We’re back with live events in 2024 - get your tickets to Equity Mates Live – Ask An Advisor here.

Community Investor: Candice’s Breakdown of the FIRE Movement

HOSTS Alec Renehan & Bryce Leske|16 February, 2021

In this episode we speak to Equity Mates community member, Candice, about her investing journey. Candice shares her experience getting started and her goal to achieve financial independence and retire early. 

We break down the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement and understand how Candice puts the lessons she’s learnt into practice with her investing decisions. We also bust some common investing myths and Candice shares some of her favourite resources that helped her get started investing.

*****

Any views expressed by the podcast host or any guest are their own and do not represent the views of Equity Mates Media or any other employer or associated organisation.

Always remember, all information contained in this podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional financial, legal or tax advice. The hosts of Equity Mates are not financial professionals and are not aware of your personal financial circumstances. Before making any financial decisions you should read the Produce Disclosure Statement (PDS) and, if necessary, consult a licensed financial professional.

For more information head to our Disclaimer Page, where you can find resources to search for a registered financial professional near you.

*****

Want more Equity Mates? Subscribe to Equity Mates Investing Podcast, our social media channels, Thought Starters mailing list and more here or check out our Youtube channel.

Bryce: [00:02:21] Welcome to Get Started Investing feed. In this podcast, we cover all the basics that you need to start your investing journey. We unpack all the jargon and the confusing bits here, your stories with the goal of making investing less intimidating and we want to have a good time along the way. So to do this, my name is Bryce and as always I'm joined by my Equity Mates Ren. How are you? [00:02:41][20.2]

Alec: [00:02:42] I'm very good Bryce very excited for this episode. Pumped that we've got this Get Started Investing feed podcast back up and running. Yes. I feel like this, this whole podcast is going to be great, but I feel like these episodes that we're going to introduce today that I'm going to be deliberately vague so I won't steal your thunder. I feel like these episodes are going to be the real jewel in the crown. [00:03:04][22.2]

Bryce: [00:03:05] Absolutely. These episodes, as we said a couple of weeks ago, we want to be involving the community members a lot more in the Equity Mates, I guess, suite of podcasts. And we're going to be kicking it off today with a bit of an interview, I guess, or an open conversation with one of our community members or community investor, I should say. Her name is Candice. We have Candice on the line. Candice, welcome to Get Started Investing feed. [00:03:30][25.6]

Candice: [00:03:31] Hi. Thanks for having me, guys. I'm also super excited to be on the podcast, [00:03:34][3.6]

Bryce: [00:03:35] as excited as Ren [00:03:36][0.8]

Candice: [00:03:37] and maybe even more. [00:03:39][1.8]

Alec: [00:03:43] But but what we're trying to do with these episodes and Candice, thank you for agreeing to be first is not you know, we speak to a lot of experts on the Equity Mates podcast feed. But, you know, there's heaps of Equity Mates out there at different stages in their investing journey. We're all we're all learning together. We're all, you know, facing similar challenges and, you know, trying to learn similar skills. So on these episodes, we're going to talk to members of the Equity Mates community and hear about their investing journey, some of the challenges they're facing, some of the challenges they've overcome, some of the things they've learnt, because investing is much better when it's when it's just absolutely. [00:04:27][43.8]

Bryce: [00:04:28] So if you do want to follow in Qantas's footsteps and join us on the show to share your journey with the rest of the community, head to Equity Mates dotcom slash contact and you can fill out the form there and we will be in touch. But enough of that. Let's let's get stuck in Qantas. How do how do you feel ready? [00:04:47][19.5]

Candice: [00:04:48] Sounds great. Yeah. [00:04:48][0.9]

Bryce: [00:04:51] So we're going to start with a bit of a true or false to do with some of the myths that we often hear a lot of people sort of say before they start their investing journey. And we'd like to get your view on whether they the statement that we put forward is applicable to you, true or false, and perhaps elaborate if it if it's something that you want to touch on. [00:05:12][21.6]

Alec: [00:05:13] Sorry, I'm just I'm just laughing at you explaining the concept of Bryce. Let's kick [00:05:19][6.6]

Bryce: [00:05:20] it off. So Qantas, your very first investment has been your most successful, true or false? [00:05:24][4.8]

