Financial Autonomy

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   Writer David Rae, in a great article in Forbes magazine , identified the disconnect between the early retirement through extreme frugality crowd, and the mainstream of society who want to enjoy life without financial constraints.  He identified 8 levels of financial freedom. A ladder that we progress alo...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   The starting point must be clarity around your goals. Most importantly, your goals determine your investment time frame. They also dictate whether your investment should have as a priority growth, or income. If your goal is having the option to retire in 15 years time, then you can invest in assets that...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   Freelancing offers flexibility. It's a way to fit in the necessity of generating an income, with the other things you want to achieve in life. Recently I heard someone reflect on the standard 9 to 5 working day. It came about in the industrial era to align with day light hours. The factories had little o...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   When it comes to gaining choice, there's few more powerful enablers than increased skills. Financial Autonomy is about gaining control and choice over your life – not enduring a working life that is unfulfilling. It's about getting the most out of the one precious life that we are allotted. In this post,...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   For many people, thinking about superannuation is the go-to cure for insomnia. This isn't all bad, in that so long as your superannuation foundations are set-up right, it is something that needs to be left alone to grow – too much fiddling around can be extremely costly. But ignoring your superannuation...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   Have you ever surfed the internet and seen something like "don't pay thousands of dollars to a dentist to fix that sore tooth, download my free ebook – do it yourself dentistry , for everything that you need to know"? Or how about "people who tell you you need a qualified electrician to hook up your sola...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   In this episode, we explore how you can convert the knowledge you already possess into dollars in your pocket. The experiences and knowledge Ronan shares in this episode: How mastermind group works Taking advantage of your Return of Intellect How to unleash your own Return of Intellect Turning your exper...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY As we've explored in past episodes, a Side Hustle can be the key that unlocks Financial Autonomy for you. That little side business that brings in some extra cash, turbo charges your learning, and has the potential to enable a total career reinvention. An extra $10k earned through your Side Hustle and paid...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   A key change in the working environment that has enabled greater choice, has been the explosion of the freelance economy and the rise of the solopreneur. But for all the positives that this change brings, primarily around flexibility, there is at least one potential downside – loneliness. So in this post...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   A discussion on property is well overdue here at Financial Autonomy. So I've roped in Buyers Advocate Emily Wallace to share with us her expert tips and advice for buying a property in Australia. She's lived in 23 properties in 25 years. Property investment is well and truly in her blood. The experiences...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY     According to Forbes magazine "the world has changed dramatically in the past several decades with more and more of a company's value attached not to factories, machines, or hard assets but rather the companies' ideas, processes, and designs – their intellectual property." Intellectual property (IP) can...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   My parents, like many of their peers, bought a caravan shortly after retiring. Each winter they escape a cold Melbourne, and head north, to explore the vastness of our nation and enjoy the agreeable climate on offer. They're onto their second caravan now, and whilst their preference has evolved to stayin...

  SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY     Debt is like the leg irons worn by convicts – it holds you back from gaining choice in life, from achieving Financial Autonomy. Yet if we aspire to own a home, then in all likelihood we're going to need to take out a very significant loan – a home loan. So given the conflict between: Our goal here at...

It's a scenario many of us face - experiencing professional success in the corporate world, yet finding it's not making you happy in broader life. In this episode, Fraser Cameron shares his journey. How he left the corporate environment and founded a coaching business helping others achieve their potential. Oh, and along the way he moved his family from New Zealand to Southern France. The experien...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY Job security isn't what it once was. The trend toward contracting, outsourcing and the gig economy, combined with technological automation and increasingly, artificial intelligence, means the need for us to be emotionally and financially resilient has never been higher. Emotional resiliency isn't something...

A centrepiece of workforce change over the past 20-30 years has been the rise of the independent contractor – the freelancer. It's no coincidence that this rise has occurred in parallel to the global expansion and adoption of the internet. The internet has enabled people to work together, and find one another, whether they are in the same city, or the other side of the world.   Creatives such as g...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   Joanna Penn's journey is a fascinating one. From consultant to business owner, to writer and entrepreneur, she's certainly packed plenty into her life. Today she runs a multi six-figure company with multiple streams of income. This one episode you definitely won't want to miss. The experiences and knowle...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   If retirement is a decade or more away, it's tempting to look at your parents and perhaps grandparents in retirement and figure, well, they seem to be getting along fine, I'll just have what they're having. But there's two key factors that have underpinned your parents retirement, that will look vastly d...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   In the last post - How to start an Investment Portfolio - we looked at the steps and mechanics involved in creating your first investment portfolio. So we covered - setting your Objectives, determining how much Risk you will take on, your investment Time Frame, and Opening a share trading account.  This...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   This is the first of a two-part series. In this post we will explore what are the actual steps and mechanics involved in starting an investment portfolio? In the next post, I'll explore how you should go about building your portfolio. I've been building investment portfolios for clients for 20 odd years...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY   We are joined today by Shaun Farrugia from Optimised Accounting and Finance to talk about the essential things you need when you move to self-employment. In this episode we cover the challenges and knowledge Shaun shares about being self-employed: Getting the clarity of knowing why you need to move to se...

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY One of the best ways to gain choice in life is to become self-employed, and a great way to bring that aspiration to life is by trying your hand at a Side Hustle. For the uninitiated, a Side Hustle is a business that you create as a second income to your primary source of making a living. It can be used to...

Episode 75 – When investing, focus on what really matters SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY I remember reading once the advice of someone who had achieved success in their field. Their key observation was, "in life, you will occasionally be faced with times where you have to make a choice. One path will be easy, and the other harder. I've...

Episode 74 – How to get your partner engaged in your Financial Autonomy goal SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY EMAIL "GAINING CHOICE" TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY A significant reason many people don't achieve Financial Autonomy is because they get pigeonholed into a certain life. They define themselves in certain ways, and often this flows from the role they've developed in their marriage...

Episode 73 -  The pay yourself first strategy Have trouble building up a nest egg? Struggling to build up enough cash to start investing? Hate the idea of a detailed budget? If you answered yes to an y of these questions, then the Pay Yourself First strategy could be for you . The idea of Pay Yourself First is not new – Google tells me the term was first used all the way back in the 1920's by an A...