Captain FI Podcast | Smashed Avo

Todays inflight meal is Smashed Avocado!

On Board we have Emily and Simon, the powerhouse couple behind Smashed Avo! They are an Aussie millennial couple from Sydney who like investing, and brunch!

Em incredibly started investing in property at the tender age of 18! While Simon, the ying to Em’s Yang, was mostly interested in the stock market; He regularly invested in ETFs, shares and managed funds. Being together for almost a decade, they have combined finances and purchased further residential and commercial property together as well as adopting a predominantly index style stock market investing approach to diversify their investments.

Simon is an Aerospace Engineer and volunteer fire fighter, and Emily works in an executive management role, is a talented writer and is completing her Masters degree

Today we will explore;

• Who they are and what they do
• How they learnt to become great with money
• The touchy subject of combining finances in a relationship
• How they discovered FI/RE
• Their investment strategy
• Their specific tips to investing in Australian property and structuring finances,
• Their financial goals
• How they use superannuation
• How and why they want to help others and their top three tips to reach Financial Independence

Show Notes

• Check out Smashed Avo Australia Here or on Instagram
  
• Check out my dedicated post on Superannuation to build on our super conversation… although slight addendum here, I am using the early release super scheme since my income has dropped by over 20% and I will be putting the money to good use on the path to FI.

Smashed Avo’s Top financial tips

1. Sort your shit out, guys! – Pay off any high interest debt (personal debt) and figure out where your cash is going to come from, but make sure you’ve built an emergency fund first. That is going to be a life saver in case you lose your means of income
   
2. Invest according to your strategy, which should be based on your goals – These can vary wildly between people, so focus on your goal and don’t get too caught up by what other people are doing
   
3. Enjoy the journey to FIRE – It’s all great to be as frugal as you can but don’t let that stop you from doing the things you enjoy! You’ll only be this young once.

Smashed Avo Australia’s top financial Independence Books

The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape

Check out my detailed review of the Barefoot Investor HERE

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Check out my detailed review of Rich Dad Poor Dad HERE

Abbreviated Transcript

Hey guys, this is the part of the job I dislike. I have massively abbreviated the transcript for this episode, and when I can figure out a way to get the full word transcripts written quickly (or maybe pay someone to do this for me!) I will update it. Sorry its just too much of a pain in the arse to manually hand type for now… But there is loads of extra awesome content and extra questions that get posed and answered if you listen to the recording.

Intro Loop plays

CaptainFI: The forecast for today is property investing, the inflight meal: smashed Avo! 

Jet flash

CaptainFI: We are fortunate to have Em and Simon on the show today, the powerhouse couple behind Smashed Avo. They are an Aussie millennial couple from Sydney who like investing, and brunch!

Em purchased her first investment property at the incredible age of 18!  She worked full time straight out of school and slapped down a big 10% deposit, taking the leap to become a landlord whilst still in her teens!

Simon, the ying to Em’s Yang, was mostly interested in the stock market. He regularly invested in ETFs, shares and managed funds. Seeking diversification and the power of leverage, he branched into property and secured his first investment property at age 24!

Being together for almost 8 years now, they have combined finances and purchased further residential and commercial property together.

Simon is an aerospace engineer, but sounds more like a professional daredevil with his hobbies of base jumping, canyoning, skydiving and a myriad of other extreme sports. Simon is also a volunteer fire fighter and has recently been working to extinguish some of the devastating bushfires we had recently across NSW.

Em is a self professed thriving socialite; she loves entertaining, baking and brunching, as well as the occasional glass of wine! Em is also a talented writer – when she is not searching the market for great property deals, she is working tirelessly behind the scenes on their Blog. All the while balancing this with full time management work and completing her Masters degree in Business!

Ok! Smashed Avo, after listing all that I am starting to feel a little inadequate myself, and maybe that I have a little crush on you both –  Welcome to the Show

Simon and Em say hello

Em: Hello! Thanks for having us on! 

Simon: Hey mate, happy to be here.

CaptainFI: So first up can you tell us a little bit about yourself?  Simon I hear you have a bit of a green-thumb, a trait shared by many in the FI community. Em tells me your also getting good at brewing your own beer!

Simon: This is true, we’re both big fans of craft beer but its all fairly expensive to buy. Realising that you can cook up extremely decent craft beer at home has been somewhat of a recent revelation to us! And yes I’ve always been a keen gardener too. We’re a bit limited where we are living at the moment in a rental, but one day we’d certainly like to expand and grow a fair percentage of our own food. 

Em: We love the idea of living a bit more sustainably and growing food. Not only is there the cost side, but good quality fresh food can be difficult to source. It’s certainly one of the aspects that is driving our long term goals. I’m also quite passionate about natural health and we occasionally foster dogs.

CaptainFI: So How did you guys get so good with money? Was there anything in particular with your upbringing that helped your mindset or any defining moment in your life when you realized you needed to start investing to get ahead?

Em: Individually we both grew up pretty money conscious. My parents were quite frugal but also knew the value of money. They invested in property and also the education of my sister and I, sending us to a good quality school. My parents were also super supportive when I went to buy my first investment property. 

Simon: I also grew up in a pretty frugal household (classic farming background), which shaped how I think about money. In terms of investing I dabbled in shares throughout uni but realistically largely just sat on a large savings account for many years. Em is definitely responsible for educating me about the benefits of property!

CaptainFI: Joining Finances can be a big thing for couples, how did you know when it was time to join finances? Do you track your spending and how do you manage your expectations of each other?

Simon: It was actually Em who showed me the benefits. When you combined finances its not as though you’re investing capacity just doubles, if anything it triples! 

Em: It was funny I had been planning on broaching the subject with him for ages. I remember running through a little speech in my head. One night over a bottle of wine I just suggested it, spoke of the benefits to both of us. I mean, it was hard because I was in debt because I had a house, while he had quite a lot of savings so joining accounts essentially meant he was taking on debt, but also he shared in the rental returns.

CaptainFI: When I discovered FI/RE and realised it was actually a thing that you could do – that you live off the return from your investments, it blew my mind. What was that like for you guys? When did you the discover FI movement and did you have a ‘penny drop’ moment?

Em: For me I actually only discovered FI/RE was a real thing once we had started Smashed Avo! We didn’t know there was a ‘term’ for it, I suppose we had both always been working towards a goal to retire as early as we could while maintaining a certain lifestyle.

CaptainFI: You clearly are killing it with investing, can you tell us a bit about how you got started investing and your current investing strategy?

Simon: Thanks mate! We’ve always invested with the mentality that it’s for the long term. I dabbled in a bit of day trading and needless to say, it’s definitely not for me haha.

Em: Yeah and for our properties, we are very adamant that at this point of our lives cash flow is quite important to us so we maximise that by purchasing properties that are positively geared. We always intend on holding onto our properties so they grow in value too. Excitingly we are potentially looking at buying a home to live in in the next two or so years and we would love to take on a renovation so that will be totally different again!  

