Aussie Firebug

Today I’m talking with the Chair of the Australian Electric Vehicle Council, Tim Washington. Tim has also co-founded two companies - JET Charge, who specialise in supplying and installing EV Chargers and Charge Fox, Australia’s largest EV charging network. EVs have been a hot topic in the FIRE Facebook group lately and I’ve had a few episodes on EVs in general but none that dig into the charging s...

Today I’m welcoming back property investor Scott O’Neill to the podcast. Scott and his wife are self-made multi-millionaires that created $300K in passive income by 28. Since Scott was last on the show, I received a fair amount of emails asking me to get him back to give a more practical guide on investing in commercial real estate. Some of the topics we cover in today’s episode are: What is comme...

Today my guest is city planner and urban designer Jeff Speck. Originally trained as an architect, Jeff is most famous within the FIRE community for his award-winning 2012 book: ‘Walkable City: How Downtown Saves America, One Step at a Time’. It’s amazing how such a small detail like walkability can touch on so many tenants within the FIRE ethos. The economy, health benefits and sustainability are...

Today I’m talking with financial educator and podcast host Kate Campbell. Kate grew up in country Victoria and joined the defence force as a teenager before changing careers to finance and investing later on. She’s probably best known in the FIRE community as a co-host for many of the very popular podcasts that Rask Australia produces. Some of the topics we cover in today’s episode are: How Kate g...

Today we welcome back Dave Gow who retired at the ripe old age of 28. He’s better known online as Strong Money Australia where he blogs about early retirement and how to live a happier life. It’s a really light-hearted chat today where we mainly talk about Dave’s new book which will be available on the 1st of December 2022 which is very exciting. But we also cover a range of other topics such as:...

Today is a very special episode because if you had told me 10 years ago that I would be chatting to Steve McKnight on my own podcast, I would have never believed you. Steve is a professional investor, media commentator and online entrepreneur. But he’s probably most famous in the FIRE community for his book “From 0 to 130 Properties in 3.5 Years”. This was actually the second book about financial...

Today I’m talking with Brad Smith. Brad is an entrepreneur and former young Australian of the year for Tasmania who founded a motorcycle company Braaap in 2005 at the ripe old age of 18. Entrepreneurship is sometimes popularised as a quicker way to reach FIRE with the added benefit of doing something that you love. But it doesn’t always work out this way. Some of the topics we cover in today’s epi...

Today I'm joined by my high schoolmate Luke.  Luke and I attended FinFest and the Sydney FIRE meet-up over the weekend. I thought it would be fun to recap the event/meetup because we both had a blast. Some of the topics we cover in today's episode are: The FinFest event (02:51) The presentations on the day (08:05) Food truck lines (09:18) Bumping into others from the FIRE community (15:5...

Today I’m talking with Dr Cameron Murray. Cameron is a father of two currently living in Brisbane and holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Sydney. You may have seen Cameron in a collection of print media outlets and in TV programs such as Q&A on ABC. This is a big episode today because Cameron has such a breadth of knowledge across so many areas that affect our ability to retiree ea...

Today my guest is a legend in the Australian personal finance space. Noel Whittaker has been educating Aussies in money management and investing for over 50 years. He’s probably most famous for his international bestselling book "Making Money Made Simple" which has sold over a million copies worldwide! Some of the topics we cover in today’s episode are: Noel’s upbringing and first invest...

I have an interesting episode for you guys today and I think you’re really going to like it. My guest today is Scott O’Neill. Scott bought his first investment property in 2010 with a $60K deposit after saving for 5 years. Just 8 years later, Scott and his wife had 28 properties generating $300K of profit each year plus around $7Million of equity. And Scott is very adamant that he didn’t receive a...

Today I’m chatting with chemical engineer/home energy advisor Tim Forcey. He’s probably known best in the FIRE community for creating the extremely popular Facebook group, My Efficient Electric Home (MEEH) which currently has over 65,000 members. I’ve always said one of the most common traits in FIRE community is hyper efficiency of everything we spend money on, so I was very excited personally to...

Today we’re talking about two popular career paths - starting out at one of the big four or going into a government role.  The Big Four is the nickname used to refer collectively to the four largest professional services networks in the world. These include Deloitte, Ernst & Young (EY), KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Joining me in this discussion is my old schoolmate Jeremy who did a...

