Yes, you should travel in your 20's... just not very far

Australian millennials are currently inundated with advice on how to save for a new house. It boils down to 'stop having smashed avocado brunches' and 'who said you can travel to Europe when you should be saving for a house?!'. This advice completely ignores the fact that the average house is now seven times the average wage, where it used to be only four times. Sure our interest rates are a lot lower now, but saving for a deposit is harder.

Added to that is the question of 'If I save now, when can I start living?' and the extra bit that baffles older generations, some millennials don't want to buy a house.

While every dollar you save will make a difference, and daily lattes and smashed avocados can really add up over time the big hit to your wallet in your 20's is travel. Especially those ridiculous Contiki tours that bundle you up in a bus with a group of people just like you - middle class 20-somethings with disposable income. Not only are they far more expensive than DIY-ing your holiday, they also insulate you from really experiencing the culture of a place.

Rather than wrapping yourself up in the expensive cotton wool of a Euro-trip (did people have this obsession with Euro-trips before that movie?) consider starting slower, getting your teeth into travelling and bulking up your wallet at the same time.

The big Euro-trip, what does it cost you?

Let's start by assuming you have a full-time job and can get four weeks of annual leave each year. You're going to spend 18 - 24 months saving for and planning two big overseas trips over the next four years, plus a few little holidays around home to use up the rest of your annual leave (say, taking a few days over Christmas and Easter to visit family).

Over four years, let's say you go on two trips, here's a rough cost breakdown, with links to where I pulled the prices from. I've set everything at 'mid-range' for hotels and food. If you look closely you'll see I haven't included entertainment costs outside the Contiki tours, this is just the costs to get you there and get you around - you still have to add tours and attractions onto it.

In America I've given you a car. In Europe I've given you a global rail pass that will get you anywhere you want. In both cases I'm sending you on a Contiki tour because that seems to be the rage amongst my travelling friends.

Obviously you could do these trips cheaper by backpacking and cooking your own meals.

28 days in the United States

Flights in and out of LAX
July – Aug 2017	$1,300
March – April 2018	$1,660
Average cost	$1,480
11-day Contiki Tour	$2,498	http://tours.statravel.com.au//trip/la-to-the-bay-cowwaf?
Tour inclusions	10 Nights Accoms 7 Breakfasts 5 Dinners
Pay for your own…
4 Breakfasts	$30
6 Dinners	$150
11 Lunches	$110	http://traveltips.usatoday.com/figure-out-much-spend-per-day-traveling-103634.html
Souvenirs	$100
Boozy Times	$200	I’m told people drink a lot of cocktails on Contiki Tours
17 Days non-Contiki
Car Hire ($40 p/day)	$680
Mid-range hotel ($130 a night)	$2210	http://www.lonelyplanet.com/usa/money-costs
Three meals a day ($55)	$935	http://www.budgetyourtrip.com/united-states-of-america
America Total	$8,393

28 days in the Western Europe

Flights into London, out of Rome
July – Aug 2017	$1,534
March – April 2018	$1,307
Average cost	$1,420.50
16-day Contiki Tour	$2,875	http://tours.statravel.com.au/trip/London_to_Rome-COCCLR
Tour inclusions	15 Nights Accoms 15 Breakfasts 11 Dinners 1 Lunch
Pay for your own…
4 Dinners	$120
14 Lunches	$315	http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/the-cost-of-traveling-western-europe/
Souvenirs	$100
Boozy Times	$250	I’m told people drink a lot of cocktails on Contiki Tours
12 Days non-Contiki
Eurail Global Pass	$856
Mid-range hotel ($80 a night)	$960	http://www.lonelyplanet.com/usa/money-costs
Three meals a day ($65)	$780	http://www.budgetyourtrip.com/united-states-of-america
Europe Total	$7,676.50

So - in four years if we start with our BIG overseas trips, we're going to make some wonderful memories, but we'll be out of pocket just over $16,000. And due to the big price tags we only get to travel twice in four years.

Start small, build it up

Okay, so that was pricey, what if you were to try the not-very-far travel plan?

Step One: Be a tourist in your own backyard

For your first year of travelling, don't travel! Head down to your local tourist information point and find out what is going on at home. Plan some day-trips, some weekend getaways and use up a few of your annual leave days for extra long weekends. You can use those annual leave days to turn a regular long weekends into even longer ones, or to take a three-day weekend where everyone else is back at work on a Monday.

Ask around your friends and see if anyone has a holiday home, or a tent they can lend you. Try all kinds of holidaying - go camping somewhere without a shower, hire a top class house on the foreshore via AirBnB (referral link, $50 credit when you sign up), visit your friends 'shack' near the river. Now is the time to find out what kind of accommodations you like, whether staying in a five-star room is necessary for you, or if you can have a good time sleeping in the back of a van.

Check out all your local attractions too. There are people paying to fly to wherever you are - I live in a sleepy town that bands regularly skip over because we are just too boring. But checking out our tourism website gives me enough to do for months. Largely food related, we have berry picking, world class wineries and farms your can visit and pet the animals and buy products. We also have beautiful walking trails, a variety of museums and a cool obscure attractions like paintball and an archery adventure trail.

Prices vary but taking camping as an example:

• Tent, sleeping bags and a couple of camping chairs - $300 - 500 (I had this chair, not cheap but super comfy, especially on cold nights.
• Firewood (necessary!) - $50
• Food - $20-30 per person, per day - take junk food, it's a holiday. If your budget can stretch it get a cast iron camp oven. Otherwise use a propane stove and your regular kitchen pots and pans.
• Camp fees - $5-15 per night or keep an eye out for free sites.

Three nights (take off Friday night, take Monday off work) - $425 - $685 the first time, then $125 - $185 for every other trip.

Staying at a friends cabin / shack / holiday home will be free or dirt cheap. Staying at an AirBnB will vary depend on your preferences.

Add in a few trips to some local attractions (let's say $50 each once a month) and two or three overnights, we can have our first year of non-travel for less than $1,500 and most of that cost is buying camping gear.

Step Two: Cross the country, but no international waters

I fly around the country three or four times a year for roller derby. It's expensive and exhausting, but has taught me that if you look out for flight sales, play the credit card rewards game and take the airport bus, you can get a great holiday on the cheap. And think, you've just spent a whole year being a tourist in your own town - now we're opening up the whole country! With the right timing on flights you can get anywhere in Australia for under $100 a flight.