CaptainFI: You have a fantastic property portfolio and you are continually looking to expand it, can you talk a bit more specifically on property investing fundamentals you have used?

Simon: the absolute basics with our property portfolio is as Em mentioned above, positively geared but with low vacancy rates, a proactive council that is advocating for infrastructure, and we also make sure the town has a decent population (over 5,000 or so).

Em: I’m lucky that my dad is a pretty seasoned property investor so I often call him to get his advice and opinion on things. Something I have learnt with property investing is that emotion really is the enemy. It can become quite easy to get attached to the character of a property when you are purchasing it, but with investing all that truly matters are the numbers. 

CaptainFI: I am personally in the process of setting up discretionary trusts and company structures for my businesses and investments, and at times I have found it super confusing. Do you guys use trusts and companies at all?

Em: it is confusing and our poor accountant has really had to step us through this entire process. We have both a Trust and Company set up. We got these set up as there was a commercial and residential property we were purchasing that required it and then the purchase ended up falling through when the vendor took it off the market.

Simon: we didn’t set out to establish a Trust and Company but now we are definitely able to use it to our advantage. There are quite a few tax benefits they offer, however there is a little more work involved so I wouldn’t recommend it for a beginner investor. If you have a few investment properties under your belt it could be worth looking into.

CaptainFI: So a lot of people have a goal or FI/RE number that they are working toward, what is your goal with investing and how far away are you? What kind of a savings rate do you guys have?

Simon: We haven’t got an exact number in mind, however using the 4% rule it comes out to an investment portfolio of $2.5 million. We plucked the annual figure of $100K to live on out of nowhere really but there’s no real analysis behind that. We’ve still got a long way to go so we’ll figure out the exact number as we get closer.

Em: Also savings rate is a hard one to calculate for us as there’s so much money going in and also out. We worked out a rough savings rate a while ago and it came out to about 37%, but this doesn’t factor in growth in equity. 

CaptainFI: What about retirement accounts? We have superannuation which is equivalent to the American 401K system, do you contribute extra to that at all?

Simon: Yeah we both salary sacrifice extra money into our super and have been doing that for about 2 years now. I sat down and did a fair bit of maths – worked out that we could actually put more into super each fortnight but somehow increase our take home pay due to tax savings. 

Em: we still have quite a few years left in the workforce so I particularly didn’t pay a heap of attention to my super until I realised Simon had almost double in his super than mine! Then I started taking a little more interest in it… shows my competitive side haha. But in all seriousness I think it can be easy for young people to disregard their super because it’s not an issue right now, so I think it’s definitely an area young people should be able to talk about and they should know what is going on with their super.

CaptainFI: I’m a big fan of the blog, you clearly are passionate about personal finance and have a real knack for this stuff. You balance saving and investing with enjoying life and I think you’ve hit the perfect balance and struck a chord with your readers. What led you into wanting to share your knowledge and help others?

Em: thanks for checking out our blog, we need to get some more content up! But we had the idea of Smashed Avo because we were both individually being asked by friends for our opinion on a good property investment or shares they were looking at buying. We found the finance community on Insta and it really just developed from there! 

CaptainFI: What are your top three tips for someone wanting to reach financial independence?

Simon: First of all you need to sort your shit out. Pay off any high interest debt (personal debt) and figure out where your cash is going to come from. Build yourself a buffer too! Everyone talks about having an emergency fund but as recent events have proved, its super important in case you lose your means of income. 

Second you need to invest according to your strategy, which is based on your goal. These can vary wildly between people, so focus on your goal and don’t get too caught up by what other people are doing. 

Em: Also lastly its important to enjoy the journey to FIRE. It’s all great to be as frugal as you can but don’t let that stop you from doing the things you enjoy! You’ll only be this young once.

Full Transcript

Captain FI 0:07
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard Captain FI the Financial Independence Podcast.

Good day. Welcome to an episode of Captain FI, the Financial Independence Podcast where I open the cockpit to some of the best and brightest in personal finance, as well as those who have reached or are on their way to financial independence.

Before we get started today, remember anything on the show is provided for general information only, and should not be taken as constituting a professional advice. You should always do your own research when making any financial decision. The forecast for today is property investing the in flight meals smashed out Oh, we’re fortunate enough to have em and Simon on the show today. The powerhouse couple behind smashed our. They’re an Aussie millennial couple from Sydney who like investing and brunch. Em purchased her first investment property at the incredibly young age of 18. She worked full time straight out of school and slapped down a big 10% deposit, taking the leap to become a landlord while still in her teens. Simon, sometimes called the union two M’s Yang was mostly interested in the stock market. He regularly invested in ETFs shares and managed funds. Later seeking diversification and the power of leverage he branched into property and secured his first investment property by the age of 24. Being together for over eight years now, they’ve combined finances and purchased further residential and commercial property together. Simon is an aerospace engineer, but sometimes he sounds more like a professional Daredevil with his hobbies of BASE jumping, canyoning, skydiving and a myriad of other extreme sports. Simon is also a volunteer firefighter and has recently been working to extinguish some of the devastating bushfires we’ve had across New South Wales. M is a thriving socialite, she loves entertaining, baking and branching, as well as the occasional glass of vino. She’s also a very talented writer, when she’s not searching the property market for great deals. She’s working tirelessly behind the scenes on the blog, all the while balancing this with full time management work and completing her master’s degree in business. Okay, smashed out Oh, after listing all that, I’m starting to feel a little inadequate myself. Maybe I have a little bit of a crush on you. Welcome. Welcome to the show.

Emily 3:05
Hello, thank you so much for having us.

Simon 3:08
Thanks, Mate.

Captain FI 3:10
So first off, can you guys tell us a little bit about yourself? So Simon, I hear you’re a bit of a green thumb traits shared by many in the fire community. And it tells me you’re also pretty good at brewing your idea.

Simon 3:27
I yeah, yeah, both both true. Well, I don’t know about good but a Tron brew mine did. Not something I’ve gone into probably in the past 12 months. I guess it’s a I like cooking. And it’s a lot like cooking. And it’s also like saving money and it does save us a lot of money.

Emily 3:45
Yeah, we love the idea of living a little more sustainably as well and growing our own food. So it not only saves us money, but yeah, it can be quite difficult to source.

Simon 4:00
And yes, also guilty with the gardening, especially with this isolation lately, the garden has probably doubled in size.

And yeah, there’s a lot more a lot more growing at the moment.

Emily 4:13
It’s been absolutely thriving lately. So, yeah, we love growing our own food. And not only that, you know, is it good for our pocket, but it also means that we can eat organic food just straight from the garden, which is also great. Yeah, I’m also quite passionate about natural health as well. So there’s that aspect with Herbes and things like that. And occasionally we do love dogs and we don’t have one of our own but we do occasionally foster dogs as well.

