I share these net worth updates to stay accountable, seek feedback on our strategy, and prove that achieving financial independence in Australia is feasible without relying on extraordinary luck or wealth. The table below tracks our journey from $36K in debt to reaching our goals. 🔥
First off, I’ve made a quick update to fix the scrolling issue some of you mentioned with the net worth section at the bottom of these updates. Hopefully, it’s sorted now! Let me know in the comments if it’s working 🙏
Winner winner chicken dinner 🐔
Our Co-working space took home the ‘New Business’ award at the Gippsland Business Awards night in August.
To be honest, the whole thing was mostly fluff and doesn’t hold much significance. We nominated ourselves, and I suspect most of the other businesses probably did the same!
Even though the awards are mostly just patting yourself on the back, it’s a great chance for the team to take a step back and really appreciate what we’ve pulled off.
A year ago, this was just a dream. Now we’ve got a fully operational co-working space with 23 seats, 2 meeting rooms, a private office, and over 12 members on monthly subs!
It’s easy to just keep grinding and forget to step back and think, “Wow, we’ve actually done a fair bit here!”.
I guess the same could be said about some people’s FIRE journey. Many people will grind for years, saving and investing, focused on reaching the finish line. They don’t realise they’re building freedom along the way and could probably start enjoying a better lifestyle sooner, rather than waiting until they hit their FI number.
Net Worth Update
The Data business continues to cash some big invoices, which pushed our NW to new highs in August.
Shares, Super, and BTC took a hit in August.
On the upside, we got an unexpected $8K boost in Super from Mrs FB’s account. She’s been on mat leave for the past year with no Super coming in, so I’m guessing this is some sort of big contribution from her employer. Anyone else ever had something like this happen during mat leave?
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*Expenses include everything we spend money on to maintain our lifestyle. We do not include paying down our PPoR loan as an expense, only the interest
*Investment income is simply 4% of our FIRE portfolio divided by 12
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Shares
The above graph was created by Sharesight
Not a great month for our shares portfolio, and BTC was even worse!
Question: Why do we have A200 & VAS?
Answer: We started buying A200 in August 2018 after Vanguard didn’t lower their MER to match A200. Practically speaking, A200 and VAS are almost identical so it makes sense to go with the lower MER. As an added benefit, I like the fund diversification between Vanguard and Betashares. We decided to hold both after making the switch since it doesn’t have any impact other than some extra accounting work once a year.
Networth
Congratulations on both businesses doing well!
Nearly at the $1.5 million mark now as well, I’m assuming you’d actually be over it by the time the article was published!
Quick question – are you counting your business income as part of net worth pre or post tax?
Or does it form part of your net worth until you have to file your tax return? (And presumably pay some tax…)
Just wondering what ‘mat leave’ is?
You’ll kick yourself! Maternity Leave 😀
You Aussies shorten everything!
Obviously not a focus anymore as you’ve written about, but you are bloody close to the ‘FIRE’ number. Currently at your lowest month expenditure you are basically there, cool milestone to pass.
Also incredible to see how fast things are taking off now. My own chart is actually quite similar to yours but we started tracking in 2016 at -11k. Little bit of a different asset makeup but remarkably similar in $net worth at each month/year (still 5 years behind), so it’s motivating seeing the ramp up and compound interest in action to stay the course.
Great job.
Do you feel its worth adding the value of your business to your net worth. For my net worth I add the value of the business I own/Wondering why you have not. Assume one day you would ideally sell the business.
Hey AFB, I’d be checking Mrs AFB’s super account to see whether anything has been contributed while she’s been on leave. Her employer might have been hanging on to the employer contribution instead of depositing it. (Hopefully this isn’t the case, but I’m pretty sure it’s not legal to do that.)
Hi AFB, you’re really light proportionally on US equities atm (VTS) to what you’ve had previously (I think). If this is right, is there any reason for lowering the US component?
This is like August-21 when you were $1k off the big 1m milestone, only this time it’s 1.5m you’re chasing!
Keep the fire going!
AFB are you worried that your FI number is sliding to the right?
Nice update – Seems your business income has already vastly surpassed your dividend yield!
You should track/chart the growth in monthly business income, this would be even more interesting than dividend income!
Will be interesting to see if monthly expenses grows as little ones start to grow, experience is that costs start to rise as they get older and older. Public primary school is relatively cheap, but will see how this compares to high school when we need to buy more text books, electronics and the big one private schooling?