Community Spotlight: How Flynn’s Buy-and-Hold Strategy Pays Off

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 start of your investing journey? Well, before you dive into this episode with us, our feed is designed to go from the very beginning. So we strongly recommend that you scroll up to the start and hit episode one. If you're feeling brave, though, and just want to dive in, don't let us stop you here, Jaci. We unpack all the jargon and confusing bits. We hear your investing stories with the goal of making investing less intimidating, and 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 excited for this episode. Also, a little thrown people watching on YouTube would have just seen you violently throw something out of your pocket halfway through your intro. Yeah, sorry. I guess that's the one. You know, you've got it really down. I just needed to get comfortable. Fair enough. But I'm excited for this episode because we're joined by someone that we know very well. But we also have just come off an episode on dollar cost averaging, and he's also the best dollar cost averaging. I know. So. Wow, that's big. No one better to come in and talk about it after last week's episode. 

Bryce: [00:01:40] That's it is our pleasure to welcome to the studio. The Equity Mates quizmaster. Yeah, D.J. extraordinaire. 

Alec: [00:01:48] one half of the iconic Canberra deejay duo house arrest, house

Bryce: [00:01:52] arrest. Many other things. Flynn Welcome.

Flynn: [00:01:56] Thanks, boys. Good to be here

Bryce: [00:01:58] good, mate. 

Flynn: [00:01:58] We should listen to that episode. I didn't know about that. Whichever they say, I have so much to listen to. 

Alec: [00:02:03] Some it's to pull the curtain back. We actually are going to record the DCI episode after this. All right. But when it's released, this will be the week off. OK, I got it. But we should say that the fun is also my housemate, and the other half of house arrest was the one and only Bryce left.

Bryce: [00:02:23] Thank you. And we're back. Yeah. [00:02:24][1.3]

Alec: [00:02:25] Was this past tense back? You back? Yeah. [00:02:27][2.5]

Flynn: [00:02:27] If anyone needs a 21st 30th, probably more 30th spade. [00:02:30][3.1]

Alec: [00:02:31] Yes. Come on, we'll put your number in show now. Just don't give the 30 second elevator pitch on why last arrest? Yeah, you get in the elevator with someone planning their 21st. What do you say? [00:02:42][11.6]

Flynn: [00:02:44] We'll do it for free. [00:02:44][0.5]

Alec: [00:02:45] So that's good. That's really compelling. Yeah, that's

Flynn: [00:02:48] pretty much it. And we'll dress up. 

Alec: [00:02:50] Yeah, yeah, I can confirm him. We'll dress up. 

Flynn: [00:02:52] Yeah, why necessarily be on the theme of the party?

Alec: [00:02:56] But you'll be the most dressed up person? Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:02:59] So Flynn, we love sharing community stories, and I've we've known you since the start of university back in 2011. I think I've lived. What do we work out? I've lived with you for seven years in total or something crazy, seven or eight years of knowing you for ten. And within those years, we've discussed a lot about investing and sorting out our money and that sort of stuff. So in this episode, we're going to chat with Flynn about how he's approaching his investing journey, how he's the DACA king, and a bit a bit about the equity builder and property and just random thoughts on investing in money. 

Alec: [00:03:36] Never another equity builder. Even though NAB keep telling us to stop talking about building it, we're going to do it again because phones are going off the wall and they've got too many applications and they can't take anymore. They're going to be like, Let's I just stop talking about it. 

Bryce: [00:03:49] Sorry, Flynn, we always like to start with a true or false game to give us a sense of how you think about investing and how you started. So first one, true or false, your very first investment has been your most successful. 

Flynn: [00:04:01] Absolutely not. OK. There's strictly true or false questions, or is there a bit of like 

Bryce: [00:04:06] you can do whatever

Alec: [00:04:07] you want? Yeah, right? [00:04:08][0.8]

Flynn: [00:04:09] Yeah, absolute no. For this one, it's an absolute no, no. I think the first one? Well, the first one I did because my dad, as you know, my dad, sort of got me into investing. Yeah, yeah. So the first one I did, definitely not. It would have been something like Car Asia, I remember. [00:04:24][15.0]

Bryce: [00:04:24] Like, Yeah, [00:04:25][0.6]

Flynn: [00:04:25] yeah, who are currently under there in like currently going on a scheme of arrangement, which is, I think they're being acquired, which isn't bad. [00:04:31][6.2]

Bryce: [00:04:32] So it's still listed. [00:04:32][0.5]

Flynn: [00:04:33] So listen, you still are still there. But like a thousand dollars turned into like a hundred and eighty. But, you know, I've never actually sold anything. Yeah, I've never actually, [00:04:40][7.1]

Alec: [00:04:42] yeah, never sold anything. Yeah, this [00:04:44][1.9]

Flynn: [00:04:44] is what I the only sold. Some I've sold some like res and space ship stuff. Yeah, it's I kind of use that like a bank sometimes. Yeah, but I've never sold anything that I've actually bought [00:04:54][9.9]

Alec: [00:04:54] on, ladies and gentlemen, like that is why he's the DACA kid. Yeah, I [00:04:58][3.6]

Bryce: [00:04:58] want to talk about it later. It's like it's whatever investment goes into your portfolio. It's like the keys are thrown away. [00:05:04][5.5]

Alec: [00:05:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is fruit like a coffee cup or like for investing. [00:05:08][4.3]

Flynn: [00:05:09] Yeah, yeah. I've sold some crypto a while ago. [00:05:11][2.4]

Bryce: [00:05:12] Okay, yeah. So that was the first you made, but the very first stock that you were in, [00:05:16][3.9]