Captain FI 4:51
I also love gardening, if you hadn’t, hadn’t told if you couldn’t tell by some of the posts that I put up I actually had a really good response to one of the blog articles which I wrote about growing, growing financial independence where we can kind of talked a little bit about the growing experiments that I’ve had growing. Maybe one, that was good. Yeah, it’s so much fun. I mean, I have a very limited space, just you know, on a balcony, in an apartment in Sydney, but I still try and try and make it work. Mainly Herbes and sort of small amounts of veggies and things for herbal teas. But it’s it’s such a fun habit. And it’s so nice to just putter around in the garden.

Simon 5:37
Yeah, absolutely.

Emily 5:38
And urban gardening is a massive movement now to just with permaculture and that type of thing. It’s really common for for people in apartments to now grow their own food, which is awesome.

Captain FI 5:53
I think we can learn a lot from I guess, the permaculture movement and he kind of I think it does It relates so much to I guess like if the financial and investing community because to me like growing vegetables or say growing a fruit tree, it’s almost the same thing as investing you know you you have to start somewhere you have to tend to it and over time you know that investment or that tree will grow and provide you with you know, fruit or you know, dividends

Simon 6:25
good medical night.

Captain FI 6:27
Absolutely. And I actually I saw a post from someone on Instagram recently, the slow fast and she actually had put this amazing post up actually likening the stock market to an orange tree. And she went through and talked about, you know, how if the tree is providing you oranges and food, why do you care if someone values that differently from day to day like are you really going to get rid of the orange tree? Just because somebody tells you it’s worthless. today than it is yesterday, but it’s still producing you oranges. So, yeah, it really struck a chord. And I really liked that analogy. So first of all, how did you guys get so good with money? Like you clearly killing it on the property front? Yeah. You know, ETFs like, I’ve been reading the blog, I’ve been looking at your Instagram posts, and you seem pretty all over. I mean, was there anything in particular with your upbringing that had, you know, help your mindset? Or were there any defining moments in your lives when you know, you guys eat Shrek realised you needed to start investing to get ahead?

Emily 7:42
Yeah, well, I think so individually. We both grew up reasonably money conscious. My parents were, you know, somewhat frugal, but they also knew the value of money and they taught myself and my sister the value of money and they invested quite heavily property, and as well as my sister has education. And they were really supportive when I was growing up and took an interest in money. And my dad was my number one support when I actually did go ahead and buy my first investment property when I was 18. So had I not had that support from my parents, and it would have been really difficult.

Captain FI 8:26
Yeah, we pick up a lot of our money habits from our parents. And I guess that’s really amazing that you had such a supportive family and a supportive father who was able to help you to navigate because, you know, it’s, it can be pretty, can be pretty intimidating. Especially looking at your first real estate deal.

Emily 8:46
Oh, absolutely. And I think negotiating that that entire negotiation process and, you know, understanding whether or not it was in fact a sound purchase. For someone that is so young And essentially it was my life savings that I was putting down to purchase this property. It was quite an intimidating time, but having a support network around you be at your parents or friends. And you know, it really does help when taking the leap into the property market.

Simon 9:22
I also grew up in a, I guess, pretty frugal household being, I guess, a farming background in, in country Victoria. So that sort of shapes how I thought about money. family wasn’t super into investing. So basically, yeah, when I started working, I started you know, still saving as much money as I could, but I didn’t really do anything with it. I dabbled in shares for a bit but basically just sat on a very large savings account that sat in the bank for a couple of years. So yeah, without a doubt in the US. He’s 100% responsible for, for educating me and, and making me realise I guess the benefits of property.

Emily 10:11
We get that.

Captain FI 10:14
So, so what about stocks? So, has Simon told you a little bit about the stock

Emily 10:24
market? Absolutely. I, I never really dabbled in shares, mostly actually because my family had quite a bad experience with shares and when they lost a reasonable amount of money, so just the volatility of the share market really worried me freaked me out. So I didn’t really get into shares until Simon sort of was able to hold my hand so to speak, and I do often go to him for my advice, which You know, I don’t, I don’t advocate for for other people, but I do trust him. And he does walk the talk, so to speak. So I trust in what he recommends. So yeah, he’s definitely been the linchpin for me in terms of investing my own personal money in shares. But we do also have a reasonable amount of money that is joined as well. So yeah, it’s only a small amount of money that I have in my own share portfolio.

Captain FI 11:30
Okay, and that’s actually that can be a pretty big thing for couples joining finances. So you guys have been together for a long time. How did you know when it was sort of, I guess, time to join finances? And do you track your spending on sort of how do you manage that the expectations of each others

Simon 11:53
Yeah. So joining finances again for full credit in for for pushing us In that direction, I mean, realistically, a couple, you know, you can sort of tell early on whether you’re going to be around long term or short term. So for us it was it was definitely looking long term it’s still still is So combining finances was a really good move back then because it’s almost, you know, the more the more equity you can bring in to an investment situation it it really does compound so by having two people combined incomes and combined finances, it’s it doesn’t just double your I guess, your position it almost sort of triples it’s the it’s really that that compounding effect with what you can do and it’s like everything banks, banks will lend you more money if you’re a if you’re a pair as opposed to an individual You know, there’s there’s really a lot of benefits to Doing it early on.

Emily 13:01
Yeah, it’s suddenly been beneficial for us. And I remember when I was thinking about broaching the subject with Simon about combining finances, and I had a little speech in my head and I was going to run through, you know, the benefits of combining finances. And then one night over a bottle of wine, we just sat down and we just started speaking about it. And yeah, it was it was awkward, I suppose, because I was in debt. So I had an investment property that was bringing in cash flow, so it was positively yield. Good property. But Simon had a lump sum of capital. So obviously, there were obvious benefits, I suppose in combining our finances at that time, but I think it was also just knowing that you have a have someone to support you through any financial difficulties and that kind of thing as well. It just gives you the confidence to then go in, purchase more property or invest. So

Captain FI 14:08
yeah, interesting. So when you say you had a positively geared property, so that means all of the cost of managing that property for mortgage maintenance, all of those sort of fees that you might not think about, even once you’d counted for all of those, it was still making you money every week.

Emily 14:32
That’s right. So each week or monthly when I got the rental returns from my property manager, I would end up with, you know, a few hundred dollars, which wasn’t a huge amount, but that’s the loan was quite small. But I would end up with a few hundred dollars in my back pocket that I could either use to put back into the loan which would then reduce my repayments or if I had a large expense that I needed to pay for it was just a little bit of extra money in the bank.

