Feb 22 Update: $1,757,210 (-$69,422)

CaptainFIs February 2022 financial and personal update.

My heart goes out to all of those affected by the conflict in Ukraine, and those closer to home dealing with the loss of life and property damage from the insane flooding that’s been going on here on the Eastern states of Australia. It is really hard to comprehend how many ‘Once in a lifetime’ events we have all been through in the last few years…

Nearly a $70K drop in the net worth due to a combination of factors – troubles in Eastern Europe with Russia Invading Ukraine causing stock markets to go down accounted for a bit of this, but my company also saw some reduced revenues and massively increased expenditure as I ramp up content production and hiring contractors to work on the website portfolio. I also wrote down the value of some of my personal possessions (such as my car after a minor car accident diminished some off its beauty!) and gave stuff away. Read on for the details!

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CaptainFI Total Net Worth

CaptainFI Financial progression

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CaptainFI Early Retirement update

My heart goes out to all of those affected by the conflict in Ukraine, and those closer to home dealing with the loss of life and property damage from the insane flooding that’s been going on here on the Eastern states. It is really hard to comprehend how many ‘Once in a lifetime’ events we have all been through in the last few years…

I was pretty sad to hear of the loss of the Antonov AN-225 which was destroyed in a Russian attack on the Ukrainian airfield it was undergoing maintenance in. I have had the pleasure to check out the Antonov before and used to fondly track its movements- especially whenever she visited Australia. She was the world’s largest aircraft and a beast of a cargo plane and often would be required for moving incredibly large things such as *literally other aircraft*. I don’t know about you, but I hate seeing all the footage shared on TV and online on social media of the war. It’s pretty fucked up and I don’t really want to see war criminals killing civilians and bombing hospitals.

Closer to home, I can’t really believe it’s the end of summer, I feel like we didn’t really get a summer here in Adelaide with such peculiarly cold and rainy weather. I am not certainly not complaining, as I generally prefer winter and by all accounts, we have had exceptionally mild and pleasant weather here in Adelaide. The Balcony Garden has grown exceptionally well, with a huge bounty of Honey, Honeycomb, tomatoes, cucumbers and leafy greens at the moment.

I consider myself truly blessed to live in such an amazing, safe part of the world, with access to clean drinking water, sanitation, food and pretty much whatever we want. There is even the world’s largest performing arts festival set up literally down the street from where I live. Sometimes it really wigs me out to think just how good we have it and what a privileged life we lead. It certainly puts things into perspective whenever I think I have a bad day – I repeat my affirmations and say out loud what I am grateful for, and it puts me back into the correct mindset.

Family wise things are going ok. My Mum has switched to a new form of Chemo which is once a month, and this is her ‘bad week’ (the week that follows the infusion). I am lucky that I am able to ‘work on my websites’ from home and take a laptop to her house so I can keep an eye on her and help her out with food and looking after the new puppy (by the way, my 14 year old laptop I bought when I first started Engineering at uni is still going strong – nothing a few operating system upgrades doesn’t fix- oh and of course don’t clog the damn thing up with useless games and storing unnecessary files). I am working through my yearly keyword research for the websites and mapping out a content plan for each of the sites, which has taken a while but is single-handedly the most important thing when it comes to running a website business.

I also have been trying to look after my own health, and have been seeing the physio and psych regularly, following my exercise plan (resistance weight training, cardio and pilates) and even been splurging on a few massages here and there. I have also found a good GP here in Adelaide who is familiar with pilots and so understands my personal issues (unfortunately, nearly all pilots tend to get neck and back arthritis as a result of the job). I did a hearing test recently (pilots need to do this as part of their medicals) and was disappointed to find some high-end hearing loss and that the buzzing I hear when it is quiet is actually called Tinnitus – I was told this is characteristic of pilots due to excessive noise exposure from jet engines and aux power units, and it is irreversible and means I will need hearing aids eventually. Fuck!

I have been enjoying spending time with my nephew, we have been tending to my hives and he even was able to put the earnings from the last harvest towards buying his very own beehive for his backyard (it did take some convincing for my sister to let him have it, but he got there in the end). He is pretty chuffed about his little honey empire, and I am hoping this gives him the inspiration and skills to build a successful business (including basic maths in the form of accounting!) and give him a passion for the environment and sustainability at the same time.

