Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 2 - Ana Kresina on how to not work forever

Starting point is 00:00:00 Once you kind of have a basic understanding of your cash flow and what you do, the next question a lot of people do is, or a lot of people ask is, what next? What do I do? So this is kind of that next book for people who are like, okay, I've done all the steps. I have additional cash. How do we actually build wealth? So How to Not Work Forever, the premise around the book is essentially so many of us want to do something more than just work, right?

Starting point is 00:00:27 We have passions. We have family. We have goals and adventures that we want to fulfill our lives with, but how do we do that? Welcome to Get Invested on the Property Hub podcast channel, the leading weekly show for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full self, health, and wealth potential. I'm your host, Bushy Martin, and each week, I go deep with the best investors, experts, leaders, and founders to find out what it takes to break free from the grind, to discover freedom and to live by design. Subscribe now and join me and get invested

Starting point is 00:01:00 in the life that you really want. Let's get started. Hi, Fred and fighters. Does the idea of not working forever appeal to you? Because life is for living, right? The reality is that your salary and your super loan aren't going to be enough to fund your ideal lifestyle. But if you make some smart money moves today. In the space of a few years, you can live your dream life if you start investing wisely now. But how can you do it? Well, by following a simple yet effective strategy to attain your version of real financial freedom, which begins with what we're going to unpack today, start investing, start small, and start now. And then progressively become what I like to call a

Starting point is 00:01:42 blend investor by combining the dual benefits of investing in equities and property over time in a progressive and successive way that goes for growth and then converts to cash flow to give you the level of financial independence that funds your version of your ideal lifestyle. Because the most successful investors utilize an evolving anti-transitional yin and yang approach that combines the best of shares and equities with the best of property investment to enjoy the best of both diversified worlds and in turn turbocharge their results and fast-track their financial freedom while also managing to minimize the risks, which is actually the subject of my next upcoming book, Blendvesting. And yes, you heard it here first on Get Invested, so keep an eye out

Starting point is 00:02:27 for that in coming months. In the meantime, if you're just starting out and don't know where and how to begin, or it's all getting too hard and complex and you're struggling to make sense of the often confusing world of money and investment, then our returning guest, Anna Christina, is going to help you show you the way. And she's going to unpack this through her great new book that she's co-authored on how to not work forever. That shows you how to start investing and build a life you love. Because as you've heard me say many times on the show before, and I just said it last week, it's generally the start that stops most people. Now make sure you listen carefully right through to the end today, because Anna is generously offering you a reward

Starting point is 00:03:07 if you take some quick action and respond to a small challenge. So keep an eye here after that. And Anna's great new book is based on her prolific work as a financial educator and co-host of the popular Get Rich Slow podcast with Natasha Eshman, where they combine forces to outline a simple yet effective strategy to attain real financial freedom. So welcome back and let's get invested again, Anna. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Awesome. Where I'd like to sort of kick off the chat today, if we can, Anna, given our great discussion last week on your personal journey, and given that you're sort

Starting point is 00:03:43 of working across the industry and have been for a time, what are some of the common mistakes that you see Aussies making when it comes to money and investing? I think the big one that I see, especially with beginner investors, is just getting started. So many of them are scared, not sure where to start, feel like analysis paralysis is a thing, where to invest what broker what ETF how often how how frequently should we do it those are a lot of the questions that I often get with the big with beginner investors and and that's why I guess like this book exists like how to not work forever talks about how to get started how to overcome some of that analysis paralysis because at at the end of the day it's like the sooner you start

Starting point is 00:04:27 the more time your money has to grow and compound and build wealth and increase your passive income. And you want to do that earlier rather than later. So just getting started is the big one. And that's usually the number one first question I get asked. Yeah, beautifully said. Well, let's dive straight into the book then. And you've touched on a little bit of this already in terms of the great title to How to Not Work Forever. Why did you write it? What are the key messages and who's best suited to have a right in many cases a lot of australians have read the barefoot investor and that's a really great book to read when you're first starting out how do you deal with your cash flow how do you think about super what are the things that you need to do in place and once you kind of have a