Flynn: [00:05:16] yeah, would have been if I was my dad was getting me into EFI quite a while ago. Australian sorry, my foundation investment the I say, and not just sits there like a rock. Yeah, doing. Dividend reinvestment, unfortunately, I bought it a few times, like I piled into it a bit more of the back of him having got me some in uni and then it didn't actually go up for like six years. It actually went down and then didn't go up thus far. But now it's back above where I bought it then. But it's still that's still something to just earn forever, you know, buying and selling that all the time. So my actual first investments that I bought were complete rubbish, [00:05:57][41.1]

Alec: [00:05:58] but I still have. We all have that story. [00:06:00][2.2]

Flynn: [00:06:01] Yeah, not as bad as yours. Yeah. [00:06:02][1.3]

Alec: [00:06:03] Oh, well, it's getting close to 180 is pretty good. [00:06:05][2.4]

Flynn: [00:06:06] I didn't sell. [00:06:07][0.3]

Alec: [00:06:07] I've increased. I didn't sell either. I got forced to sell when Slater Gordon clean out their shareholder and stuff. Okay, fair enough. So next true or false question? True or false, you had a strategy in place before you got started? [00:06:21][14.2]

Flynn: [00:06:22] No, not at all. As much as my dad had sort of told me about dollar cost averaging and things like that, I was like, Yo, like, what's our own cola? The more people or the intelligent investor or even like The Motley Fool, what are they reckon I should buy? And then I would buy that. And then every time I would accrue, you know, the minimum six hundred thousand or whatever, I would just buy a different one. Yeah, and you just do that ten times. No strategy at all other than listen to someone else or like, what if you guys are talking about something like Bega Cheese? Bellamy's all this. [00:06:52][29.9]

Alec: [00:06:53] The strategy was [00:06:53][0.5]

Flynn: [00:06:53] basically like, if you hear something. [00:06:55][1.3]

Bryce: [00:06:56] Buy it. Yeah, we would. Ren still does that every episode. [00:06:59][3.4]

Flynn: [00:06:59] Here's something before I do that now. Evidence with [00:07:01][1.9]

Alec: [00:07:01] crypto. [00:07:01][0.0]

Flynn: [00:07:03] It's the one like like I do this disciplined dollar cost averaging. But recently I've just been like a Facebook status and I just go buy that crypto [00:07:10][7.1]

Alec: [00:07:11] more all the data you need for a lot of crypto. [00:07:13][2.5]

Flynn: [00:07:13] Exactly. Yeah, it's a little bit different. But yeah, no strategy at all. [00:07:16][2.6]

Alec: [00:07:17] I'm just I'm just realising we went through a real dairy phase when we were at uni. Bega Cheese, A2 Milk Bellamy's. The same time [00:07:23][6.3]

Flynn: [00:07:23] I got on soy milk, though, and I [00:07:24][1.2]

Alec: [00:07:24] realised I wasn't buying. That's why they haven't gone so well since [00:07:29][4.8]

Flynn: [00:07:30] everyone's realising it. Drink Almond. [00:07:31][1.4]

Bryce: [00:07:32] No, no. True or false investing is as hard as you thought it would be. [00:07:37][4.8]

Flynn: [00:07:38] Yeah. So this is a grey area one, I think definitely not the activity of investing. It's not like the act of doing. It's very simple to do like you can find a broker very easily now and things like space ship and those sorts of things are simple, but like depending on which strategy you want to do, I think it can be harder than people expect. Like actually doing your own research on companies requires a lot of time and effort. Yeah. And taking that individual company approach and making your own valuations and not just going off Morningstar's ratings or something. Yeah, is difficult. Or it's time consuming, at the very least. And I think some people, this is what I did and what I was just describing didn't take that seriously. And I'm like, Yeah, I can just build a portfolio myself based off recommendations. So that's not to say investing is difficult. That activity is very easy to get into, but going with open eyes about how much time you have to do. And I've come to the reality that I don't have the time or not the time like the wherewithal to do that, which is why I just pile ATF. [00:08:39][61.7]

Bryce: [00:08:40] Yeah, yeah. [00:08:40][0.3]

Flynn: [00:08:40] Completely figured out that. That's not for me. Yeah, I'm not not not interested enough, but not interested enough to like Deep Dive. [00:08:48][7.2]

Alec: [00:08:48] Yeah, Covid percent. [00:08:49][1.0]

Bryce: [00:08:49] Well, we were talking to a fund the other day over in New York, and he was explaining his research process for stocks that he buys. And he said that for some of the stocks he puts in between three to four thousand hours of research into a particular stock. And I'm just sitting there going, [00:09:05][15.9]

Alec: [00:09:06] Yeah, to be fair, he's not to. Yeah. Bryce made the joke. I don't spend four minutes and I don't think he the guy really doesn't try. It takes four minutes. [00:09:15][9.5]

Flynn: [00:09:16] Maybe not. So, yeah, [00:09:17][0.6]

Bryce: [00:09:17] but like it's it's a very valid point and one that I think a lot of people get burnt doing that you've you've got to have the time to an energy to put into getting into a stock, but then also like keeping track of your portfolio. That's the that's the big thing balancing. And just also like, okay, I bought this and this was the thesis and it's been in there for two years. I should probably check on that and just figure out what the Hell's going on. [00:09:40][22.5]

Flynn: [00:09:40] Yeah, this well, there's something to be said for not doing that. So you do it every now and then. Of course, [00:09:44][3.5]

Bryce: [00:09:44] I remember where I was using your dad's Motley Fool back at uni. [00:09:47][2.5]

Flynn: [00:09:48] Yeah, I think I don't think he has it anymore. I've been meaning to let him know, to listen to us, to let him know, to listen to your to your podcast Covid Scott. [00:09:58][10.8]