Captain FI 15:09
Yeah fantastic. I mean, that’s, that’s what it’s all about right is investing, getting those returns and using that to increase your position and eventually to to live off the returns when I first discovered fire or financial independence, where you invested and eventually the returns from your investment or in your case, those that couple of hundred dollars that you made profit at the end of the month, you know, if you had enough investments or enough say properties that providing you those couple of hundred dollars each that you might even be able to live off that and not have to work a conventional job. Well, that was like a penny dropping light bulb. illuminating and exploding. of my head. It just it blew my mind. And it really opened up a huge amount of possibility for me. Is that some something that you were thinking of when you started your investment journey?

Emily 16:14
Yeah, it’s a really interesting concept. I actually only discovered that fire had a name when we established smashed avo on Instagram. I didn’t know that there was an actual term to coin it. And we’d both sort of already been working towards that stage. But I suppose it was just interesting that you could put a name around it. But again, my my dad had been talking about this concept since I was little. So the concept of being able to live off rental returns and for your investments to continually build equity was something that I was, you know, thinking about from it from a young age anyway. And I think fire just sort of was able to define that a little bit more. And yeah, I suppose just put a little bit more context around it.

Captain FI 17:10
So you clearly killing it now, you’ve got multiple properties. You’ve got your business, and you also in investing in ETFs, and index funds. You mentioned you both got your properties fairly young. But can you tell us now how your investing journey has sort of changed over the top over time? And what is your current investing strategy?

Simon 17:41
I don’t know if it’s how much it’s changed over time, but we’ve certainly grouped it together in terms of goals and, and now we sort of have a very clear strategy. At the start, it was just all about accumulation and And just trying to invest as much as we can, but with no real goal in mind. So yes, that’s where the, you know, the discovering the fire movement has been quite beneficial because we’ve been able to use a lot of the resources that you know, the information that that’s out there and really come up with some goals and actually understand how much we need in order to live on. So, you know, our fundamental strategy is is just cash flow. So, you know, everything where we’re after is about positively good investments, bad, you know, bad property, we don’t, we don’t buy shares, for example, that don’t, don’t return dividends. So everything we our whole strategy is about buying Hold on, it’s about cash flow. And then the more cash we have, the more we invest in it. It’s hopefully a nice exponential curve.

Captain FI 19:04
Yeah, it’s like a snowball, it sort of starts off as a bit of a triple

a trickle of investment returns. And over time, it just sort of grows and becomes a bit of a raging torrent. And eventually, you can harvest that and live off it. So. So what is your goal, then you mentioned that previously, you were just looking to invest as much as possible. Do you have a long term financial goal?

Simon 19:33
So a rough fire number would be a portfolio and investment portfolio of about two and a half million. So then that that’s just just very simply using the 4% rule for an income that we believe we can live off. Yeah, that’s that’s taking into account full blown retirement. We honestly probably wouldn’t retire into like once we achieve that fine number the plan wouldn’t just be to to quit quit the jobs or all work completely for the rest of our lives and just sit around sipping lattes we still want to work you know there’s still things that interest us but I guess what it would mean is that we we wouldn’t be chasing we wouldn’t be chasing money you wouldn’t look at a job sheerly out you know, purely for its its income perspective. You just be like, Yeah, do what what I enjoy this or what I know,

Emily 20:40
I think that as well. It also allows us to it opens up some opportunities. So for instance, you know, we love to live on a big bit of land with a farm and and build our own house, that kind of thing. It really just allows us the opportunity and To be able to do that. So it’s less about, you know, we’re going to retire at this age and then live frugally for the rest of our lives. Like, that’s not really the type of people that we are. So our investment strategy is, is that we are able to have passive income for the rest of our lives. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that we won’t go out and seek our own our own money. So whether that’s that we start a business or whatever it may be in the future. It’s just that number is just a guide, I suppose. Well, the ultimate safety net, yeah.

Captain FI 21:39
That’s a really good way of putting it and you know, you do see, sometimes it get referred to as f you money. And there are so many stories of people who build up their passive income and build up their investments and now they have that safety net. You know, They can take that to their employer and ask for better paying conditions or, you know, they feel much more safe in risking what they have for say, a promotion or switching switching roles or or starting a business. So, yeah, I think I think that’s a really great, really great way of of looking at it. So, speaking about property specifically, you guys have a fantastic portfolio of a mix commercial and residential. Real Estate. Can you tell us a little bit more about your journey on property investing property investing fundamentals and some of the strategies that you are using?

Emily 22:47
Yeah, for sure. So, as we mentioned before, so our probably portfolio is generally all positively geared for tax purposes, we may start looking at a And neither positively or negatively geared property just to sort of assist in that in, in tax for tax reasons. But we generally will look at positively good properties with very low vacancy rates. So a suburb that’s a quite strong suburb. So it needs to have a reasonable population generally over about 5000 people with very low vacancy rates and ideally, a council that’s really proactive in building infrastructure, good roads, good schools, those kinds of things.

Captain FI 23:39
Yeah, interesting. Okay. So you would stay away from some of those boom and bust mining towns?

Simon 23:45
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are places in Tasmania, towns that you can buy a property, a shack that returns you 25%

But it’s it’s so

there’s just so much risk involved with that that side of the house so we Yeah, we’ve got a real cookie cutter style of property that we that we aim for. And so there’s the suburb side that’s all the things that we just spoke about it but then the house itself you know, we you generally want to go for yeah the worst house on the best Street. It’s a it’s an old metaphor, but it does actually work. And, yeah, reasonably new. We don’t like really old properties because there’s not a whole lot of depreciation you can generally claim and and they generally you know, towards the end of as a property starts to age, you know, the maintenance costs and the, you know, the the cost to actually maintain that property really stopped to ramp up as well so we generally like the younger properties we don’t we’re not massive fans on brand spanking new ones more so just because it’s hard to tell what a suburb or a development or a you know, an area is going to be locked if everything’s so new, it almost needs a few years to like get in. And then you can sort of figure out the market. But um, but yeah, they’re just a sort of a few of the things that we we look at, but it’s an it’s a numbers game more than anything. So you know, it’s really important just to take emotion out of it. You know, which which we’re still guilty of, I almost by very, very nearly put an offer in on a place the other day, just because I fell in love with it some polished oak floorboards. Perhaps realistically, it’s it is just a numbers game and if the numbers add up, and it’s It’s Yeah, it looks like a good investment from a from an analytical point of view then it most likely is a really good investment.

Captain FI 26:09
Yeah, okay, definitely. So solid fundamentals. You’re looking you have a systemized approach where you looking at suburbs, neighbourhoods streets, looking for the worst house on the best Street. So

the worst house and the best street so you guys are not afraid of a fixer upper.

Simon 26:35
I don’t know about a fixer upper.

When I say the worst house on the best Street, it wouldn’t more be. So again because we’re going on these sort of younger houses. You know, a lot of the time. It might just be simply something as simple as a non landscaped front and back yard. Or, you know, there’s just something Something about the property maybe it’s, it’s a couple years old and they haven’t, haven’t quite finished it, they rent the you know, the, it hasn’t quite been looked after. But it’s got really good good bones in your guess if you fix her up on that sweet suit when you head towards your renovation territory, which is somewhere that we’re not quite at just yet.