Today we’re talking about succession planning with the one and only Terry Waugh. This is a pretty big topic but we’ll be focusing in on areas such as: What is succession planning and why should we care? (02:22) What are some of the available options for succession planning? (04:19) Wills (07:06) Testamentary trusts (13:31) Succession planning within companies (20:52) Superannuation - who gets it w...

Have you ever been ripped off by a financial advisor?  Today’s podcast is all about identifying the tactics financial advisors use that put their interests ahead of yours.  Joining me in this discussion is Phil Harvey. He’s an independent financial advisor and one of the founding members of PIFA which stands for the Profession of Independent Financial Advisers. Some of the topics we cover are: Who...

My guest today is Matt Ridley, a British science writer, journalist and businessman who holds a PhD from Oxford in Biology. He’s worked for many famous publications such as The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and The Times (London). Matt is probably best known within the FIRE community for his award-winning book, The Rational Optimist, published in 2010. This is one of the best books I’ve ever...

In this episode we’re not talking about money or investing but rather touching on the sustainable side of the FIRE movement. Today my guest is Anthony Broese van Groenou, a sustainability expert, environmental scientist, PhD researcher and the co-founder of the Good Car Co. This company's goal is to accelerate the uptake of Electric Vehicles in Australia by offering second-hand EVs at an affo...

Today I’ve invited Terry Waugh back on podcast to talk about a topic that’s very popular in the Aussie FIRE community. I recently published an article about how we (Mrs Firebug & I) are Debt Recycling and have received a lot of questions from the community about the details of how it all works. Terry is one of the most knowledgeable people I know on this topic and he has kindly agreed to join...

This episode is a follow up on my previous conversation with Vijay Boyapati about Bitcoin . Today Mark Monfort joins me to talk about other Crypto currencies, Web3 and DeFi. Mark has worn many hats in his career working as an equities and macroeconomic analyst in Melbourne and London and also spent time in sales at the ASX. Mark is a TradFi native turned DeFi convert and is passionate about buildi...

Today I have Bill Perkins on the podcast who is the author of the very popular book titled “Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life.” The book challenges a few core FIRE beliefs and has definitely had an impact on the way I’m modelling for my retirement. Some of the topics we cover are: Who is Bill Perkins and what is he all about? (06:20) Why Bill wrote “Die with Zero” (0...

Today’s episode is a summary of my blog post titled “ASIC Crush Independent Content Creators & the End of Ask Firebug Fridays”. The new ASIC guidelines have major implications for content creators in the FIRE and personal finance communities. This is why I wanted to share my thoughts and opinions on these new guidelines and what they mean for AFB moving forward. www.aussiefirebug.com/asic-crus...

I have a really fun podcast for you guys today. It’s been 5 years since she was on, but I’ve finally managed to get Mrs Firebug back on the podcast. Sometimes it’s nice just to stop, turn around and look back at how far you’ve come. I thought it would be cool to get a life update from her perspective and just a general chit chat about her experience dropping down to working only 4 days a week. Som...

Today’s episode is a summary of my “We Bought Bitcoin” article which is all about why we have decided to buy Bitcoin and how Bitcoin plays a part in our financial independence strategy. Some of the topics I cover are: Post-crash and General Feelings (04:51) Down the Rabbit Hole (06:46) Risk Verse Reward (10:03) End Goal (12:22) But Why? (14:00) Conclusion (17:12) Links podcast - Vijay Boyapati - T...

My guest today is John Pidgeon. John is probably known best as the co-host of the very popular podcast, ‘My Millennial Property’ and has been investing in real estate for over 20 years. I had so much fun with this episode because John and I bounce around all different topics and we even get some footy chit chat in there as well. Some of the topics we cover are: How John got involved with property...

Today I’m chatting with Terry & Ryan from the Passive Income Project podcast. I’ve been listening to their show for a few years now and what I really like is their emphasis on the psychology of investing and money. They’ve recently gone deep into the world of crypto in their latest podcast series called “Decoding Crypto”. Some of the topics we cover are: Is the financial planning industry comi...