Bryce: [00:09:59] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'd be keen. Yeah. [00:10:01][1.7]

Alec: [00:10:01] So fun one. We often hear that investing is like gambling. That's a common thing. A common misconception, we believe. But true or false, investing is like gambling [00:10:10][9.4]

Flynn: [00:10:11] another grey area one. Maybe I'm reading too deeply into this, but this is the whole like how you define investing, like the activity of buying stocks. And things can be like gambling, but a lot of people wouldn't call that investing. [00:10:23][11.1]

Alec: [00:10:24] You mean you mean the activity of buying stocks in terms of like gold, like buying [00:10:27][3.0]

Flynn: [00:10:27] crypto and stuff like it depends if you. Consider that investing. Well, it can be like gambling, [00:10:32][4.8]

Bryce: [00:10:32] you have a track record of underperformance when it comes to gambling. Absolutely. So Trump? [00:10:39][6.6]

Flynn: [00:10:40] Yes, if my parents are, he is. I don't gamble. No, no, no. [00:10:44][4.4]

Alec: [00:10:46] We actually got Oh yeah, yeah, because you have such a bad track record. It looked like Trump was going to win in 2020. We got you to put a bet on because we knew you weren't going to win. You bet. And he lost. [00:10:56][10.4]

Bryce: [00:10:56] I mean, yeah, true. I'd say in your eyes is gambling. Is your investing journey the same as absolutely not. [00:11:03][6.3]

Flynn: [00:11:03] Yeah, no. But it's like these racing crypto things that it's a gamble, but it can be like that. But it's good to if you can segment your investing that's long term and not like that. And then if you have a little portion of your portfolio that you want to take punts on. Yeah, yeah, because, you know, share, you know, is a funny name for a coin or whatever. It's good to be able to let off some steam that way because if you have it structured like that, at least I find I'm not missing out on that sort of silliness, but I'm doing it with like a tiny bit of my money, not all of it. So I think it's important for people to know that investing can be like gambling. And so you should just sort of give a portion out of fear that, yeah, terrible record of what was Briggs, [00:11:47][44.3]

Alec: [00:11:48] for instance, [00:11:49][0.8]

Flynn: [00:11:50] happened against Hillary. Yeah. Losing bet against Trump initially. Yeah. So it's my fault, everyone. [00:11:56][5.7]

Alec: [00:11:57] I think it's a political gambling. You should just stay away. [00:12:00][3.1]

Flynn: [00:12:01] Oh, and then all the time I thought that I knew who was going to win The Bachelor and then that's a no. [00:12:05][4.1]

Alec: [00:12:05] On one side of history. But he just said, no divide. Yeah. Like, yeah, I've got the inside scoop. It's classy. [00:12:13][7.5]

Bryce: [00:12:15] That's funny. So let's go back to the start of your journey. You, you mentioned your dad encouraged you to get into affi and then talk us through how that happened and then how you have got to figure out the eyecare or iCar or whatever it was wasn't the way that it was going to work. [00:12:31][16.0]

Flynn: [00:12:31] My dad actually tried to get me into it a lot younger, and he would say, like, I don't even like low teens, even younger, potentially because he used to, you know, play around with a lot of still does. And it was like, Oh, what's a company interested in our Billabong during Billabong board shorts? You want to buy some. And I think we actually did go through that process, but I don't know where that stuff sits now. [00:12:52][20.9]

Bryce: [00:12:53] But if you just have a stockpile of stocks that you on the way, yeah, [00:12:55][2.9]

Flynn: [00:12:56] yeah, I think that's the case. But I remember having those conversations when I'm like, you know, 12, 13, but I just wasn't interested. But he, like, tried and it was like ASX share market game and stuff like that and not Dolomites. Whatever the St George does some St George equivalent, but I just wasn't interested. Yeah. You know, I was a teenager. Yeah, why would I want to do anything so sensible? So that sort of fell by the wayside. And then at around uni time, like when we were all talking about it more, I re-engaged with it. Then we always spoke about how I figured out iCar and things like that weren't the best options because I realised that I wasn't actually doing any of my own day day. Yeah, I was just going, What's this investor service that's paid for? You're getting emails and things like that, and you just go in there and you read a little bit of a blurb that it wasn't Alan Cullen, necessarily. I just know he started, Yeah, whatever that intelligent investor. But you read that and you go on everything about this company now and it says we should buy and sell sells that the the target price. Is this much more? [00:13:59][62.9]

Alec: [00:13:59] Yeah, obviously, yeah. Well, you say that and my dad's paying him [00:14:03][3.6]

Flynn: [00:14:03] many hundreds of dollars is some subscription economy, right? But I did that three or four times, and there are all duds, I think, except maybe one. [00:14:11][7.8]

Alec: [00:14:11] Did you tell Alan? Yeah, well, [00:14:14][3.0]

Flynn: [00:14:15] but he always says, is, is this a journalist? Sure, sure. Sure. And then, yeah, I just did that. Oh, and you sort of do a cross section. There you go. Oh, if Motley Fool's talking about it and this other things talking about it, and Morningstar says it's good. It's a no brainer, [00:14:31][16.6]

Alec: [00:14:32] but it's just [00:14:32][0.3]

Flynn: [00:14:33] it's obviously complete garbage. I'm sure sometimes it's correct, but I just did that and it didn't work. [00:14:38][4.4]

Alec: [00:14:38] There's probably a of like an algorithm you could build that does that that like looks at all these subscription services and tracks how much they're being spoken about and how wrong they are. Well, no, that's probably a good buy signal, though, because there's probably people like Flynn who are signing up to purchasers who are like, Oh, they're speaking about it. [00:14:55][16.6]