Starting point is 00:05:11 basic understanding of your cash flow and what you do the next question a lot of people do is or a lot of people ask is what next what do i do so this is kind of that next book for people who are like, okay, I've done all the steps. I have additional cash. How do we actually build wealth? So How to Not Work Forever, the premise around the book is essentially so many of us want to do something more than just work, right? We have passions. We have family. We have goals and adventures that we want to fulfill our lives with. But how do we do that? And a lot of that comes down to having the financial means to do that. So this book is kind of a beginner investor book, best suited for someone who's ready to take the plunge, who's ready to start investing and

Starting point is 00:05:57 actually thinking about what they value, what kind of life they want to live and how they can actually fund that life and that lifestyle. Beautifully said. Well, I now want to sort of unpacking a little bit because I've sort of read it through from end to end. So the kickoff with, and it's always a starting point as you've sort of mentioned already, I'd love to get your thoughts on what are the best ways to actually manage your money from the outset? Because that's the Van Dysen's time, pretty much. Yeah, it's really important to actually have a grasp of your finances. So for most of us, money comes in, money goes out. Now, the question is, do you know how much money is coming in and how much money is going out? What are you spending your money on?

Starting point is 00:06:35 And for a lot of people, having some kind of budget in place is really important, whether you try to do the buckets or percentage, or there's also zero-based budgeting as well. it doesn't matter. I mean, it does matter. That's the first step. That's the first step you need to do. It doesn't matter what budgeting system, but you need to find one that works for you so that you have an understanding of where your money is going. Now, the next piece after that is ensuring you have an emergency fund. That's absolutely crucial. And a kind of rule of thumb is somewhere between three to six months of expenses. So that's going to look very different for someone who lives at home as in university versus someone who has a family

Starting point is 00:07:18 independence. So getting that is really, really important. And then looking at also some of your debt that you have and whether it's consumer debt, if you want to pay it off as well. So managing your financial house, that kind of important part is the most crucial to get started before investing. Yeah. You've got a great section in the book that talks about how to sort of balance savings versus paying off debt. Can you expand on that a little bit for us? Yeah. Well, with consumer debt, it also compounds in the same way that investments compound as well. So it's really important to think about debt and paying it off. Now, there's a couple of different types of debts, right? There can be consumer debt or personal debt or hex help debt. And all of

Starting point is 00:08:03 those kind of can be looked at differently. Now, consumer debt can stifle you when it comes to getting a mortgage or getting some kind of loans in the future as well. And actually, they eat into your money. So paying those off is usually better strategically. Hex help debt, it really depends on what the percentage is at. So we kind of talk about that in the book as well, like what you should consider based on what it's indexed at. And then when it comes to other debts, such as your house debt. That's another way, another thing that you need to consider as well, depending on what the inflation's at versus whether you want to invest. And some people would rather pay down their house debt as opposed to invest, whereas others want to build wealth

Starting point is 00:08:48 for the long run. You don't get income when you are paying down your mortgage, whereas you do from investing. But the other side is you're going to be taxed on that. And whereas if you're paying down your house. You're not getting taxed on that. That is absolute pure savings there. So the way I think about finance is there's a lot of tools that you can use. You're not going to use the screwdriver for every single thing or the hammer for every single thing, but knowing which one you need to use at what time is really advantageous. Totally agree. And I think it's probably, I'd love your thoughts on this as well, but if you've structured your investments and your money management appropriately, then there's the opportunity using the incentives that are offered

Starting point is 00:09:31 here in Australia to use your investments to actually pay off your home loan quicker than what you otherwise would if you just stuck your hard-earned savings after tax into paying off that non-deductible debt. Any thoughts on that? For your house, for your mortgage? Yeah, yeah, because there's always this debate, well, I'll pay my... Sorry, you're delayed a little bit. You probably have... Yeah, it really comes down to the individual as well. One of the things that we talk about in the book as well is you might feel better emotionally about paying down your house. And that's totally fine. That's a decision that you might want to make. It comes down to your goals and what your values are. But then the

Starting point is 00:10:09 flip side is you might be missing out on earning capacity, on getting income coming in, on building wealth for the long run. Because what happens when you pay down your house? You're still going to have expenses that you need to pay for. You can't sell off a bathroom or a bedroom in order to have extra money. So what are your goals is really, really important and how are you going to fund your lifestyle in the future? And a lot of people want to do a little bit of one and a little bit of the other because it depends on where you are in your mortgage. Are you at the beginning of your loan where there's a lot of interest that's being paid or you're at the end where it's more principal, you're almost paying it off. It really kind of depends, but it is important to kind of