But yeah, I guess there’s

you know, you can tell a lot, a lot about the potential of an area just by looking at on the house, the houses on either side, you know, comparing prices that way, and just trying to get a feel for the general area. In terms of you know, how much pride people have in their houses, for example,

Emily 27:45
I like them did say fixer upper though, because it is suddenly an area that we are looking to move into. And I suppose it’s a different kind of investment strategy. You know, there are people that flip houses and they renovate for profit. It’s all about Cosmetic renovations and that is potentially an area that we might look to head into just in an in a new, I guess as we’re getting a little older my we’re moving into a different stage of our lives. It’s certainly a challenge that I think we would be really interested in doing and completing. So that’s certainly in the near future that could be happening. So.

Captain FI 28:26
Okay, so your, your main focus is to look for solid, stable cash flow, positive, reliable properties, and perhaps something that you can add value to, you know, small way and you’re going to look to maybe expand into that renovation territory.

Simon 28:50
Yeah, that’s a good summary.

Emily 28:52
Yeah, well done.

Unknown Speaker 28:53
Fantastic. So for so for myself, so I’m currently working On a duplex project to build, and the goal is to yet have have a couple of tenants in there. And the numbers indicate that everything seems to be cashflow positive. We’ll, we’ll see how that turns out over the next year during the build. And that’s another sort of what’s called residential property. I personally don’t have any commercial properties, and it’s something that I don’t really know a lot about. But you guys mentioned you have you have a commercial real estate.

Emily 29:42
Yeah. So we have a commercial property. So it’s an office. And we purchased that last year, I think it was it was the very first time we’d bought a commercial property. So we did actually go through a buyer’s agent for that. Just because we weren’t quite sure on the different idiosyncrasies around purchasing commercial and it is quite different to purchasing residential. So that said, in terms of our fundamental due diligence, we there was no difference really, as long as it was in a solid area, the property is, you know, well maintained quite new. We also had to look though, at strata costs, and how that was slightly that was quite different to what we’re used to with residential. But we found a great place. And the yield is is fantastic. And something that is quite different with commercial is it was a 30% deposit on the loan, so it was quite a lot of upfront money. But the rent that we get is, is all of the expenses and outgoings are actually paid by the tenant. So That’s quite different to residential. But yes, if if you’re thinking of expanding into commercial, then I would definitely seek some advice because it is quite different. But ultimately, the way that the way that it is structured is quite similar in terms of the way that the yield that we’re getting from from it as opposed to our residential properties.

Simon 31:24
There’s a bit more there is a bit more risk involved. There’s no doubt about that. So yeah, if that property was to become vacant, that that asset would then start costing us a lot of money annually, just because of the strata costs and insurance and everything else. So which is which is currently all covered by the tenant. So So yeah, you have to be pretty, pretty sure about about you the area and the likelihood of that becoming vacant. Commercial leases are variable rent to residential leases. And the Lacey’s generally something that can be negotiated as part of the purchase of the property as well. So yeah, it’s it’s a very it was a massive learning curve for us. We probably at this stage wouldn’t buy another commercial property in our portfolio right now. Definitely down the track because it’s, it’s just so cashflow positive. But because of the increased risk, we’d probably the next couple of properties will be residential, just to sort of give us that that safety net and that padding and then 100% will go commercial again down the track.

Emily 32:42
And it’s also an opportunity cost as well. So 30% deposit, you know, if you were willing to pay lmia that’s potentially three residential properties that you could purchase with the same amount of capital that you would need to start Sato commercial loan. So there Yeah, well, yeah, there is quite, you know, some there’s some pros and cons. And like Simon mentioned, it’s it’s not really on our it’s not in the short term for our goals right now but definitely in the future.

Captain FI 33:16
With all of these properties and shares and other investments, it can be tricky to keep track of everything you mentioned you had joined your finances, which is a great move for couples, especially in Australia. When it comes time for things like tax, sharing of income and those kind of factors on also personally, in the process of setting up, do some discretionary trusts and also company structures for my personal businesses and investments. But I found at times it’s can be super confusing. The OSI Firebug actually recently wrote a really good article on it. Do you use Trust’s and company structures at all? When you with your portfolio?

Emily 34:14
Yeah, so we do. And yeah, it is really confusing. And I just feel so sorry for our poor accountant because she’s had to step us through, holding our hand sort of through the entire process. So we’ve got both a trust and a company, which is a trust a to the trust. And we originally had these set up because there was an opportunity for a joint commercial residential property that we were actually in the process of purchasing. But unfortunately, that purchase fell through because the vendor pulled out so we ended up sort of going through this entire rigmarole to get a trust and a company set up and then on fortune The purchase fell through, so that was really no need for us to have sort of set that all up. But we can definitely now use that to our advantage. So,

Simon 35:14
yeah, so we’re probably looking at, at now transitioning and from this point on starting to accumulate assets under the trust. Yeah, there’s there’s a lot of benefits that come with using that that Trust Company structure which we’re still still learning about, we’re still discovering so but yes, and for us the the benefits are really starting to stack up so that’s sort of the path we’re heading down like, like I said, we didn’t we didn’t initially intend to set the the trust and the company up. It just sort of was it was almost forced on us by by a purchase our potential purchase, which unfortunately fell through but but now that we’ve got it were sort of realising that how just just how beneficial they can be. So we are sort of thankful that, um, that we sort of just fell into this position. But it’s definitely something that, that, yeah, I encourage people that, you know, sort of at that same stage to look into, you know, have that, have that conversation with your accountant. If it’s something that can be advantageous to your to your own situation, then definitely go for it.

Emily 36:28
Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners. So it’s not probably something that you would set up at the outset if you’re starting investing, but trusts discretionary trusts are actually really quite common, particularly with people, you know, in that adopters that need asset protection and things like that. So I think it’s more common than people think, to have a trust. But yeah, we had no idea about that when we first signed up to it. So

Captain FI 36:59
speaking of structuring finances. What about retirement accounts? So in Australia, we have our superannuation, which is, I guess, equivalent to an American 401k. And it’s essentially a tax sheltered investment vehicle that’s intended to cover your cost of living in retirement. So, what are your thoughts on Super? And do you contribute anything extra to that at all?

Simon 37:29
Yes. So we’re sort of quite lucky that we’re offered a very good super scheme through through our work, which we try and take full advantage of, so we both salary sacrifice. So we sacrifice 10% of our salary into suva. And that’s 5% before tax and 5% after tax. so yeah, I sat down, while we sat down a while ago and did a whole A bunch of maths and sort of figured out the pros and cons of the long term superannuation investment and the pros and cons of salary sacrificing. And yeah, you can basically structure your your input in a really, I guess, a attacks positive way, or a tax minimization sort of strategy there.