Flynn: [00:14:55] But yeah, just figure that out. But like arbitrage, basically attrition rather fuck just kept getting things wrong. And I was like, Well, this isn't making any money. And then I said, Oh, hey, dad, what's at DCA thing that you you talk about? Like, consider just putting things into things like AFC and other stuff like that. And then so I looked at that and then that's actually when it's started coming to the fore. I think, yeah, [00:15:19][23.8]

Bryce: [00:15:19] early early uni for us was [00:15:21][1.6]

Flynn: [00:15:21] when they were literally perfect timing. Yeah. And then because up until that point, there's lessons, but they don't have the same semantics as they do now, and they're all. Quite boring. Like, there's obviously more or less is it a fame now? Yeah, but so then it was just a bit of a no brainer to go, Oh, well, if I'm interested in this thing, but I'm not done at the time or the wherewithal to choose a company, you know, betashares or whoever has a whole ETF that tracks the top toe of that. Yeah. So you just buy that. So I'm [00:15:46][25.1]

Alec: [00:15:46] interested. If you go back to that time, you lost money on a number of shares. A lot of people at that point were thrown in the towel and say, Investing isn't for me. I'm going to spend the next 10 years saving up for a house like in your mind, like, why did you stick with it? Why did you decide I can turn this around? [00:16:02][16.0]

Flynn: [00:16:03] I keep talking about my parents, but I just because they're in their 60s or whatever, and they'd always done it. So I knew it was a thing like I knew it was possible and I knew that was. I'd been doing it a certain way and there was other ways to do it so well. Basically, I just tried a different a second way. I tried one way. It didn't work. Yeah, and I knew there was another way. So I tried that and it worked nice. But I don't know. Maybe innocence is bliss like I was ignorance rather than just like, Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'll give it a go. Yeah, it's funny. Interesting question, though, because it you know you don't have any money. No. So to decide to use what little money you have to do that? Yeah. Was, yeah, an interesting choice, having lost it all. I think that was reflecting on it was definitely a break. Like that was definitely a while where I was like, Well, just feeling like I've been kicked in the shins by all these losses. So I waited a while before doing it again before going that other path. [00:16:59][55.8]

Alec: [00:16:59] Yeah, nice. In terms of resources that helped you, obviously you used a bunch of those subscription services and they maybe helped educate you, but they don't sound like they were super helpful. Were there any resources that were helpful in terms of learning about dicing and, you know, getting you on that second path? [00:17:16][16.8]

Flynn: [00:17:17] I Google like things like Investopedia, I think is probably the only one I can recall specifically. Like these days, I don't look at it much, but there's things like Aussie firebug or whatever who do aggregate a lot of this information. You guys are doing it now, but you didn't really exist then. [00:17:34][16.8]

Alec: [00:17:35] So otherwise I would have looked at it listed in your life, but didn't exist on the end. Yeah, but you didn't know, you know, you knew I did this. Yeah, yeah. [00:17:45][9.5]

Flynn: [00:17:46] I think Google, like I didn't necessarily get any books or anything. I don't think barefoot was around, for example, like [00:17:52][5.9]

Alec: [00:17:53] it would have been around. But Bryce made all of his friends commit to not writing. Well, I didn't [00:17:56][3.5]

Flynn: [00:17:56] know it existed, but I would just Google stuff. I could Google terms, and I don't know which pages or even like Wikipedia and stuff like that, and you just find out about it. And then those those resources were good for reading about markets. I think getting into reading about markets, then otherwise like IFR and things like that, which not necessarily directly correlated with what I was buying, but just the interest in the market. And like my dad's always been like, Oh, we got to watch the finance at the end of the seven seven o'clock news. Everyone's like, Alright, can we change the channel now? And he's like, No, no, I'm going to. How does that joke? But it was always it was always like the markets and pricing, and everything is always sort of there. But so rating all these, well, that sort of resources, even just in news. Yeah. Was a good in and read it, actually. Yeah, read it's still a good place. If you just start throwing around an idea to just jump on and be like, Oh, the people are throwing around the idea, and then there's a few smart arses who just shut it down or people validate your idea, which is obviously not a reason to make a decision. Yeah, but it's a good it's a good race spitballing exercise. Yeah. [00:19:04][67.3]

Bryce: [00:19:04] So you introduced me to Acorns, now known as raise back it comic make clementine straight. I remember that. What's your current set up with platforms at the moment? How do you still use them? Mate, you've mentioned spaceship. Yeah, it [00:19:18][14.3]

Flynn: [00:19:18] sounds like you're putting me out there. This guy's got like this sort of simple [00:19:22][3.4]

Alec: [00:19:22] DCI process like that. [00:19:25][2.4]

Flynn: [00:19:25] But it it really snowballs. I kind of have a finger, my finger in a lot of pies, and some might say it's too many. That bloke always posts on your Facebook group with his impressive ATF [00:19:37][11.6]

Alec: [00:19:38] S. So, yeah, [00:19:39][1.0]

Flynn: [00:19:39] Mark, he'd have a conniption looking at my set up because of the crossover. Like, so let's say I use Ray's a spaceship, I use superhero for both my super and now I've just moved it to my like, normal trading thing. And I use the equity to build a platform so that everything's held on a trust. That and I still got my Macquarie trading thing with some stuff sitting in there that I just haven't moved across. And then I've got two different crypto brokers, one because it's the lowest. There's a rationale behind most of these things. One of the crypto things, because it's the lowest brokerage and then the other one, because it has a thing where you lock because I don't want to sell any of it. You lock it and you accrue interest on it. [00:20:24][45.2]