Starting point is 00:10:49 know holistically and think about your strategy holistically and where your end goal is. As we've seen, there's a lot of people that reach retirement and they have a fully paid down house. However, they have no passive income to live off of or very little in their super when they reach retirement. So it's important to think about that as early as you can. Yeah, extremely well said. Well, let's jump into the next section of the book, which is about helping us to get clear on why we're investing. Give us your initial thoughts around that. We talk a lot about why you're investing in this book. And the main reason why we have to talk about it is because it is kind of like your guiding star.

Starting point is 00:11:32 It is your North Star that you're focused towards. Now, why you invest and why I invest and why someone else might invest is going to be completely different. We have different values. We have different goals. For you, it might be you hate your job and you want to get out of your job

Starting point is 00:11:46 and you want to put as much money aside so that you have passive income coming in. For someone else, it might be you want to start a business. For me, it might be, I just want to have passive income so I can spend more time with my kids. It's very different for everyone. But knowing why is what's going to keep you investing. Because it's not a fast thing. It is a very slow process.

Starting point is 00:12:06 It takes many, many years. And yes, your goal might slightly change, but you want to stay the course. You don't want to get distracted by shiny cryptocurrency or the next best thing. You want to kind of stay the course for the long run. So knowing your values, thinking deeply about what kind of life you want and why you want it is going to keep you there. And that's one of the most important parts because if you're going to be investing regularly or for a long time, you want to see how you're slowly getting closer and closer to your goals. Yeah, beautifully said. Now, one of the excuses I constantly hear is that, well,

Starting point is 00:12:43 I don't have any spare money to invest and I've got plenty of time, so I don't need to worry about but you've got a great section in the book that talks about how and where you need to find the money to invest and then mind the gap between your income and expenses. Can you expand on that a little bit for us? For sure. That's one of my passions, I think. And it comes really down to how can you increase your income? How do you find the money to invest? A lot of us feel like we don't have a lot of money. We might not be able to put some money aside. For some of us, you might be able to find $20. You know, why not? For other people, it's going to be $2,000. But for most of us, there is some wiggle room that we can have when it comes to investing. And if you can't,

Starting point is 00:13:26 there are ways to get more money. And some of the really obvious ones is getting a raise. And that doesn't always come as easily, but there are steps in the book of what you can do to get to that point, to show your worth, to be able to negotiate, to be able to show your value as an employee. Other ways are picking up some side hustles or things on the side. A lot of us have skill sets that we can get other people to pay for, you know, whether it's consulting or freelance writing or writing code on the side. There's a lot of things that people can do in order to increase their income. So if you can increase your income, you're going to have more money that you can invest. And the way that I like to think about it is you have your expenses and you can only

Starting point is 00:14:11 decrease your expenses to a certain amount. You're always going to have a baseline, whether it's your mortgage or your rent or your food costs, like you cannot be at zero. You're always going to have to spend some money. But sky's the limit when it comes to your income. You can always increase your income. You could, you know, I'd love to think that we could all make a billion dollars and that's probably unrealistic. But the truth is we can increase our income a certain percentage. So why wouldn't we want to do that? And the bigger that gap is between your expenses and your income, the more room you have to save to invest.

Starting point is 00:14:45 And by investing, you're going to be building wealth because you're buying assets that are generating income, which are paying you back. And so that's kind of the really big gap that you should be thinking about. How do you reduce your expenses but continue to increase your income? Yeah, I love that. But there's a great discussion on the book around the merits of talking openly about your wage. It's a bit of a taboo subject in a lot of places in Australia. Can you expand on that for us?

Starting point is 00:15:14 Because I think it's an important one that's going to raise the topic and the opportunity that comes out of it. I love talking about money and how much people make and so forth because it's really important. Money is so taboo. How much you make is so taboo. That was something that was discussed quite a bit at my house. Do not tell other people how much you make. Do not talk about money. In my first job, I found out that I was the lowest paid employee. I just graduated university. I didn't know how to negotiate. I got a very low wage. And when I found out that other people were making more money than

Starting point is 00:15:48 me, I felt really horrible. And it's a horrible feeling to find out that you're the lowest paid employee. But it lit a fire under me to ask for a raise, to show my worth, and so forth. Now, the important thing is, if I didn't have that conversation, I wouldn't have known. I wouldn't have been able to ask for a raise. I wouldn't have been able to then eventually go and find another job at a higher income. Now, these conversations are really important to have for a bunch of different reasons, whether you want to reduce the gender pay graph, whether you want to help and uplift your other colleagues as well.

