Community Spotlight: Emily’s Journey to Financial Freedom Through Saving

Bryce: [00:00:31] Welcome to get started investing in this podcast. We cover all the basics that you need to start your investing journey. Are you joining us for the very first time? Is this the very start of your investing journey? Well, before you dive into this episode with us, F8 is designed to go from the very beginning, so we strongly recommend that you scroll up and start at episode one here. Get Started Investing feed Unpack all the jargon and the confusing bits. We hear your investing stories with the goal of making investing less intimidating, and of course we want to have a good time along the way. My name is Bryce and as always, I'm joined by my equity buddy, Ren. How are you going? 

Alec: [00:01:06] I'm very good, Bryce. I'm excited for this episode. We have a habit of making everyone we employ come and sit in the hot seat and get grilled about their investing journey. And today we've got Emily joining us to do exactly what we do. 

Bryce: [00:01:22] Emily is head of partnerships here at Equity Mates, has been with us for almost five months now. 

Emily: [00:01:28] Yeah, that's probation time. 

Alec: [00:01:31] Every week she's been asking, what am I going on? Get Started Investing feed Whoa and welcome. 

Emily: [00:01:37] Thanks guys. I am very excited for this episode right now. 

Bryce: [00:01:42] So speaking of being excited AM We're all excited here at Equity Mates because Finn Fest is fast approaching and tickets are going to be live on the 9th of June. Why is that important? You have the opportunity to get on the early bird register now head to Equity Mates dot com slash finn fest to get on the list register your details and on the 9th of June, you'll get an exclusive code for early bird access when tickets go on sale. Finn Fest is not an event to miss. We've been working on it pretty hard, so we're excited. Equitymates.com/contact Film Fest. It will be in the show notes. 

Alec: [00:02:18] Emma's been so busy working on it that that's why she hasn't been able to come on to the podcast. But now tickets are about to go live. Exciting times. 

Emily: [00:02:26] Yeah, it's going to be an epic day. 

Alec: [00:02:27] Yeah, yeah. So sign up to get the early bird code and how much money you save, you can invest. That's it. All good. 

Bryce: [00:02:36] 20% saving on the discount code compounded over the next 20 days. 

Alec: [00:02:43] But look, Emma, we always like to start these interviews with a bit of a true or false game, so let's start. There are true or false. Your very first investment has been your most successful spouse. 

Emily: [00:02:55] So it's not to say my first investment hasn't been successful but is just hasn't been my most success. 

Alec: [00:03:01] Yeah, right. Okay. 

Emily: [00:03:02] Yeah, I bought an ETF and I'm still dollar cost averaging into it. And except for the last three months, it's been pretty much going up in value for the last three years. 

Bryce: [00:03:13] Stocks only go. 

Alec: [00:03:14] Up very sensible. First ETF dollar cost averaging into some good, some good early on. 

Emily: [00:03:20] It sounds sensible until you hear how I came to it. But. 

Bryce: [00:03:26] But true or false, you had a strategy in place before you started investing. 

Emily: [00:03:31] false. No strategy at all. I had sort of three internal monologues that was going through my head when I decided that I would start investing. And the first was that I'd be at the pub with friends and mainly driven by all my guy friends, but they'd all start talking about stocks and I just felt like I wanted to be involved in that conversation, but I had no clue what they were talking about and it just go to my head. So that was a consideration. I was also saving for a house in Sydney and heart goes out to the Equity Mates community. If you were doing that as well because it's a very disheartening process and your savings interest rate does not help get that money up at all. And so it was a very slow process saving for the house. And then and then my third one was that I fell for the most part, I'm pretty money site savvy on a good day. I described myself that way. On another day I describe myself as stingy, and I follow a lot of motivational saving Instagram accounts. And they'd all say, that's the best day to start investing is yesterday. And finally, that just get started today. So just one day inspiration took me and I googled best stocks in Australia and I thought, why not? 

Bryce: [00:04:50] Well, it's plenty to unpack there. 

Alec: [00:04:53] Yeah, let's, let's keep going with this game by I true or false investing is as hard as you thought it would be. 

Emily: [00:05:03] No, it's just a Google search. I mean I mainly by ETFs and because my thinking is that I'll leave it to the professionals to pull together like a fund that's diversified and it's got, you know, companies that are going upwards in value. I've got a couple of individual stocks that yeah, I'd just rather leave it to someone else to look after. 

