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. 🔥
My family and I went down to Melbourne last week to see the Coldplay concert on Wednesday night.
Coldplay at Marvel Stadium
Mrs. Firebug wasn’t feeling her best, so I took my mum instead—and later found out it was her first concert ever!
Better late than never, I guess 😅
The concert was amazing, but I was almost as impressed by the LED wristband light show extravaganza!
What really blew me away was the proximity sensing. At first, I thought the lights just blinked randomly, but they’re actually much more advanced than that.
The wristbands somehow detect their position in the arena, allowing for all kinds of amazing effects. They can create a “Mexican wave” of light that flows through the crowd, change colours for different sections of the audience, and even form shapes—at one point, they used them to draw love hearts by selectively lighting up certain bands and turning others off.
Combine that with an incredible performance featuring lasers, smoke effects, confetti, and 60,000 people screaming the lyrics, and you get a truly out-of-body experience.
It was mind-blowing!
I found the video below, which captures it far better than I can describe:
All I could think afterwards was that there must be something encoded in our DNA that resonates with music—something deep within us that comes alive when we gather in large groups to dance and sing around a fire.
With 60,000 people, Marvel Stadium felt like the modern-day equivalent of that ancient ritual.
Net Worth Update
All assets were up in October, with Cash seeing the biggest boost.
The Data business had two invoices land last month, giving our balance sheet a nice lift, and overall, it was a solid month across our other assets.
Several people have reached out about our debt recycling plans from last month’s update. I’ve previously detailed our approach to debt recycling, which you can read about here.
In short, we’re planning to sell off VAS, use the proceeds along with some savings to reduce our split loan to $0, then redraw the funds and invest in A200.
This accomplishes two things:
- It converts roughly $180K of non-deductible debt into deductible debt (debt recycling).
- It consolidates our holdings from four ETFs down to just three.
November should be really interesting, with the US election just around the corner…
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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
We did not buy any shares in October.
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
Nice update. I think “Selling VAS and Buying A200” would confuse some people after the multiple discussions over the years on the fb page on VAS vs A200. Maybe rewording it and ommitting which shares you are selling and buying but rather focusing on selling off some shares and buying some shares against the loan and noting you are buying different shares to avoid it being a “Wash” sale which isn’t allowed in Australia?
Yes this is what I immediately thought. Seems like he’s opening admitting to selling and rebuying solely for the purpose of minimising tax. VAS and A200 are similar enough that there really isn’t any plausible deniability here.
Not a tax lawyer but I doubt there’s going to be any wash sale issues here. The defining characteristic of a wash sale is the motivation being to realise a tax loss for CGT purposes but still retain the asset (or substantially similar asset). The generic goal of “minimising tax” is not necessarily a problem as long as the machinery being employed is legal. Transactions associated with changing the purpose of a loan should be fine especially when they are going to realise a CG gain as opposed to a loss.
The coldplay gig sounds amazing! Thanks for all you do mate, I’ve been following along with your journey for years now. My net worth is about to kick over 1m and it’s guys like yourself that keep me inspired.
Why haven’t you switched to IVV.ASX instead of VTS out of interest?
Curious what the ‘pay off period’ is for selling VAS to debt recycle and buy A200? i.e. + capital gains tax vs – 6% interest saved on the home loan and – 0.03% ETF management fee…
https://news.stv.tv/entertainment/coldplays-chris-martin-falls-through-stage-trapdoor-during-australian-concert
Coldplay’s Chris Martin falls through stage trapdoor during Australian concert