Starting point is 00:16:25 Like, I think we should be all paid what we're worth, but also let's not, let's not, let's not create a bigger disparity when unnecessary. So talking about your wage, talking to other people, sharing with other people, but also be mindful that maybe they're not ready to have that conversation. So presenting it in a way where I'm happy to talk about my wage, if you are, is a really good place to start with, with other people. So I'm a huge advocate of talking about those things. Yeah, I love that. There's a really good section in the book in terms of some of the key investment fundamentals. And something I really liked was the chocolate analogy in relation to ETFs. Can you talk us through a little bit of that? Because I think ETFs and index funds and managed funds are a subject that sort of people hear about often, but don't really get their head around. Can you sort of open our mind to that? For sure. So an ETF is an exchange traded fund. And what that means is it's a fund that's traded on the exchange. So how it works is similar to buying chocolate at the shop.

Starting point is 00:17:32 So think of it this way. You can go to a broker, which is also the equivalent of a store. So you can go to Woolies or you can go to Kohl's. And what you can do is you can buy an individual chocolate. So you can buy your Mars bar or whatever Kit Kat. Or you can buy a whole box of those chocolate favorites that has a whole bunch of different chocolates in it. Now, the thing is, in investing, you can buy one share, one share that you're like, I hope this is the right one, or you could just buy them all. And some of them will do really well and some of them will not do so well.

Starting point is 00:18:06 But the thing is, if you're buying an index that's following and tracking the average returns over time, as a lot of exchange traded funds do, you're just buying a whole basket of these chocolates and you're not worrying about which ones will do better or will do worse over time. So that's the kind of analogy that we like to use for ETFs, because it's a simpler way to think about, hey, I'm buying the whole chocolate thing and I don't have to worry about the right ones. I'm just getting them all and following the index. So that's a really simple way to think about it. Yeah, I love that because it's, you know, in a similar fashion, it's like if you're, let's take the Melbourne Cup, which is the race that everyone knows about in this country. So using that approach, you're betting on the whole race, not on one particular horse. And therefore, as long as the overall pack is doing well, then you're going to do well. On a similar basis, because it's a subject that sort of gets talked about and there's

Starting point is 00:19:02 pretty polarized views around this, what are your thoughts on digital currencies, NFTs, crypto, et cetera, in terms of investment? Yeah, well, I think of them as speculative investing. you're not really investing in something that's absolutely concrete. So you're not investing in a Bunnings and, you know, that has customers that go and they sell and they buy things and you get profits. It's something completely different. And if you believe in that technology and if you believe in that kind of currency, it might be great to dabble with. But if you do so, it should be a very small percentage of your overall portfolio. It should be something like one percent

Starting point is 00:19:43 because it is really high risk. Yes, you might have high returns, but you also might have really massive losses as well. So it's nice to try new things, but I think of it similar in vein of gambling or other speculative things. You know, if you're going to buy a bunch of Lego and hope that over 10 years time, you're going to sell that pirate ship Lego piece for a lot of money, you might, but you might not. And that's kind of the thought process behind that. Yeah, I love that. It's money you're happy to lose is basically my thoughts on it. Now, we've touched on the importance of investment strategy in a bit of detail last week, but it's pretty crucial to setting the targets and the goalposts early on.