Accommodations are available from under $40 a night. Score a room with a toaster or a kettle and you can do breakfasts in your room to keep the costs down under $2. I often get cheap lunches when traveling for derby by ordering the entree (seriously, $11 for four mammoth arancini balls! Divine and super filling). If you're traveling with a friend pub meals often come in two sizes - big, and too big. Order the 'too big' serve and split it.

Even allowing a few nights of splashing out, you should be able to eat on under $35 a day - and that includes a daily latte. Also consider mixing up free tours and paid attractions to keep the costs down.
In your second year of not traveling far consider a taking just one three or four-week trip. With $200 for flights and $100 a day for accommodations, meals and attractions you should make it through the year on less than $3,000 ($100 times 28days, plus $200 of flights).

Mr. FIRE and I spent almost a month in Tasmania in a camper van for just under $4,000. We mostly ate food we cooked and did a hell of a lot of hiking. We also hit up tonnes of attractions and ate a few absolutely mouth-watering restaurant meals. By prepping most of our food ourselves we saved a tonne and could really splash out when we did go out for food. We also had no shortage of wine.

Step Three: Travel to the cheap places, on the cheap

If you've mastered shopping for cheap flights and using travel rewards, it won't actually cost you much more to travel overseas than locally. This is because you can visit countries that have a lower cost of living and stretch your dollar further. But you should travel locally first so you get the hang of packing and dealing with flights before you're in a foreign country.

Give yourself $4,500 for this years travel. Sneak in a few overnight getaways with that camping gear you bought, and at your friends holiday houses you learned about in your first year. Maybe do a road-trip inside your own country to a place you didn't make it to last year. Either way use what you've learned previously to spend $1,500 in this country and leave $3,000 to go overseas.

What can you get overseas with $3,000? $777 will get you a round trip to Phuket leaving in two weeks time. You can travel on the cheap for $50 a day, eat the street food (go where the locals go) visit temples, go snorkeling and check out the night markets. If you want a luxury experience you can get an hour massage for a measly $7. For $777 flights and $50 a day you can travel for over six weeks.

Not keen on Phuket? Indonesia, Cambodia, parts of South America and India are all cheaper than Australia. Get crafty with your flights and away you go!

Step Four: You've made it! Check out Europe

Okay, you've got three years of travel experience up your sleeve. Time to go on that big Euro-trip you wanted back at the start. Except now you are practiced at flying overseas, at managing the food budget, at not losing your luggage, at waving your arms and trying to be understood in another language. Now go on that big Euro-trip, but use your wisdom to do it for cheaper day-by-day, and stay longer.

Final cost - $6,000 instead of the previous $8,000 - because you're not going on that crazy Contiki tour anymore, right?

Dollar for dollar, how does it stack up?

In my slow version, you'll spend $15,000 over four years with two international holidays, one holiday in your own country and at least three weekend getaways a year. If you go for the two big trips you spend $16,000 over four years and you don't have the spare funds in your budget for those weekend getaways. Plus since you've never traveled before you probably lose your luggage or forget to pack something important.

So let's say both our travelers save $350 a month, check out what their finances look like...

A bit boring at this stage - there's no real difference at the end of four years, although our 'start small' traveler is up $1,000 that's just the difference in their spending. But if we do the same thing again for another four years...

Our start-small traveler is now ahead $2,200, they've seen Europe and America, as well as Phuket and Bali, they've found some amazing local pubs and garden mazes in their own town and they've traveled around their own country as well. By starting smaller they've not only traveled better, but they've traveled cheaper. They also have their money working for them through compound interest as it sits in their account helping them save.

Extend this out to 20 years and our start-small traveler is ahead $6,500 and many many memories. Can they buy a house with that? Not a chance, but who needs a house when you're never home.

May Highlights - Best Posts in the Blogosphere

Morning Everyone! It's been a hectic week and as you read this Mr. FIRE and I are sitting in a hospital waiting for him to go in for knee surgery. This will be our third winter in a row with one of us hobbling around on crutches so we really hope it's the last.

Unfortunately this also means I haven't had the chance to write anything for today's update. I tapped this out on my phone in the waiting room, please forgive the formatting and lack of pictures. Instead of my thoughts, here are my favourite personal finance posts from May.

Number Five

Fiery Millenials - Never say Never

Gwen from Fiery Millenials is a huge inspiration for me, we're at similar life stages but she's winning the FIRE race. In this post she brilliantly captures that it's not always about money. It's also about your entire approach to life.

Number Four

Mr. Tako Escapes - Investing in Avocado Toast

Mr. Tako is rapidly becoming on of my favourite FIRE bloggers. He's witty, funny, really knowledgeable and really easy to understand. This post is about why stock market dives are like avocados going in sale, a great thing!

Number Three

Bayalis is the Answer - The 4 Percent Rule

I've mentioned the 4% rule a few times, but another post on it is always welcome, and Mrs. Bayalis is laugh out loud hilarious. I keep getting busted at work laughing at her posts.

Number Two

Hey, It's Just Money - Winter Ready

Mr. FIRE and I were excited for our first low electricity bill winter this year. The last two years we've both had surgery (his ankle, my knee) and no one wants to be cold while recovering so we cranked the heat. 

Well Mr. FIRE is about to have surgery, so looks like we're having another expensive year for us, but maybe you could save on your power bill with some of these tips from Hey, It's Just Money.

Number One

Picky Pinchers - Skip the Tampon Tax

Turns out this was written way back last year, but I stumbled across it in a couple of days ago, so it's in my highlights reel.

As a woman I hated paying for tampons constantly so I turned to using a menstrual cup. Turns out Mrs. Picky Pincher is a cup user too! Check out her review.

Hey readers, I'm considering making the monthly highlights reel a regular post - what do you think?

Spend you dollars, on more dollars!

Let's do some maths, baby! I'm going to talk about money, using your money to 'buy' more money, and investing. Plus I get to play with charts and graphs.

We're going to talk about interest, starting with the normal boring kind, then the compounding kind. Most people encounter interest in two ways - banks will pay you for leaving your money in an account. They will also charge you interest on loans.


For example, my bank pays me 3.05% per year. This is calculated daily and paid monthly. So every day I leave $1,000 in the account, they owe me 8cents ($1,000 x 3.05% = $30.50 a year. Divided by 365 = 8cents a day). Once a month they add up what they owe me and deposit into my account (roughly $2.55).

Inversely, my home loan runs at 4.14% p/a. So for every $1,000 I have borrowed, I pay the bank 11cents a day, or $3.46 per month. This is how banks make money, that $1,000 you have sitting in a savings account isn't in a vault somewhere guarded by dragons and goblins. The bank has given it to someone else - they pay you 8cents a day, charge the other guy 11cents and gleefully collect that 3cents for themselves. They aren't doing it in tiny $1,000 amounts, they're working in billions and trillions.

