Ahhh…the end of the week is here. I don’t know about you, but if your week has been anything like mine, it’s been a long one! I’m so looking forward to hitting the weekend, curling up with a good book and sleeping in. And it’s not even just my week that’s been a long one. This month has been a long and expensive one for me (keep an eye out for my April Update to see the deets in all their glory). I’ve been sprung with a few large, unexpected expenses this month. My savings rate has taken a hit and it’s been a bit frustrating. But there has been a silver lining. It’s made me want to double down ..read more

Holy moly, stuff can be expensive. When I moved out of home, I discovered that buying a few sets of furniture could easily cost a small fortune. Since then I’ve fortunately found some ways to get furniture, homewares, clothes and other things practically for free.  I got thinking about the hacks I use when I was recently staying with some friends. Their house looked absolutely amazing. There was none of the mess or ‘junk’ that you often see in people’s homes (you know, the stuff strewn around that makes a place look truly and authentically lived in).  So I had to ask my friends the q ..read more

When it comes to aiming for financial independence, it can be easy to get hyper-focused on money. From tracking every cent you spend to checking your share portfolio every half an hour, it’s so easy to get tunnel vision on your net worth. It can reach a point where you’d be forgiven for thinking that life is all about the money. And yes, money is important. It’s a tool and using it well can unlock financial independence (so it’s actually pretty amazing like that). But no, money’s not everything. There is more to life than dollars and cents (or pounds, euros and all the other currencies out the ..read more

When it comes to investing, small fees can add up over time. It was from a desire to reduce these fees that helped me to come across Pearler. Pearler is a newer platform out there that allows Australians to invest in index funds and limited selection of individual shares. It’s Aussie-made and built with Australians in mind. Pearler is less than 3 years’ old and already has over 10,000 users. The platform is growing in popularity and if you’ve been thinking about making the switch, this review is for you. Read on to discover what benefits and drawbacks Pearler can offer. What I like about Pearl ..read more

Sign up to emails to be notified of new FIRE Round-Ups weekly. Ah full-on early retirement. It’s the dream for a lot of us. The end goal is so clear. But what’s not always so easy to see is how you can make your journey there the most enjoyable.   So in this round-up edition, we tackle how to live the life you want before you fully retire. We explore tips on figuring out what you want to do, whether semi-retirement is worth if and what a CoastFIRE approach looks like in real life.  For a bit of fun, we also check out some tools you can use to fool people into ‘thinking you hav ..read more

Sign up to emails to follow my FIRE journey and be the first to see new net worth updates. W.O.A.H! We’re more than a quarter of the way into 2021. How did that happen? Did someone accidentally hit the fast-forward button? March was a busy month of friends, family, getaways, wine tasting and more. Looking back now it almost feels like a blur. So what happened with my net worth in March? And how close am I now to my goal of retiring at 40? Read on to find out. If you’re new here, this is the section where I get myself out into the open. My financial self that is. I lay out what has happened t ..read more

Sign up to emails to be notified of new FIRE Round-Ups weekly. Another Friday is upon us! And that means, time for another Friday FIRE round-up. If your week has been anything like mine, it’s just flown past. It feels like one minute it was Monday, and the next it was Friday! It reminded me a bit of cryptocurrency. I can remember reading not so long ago that Bitcoin was trading at a new high of $2,000. I remember thinking to myself “Wow. $2,000!”. Fast forward to today and now one Bitcoin is worth over $50k in US dollars. What an enormous change! For better or worse, I’ve never personally in ..read more

The end of the week is here! (Well almost, and there’s no harm in celebrating early, right?) That means, it’s time for another round-up. In this week’s FIRE round-up we’re checking out things to do with real estate. Why? Because of two reasons: Property is a way many people hold and grow their wealth – there’s a heck of a lot of money invested in real estate so it seems crazy to completely ignore it Owning and investing in property is a strategy that generates lots of different opinions in the FIRE community Having an investment property or owning your own home isn’t for everyone, but for so ..read more

When I wasn’t even a third of the way to FIRE, I turned my back on being a full-time employee. But not on my FIRE number and date. By dropping back to part-time, my salary was nowhere near as much as it could be if I worked 5-days a week. So why did I do it? And is it an approach that could work for you? You may have heard stories of people slowing down their working habits as they get close to financial independence. You know, the kind of stories where people decide to take it easy and stretch out the last year of their FIRE journey into three years. For instance, so they can work casually an ..read more

Sign up to emails to be notified of new FIRE Round-Ups weekly. This edition of the Friday FIRE Round-Up aims to give you fuel for your financial independence daydreams. This week we’re looking into the experiences of early retirees.  This round-up covers stories from a whole heap of backgrounds. You’ll hear from ‘youngsters’ who retired at 30 through to people who retired with a few more years (sometimes decades) of life experience under their belt.  If you’re new to the round-ups series, this is where I pull together interesting FI-related articles from around the globe. This week ..read more