Alec: [00:20:25] Oh, you like you like staker. [00:20:26][1.2]

Flynn: [00:20:28] You just sit in that. And if you can't touch it for 40 days and it accrues four percent per annum, [00:20:32][4.3]

Alec: [00:20:34] interest [00:20:34][0.0]

Flynn: [00:20:34] interested, I think it's, you know, I don't know, it's bamboo [00:20:38][4.1]

Bryce: [00:20:39] scrambles the rice equivalent of crypto. [00:20:41][2.1]

Flynn: [00:20:42] Oh yeah, sorry. No, I knew about that. And I should because I DCA into crypto. Yeah, all of that. Yeah, all of those things are basically just a way to facilitate DACA. [00:20:52][9.9]

Alec: [00:20:53] What's the platform where you get the four percent [00:20:54][1.7]

Flynn: [00:20:55] zip max [00:20:56][0.2]

Bryce: [00:20:56] zip, right? Never heard [00:20:57][0.9]

Alec: [00:20:57] of it. [00:20:57][0.1]

Flynn: [00:20:58] It's pretty nifty only. It's pretty new Australian one. I think there's like a global version of it that you can lock it, or you can lock it for on a daily basis and includes a small amount of interest. [00:21:08][10.1]

Alec: [00:21:08] Can you can you lock it for longer than 40 days? [00:21:10][2.1]

Flynn: [00:21:11] No, that's just that's the peak. But they have their own coin. And if you just buy, this is so weird me on the podcast because I know nothing about it. I just know nothing about it. So no one listen to this. But they have their own house coin, basically, and that can get up to 12 percent interest. It's a native coin. I think this is called, which is just their branded coin. So who knows if the value go up or down? But if it stayed stagnant, it would be 12 percent better than cash, for example. Wow. [00:21:37][26.2]

Bryce: [00:21:38] Wow. Well, I think the takeaway is that just like many people who start their investing, there's platforms everywhere. [00:21:44][6.4]

Flynn: [00:21:45] There is platforms coming out the wazoo. I need to consolidate a little bit more. [00:21:49][4.3]

Alec: [00:21:49] I think the takeaway for me is that Flynn is the example of not letting perfection be the enemy of the good. It's like, there's no. I love that. Well, it's a good thing, no longer applicable when we talk about investing platforms because so many people get stuck at this point. But like you, I'm the same like you can you open up a new one because there's no cost to have the old one just sitting there while you try something new? Yeah, and the important thing is getting into the market. Yeah. Like you could pick the worst platform out there. Getting into the market is still [00:22:20][30.1]

Bryce: [00:22:20] one of them. And don't forget about it. [00:22:22][2.3]

Alec: [00:22:22] Don't forget them. Oh yeah, why not in through set and forget investing? But you could just forget you might bring up that a little while ago. [00:22:33][10.3]

Flynn: [00:22:33] But yeah, it depends on phase like it's different to super because soup has got phase accruing regardless of what's going on. But most of these things don't have any phase that aren't just balance based currency. [00:22:45][11.9]

Alec: [00:22:45] Wherever it is, there's a couple that have inactivity phase, which I think is is [00:22:50][5.0]

Flynn: [00:22:51] all these are active did automated transfer activity. It's like Homer in The Simpsons is the thing tapping the cable. [00:22:56][5.5]

Alec: [00:22:57] Nice? [00:22:57][0.0]

Bryce: [00:22:57] Yeah, I do want to take this opportunity quickly. You mentioned Mark there, who's in our Facebook group? Great contributor. And he actually has been nominated as one of the community members of the year for our Equity Mates Awards. So we need to just give a shout out to our community that the awards are open for nominations. This is the last week that you can put in nominations and then we'll be getting a list of finalists. We've had plenty of nominations come in. We're looking for community member of the Year, expert investor of the business leader or CEO of the Year Platform of the year. We're speaking about a plenty of platforms now and also the ETF of the year, and so fill out the form. It'll be in the show notes, and we'll have a bit of an awards ceremony later this year. [00:23:42][44.5]

Alec: [00:23:42] And we should say, if you like the Equity Mates Saturday quiz, Flynn writes that every week, so maybe you nominate him, frankly. [00:23:50][7.4]

Bryce: [00:23:51] It's actually a good point. Now, everyone knows that until then, there was no way they could not. [00:23:56][4.3]

Alec: [00:23:56] You know, you introduced him at the start of the episode. Is the quiz master? [00:23:58][2.3]

Bryce: [00:23:59] Yeah. So yeah, Flynn, the quizzes [00:24:00][1.6]

Flynn: [00:24:01] on the Facebook page and nominate myself. [00:24:03][2.0]

Alec: [00:24:03] Every bit of election campaigning is allowed. Oh, sure, sure. Advertisers. Yeah, yeah. [00:24:10][6.5]

Bryce: [00:24:11] I think it'll be a good chance to tie in your investing goals with the strategy that you're going about it. So let's take a quick break and hear from our sponsors, and then we'll jump into that. So we've brought you in Flint as the DACA king. Let's start at the level before that, though, like what would you define as your investing goal? [00:24:31][20.1]