So obviously you win by taking that $1,000 that you have in savings and paying down what you owe on the loan. But when it's only $0.91 a month difference it's easy to see why you wouldn't. It doesn't cost you that much. But on a 30-year, $300,000 loan you end up paying almost $225,000 in interest.

If you're able to find a little extra money and push it into your mortgage, then you can bring those numbers down. (Related post: 3 ways to shorten your mortgage right now)

Okay, that's the unpleasant part about mortgages and costing you money. Let's look at the fun part of Compound Interest working for you.

Compound interest is more fun than regular interest. In the above scenario you only make $2.55 a month from your $1,000 savings. Which isn't even enough for a coffee.When you look at it over time, you probably imagine this graph.

Let's face it that graph isn't very inspiring. If you leave your money alone in a 'high interest' account for 10 years, you get less than $300. Woop de doo. Except that isn't 100% correct.

If you were to withdraw the $2.55 you were paid every month, this is exactly what would happen. But if you leave the $2.55 in the account, it also earns interest, a whole 0.6 cents in a month. Then next month you earn $2.55 point oh six cents. It's only a little tiny bit more, but each month it's a little tiny bit more than the last month. When you include compound interest you get a graph that looks like this.

So you come out $40 further ahead than you thought you would be. Doesn't sound like much, but with compound interest you have 3% more in ten years. Again, not a huge number, but it's free money. Then if you look at it over a longer period you also get this...

There are a few things about this chart that give me a nerdy little thrill. One is that in 30 years, you can get $1,343 of free money with compound interest, more than double what you put aside. Compounding gets you 26% more than if you withdrew your money every month. And that red line isn't straight, it's curving. Every month you don't touch that money, the amount of interest you are paid goes up. In the first month you were making $2.55. By the 30 year mark you are making $5.60 a month. And each month this amount is increasing a noticeable amount, $5.62 at 30 years and one month, then $5.63, then $5.64.

Admittedly these are tiny numbers. You can make it more exciting by moving the decimal point to the right, and working with $10,000 and $23.70 per month, but I thought having $1,000 in savings was a more realistic starting point.

I think most people miss out on compound interest, because we save small amounts of money for a short time. In the grand scheme of things, even saving for a house is a small amount in a short time, say $60k in 4 years. Starting from zero you need to save $1,250 per month. If you consider compound interest you need to save $1,174 per month, and you'll get $3,653 of free money from interest.

You're still doing the heavy lifting yourself and for many people buying a house will be their biggest purchase. For other savings goals like travel or a new car compound interest doesn't play in because the saving time is much shorter.

However, if you are saving for retirement or financial independence then compound interest becomes your best friend. Putting aside $100 a week for one year equals $5,200 + $73 interest. Over 25 years $100 a week becomes $130,000 + $64,626 interest. Again, the graph is a curve. And all this is assuming a measly 3.05% return in a high interest bank account like ING Direct (currently offering $100 sign up bonus with the code EBB062).

To really kick off your investments, have a look at RateSetter (returns over 8% with Peer-to-Peer lending) or Acorns (my personal returns are nearing 10%, long term I expect more like 7%)

If you made it this far, go play with the MoneySmart calculators, particularly the Savings Calculator and Compound Interest Calculator. Using these calculators I can see that at the 16 year mark and 8% investment like RateSetter will have earned more through interest that your have contributed. That is the power of compound interest.

(Related post: Where's my million? - includes a fancy calculator)

Boring disclaimer: If you sign up for ING I also get $100 for introducing you. They are a fantastic bank and I have never been charged a single fee. They also cover the cost of ATM withdrawals, and give you a little money back if you take out more than $200 cash during an EFTPOS transaction. I highly recommend them, not just because they are offering me a little cash as well.

A new way to invest: Dollar Value Averaging

Investing seems like a big scary monster when you haven't done it before. The idea of throwing in your hard earned cash and then crossing your fingers and toes that the next market crash isn't around the corner is enough to give anyone goosebumps. But there are a few tried and true methods to mitigate some of that risk.

I've just learned about a variant on an old favourite, Dollar Value Averaging is here to challenge Dollar Cost Averaging for the easiest way to plan your investment buying.

Before we start I need to clarify that this post is talking about investing in Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs) on Index Funds that track big financial things like the Standards and Poor's (US) and the All Ordinaries (Australia). I am not talking about individual stock picking, which is a whole other kettle of fish.

The biggest fear most people have with investing is that their investments will tank and they will lose money. This is a perfectly rational fear and it's part of the reason why I love RateSetter and Acorns because they allow you to invest small amounts of money. That way you can stick a toe in the water, feel around and decide whether you're in for a pleasant swim or an unpleasant ice-bath.

Sometimes (like now) the sharemarkets run upwards in a seemingly endless climb. Other times, like the dot.com crash of 2000, the Global Financial Crisis in 2007 and the day of Donald Trumps election the markets crash so hard it looks like winning is impossible.

Timing vs. Time In

A brilliant post by Ben Carlson shows that even if you invest the day before these horrendous crashes, you'll still end up ahead as long as you don't panic and sell. Throwing money in and leaving it there is up there with your safest investing choices.

By using either Dollar Cost Averaging, or Dollar Value Averaging you can confidently commit small amounts of money to the share market at regular intervals. In both cases you'll be buying when the market is high, and when it's low in the hopes of balancing it out over the long-haul.

Many people try and time the market by watching to see what is about to go up and what is about to go down. They try and buy right before the booms, and sell right before the busts. If you can pull this off, that is amazing. There are billion dollar investment companies that can't do that. And if you do it wrong you'll end up selling in the middle of the GFC because you panicked, or seeing a market rally and buying in when the price has already peaked.

However, if you get in and stay in, you can ride these peaks and troughs. The S&P has more than tripled since the dot com crash in the early 2000's, but you can only cash in on this massive return if you are in the market.

So if you aren't a mastermind and can't time the market, how do you know when to buy in? The answer is all the time.

Dollar Cost Averaging

Dollar Cost Averaging (or DCA to save my typing fingers) is the favorite of set and forget investors everywhere. Anywhere that you can make a direct deposit into your investment account is a perfect setting for DCA.

The concept is super simple. Decide how much you want to invest each day / week / month, then set up a direct payment from your bank account to your investment. I have these set up for Vanguard, RateSetter and Acorns. 

