7 Years of Freedom: Notes From The Other Side #3

Welcome to the third instalment of ‘Notes from the other side’.

After numerous requests for more info on what life’s really like outside the confines of full-time work, I decided to start this little series.

Here, I do a quick zoom around our life and share details from behind the scenes of early retirement.

The last update was back in October last year.  If you want to read my yearly reflections since leaving work, check out the following posts:

Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5

And if you type in the blog’s search bar “year in review” you’ll find even more life updates!

Quick reminder of our situation

For those that have joined the Strong Money community recently, here’s a little context:

— We’re a couple that live a semi-retired lifestyle, after becoming financially independent in 2017.

— We enjoy our free time, and live a very comfortable yet relatively simple life.

— In 2022, we purchased an old house in Perth to live in and have since renovated it (basically finished now).

— Mrs SMA works 2 days per week in government admin.  I do writing stuff from home (like this blog), which has turned into its own part-time gig.

— We’re not really into fancy stuff (except the Tesla I guess!).  We buy whatever we need and anything else that seems worthwhile, without following any kind of budget.

Turtles and volunteering

As most of you know, since moving to this location I’ve been helping the snake-necked turtles which live in the lake across from our street.

We help them cross the road as they try and find a place to lay their eggs (mostly during Spring).  They’re known to travel hundreds of metres away from the lake to do so!

Unfortunately, this means a few get run over, but we do our best to prevent that.  This also means some of them find their way into our yard.

For some reason, there were far fewer female turtles out laying last Spring.  As a result, we only managed to find 2 nests in our yard to protect.  From this, we were able to release 9 hatchlings.

We also spotted another 8 at various times while out and about on walks.

All up, we managed to release 17 baby turtles into the lake this year.  That makes 362 hatchlings released since 2018 – something I’m really proud of!

Aside from that, we’ve continued doing tree planting with a local volunteer group Friends of Yellagonga Regional Park.

Writing and other stuff

I’ve actually been spending more time ‘working’ this year.

Honestly, all this still feels very hobby-like.  Like I’m just playing around sharing a few thoughts and it’s not very serious.

But that’s the way I like it.  If I spend too much time on doing it, there’s a good chance I’ll start resenting all the time it’s soaking up and then it’ll feel like a chore.  So there’s a delicate balance!

As you probably know, I’ve been working on the the Aussie FIRE podcast – a project between myself and Hayden from Pearler.

I’m enjoying our discussions and it’s good getting to know Hayden’s experiences and his views on certain topics.  He’s fairly laid back and logical guy like myself, but we don’t agree on everything.

The conversation dynamic is improving as we get to know each other better and I like how it’s shaping up.

I’ve also continued publishing my more investing-focused articles over on the Pearler blog, to hopefully protect against any ASIC litigation 😅

New project

As I flagged earlier this year, I’m working on a second book.  This one is essentially for those that are half-way or further on their FI journey and are feeling anxious or unsure about what comes next.

It’s to help people get over all the hurdles, uncertainty, fears, and self-limitations that prevent them from breaking away from the rat race after building wealth.

This is a more common issue than I expected and it’s a unique ‘problem’ for the FI community (and more broadly for the average wealthy person) that gets very little coverage.

There are far too many people who stay stuck in the status quo for dozens of reasons.  It saddens me that those people miss out on their potential freedom – the outcome they wanted when they set out to build wealth – largely due to all the different emotional and psychological hangups.

Anyway, that’s probably a terrible synopsis of the book idea, but I think it’s an important issue to tackle, so I’m doing it.  To oversimplify, I want to help people…

1. Conquer their fears of transitioning away from full-time work after building wealth.
2. Gain the confidence to use their position to start doing their own thing and actually enjoy some of the freedom they’ve earned.
3. Create a meaningful life they truly enjoy, in line with their values and what they care about.
4. Build a truly abundant mindset and situation, so they can finally stop worrying about money.

I plan to write more about these topics on the blog too.  But there’s just so much to cover and detail is required so it feels worthy of a book.  Anyway, it’s a (slow) work in progress, and I expect it to take another good 12 months or so.

Trips and Travel

Earlier this year, we went on two trips.

The first was the first official roadtrip in the Tesla.

We spent some time in various places ‘down south’ here in WA, such as Busselton, Dunsborough, Denmark, and finally, Esperance to visit my mum.