Flynn: [00:24:33] I'm probably in a bit of a state of flux with that at the moment when we first started. I say that because we sort of sat at the same time like during that period. I made these arbitrary goals of like I wanted X amount in a portfolio by X Age. Yeah, which are completely arbitrary. Like they weren't based on any, anything in particular out of them. And it sounds sounded nice. Yeah, I was like, OK. And and then I reverse engineered that and I was like, That's feasible and slightly ambitious. So I that's how I found it, but nothing more complex than that. But then, other than that, I don't. Nothing beyond at this stage beyond just using it, using all of the cash that I don't need to grow more cash in order to enable me to do things later in life. Yeah, basically to be able to pay things, for example. We'll talk about property because I have the luxury of not wanting to have a property right now. I can use the stock market to create more cash to in order to buy a property in three to five years. Because if you don't have that horizon, that doesn't really work. But other than that, not really like, I guess you could say at some point you want to have enough money to draw on to send your kids to a school if you want to send them to a school that costs money. Well, other things like that, like I'm talking about very traditional like housing and school stuff, but I don't really have more refined goals and that at this stage, it's something that I need to. I need to go through and do a consolidation and a rebalance and a goal setting exercise. Well, I don't need to, but I should, and I haven't done that for a long time, and it's probably something that I want to do, probably next year. But beyond that, it's at the moment it's just accumulate more wealth to be able to facilitate doing, you know, whatever you want to do at a later date. Yeah, I think I'm lucky that I don't feel in any rush to do anything in particular, especially property wise, because I wouldn't be able to do that if I wanted to buy a house in like a year because you just you can't use the stock market for such a short term sort of wealth accumulation. Yeah. But yeah, so not really any goals beyond just general wealth building. [00:26:33][120.6]

Alec: [00:26:34] Well, that's a goal. [00:26:35][0.4]

Flynn: [00:26:36] It is. But yeah, it's not as specific as it probably should be. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, it's not. No, go. [00:26:41][4.6]

Alec: [00:26:41] So let's talk about the dollar cost averaging. You don't need to tell us specifically, you know what your dollar cost averaging into, but talk us through the the broad strokes of what you do. You know how many assets? How regularly? Yeah. Give us. Give us the high level view. [00:26:57][16.2]

Flynn: [00:26:58] Yeah. Stewart says probably over diversification to some extent. So don't use the daily and weekly into like things like raise and space ship daily daily for rays. Because I used to do it, I used to do. It is like I wasn't buying coffees, so I put five bucks a day in or something. But now I just like the idea of. So they go hand in hand. So I don't buy a whole lot of individual ETFs through a brokerage that much these days because of the equity building thing, because I've maxed that out the wazoo. So the repayments? [00:27:32][34.0]

Alec: [00:27:33] Oh, you mean you did ETFs for equity builder? [00:27:34][2.0]

Flynn: [00:27:35] Yeah. Well, I wanted to take out the the managed fund aspect of it and just go back to basics. Yeah. Bang. The leverage that I'm getting through it will may outweigh any performance outperformance that someone else might get. Yeah, and it removes any risk from account. It's just a simpler sort of thing for me to do now that I used a lot of the free cash that it would have otherwise used to use a brokerage to buy individual ETFs or whatever for the equity builder. I like the idea because that happens monthly of having weekly and daily deseo like really like constantly going, and there's just a constant flow of money going in. So that's how I use those things. And then every two weeks, crypto gets bought because the brokerage is a lot higher on that. I figured out I was doing it daily and that without interrogating anything, and then I looked and I was like, I'm just burning through brokerage fees. So it didn't really work. That's why I should probably look at bamboo. [00:28:31][56.3]

Bryce: [00:28:32] And is it all automated? Even the buying [00:28:34][1.8]

Flynn: [00:28:35] are all automated except equity build up because you've got to do paperwork like literal paperwork for that. [00:28:41][6.2]

Bryce: [00:28:42] But that's you actually buying a position also automated. Other than buying? Yeah. Well, I mean, so so rather than the actual putting money into equity builder, the repayment of that is monthly. Yeah, that's automate [00:28:53][11.7]

Flynn: [00:28:54] everything other than me having to sign some forms to do a new drawdown, an equity builder or something. Everything else just happens by itself, [00:29:01][7.3]

Bryce: [00:29:02] even the purchasing of the crypto. [00:29:03][1.2]

Flynn: [00:29:04] Yeah, you just have. You have buy orders just set up and then again. And then the other thing, because I use this other like savings version of the crypto, the other platform, I have to manually transfer that. Yeah, but otherwise everything just turns and burned. Well, it sounds like I'm great with money. I'm not that good with. Money, you know, me like I can have a serious blow out sometimes to just spending way too much, but isn't [00:29:26][21.2]

Bryce: [00:29:26] this your way of protecting them? [00:29:27][1.3]

Flynn: [00:29:27] That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. So it's almost over engineered, but it's a good way of making it so that there's just not money there to just [00:29:35][7.4]

Alec: [00:29:36] fly out the door. So there's three platforms that are automated that yeah. [00:29:41][5.1]

Flynn: [00:29:41] Yeah. Yes. On the other thing that's manual is and especially if if you're listening, you need automated investing. I've been told by someone especially that they're doing it because at the MySuper, which is the one thing, if I could choose anything to be automated, it would be that. Yeah, which is what I did like when it was with a fund. You just that is literally set and forget. Yeah. [00:30:00][19.4]

Alec: [00:30:01] But now that it there is an option, you mean superhero? Yeah. [00:30:03][2.9]

Flynn: [00:30:04] Sorry, superhero, [00:30:04][0.3]

Alec: [00:30:05] you said, yeah, superhero. There is an option to automate it. You choose like six ETFs and the proportions that you want them to be invested in, and it'll just go, OK. Or the other option is the self-directed one. [00:30:17][12.0]

Flynn: [00:30:18] I'm doing self-directed. [00:30:19][0.4]

Alec: [00:30:19] Yeah, yeah. So there's like two choices when you set it up. There's no [00:30:23][3.5]

Flynn: [00:30:23] I mean, in the self-directed, I want to be able to when the money goes in from my employer, [00:30:26][3.4]