Without any effort or having to remember I invest $550 a month. It's great because I don't need to monitor the markets or second guess if now is a 'good time' to invest. It all happens quietly in the background.

Except being the spreadsheet fanatic I am I track it religiously. But I could ignore it and it would work just as well. I just like watching the numbers tick up :)

Dollar Value Averaging

I'm a huge fan of dollar cost averaging because it's such a set and forget option, so when someone mentioned Dollar Value Averaging I just assumed it was a different name for the same thing. Not so, it's a similar but different concept that edges out a tiiiiny bit better performance - as long as the value of your investment is going up.

When we Dollar Cost Average we put in the same amount each time, regardless of the price of our investment. So when the shares are $1 each we spend $1000 on 1000 shares. When they're $1.10 we still spent the same amount, but we get less shares.

Dollar Value Averaging doesn't focus on the amount you put in, but the value you want to hold. With DCA we put in $1000 a month, and let the value of the portfolio fluctuate any which-way (hopefully up!). With Dollar Value Averaging we declare that we want our portfolio to be worth $1000 more each month. So if the price of shares drops, our portfolio value drops and we have to put in more money. If the value goes up, we put in less.

Confusing? Look at it this chart, charts always help

In both cases we've decided to increase our investment by $1,000 a month. With DCA we throw $1,000 a month at it and get a rather nice 3.84% return in six month. (These are real numbers by the way, it's the last six months of Vanguard's Australian Share Market ETF). 

However, with DVA we only spent $5,772.87 and got a slightly higher return at 3.93% (over a year that'd be a whopping 7.83%!)

What happens if the prices go down? Well with Dollar Value Averaging you spend more, but your Return on Investment (or in this case, loss on investment) is slightly less bad.

Do we have a winner?

If you're willing to put the extra effort in for the slightly higher return, dollar value averaging wins out. Just. But there are practical issues like having the spare money to invest when the market tanks and your plan calls for throwing in a bigger contribution. There are also the psychological risks of seeing it fall and thinking 'maybe we'll skip this month, in case it falls further'. It might be a wise move, you might miss buying shares on sale.

On the other hand, if the markets are running up and up, you might end up not investing as much as you planned and having money left over. Anything sitting in your account waiting to be deployed is earning less than it could be on the markets.

If you're disciplined enough to stick to the plan, Dollar Value Averaging can give you a slight edge. In the above scenario the difference in return will put you ahead $1,850 after ten years. That's not a small amount, but it also might not be worth the extra effort that Dollar Value Averaging requires.

Choose your own adventure. Would you rather work harder for the extra 1.8% annual return? Or take the effort and emotion out of the process and let your investments run on autopilot? 

Missing the trees for the FIRE forest

In the Financial Independence world we are chasing such big goals and such big amounts of money we can forget the small things. I've been on this journey for a couple of years, even if the blog only started back in December and I have to say that it's full of big boring plateaus. Long stretches of time where it feels like you're running in place like a Looney Tune, nothing is changing and that great life you are chasing is stupidly far away.

Occasionally I need to remember to stop and take stock of what I have, what I have achieved and remind myself why I'm running down this crazy path and not sticking to the road more traveled.

I kicked off this blog back in December because I had gotten so wrapped up in the chase to Financial Independence that I was forgetting to enjoy my life. I was sitting home alone over the Christmas break listening to some pretty depressing music wondering how I got to this place.

I started this blog as a promise to myself that I would reach my goal, and I would have a good time doing it! After all, how truly terrible would it be to read a blog of a depressed miser who after years of being a grouchy jerk finally declared themselves financially free and that now they could be happy.

Lame. So very lame. Instead of eight and a bit years of solid grouching, I'm trying to build the life I want, on the budget I want, so that by the time I hit 35 I can walk away from my desk and never look back. So that all my little side projects can become my day to day and so when I try and find time to visit my mother I'm looking two days ahead, not two weeks ahead.

So today, I'm going to take a moment to look at all the cool stuff that I have in my life. To reflect on the fact that while achieving Financial Independence is still a long way away, the journey has brought some great things into my life that I've let go past without a blink.

I make a little money from this blog and I've met some cool people

When I made $225 from RateSetter referrals I brushed it off as only three referrals. Going into my 10k bucket it's barely a drop. I barely batted an eyelid until I stopped, took stock and realised that I increased my peer-to-peer lending investments by 2% simply by writing a blog I love. 

That one post made me more than 3 months worth of investment returns, but I am so wrapped up in reaching FIRE that it took me a (very long) moment to remember to celebrate. While it's 2% growth on my P2P investment, I was stuck for a moment on the fact that it's a mere 0.03% of what I need for FIRE.

I've also made a little bit of money from Acorns referrals ($2.50), a smidgen from Google AdSense (almost $4, woah!) and importantly I've met some cool bloggers like Mrs. Picky Pincher, Miss Balance, and Mrs. ETT who I'm loving sharing the journey with.

When I borked my knee, I could pay for it

One of the biggest character tests of my adult life was tearing my ACL. I was playing a practice game of roller derby and I had just said to my team "We need to calm down, someone is going to get hurt if we keep playing this crazy." And then I got hurt... yay me. It took five weeks to diagnose my injury properly (the first two 'specialists' said my ACL was definitely fine and I'd torn a minor stabilising muscle) and those weeks were right at the start of winter.

Between being completely unable to skate, run or walk on loose ground and the disappearing sun I struggled massively with my mental health. A huge amount of my identity was (is?) tied up in being a badass roller derby girl that plays a high speed high contact sport that always gets a big reaction when I tell people about it. 

For those weeks before diagnosis I kept improving my strength and balance and feeling like maybe I was getting somewhere, only to have my knee give out under my doing simple stuff like putting on pants. When I had to email my league and announce I was hanging up my skates for the season I cried so hard I couldn't feel my face.

So when the diagnosis came through and I had a choice between a giant hospital bill, or waiting a few more weeks to crawl through the public health system I threw money at the hospital and got surgery the very next day.

I had a few more weeks of dodgy mental health while I hobbled around on crutches barely able to bend my knee. I cried at work at least once a week for no apparent reason, I struggled to sleep, and I forgot what it felt like to walk without 100% razor-sharp focus on each step. 

The first time I caught the bus home after surgery was in the dark and my phone was flat. I nearly had a panic attack waiting for the bus to arrive, missed my stopped and had tears running down my face as I stumbled home. As someone who has always been confident and self-sufficient I felt small, lost and truly afraid.

Thankfully I got back on my bike after six weeks of rehab and pulled myself back together. My self confidence and happiness took some time to come back, but I got there. I'm still strongly contemplating taking up some kind of martial arts to bring back that confidence that I can walk home alone in the dark.

