“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” – Warren Buffet. For folk on the road to financial independence, habits really do unveil the map that leads to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s the small and consistent work, little and often, that lead to big gains long term – after all, a snowball doesn’t start as a huge, monstrous force of nature, but usually just a handful of ice. These are the five major habits of financially independent people that create the avalanche. Financially independent people… don’t see any amount of money as insignif ..read more

If you’re plodding along on your journey towards financial independence by saving as much as you can from what you make, squirrelling away that money into investments, and adopting minimalist habits to create momentum for your efforts – congratulations to you. Intentional living really is the secret sauce to the FIRE movement, which includes understanding what you won’t spend on as much as what you will. Here are the things we don’t spend on ourselves to help us achieve our own FIRE goal faster. Fast fashion. Generally for me, any outfit that I can only wear a few times isn’t a good idea from ..read more

There’s a more widely understood notion now that the way we talk to children in their formative years literally shapes the way their brain synapses later in life. So, following that vein of thinking, it makes sense that your language and ethos around money would have a similar effect. When it comes to what we’re teaching our own brood, here’s our top 5 financial lessons for kids to learn early. Investing is a concept, not a hard and fast rule. If starting to invest in shares is difficult even for some adults, then safe to say it’s going to be impossible for kids – and given they feed off of yo ..read more

Australia has a slow burn retirement system that’s pretty super, so when it comes to how we maximise superannuation, here are the habitual things we’ve done to help us achieve both a big balance in the amount, and good balance in the distribution. In 1992, superannuation was introduced as a way to ease pressure on the government to provide a state pension to an ever-increasing ageing population. While the minimum amount employers have to contribute is growing, looking after super really is something that can’t be left up to them alone. Younger people have the highest levels of dissatisfaction ..read more

Every investor is different, coming to the table with a different amount of capital, a different risk tolerance, a different lifestyle and different vision for their investment outcome. To me, that’s the magic of finding ways to achieve financial independence – you can create your ultimate lifestyle in a way that suits the current one. This is important because there are pros and cons of different asset classes and not every one of them will suit every person in the same way.  For example, coughing up huge upfront chunks of cash to finance a property deposit isn’t realistic for those wher ..read more

“The secret to a fulfilled life is not only to do well, but to do good.” That’s ethical investing 101. Whatever your personal, political or social view of the world, there’s one thing we can all agree on: it’s never been as batshit crazy as right now.  Reeling off the back of (and sometimes dipping back into) a global pandemic, sandwiched somewhere between ravaging bushfires, devastating floods and arid drought – ethical investing is on the mind of many of us looking to be cleaner with our investments.  How can we still amass wealth without ruining the planet in our efforts? What’s ..read more

If you’re like any of the Aussies with FIRE on the mind (in short: swapping extravagant lifestyles for frugal, intentional living and investing) – the biggest question for  you is… how? The answer, simply, is following the six steps to ensuring your financial independence and early retirement.  Whatever demographic you fall into, DINK, SINKS, a big brood of kiddos, single parents, young, old and all those in between, these steps don’t discriminate. Whatever your final income number (let’s say, a passive annual income of $50,000 generated from an asset base of $1,250,000 comprising of ..read more

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the fallacy that acclaim and success are direct outcomes of how much we earn, or how complicated our affairs are. Accomplishment isn’t linked with complexity. We can merely “work to live” and still make major bank with the simplest of systems, workflows and personal productivity ethos. I do every month. It’s almost comical how simply I manage my business financials as a minimalist. People often think I run an action-packed show, full to the brim of backend sorcery and financial formulas that keep the FIRE journey ablaze. Does that mean I don’t work hard? No. D ..read more

I cannot tell you the amount of times I have heard that financial independence is simply not possible when budgeting for a baby. That as soon as you procreate, all notions of economic autonomy go out the window, along with your sleep, sanity and sex life. “Must be nice, but wait until they have kids.” “Whatever. Saving is easy when you have no dependents.” “You can’t be good with money with mouths to feed.” Is it true that having children burden us so much that we lose all sense of fiscal responsibility? Are kids so expensive that our only destiny is to forever bounce from one pay check to ano ..read more

So many Australians are terrified of share investing because of the risk in buying shares, and also because they don’t feel comfortable with their ability to make money on their money. If that’s the case – paper trading, i.e. “fake-vesting” might just be for you. Paper trading is essentially the sharemarket’s version of try before you buy. Also known as fake-vesting, it’s a process that helps you get a sense for how your money would theoretically dip and grow before you actually invest anything physical. For the uninitiated, it’s an introduction into how the share market works, what different ..read more