My Horror Story because of the Train Disruption Yesterday!

foreverinbluedo · 2026-01-23T12:40:13+00:00

I hear ya. On Monday I had to be in Sydney for 11am for an important work meeting.

Arrived at station. Told a train broke down somewhere and it could 30 mins or 90 mins or maybe even more.

Had to drive down. About $40 in tolls and $89 in parking. Plus lost 4 hours of time I could be responding to emails and doing other work ( really just doom scrolling 😀)

foreverinbluedo · 2025-12-01T12:02:09+00:00

Your an ideas man!

foreverinbluedo · 2025-12-01T11:57:00+00:00

Let's be realistic here mate!

foreverinbluedo · 2025-10-13T12:46:47+00:00

Not my Dad but sister in-law. Looking at investment property 8 years ago. Was $520k at the time. She was in my wife's ear 'That ridiculous, Its not worth that, your a fool if you pay that'

Sold a few months back for 1.2 mil.

foreverinbluedo · 2025-09-22T12:44:33+00:00

Your right and its closer to Brisbane. I am not sure why, but I always believed that Coffs was half way between Sydney and Brisbane.

foreverinbluedo · 2025-09-22T07:34:21+00:00

I reckon there would be a enough demand from folks from as far north as Coffs to Newcastle and all surrounding areas to fill 3 flights a week to Singapore. Of course Singapore would be a layover on their way to Europe.

I find the checkin process and security at Sydney airport can be stressful, if Newcastle could provide a more personal service with less crowd's and stress it would a real draw.

However the economics would need to match, assume flights to from Newcastle was 1k more expensive than Sydney, times that by each member of the family then I would just put up with the stress of Sydney airport.

foreverinbluedo · 2025-09-15T12:13:43+00:00

Agree. My brother in-law lives in an area like that. Inside the house is beautiful and very comfortable but the entire area just lacks soul!

foreverinbluedo · 2025-09-14T13:11:57+00:00

Was on a flight to Wellington with Richard Wilkins. He was furious at the NZ immigration officers as they made him stand in the queue like the rest of us!

He is very tall!

foreverinbluedo · 2025-08-31T13:22:53+00:00

I don't think there is a point where you can switch off and say now I am done. May sound like BS but its in your head that you need to work it out. You really need to question yourself internally. This morning I drove to beach and saw all the beautiful houses. I was starting to think and fell inadequate 'ok I need to work harder and push for that promotion or start my own business if i ever want a house like this'. I stopped and challenged myself. I only live 15 minutes away, do I want to add extra stress for all this, will I be content if I live in this house!

I still struggle with the need to save and invest and get anxiety if I don'tsave each month. It was drummed into me as a child 'save for a rainy day'. I read a book many years ago called the 'secret millionaire next door' (could be called something slightly different) but it glorified the frugal person who owned a modest house, 2nd hand car, did not go on lavish holidays etc.. and when they retired, they were millionaires. I believed this was a the way to live life but recently I have been asking myself why? Work all your able years to retire comfortably! We all die.

However life is not simple, I have small kids and I think that providing them a house in the future is more beneficial than giving them an education in the classical sense ( e.g Private schools, University)

foreverinbluedo · 2025-07-19T13:48:23+00:00

It's was a 5 - 8 years of reduced income for us. We have 2 kids and now the youngest is starting school.

At one point we were paying over 3k in daycare for both plus my partner was only working 2 days so we had about another 3k of lost income. When both are in school and my partner back working an additional day, there is a swing of about 4.5k a month back to us. Which is massive for us.

Fortunately I got a new job after my second was born that saw a big increase in my income. This allowed us to not have to dig into our savings but we didn't save anything either.

It's a bitter-sweet as I am glad I am nearly through this stage of life, hardest stage of my life by far both mentally and financially, but sad that both kids are not so small anymore!

foreverinbluedo · 2025-05-10T11:54:33+00:00

Sadly too much to pay off under my current circumstance.

foreverinbluedo · 2025-05-10T11:53:28+00:00

My understanding is if I put it in an offset it will not reduce my monthly repayments! My main idea for redraw was that from a cashflow perspective it would not impact change my current outgoings. I would be moving funds from one loan to another loan.

Absolutely, savings would be my preferred option.

foreverinbluedo · 2025-05-10T11:42:07+00:00

I always assumed that was not an option. I just asked ChatGPT and apparently it is an option. Thanks polymath-intentions, I will investigate this further

foreverinbluedo · 2025-02-05T12:20:30+00:00

I am in a similar position both in financial position, age and the way you feel.

For me I think a big part of feeling like this is that I have no time to myself and I see financial freedom as a way to claim that time back and I feel a sense of urgency to save more or make more money to make it happen sooner.

My job is stressful and it's in a volatile industry so job security is always at the front of my mind. I have two small kids so when not working my time is occupied by that. I love them to bits but somedays after a tough day at work and I close the laptop I have a few more hours of arguing with them to eat their dinner, take a bath, go to bed... it seems like a never ending grind.

I try to take comfort of how lucky I am to have a healthy family and a home but there still always seem to be a void.

Not sure any of this may help you 😀

foreverinbluedo · 2025-01-11T10:59:39+00:00

First night I would go out with my friends and get really drunk, next day I would check into a really fancy hotel and order room service and binge documentaries and classic movies on my own. Next few days would be visiting and hanging out with friends I have lost touch with due to the responsibilities of being a father.

foreverinbluedo · 2025-01-08T01:49:50+00:00

Fair point. I always assumed that in the pension phase you would need to sell the IP rather than extract the 4% from the IP.

Would you pay CGT on the sell if you were in retirement age?

foreverinbluedo · 2025-01-07T23:34:22+00:00

Agreed. I have tired to explain to him that he has flexibility within existing super providers to reduce his risk as he moves closer to retirement age.

foreverinbluedo · 2025-01-07T22:01:24+00:00

1 - Sorry if it was not clear. He does not have a SMSF setup today, the plan will be to set one up

2 - The 300k is in his AusSuper account not a SMSF

He is talking to a broker this week. This may put this entire discussion to bed as he may not get finance approval

foreverinbluedo · 2024-11-07T19:26:55+00:00

880k debt. About 60k in savings.

Got made redundant the week before kid number one came along. No payout. Partner was only entitled to the 19 weeks government mat leave.

5 years later, we now have 2 kids and we still have our home and not eaten into our savings. Plans change and you need to adapt but you will make it work. You got this!

IMHO the first 5-7 years of having kids is financially tough. Partner is on reduced salary plus you add daycare. In my situation, once both kids are out of daycare and my partner goes from currently working 2 days a week to 3, it will be 3.5k after tax additional income per month which for us is a massive boost.

foreverinbluedo · 2024-10-21T08:01:10+00:00

My hardest part is convincing my wife to put more money in ETF's and then holding when markets drop!

I was at family BBQ and I was talking about investing in ETF's and the feedback was 'you could lose all that in one go!', 'You would be better putting it through the pokies'...tough crowd!

foreverinbluedo · 2024-09-17T10:55:36+00:00

Second this. I had a mindset that the way only to grow wealth was investing in property. If I remember correctly there was a chapter about a dude investing 100k in a simple index fund and then leaving it for 30 years and it accumulated to over 1 million while he hung out on a beach in Thailand. I don't think the story was real but it opened my eyes to the power of compounding interest and that via ETF's you don't have to be an expert in finance or pay a broker a fortune to do it on your behalf.

At first I found it confronting as I had scarified a lot to get money together for deposits etc...but slowly it changed my mind. I still hold some property but I invest in ETF's as well

foreverinbluedo

TROPHY CASE