Candice: [00:05:27] Falls to that, but true in a different sense, so false because not in terms of percentage gains, but may be true because it's the first one that got me started and I wouldn't have made those better investments if I hadn't have made that first one. So let's take it very good. [00:05:46][19.0]

Alec: [00:05:46] Like I like that kind of. So that makes me think about my Slater and Gordon investment in a whole different light. [00:05:52][5.9]

Candice: [00:05:53] Yeah, there you go. [00:05:54][0.9]

Alec: [00:05:55] So second statement or second question. True and false. True or false? Sorry, you had a strategy in place before you started investing. [00:06:05][10.0]

Candice: [00:06:06] Very false. I just kind of thought, yeah, I want to make more money than I am in a high interest savings account. So that was my whole strategy at the time. Yeah, that's [00:06:17][10.7]

Alec: [00:06:17] that's not a bad starting point for a strategy. [00:06:19][1.3]

Bryce: [00:06:19] A strategy nonetheless. [00:06:20][0.6]

Alec: [00:06:21] In twenty one. That's a very relevant strategy. Absolutely. [00:06:23][2.6]

Bryce: [00:06:24] If you still have your money in a bank account. Think again. True or false, you have stayed with the same broker since day one. [00:06:31][7.1]

Candice: [00:06:32] True, because I still use that broker, but I also have extras now as well. So I started off with my career investing Risborough and then I moved on to a different market investing and use CommSec as well. So I got a bit of a plethora going to have to be loyal to one. [00:06:49][17.6]

Bryce: [00:06:50] That is correct. [00:06:50][0.3]

Alec: [00:06:51] That's that's definitely something that we believe here at Equity Mates. So lost. Last question of this. True or false came true or false. Is investing as hard as you thought it would be before you started? [00:07:05][13.4]

Candice: [00:07:05] Fourth, it's yeah, way easier than I thought when I started, actually. Kind of even boringly easy. You know, I see you guys with your core investment strategy like that. It's yeah, it's yeah. Pretty straightforward basis. Don't really need that much knowledge. And then you add on individual stocks and little bits and pieces here to make it interesting. But really the core of it. Yeah, I think as [00:07:32][26.5]

Alec: [00:07:34] I said guys, maybe that should be the tagline for this series. Investing is basically. [00:07:38][4.9]

Bryce: [00:07:41] So let's start a bit with a bit about yourself. Candace, can you let the community know who you are, perhaps what you do for a living? And then how long have you been investing for? When did you start your journey? [00:07:53][12.2]

Candice: [00:07:54] Sure. So, yeah, I'm Candice. I just exited my twenties about three weeks ago, so I'm thirty now live in Melbourne with my boyfriend and best friend and two cats, my hobbies. I like gardening and when I'm allowed to international travelling for a job, I'm a creative management engineer. So basically I just stop infrastructure from rusting away. And what was the last part of that? How long have I been investing? So it's been about five years now, but I've only been really serious about it for maybe three years. [00:08:31][36.8]

Alec: [00:08:32] Nice, nice. And we're in the true or false game. You said your strategy at the start was just to find a way to beat a an interest rate in a savings account. In the five years since you started investing, have you developed any investing goals? [00:08:51][18.7]

Candice: [00:08:51] Yeah. So you still want to beat the high interest? [00:08:54][2.8]

Alec: [00:08:55] Yeah, that's a good one. [00:08:56][1.1]

Candice: [00:08:57] So that's still there. And then, yeah, once I started seeing the gains that you could make, I kind of changed the goal to wanting to build up a house deposit in five to ten years. But then I thought that's kind of it's taking too long, even five to ten years for just the deposit. That's a bit depressing. So I started kind of doing some calculations on how much money I could make in ten, fifteen, twenty years. And that's when I realised that, yeah, in fifteen years, if I didn't buy a house and think that all that equity into a property, I could save enough money where I could live off the dividends or passive income from my investments. So that's when I kind of discovered fire, which is financial independence. Retire early and that's. Yeah, really big main goal of mine for investing now. So building up enough equity where I can just live off the passive income and escape the nine five daily grind type thing. [00:09:58][61.0]