I am so incredibly grateful that I had my finances in a place where I could toss caution to the wind and take care of my mental health before anything else. I did second guess myself paying for the surgery instead of waiting, but I remembered that this is why I save - so when life throws a curve ball I'm ready for it.

I sleep soundly at night knowing I have safety money in the bank

I still remember last year when I was supposed to be getting all excited for a month long holiday and instead was straight up panicking because I'd messed up my finances and needed to find $8,000 for renovations on my rental property. I scraped it together, paid everything with credit cards at the last possible moment to give myself that extra couple of weeks breathing room before I 'really' needed to pay it. It was the worst financial strife I've ever been in. It's another reason why I kicked off this blog and the reason behind my six-month, $20,000 goal.

I was panicking at Mr. FIRE that I had screwed my finances and it was going to ruin my holiday and I didn't want to lean on him because that's not a great relationship and he said to me "Oh my dear, we have food on the table and a roof over our heads. Everything will be okay." 

Firstly, I know things are bad when he calls me 'My Dear'. That's when I'm really stressing and need to be taken care of. Secondly we have food on the table and a roof over our heads. There are so many people in the world that struggle with these things, and I panicked because I couldn't invest for a few weeks.

Now I have enough safety money in the bank that I could lose my job tomorrow and live 3 months without touching my investments. If I had to break open the investment piggy bank I could live almost two years without finding another job.

I don't want to break open the piggy bank, but whenever I stress about money I take a breath, take a step back and think of how secure I am. And how lucky I am to be in this position.

I own a house!

This is the biggie - I own a house! In a time when millennials are whinging giving up on the 'dream' of home ownership, I bought my little two bedroom home without years of painful saving. Thanks to having brilliant financially savvy parents who spoke openly about their investing attempts (and failures) I had it in my mind from a very young age that saving was good. Plus I was terrible at holding my drinks, so in a time when all my friends were burning their money on getting blackout drunk I was snoozing at home watching bad TV and playing free web games. 

The end result was that in last 2014 when I realised that as much as I loved my mother I couldn't live with her anymore, I checked my accounts to see if I could afford a house. Lo and behold I had more than enough for a deposit, and enough income for a mortgage. Within six months of deciding to move out of home, I owned a property. While it may not have been the wisest financial move, I spent $60k less than my budget, brought my partner with me (he pays rent, woo!) and saved my sanity. 

Bonus is that I accidentally bought in the perfect place to sell my car and ride everywhere. Completely accidental, absolutely amazing!

The takeaway thought

I am still more than eight years from my Early Retirement goal date. According to the Mad FIentist lab I'm only six years away, but according to my own maths it's more like ten. I keep getting caught up not seeing the beautiful trees and being overwhelmed by the humongous forest I have yet to grow. 

Financial Independence is a long-term goal and getting wrapped up in the short-term could easily lead me to get distracted by shiny things and stray off course. But there is no point in forging blindly ahead with my eyes fixed on my shoes and missing everything happening around me.

What is your rubbish worth?

Thursday night is bins night in my neighborhood, but for the third or fourth time in a row, we aren't putting our bins out. Mostly we're forgetful and lazy, but more importantly we can get away with it because we generate minimal trash.

I'd love to say that we are super conscious of the rubbish we generate, but in reality we're just really good at turning trash into things we need.

I should start by saying that we don't dumpster dive in the FIRE household. I would love to give it a crack, but A. I'm the kind of person that needs to follow a recipe so random foods aren't going to get used, and B. Mr FIRE wouldn't stand for it. I'm restricted to stealing hard rubbish and bringing it home.

Side note - did you know that taking hard rubbish can actually be charged as theft? How ridiculous, these are items that people no longer want being taken to landfill and they've slapped criminal charges on helping yourself.

Moving on though, there are so very many things that we throw away each day that can easily be reused to replace things that we normally buy, here's a quick brain dump of Trash that replaces Purchases in my house.

Foodstuffs

Let's start with the easy stuff. So many of the food scraps that we throw away are edible. Ignoring for a moment that Australians throw away 20% of the food we buy because we forgot to eat it and let it get sad and moldy, we also throw away piles of perfectly good food because we just don't know what to do with them!

Step one - everything is food to someone. Food stuffs should never grace your garbage bin. Food has a hierarchy in my house, first Mr. FIRE and I eat the good stuff. Anything that we can't or won't eat is offered up to our cat (whenever we clean meat, she gets the scraps. She won't touch cheesy pasta scraps but is pretty keen on tomato soup). Anything that the humans or cat refuse (or would get sick from) is thrown to the hens for them to turn into eggs in a wonderful cycle. If it's not safe for them, then in goes in the compost bin.

However, some special foods get to escape this process. For example, the ends of spring onion and leek would go to the hens since no one else eats them. Except right now they are sitting in glasses of water in the window sill. I've never had any success with Leeks, but spring onions can regrow over and over again (until you forget to water them... oops)

Better than this though - food scraps can be immediately turned into food! Meat scraps and bones go in the slow cooker, covered in water for 12 hours (aka a work day) and magically become stock. Vegetables can do the same thing. The last time I cooked Silverside I pulled the meat out of the cooking water, threw in some potatoes and tomatoes and turned it into ah-mazing tomato soup.

500ml of stock costs $3, or you can make it for free with what you were planning on throwing in the rubbish bin. On days when the hens eat food scraps they eat significantly less of the proper fancy stuff I paid for. Our cat gets a day or two of 'free' food from the scraps that we don't throw away.

Never buy Tupperware again

I have to admit, the idea of having a cupboard full of gorgeous, tidy, matched food containers like these gives me a little happy shiver. I save so much money from taking lunches to work that having a tidy set of containers in all the shapes and sizes I need seems like the best idea in the world. But I don't want to pay for it. 

With all the butter, jam, flour and honey marching through my house I am inundated with plastic tubs and glass jars. I currently have 15 butter tubs, 20+ jam jars and an assorted mix of honey tubs. Or, seen another way, I have 15 lunch containers, 20+ single-serve soup containers, and an assorted mix of stock buckets, double serve soup containers and pasta sauce storage.

A 60 piece set of containers might only be worth $36, but taking a few seconds to wash out a jam jar is free. And I'm less upset when I lose the lids.

Paper and cardboard - probably the biggest saving

In our lovely modern world we go through a lot of paper. Bills still arrive in paper form in paper envelopes. Toilet paper rolls collect up quickly. Paper towels have the same cardboard center. In my neighbourhood we get a free community newsletter every fortnight. It piles up really quickly.