I’m also flying solo again, unfortunately. This time it was me that ended the relationship and I still feel absolutely fucking terrible and guilty about it all. After 3 months I just didn’t feel the attraction and feelings that I thought were required to commit to the relationship further, and I noticed a worrying variation in personal values and priorities (this sounds really petty, but for example, she was a smoker and lied to me about how she was quitting smoking but then just continued to smoke). So in the end I had to come clean and not waste any more of each other’s time – even though we did enjoy each other’s company. It was really upsetting and I still feel terrible, I am just not good at relationships especially breaking up with someone. But ultimately, I want to find someone compatible with shared values that will be not only my partner but also be my best friend for the rest of my life and raise a family with.

If you want to see more of my day-to-day life, click on any of the links below to follow me on your preferred social media platform as I am pretty active on all of them these days. I share experiences from my day to day life, things I am interested in, as well as my journey to financial independence and links to some of the best articles and podcasts regarding Investing, Business and Financial Independence (and of course all the latest and the best articles and podcasts from CaptainFI.com). Growing the followership means I can help spread the Financial Independence message and reach more people, so I’d love to have you on-board to help spread the good word.

Captain FI Investments

My investments are split between nine investment ‘areas’. I decided to start reporting on the progression and performance of each of my investments separately so we can find the best way to Financial Independence once and for all.

• ‘FIRE Portfolio’ (Global, US and AUS Index fund ETFs)
• Hands-free Automated Investing (Roboadvisors)
• Managed Fund
• Cryptocurrency
• Microinvesting (multiple platforms, including Stock picking)
• Real Estate (investment property)
• Peer to Peer lending
• Website Portfolio (Online businesses)
• Angel Investing (Pearler)
• Precious Metals (Gold and Silver)

‘FIRE’ Portfolio (Exchange Traded Index Funds)

My Financial Independence ETF Portfolio is a simple, low-fee passive portfolio that is split between three index-tracking Exchanged Traded Index Funds (ETFs):

• The Financial Independence Portfolio aims to hold mix of A200 (30%), VTS (45%) and VEU (25%).

• I now have this portfolio fully automated through Pearler which has been a huge gamechanger for me and a massive weight off my mind

• I track my share portfolio using Sharesight, which means my accounting is also completely hands free using the Pearler API plugin.

• This means I pretty much only need to log in to confirm all the trades and dividends over the year when needed for my tax return, however I also choose to log in each month to produce these monthly updates for you guys.

Sharesight monthly update

The stockmarket being down sounded scary from all the headlines I saw on social media and on TV when I couldn’t escape it being on at my relatives houses. But after checking Sharesight I was a lot less concerned. Volatility is the admission price we pay to the stock market (Patt Garratt, Financial Independence podcast episode 27). I’ve been concerned by how rapidly the market has been growing for some time now, so I am somewhat relieved to see a minor correction. For peace of mind though, let’s zoom out.

Sharesight rolling 12-month performance

The rolling 12 month performance shows that whilst 2022 is off to a shaky start, the market is doing on average what we expect it to do, and that we have had a pretty good run up so far, so its normal to see corrections. Especially with uncertainty regarding war in Europe and climate change wreaking havoc. Actually, this volatility is the price we pay for good long term returns – if you want more stability you go stick it in a term deposit, gold, or a bond where it doesn’t earn as much over the long term.

Sharesight since inception

While 2022 is a small negative return so far, all of the other years have been pretty well trending up. Including the year of the covid crash (I cant even remember what year that was anyway, covid just seems to have made everything a blur!). I’m pretty confident that over the long term, things will continue to trend upward so will stick to my DCA strategy.

Portfolio vs Target – Pearler chart

I am still heavy on Australian shares through the A200 fund because early on in the financial journey I was chasing the franked dividend yields for a baseline level of stable, tax-effective income for Financial Independence. I also had a heap of Milton shares (now no longer even a thing as they got taken over by Washington H. Soul Pattinson (ASX:SOL) ) which I sold for property development and then put into A200.

I am now working to balance this home bias concentration risk by an automated purchasing of VTS and VEU through Pearler, using income from my website portfolio, side hustles (which I guess you could call part-time work now that I don’t have a real job??) and dividends. I don’t really want to sell A200 to rebalance (although in hindsight, if I had of done this earlier I would be in a much better position due to the growth of VTS).

I had a bit more of a dive into the whole VTS and VEU versus VGS debate regarding tax inefficiencies, and I came to the conclusion after reading some pretty well thought out and written articles and forum entries (such as this forum), that the VTS and VEU foreign tax inefficiency drag brings the total effective MER for a VTS+VEU combination up to around .20% or 20 basis points for most people (above a 15% tax bracket, which most of us are).