Alec: [00:05:30] Nice. 

Bryce: [00:05:31] And then to close out true or false, investing is like gambling. 

Emily: [00:05:34] Not at all alike. So false. Because I don't gamble often. But that's like a short term endorphin hit for me. I don't think my investing portfolio with ETFs is structured to give me quick wins. It's a long term set of forget kind of approach. If we do talk about crypto later in the episode, I have a slightly different off to choose, but that's the way you might not get to that. 

Alec: [00:06:01] I definitely will put a pin in that. But let's let's go back to your your first investment. There's a lot of stuff there that I think is really interesting. So the three monologues going in your head want to be involved in the pub conversation, want to side for a house, and I follow a lot of motivational savings Instagram accounts. I'm just going to ask motivational saving Instagram accounts like how motivational all of it. 

Emily: [00:06:26] You know, I just like all those like empower empowerment little like, you know, you can do this. I just find that, you know, I just know when I'm doing like my scrolling, those posts just make me feel more confident that I'm on my way to hitting savings goals. Yeah. Otherwise, if I don't have those reminders, I might take the money out. Yeah, I might want to do that. 

Alec: [00:06:46] So then you googled best stocks to buy in Australia, which which I don't think is an uncommon way that people start just googling, like how to invest or what should I invest in? What was the journey from that first Google search to actually buying an ETF? 

Emily: [00:07:02] It was pretty much that evening, I guess. So I googled Australian ETF index funds. 

Alec: [00:07:10] You already knew a bit of jargon straight away. 

Emily: [00:07:12] Well, yes and no. I mean, I understood, you know, what compounding was for my high school, but I didn't really know what it ACF or what that stood for that. Yeah. Not I just jumped on to that a broker at the same time and yeah. Just by the trade put a couple hundred dollars in just thinking that it would be enough to keep me interested in the outcome of the investment. But at the same time, if it went to zero, I would be able to sleep at night, disrupted sleep. 

Alec: [00:07:43] Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:07:44] I'm interested to talk about the money habits side of things because you were talking about saving for a house and that on some days you call yourself stingy. On other days I can't remember what the other time. 

Alec: [00:07:58] You use money. 

Emily: [00:07:59] So, yeah, money. 

Bryce: [00:08:00] So how did you build those habits? I guess because what we talk about a lot on the show is sorting your money is often the first thing you need to do before you actually can start investing. Because you said that it's money that you could have lost. And, you know, we all need the emergency fund and we want to be saving for a house and those sorts of things. So how did you how did you get those money habits and how would you describe them? 

Emily: [00:08:23] I mean, this is going to sound so superficial. So when I was in my early twenties, I decided I just liked to buy things. And so I didn't necessarily rack up a huge amount of credit card debt, but I definitely wasn't, you know, living within my means. And just one day I was like, you need to start thinking about ensuring that all your bills are ready to be paid for each month because you shouldn't be borrowing your friends. And then also, if you want to go to the pub or if you want to be able to buy something on a weekend, you need to have a decent pool of revenue that's set aside to allow yourself to be able to access those sort of things. So I just sat down one day with a spreadsheet, sort of mapped out everything that I'd spent my money on the last month and just did a big cull and basically just had a long, hard talk with myself and signed up to a couple of Instagram accounts. And between, you know, my long, hard talk and those motivational posts, I felt like I'm more disciplined in knowing what money is coming in and what money is coming out. 

Bryce: [00:09:29] And you have a framework like when money comes in that, you know, we've spoken again about, like spending, saving house, whatever. Do you have a split that way? 

Emily: [00:09:39] So I give myself a payday. So at Equity Mates I get paid fortnightly, but I give myself a once a month payday. My favourite day of the month because we've had our pay monthly. 

Alec: [00:09:53] If you like. 

Emily: [00:09:53] No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm happy with the process now. But so I'll just put my I had like different buckets of money which have different goals against them and included that. Then there's also like a segment that goes out towards my broker and each month on my payday all the money goes into my different pools. I've got a pool that I set aside each month for travel, and I've got a pool that, you know, I put towards an allocation for skin care, which we can come back to and come to stock picks later and a couple of other, you know, nice to haves and then I've got. My different poles for bills. And then at the end of the month, I give myself then a breakdown of how much I've got to spend week to week, and I try to stay pretty disciplined on that. Mortgage and a mortgage? Yes, because I finally managed to battle through and get a bias. 