Thankfully we inherited a super powered shredder when we moved out. We shred all our bills, envelopes, old notes, toilet paper rolls, cardboard boxes... everything we can shove in the shredder gets shredded. My only downfall is glossy brochures. They can go in the recycling bin, but I can't use them because of that glossy coating. For everyone out there who prints flyers - I'm throwing them out without reading them, stop it with the gloss.

So what do I do with this mound of shredded paper? I use it to line the chicken pen and garden beds. The backyard garden beds where no one can see, I think the neighbours would be offended if my front garden was overflowing with paper. But by using all this shredded paper I save $14 a fortnight on buying straw to mulch the gardens and the chicken pen. If you have cage pets like rats, rabbits or guinea pigs you can substitute shredded paper for wood chips and save a crazy amount.

The end result?

We put out our bins once a month. Maybe. If we remember. Most Friday mornings I peek in the bin, decide it's too much effort to haul it to the street for the one tiny bag of trash in the bottom. When we do put the bins out they're maybe halfway full. We have never put out the green waste bin because we have nothing to put in it. The only things in the recycling bin are packing boxes and magazines with glossy print. 

Everything else cycles though our house until it falls apart. Every scrap of food is eaten by someone (even if it's the worms, it fertilizes the veggie garden), every sturdy container is saved, and every scrap of paper is put to use. 

I'd estimate we save a few hundred a year simply by not wasting what comes into our hands. We might not be as impressive as the Zero Waste Movement, but we're saving our budget and doing our bit for the environment at the same time. 

3 ways to shorten your mortgage right now

Buying a house is exciting. Moving in is exhausting and exciting. Decorating is frustrating and exciting. Renovating is terrifying and exciting. Realising you can walk naked around your house is liberating and exci-.. let's leave that one.

You know what's not exciting, staring down that 30 year ball and chain of your mortgage and the insane amount of interest your are going to pay. Here's three ways to knock years and tens of thousands off your mortgage.

But before we start...

Firstly, let's look at the word mortgage, from a couple of latin words it's roughly translates to Death Pledge. Okay it might not be as dramatic as that, but when you took out a mortgage, you took out a 'til death do us part' pledge with your bank. On a 30 year $300,000 loan with a 4% interest rate, you have just promised to not only pay back that $300,000, but another $215,000 in interest.

For the sake of this article I'm going to assume you are already paying your mortgage weekly, rather than monthly. If not, let me break it down really quickly.

12 monthly payments of $1,400 equals $16,800 a year.

If you make fortnightly payments you need to put in half that each fortnight. Except that are 26 fortnights in a year, which means you end up making an extra months worth of repayments. 26 fortnightly payments of $700 equals $18,200 putting you ahead $1,400.

If you make weekly payments you need to put in a quarter of your monthly payment each week. There are 52 weeks in a year, which works out the same as fortnightly payments, but because you sneak the money in earlier you save a little bit more interest over 30 years it really adds up!

The average earning for an Australian in 2016 $78,000. Your mortgage is an agreement to pay six and a half years of your wages to the bank. Egads! Sure $300,000 is for the house, and only $215,000 is the banks profit but still, just imagine working six and a half years and not seeing a cent of it. Every extra dollar you throw towards your mortgage reduces the length of the mortgage, and the amount you pay to the banks so start now!

Sacrifice something small

No need to start sketching up a pentagram, you can knock years off your mortgage with small lifestyle sacrifices and no blood rites. Ditch your $25 a week gym membership and head outside into the sunshine. Not only will you soak up some extra vitamin D, putting that $25 into a mortgage will knock almost 4 years and more than $30,000 off your mortgage.

Call your bank

Yes, I know, it's uncomfortable and awkward, just do it. Check out the current interest rate market and call your bank every three to six months. Let them know that you've been looking online and can see that xyz bank is offering significantly lower rates and you're considering switching. Most banks empower their staff to drop your interest rate on the spot. A drop of 0.05% can knock $2 a week off your repayments. Keep paying at the higher rate and you can knock 4 months and close to $3,000 of your death pledge. All for an uncomfortable five minute phone call. If I told you calling your senile racist auntie once every few months would net you $3,000 would you do it?

Hustle with your house

See, the thing about houses is that people like to live in them. I assume that's why you bought yours anyway. If it happens to be a bit bigger than you and yours need perhaps you have a junk room, or a big back yard that you could put to use?

Renting out your junk room to a lodger could net you $100 a week, $85,000 off your mortgage, and almost 11 years back.

Don't want a stranger underfoot all the time? Rent the room on Airbnb for weekends, even with a few vacant weekends you should be able to pull in an average $30 a week, $35,000 and 4 and a half years.

Don't like people? Are you pro-dog? Pet sitters have been known to charge up to $35 a night. You'll mostly have visitors over weekends, but on average you could be looking at $50+ a week, $53,000 and six years. 

Don't like animals? Consider renting out your junk room as storage space for strangers with too much money. Spacer.com works like Airbnb, but instead of people, you rent out your space to stuff. According to their website you could pull down $4,000 a year! That's $75 a week and knocks $71,000 and 9 years off your mortgage. For putting peoples stuff in a corner.

Conclusion

Look at it this way, increasing your payments by a measly $4 (1%) knocks 8 months off your mortgage and saves over $5,000. Any of the strategies above is far better than that and putting all of them together could knock $100,000 and twelve years off your mortgage. Okay they're a little uncomfortable and take a little leg work, but can you really pass up $100,000?

Not paying a mortgage and want to save that money? Check out my calculator to see what your new savings / income stream could be work after ten years.

Brickx: The Real Estate Investment Trap

So you're scared that you'll never buy a home? According to domain.com 20% of people will retire with a mortgage debt, and many millennials have 'given up' on ever owning a home.

To fill this void, a new company called 'Brickx' has started up. For less than $100 you can buy a single share of a rental property (known as a Brick) and get your first step on the property ladder.

I have so many problems with this product, I have decided to devote a whole post to it.

There will be no links, affiliate or others, to Brickx in this post. They get enough marketing as is, you'll be able to find them on Google. I am not recommending the product, so I won't link to it, but I do want to talk about it.

The basic concept

Real Estate Investment Trusts and Real Estate Funds are not a new concept. They come in a variety of flavours focusing on residential real estate, commercial real estate, mortgages and a mix of the three. A quick google search returns a list of 47 publicly listed REITs in Australia, this is just the first result. REITs can be traded just like shares, are incredibly liquid, and offer diversification by allowing you access to the growth and income of a variety of properties.

