Welcome to another Strong Money Story!
In these posts, I chat with real members of the community about how they’re putting this stuff into action — building wealth, creating freedom, and living life on their terms.
Because while I enjoy writing, what really matters to me is seeing results. That’s why I created the Freedom Tally and added it to the homepage — to measure the impact in years of human freedom.
Plus, the more examples we share, the fewer excuses people have for not joining us 😉
This month’s story is a bit different. It’s from a guy who had to re-start in his early 50s after a divorce — but within a decade (and with a new partner on board), he hit financial independence.
Let’s get into it.
P.S. If you’re enjoying these stories, let me know and I’ll keep them coming. And if you’ve got your own journey to share, flick me a message via the contact page — I’ll send over the Q&A template.
My name is Ronald. I’m 60 years old, living in Wundowie, Perth
I’m married, with 3 grown up kids living on their own. As far as work status, I’m retired.
I’ve always desired to be wealthy and financially independent.
I grew up in a family where my mother controlled all the household expenses as my father is the opposite sort of person with all 4 vices, and will spend any money that he had.
Unfortunately, I previously didn’t have a cooperative spouse. Being too rational and coming from a cultural background where we don’t normally go through divorce, I was ‘stuck’ in that situation for more than 20 years.
It was only when my previous spouse was out of the picture (and I remarried) that I had the opportunity to rebuild my wealth.
This started around 2015 after my current spouse completed her second stage of her spousal migration.
Being someone that is good with numbers, I’ve always known that this was possible.
Being more familiar with property and understanding Perth’s property cycles, we decided to get into investment properties again more recently. I anticipate that we have one more boom cycle before I will be too old to do so due to financing requirements.
My goal back in 2015 at age 52 was always financial independence and to retire at my preservation age of 59.
We have achieved that before I turned 59 and I signaled my intention to my previous company before doing so.
My ex-wife overspent on everything and she didn’t work, so we saved nothing.
I only had about $120k in super at that time, but I managed to pay off the home mortgage. So basically our net worth was $510k plus super.
Our house sold for $525k and everything was split 42.5/57.5 in her favour (they wanted 30/70 at the beginning). That left me about $260k with $60k in my super.
When we separated in 2012 rentals were very tight, so I quickly bought an affordable property for $355k with $200k mortgage. We never had private health cover so got hit by the ATO for additional Medicare levy when I separated.
Two weeks before my house settled I was living with a friend and suffered a break-in, losing $20k in property including a new passport, $10k in gold/silver ingots, plus cash, as I wasn’t insured living with my friend.
Dave: Damn, that’s unfortunate. I’ve actually been burgled a couple of times in the past when I first moved to Perth. But luckily I never tend to own anything valuable or keep much cash. Ronald was smart not to max out his home purchase – $350k is about 30% cheaper than the median Perth home at that time. I’m guessing that helped him a lot going forward.
In 2015, knowing the Perth property cycle, I started looking at investment properties again. So I started acquiring between 2016/2017.
I aimed to keep all my properties positively geared so we could achieve higher savings rates. Initially, between 2014-2018 it was lower because of child support and later having to put my son into private school after my ex-wife passed in 2014 (where we lived there wasn’t any reasonably good public school).
After 2018 we were able to increase our savings rates from 50% to 70% as the Perth property market improved. My wife also withdrew her super from Singapore in 2017, so we were able to reduce interest costs.
All in all, I would say 50% of wealth on reaching FI came from initial equity/savings, 12% from property gains, 5% from investment gains, and 33% from wage savings.
Dave: Impressive. As I suspected, Ronald used his surplus cashflow and borrowing power to invest aggressively – something that wouldn’t have been possible if he bought a more expensive home. I’m not sure how much savings his new partner had, but that savings rate is a huge driver regardless! From my chats with Ronald, he takes a less common approach of investing in regional WA, which explains the positive gearing – more on this later.
My ideal lifestyle is not having to worry about having enough money to maintain our home, pay for our day to day activities, plus the occasional trips.
Freedom means not having to be forced to work to pay our bills, especially if your work environment is less than ideal, usually because of conflict with less than capable managers.
Dave: Haha! Many times, the specific jobs we do are perfectly enjoyable – it’s just the people, work environment, rules and politics that kill it.
We monitor our asset value and incoming cashflow every quarter.