Alec: [00:10:45] So is that is that all spreadsheet based. 

Emily: [00:10:47] Or spreadsheet based? 

Alec: [00:10:49] Okay. You and Bryce two phase in apart. I wonder how much else is spread. Oh yeah. It was a more complicated spreadsheet. 

Bryce: [00:10:58] Oh, I I anyway, let's not getting to that, but I've moved a lot of my stock spreadsheet into share side now. Okay. So a lot of that tracking stuff is now in share side, which I must admit has drastically improved since I last did it. 

Alec: [00:11:13] Yeah. Okay, that's it. 

Bryce: [00:11:14] But all my diet, all my pools and skincare columns and stuff. 

Emily: [00:11:19] Which I'm sure is a big allocation. 

Alec: [00:11:22] It's funny. It's funny that you use share site for shares, but I'm sure there would be heaps of platforms for like saving and allocating money as well. Yeah, but use both spreadsheet based I. S question to both of you. Have you guys tried any platforms for that? No. 

Emily: [00:11:39] No, they are, you know, pushed out on those Instagram accounts all the time, brand partnerships. But no, it's I'm happy with my process as it is and it makes me feel like I'm in control. So yeah, I mean, it's not to say I'm against them. I think, you know, if you needed some place to start and you didn't feel like your competence and Excel was that high, then I'd probably look to one of those. 

Alec: [00:12:05] Yeah, I think that's a great shot. Like, there's not one size fits all. It's find something that works for you. Hmm. Now, speaking of finding things that works for you, we want to ask about resources that helped you get started. And I think the first resource we have to ask about, are there any Instagram accounts that you want to shout out that really helps you go from that spending to that saving em that you think deserve that, too? 

Emily: [00:12:28] And there's a wonderful account from the U.S. called Miss Dow Jones. She's a little bit sassy and hilarious, and it just so, you know, makes me feel empowered. Not from Australia. There's a saving like mad account from more, a podcast research site. I listened to Equity Mates before I worked with you guys years ago. Shout out to the superhero summer series because I felt that really helped me understand the different companies that made up my portfolio and they may have a keen interest into understanding what was actually in my ETF as opposed to just the sum of the ETF. And I also read the AFR a fair bit. 

Alec: [00:13:10] Nice. Well, shout out to superhero if they want to do another summer series. It obviously was. 

Bryce: [00:13:18] So you mentioned the ETFs and you have a couple of individual stocks. What's the what's the sort of style of investing that you have now? Like is it dollar cost average just into this one ETF, you say your monthly paydays, you've got some money going to the broker. Once it hits the broker account, what's what's your what's your strategy there?

Emily: [00:13:38] Yeah, look, I'm a self-described boring investor because I pretty much only have ETFs. And I mean, you know, on a investing podcast, it's don't sound that sexy, but it works for me. So, I mean, as I said before, I just feel like, you know, having a professional that sort of makes up the funds for me, does the research removes stocks from those funds if they're underperforming because, you know, at the end of the day, they try to push a product themselves that is a high performing portfolio. So when I have my approach to ETFs, my theory is leave it to the experts and just dollar cost average into it. Having said that, I still have a couple of stocks that I have bought and all of them are ones which I know really well. So I mean, I worked in audio for five years, I worked then in media for three years before that. And so everything I have is not diversified, but it's because I know the industry really well and feel confident in then taking the step into buying those stocks. 

Bryce: [00:14:46] Is one of them the skin care stock. 

Emily: [00:14:48] Oh, and then separately to that, I also really like skin care. And so I also have a lot of opinions on that industry. One thing I would never understand is why I adore Beauty's stock price is just always being thrashed. It's such a good product and. 

Alec: [00:15:02] So. 

Emily: [00:15:03] And so it should be a great stock. But anyway, that's a bit of a love hate relationship there. I also have a couple of others out of the U.S. that because I spend a little bit of that money that I've allocated each month into buying skincare, I then feel confident in the brands behind them and the potential for where those businesses could go. In the future, new products that they're developing that I've also bought a few stocks down that path. 

Bryce: [00:15:35] Nice. I like that. 