Brickx is different because you don't buy into an intangible trust or fund. When buying through Brickx you buy a share of a single property. Their marketing strategy aims at allowing people who cannot afford a home to 'buy' real estate. As an owner of a Brick you are entitled to a portion of the rents. And we can assume you are also responsible for the maintenance costs, which will eventuate as reduced rents.

The draw card of Brickx is that by banding with others who cannot afford a property you can get together and buy an investment. Clearly the people behind this business have never lived in a shared home if they think a group of strangers sharing responsibility for property is going to end well. Shared accountability is equal to no accountability.

Pros: Home 'ownership', rental income, a (potentially) growing asset, hands-off management

While it's clear from my introduction I have issues with Brickx, it wouldn't be a fair review without looking at the positives. Brickx allows people who cannot afford a home (yet) to invest in property. It returns the rent to the investor, claiming returns of greater than 3% (barely better than my bank account).

On top of the rent return, investors can make money by the growth of the property and given the spike in prices in Sydney this could be quite lucrative.

Brickx also manages the property for you, so once you have bought in it's a completely hands off process.

Cons: Ridiculous buy in fees, sod all diversification, hands-off management, no leveraging

Okay, and we're done being nice. Let's start with the buy in fees, because they are downright appalling. Firstly, before you even start you need to deposit $75, $10 of which is instantly lost to application fees. 13% of your investment is up in smoke before you even start. That in itself makes me want to wave my middle finger at them. Would you like to know what I paid to set up my RateSetter account? Nothing. And in April they awarded me and my readers almost $500 in sign-up bonuses.

Next is the ongoing fees. Brickx charged 1.75% for every transaction. Which looks something like this...

Purchase a brick:

Brick Value: $98.25

Fees: $1.75

Cost: $100

Brick goes up in value 1%, plus 3% rents

Brick Value: $99.74

Rental income: $2.95

Fees to sell Brick: $1.74

Return on Investment: $1.22 / 1.22%

Or for a better scenario

Brick goes up in value 2%, plus 4% rents

Brick Value: $100.22

Rental income: $3.93

Fees to sell Brick: $1.76

Return on Investment: $2.39 / 2.39%

In both cases your money would have been better sitting untouched in a bank account. That is the sign of a poorly performing investment!

Next though, is what appalls me the most in risk factors. Buying a Real Estate Investment Trust you are exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of properties. A Brick is a share in one property. If that property booms, it will be amazing for you. If that property busts, or just plain doesn't move, it will be devastating. In my above example with 2% capital growth and 4% rents (this assumes you didn't spend anything on maintenance) you made a measly 2.4% return. With zero capital growth, if you wanted to sell after a year you would would make a measly 47cents, or 0.47%. Factor in inflation and you have gone backwards.

Because Brickx handles the property day-to-day and picked the property from the start, you have no input, specifically "Brick Holders do not take an active part in managing the properties and will not be consulted for any day-to-day decisions relating to any property." As a property owner and investor this terrifies me. I have a property manager who has permission to spent up to a weeks rent on repairs. I scrutinize every piece of paperwork she sends me. Every invoice is double checked, and when work needs to be repeated I make the original workmen come back and fix it at a lower cost. Many property managers are overworked and underpaid and managing a very important investment, if you are hands off you have no way of knowing if they do a good job.

And lastly but most importantly, leveraging. Share market returns were 11.9% per annum leading up the GFC, and the current US market is double the price before the crash in 2006. Real estate in Australia is spruiked with returns ranging from 4% - 6% (and Brickx offers less). So if shares are double the return, why Real Estate? Because you can use other peoples money.

Say you put down $30,000 cash as a deposit for a $300,000 property and borrow $270,000. If that property then goes up 4%, while you are paying 4% on the loan, you spend $10,800 on interest, and obtain $12,000 in value. Your $30,000 deposit has grown by $1,200 (capital gains, minus interest).

You also probably received rent around 3% or $170p/week - leading to another $9,000 in your pocket. After fees you probably keep $8,400 (80%) which is equivalent to you $30,000 growing 28% in one year.

Obviously that is a perfect scenario, but the point is in leveraging you can use other peoples money to grow yours much faster. It also increases your risk, which is a discussion for another day. The long-winded point here is that I highly doubt you are going to find a bank willing to lend you money to buy Brickx, which removes the number one money making element behind property.

Brickx - Stud or Dud?

If you couldn't tell by now, absolute dud. I wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole. If you want to invest in real estate, can't afford a property and are comfortable with a shared ownership style, try a Real Estate Investment Fund. I purchased $3,000 worth of the Vanguard Australian Properties fund in April two years ago and have seen a 9.5%p/a return after fees.

So why is Brickx getting so much air time, and if they suck why am I reviewing them? Because I am flat out furious at their marketing scheme. I have seen articles, news stories and testimonials from people who were afraid they could never purchase property and are pleased to have found a way they can get on the property ladder. This is absolute bollocks. You do not own property, you have bought into a Real Estate investment with crazy high fees, a nice website and a good marketing scheme. Brickx has preyed on peoples fears that they will never be able to afford their home, and supplied a product that may very well push their investments backwards.

Beware the car salesman with the friendly grin, he works on commission and your high fees are his bread and butter.

Goals Update: April 2017

Happy May! Just two months left to hit my goal. Where did the time go, seriously, can someone check behind the couch?

Do physical fun stuff 4x a week

I did full contact training at derby, we went slacklining once before daylight savings gave up and I went rock climbing! I really missed rock climbing, we've got it penciled in for every Monday and I'm so excited to get back to it. Plus I actually picked up my old workout routine again. I noticed that my abs have receded and that's not okay.

We also found a new hiking route. It seemed like a nice idea until we were about a kilometer in, climbing a dry waterfall wondering where the trail went. We found some rocks and dirt that looked more compacted than he surrounding scrub, decided it was the trail and followed it to safety. It was so steep I had my hands on the ground in front of me half the way. Thankfully the walk back was gentle, wide paths, well maintained. That's where I fell down, because of course.

I utterly failed to keep a diary as I mentioned less month, and I'm sure I'm not even close to four times a week. After a few months of this I think I ask too much of myself. I'm super physical, I sport, I ride, I work out. Splitting up 'fun stuff' from the rest is asking a lot of myself, on top of all the other things I'm trying to do.

Grade: B

Create something each month

I had two long weekends and I did nothing! It was glorious! Unfortunately about half an hour ago my fat beloved cat broke another platform off her cat tree. That combined with the fact that she has far outgrown her litter tray has me dreaming up plans for a new litter-tray-cupboard / cat-tree / feeding station. Which goes on the to-do list with a new chicken coop, and a new planter box for my poor grape vine.

