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We have officially started our Summer Euro trip! Mrs FB and I have embarked on a two-month adventure around Europe and the Middle East.
We have sublet our apartment in London and with Mrs FB being on school holidays and the beauty of contract work, I can take off as much time as I need. I won’t get paid of course but the whole point of packing up shop and moving to another country was to see as much stuff as humanly possible. It is hard passing up £20,000 pounds (or ~$35K AUD) for the next two months but we’re in our YOLO phase right now so the race to FIRE will just have to wait 😝.
We first hit up South West England stopping off to such places like Bath, the Cotswolds, Oxford, St Ives and some others too.
Here are some shots.
Some rocks
Ancient Roman baths that are around 2000 years old!
St Michael’s Mount- Epic castle with stunning views at the top
England’s countryside is absolutely gorgeous and I really liked the architecture and style of the buildings. It was good to do it in summer though, I couldn’t really imagine it would be that enjoyable when it’s raining.
Frugal tip: If you want to go to Stonehenge, there’s a way to see it for free and save around £25 pounds (~$49 AUD). Go to this spot https://goo.gl/maps/cKTR7KeNcx8QAv2Q7 and hang a left to drive or walk all the way up to Stonehenge using this path.
You stand about 10 meters further away than the official tour group path but it doesn’t make a real difference unless you really want to stand a bit closer.
Our next stop and where I’m currently finishing up this post actually is Spain.
We visited Madrid and are currently in Calpe with Barcelona being our next stop tomorrow.
We have loved the tapas, weather, culture and history that Spain offers. Here are some shots:
Calpe resort. Only $95 AUD per person a night
Madrid Cathedral
Sunset in Madrid
Something very special happened in Spain too…
I’ve been planning this for a while and have probably have dragged my feet a bit (it’s been nearly 9 years)…
I asked Mrs FB to marry me and she said YES 💍🎉!!!
I couldn’t be any happier and it’s the perfect way to start our Euro summer trip. Now we just have to plan the wedding 😁💸
Net Worth Update
We have broken the $700K mark!
The ASX has been on a RAMPAGE lately. We saw an all-time high in July and with the cash rate looking to be cut again, who knows where it will end up by years end.
We have had a great month even though I didn’t actually get paid in the month of July. I have two big contractor paychecks coming in over the next two months. One was meant to be paid in July but there was an issue with it (long story) so it wasn’t approved until the middle of June. I think I’ll get it any day now but it means the August update might have a big bump.
I still owe a heap of tax both in the UK and in Australia so I’m expecting to be down thousands very soon.
Extremely happy with how things are travelling along though, especially since we are on holidays.
You really don’t have to spend a lot when you travel as I’ve discovered this year. So many people just go crazy and feel they need to spend up big to fully enjoy themselves. Eating out at restaurants every day/night is one of the biggest spending traps. There nothing wrong with taking a packed lunch and cooking at your Air BnB or hotel. Eating out once or twice is great for sure, especially to enjoy the local cuisine but goddam you spend a lot if you do it every day!
Properties
No changes in the properties this month.
Property 1 was sold in August 2018
*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/LICs
Holy Mackrel!
Over three per cent return in just one month including over $2K worth of dividends 😱
The share portfolio is inching closer and closer to providing us with the income upon which we will live off once we hit FIRE. It’s so exciting to watch the dividends grow each quarter which is what investing IMO should be. Building that snowball up every day until it reaches critical mass.
The investment nerd side of me could stare at that graph for hours!
Networth
Get in! Well done big boy, congrats……..You have nice shoulder-blades by the way.
Tysm Bongo.
I prioritise the blades in my workouts so it’s good to see someone notice 😂
If you want to check out ancient stones for free, go to Avebury instead – and it works as a stop on the way to Bath. Same age, not necessarily in a tight circle – more scattered around the fields, but you can go right up to them and touch them even.
You are making me nostalgic about my working holiday in London.
Oh that’s a good tip for next time.
Tbh I was more interested in seeing other ancient ruins. How old stonehenge was is cool, but it’s just a bunch of rocks at the end of the day.
Congrats on her saying YES!!!
You single, Edwena?
Thanks a lot Edwena. I’m over the moon 😊
Got engaged in Barcelona last week also, and went over the 700k mark.
Weird coincidence.
Congratulations to you both! Now the frugal but acceptably sized wedding. The ultimate challenge.
Wow that it weird. I’m actually on my way to Barcelona today! Are you still there?
I think we’re going to have a smallish just family wedding and then maybe a bit of a party when we return to Oz.
Few ideas are being thrown around
A big Congratulations to you both on your engagement!!!
Thanks Simon 👍
Congratulations on the engagement! Summer holidays, cracking 700k and her saying yes! Good things certainly come in threes 🙂
Thabks so much 😊! Couldn’t have asked for a better way to start our trip
Congratulations on your beautiful news. How on earth did you buy a diamond ring and Mrs fire didn’t notice that expenditure? Ha ha.