Alec: [00:15:36] Yeah, well, it's investing in what? You know, it's, you know, your Korea, your. I was going to say hobbies, but skiing definitely not a hobby. 

Emily: [00:15:43] It kind of. Is it all options? Yeah. 

Alec: [00:15:48] That's exactly where you have all this information about what's working and what doesn't. Yeah, we generally ask what people's investing goal is, and for most people we speak to, it's to buy a house. But you're one step ahead of us because you have bought a house, so. Yeah. Congratulations. 

Emily: [00:16:04] Thank you. 

Alec: [00:16:06] Can you talk? I mean, that's probably the biggest investment the most people will ever make in their life. What was the journey? How long did it take? 

Emily: [00:16:15] Well, I guess going back to childhood, you want to go to the journey? My parents, you know, showed against them. But, you know, we didn't we didn't talk about stocks growing up, but I never lived in a house longer than three years. So we would always buy a place, flip it, move on. And so I was always acutely aware of what the housing market was doing growing up and just growing up. 

Alec: [00:16:42] Yes. 

Emily: [00:16:44] Yes. And just looking at, you know, what, you know, renovation styles, room fashion, looking at, you know, all things that are going to help sell a property. When you do a renovation, you know what is actually going to add value and what isn't. So when I decided that I had a savings goal of buying a property, all I wanted was a property that then I could also then flip for myself. Something about also being in control and the investment sort of comes into that to. 

Alec: [00:17:14] Know. 

Bryce: [00:17:15] That what you've got. 

Emily: [00:17:16] Yes. And then so I've got something that I think if I do a little bit of a flip to the kitchen, then the value will go up over time. 

Bryce: [00:17:27] You doing a DIY flip on the kitchen? 

Emily: [00:17:28] I, I thought it price you know too much. I've done a DIY flip to the bathroom.

Alec: [00:17:36] Okay. 

Emily: [00:17:37] I think kitchen. I'm going to leave to the professionals.

Alec: [00:17:41] Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:17:43] So before we get to your stock investing goals and we're just going to take a quick break and hear from our sponsors. So tick on the property front, but you're putting money away into stocks as well. What what's the overall goal there as opposed to just pouring it all into the mortgage, for example? 

Emily: [00:18:02] I don't think I've got a hard and fast goal per say, but I would like to have an option to have financial freedom when something is presented to me in the future. And I don't know if that's necessarily early retirement or if that's, you know, just having extra income, but I want to have the option when it's there. 

Alec: [00:18:24] Mm hmm. Not too early. Retirement we kind of need. Yeah. Oh. 

Emily: [00:18:28] I just invest desired. And I think I've got a little bit of a way to go. Yeah.

Alec: [00:18:36] So, you know, you've you've taken that step, you bought the house, you've taken the plunge into ETFs and some individual stocks. What are you thinking about? What are you. Is that anything on your mind as an investor at this point? Any other markets you want to try and get into? 

Emily: [00:18:53] Last year, I did a little bit more research into ethical investing because I just feel that it's on it's not on governance anymore. It's on the individuals to change the way our planet's demise could be slowed. And so I've looked into more ETFs that are sustainable. And so last year I bought an ethically conscious international shares ETF from Vanguard. And I feel that my perception with that was not so much that it was going to generate me, you know, decent returns, but more that it was just the right thing to do would be investing into these companies that it actually, for the most part, has been a pretty good attempt to be involved in. So I was kind of pleasantly surprised that that perception was challenged. I would also like to look at international growth a little bit more. I think you look at some of the emerging economies of the world, and most of my portfolio is very geared to U.S. or Australian stocks and that is just such a small portion of the world and I don't think where the large growth or gains are to be made. So I'd like to understand a little bit more about those, probably more ETFs again, but understanding more of the portfolios that make up those markets. 

Bryce: [00:20:17] Well, unfortunately, the US market makes a lot. 70% of the total average of the world's markets are something in something crazy like that. I just made that number up. 

Alec: [00:20:27] In like the All World Index. It's like 70%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Bryce: [00:20:31] So everyone thinks are getting diversification buying. Oh well that's going to give access to Europe and and emerging markets in Asia. You're still getting Facebook and.

Alec: [00:20:42] Tesla. 

Bryce: [00:20:43] And all the all the big stuff Apple. Bloody Apple.

