My Biggest Financial Mistake - Mind Your Business (2024)

I was recently interviewed on a finance podcast called The Art of Money and Communication.

What was meant to be a 45min chat ended up being almost a 2hr conversation about FIRE!

We talked about all sorts of FIRE topics, but the main questions that stood out to me were:

• Do you think it’s possible to be financially independent if you have kids and how?
• Is your partner as interested in financial independence, retire early (FIRE) as you are?
• How did you come across FIRE, what is your plan to FIRE, and what does this mean for you?
• What has been your biggest financial mistake to date and why?

In this article, I go through my answers to these podcast questions – without holding back.

I’ll even share what’s been my biggest financial mistake to date and how you can avoid it.

This episode doesn’t come out for a few weeks, but check out the podcast in the meantime.

“How did you come across FIRE?”

I came across financial independence retire early (FIRE) I would say around 2 years ago.

I had started all sorts of other ventures before discovering passive global index investing.

I first started my entrepreneurial journey in e-commerce where I was doing drop-shipping.

There was a big learning curve but for the first few months it went quite well, I made money!

After a while it started to be unsustainable – I was spending more money than I was making.

After doing this for 2 years, I moved on to my next venture which was forex currency trading.

Similar to the last venture, for the first few months it went well and I was making some money.

After a while, I realised I was spending more money on mentoring then I was actually making.

After doing this for about 2 years I also thought it was time to move on to something different.

That’s when I discovered FIRE and passive index investing, and have been doing it ever since.

“Do you think it’s possible to FIRE with kids?”

The short answer is yes, it is possible to be financially independent even if you have kids.

However, the key is that this is something you can prepare for before that time comes.

I am specifically referring to if you don’t have kids but are planning to have kids in the future.

Therefore it should not come as a surprise that kids are expensive, especially child care costs.

However because we knew this, we started planning way well in advance before having kids.

Before kids, we were saving and investing as much as we could with our full time incomes.

We also worked on side hustles to give us income for when my wife goes on maternity leave.

By the time she took maternity leave, we had closely matched her income using side hustles.

This side hustle income continued all throughout her maternity and then into nursery costs.

Therefore, it’s very possible to be financially independent with kids, if you plan in advance.

“Is your partner as interested in FIRE as you are?”

Honestly, the answer is no, my wife is definitely not as passionate about this stuff as I am!

And that’s ok; as much as I would love her to be, we complete and balance each other out.

I could watch, listen, and read about this stuff all day every day – my wife would hate that.

However, she is supportive and encouraging about it, because she knows I’m in to this stuff.

The main thing that we do, and I recommend you do, is have a Monthly Finance Meeting.

This is a monthly meeting where we discuss our cash flow, net worth, and future plans.

In this meeting, we see how much we’ve earned, spent, and how we’ll allocate our resources.

We also see how our assets and liabilities our doing and then use it to calculate our net worth.

Because she isn’t as interested in this stuff, we try and make these meetings as fun as possible.

We even play a game called Cashflow which I really enjoy – her not so much but plays along!

“What does Early Retirement look like for you?”

This is an excellent question – we all dream of getting to the dreamland of early retirement.

However, once we reach our destination, what would we actually do with all our free time?

If you spend all of your time and energy into reaching FIRE, chances are that you’ll get there.

Whether it takes you longer than planned, you will more likely than not get there in due time.

However I think that as you are investing and saving, you can also think about what you’d do.

This is a concept known as your ideal week: where you plan out your ideal week in retirement.

I know what I would be doing in retirement: working on projects not for money but for fun.

I see myself starting a business; I already have money to live off, so I could take more risks.

I also see myself going on holidays for long periods of time, something I couldn’t do before.

As much as its important to plan the journey; it’s as important to plan what you’ll do at arrival.

“What has been your biggest financial mistake?”

This is a great question, however one that leaves a bad memory whenever I remember it.

However, in sharing my experience, I hope that you too can also avoid doing this mistake.

When I was early in my professional career, I had the option to enroll into a company pension.

At the time, I didn’t understand pensions – no one had taken the time to explain them to me.

Therefore I decided not to enroll in the company pension; and miss out on their benefits.

At the time I wasn’t earning much money, so I didn’t want my pay to be reduced even more.

However, looking back now, I could have had so much money in my pension pot right now.

I could have been well on my way to early retirement had I known what I know today.

While I hate sharing this story, I do think there are some lessons/values in sharing with you.

If you’re in a similar situation, enroll in your company pension and get that free money!

To find out more about early retirement, check out our articles on retirement and investing.

Do you know what your FIRE Score is? Take our FIRE Quiz to see how close you are to FIRE.

Are you on the path to early retirement? How is it going? Feel free share in the comments!

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