Ah great question and it’s actually a funny story.
So this proposal was a bit of a spur of the moment thing. I had always planned to propose sometime this year but I didn’t decide that Madrid was going to be the place until about 2 days beforehand.
I really wanted this to be a surprise as much as possible. I’m sure everyone is assuming I would proposal at some point because it’s been so long but the surprise was important to me regardless.
I always hated the idea of going shopping for a ring wirh your partner before you’re engagement. I mean, where’s the romance in that?
So I was originally going to try to buy it beforehand but the odds of me getting it right were extremely low haha.
So I went to see what my options were in a store and the women told me about these ‘placer holder’ rings. They are white gold and look exactly like an engagement ring but the rock is cubic zirconia instead of a real diamond.
It cost me £50 and for the purpose of surprising Mrs FB and getting a few pics for the Gram it was perfect.
We are going to go shopping for the real thing once we come back from this euro trip.
Would highly recommend to anyone looking to surprise their partner without risking getting it wrong (size or style).
Congratulations to you and Mrs Aussie Firebug-to-be on your engagement!
TYSM 👍
Aww awesome! Congrats brother!!
Also good to see that snowball building and some fat payments coming in 😉
Thanks bro!
Congratulations!
How is Ms FB enjoying teaching in London?
I’ve heard some horror stories about it over the years…
Thanks 🙂
It isn’t too bad actually. She taught at a very low socio-economical school back in Oz so the issues those kids were dealing with are different than the issues in London. They are expected to do a bit more as well in terms of academic testing in the UK vs Australia apparently.
No horror stories yet and hopefully none to come 🤞
Hello, Given the 0.03% difference in MER between VAS and A200, you’re still putting a lot of your money into A200. Given the performance above, wouldn’t you be better off putting more into VAS?
Just curious 🙂
Hi Mick,
VAS outperformed A200 in July that’s true… but A200 outperformed VAS in May and for last month (August). They are so similar in terms of what the underlying assets are anyway that we shouldn’t really ever see massive differences.
Without knowing the future, I always pick the cheaper option even if the difference is really small.
Cheers
Big congratulations to you & Mrs Firebug and good luck with the wedding planning. I really enjoyed our wedding, but it was quite stressful, and I’m glad we only did it once LOL.
Thanks Sianzilla 🙂
I was happy to elope for that very reason. So many people spend all this money just to be stressed lol. We won’t have a big wedding but Mrs FB wants the fam there so we’ll have some planning to do when we get back to London.
Congratulations on the engagement, fantastic news!
Like you I didn’t want to pick out a ring and just proposed without one.
If you’re going shopping for engagement rings in London then Hatton Gardens seems to be the main place, that’s where we got my wife’s. Alternatively you can apparently get them pretty cheap in Antwerp if you’re going there. Or Blue Nile is a good website for buying them as well as learning more about them.
Thanks HIFIRE 🙂
Awesome recommendations, I’ll get Mrs FB straight onto those bad boys!
Cheers
Hi FB
From reading your past blogs I thought you were invested in only VAS 40% and 60% VTS and VEU.
I was just looking at your net worth blog for this month and I see you have about $300k+ in ETF shares but not only VAS, VTS and VEU.
I currently have $110,000 in Vanguard index mutual fund which I have now decided to shift over to purely ETFs because of the capital gains tax inefficiency of the former.
Can you please give me some insight on the other ETFs and shares you are invested in?
Also – silly question, I know we can go with minimal capital gains tax with an ETF option – since I am using the set and forget method – no real selling here, just trying to grow my base to eventually have a dividend 4% safe withdraw rate and reinvest the rest, but with the dividends that we receive from the ETFs and any DRP (if viable) , do they all need to be declared as taxable income? Is there any way to lower this amount?
Thank you for your knowledge. Your blog is an inspiration as I work towards my FI goal 🙂 I am a low income earner with an annual income of $64,000 so it’s taking me abit longer, about 15 years to attain my $900,000 goal. This is my pre super plan!
Thx
Michelle
Hi Michelle,
I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog 🙂
Check out this post.
I’m actually in the middle of writing about a new..ish strategy that I’ve moved to so keep an eye out in the coming weeks.
You always have to declare dividends as taxable income. One exception is with DSSP/BSP.
Check out this article that explains it really well.
Good luck with your journey!
When did you start tracking your portfolio / net worth?
Yearly updates then after a few years, monthly
Hi Baz,
I started accurately documenting the net worth from September 2015 onwards. Before that, it is a little guesswork but it’s pretty much on the money mate.
Congrats on the engagement! And passing the 700k mark! 😀
Thanks Jess 🙂
Looking forward to the August update