We’re happy that despite not currently working we’ve been able to buy an EV one year ago with cash. And our net assets keep growing, meaning that the lifestyle we are currently living is financially sustainable.
Stopping work means income has fallen to about 50% or less (after tax) compared to when I was working.
Our household expenses, apart from the cost of eating out, has more or less remained stable, apart from current price inflation. Income may increase once we start running our B&B at our current premises.
Dave: Interesting way of looking at it. I’m guessing Ronald is framing it like “OK, inflation has been 10% over the last 3 years, so our spending is up 10%” meaning zero lifestyle inflation. I’m curious about the B&B – he shares more on this later.
Given that I started rather late, the first thing we did was to determine roughly how much we need for annual living expenses.
We then agreed on a goal of net assets of $2m, which if living in an average cost home should generate enough income to cover our living expenses plus 20%.
Dave: At current numbers, that likely means a Perth home of perhaps $800k, and the rest being investments to cover expenses.
I am open to any kind of investment as long as I have done sufficient due diligence to satisfy myself on the risk and rewards.
Crypto doesn’t meet my pub test for example. I tend to favor a little bit of diversity in my investments.
Our portfolio currently comprises shares – mainly ETFs or managed funds within super, property trusts within super and investment properties.
We are currently selling off our remaining investment properties to reinvest some of the money, likely with a Commercial property financing company.
Property investing is good when there’s capital gains and positive cashflow but holding costs are relatively high, and dealing with people will always encounter issues somewhere down the road.
Dave: Interesting approach. I’ve met Ronald in person given he’s a Perth local – he knows what he’s doing. Given he’s in the retirement stage of his investing and a very low tax environment, it makes sense that he’s looking at income-focused options such as property trusts or higher-yield lending.
Don’t go in too early when the Perth market starts falling – waiting another 6-12 months would have netted me another $100k.
Buying in mining towns (Karratha/Port Hedland) is good for gaining equity when everyone is afraid to buy. Buying at very low prices means close to zero downside risk. My third purchase (Karratha) made more money than the other two and cost less to purchase.
Commercial property is only as good as the quality of tenant due to the long lease and higher cost of finding replacement tenants. Long leases in commercial properties mean nothing if the tenant can’t be profitable running their business.
Yes, our home is fully paid (or rather the mortgage is fully offset).
Being retired means we would not have access to loan facilities and we have an intention to pick up an investment property for our eventual place of residence when we cannot manage our hobby farm in the future.
Dave: Smart – this gives them maximum flexibility over the money, rather than eliminating the home loan and then having to re-apply to get access. I love the idea of having a huge untapped loan facility, but I’d end up spending it… on investments.
We are currently living off a combination of rental income and dividend payments from inside and outside super. This exceeds our living expenses.
Update from Ronald: When I first wrote this I had only about $320k in my super, a few investment properties and was still building my current house. I’ve sold all my investment properties and put extra into super. Currently super is sitting at about $700k. Rest of investments are outside super, so our current income is about 55% from super and 45% from outside super. I may tip more into super when my wife reaches 60 next year or keep outside super for future Bunbury property purchase (future residence).
I retired at the preservation age, so almost 2 years now.
My spouse never really did paid work since migrating to Australia in 2013, so she has been retired for a decade 😊
As we built a new home on our current premises and I did a lot of the work myself, there’s still lots of work left to do before we reach the point of just having to maintain the house and operate our food garden.
We do want to travel a little, but as we have animals and a food garden, we would need to organise house sitters if planning anything more than a few days. We have overseas friends who are interested, so this likely won’t be an issue if and when we decided to travel.
Our post-FI life in the first 12 months was spent completing the new house – tiling, followed by hanging doors and painting, plus a bit of wardrobe building.
After that, lots of time was spent developing and building the garden (we started with a blank canvas). We’re still building the garden but now enjoy a fair bit of harvest.
My morning routine is watering the garden and topping up water and checking the feed for the chickens. My wife does her morning rounds throwing vegetable scraps to the chickens and harvesting whatever is ready, then she’s busy in the kitchen.
I then work on the list of things yet to be built or completed. We shop once a week in Midland and have lunch out at the same time. We’re also part of a food meetup group with Friday night activities once every fortnight, and once a month we may go on a Silver Wings senior outing somewhere.