Starting point is 00:20:30 What's, and a great discussion on this in the book as well, what's your feelings on the best way for someone to build an investment strategy that suits them. So there's a lot of different things that you need to consider when it comes to your investment strategy. A big one is what are your goals and what are your values? What are you trying to achieve? What's the timeline that you're trying to do it in? What's your risk tolerance? Those things are all really important, but it's going to be completely different if you're looking to buy a home in three to five years versus if you're investing for your retirement. And the strategies you're going to take and the things you're going to invest in are vastly different. So those are some of

Starting point is 00:21:10 the things that you absolutely need to consider based on your goals. Now, when it comes to investing, specifically investing in the share market, there are a couple of different strategies that people can use, such as dollar cost averaging, which means that you're investing in a regular cadence instead of one time and forgetting. And the big thing we advocate for in the book as well is buying and holding. So long-term investing is what we like to focus on, not some quick wins. This isn't a quick trading kind of strategy. It's more about the long-term. But again, it comes back down to what your goals are and what your timeframe is. And that is going to dictate what you're investing in, what assets you're holding, because there's a whole bunch of them, right? You can

Starting point is 00:21:54 invest in cash and in bonds and in shares and ETFs and property, and they all have a different risk tolerance. They all have a different timeframe and they all are parts of the tools that you can use to build your overall strategy. Yeah, I love that. You're right. The other thing that I think is important in this, Anna, is how much time does the investor have to manage those assets and put into that investment piece? Because there's a big difference between active and passive. If it's something they just want to set and forget and get on with life and let the investments do its own thing versus someone who's going to day trade and look at it pretty much every minute of the day that's going to require a much bigger time input. In terms of what people should be investing in,

Starting point is 00:22:41 and I'm thinking here in terms of the more passive side where you're going to get on with life and stick some spare money into things that are going to grow over time without too much management, you've got a great section in the book that talks about ETFs and index funds and managed funds. Just expand on that a little bit for us so that those are listening and going, yeah, that sounds interesting. Maybe that's something I'll need to start working towards. Yeah. So there's a couple of different asset classes, as I mentioned, cash and bonds, and they're more defensive. And then there's more of the growth kind of assets that are shares, ETFs, and property. And the way you kind of want to look at your portfolio is kind of in

Starting point is 00:23:21 a holistic kind of sense. Now with ETFs, most of them do track an index. So it can be something like the S&P 500, which is the benchmark in the US for investing. And that kind of looks at the top 500 companies in the US. Now, in a lot of cases, these index funds are passive because they're just tracking what those companies are doing. And some of those companies are going to do really well. And some of those companies will not. And if they aren't doing well, they kind of get dropped off and they get re-replaced. So it's doing all of the work for you. You're not the one picking. It is literally just following the average kind of returns of that. Now, there are managed funds that are trying to also beat the average returns of those indexes. And those are

Starting point is 00:24:11 more active funds. And they will have a higher fee when associated with them as well, because they're actively trying to guess which ones will do better and which ones will not. Now, what you want to invest in really kind of depends on what you want to do. For the most part, a lot of people don't have time to stock pick or want to pay more money. So having something that is tracking a basic index might be more advantageous. But then there are situations where, for example, if you want to do more ethical investing and you want to really be strategic in terms of where you're putting your money. And therefore you want someone to properly be looking at what specific companies are going to do well within that specific sector. So for example, around ethical

Starting point is 00:24:53 investing, environmental, social, and governance, that might be something that you are really passionate about and is important to you. So it might be valuable for you there, but it really kind of depends on, again, your values, your time, your goals, and your risk tolerance. Totally agree. I think from my own personal perspective, at the initial growth and the cash flow stage of the game, I love the Vanguard-style indexes. This is not financial advice, of course. I'm only talking personally and generally.

Starting point is 00:25:26 But what I like about those is that very low fees. They have reasonable performance. If you look at the stats, and I've done a lot of research on this, and those managed funds who purport to outperform. If you look at it, on average, there's only about 5% that outperform the actual, the average performance of the market. So is it worth paying a lot of extra fees for a marginal opportunity? I don't know. And there's certainly been some studies done, which I'm sure you're aware of as well, that demonstrates that the most successful investors are actually dead because they don't touch it. They get into something that's got

Starting point is 00:26:02 building diversification and they get out of the way and let the investments do their thing. So interesting on that. We've touched on this as well a little bit, but super is an important part of the equation here in Australia, partly because it's a lot of Australians, it's employer funded. But that also means that a lot of people don't take much notice of it because it's just, oh, well, is it really our money? We don't need to worry about it. It's being funded by someone else. What's your take on super? So super is super valuable. Super is super valuable and super is super. It is such a great tool. We're very fortunate here in Australia to have something in its place. And yes, it's employer funded, but there's a lot of tax benefits that come with

