About

In 2015, for the first time since leaving high school, I found myself in a situation where I was saving money but had no plans for it. In high school the prospect of owning a camera quickly put an end to that predicament. This time there was no easy answer for me.

About Me

But first, a little about me. My name is Tom, I work in operational risk in a large financial institution. I was born in the early 80’s and live in one of the largest cities in Australia with my partner (so “I” and “we” may be used interchangeably in this blog). We have been together since around 2006 but were both saving since well before that. The goal of owning our own home was realised in 2010 (with a 20%+ deposit of course) and until today we were doing everything we could to pay it off.

Now, around 10 years since we got together the primary destination for the majority of our money (our home loan) has been paid off! We own our own home. Well, technically we have $1 left on the mortgage, but I consider that the ultimate low rate credit card or the best way to maintain property liquidity.

Not wanting to lose momentum, I set about making a plan, and this blog is a large part of it. I often talk with friends about finance, but rarely more than a little about one specific topic. Even then we tend not to go into as much depth as I would like (although that is changing – YAY). This blog will allow me to talk to anyone who wants to read it, and hopefully you will find some of it useful.

So Why Does This Blog Exist?

1. First and foremost, for what it is worth, I want to put my knowledge, experiences and thoughts out there on the off chance that people learn from it. People learn best from real life examples. A real life example is proof that what is being said works; or at least worked once. Have you ever had someone try and sell you a surefire way to make a lot of money, only to question why they don’t have a lot of money themselves. They may not all be scams of course, but will almost involve more risk than you are led to believe. I believe the saying goes “put your money where your mouth is”, and in this blog I intend to do that as well. Which leads me to…
2. To keep a history of my thoughts and actions over time and make my plans for the future concrete. There is nothing better for accountability than telling someone (or everyone) your plans. Knowing what I planned to do (and what I actually did) is a great way to learn from my mistakes, and to keep myself accountable. It is hard to hide a mistake when you have told people what you are doing and it fails. It will also allow me to see how my financial world view changes over time. People always talk about continuous learning, but if you don’t change your thoughts and behaviours as you learn, I think you are missing out. I don’t want to miss out, and I want to see how my learning changes my thinking.
3. A distant but equally motivating third reason is to see if I can attract enough readers to allow me to pay for the website hosting. I am under no delusion that my blog will set my up for retirement, but it would be great I could pay for the bills it creates. (If you want to help – click on an ad, there should be some over there on the right.)

The Plan

Paying the bills leads me back to the plans for my money. My plans are simple: Passive income. Thats right, just like millions of others, I want to try and make my money work for me. And if things go well, possibly help some of you too. The end goal is to have enough of a passive income stream to pay all of my bills. If I can achieve that, life will be good! … until I find another goal.

Well, that’s it for now, but feel free to keep reading. I would recommend starting with how we made our first million accidentally followed by taking some time to look at your own finances. If you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments, or email me and I will endeavour to respond. I am now also on Twitter @RememberToWater, so send me one of those tweet things. Now attempting to get my Facebook working too, but twitter is easier!

Thanks for visiting!
– Tom