Given the VGS has a MER of .18%, it means there really isn’t much of a difference – 2 basis points is .02% and on a $200,000 balance works out to be $40 a year – or less than a carton of beer. I also think you get better diversification with the VTS+VEU combination rather than VGS (otherwise you need to start looking at things like VISM and it gets complicated). Quite frankly I feel like I have wasted my time even spending a few hours on this haha – its almost like the A200 versus VAS debate that Aussie HIFIRE put to rest most eloquently. In any case, I will be keeping the three fund split for now as capital gains tax from sales would erode any potential benefit of switching.

I decided I would revise my equal weight split and work toward a target split of A200 (30%), VTS (45%) and VEU (25%), although I am thinking to even take VTS to 60% and A200 and VEU down to 20% each, just because of how strong the US market is both in terms of market cap but also politically as a powerful and staunch capitalist democracy.

I have also made a $10,000 ‘Angel Investment’ into Pearler. This is a private equity investment into the actual brokerage tech company itself. This should hopefully go up as the company gets larger and has higher valuations. Up to you whether you consider this a conflict of interest, and I wanted to make sure this was disclosed, but IMO it is the best investment solution for me at the moment which is why I am using it.

Appreciation for the company and staff aside, I am always going to ruthlessly chase the best and most cost-effective solution for my portfolio, so I have no “loyalty” to Pearler other than it is just the best solution to my problems currently (sorry if you are reading this Pearler…Hope its not too awkward). I have not kept close tabs on how this $10,000 initial stake gets revalued over time but I am fairly confident it will keep going up given by what I am seeing with the company growing.

I really hope they do HODL firm with diamond hands and not sell out, but, I think it’s probably a matter of time before they get acquired (bought out) by a big financial corporate for a ridiculous premium. That is not necessarily a bad thing though, as it could mean more capital to improve the business.

Hands-free Automated Investing Portfolio

The Hands-free Automated Investing Portfolio is a combination of the two largest Online investment advisors (roboadvisors) in Australia – Stockspot and SixPark. I think they are both pretty damn good, I have been fortunate enough to meet and interview the CEO’s of both companies and I don’t say this lightly but I trust both of them.

So, the difficult decision – which one did I go with? Well I couldn’t fault management, and both companies provide a fantastic user experience. To stay accountable and provide insights for the blog, I wanted to hedge my bets with an investment in both. This way I can analyze the performance of each against one another – comparing the results of asset allocation, and Chris Brycki’s choice to diversify with gold, against Pat Garratts’ choice to diversify with property and infrastructure.

Stockspot

After a successful trial with the Stockspot roboadvisor platform where they allocated me the Topaz portfolio (which is their most aggressive portfolio), I increased the balance to $20K. Lets see how it performs over the long term!

If you want to learn more about Stockspot, check out the dedicated review I did on Stockspot – which I will be keeping updated with all the lessons from my personal use trial. I am trying to get the Stockspot podcast out this week too, which will be great to have live.

SixPark

SixPark works much the same as Stockspot, except they don’t use gold and choose instead to diversify with real estate (global listed property and global infrastructure). I propose that SixPark might then outperform Stockspot slightly, but with higher volatility. Only time will tell!

Managed Fund

There is a new kid on the block! I have $10,000 scheduled to invest into a privately managed fund which I will be explaining all about in due course. Basically I have been to a financial advisor and paid for a statement of advice, and they recommended this particular fund would suit my investing risk tolerances. Once I get my head wrapped around how it all works for reporting etc I will report what happens here, as well as do up a review article specifically on the financial advisor I went through.

Cryptocurrency Portfolio

I kept DCA into crypto through Coinspot despite the market corrections and media headlines, three transactions totalling $250 of Ethereum, and they recovered somewhat.

I would like to see an ‘annualized return’ function on the crypto so will be trying to figure out how to connect this to Sharesight soon. This because the native graph in Coinspot only shows total accumulation and doesn’t factor in that you have kept adding money along the way, which can be misleading if you DCA.

I did a podcast episode on Bitcoin with Stephan Livera if you are interested to learn more about it, and also recently did an interview with Andrew Fenton from the CoinTelegraph where we talked a lot about crypto and its application on the Financial Independence Journey.

Micro-investing Portfolio

I have been playing with a few of the biggest micro-investing platforms mainly just as research for the blog because I want to see how they all stack up against each other, and against the other portfolios in terms of % gains. It is now really starting to add up though in the multiples of thousands!