Emily 38:28
So I remember actually seeing some super statements come through. And Simon opened up here and I opened up mine and I realised he had almost doubled what I had in Super, because, you know, when I first started in the workforce, I didn’t really think about super I didn’t give it a second thought. I thought, Oh, well, that’s, that’ll, you know, I’ll need that money when I’m 5055. I don’t really need to worry about it now. So I think When I was young, I didn’t actually put as much time and effort into understanding so far. So it hasn’t been a since maybe the last two years that I’ve actually really started focusing on my super and contributing more. So yeah, definitely, definitely one for all the young players out there to focus on your super because it actually does it, it can increase very quickly. So, yes, something that I really wish that I’d done as a younger person.

Simon 39:32
And it’s another it’s another investment in your portfolio. But the best part about it is, it’s one that you don’t have to actively manage. So yeah, it ticks all the boxes of a good investment. Yeah, it grows and it provides a return. The catch is that it obviously only provides that return once you hit a certain age. So yeah, it’s you know, everyone should For many years not understanding superannuation and not understanding my own super account, but it just got to that point where it’s like this is it’s ridiculous that something an investment, you know, so, so big, I don’t know anything about So I sort of spent a lot of time learning about sofa which was again, another less massive learning curve. But yeah, it is it is a great investment. Obviously we are Yeah, depending on what scheme you’re on.

Emily 40:33
Yeah, I think a lot of people don’t realise you can actually go into whichever super company you’re kind of using or whatever your employer is using, and choose the different types of investing and aggressiveness I suppose. And so you can actually go in and say that you want to be more conservative or if you want to take a little more risk, maybe you’re younger, maybe you have a little Bit more time to work up a bit more super, you can aggressively invest. So there are different kinds of investment types within super accounts. And I think people don’t even really realise that you can actually affect that. And you have you have influence over that.

Captain FI 41:18
Absolutely. And I think my two top tips for Super is just like you’ve mentioned, the percentage of stocks to bonds and cash or sometimes it’s called fixed interest. So the first thing that I did was crank that bad boy up to the maximum aggressiveness, which I don’t remember the word I think it might even be called very aggressive, highly aggressive advice. So you know, be aggressive, be aggressive. And so that pretty much crank set up to about 100% stocks. Well, sometimes it’s It’s called 100% equities or 100% shares. And that way I’m not sort of my portfolio is not being dragged down by the very, very low yields on fixed interest and cash and bonds. And then the second thing is really pay attention to your fees. So there are some, not all super, not all super schemes are the same. Some of them have really, really high fees, and those fees are going to eat away at your returns.

Emily 42:34
I actually experienced that firsthand. I was working at a place called RP data for a few years and I, I didn’t roll the super from that account into my new super account. And I got a text message from the tax office the other day saying that $6 and 51 cents had been deposited into my account. Because that was all that was left over from my super. Oh, wow, failed to roll it over. So, unfortunately and I had earned I’ve worked up to over $1,000 that was in there. So just purely because, you know, I that I forgot, or I didn’t really care because super, super whatever. I essentially, you know, because I wasn’t sort of on top of it. Yeah, I lost lost all that money, I suppose, which was really upsetting. So,

Captain FI 43:31
yeah, it’s it’s frustrating. I mean, there was the Royal Commission into financial misconduct and super, and the fees was a huge topic and outcome on that. There’s a lot of really good. There’s a lot of really good articles that came out of that, that you can read online. One of, I guess, the really nefarious things that I learned that came out of that and something that I’m actually super grateful that never happened to me. So I’ve taken numerous flying jobs and similar to your story, and I did earn some super in there in various accounts. And just like you my super balances got eaten away, down to nothing, where I essentially got a letter saying, Hey, your accounts now closed because there’s nothing in it. And it also said, Hey, by the way, you are no longer eligible for insurance because your super account is, you know, zero, so your policy is suspended. And that got me thinking I’m like, policy, health insurance, like, that’s not really something I’d ever thought about. And it actually turns out that some of these superannuation policies will most actually have life insurance or medical insurance, health insurance plans, attach them and that’s where a lot of the fees can actually come out of

Emily 45:01
Yeah Wow.

Captain FI 45:02
And it actually turned out that had by, you know, had an injury, you know, crashed a plane, you know, thankfully, none of the accidents that I was ever in resulted in injuries, but had those accidents resulted in injury or like a total or permanent impairment, the superannuation companies or the insurance policies behind those super accounts, they will actually bicker amongst themselves and having multiple super accounts can actually void the health insurance and you can actually end up getting nothing. That was absolutely terrifying for me to read. And so that kind of predatory behaviour amongst some of the financial institutions was put on display and sort of put under the spotlight during the Royal Commission. So, thankfully, you know, there are some really awesome great Sources through asik which is the, I guess the Australian government website about money and assets Money Smart. There’s a heap of great resources for particularly young Australians to learn a little bit more about the super, and maybe anything that’s sort of lurking underneath the surface there.

Emily 46:19
Absolutely. And I think you can even find lost super as well if you’re not quite sure.

Captain FI 46:25
I’m gonna be gonna be claiming my $6 as well.

Emily 46:29
Absolutely.

Captain FI 46:31
So I I really like your blog, you guys are clearly passionate about, you know, personal finance, and you have a real knack for this kind of stuff. I see the way you identify with your readership your viewer base is is really good. You set a great example. You and Simon you both balance you’re saving and investing with enjoying a really nice quality of life and it looks like you’ve hit the sort of Perfect sweet spot and struck a real chord with your readers. And particularly what made me think of this as superannuation and the way you present your articles it’s it’s for a beginner and it’s so easy for someone to take your information and then become interested in passionate and actually like strike up a bit of a spark for wanting to to fix, you know, maybe some shortcomings in finances or maybe you don’t understand investing. What sort of led you into wanting to help nurture nurture this within people when sort of share your your knowledge of how start?

Emily 47:41
Yeah, well, firstly, thank you for checking out our blog. We actually need to get a little bit more content up. We’ve recently been a little bit quiet. But we originally had the idea for smashed avocado because we were both being individually asked by our friends for opinions on property. Or shares that they might have been looking at buying. So we’ve found the finance community on Instagram and yeah, we just sort of decided to start sharing our tips and it’s mostly just developed from there.

Simon 48:17
Yeah, well, I guess the big one of the big lightbulb moments, certainly for me is that it’s beneficial to give someone your information or help on their investing journey. Yes, it’s beneficial to them, but it’s also very beneficial to everyone else. So, you know, to, to advise or to encourage someone to go and invite buy an investment property. That’s, that’s stimulating the economy that’s growing the, that’s driving growth in property itself. Like there’s so many benefits to everyone. By more More and more people investing, if that makes sense. So I guess that’s, you know, a lot of people well, I guess I am sort of guilty of, you know, maybe wanting to keep knowledge to myself in the past, but that was the real sort of turning point is is realising Well, no. By by encouraging in, in helping other people on their investment path, it’s it helps helps everyone helps the country, it helps us It helps them. It’s really, it’s really a positive all around.