Alec: [00:30:27] you just want to be able to say, like these days [00:30:28][1.6]

Flynn: [00:30:29] and this is what it buys. Yeah, because I don't like going in and looking at my super, yeah. [00:30:32][3.1]

Alec: [00:30:32] Well, so there is an option for you if you don't want to go and look, but the choice is just six ETFs to choose from. [00:30:38][5.4]

Flynn: [00:30:38] I don't want that either. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. [00:30:39][1.6]

Alec: [00:30:40] Also, you're probably listening. So superhero, take that for an accident. [00:30:44][4.3]

Flynn: [00:30:45] Yeah, be effectively. Yeah, that three automated. [00:30:49][3.7]

Bryce: [00:30:50] How did you work out what the right amount to put in all of these years? [00:30:52][2.5]

Flynn: [00:30:53] I work backwards from how much money I get from work every [00:30:56][3.6]

Alec: [00:30:57] month and how much money do you get every month? Not enough. [00:31:00][3.0]

Flynn: [00:31:01] No, I work back from how much do I need? I was terrible at budgeting literally until maybe like two years ago or like when I say terrible, just didn't do it. And then I went, How much do I need to for day to day and et cetera? All of you know, I budgeted basically. And then what was left, I went, Okay, how much do I want to put into X y z? Yeah. And then every time you get a pay increase or a bonus or whatever. I try and do it similarly to whatever that split is. Yeah, but often you get carried away and just by some something completely different. I crypto, but I try and keep it at whatever the proportions that it's automatically doing if there's any, any extra cash that just goes up in the same way. [00:31:40][38.8]

Bryce: [00:31:41] Nice. Yeah. Feeling like I want to close out this convo around property because it's something that we've spoken a lot about, and I know you have your thoughts on it. And you know, a lot of people in the community are looking at what's going on in the market at the moment and freaking out that they'll never, ever be able to afford property, and rightly so. So how do you think about property given what you're doing in the equity space at the moment? [00:32:06][24.9]

Flynn: [00:32:06] I think everyone needs to start weeding out a little bit thing. I probably said this to you the whole idea that the Australian dream is owning a home. You know, we could probably shoot a little bit higher. It's obviously a very much a security thing, and I completely get that. And obviously, I want to own my own home someday. But I also acknowledge that it's become more. It's not necessarily an entitlement anymore, like it's or it's not a luxury or an entitlement. But I think people don't need to feel obliged to own a house as soon as they can. But to also be fair, there hasn't been a way to invest and particularly with as much leverage as you get from a mortgage until, well, like ever, really, there still isn't like you can do margin loans, which you just completely fried. And then we come back to Equity Builder, which gives what you are. You brought it up there. But that's one of the reasons I don't feel so rushed into getting a house is that I'm doing all this investing that we've been talking about already. So I'm getting my own gains and I'm not missing out on anything. I don't think I kind don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. If I wasn't investing in these alternatives to property, then I would be like, Holy Moly, I need to get a. Yeah. For that reason? Yeah. But from an emotional perspective, I don't feel in any rush to be living in my own home. Yeah, but that's partly to do with the fact I want to go overseas or move overseas and things like that. So I have the luxury of knowing that I don't want to own my own home for another few years, because that might be when I come circle back anyway. So that gives me a lot of breathing room in terms of thinking that the market might have quietened down by then. We'll hopefully we'll have. So I don't I kind of look at it all and go, Oh, this is crazy. But I also get a bit sick of the Fed is fetishisation of property market in Australia and the pricing, and we do it a bit like I send you something and go like, Oh my god, I can't believe it is four million, and then I got 10 million and all that sort of thing like, it gets a little bit overwhelming, and I don't think it helps. I'm saying this as someone who's sweet with not doing it right now, but there's people out there who probably been saving for X amount of years and then by the time they're ready to go, they need to save for that long again. More just in order to buy it. Yeah, and I do like I do understand that, but it'd be so it's easy enough for me to be chill about it. Hmm. And also the age thing like, I don't need to own my own home right now. I don't have a family and stuff like that or I. That's how I feel anyway. But yeah, I think if you can, if you're worried about it from a non-emotional sort of investing perspective, then just get stuck into the stock market with the right time horizon. Yeah, yeah. [00:34:49][162.8]

Bryce: [00:34:50] Yeah, I agree. I think it's funny how people think about leverage when it comes to housing versus leverage in the stock market. You know, people are willing to take out mortgages of over a million bucks. There's stories now of people taking out mortgages so large that they will literally just never kind of never pay it off in their life. Yet you can take out 100 grand and put it in the stock market. You know, if you can do it safely and do it the right way and still generate incredibly good returns over a really better, if not better, over a long period of time. [00:35:20][30.6]

Alec: [00:35:21] Well, the annual the compound annual growth rate of housing in Australia is eight percent a year, which is good, but it's like the stock market. It's just that in Australia, we have one asset class that we allow you to leverage up to the eyeballs you nothing else. Yeah. Like, imagine if you could take a mortgage out on bonds. Yeah. Like you might get eight percent a year, but like you do pretty well. Still, yeah, leverage. [00:35:42][21.4]

Bryce: [00:35:43] It's a mindset thing. Yeah, and I'm on the same and then and we've spoken about it as well. Of course, we all want to own a home, and a lot of people out there do as well. But I think we're fortunate that we have been able to understand the power of the stock market and get putting our money to work right now and not have to think that the only way to build wealth is through the property market. So I think, yeah, it's an important concept, I think, to try and understand. [00:36:07][24.5]

Alec: [00:36:08] Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of non-financial reasons that you want to own a home like security. [00:36:13][5.0]

