This post details how we managed to get a free PPSR check on the used car we just purchased in Australia. Saving ourselves money $$$$. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Recently we sold our dual-cab four-wheel drive and downsized it for a smaller and more economical vehicle. This financial move helped us free up cash for our current kitchen renovations, and also reduces our car expenses. To maximise the money we were freeing up from the sale we decided to purchase our car secondhand privately and skipped the used car dealers. The issue with choosing to buying secondhand privately is that we neede ..read more

We’ve now been Airbnb hosts for almost 6 months. In that time we’ve learnt a lot, and so I thought I would start sharing what we’ve learnt in a series of posts. If you want to see all posts relating to Airbnb click here. Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com One of the early things we invested time in setting up was our scheduled messages and quick replies. I discovered the scheduled messages function from having a play with the features on the Airbnb platform. It’s proved to be a really handy function for us and reduces the amount of host administration required. How to find the scheduled messages ..read more

First I must start off by saying this interview was a few months ago at the start of 2022. In the interview, I talk about my husband’s and I’s goal of reaching Flamingo FI at the end of 2022. First off if you’re not following Money Flamingo and the amazing Mrs Flamingo who first coined the term Flamingo FI I encourage you to head on over to their socials and blog and subscribe to their content. As you know I love following and talking to people in the financial independence community who are treading an alternative FIRE path. Mrs Flamingo uses the Money Flamingo blog platform to focus on the ..read more

This February on Instagram I created and completed a 28 day frugal challenge. This came about after we had a very spendy start to the year with Christmas and birthdays. So the timing was perfect to do a challenge that helped us get back to our frugal roots, and in the process find some extra cash. The challenge went really well, not only did we save some money but we also rediscovered our love of frugality and slow living. So I’m sharing the challenge via the blog today for those who may want to do a quick frugal boot camp to get themselves back on track. Please note that this challenge can be ..read more

In the second half of 2021 I had the absolute pleasure of being interviewed by Jessica from The Fioneers about my experience downshifting to a lower stress job. If you’re not following The Fioneers I encourage you to head on over to their socials and blog and subscribe to their content. I love their content because they don’t cover the usual path to Financial Independence (e.g. reduce expenses to the bone, and invest at least 60% +++ of your income). Instead, they are taking a different slower and more sustainable approach to Financial Independence coined Slow FI and write about their own jou ..read more

A lot of people have asked me how my Airbnb is insured from guest-related damage and liability, and so I thought I would share how we found insurance that met our very unique needs. I also thought this information might help others that are looking into house hacking by using their own home as a short term rental. When we first started toying with the idea of becoming part-time Airbnb hosts last year one of the first things we started looking for was suitable insurance. The first thing I found out during the search was that finding an insurance company for short term rentals was a lot harder ..read more

As I entered our expenses for December into my expense tracker all I could think of was ‘thank goodness 2021 is over so I can’t spend any more money!’. 2021 has definitely been a more expensive year than usual for us thanks to renovations, but even without the renovations I couldn’t help but notice that just living has cost us a whole lot more than previous years. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s experienced this thanks to record-high inflation and disruptions to supply impacting on food, petrol, consumer goods, housing, and utility costs. To view all previous expense review tagged posts cl ..read more

We calculate our Net Worth and FIRE Net Worth and track them monthly. If you would like to see all net worth posts use this link here. FIRE Net worth December 2021 – $389,452 (up $8,897) Total Net worth December 2021 – $1,156,567 (up $12,006) Net Worth Calculator available here Total Assets December 2021 – $1,708,457 (up $10,338) Net Worth Calculator available here In December we invested a total of 3k (outside of super/retirement) via Pearler’s auto investment feature (as per our regular investment strategy). In 2021 we invested 60k into ETFs. We also hit our super stretch goa ..read more

Following our side hustle series detailing the side hustles we participate in we have decided to track and detail the income we generate each month. If you want to read all the previous linked posts you can find them all here. Goodbye 2021 and Hello 2022!!!!! This will be our last monthly side hustle post. I’ve decided to do our updates a little differently in 2022 so stay tuned. Year to Date – Month by Month Comparison These charts are from my Income and Expense Tracker click on the image for the link. December 2021 – Side Income Breakdown These charts are from my Income and Expense Tracker c ..read more

I’ve made a tonne of mistakes in my life, and this one ain’t one of them. A photo of the worst financial decision we’ve made If you’re reading this hoping to hear a story of woe, well you’re not going to get one. This is a story of two consenting adults who made the terrible financial decision to drain one of their retirement accounts to purchase something absolutely unnecessary under terrible circumstances. So how did this come to be. Well lets go back in time 7 years to 2015. My husband was unexpectantly diagnosed with Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at the ripe old age of 28. Our children were just ..read more