Grade: C-

Apply for one freelance task a week

I haven't applied for anything new, but I've made over $50 this month and have another $40 in work awaiting approval and payment! Still no payout because Upwork fees are terrible (20% on earnings, then $1 on withdrawals, bah!). I've set my account to automatically pay at the end of the month when my balance is over $100, so I'll see some of this money at the end of May.

Grade: A+

And now, the money!

April Totals

Income

Salary	$4129.98
Sidegigs	$225
Home	$600
Investment Property #1	$897.30
Investment Property #2	$0
Cash Dividends	$62.26
Total	$5,914.54

Salary

Nothing exciting here. I work, I get paid.

Side gigs

I received $225 in referral bonuses from RateSetter, which almost pushed my income this month over the $6,000 mark so massive thanks to the people who signed up after reading my review. I hope you guys are enjoying the sign-up bonuses! The promotion ended on the 15th of April, but if anyone is still interested I would highly recommend RateSetter. I poured my bonuses straight back in, one tiny little step closer to FIRE!

Home

I bought home entirely in my name, but my partner lives here. He pays half of all the bills, plus $300 a fortnight in rent. Pretty sweet deal.

Investment property #1

The tenants reported a water mark on the ceiling and we had a plumber out to check for leaks and seal up the pipes for $200. I'm hopefully heading up later this year to do a walk through and see what needs fixing. Right now I'm waiting patiently for photos of the damage, but I'm told it doesn't require immediate attention. Fun!

Investment property #2

I started including this in March as we had expenses start but since settlement won't be until at least June there's still no income.

Dividends

My bonds were redeemed, despite asking what I should do with the money I just threw it all at the mortgage for the new investment. Starting on the right foot, but not very exciting. I now have 1 set of bonds and 2 types shares that are on Direct Reinvestment Plans, so this section is going to be super boring.

Investment performance

	Deposit	Reinvested Dividends	Annual Return
RateSetter	$325	$81.76	6.45%
ASX	$-5000	$84.52	7.63%
Vanguard	$700	$330.99	4.61%
Acorns	$25.50	$3.85	10.47%

Disclaimer: I'm definitely calculating my returns in a weird way. Current Value divided by Amount Invested equals Overall Return. The number is then adjusted to be annual. It means if I dump in a huge sum of money my return appears to go down. Therefore the return quoted here is a conservative number and I'm okay with that.

The negative $5,000 'deposit' is the bonds that were redeemed. I didn't sell anything, I'm not that exciting. Also, 10% annualised return on my Acorns account!! Wowzer, I had to double check those numbers, I can't see anything wrong with them! I've only had the account open six months and I bought in just before the Trump rally, so I don't expect this to be a sustain performance.

Expenses

	Spent	Budgeted	Annual Average
Home	$1,060.16	$1,250	$1,318.97 (down $0.98)
Investment Property #1	$1,546.86	$1,250	$1.613.60 (up $48.25)
Investment Property #2	$512.80	$600	$92.63(up $42.74)
Personal Bills	$146.91	$147.08	$109.51 (up $6.83)
Groceries	$168.97	$200	$191.0 (up $7.74)
Pets	$16.83	$30	$23.08 (up $1.41)
Roller Derby	$352.21	$100	$101.13 (up $22.62)
Travel	$0	$108	$131.19 (no change)
Other	$66.48	$250	$533.51 (down $23.67)
Total	$3,871.22	$4,026	$4,139.19 (up $104.93)

Home (Under $189.84)

Under budget, woo!

Investment Property #1 (Over $296.86)

Council rates and water bill hit together. And the water bill was higher than usual due to summer and everyone using the pool.

Investment Property #2 (Under $87.20)

My normal contribution, plus some paperwork. Paperwork is expensive...

Personal Bills (Under $0.17)

This is my phone bill and health insurance, it should never change. The average is low because I upgraded my health insurance to include hospital cover in January. So the average is reflecting the old, lower cover and will steadily come up across the year.

Groceries (Under $31.03)

I'm not going to lie, I have no idea how this happened. Mr. FIRE and I went camping and I bought way too many expensive junk food snacks, yet I'm under budget? Winning somehow!

Pets (Under $13.17)

I think this is the first month I haven't bought anything extra. Just cat food.

Roller Derby (Over $252.21)

Well... ummm.. woops! I scored all my expected flights for dirt cheap by using credit card rewards, and then we suddenly scored an extra bouting opportunity! Hello $240 worth of flights, eek! I still need to pay for accommodations for the original trip which will be $155. It works out to less than $40 a night so I'm not complaining.

In May I'll be taking the unexpected trip and in June the planned one, so this budget is going to be blown out of the water for next couple of months... PLUS the season has started, which means after-parties, which means beers. I wouldn't be drinking them without derby, so I consider this a derby cost :)

Travel (Under $108)

No travel, no spend. Easy peasy :) Any travel for derby is counted in the derby category. The average isn't dropping because I also spent nothing this month last year.

Other (Under $183.52)

I bought completely bugger all this month! I did pay for a tank of petrol because Mr. FIRE does all the driving, so it's fair I chip in occasionally. Next month we buy mead at the medieval fair though, watch me blow this budget right out the water!

Savings Goal

High Interest: $5,330.60
Offset Balance: $8,795.71
Owing on Credit Cards: $1,673.54
Total: $12,452.77

Increase from last month: $647.95
Amount remaining: $7,547.23 (approx $3773.62 a month)

Now that I'm pushing $460 a month into our second investment (that hasn't even settled yet) this goal has officially crossed the line into mathematically impossible. I'm not too upset about that because I knew it was ambitious when I set it. Back in December I was recovering from completely failing at maths and getting down to under $100 in my accounts and worrying about missing credit card payments. Now I'm back in smug security of having a couple of months expenses in reserve and with multiple income streams this can stretch further if needed.

I fully expect not to reach this goal, but I'll keep reporting and see how close we get. I'm already planning goals for the 2017-18 tax year (July to June for anyone outside of Australia) which involve investing again. I'm very excited to get back into actively investing! I have missed investing so much I pulled down some of the extra repayments against my mortgage and threw them at my Vanguard account. Not even sorry!

Check out this handy-dandy chart to see how well I'm (not) doing.

Check out the history of this goal:

• December 2016 - $6,992.39
• January 2017 - $7,088.91
• February 2017 - $8,735.62
• March 2017 - $11,804.82