We wanted to travel, but anything longer than a weekend needs someone to take care of the chickens. We’ve booked ourselves for two weeks in China next year and plan to give away the aging chickens before we go.
The biggest issue may be living with a less than financially responsible partner for more than 2 decades.
With a financially irresponsible partner, you always have to look over your shoulder when there’s excess cashflow, which can lead to less than ideal decisions and too much discretionary spending.
I’m trying to teach my kids to only get a financially responsible and cooperative partner if they wish to build wealth and be financial independent.
Dave: I’m seeing and hearing about this more often. Either people who have a spouse who’s not on board with their goals with somewhat self-destructive behaviours, or people like Ronald who’s stressing the importance of getting on the same page before committing to merging two lives into one.
The journey has been relatively satisfactory since 2015.
There was a little hiccup due to bad tenants and lousy neighbours from one of our investment properties. Also, a few lessons learnt that I would not be doing the same if there’s a next time (see earlier property points).
Marrying the right partner, allowing us to have a high savings rate.
At one stage we were saving 50 to 70% of our after tax income.
Two people working together can achieve anything in less than half the time.
Without a cooperative partner, you cannot build wealth as one builds and the other one destroys.
Probably build my emotional confidence when I was younger before searching for a relationship.
Upsizing their expenditure when their income grows. And spend more than they make or all of what they make.
To move in the right direction, they need to understand where their money is spent and practice delayed gratification. Only buy big discretionary items where your investments are generating enough that it doesn’t affect your wealth.
If you choose to travel for experience, choose destinations with better value. E.g.. if Americans fly all the way to Bali as their desired destination, Perth people going to Bali will get better value.
Dave: It seems to be a law of human nature at this point. Most Aussies don’t have an income problem, they have a spending problem. I know people who make plenty of money and have little to show for it – one has earned $150k (net) for several years and has a negative net worth (it goes on drinking, eating out, gambling, buying/selling cars, all while keeping a credit card/loans open).
Once you’ve done your due diligence, you need to act.
Knowing what you need to do but not acting, usually due to fear, will mean that it remains a dream.
Don’t bet on the lottery to get rich, the odds are not in your favour!
Ronald’s story highlights a number of important lessons…
It’s never too late to rebuild.
Ronald was only able to laser-focus from his early 50s, and starting with a fairly modest net worth. With a decent income and a cooperative partner, he reached FI within a decade. That’s proof that starting late doesn’t have to mean a sub-optimal finish.
Your partner matters a lot.
This was a huge theme in this story and a very important point. With the wrong person, progress is difficult (or non-existent). But with the right person, everything changed. Having someone on the same page can supercharge your goals, while the opposite can derail them.
Savings rate is king.
Even with some bad luck and a modest start, Ronald and his partner lived simply and managed to save up to 50–70% of their income. And even before that, his initial net worth (and his partners) came from paying down a mortgage and adding to super for two decades.
Your strategy can change over time.
Ronald used a variety of strategies depending on what made sense at the time – leveraging property cycles and depressed markets, building an ETF and managed fund portfolio, and tailoring his approach as the situation and his priorities changed. Tweaking your strategy to your circumstances is smarter than sticking religiously to a plan that may not serve you anymore.
Don’t waste time.
I like his closing point. Once you know what to do, you have to act! Especially so if you happen to be starting or rebuilding later in life. You don’t have time to fluff around.
Big thanks to Ronald for sharing his journey — enjoy FI life mate! 🔥
P.S. I know some of you want every single detail in these interviews. But I appreciate anything folks are willing to share — it’s not easy opening up about money online.
If you think your story could help others (even in a small way), shoot me a quick message here and I’ll send over the Q&A template.
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After going through a difficult divorce, Ronald rebuilt his wealth in his 50s, focused on his future, and managed to retire at 59.
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Congratulations Ronald thanks for sharing your story and for the wise life advice. Wish you all the best in your retirement. Thanks Dave for compiling it.
Cheers, glad you enjoyed the read 🙂
Thank you TimeRichFi!
Hi Ron really enjoyed your story and I’m in some ways have a similar story 59 etc etc. Just wanted to know what you are invested ie what etf shares property trust and commercial property lending don’t need the figures maybe the names and % of what they make of your portfolio. Like you I have ip as well. Great story and good luck
Check out Balmain Private.