Aussie Firebug

Financial Independence Retire Early

Big month for the net worth in July.

We had a few things add up which explains the big jump which I’ll cover in the Net Worth Update below but it was a great month.

 

I went on a business trip to a major city in July which required me to catch the train each morning.

What an experience it was. Don’t get me wrong, catching the train is a bit of a novelty for a country kid like myself, and I did feel a bit more ‘Big City Slicker’  dressing up in my nice suit each day. But maaaaaaan I could tell that the daily commute on the train could get old really quick.

I’m not ganna say it was this bad

Commute

But it was pretty cramped.

And everyone seems to be in a rush. I honestly felt like most people around me were in the rat race.

Another thing that struck me was the apparent wealth that most of these people had. I had dinner with a few other professionals from the city one of the nights and the whole conversation was just one big dick measuring contest. No one knew each other but we were all in the same industry and I had a very good idea of the income for all of them and let me tell you right now, it’s not that much higher than mine.

So you could understand my amazement as the conversation drifted from work to other topics such as:

  • One dude bragging about his $600 dress shoes only to be one-upped by another noob who was happy to part ways with $1,000. I looked at them and trust me, they look like every other bloody black dress shoe I’ve ever seen.
  • How BMW’s are an essential item and how one guy could ‘never go back to a merc’. Righto cobba.
  • Somehow paying more for a house is seen as a badge of honor. It’s amazing how impressed some of these guys were with a postcode.

And there was other stuff like fancy watches and custom-made suits but you get the point. I’m not saying that they weren’t wealthy, for all I know they are loaded. But this trend of ‘flashy’ shit was everywhere! No way everyone is rich.

These dudes nearly fell over when I told them that were I live you could get a kick ass new 4 bedroom house for around $400K. And it was hilarious when they found out I was renting. I could feel the entire table’s attitude towards me shift when that was bought up. I swear some of them must have thought I was some loser who couldn’t afford a house.

These guys definitely don’t read the blog 😂

Net Worth Update

Two big things happened which mostly attributed to the big bump this month.

  1. HELP debt
  2. Tax Returns

Mrs. FB HELP debt was reduced from her payments through the year which equated to $5K.

The other one was that both of our tax returns came through which came to around $5K mainly due to the property deductions.

Other than that, we managed to save around $10K cash after a great month and two extra pays (both of us got an extra payday due to the way the payday fell). We had a $3K Super bump and the ETFs chipped in $2.7K.

Properties

 

No changes in the properties this month.

 

 

*DISCLAIMER*
Various data sources (RP data, Domain.com etc.) are used in combination of what similar surrounding properties were sold for to calculate an estimate. This is an official Commonwealth bank estimate and one which they use to approve loans.

ETFs

ETF returns for July

JulyNW

 

VAS coming in with the good on the franked dividends and the rest making up for it in cap gains. Nice little bump for July.

 

 

Networth

 

Download My Networth Sheet

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