Flynn: [00:36:13] Yeah, that's what I mean about emotional and also financial reasons. [00:36:16][3.1]

Alec: [00:36:17] Yeah. And I definitely resonate with those just the security of owning a place like just not having some landlord being able to walk in and inspect, you know? Oh, bob, yeah. So um, but yeah, from a purely financial perspective, I think everything you said is bang on and [00:36:32][15.4]

Flynn: [00:36:33] that can one can lead to the other. Like if you can get yourself comfortable with the financial aspect, it will definitely alleviate some of the emotional stress because you you'll know that you will be secure. Like in my mind, I'm like, Oh, if I want to buy a house in five, three to five years, then I will have built up this. Hopefully a nice portfolio. You can draw on it then, and that's a fun time to draw on the stock market. Twenty five years. [00:36:56][23.0]

Bryce: [00:36:56] Yeah, the savings to the deposit piece is crazy. Like you think about the appreciation of house prices, the inflation pressures that we're now coming into and the fact that you probably need to save for like four plus years to get 20 per cent deposit. [00:37:09][13.0]

Flynn: [00:37:09] No, another automated little thing that I'm doing. [00:37:11][2.0]

Alec: [00:37:12] Yeah. [00:37:12][0.0]

Flynn: [00:37:12] So superannuation home, first time saver scheme, everyone needs to get around it. Honestly, they've changed it to fifty grand now. So basically just salary sacrifice up to twenty something a year. You can that's the maximum. And then 15 of that per year can count towards a home deposit. So if you did fifteen a year in three years, you're getting automatic 15 percent discount because of the tax and then you can just draw on that fifty grand for a house deposit. Obviously, these days, that's a fraction of a house deposit. When did that change that? It was thirty grand and then the budget this year made it fifty. They go anyway. That's a no brainer. [00:37:47][35.0]

Alec: [00:37:48] Yeah, I might get you to show me how to do that. I looked into it before. I think I tried to figure out how to do it through my super provider. But you do it through the tax office, don't you? [00:37:57][9.0]

Flynn: [00:37:57] You you don't need to do anything except salary sacrifice at this point. Yeah, just whoever's paying you guys, if you pay. So you just don't have to do that, [00:38:07][10.0]

Bryce: [00:38:07] I don't know how to do that. [00:38:08][0.6]

Flynn: [00:38:11] And then when the time comes, you just make an application to the tax office and then I think you need to action it within a year or something like because you make the funds available to yourself and then you can [00:38:22][11.2]

Bryce: [00:38:22] you just put a lump fifty in? [00:38:23][1.2]

Flynn: [00:38:24] Uh, yeah, you could. But why would you do that? So just to catch up, you know, you mean a proposed tax? [00:38:32][7.9]

Bryce: [00:38:33] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And it should [00:38:34][1.0]

Flynn: [00:38:34] be. It's fifteen grand maximum per year pre-tax. Yeah, yeah. And there'd be no reason to do it. Post-tax have already been paid. Yeah, but the thing is, you guarantee if you the only reason you wouldn't do it is if you reckon you're going to get more than 15 per percent per year on it, which good on you if you can do that. But this is a guaranteed 15 percent just because of the [00:38:52][17.6]

Bryce: [00:38:53] tax or the market was 28 percent at 12 months. [00:38:55][2.6]

Flynn: [00:38:55] So true. But you know, hopefully we don't have a pandemic every year for the next five years. [00:39:01][5.6]

Bryce: [00:39:01] Yeah, and good point. Another little, another little secret coming out of your phone. So I say, Well, look, we have taken a fair bit of your time. So very much appreciate you coming in and sharing your journey. I hope that, you know, people were able to resonate and hear what you're having to say and relate it back to that journey as well. The. The way that you do go about stopping yourself, spending money at the pub and just putting it all in just doesn't stop it. [00:39:27][25.8]

Alec: [00:39:28] Something I do have a credit card. [00:39:30][1.3]

Bryce: [00:39:32] Yeah, look very much appreciate it. And hopefully we can catch up again when you're looking at a property or some shit. [00:39:38][6.4]

Flynn: [00:39:39] Yeah. Thanks, boys. Good to be here and everyone look up house arrest on the [00:39:43][4.0]

Alec: [00:39:43] true house arrest. They don't. The platform of choice SoundCloud. [00:39:46][3.1]

Flynn: [00:39:47] I don't even know if it has. I think we made a Facebook page [00:39:49][2.2]

Bryce: [00:39:49] on the Facebook page and, [00:39:50][1.1]

Alec: [00:39:51] well, you just blow up. We'll help you. We're going to we had to go on a booking. [00:39:55][4.4]

Bryce: [00:39:56] I think they'll know [00:39:57][0.9]

Flynn: [00:39:58] you guys have Instagram, [00:39:59][0.5]

Alec: [00:39:59] Twitter. I don't want to be and I don't want to be on the show. Equity Mates [00:40:03][3.8]

Bryce: [00:40:04] Deep Dive. Yeah, if you want us to play at your gig. Message Ren help sort it out. Yeah, he's out here. [00:40:09][5.8]

Alec: [00:40:10] Know I'll take 10 percent. So that whole they'll play for free then, now not play. [00:40:14][3.8]

Flynn: [00:40:14] We've got 10 percent of the free drinks, so that's why we and [00:40:17][3.0]

Alec: [00:40:17] I get invited to 10 percent of the party. [00:40:19][2.1]

Flynn: [00:40:20] OK, fair enough. Thanks for having us, boys. [00:40:24][3.5]

Bryce: [00:40:24] Thanks for them. Thank you. [00:40:24][0.0]

[2261.3]