Stake Invest

Stake has been an easy way to buy US shares brokerage free, however, I am not really a stock picker. I got lucky on Tesla which skyrocketed (and has since come down a fair bit) and I am still glad I own a huge chunk of it with my VTS index fund through Pearler. I also got a free GoPro share because someone used my sign-up link which was cool I guess.

Recently I tested the Australian trading function of Stake which now only costs $3 for CHESS sponsored trades. Whilst this technically makes them $1.45 cheaper than Pearler per trade, they need to add an auto invest function. Stake is definitely more geared toward someone who wants to trade rather than invest for the long term, and there isn’t anything wrong with that – AUS share trading is pretty slick and easy to use on Stake (but I find the US share trading frustratingly slow and clunky because I just have the basic free version which takes a few days to settle).

I opted for the Lithium ETF ‘ASX:ACDC’ because of a group consensus recommendation on the Financial Independence Australia Facebook group. I saw how well Tesla was doing and I thought well, hey, These Electric vehicles will need batteries. Anyway, I’m down 8.39% LOL. Was the lesson learned that I should just stick to the index?

Raiz Invest

Raiz aggressive portfolio – good split of ETFs, and a cheap option for small-ish balances at only $3.50 per month. To be honest, the fee’s are more than my investment return, but it is worth it just for the Raiz rewards – you get discounts on various things (like hotels etc), plus round-ups from spending and the occasional affiliate click sign up bonus can usually more than cover any fees, making it a weird pseudo-investment-pseudo-savings kind of account for me.

I’m going to keep going, and once I reach about $1000, I think the investment returns should start to cover any fee’s and it will grow quicker. I like Raiz as a way for people to ‘get their foot in the door’ with investing, as it can be really helpful for beginners.

Superhero Trading

I didn’t do any trading on Superhero this month, just let these ETFs do their thing. This screenshot can be misleading however as it doesn’t give a true reflection of total performance. No brokerage firm really do this properly, so you have to use Sharesight to make it properly count for dividends and capital growth (and quirky things like share splits or franking credits) to get an accurate annualized return figure.

Spaceship Voyager Invest

Spaceship Origin portfolio: Top 100 Global Blue chip ETF. This seems to be chuffing along pretty awesomely with nearly 12.6% seeming fairly closer to long term expected averages.

Commsec Pocket microinvesting

I bought stuff on Commsec Pocket only to immediately see it dip quite a bit. Roughly 15% down. Since I am a long-term investor I am not worried as I will just reinvest any dividends and likely just keep adding small amounts to the different ETFs within the Commsec Pocket app whenever I have them to see how the different 7 funds all perform.

Bamboo cryptocurrency

I also experimented with Bamboo, a cryptocurrency and precious metals micro-investment platform. Since I have gold and silver ETFs directly, I figured I would use this app for Bitcoin and Ethereum. I put in $100 and got a referral credit, but then the crypto markets fluctuate a bit and I also got stung with higher than expected fees which was an annoying surprise (don’t worry I sent a passive-aggressive email to them afterward lol). I think I will add some Gold and Silver into this for my next investment just to see how they track relative to their digital counterparts.

Plenti P2P lending

Plenti Peer to Peer lending account. I backflipped on my decision to axe Plenti, and instead reinvested all my holding account out at 1.4%. You can pick the rate you want to lend it out at. Whilst I was frustrated at a lack of performance, I still think its a good idea to keep a little bit of cash and my bank is basically paying zero interest so at least in Plenti it’s better than earning nothing.

If you decide to lock it up for longer periods you get a higher rate of return, but I just do the rolling monthly option so I can get access to it quickly as part of my emergency fund (I keep some in physical cash, some in my bank account, some in Plenti, and then the rest gets invested in my brokerage account).

Investment property

Starting to look around to refinance for when the building is complete, which could be an issue given I have left my PAYG job… AWKWARD! I am hoping they will let me service the loan initially against income from my business, shares, and of course the rent the tenant will pay. If not then hmm, I may have to sell either the property, or parcels of shares to get the deal across the line. Either way I am not too fussed as I have a pretty good Mortgage Broker who will sort it out.

I will be starting to do some research into good property management firms. I will be outsourcing this as I could not be stuffed dealing with a tenant and all the bullshit that it entails. Hopefully the building will be completed in a couple of months and it all gets sorted out. Luckily I am doing this with a mate and will hope to leech off his research into property managers (don’t worry, we have been copying off each other ever since first-year engineering maths class nearly 15 years ago!)