Not long after that, we flew to Darwin to spend time with Mrs SMA’s family.  It was also the first time I’d been to Darwin, so I got the grand tour!

It was dry season so the weather was nice, and I really enjoyed my time there.  There are so many nice places to see, and the lifestyle is very laid back which was right up my ally!

I even make friends with one of the neighbours on our daily walks (the third picture).

I did a terrible job of posting these on social media (I didn’t).  Usually, when I’m on holiday I just want to enjoy what I’m doing and simply can’t be bothered 😁

In other travel news, I recently got a new passport!

Now that we don’t have a dog, I figured we might as well do a bit of travel.  The first place on the list is Thailand.  We’ve already booked a trip for late November and I’m quite excited.

I’ve never been, but I do love Thai food and it looks like there are lots of nice things to check out there – far too much for one trip.

On that, I recently had a realisation…

Travel is not something you can even finish.  There are more places to go than you will ever have time for.  So you just have to accept you’ll never see it all.  This actually annoys me for some reason lol.  My mind tends to gravitate towards all-or-nothing.

For the same reason, it would annoy me to live in a home with ocean glimpses.  I’d rather no view, or a great view.  The semi-ok view would frustrate me.  I’d constantly think of how much better it could be – you almost have a great view.  But having no just becomes normal.

Am I crazy or does anyone else think like this?

But I digress.  When it comes to travel, I guess it’s about choosing the things you might enjoy most, within your budget, and doing those first!

Finances

Our wealth has been rocketing along, thanks to the Perth property boom.

I seemed to have timed the market perfectly with my property purchases, give or take ten years, haha.

Anyway, the plan was to sit through the shitty period, hold on if we can afford to, wait for the inevitable growth phase, and then sell at an opportune time.

That time would be now.  Or at least, pretty soon.

Personally, I think Perth prices will continue growing for the next year or two.  There’s simply not enough being built to satisfy the current shortage and ongoing population growth.

At the moment, we’ll likely sell one next year, and by 2027, the other two will probably have been sold.

Given there will be some decent capital gains, we’ll probably look to shift some of this money into super.  For a few reasons…

1- We’re no longer in a low tax situation, due to our growing dividend machine and part-time income.
2- We won’t need access to all of the money from these 3 property sales, due to the previous point.
3- The capital gains tax bill could be hefty.

Although I much prefer retaining the money outside super, these reasons are compelling enough to look at super for some of our property proceeds.  But it all hinges on #2 – we’ll technically have more wealth outside super than we need.

I’m not an anti-super guy.  Just like I’m not an anti-property guy.  Despite the assumption often being otherwise.  I’m a do-what-best-fits-the-situation guy.

Sometimes focusing on super or property fits the specific goal (and the individual) better than building a share portfolio.  I might write articles about both of those in the future.

I might also write about how we allocate the property proceeds as it unfolds, since the same thing could apply to some of you too.   I’ve actually had several emails from other people in a situation like this, transitioning from property to shares in a similar fashion.

House stuff

Some of you have been curious as to what else we’ve done with the house.

Quite a bit!

This year, we added solar panels, replaced the severely damaged front fence, the shitty wire mesh parkside fence, and had a patio installed.

We also recently had our laundry and toilet converted into a second bathroom.  This gives us extra optionality, if we want to rent out a spare room with its own private bathroom and toilet.

At this point, I think we’ve spent about $100k on the house.

That’s for a new roof, new bathroom, a laundry/bath conversion, fully painted internal and external, new floor tiles throughout, patio, solar panels, two new fences, front gate, and a few odd fixups.

That’s a shit-ton of money.  But it was planned for when we bought the place (since it was a dump before).

I joke with Mrs SMA about our ‘million dollar mansion’, even though it’s still a pretty average small brick home 😂

The crazy part is, as the Perth boom rolls on, that joke might become reality sooner than later!

Speaking of what’s going on around the house, our chooks seem to have attracted some friends.  During winter each year, we get ducks hanging out here, often trying to stuff their face with the chook food.

I’ve been asked by a couple of people if this is our “forever home.”

Although a common question, the phrase kind of makes me laugh.  I tend not to think in such romanticised terms.

For some reason, I just don’t get attached to things in that way.  There are simply too many factors that could change to make that sort of internal commitment.

