Aussie Firebug

Financial Independence Retire Early

I was chatting to a friend the other about these net worth updates, and he mentioned something that I hadn’t really thought of before.

“I really like the progression table at the end of your updates mate. When I first read the title of your net worth posts, I thought you were pumping up your own tyres a bit ya know. You see the big $900K figure and think it’s almost impossible to get to that at your age without winning the lotto or something. But I really liked seeing those graphs at the bottom and the table that shows what happened each month. It made it a lot more relatable and actually showed the path you took which is cool”.

I realise that there has been a lot of new readers to this blog over the last couple of years and I haven’t explained the purpose of these net worth update for some time now.

It’s a bit scary to put all your numbers out there (even if I am under a veil of anonymity) but I started to publish our (Mrs. FB and I’s) net worth mainly to keep us accountable and for it to be at the front of our mind at least once a month.

What gets measured gets managed.

The older I get the more I love this quote. It’s not just with money either. Have you ever tried to increase your bench press without recording what you’ve been lifting? Have you ever tried to lose weight without weighing yourself consistently and checking progress?

You can still make improve without measuring a KPI but it’s a hell of a lot easier to progress once you have a well defined metric that you track consistently.

This was my main motivator for recording my net worth in the first place.

The other reason I publish our NW online each month is to help other people by giving them the blueprint that we used and show that reaching financial independence early in Australia is very doable without winning the lottery, having a high paying job or inheriting a wad of cash.

It’s my way of giving back to the community a bit and paying homage to the FIRE bloggers that came before me. Creator’s like The Mad Fientist, MMM, Mr 1,500, Our Next Life etc. all had a prolific impact on my life without asking for anything in return.

It’s one of the main reasons I started AFB in the first place. I was getting so hyped up reading about all these internationals reaching FI that I wanted to create a similar example for Australians.

There’s nothing worse than reading about these so-called self-made millionaires on realestate.com.au that have somehow managed to amass millions and retire in their 20’s without actually sharing specific numbers or a detailed account of what they did (other than the stereotypical stuff like skipping breakfast, making your coffee at home and somehow getting approved for 20 loans without maxing out your lending capacity).

I’m not saying they didn’t do it, but there’s 100’s of these stories in the media and more often than not, the couple featured have conveniently gone on to start a business ‘helping’ others out or have just written a book.

This brings me back to these net worths posts. I’m a dude that likes to get into the nuts and bolts of things. I publish monthly updates showing everyone exactly how we are building our snowball and what our position was at the very beginning so you can all see that we’re practising what we preach and maybe inspire a few Aussie’s that like to see the cold hard facts.

If you’re a fan of these updates please let me know in the comments. Or if you want to see me add anything moving forward, that would be cool too. I’m looking to do a bit of a redesign once our house settles in July so I can maybe add in a few things moving forward from that July update 🙂

To help new readers from this point onwards, I’ll be adding this little summary at the start of each NW post.

I publish these net worth updates to not only keep us accountable but to hopefully inspire other Aussie’s out there and show that reaching financial independence in Australia is very doable without winning the lotto, having a high paying job or inheriting a wad of cash. Getting wealthy enough to retire is easy but it takes many years of being consistent and sticking to a plan. The table at the bottom details our entire journey starting from being $36K in debt all the way until we reach 🔥

 

Net Worth Update

The big needle mover for this month was actually getting back to nearly full-time work in my business. I won another contract in April which meant that my hours went up and there were two weeks when I was working in a full-time capacity. The invoices that were raised at the end of April came in during May and combining those with Mrs FB full-time income bumped up the net worth a fair bit.

I still have to pay taxes on my income though so it’s not as large as it seems.

The share market also had a great month and there weren’t too many expenses that came in other than the quarantine bill for our stay in Adelaide during January.

Properties

Argh man, I still haven’t gotten around to doing the numbers for the sale of property 3. Just too much on atm. This update is late AF and I’ve got a few articles that are close to being published (survey results are next guys I promise).

It’s just been crazy during the last month or so. I’m actually writing this update up in Queensland because we’re tying the knot in a few days 🎉.

There was so much drama around getting here (we’re from Victoria) and we have recently bought a home that settles in July. Throw in extra hours in a business that I’m trying to get off the ground and the fact that we’re living between two houses atm… I just can’t get settled and back to a routine where I do my best work.

But that’s enough of me being a cry baby 😂 . I just can’t wait to get into our new home and set everything up. Not having to plan for the wedding in another state during COVID will relieve an enormous amount of stress and anxiety too 😅.

But back to the housing part of this update.

The new home settles in July so right now we’re rocking an insane amount of cash in the portfolio in preparation for the 20% deposit. I’m going to dedicate an entire article on how we plan to convert that debt to be tax-deductible (debt recycling) because the idea sounds simple but it’s actually quite complicated once you look into it.

I’ve also been thinking about what we’re going to do with the PPOR debt and equity in these updates.

Do we count the PPOR in our net worth even though it doesn’t produce an income and won’t help us reach FIRE? Do I include another graph that shows our passive income vs expenses each month? Do I remove the PPOR completely?

I’ve been thinking about doing a bit of a revamp for a while now and I think the July update will be a good time to add in a few things people have been asking for.

So if there’s been a number or chart that you wish were included in these updates, please let me know in the comment section below.

Property 1 was sold in August 2018

Property 3 was sold in April 2021

*DISCLAIMER*
The current value of our properties is a rough guesstimation based on similar surrounding properties. I only really update these when we get an official bank valuation

ETFs/LICs

The above graph is created by Sharesight

No buys again this month. As soon as the house settles we will be back to a regular schedule.

 

 

Networth

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