I’m currently paying $1000 a month for an interest-only mortgage, which is slightly more than it actually costs and the surplus is going into an offset which is being managed by my mate in the JV account (we both pay that, and at the end we will both get one property to rent out and split whatever is left in the offset).

Rolling lessons learned:

It has taken a long time to get to this point, and boy have we made some embarrassing mistakes. Rolling lessons learned include but are not limited to…

• Thinking we could save money by NOT using an architect on a house and land package we bought from a developer *WITHOUT DA from council*
• Falling for the oldest trick in the book re: portable fencing hire (the fencing hire company stole the fences back and then tried to charge us for having them stolen)
• Endless delays by not having DA and needing to relodge with council three times meant we were one of the last blocks to be built on, and hence became the neighbourhood ‘free rubbish dumping ground’ when the fence was “stolen” (we then had to pay to get the rubbish removed and pay tip fees for – a big fuck you to any dodgy builders reading this who have ever engaged in this practice)
• Because we were the last to build, the ‘new neighbours’ objected to our build being two story due to shadowing – and we were forced to build single story instead at a reduced profit margin. Despite us being relatively early on the land release!
• COVID-19 delays, subsequent supply restrictions and union activity meant the builder essentially got a free pass to break contract schedule, putting us back by an extra six months+ with no penalty, compensation or damages payable (they even billed us for this extension!!) – this further took money away from the ‘bottom line’ as we had to pay more interest, had capital tied up, and was not earning rental income – all making the build less profitable (would have been more profitable to stick money into index funds)
• Lots of small (but not insignificant) expenses such as council fees, independent inspection fees and rates (even though the house isn’t build apparently you still have to pay rates…) add up to significant amounts over the project lifetime. I was amazed to see just how everyone gouges you for things you don’t even think about, and brokers / builders don’t mention these costs so you just have to cop them when they arrive.
• Independent inspections and checks are worth their weight in gold. I am talking design and plan reviews, soil tests, site inspections, construction and building inspections etc. Do not cheap out or try to skip these, and don’t trust anyone or any builder – they are very cheap insurance and great piece of mind and give you (legal) leverage over the builder, especially if someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
• Pay a lawyer or legal professional to read the contract. You think you can read through it yourself and spot everything but you can’t. The builders legit make it their BUSINESS to know how to weasel their way out of things as well as suck more money out of you.
• Builders can blackmail you and threaten to walk off site after you release large payment milestones, because you have less leverage. They are banking on you not wanting to go to court because of the cost and time expense. Be judicious about approving large payment milestones, and its better to only release small progress payments frequently, which keeps the money in your account and power in your control.
• Be careful if there is a project manager appointed by the lender or the builder. Because they are actually not working for you, they are working for the builder. Fairly self evident how important that last bit is, as they will put the other parties interest ahead of yours (i.e. you pay more, and project gets delayed more).

I have not changed any of the valuations, still going off the banks final completed estimation of $560K, and with the mortgage the way it is at $370K leaves me with about $190K of equity in the build, meaning we currently make just under $70k of ‘manufactured equity’ with an investment of $120K over two and a bit years (not all of the cash was required upfront). This is an approximate projected annualized return of about 13%.

This will come in handy after completion and tenancy as I will be trying to access some of this equity during a refinance towards buying the dream farm in the Adelaide Hills. Not sure how refinancing is going to go given I am not getting a full time flying wage anymore (but hopefully may be able to finance based off website income). When the build is finished and tenanted I will do a full article explaining everything and try to calculate the total costs and profit.

With the general upward trend of property values in the area, I am hoping we can get it revalued on completion at higher than $560K (I believe some similar properties in the area have been going for $600K+) which would be awesome and would offset some of the pain and suffering of building an IP during COVID-19 pandemic.

Online Business (websites)

Hmm where to begin this month.

I had some pretty incredible revenue growth for a few months and, since I am doing the Champions website mentoring course, and have left full time work, I have been really really, really ridiculously keen to expand the portfolio. So I went on a bit of a hiring spree and website launch blitz, committing to a seriously high rate of effort (aiming for 100,000 words a month, which equates to basically one article a week per site). This isn’t exactly impossible to do by myself, as if I was writing that amount of content its only 25 articles a week, or 3.5 articles a day. I have personally written up to 10 decent articles a day before – 10,000 words a day is pretty easy for someone motivated and experienced like myself.

