and still have to borrow money from my parents because she never learned and nor was she open to learning. This strengthen my resolve that I will only go as far as having a reward system for my kids and will not hand out money unless they worked hard for it. My sister always had everything paid for growing up despite my protests.

Unfortunately once I moved to Melbourne for work I stopped my miser ways and move to the other end of the spectrum. I started buying breakfast, lunch and dinner out every day. My savings did not grow in the duration of the time I spent there. I guess you can call this my gap year seeing as I never had one. All my friends at the time did not even come close to what I had saved up. It shouldn't be an excuse but it gave me comfort that it was ok to enjoy spending a bit more.

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Things changed when I met my wife who was more frugal than me. Though she never told me how to use my money, she inspired to stop eating out, cancel subscriptions, pay off my salary packaging involing my sports car (and selling the car) and actively look for ways to reduce my expenses before starting on the path...

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How I started on the path

Towards the end of my time in Melbourne, I started researching properties in-depth as I never actually understood the process of how to buy them. I stumbled on the propertychat forum and my eyes were opened. I became obsessed and would spend many hours after work reading all the posts that interested me.

I quickly saw the potential of using leverage to build a larger sized investible asset than you can with shares/ETFs. I continue researching for the next year to decide where to buy before I started my property journey and my dream of living off the rental income.

It wasn't until around 2017 when I somehow stumbled onto the MMM website. It was like obsession in over-drive as I actually found a label for someone like me as I identified a lot with Adeney. I eventually moved onto contents related to Australia and found Aussie Firebug. The rest was history and I hope you will continue following my journey through my blogs.