Alec: [00:09:59] Now, Candice, I think a number of people listening to this podcast may not be familiar with the fire movement or they may have heard of the acronym, but not really understand what it means. So can you tell us, you know, what the fire movement is and I guess how you are applying that to your to your life in your investing decisions? [00:10:20][21.0]

Candice: [00:10:21] Fire is an acronym. The first two letters is Financial Independence and the. And to retire early, so they're two separate kind of philosophies in the five movement, financial independence means that you're financially independent from your job as well. So you don't have to work for money. You have no income coming in through dividends or selling high growth shares that you can live off that money. And then the second part, which not everyone goes through with, probably gets the most criticism, I think, is the retire early part. So, yeah, you don't have to go to work anymore, but a lot of people still do keep working. There's different variants of it where you can go part time after saving half your nest egg and then go full time retired after another. So 10 years after that. So, yeah, that's the whole principle and the rule of thumb, which everyone can kind of use to calculate what their final number is, how much they would have to have in equities to figure out if they could. Yeah, never work again. Is your yearly expenses times twenty five and that's your phone number. So minus one point four million. [00:11:35][74.2]

Alec: [00:11:36] Well I'm just thinking Bryce is with Bryce is yearly expenses. His phone numbers probably like 30 mil. [00:11:41][5.3]

Bryce: [00:11:44] Again, not true, but. So Kandace, essentially what you're saying is one point four mil is your fire number and that's the nest egg that you need to save and invest towards to the debt to then generate a yearly income of about 55, 56 thousand dollars, which you feel is adequate enough to retire early. [00:12:10][25.5]

Candice: [00:12:11] Yeah, exactly, [00:12:11][0.4]

Alec: [00:12:12] just explain it just just for people who are unfamiliar with how you got that. That's that's assuming an average dividend payment of four percent [00:12:20][8.2]

Candice: [00:12:21] also assumes average dividend of seven percent, or that you're going to sell some stocks and get an income of seven percent. But then it also assumes that there's going to be a three percent inflation. So the real gains that you're going to have each year is four percent. [00:12:36][14.9]

Alec: [00:12:37] Seven percent feels aggressive, I've got to say. [00:12:39][2.2]

Bryce: [00:12:42] And so but [00:12:43][0.7]

Candice: [00:12:43] on average, the global equities markets are down 10 percent. So some people would say it's conservative, but that is part of the different subsets of the movement as well as some people go for the three percent rule where they try to say thirty three times their income. I mean, the yearly expenses. So the twenty five is just the most common. [00:13:07][23.6]

Bryce: [00:13:08] So I'm really interested to unpack this a little bit because you mentioned that this is broken into sort of there's two movements is that there's the financial independence and the retire early part. And of course, financial independence can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Like it doesn't necessarily have to mean that you have quit your job. It could mean that you are still pursuing work that you're really interested in, but you're in a financial position that you're not relying on the paycheque and you can still work part time and pursue other interests in life. Alternatively, it could mean that you are completely divorced from working full time and travelling the world and doing your own thing. The retire early component is where the, I guess, aggressive nature of this sort of movement comes in, because in order to retire early, you need to take some, I guess, sacrifices now in terms of putting as much of your income into savings and investments as possible. So have you changed your, I guess, lifestyle habits now to reach this one point four million go? [00:14:13][64.9]

Candice: [00:14:14] I have changed a little bit, but not too much and probably just more purposeful and mindful with my spending, so I stand in line with my values instead of bit more mindlessly like, you know, attacking the car here and there. But I think so I'm I'm not on fat fire. That's another variant of it. Where, yeah, probably from what I hear, you would be on Bryce million [00:14:41][27.1]

Alec: [00:14:42] dark, like, hang on a second. And so for people who aren't familiar with that term, fire is just when you have a bit of a bigger lifestyle, you allow annual expenses to be a bit larger. Is that is that right? [00:14:54][11.9]

Candice: [00:14:55] Yeah, that's exactly right. But I think I still you know, I'm definitely not eating baked beans can bake things, OK? You can say that on or about fire. So I'm not sacrificing that much, but I do track my like discretionary spending every single discretionary then I do track. So I do know where my money goes. I can tell you that I spend or on track to spend a thousand dollars this financial year on Burrito's. So that's not exactly living. Of bare bones, but that's the kind of I know that I'm tracking it, that's a decision I've made. I'm happy with that. You know what else I do in Lock Down in Melbourne? Really. [00:15:38][43.4]