However as Matt Raad has been teaching me – “work on the business, not in the business” and he has been encouraging me to outsource content for the portfolio. Which is obviously great and practical advice. But this comes at a cost. Given most writers are fairly average at SEO (and some like myself are quite bad at spelling and grammar) it means you need to use an editor. Because articles don’t magically just appear on your website all nicely edited with subheadings, dotpoints, images and links – you have to pay an editor to do that.

So my costs dramatically increased as I am plowing every cent I earn (plus my own personal money) into the content. I visualize the content, as every article being paid to be written as me buying a potential annuity which will continue to provide revenue for the business in terms of Adsense and potential affiliate income.

Unfortunately, my two biggest earning sites took a downturn in revenue which was poor timing since I had just cranked up the content engine and expenditure. This just puts a bit of a squeeze on the business, but not to worry, this is pretty normal Matt says, and over time since I use good quality ‘White Hat SEO’ by providing valuable content, they should go back up.

For now I am continuing to work through the Champions course and at the moment I am working through my yearly keyword research for all of the websites and mapping out a content plan for each of the sites, which has taken a while but is single-handedly the most important thing when it comes to running a website business.

My next task is to go back over the 5 established monetised sites to work out which articles are working and how to optimise them to produce more traffic and more income, and then I will go back to building the new sites and directing the content engine ‘firehose’ into them.

I learned these skills through the eBusiness institute – I have done a pretty comprehensive review of the eBusiness institute as well as interviewed Matt and Liz Raad about this on the podcast about online business and websites if you want to learn more about this lucrative side hustle. They provide a free introductory course for CaptainFI readers. I have also recently interviewed Liz Raad again on the pod about entrepreneurship, which is live now.

Angel Investing

Currently I have made an ‘Angel Investment’ in the Financial Independence brokerage company Pearler. This was the maximum allowable private investment of $10,000 (AUD) made in July 2021 with the number of ‘private equity’ shares based on their June company valuation.

This helps to fund Pearler’s capital investment pool and lets them grow and build their business – which is great for me since I have nearly $400K invested through them and I trust them to automate my investing for me.

As Pearler grows and builds its revenue, it will get an increasingly higher company valuation and my private equity will grow accordingly (i.e. it is not a free $10,000 loan, it is a $10,000 investment where I am buying a slice of the company).

Whilst this doesn’t align with my general investing philosophy of index investing and diversification, I feel I have a unique insight into Pearlers organisational and company structure and build a great rapport and trust with their executives, and I believe in this company and its genuine intentions to help people reach financial independence.

Also realise that while $10,000 does sound like a lot of money, but this is a small overall percentage of my total investments so my personal risk is actually quite low, and I would not encourage anyone to go out and make $10,000 Angel investments into tech startups. It is generally quite high risk (high risk = high reward). Make sure you don’t compare your financial ‘race’ with others (just think of it like a time trial where you are only competing with yourself).

The valuation of Pearler has gone up which is good, although I am not really sure what that means for my investment, I guess it has gone up, but I haven’t been told anything ‘official’ from Pearler yet.

Precious Metals

These really haven’t done much this month, Silver was the biggest mover but completely offset by the lithium stock ACDC which fell by double this amount.

Cash / emergency fund

Sitting on a total of about $11K in the EF split across the various bank accounts, P2P lending and bond. Will have used up all of my leave balances soon too so will aim to keep a bit higher of a buffer in the emergency fund to cater for unexpected events.

Captain FI net worth progression

The net worth progression graph is rather crudely constructed in Excel, but still demonstrates the ‘somewhat exponential’ journey over the past 14 years. You can access the archives for my Net Worth updates here to see how its gone over time.

Again I feel incredibly privileged that this started from ZERO, rather than from a negative. Unfortunately, a lot of people need to overcome a negative net worth whether that is due to student loans for their education or perhaps poor decisions with credit cards etc. This is a huge testament to how amazing my mum is and all of the sacrifices she made to support our family and prioritise our education, which allowed me to achieve so well during my final years of high school and ultimately score a scholarship at university (I got paid to study!).

Check out the graph and all the updates below to see how it has gone since the beginning.