Emily 49:35
I think another thing too is with with financial advice, it can be, you know, it’s sort of a really fine line because there are it’s very regulated industry. So we can’t go out and provide advice or financial advice to individuals because we are simply not financial advisors. We can only sort of tell people And I mean, you know, speak up on our experience only. So that’s sort of where where it’s all kind of come from, I suppose is just, we’ve been interested in money. And I think it’s something that young people are not super interested in generally, they’re interested in having a lot of it, but not necessarily in you know, ways to manage it outside of your conventional nine to five. And so, I think there’s, you know, a fair bit of misinformation or there can be some scary people out there too. And we definitely encountered them at the start of our journey, where there are people that are trying to try to make the most of your ignorance and 92. So it’s just sort of like putting it out there to young people to say, hey, it’s, we’re we’re just normal people. So you know, everyone can do this. It’s not because we are You know earning ridiculous amounts of money like we have our conventional nine to five we’re earning a pretty standard amount of money but you know this is an opportunity for people that are like us to go out and you know better their lives and have more opportunities and and earn money outside of your normal I suppose in inverted commas normal job.

Captain FI 51:23
Fantastic. So before we started recording, I wanted to ask you to have a think about your the top three tips you would give someone who was wanting to reach financial independence. So you’ve had a little bit of time to think, What do you reckon?

Simon 51:47
So I guess so first and foremost, you need a negation apart. There’s no there’s no other real way of putting it. So first of all, high interest debts. Like credit card debts or high interest car loans you know, we’ve we never ever touched them with a 10 foot pole, but if you haven’t, they need to go. They need to just get paid off as quickly as you can. Because regardless how much you make investing, you will never make enough to count off like a 17% personal loan for example. So that’s the that’s the first your first step is to just get your life together, pay off high interest personal loans and then and then build yourself a bit of a buffer so you know the big the big thing is emergency phones and and you know, there’s a lot of everyone every strategy seems to talk about emergency funds but yeah, as As recent events have gets highlighted, emergency funds are actually pretty important. So you want access to, to liquid to money to know whether you have investments that can be easily converted into cash, whether you just have a bank account with no thousand bucks in it, you just don’t touch it, it just sits there. You do need to build yourself in a bit of a safety buffer.So that’s tip number one.

Tip number two is, again, a bit RFID. But you you do need to invest according to your strategy. So which means you need a strategy. And your strategy is is defined by what your goals are. So I guess you sort of have to work before you even you know, hit the Hit the buy button on some ETFs or you know, start signing contracts for houses, you need to figure out what your what your goals are. And then it’s like, Okay, well how do I get to that, that goal, and then you come up with a strategy. So these can vary just wildly between between people so don’t. So you need to stay focused. Focus on your goal. Don’t get caught up by what other people are doing. Obviously, take on information and learn, like always, always learn. But don’t get sidetracked by what other people are doing. Um,

Emily 54:41
yeah, I think the last tip and it’s probably not one that you know, financial advisors would necessarily love but it’s really important to us and it really resonates with us and that’s to enjoy your journey. And I think it’s all great to know be super frugal and, and that kind of thing. But if it’s stopping you from doing the things that you love, and then what’s it all worth, you know, money is an important tool and we can use it to our advantage, but we also need to enjoy the journey and we need to enjoy allies. You’re only you know, YOLO you only live once and this young wants to So yeah, I think that you just need to find your and balance between between saving investing, but also enjoying your money too. So, I think it’s, you know, one of our loves, I suppose, is his brunch. So, you know, we justify the expense every now and then to go out for brunch because we enjoy doing that. And, you know, you might, you might like flying so, in your case, you know, you might justify that while it’s expensive. It’s something that you do love to do or whatever your hobbies may be. I think it’s just really important to, to understand why you’re saving money in the first place is because you want to be able to enjoy it.

Captain FI 56:09
Absolutely no, I think they I think that’s some really good, really good tips. And yeah, I really appreciate you, you sharing it, it’s, it’s often something that you know, we can get really wound up on. I know like myself might you know, my background at uni studying engineering and mathematics, I can be very analytical, cool, I can be very numbers based. And I can weirdly get super satisfied by trying to squeeze my grocery budget down just as low as it can go. And, you know, it’s almost like a bit of a game but at the same time, you know, you probably do need to balance balance that sort of hyper frugal ness with you know, enjoying yourself. From time to time,

Emily 57:02
don’t get us wrong. We’ve definitely played the how far can our grocery bill squeeze us? game as well? The fun but yeah, it’s it’s pretty. It’s pretty natural, I think, for us people that, you know, really interested in saving money but.

Captain FI 57:21
So, look, guys that really covers a lot of the questions that I had written down that I wanted to ask you. I guess we’ve been meaning to have this chat for quite a while. And between when we actually sort of first made contact and broached the idea about running the podcast, the markets obviously had a pretty big downturn and we might even see ourselves in a bit of a bear market. Who knows with this whole correction. In a virus, lockdown, what are your thoughts on I guess the virus and its impact on not only I guess the share market, which has seen quite a, you know, a significant correction, but also other assets like property.

Simon 58:22
Yeah, I mean, I guess so we track our net worth and the property markets sort of not hasn’t been super affected as yet, but but definitely a share for portfolio has lost value. We haven’t, we haven’t lost a cent of money per se because we haven’t sold. If we were to freak out and sell our shares, then yes, we would lose money but our portfolio has lost value. Yeah, obviously the share markets been the real story. lately because that’s, that’s where we’ve been seeing some pretty significant losses. You know, you look all throughout history, basically we have these periods of, of growth, but the share market is never linear. So it doesn’t grow linearly, over time it ramps up, and then it has to correct because it can’t just keep growing growing up in a more excellent exponential curve. So we have these, these seams have these market corrections. So, you know, for the past, I think if you average out the growth in the past, like 3040 years on the stock market, it’s like 9.2%. So you know, that’s the average growth growth. If you’re in the stock market, long term, which is what are so honestly we are, you know, it’s a little bit I guess, you know, sad to to look at your net worth drop. But realistically, I don’t see us as having lost a single cent simply because we we buy and hold. So we buy, buy good dividend paying stocks and ETFs then hold us in the long term and and like you say the Yo, our orange tree it’s still currently still producing oranges. So the fact that, you know, the orange tree market might be you know, worth a bit less and our tree might be a bit devalued at the moment where we’re certainly not about to go digging it out.