Alec: [00:15:39] So on that trucking point, I think that's probably something that a lot of people in, you know, the early stage of the, you know, invest in careers or, you know, getting they're getting their finances sorted stage of their life, thinking about how do you track your spending and your investing and are there any tips or tricks that you've picked up or any, you know, apps or websites that you use that you would recommend? [00:16:02][23.4]

Candice: [00:16:03] Yeah. So it's been a bit of a journey figuring out how to track my expenses. I have tried all of those apps, but because I use PayPal a lot and I'll order rebates in the group together and then maybe they'll pay me back, it's really hard for those apps to keep track of those category spending. So I do it a bit more manually. I basically have like a zero net budget. So when I get paid, I know exactly where every dollar is going. There are things like Netflix, know my Internet, bills, union fees, that kind of things that definitely come out. And then I have I have three hundred dollars left over every week for discretionary spending, which includes food. And then that's where annual tracking comes in. And I just use the Google sheet. So I pull it up, Google sheets up on my phone. So every time I'm out and say I buy a bomb or something, I type it up and type on a put ten dollars in the app. [00:17:02][58.4]

Alec: [00:17:03] Now, Candice, you said you were living with your partner and I imagine fire would be difficult if, you know, one one partner was firing away, pun intended, and the other partner was spending. Did you have to convince your partner to get on board with fire or are they on board with fire? [00:17:24][20.9]

Candice: [00:17:25] Yeah, that is very perceptive. And I'm still working on convincing him to fully get on board. He's by nature, pretty frugal person, I guess, and we have our finances separately. So it's not too much of an issue. But he's definitely I don't think he truly believes that you can retire at 40 or 45 just by saving a modest amount. So I think it's more of a case. You'll believe it when you see that. But yeah. [00:17:59][34.0]

Bryce: [00:18:00] So Kandice, I would love to jump into actually how you are constructing a portfolio to achieve this one point four million dollar goal. [00:18:08][8.4]

Bryce: [00:20:06] So, Kandace, I guess the question on everyone's lips is one point four sounds like a a difficult number to to achieve. I guess if you sort of sit back and think about how much you're going to need to be putting away each year. So how are you constructing a portfolio? How are you thinking about your savings each month so that. You are, I guess, investing so that it grows into that one point four, but then also actually provides you with this fifty six thousand dollars of income that you're going to to need to live each year. [00:20:41][34.8]

Candice: [00:20:43] Yeah, so I save about thirty thousand dollars a year, so two and a half grand a month and I put most of that into lots and lots of different investments. I have some ETFs is probably the cool. I should have a fair bit of cash at the moment, but that's just because I am saving for a property deposit on the side as well as I have some managed funds, one listed investment company stocks, some individual stocks, bonds and some precious metals as well. So it's very diversified. Have little bits and pieces there. That's the kind of keeping interesting case. My call really is the ETFs like what you guys have in your portfolio. But yeah, I don't think it hurts to diversify and have a little bit of fun as well. [00:21:34][50.3]

Bryce: [00:21:34] If you weren't saving for a property, would you not just get you one point four million a lot sooner? Where does that sort of sit with the whole I want to retire early, but I also need to buy the property? [00:21:45][10.8]

Candice: [00:21:46] Yeah. So that's something I'm keen to do because it does diversify your assets and I'm planning to sell that property in probably seven years. So we're going to try and buy a place in a really desirable suburb where there should be a lot of capital growth, get something that doesn't have too great of a backyard. And like I mentioned, but I love gardening. I've been doing that since I was 15. So value add to the property that way. And then hopefully the property will go up in value in seven years. But I'm willing to wait ten years or whatever it takes for the market to be good at the time, sell it and then we'll realise those gains and we won't have to pay tax on them because you don't have to pay capital gains tax on your primary place of residence. And then we might go back to renting. Or if we do find that we did make a lot of money and we're in a really good financial position, we might buy another place, a small place. We'll see how we go. But, yeah, it's it's kind of a moneymaking exercise as well. [00:22:49][62.6]