Date	Net worth	Difference	Saving Rate	Notes
Jan 09	$5,000.00		?	Estimate NW based on historical Super, Bank statements and assets at the time	LINK
Jan 10	$24,000	+$19,000	?	Estimate NW	LINK
Jan 11	$40,000	+$16,000	?	Estimate NW	LINK
Jan 12	$92,000	+$50,000	?	Estimate NW	LINK
Jan 13	$130,000.00	+$38,000	?	Estimate NW	LINK
Jan 14	$161,000.00	+$31,000	?	Estimate NW	LINK
Jan 15	$200,000.00	+$39,000	?	Estimate NW	LINK
Jan 16	$281,000.00	+$81,000	?	Estimate NW	LINK
Jan 17	$340,000.00	+$59,000	?	Estimate NW	LINK
Jan 18	$482,000.00	+$142,000	?	Estimate NW	LINK
Jan 19	$542,000.00	+$60,000	?	Estimate NW	LINK
Jul 19	$578,900.00	+$36,900	84%	Finally began tracking NW this like a proper adult.	
Aug 19	$560,100.00	-$18,800.00 (-3.2%)	78%	Share market slight correction, Ok savings.	
Sep 19	$584,744.88	$24,644.88	72%	Share market rebound, savings rate not so good.	LINK
Oct 19	$600,386.00	$15,641.12	84%	Good saving this month. Normal salary, plus allowances,  dividends from index funds, tax refund, eBay selling and was working abroad in asia where things are cheap.	LINK
Nov 19	$612,917.21	$12,531.21	76%	Falling short of my savings goal of 80%. Mostly domestic legs this month with higher costs. Also invested in hydroponics.	LINK
Dec 19	$625,350.00	$12,432.79	76%	Good savings of cash (for development) and investment, however higher spending due to Christmas period (Travel and Gifting).	LINK
Jan 20	$865,212.00	$239,862.00	55%	Super settlement was a HUGE boost to NW. $9K growth from stock market. Expensive month lots with lots of unexpected bills – weddings, travel, Booking flights, fines etc.	LINK
Feb 20	$851,802.0	-$16,592 (-1.9%)	52%	Large increase in spending on myself this month, still managed to tuck away $5K to put into shares and property. Corona Virus market scare resulted in a correction and gave NW a small negative trend. Time in the market not Timing the market! Became Single again.	LINK
Mar 20	$819, 354.6	-$31,806.95 (-3.7%)	80%	Another small step backwards in the NW due to the ‘corona crash’ in full swing. FIRE Portfolio of ETF/LICs down about 15% this month, however due to high savings rate and structure of my superannuation annuity the NW is only down 3.7%. Savings rate good at 80%, higher than usual income (with some slightly higher spending, too). Picking up shares on discount – this is the best outcome for someone in the accumulation phase with good income!	LINK
Apr 20	$847,023	+$27,668	85%	$11,000 in rebound of stock market capital prices alone (up 6%), plus first quarter dividends paid (heavily reduced due to banks withholding dividends). Great savings rate due to COVID-19 lock-down = no spend. Increased entrepreneurial efforts and selling down of physical possessions provided side hustle income. Two standard paychecks from flying activity; domestic day trips only so no allowances. All cash unfortunately had to go into the property development due to contract timing, I am chomping at the bit to buy some more index funds before they go back up in price too much – hence why I am selling most of my toys!	LINK
May 20	$857,859	+$10,836	92%	Some Great sales as I let go of my Super Sport Motorcycle, Some gym gear, expensive flying equipment and a few other various bits and bobs and invested this money. Flying still reduced, but increasing from April. The share market grew as I continued to make my fortnightly investments. I also wrote down the ‘value’ of some of my possessions (liabilities) such as my car, tools and furniture by around $10K to align them to market price (“tell him hes dreaming…!”).	LINK
June 20	$858,650	+$791	90%	Small Net Worth gain as I continue to declutter and simplify my life, despite being off work due to a family emergency. Share market not doing much.	LINK
July 20	$888,218	+$29,568	68%	Majority gain due to share market going back up, low spending due to being on the family farm and at home because of lock down.	LINK
Aug 20	$1,029,293	+$141,075	74%	Became a millionaire. Achieved this massive milestone I set out for myself in Dec 2019. Included unrealised gains in my property development as well as website business. Good savings rate due to not much spending, invested in Aus and total world shares. Investing in my web business. Starting to shift focus away from $$$ and more into looking after my mental health.	LINK
Sep 20	S1,045,486	+$16,193	60%	Officially took time off work for the rest of the year to be close and look after family during major operations. Continued to sell down physical possessions and work on digital business while at home. NW gain mainly due to valuation of websites.	LINK
Oct 20	$1,064,399	+$18,913	80%	Base income (retainer) and leave loading, dividend and websites provided income, as well as raiding my P2P lending capital. Significant bill for property due to design not meeting standards which effectively lowers my equity position, as well as fence being stolen.	LINK