Alec: [00:20:47] Which has been great for the past decade. Yeah. Not so good in 2022. 

Bryce: [00:20:51] Yeah. Yeah. So M And for those listening at home, we're playing the ASX share market game at the moment we've got a league with about 150 or 160 other Equity Mates community members. If you're not sure what that is, we get $50,000 in in fake money and we get to trade the top ASX 300 stocks. 

Alec: [00:21:12] Yeah. And when we say we're playing, we're playing Bryce and I playing like joking like terrible 9 a.m. is what's the opposite of playing. 

Bryce: [00:21:23] Well, we're all playing and this is doing better than we are. So one so out of nowhere you've you're leading the charge with, with or against all of the team members here at Equity Mates community. 

Emily: [00:21:37] I'm not going to lie. I checked last night at number 14 in the league 20. 

Alec: [00:21:40] Pretty pricey. Up until. 

Bryce: [00:21:44] Now, we've had no idea what's in your portfolio, what your strategy has been. Wran and I both went long oil at the start. Yeah. Subsequently have lost a bit of money but 14th out of 150 obviously doing something right. Can you talk us through the strategy you had for this ASX game? So it was a three, three or four month game. 

Emily: [00:22:04] Can I firstly just say it's such a great initiative by the ASX. It wasn't around when I was in high school or at least it wasn't exposed to me when I was in high school and I just feel I would have such a better understanding of investing if I applied it back then. So shout out to the ASX, you're doing something right now, but my three stocks you are, you're going to be somewhat disappointed in two of them because they're really. 

Alec: [00:22:32] Boring. 

Emily: [00:22:34] And they both are from my Australian index fund as they were performing really well. And I just thought at the time, which was what march when the game kicked off, that I needed something that was going to be somewhat stable in the portfolio rather than anything too risky because I wasn't sure if the market was going to do a huge crash or an immaculate recovery. So one of the stocks, large telco of Australia. 

Bryce: [00:23:00] Telstra. 

Emily: [00:23:03] Doing very well in my portfolio and Macquarie. 

Alec: [00:23:07] Oh yeah. 

Bryce: [00:23:09] So you've only bought three positions? 

Emily: [00:23:11] No, I bought several. But these three stocks here are my best performing in sheer saving graces of my portfolio because everything else is in the Reds. The stocks that's keeping my portfolio most afloat is fairly limited. I think that's how you say it. It's a drug development company for the treatment of eye disease. 

Alec: [00:23:31] Okay. 

Emily: [00:23:35] I'm sorry. Equity Mates community. You might know this, that I'm blind as a bat, so yeah, I'm a big fan of this company and they crashed right at the beginning of March, but have had a great trajectory up view since. They are a very tiny stock that I have. I just think they're a really cool company, interesting. And I almost regret not using real money to buy them. 

Alec: [00:24:01] That's always been good. Hi. 

Bryce: [00:24:04] This is easy. I can do. 

Alec: [00:24:05] Well. You know, I don't regret not using real money from my portfolio. 

Emily: [00:24:09] So is that can you short the market in the ASX game because I want to know it again. Oh yeah, I'll do that. That would have been a great play. 

Alec: [00:24:16] So I got in on Gil, which is the triple leveraged ETF that is that is down significantly for when I got it. Yeah, I also got in the crypto ETF. That's not good. So it's not doing good. I think there's some lessons I can take from you in. 

Bryce: [00:24:34] And do you have any cash sitting in there? 

Emily: [00:24:37] No, no cash. Fully, fully. 

Bryce: [00:24:39] In. My mistake. 

Alec: [00:24:40] Well, you got. 

Bryce: [00:24:40] Too much cash. Yeah, well done. 

Emily: [00:24:43] Yeah. Thank you. The sun like a month to go. Hope holds out. 

Alec: [00:24:46] Still a month to go. A long. 

Bryce: [00:24:48] Term investing. That's. 

Alec: [00:24:50] Oh, that's good. Oh, I don't have any money left by the end of. We want to. 

Emily: [00:24:53] Ask you to invest some of his cash. 

Alec: [00:24:55] Yeah, I'm find I might try your. You're in like the fifties. I'm in like the hundreds. 

Bryce: [00:25:03] Oh 50. The position. Yeah. Okay. I thought you meant portfolio value. 