Alec: [00:22:50] Yeah. I think, you know, the biggest determinant of poverty in retirement is home ownership and where an equities focussed investing podcast here. So this might be blasphemous to say, but I think if you're thinking about trying to retire in your 40s or even, you know, even a more normal retirement age when you're a bit older, like having that home makes a lot of sense because, you know, one, it's the biggest determinant of poverty. But to equity markets are volatile. And if we have a JFC when you're 10 years into your retirement at 55 or whatever, what's that four percent dividend yield going to look like in terms of absolute numbers? [00:23:31][41.6]

Candice: [00:23:32] Yeah, well, I guess the principle is if we did have a GFC, you only withdraw a tiny little bit or you do have some cash reserves for emergencies like a market, a bear market, the last two or three years or something like that. And I guess the worst case scenario is you probably go back to work, which, you know, if you get 20 years off work and you have to go back to work at 60, I don't think that's a terrible outcome. And most people on fire as well. And I know for myself, I won't totally quit in income. I might have a full year off or something like that, but I'll have a little side projects and hostels and I still will be bringing in income, I think. So I'm not too worried about owning a home or not in terms of financial stability. If anything, I do see it as a liability because just so much of your money is wrapped up and you can't access it. But it's just such a lovely luxury to have, I think, especially because I love gardening, having that land and stuff like that. It's a real basic human desire to own your own little plot of land. [00:24:42][70.2]

Bryce: [00:24:43] You should just buy a block of land. [00:24:44][0.9]

Alec: [00:24:44] And I was going to say, if you need income in your retirement and you love gardening but you don't own a house, you should just offer the garden for other people. [00:24:51][6.8]

Candice: [00:24:53] Yeah, I would consider that. Actually, I've been yeah, I do feel sorry for my Pol Pot and I think I'm always trying to convince him to save more money, retire early. And the latest thing I've been thinking of is to buy a block of land, a couple of acres or something. And I've seen these keit homes where you just buy the steel structure and they're selling pitches. It's if you can follow twenty five steps and follow instructions on a farm, you can build the kit house yourself and it's like 50 grand. So it's like amazing. [00:25:23][30.5]

Alec: [00:25:24] It's like an IKEA house. [00:25:25][1.0]

Candice: [00:25:26] Exactly. Like every time I do put IKEA furniture together, drawers end up backwards and stuff like that. But yeah. [00:25:34][8.5]

Bryce: [00:25:35] So I just want to put a bit of a wrapping on the fire conversation so we can close out with a few more broader questions. There's probably a number of people listening who are thinking that saving two and a half thousand dollars a month is a bit out of the realms of possibility for them. And that's obviously because they're either not pursuing the fire sort of movement as aggressively as you might be. But I think in principle, what the fine movement tries to achieve is really putting money away at regular sort of intervals and just consistently investing that to create a portfolio that is going to be able to provide for you later on down the track. And I mean that in its essence, that is exactly what Alec and I are trying to do. Whilst we're not doing it as aggressively as the fire movement might suggest, we are certainly still applying very similar principles. So, you know, for the community listening, don't necessarily feel like you need to be saving towards that one point four dollars million target within 15 years. You know, it might take you a lot longer, but I think, as I said, in principle, there are elements of the fire movement that I think are very good. [00:26:45][69.9]

Alec: [00:26:45] Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you said people might not be able to save two and a half thousand dollars a month because they're not pursuing it as aggressively. It may also just be that they're not getting paid for it. Yeah, yeah. And if that's the case, I think a lot of the principles that, you know, they talk about in just investing generally or the fire movement can still be applied whether you can save two and a half thousand dollars a month or two dollars fifty a month. And the idea is that if you learn these principles when you're young, you know, we started learning about investing when we're in uni. And, you know, all of your budget was dedicated to a new buyer on a Thursday afternoon. That is true to the principles. The principles don't change, like getting getting your finances, getting those financial skills and that saving Covid knowing that you will make it a lot easier as you start to earn more money. [00:27:39][54.1]

Candice: [00:27:40] Yeah, I did have one other thing to say about that. OK, just like a bit of a pitch to you guys, I guess in the community, you're not [00:27:50][9.7]

Bryce: [00:27:50] going to see this [00:27:51][0.8]

Alec: [00:27:52] on Shark Tank style pitchers. [00:27:54][2.2]