Nov 20	$1,143,433	+$80,394	82%	Big gains came from share market growth (influencing both the Financial Independence share portfolio and Invested superannuation), Business gains (due to increased earnings) and a $30K boost to my annuity thanks to me logging in and checking the fine-print on the accumulation stats. I only invested around $7K. Insane that in one month, I accumulated nearly more net worth than I did in four years from 2009-2012	LINK
Dec 20	$1,152,920	+ $9,487.32	84%	Share market slight drop, Earnings from Business, Contract work, Selling possessions. No share market investments this month (oops! I forgot and money was tight). Invested a lot into the website business this month (way more than planned) and it is still running at a decent loss (plans to turn it cash flow positive in 3 months).	LINK
Jan 21	$1,165,678	+$12,757	79%	Great returns from the share market. Earnings from Business, Dividends, Flying wage, flipping items on consignment. Regular share contribution, investing in micro investing platforms, P2P lending, Investment property and big reinvestment into the business (still running at a loss)	LINK
Feb 21	$1,135,272	-$30,406	76%	Significant write down on property development due to council DA rejection and redesign requiring more money and creating less equity. Offset by small increase to Business value and investments. Simplified my investments and switched over to Pearler.	LINK
Mar 21	$1,155,594	+$20,322	71%	Continued investment into the portfolio as well as growth of investments and business. Gave my notice at work and looking for part time job at home for ‘Barista FI’	LINK
Apr 21	$1,242,220	+$86,727	74%	Property development back on track	LINK
May 21	$1,379,469	+$137,248	72%	Massive gains in the website portfolio due to revaluation based on recent business income, big growth of superannuation due to annuity increasing (salary increment) and shares generally went up. Crypto went down by about 40% or so.	LINK
June 21	$1,469,989	+$89,757	41%	Quit flying role and moved to Adelaide. Great month for investments, websites producing serious income so accordingly they are valued higher. Spent a lot on furnishing the new apartment and on enjoying some more luxuries. Seeing a therapist to help deal with anxiety from leaving work.	LINK
July 21	$1,543,959	+$74,732	???	Set myself up in Adelaide. Did basically nothing for the whole month except spent time with family, relax, sleep and go to doctors appointments. Massive boost to website portfolio AdSense and affiliate incomes, as well as general share market performance.	LINK
Aug 21	$1,624,116	+$70,156	???	Relaxed again, focused on mental and physical health, and spending time with family and my partner. Big increases to spending (too afraid to calculate a ‘savings rate’) but also big increases to NW through website portfolio income growth. Finally got the slab poured on the investment property (foundation).	LINK
Sep 21	1,640,663.85	+$16,547	???	Stocks, super etc went down, but business income from websites increased, plus business valuation increased. Property build. got to frame stage, and I also got a dog! Expenses for vet surgery well worth it. Moved into a nicer apartment	LINK
Oct 21	$1,705,907	+$65,243	30%	Big boost from website valuation due to securing new affiliate contracts for recurring income, shares went up nicely. No massive changes to this month. Calculated a savings rate and found myself pretty low due to spending a lot on my garden and going out quite a lot – I don’t think I will calculate this savings rate figure any more.	LINK
Nov 21	$1,739,144.23	+$33,236	N.A.	Great month. Relaxing (somewhat). Spent a lot of money doing ‘fun’ things like winery tours, a fine dining experience and self education. Shares moved sideways (well slightly down) but everything else went up. Building got to enclosed stage (roof, walls, windows and doors) but have had some issues with build quality and weather / covid delays. Put a $1000 deposit on the puppy.	LINK
Dec 21	$1,764,516	+25,372	N.A.	Spent nearly the whole month with family, did some work on the website portfolio. Traffic recovered from google algorithm changes. Invested $10K into Stockspot and Sixpark, $1K into ACDC, $100 into Comsec pocket and $100 into Bamboo, $260 into BTC, $4K into ETFs through pearler. Paid the $3000 balance for the puppy.	LINK
Jan 22	$1,826,633	+$62,117	N.A	Stock market slightly down, Massive boost to website traffic (overall its more than doubled). Invested $10K VTS, 2K VEU through pearler, Paid for Angels cancer surgery, bought more BTC and ETH, bought a parcel of ETHI on commsec pocket.	LINK
Feb 22	$1,757,210.57	-$69,422.93	N.A	Stock market down, Website business revenues down and additional spending on content and staff for business, Additional property development bills, some unexpected expenses, Wrote down the value of some of my personal property (and gave stuff away).