Emily 1:00:52
I think as well we’re quite lucky in that we both have retained our jobs. So you know, we’ve still got to regulate income coming in one area that has been slightly affected is our commercial property as can be expected so, you know we The bank has essentially stopped us paying our mortgage on a commercial loan which you know has is is great for the banks to take the initiative to go ahead and do that we did get a late payment rental income this month but out the company that’s that’s, that’s in there is actually quite stable. So we are lucky in that respect. So, I think Yeah, with with everything that’s going on, it’s it’s it can be very difficult for people particularly if they’ve lost their jobs but like Simon said, you don’t actually lose money in the stock market, particularly unless you’ve unless you sell so if people have the capacity to hold on to their, their shares, then should see them start to go up at some point when that will be, you know how long’s a piece of string but the the market will recover. So I think that’s just important mentally for people to remember right now.

Captain FI 1:02:16
So with With that in mind, and I always try and avoid sort of starting to talk about politics and that kind of stuff because you end up going down the rabbit hole. But with that in mind, what do you think about the Morison government initiative to allow people to withdrawal from their superannuation?

Simon 1:02:38
Um, I mean hundred percent can see the reasons behind it. And I think it almost goes without saying, if there are people out there that need cash to for the absolute basics for the life essentials. It’s it’s, it just goes without saying like you. If you need money just to put food on the table then then yes, hundred percent. I think that’s completely valid. But yeah, there are a lot of sort of talk. Yeah, we’ve had a bunch of questions from friends being like, Oh, well, should I pull, pull money out and maybe invest it myself? Yeah, pull the 10 grand out of super and, you know, buy some shares with it or, you know, put it down for a home ask deposit. That’s when I I think people need to be really, really careful. And, you know, super like we’ve like we discussed earlier, it’s such a, just a safe, you know, easy, reliable investment. That I think you really have to be confident in your numbers to make that withdrawal and that’s something like I was We haven’t even crunched the numbers because for us It’s out of the question we we would not touch Yeah, super.

Captain FI 1:04:07
Yeah, I think that’s we’re very similar to obviously what I think I saw a funny meme. And it was it said something to like Coronavirus. Don’t touch your face. Don’t touch your super. But you’re absolutely right. If you need the essentials, we’re talking rent, food utilities to provide for your family then you know i can i can see how if you were in that position, then there might be something that you consider. It is is unfortunately going to be a very difficult time for a lot of Australians and for a lot of people around the world. And at some point, it does sort of feel a little bit. I do feel a little bit guilty for again, Talking about finances and money and investing, it can sometimes feel a little bit insensitive. But I guess Make no mistake if you are disciplined and prepared. This could present itself as a fantastic opportunity for your long term financial wealth.

Simon 1:05:22
Yeah, yeah. And certainly with the stock market, you know, we’re seeing some really, really solid, you know, real blue chip investments out there that that pay, you know, potentially not this year but normally pay solid reliable dividends. And they’re currently all a lot cheaper than they were a couple of weeks ago. So yeah, again, for people that that are wanting those, you know, there’s buy and hold strategies with with their share portfolio, then Then, you know, I’m not saying try and time the market, but now would be a good time to buy

Emily 1:06:07
a good as time as any real, you know. But I’m really interested to actually see what the property market does in the next month to three months. So, typically the property market does lag behind shares, obviously, shares are quite volatile property being bricks and mortar is is takes a little longer. So, I would be interested to see in the next few months as to how the property markets affected because there could be some, some opportunities there. Obviously, remembering that every suburb has its own micro economy and there are, you know, properties booming and other different times as others so, yeah, I think, yeah, should be really interesting to potentially check out some opportunities and The next couple of months from a property perspective.

Captain FI 1:07:03
So I guess our real superpower at the moment is an ability to live well below your means. And that is going to give you the opportunity to maybe take advantage of some of these great investment opportunities that might present themselves in the near future.

Emily 1:07:22
For sure, I think as well social isolation is certainly helping a hit pocket. There’s no you know, pubs to go and sample craft beers at it’s certainly helping our expenses which while it’s getting a little bit like Groundhog Day, yeah, it is suddenly helping the the hip pocket.

Captain FI 1:07:48
I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never baked so much banana bread in my life.

Emily 1:07:54
I’ll have you know, I baked orange poppy seed cupcakes with lime butter cream the other day.

Captain FI 1:08:00
Ah, that sounds amazing.

Emily 1:08:02
Yeah, pretty tasty but also our gym is closed. So this is problematic.

Captain FI 1:08:08
Well, you might need to pick yourself up some gym equipment on on Gumtree.

Emily 1:08:12
Maybe just go for a good old fashioned run.

Captain FI 1:08:16
That is technically free.

Emily 1:08:18
Exactly. Sorry,

Captain FI 1:08:21
Simon, and thanks so much for the chat today. It’s been so it’s been so much fun. Before I let you guys go, is there anything else you’d like to talk about today?

Simon 1:08:32
Um, I think we’ve, I think we’ve covered all bases. I’m sure there’ll be some, we’ll have to catch up again in the future. I don’t know maybe on the other side of this, this crisis and, and, you know, talk about where we’re headed from there. But um, yeah, I think that’s, I think that’s all we’ve got for today.

Captain FI 1:08:51
I am totally down for that guys are really looking forward to maybe sampling some of that craft beer. And some of those poppy seed scones that you just talked about. For anyone who wants to get in touch with you guys. What’s the best way for people to find you guys online?

Emily 1:09:10
Yeah, so just throughout Instagram and just smashed on other underscore so much shameless plugs going on here. Smashavoaustralia.com

Captain FI 1:09:22
I just, I just re record that last little section.

Simon 1:09:27
Yeah, I’ll just close the windows. We’ve just got a mower outside.

Emily 1:09:31
bloody mowers Oh, wow, they’re really loud. Sorry.

Simon 1:09:39
Can you still hear the mower in the background?

Captain FI 1:09:41
not cant hisear shit, right? That’s good for anyone who wants to track you guys down online or get in touch. What’s the best way to find you guys?

Emily 1:09:52
Yeah, so we’re mostly active on our Instagram account so at smashed, ever underscore. We also Have a blog. So that’s at WWW dot smashedavoAustralia dot com but we’re always more than happy for people to dm us on Instagram. We absolutely love having a chat. So yeah, that’s that’s definitely the best place to reach us.

Captain FI 1:10:18
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Captain FI Financial Independence Podcast to read the transcripts or check out the show notes, head over to www dot Captain fi.com for all the details. If you have a question for the captain, make sure to get in touch. You might even make it on the airwaves. You can reach me online through the captain five contact form or get in touch through the socials. I’m active on Facebook and Instagram as well as a number of online finance and investing forums. And finally, remember the information presented on the show and the links provided are for general information. purposes only, they should not be taken as constituting professional financial advice. You should always do your own research when making any financial decisions and make sure it’s appropriate for your personal circumstance.