Mr. Firebug

I learned Aussie Firebug in 2019 when I first heard of FIRE (financial independence, retire early) movement. There were a few popular names flying around back then such as Mr. Money Mustache, barefoot investor and JL Collins etc. But Mr. Firebug stands out because well, first he’s an Aussie so his stories are much more relevant to me. Secondly he talks about his expense, investments and net worth in such a openly manner which I seldomly hear about. I never talk about my own money outside my household but in the meantime I’m extremely curious about how other people think and do with their money. I want juicy details with real concrete numbers combined with ideas and principals as I feel only via this way I can learn and change my behavior. Mr. Firebug’s blog and podcast fill into this gap for me.

knowing Mr. Firebug doesn’t make a difference

But shame to me that over the years I didn’t follow his footpath by doing DCA (dollar cost averaging) investing on low-fee ETFs. Instead, I thought I could outperform the market by picking stocks. I was greedy and not impressed by the 6% long term annual growth promised by investing in broad market based index fund. Not surprisingly I ended up with a loss of north of $30K. And I totally missed the dip at the beginning of pandemic as I panicked too along with the market.My greediness cost me dearly.

I only began to invest in ASX:VTS (Vanguard US Total Market Shares Index ETF AUD) for a few months last year but has stopped since we bought a house and in Nov. This is considering the raising interest and the likelihood of me being the only income earner for the next few years. I want to have big financial buffer in our bank to prepare for the event that I lost my job and having to rely on our saving to repay our mortgage.

I want to change all this

I want to replicate Mr. Firebug by consistently investing in 2 to 3 low-fee ETFs going forward and suppress my desire to I also want to replicate his openness in my blog to discuss my own investing journey and personal finance. I’m not sure I’m comfortable publishing monthly net worth update as I don’t know if this will bring danger to my family or not. I need to consult with people with such experience for any downside and then decide. Otherwise I see many benefits of making my financial situations as open as possible as this would force me to be honest with myself and think hard and be a rational investor rather than being emotional.

My current financial situation

Without giving our exact numbers, here’s the composition of my net worth.

  • Assets
    • The house we bought last year
    • An apartment as investing property
    • Shares in Interactive Broker, Stake
    • Cash, mostly in loan offset account
    • Super
  • Liabilities
    • Loans for my own house and investment property

I still pick stock these days using a fixed amount of fund but I’m following a framework rather than buying out of a whim. It’s only been a few months so I’m yet to see the results. If I can grow it that’s good; if not I won’t add more fund to it. A part of me still want to get my loss back via active investment and this results in the creation of my “Growth Portfolio”. This is not very rational you would argue but I’d like to give myself one last chance before giving up.

I also hold some stocks that I bought in the last few years but my plan is to liquidate them gradually and invest them into EFT. I’m also thinking buying another investment property in the next few months. My current investment property is a total failure but I don’t think I should exclude it. Instead I should learn from experts how to invest in Australian property market. One way is to work with buyer agent and I’m currently looking at them. Will update once I have made progress.

Last word

I forgot who said it but I feels so true: it’s not your IQ but personality that impacts your investment performance. Investing in EFT is so simple that yet I couldn’t do it consistently even for a year. So many things could break your streaks which make it so hard. I hope documenting the journey here could make it easier.