Terrible neighbours you can’t do anything about.  Lots of building nearby making it frustratingly noisy or busy.  The council not looking after the parkland area or turning space into something else.  Or maybe even a strong desire to live by the beach.

So why would I pour myself some concrete shoes and declare, “Yep, this is me for the next 60 years!”  I just don’t operate like that.  Others might, and that’s perfectly fine, but it’s not my thing.

Life without our dog

Our dog passed away late last year, so life has been… different.

I’m not gonna lie, it’s felt a bit empty.

In the best way, a lot of our activities and life revolved around him in various aspects.

Like taking a break from writing to go play with him.  Laying on the couch having cuddles while I read. Or giving him the Coles paper grocery bags to rip up, or I’d wave it around like a red rag to a bull and he’d chase me down the hallway 😂

We actually have noticeably more free time than before.  So we’ve been doing other things like long walks (which we couldn’t do as he got older), going out for coffee/food/driving somewhere, and I’ve been doing some extra work (the Aussie FIRE podcast)

If I’m being perfectly honest, this ‘going out more/spending more’ is only partly because we enjoy it.  The other side is trying to fill what I’ll call a ‘happiness gap’.

It definitely helps having other nice things to focus on, though it’s obviously not quite the same.

It’s likely we’re still grieving and the gap will be there for a while longer.  I’m not ready to get another dog, even though I’d like to.  At this stage, we’re going to do some overseas travel, having done none at all since we got a dog in 2013.

Miscellaneous

As mentioned above, we’ve been going out a lot more for food/coffee/drinks.

It’s been really nice, but admittedly, also completely unnecessary.

But since our finances are going quite well, I don’t really care about the higher spending.  I see it as we’re essentially just spending a chunk of our ‘bonus money’ from working part-time.

This is also me practicing what I preach about keeping things in perspective and proportion.

My philosophy is you can basically do whatever you want as long as it’s in proportion to the situation.  This concept is probably explained best in the article: How to Spend More While Still Becoming Richer 

People tend to struggle with this for some reason, and are always looking for percentages, rules, and hard-lines to follow.  But unless you’re a beginner, there’s no need for all that.

I much prefer a more mindful approach, built on deliberate choices without arbitrary rules and restrictions.

Anyway, here’s a few snaps from random activities, including a local meetup, nature walks, etc.

Oh, I almost forgot!  I was on a TV segment for The Project, as they did a story on retiring early and the concept of Die With Zero.

I don’t watch the show myself, but I figured it was worth doing for the chance to get the message to more people.

Of course, the topic wasn’t done justice, but I think I did well in the interview.  Had a couple of people reach out afterwards saying they’re glad to have come across the ideas, so that’s positive.

A condensed YouTube version of the interview can be watched here.

Final thoughts

I always hesitate doing these articles.  I don’t think my life is so interesting that thousands of people should tune in to see what I’ve been up to.

But if I fail to share what I’m up to, it feels too secretive.  So the odd update will probably continue in the interest of transparency!

As I scanned over my previous update, I noticed it’s pretty damn similar to this one 😅

The truth is, I’m a fairly introverted guy who likes a simple and quiet life.  Most weeks I just like writing, learning, exercising, catching up with a friend or two, thinking, relaxing, going for walks, appreciating nature, and going out for a coffee.

I realise this makes me a bit weird, but it’s what I truly enjoy most.

Anyway, that’s my little life update.  Now, I’m off to bask in the mundane reality of early retirement 😉

Thanks for reading! 

Here are some resources you may find useful on your wealth building journey:

Mortgage broker: My personal broker of 10 years is More Than Mortgages.  Highly rated and award winning, Deanna and her team been super helpful over the years and can assist with anything home loan related, including refinancing and debt recycling.

Sharesight: A great portfolio tracking tool for share investors, and free for up to 10 holdings.  It tracks all dividends, franking credits and capital gains, which is incredibly helpful at tax time.  Saves me a lot of time and headache!

My book: After 5 years and hundreds of articles and podcasts, I decided to distill everything down into an easy to follow book.  Designed as a complete roadmap to achieving financial independence and retiring early in Australia.  Available in paperback, ebook, and audio.

Just so you know, if you choose to use these resources, this blog may receive a financial benefit at no extra cost to you.  Thanks in advance if you do.  And to be clear, I only ever recommend things I use myself and genuinely believe in 🙂