Candice: [00:27:56] All right. I reckon I can do this. So obviously in on the incredibly aggressive path, it's a real passion for me. But if you think about the retirement age for us, it's going to be 70 years old. OK, so I want to retire at 45. But even if you want to retire at 60, you need to be on the path to five because that's 10 years earlier than what would be normal. So. And the other thing is you don't need to take two and a half thousand dollars. I've done a budget for one of my friends and worked out her fire number so she can save one hundred and fifty dollars a week and still reach fire by fifty five. She's the same age as me because of the power of combat power and interests. So once you start to get up in those higher levels, it doesn't matter how much you save. It's more about the compound interest. So what do you think about it? I want to lecture you. [00:28:55][59.4]

Alec: [00:28:57] I don't I don't disagree with anything. You're saying that at all. And I think, look, really, if you're investing when you're young, you're in some ways giving yourself the flexibility that the five movement is chasing because hopefully you'll have a decent, you know, I guess nest egg or decent, decent investment portfolio by the time you're hitting that, you know, 50 years old, 60 years old. For me, I just don't feel like I'm ever going to ever going to want to stop working. I come from a long line of workaholics in my family. So I think the five movement, I appreciate the principles, but I'm not going to start my fire blog just yet. [00:29:36][39.8]

Candice: [00:29:37] Hmm. Yeah, fair enough. [00:29:39][1.5]

Bryce: [00:29:39] So three questions to close it out. What is the biggest myth that you found about investing [00:29:44][4.8]

Candice: [00:29:45] that you need to know a lot and have your finger on the pulse of the time that you need to know what markets are doing that this one individual companies better than the other, and listen to all the CommSec updates every day that maybe, you know, you have to have an app and you find they even need to know the stock prices of certain companies. You don't need to know any of that. You just need to know basically about ETFs, really well managed funds. Yeah. [00:30:14][28.5]

Alec: [00:30:15] So what was the best resource you used or you found to help you start your investing journey? [00:30:21][6.7]

Candice: [00:30:23] So my first investment was the macro investing phrase. And after I signed up, well, I found that just by Googling things like alternatives to high interest savings account and what's the minimum amount you can invest those kind of things. And then I found that and signed up to that based on. Sending the newsletters, which were really good, I would explain in really simple dot points why the economy was going up and then so why the money in my account was going up or down and then started suggesting different articles to read and read those articles. They would always suggest different resources as well. I got onto a spaceship, which is another micro investing app. So when I say micro investing, it's like, you know, you can put in as little as five dollars and there's no brokerage fees or anything like that. So I signed up to that. And then they have really, really great articles in a blog. That's actually how I got a new guy. They suggested this podcast. And yeah, I don't want to blow your own horn too much, but yeah, I did find Equity Mates, especially the expert investor series, really, really good, because when I started listening to the expat investors, like, you can't get access to people like that any other way. And when I realised I could understand, started understanding what they were talking about, it gave me so much confidence to just try a lot of different things and that, yeah, I guess that was probably the other resource, if you can call it a resource, just trial and error. Like trying is the best teacher that you can have. [00:32:01][97.7]

Bryce: [00:32:02] Yeah, nice. And to close it out, I mean you've only been investing for five years and so seriously for three. But if you thought back to the the start of that period, what would you kind of say to yourself when you're first kicking off? [00:32:16][13.9]

Candice: [00:32:18] I don't think I would say anything to myself. Like, no. Yeah, I don't think I would do anything differently. I think it was all a learning experience. It's all really fun. Yeah, I'm pretty happy with the journey I took. So I just go back and say, yeah, keep going. Don't be afraid to get started. And yeah, awesome. I think it was a fun time. [00:32:42][24.0]

Bryce: [00:32:42] Well, Candice, thank you so much for being the first for first community investor on the Get Started Investing feed podcast for 2020. I hope you have instilled confidence in everyone listening that, you know, they can take take on their investing journey just like you have, and also come and join us on the show to share their story. And and we can work through that journey with them as well. So a massive a massive. Thank you. [00:33:08][26.0]

Candice: [00:33:09] Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys. That was really fun. [00:33:11][2.0]

