Updated November 2018 You can read my original review of Acorns here. For all of those who are unaware, Acorns Australia has re-branded to Raiz Investments. The re-brand came about after the venture split with is US based parent company. You can read about it here on the Smart Company website. It is still the same great investing platform that I have had really enjoyed being part of and would recommend to all my friends and family as a simple way to get into investing and put their savings and investments on autopilot! I have been an investor with Raiz/Acorns for a year and half and ..read more

Rich Dad Poor Dad was the first personal finance book I read, it also happens to be one of the most popular personal finance books ever written, having sold 32 million copies (at the time of publishing this article). In the book author Robert Kiyosaki recounts the entertaining stories from his childhood, right through to adulthood and along the way points to the lessons from his two ‘Dads’. The two ‘Dads’ being his Rich Dad, who is actually his friends father and his Poor Dad, who is his real father. The stories are quite entertaining and fun to read, particularly the stories from his childhoo ..read more

So you’ve taken the smart route to wealth and decided to invest, good for you! You have probably been reading personal finance blogs for some time and also read some of the personal finance books (like Scott Pape’s The Barefoot Investor – The Only Money Guide You’ll Ever Need), so my guess would be you will probably have decided to invest in an index fund or ETF, or maybe you have just started out and signed up to Acorns! Well good on you for taking the first step! Also… Welcome to the roller coaster! You see the market is largely guided by something rather unpredictable, human emotion! Whilst ..read more

Family Values are a set of guidelines on how you want your family to live. They can help you navigate awkward situations and guide young people to make good decisions, but ultimately they will help create that strong family bond we all wish for. If you do not already have some Family Values of your own in place do not despair as it is never too late to begin and hopefully this article have help guide you and give you some ideas on how to create your own. Types of Family Values Below is a list of several types of values that you may want to consider, it is not an exhaustive list as each familie ..read more

Scott Pape has been voted “Australia’s most trusted finance expert.” He’s the money guy for Channel Seven and Triple M, and writes two weekly national newspaper columns. He has advised AFL and NRL teams about money, and consults to the Australian government on financial education in schools. Scott lives on a farm in country Victoria with his wife, two sons and three dogs. Source: https://barefootinvestor.com/about/ Scott Pape is a well known and trusted personality in Australian finance. His third book “The Barefoot Investor” uses the tag line “The only money guide you’ll ever need”. I ..read more

Just like football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars, debt seems to be a national past time in Australia. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 74% of Australians held debt in 2016, with the most common type being credit card debt. Whilst the trend shows the percentage of households in debt has not changed a great deal in the last ten years the average amount has almost DOUBLED. However all is not lost, we as a collective have the ability to buck that trend and smash your debt starting with a few simple tricks. 1. Weekly or Fortnightly repayments Generally when you sign up to a ..read more

What is an Emergency Fund? An Emergency Fund in simple terms is a lump of money that you keep aside to use in case of emergencies. It is a “peace of mind” account. It is money you put away for a “rainy day”. It gives you the comfort to know that is something drastic happens and all of a sudden you need a sum of money it is sitting there waiting. Unfortunately life does throw curve balls every now and then and an emergency fund can help smooth those out, at least financially. What constitutes an emergency? Obviously this is subjective but generally I would say anything that falls outside of you ..read more

This article is a follow-on from An Introduction to Side Hustles. The introduction post was designed to provide an insight to someone new to Side Hustles and how they can be beneficial to achieving financial independence. With this article I want take it one step further and create a list of potential side hustles for you to explore. In future posts I will build on this with a more in-depth review on some of these. You will notice that the list is primarily made up of online Side Hustles. The reason for that is the target audience for my blog is typically working full time and often ..read more

A side hustle is a way to make some extra cash from a source other than your main income. A side hustle can come in many forms, a part time job, selling stuff on eBay or Etsy, online surveys, driving for Uber, starting a blog or many others. In fact if you have a hobby or a talent there is more than likely a way you can monetize it to earn some extra cash. Why start a side hustle? There are many reasons one might start a side hustle, but I would recommend tying it to your goals. Earning some extra cash to certainly help achieve your goals quicker. Maybe you want to earn some extra cash to ..read more

It is a question you often here around the personal finance traps, and the answers are as diverse as us ourselves. The truth is, as in all areas of personal finance, the answer is… personal! There are so many factors involved, there is no absolute right answer. If we were robots on the other hand, of course there would be – if the compounded rate of return on your potential investment was guaranteed to be higher than the interest you would pay on your debt over its life then you should invest – however we are not robots (well not yet anyway) so a little more thought needs to go into the topic ..read more