Alec: [00:25:07] No, we're both down. Ends up over. Yeah. You start at 50 times up. 

Emily: [00:25:11] When we say I'm about to grads out there doesn't exist. 

Bryce: [00:25:16] I think. But as I keep saying, my portfolio is doing exactly what I thought it would do. So I'll. 

Emily: [00:25:21] Go down I'm. 

Bryce: [00:25:21] Pretty. 

Alec: [00:25:24] Much. 

Bryce: [00:25:25] The markets go I'm. 

Alec: [00:25:26] Actually reading them market. I'm actually exactly where I want to be right now. 

Bryce: [00:25:30] So I'm going to do a Steven Bradbury. I come home right at the last minute. 

Alec: [00:25:36] Well, we should shout out the winner. The current winner of our league, Jack, is 62,000. 7 grand above the number two 55,000. So pretty impressive.

Emily: [00:25:52] Nice work, Jack. My sister's boyfriend.

Alec: [00:25:55] I'm looking at insider info. Is what you're doing. No, no, no. 

Emily: [00:26:01] He hasn't given me any stock tips. Jack, if you take. 

Alec: [00:26:04] Stock tips into. 

Bryce: [00:26:07] The schools share market game here because the schools get their own version. And one syndicate in New South Wales, the syndicate is called Xi'an. I'm not sure how many are in the syndicate, but they're at 116,000.

Alec: [00:26:20] No, I. 

Emily: [00:26:21] Get them on the podcast. Stock tips. 

Bryce: [00:26:25] 50 grand to 116,000. 

Alec: [00:26:28] That's I mean, it doesn't have to be an error. It's like people could argue what, but it's very impressive. Very, very well, we should get them as analysts before, like, oh, no. 

Bryce: [00:26:40] This is sorry, this is the Hall of Fame. That was in 2020. 

Alec: [00:26:44] So you got that invested in this 2020 was easy. 

Bryce: [00:26:49] Easy, easy. All right. Well, let's close out with some crypto chat. What's an episode without talking crypto? Do you dabble? 

Emily: [00:26:56] I have dashboards. I have had some wins and I've had some losses. I bought a theory and bitcoin right at their peaks, so I'm still hoping to recover at some point. 

Alec: [00:27:08] Yeah, although I since then I dollar cost averaging was. 

Emily: [00:27:13] Sensible.

Alec: [00:27:15] And. 

Emily: [00:27:17] I kind of took a punt one day. I'd been listening to how Dogecoin was a great shit coin. Yeah, but I sort of felt that by the time that I was hearing about Dogecoin that that ship has sailed and the opportunity was gone, but that I kept hearing about its younger cousin. If you worship you say. 

Alec: [00:27:39] Shiba and yeah. 

Emily: [00:27:41] That's it shows the research I did and yeah, I had read about it in like some article and then I was at a friend's place and my mate Ben was talking about it and I was like, Yeah, that's the research done. I'm going to take a punt. And that stock went up 190% three months after I bought it. But then I got scared because I'd gone up so much, so I just sold everything. 

Alec: [00:28:05] So, yeah, that's cool. 

Emily: [00:28:06] So I made money. 

Alec: [00:28:07] Yeah, that's triple your money. Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:28:10] Well. 

Alec: [00:28:10] How much did it go up after you sold it. 

Emily: [00:28:12] It's actually crashed. 

Alec: [00:28:14] Oh market. 

Bryce: [00:28:16] So when I got also got it in Shiba Inu and wrote it off and wrote it back down and it's worth so little now that in the pie graph is my chart, the sliver is so small you can't see it. 

Alec: [00:28:30] So I'm like, Hang on, where is it? So you just didn't want to sell it. You were like, I'm going to long term. Well, the. 

Bryce: [00:28:35] Thing is, I purely did it just for a what could it become? And my strategy with any crypto is never sell it because you never know what's going to happen. 

Alec: [00:28:44] Oh, that's terrible. 

Bryce: [00:28:46] You never know what's going to happen. So but I only literally I put like 50 boxing, so it went up to 150 or whatever it was. And then now it's down to like 17 blocks or something. So it's insignificant but. 

Emily: [00:28:59] Never sell price, never. 

Alec: [00:29:00] Sell, never seen. 

Bryce: [00:29:01] This thing. You could seriously this thing could go gangbusters. 