Bryce: [00:33:12] And there is the opportunity, as we said, for for you out there to join us on the show at Get Started Investing feed is all about helping investors break down barriers in the best way. To work out what those big hurdles are, is to hear directly from you, the beginning investor. So make sure you head to Equity Mates dot com forward, slash contact, leave your details or a voice message, and we can get in touch about being on the show. So we do really want to hear from you. Don't be shy. Hopefully Candice's made it sound super easy. We don't buy it. So I'm looking forward to hearing from you and Ren until until then, we'll chat next week. [00:33:49][36.9]

Alec: [00:33:49] Sounds good. [00:33:49][0.3]

Bryce: [00:33:50] This podcast proudly brought to you by Equity Mates Media. Always remember all information contained in this podcast is education and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for congressional financial label or tax advice. The host of Equity Mates and not financial professionals. And I'm not aware of your personal financial circumstances before making any financial decisions. You should read the product disclosure statement and if necessary, consult a licenced financial professional. More information. Head to our disclaimer page, where you can find resources to search for a registered financial professional. [00:34:22][32.1]

Alec: [00:34:25] For most Australians, we're going to have two big assets when we retire. Firstly, our family home and secondly, our superannuation fund. And whilst there's so much written about property investing, there's books, news articles, podcasts, probably even movies. Australians aren't thinking enough about their superannuation. [00:34:45][19.8]

Bryce: [00:34:46] That's right. Ren research from the Centre for International Finance and Regulation shows that only 35 per cent of 25 to 34 year olds consider themselves well informed when it comes to their super. [00:34:56][10.6]

Alec: [00:34:57] So we went out to the Equity Mates community to test that thesis and ask some questions on how they think about their super. [00:35:03][6.1]

Speaker 3: [00:35:04] How often do you check your super? Pretty much never. Not too often. I've never checked by people who I don't know once. How did you choose your Super Bowl party? It was recommended by my work. When you fill out your contract, they say this is the spot that we recommend you go with. I just signed up with them from the company. My employer forced me to go with them. They were my default ones through an old job I had. [00:35:29][24.9]

Bryce: [00:35:29] And the Equity Mates community is not alone. Less than one third of 25 to 34 year olds read their annual super statements. 80 per cent of the same age rarely or never think about making changes to their investment options. And two thirds can't name the age at which they can start accessing their superannuation fund. So we know that we want to do better and [00:35:48][18.7]

Alec: [00:35:48] don't miss an Equity Mates media special event as we delve into all things superannuation. With our Super Saturday series, together with our partners at Super Hero, it's [00:35:59][10.6]

Bryce: [00:35:59] all in celebration of superheros new platform that allows Australians to take more control of their super super hero are tired of the way things have been and want to help Australians wake up to their super visit. Super hero Dotcom today. For more Information [00:36:12][13.1]

Alec: [00:36:13] Australia, it's time to wake up and take control of your super. [00:36:13][0.0]

[1825.5]

More About

Meet your hosts

  • Alec Renehan

    Alec Renehan

    Alec developed an interest in investing after realising he was spending all that he was earning. Investing became his form of 'forced saving'. While his first investment, Slater and Gordon (SGH), was a resounding failure, he learnt a lot from that experience. He hopes to share those lessons amongst others through the podcast and help people realise that if he can make money investing, anyone can.
  • Bryce Leske

    Bryce Leske

    Bryce has had an interest in the stock market since his parents encouraged him to save 50c a fortnight from the age of 5. Once he had saved $500 he bought his first stock - BKI - a Listed Investment Company (LIC), and since then hasn't stopped. He hopes that Equity Mates can help make investing understandable and accessible. He loves the Essendon Football Club, and lives in Sydney.

Get the latest

Receive regular updates from our podcast teams, straight to your inbox.

The Equity Mates email keeps you informed and entertained with what's going on in business and markets
The perfect compliment to our Get Started Investing podcast series. Every week we’ll break down one key component of the world of finance to help you get started on your investing journey. This email is perfect for beginner investors or for those that want a refresher on some key investing terms and concepts.
The world of cryptocurrencies is a fascinating part of the investing universe these days. Questions abound about the future of the currencies themselves – Bitcoin, Ethereum etc. – and the use cases of the underlying blockchain technology. For those investing in crypto or interested in learning more about this corner of the market, we’re featuring some of the most interesting content we’ve come across in this weekly email.