After school, the common path for many New Zealanders is to get full time work, get married, have kids.
All can be amazing in their own right, but each one carries extra responsibilities. As you age, your spare time […..]
YOLO money
I was saddened last week to hear the news of Dave Cull passing away, age 71. Not because I knew him personally, but because I remember him making his resignation as Dunedin Mayor just two years ago. I studied in Dunedin for five years and have a soft spot for the area, so often follow the news down south.
In this article, Dave said […..]
Would you trade places with Warren Buffet?
Financial independence is more than sipping cocktails at the beach
You can always make more money. You can't make more time
The key attraction of financial independence for me is that it creates more time to do the things you want to be doing.
Many of us are only doing certain jobs and spending our time in certain ways because it is what pays the bills and helps us to get ahead. Even if this is time that is not enjoyable. That is the story for […..]
Why cutting expenses is like a double pay rise
Mid life crises? Not thanks to financial independence
Keeping up with the Mustachians
Up until my late 20’s many of you know that I had a negative net worth. Spending all my income on useless things such as over eating, over drinking, over travelling, and over housing. I was buying the best of everything of too much of it. Mainly because I thought this was the path to living the good life.
All my mates were doing it and I just wanted to keep up. In fact, I more than wanted to keep up. I wanted the best. However, there was […..]
Early retirement is more about pursuing your dreams than it is about retirement
Early retirement is not as extreme as you think
What do we have against saving?
I’ve previously talked about the importance of savings rates – the difference between what you earn and what you spend. It is the most important metric in determining how quickly you can achieve financial independence.
Last year, New Zealand’s household savings rate was an abysmal minus 0.2%. We are bad savers.
No one is achieving financial independence at that rate. In fact, no savings is the definition of the exact opposite. Financial dependence […..]
There is good early retirement and bad early retirement
FIRE is not the right acronym
There will come a time where you wished you had financial independence
The best thing about financial independence that I can see is the fact that it provides you with options. You can work where you want and do what you want to do, within reason. You can live your life the way you want to live it. You aren’t forced to work in a job you don’t like. You aren’t forced to put up with a bad boss. Financial independence allows you to make much bolder decisions to move […..]
Life is for living
Financial freedom provides options
Normal should not be the goal
Don't let financial independence steal your joy
When you have a lofty goal such as early retirement or early financial independence, it becomes easy for your mind to drift into the future to this magical place.
Focusing on how good things will be later, and how bad things are now. This is an extremely dangerous way of thinking that will lead to not living in the moment and not enjoying life.
Not a good place to be in.
I should know. I was there a few years ago […..]
You don't need to win lotto to retire early
This is something people that can’t afford to retire like to tell themselves to make them feel better about their situation.
There are some people that will never retire early even if they wanted. I truly believe that there are some people who are born into extremely bad situations. They will make good decisions with all the best intentions but may be dragged down by […..]
Financial independence is not the goal
The further along I get on our savings journey, the more I realise the importance of designing your life to suit your passions as soon as you can.
At the beginning of the journey I was more than willing to stay at an unfulfilling job for 10 to 15 years. It’s not a bad job, but it also doesn’t spark joy at the risk of sounding like a 4 ft 7 in Japanese woman.
It seemed doable. At the financial independence discovery stage, I was […..]