Alec: [00:29:05] I still owns awesome Titan Enron. Johnson Johnson. 

Bryce: [00:29:10] Just like it's just like stocks. You never put money in that you're willing to lose the crypto even more.

Alec: [00:29:17] So now you only put. 

Bryce: [00:29:18] Money. I put money. 

Alec: [00:29:20] Is just like. 

Bryce: [00:29:21] Crypto. That's even another. 

Alec: [00:29:22] Level. Yeah. I put. 

Bryce: [00:29:24] My. 

Alec: [00:29:25] Money in that. You don't know. You might. 

Bryce: [00:29:27] Yeah. Put money in that. You're like oh where did that come from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's why the majority of my portfolio is in crypto. 

Emily: [00:29:34] I feel I really want to understand me. 

Alec: [00:29:40] The more I believe. 

Emily: [00:29:44] I feel I really want to understand crypto more and the next step of my investing journey as such. But I do just sort of look at it as like a little bit of a spy and pry approach. Yeah, I just don't understand how you can have a stock which has a valuation to it and you know that there's like a products that there's a company around it, you know, there is a value that is quite tangible to the business or it's intangible, but you can say it, oh my God, thank you, thank you. But with crypto, I just feel like it's a little bit piled. The sky. So when it comes to investing, I'm still going to do it. I just feel like it's a bit more of that, you know? Let's see what sticks some money at it. 

Alec: [00:30:29] I think that is exactly the right way to approach it. One of our favourite investing books by Seth Klarman asked the question Are you investing or are you speculating? And if you're buying an asset with the assumption that someone will pay more for it in the future, then you're speculating. You're speculating on the psychology of what someone else is willing to pay. If you're investing, you're buying something that has intrinsic value and can generate cash flow. The house that you bought can generate cash flow from rent. Stocks can generate cash flow. That's investing. Shiba Inu can generate cash flow. So yeah, I think you've nailed it. 

Emily: [00:31:05] Yeah, that's exactly my thoughts. Just more articulately. 

Alec: [00:31:09] Well, certainly I'm into the heavy. Yeah.

Emily: [00:31:11] Exactly. 

Bryce: [00:31:13] All right. Well, I think that is a great place to wrap it. Speaking of crypto, don't forget that there's plenty more podcasts in the Equity Mates community. And yesterday on our Crypto Curious podcast, the team, we're lucky enough to sit down with Steve Smith. The incredible Australian cricketer. Is he the captain now? No, he's not. 

Alec: [00:31:33] He wasn't to South Africa. 

Bryce: [00:31:35] Yet, but he's waiting to talk about that. 

Alec: [00:31:38] So yeah.

Bryce: [00:31:39] Let's talk about that. But make sure you head over and listen to steve's thoughts. I think they dig into a bit of his nft. 

Alec: [00:31:45] A lot of nft. 

Bryce: [00:31:46] Folio. So if you're interested in all things crypto, crypto curious is the place to go. Ren. Any call outs from the Equity Mates network this way? Yes. 

Alec: [00:31:55] So if you're in Australia, we've just seen the election and you might be wanting some analysis of the election as if they were businesses. I know that's what everyone is calling out for but uncommitted. The economist Thomas did a really interesting breakdown on the form moats that protected the two major parties and what's been happening to those moats. Really interesting conversation that helps contextualise what we saw a couple of weekends ago. 

Bryce: [00:32:22] Nice ahead over to Comedian v economist and anything from you from the network this week. 

Emily: [00:32:26] Yeah. In the spirit of broadening my mind about crypto that you're a good company. Girls did a great interview with Jordan Franklin on how she is now a pioneer within the crypto space for Ethereum. And should I want to go in with more research for my next crypto pick? I feel a bit more confident doing so now. 

Alec: [00:32:47] I love it and we should shout out You're in good company. If you want to hear discussion about whether people have thought World Wide Web is a well known term or not going listen to their interest rate episode as well. That was pretty funny. 

Bryce: [00:32:59] So a reminder Equity Mates dot com slash finfest to get on the register for early bird access. That's going live on the 9th of June, but it's been really fun. Thank you for sharing your journey with the community here at Get Started Investing feed. I know a lot of people will take all value from what we've spoken about today, so thank you. And let's get back to the office.

Emily: [00:33:20] Thanks for having me.