Starting point is 00:26:44 investing in your super. And for most people who are earning a larger amount of money, I can't remember the exact number, but around like 45,000, it might be advantageous for you to actually invest into your super as well for the tax savings. Now, it kind of depends on what your long-term goals are because, for example, if you're investing in your super, you're not going to be able to access it until preservation age, until you retire. For some of us who want to have access to those investments at an earlier stage or want passive income that's coming in, super might not be the right tool. Now, again, it's just another tool. It's another thing that you can consider because within your super you can also take advantage of super and help you with your

Starting point is 00:27:28 first home so there is a first home super saver scheme that that you can access and in fact I access that when I purchased my my property here in Australia that can be really advantageous as well so knowing what you can do within your super understanding what a concessional and a non-concessional contribution is how much you can put in can really help you in the long run because there's a lot of tax savings it's going to compound over time and it can be quite valuable now the caveat to that is that the government can always change the rules around super so that's something to be cognizant of if you're locking money in for a long time and so yeah so that's that's a really important one to think about as well and also the fees around super as well being

Starting point is 00:28:14 able to maybe use the the government website and just compare the the various super options is a really good place to start to see if that's there. And if you do, being aware of if you have insurance in your super is really important as well. Frankly said, something that I don't think gets enough airtime is what happens at the other end. And what I mean by that is, because again, you've got a great section in your book on how can we live off our investments. I'd love you to talk about that because there's so much focus on getting invested and starting the investment journey, but there's a very important piece in converting your assets into a tax-affected income stream down that track, whenever that might be. Can you put some shape around that for us?

Starting point is 00:28:58 Yeah. So we talk a little bit in the book about the different kind of ways that you can live off your investments. And for a lot of people who are trying to achieve financial independence, their main goal is to have dividends coming in that will cover all their expenses. And that's a really great way to do it. Now, there are other ways as well. You can sell down some of your shares in your capital to fund your lifestyle. It really kind of depends on where you're at in your life, what income you have coming in, and do some effective tax planning. So you really need to talk to a tax advisor when you're dealing with this side, because if you're selling some of your shares, depending on how long you've held them for, depending on what tax bracket you're in,

Starting point is 00:29:40 you can kind of plan ahead of time about how you want to access that. So there are a couple strategies that we discuss in the book, but that part is really important because there's a lot of planning that goes into what you're going to do with your income that you have. Yeah, no, absolutely spot on. Yeah, it's something that I think, and we touched on this as well throughout the conversations, because we're certainly living in an age of instant short termism where everything's at our fingertips every second of the day. And given you're sort of working actively in this environment, how do we motivate everyone to embrace delayed gratification so that they're actually investing themselves now to achieve that long-term benefit rather than be

Starting point is 00:30:25 attracted away by the next shiny thing they're going to spend their money on? I think it comes back down to values, thinking about your values and your goals. So if you have a long-term goal and focusing on that and celebrating the wins along the way so if if you're getting closer if you've hit the quarter mark or half mark of what your goal was celebrating those like being excited about that is really important because it's going to take years sometimes decades to get to the goal that you want so celebrating those wins but also knowing what you value if you're valuing a trip and saving up for that really enjoy that moment but then don't spend on the clothes and the brunches that don't bring you as much value. Now we can have anything

Starting point is 00:31:11 and everything, but we just can't have it at the same time. So you're going to have to weigh up what you want when you want it. So delayed gratification comes with celebrating those little moments and knowing what you value, but also keeping your eye on the prize and what your long-term goal is and why you want it. Yeah, not well said. Wrapping it up before I jump into the next stage of the ambush round, Anna, is there anything that we haven't touched on in the book that you'd like to share? I think the big part is just really knowing what kind of life you love as well. So investing and building wealth is a huge part of it. But sometimes people get lost in that trap of, I need to make more money. I need to save more

Starting point is 00:31:53 money. I need to invest more money. That they don't know when is enough. When is enough for you? you can keep saving and investing forever you can keep working forever but until you know what is enough for you you're never going to stop so a really good part of it is also just thinking about what your life would be like if you weren't working what would you spend your time on if you weren't constantly focusing on that end goal so the flip side of the of the frugality and focus on building wealth is also with the enjoying life part. And that part is really, really important. Some people are really great and can indulge in that, that they actually need more of that flip side of focusing on the long-term wealth creation and delayed gratification, whereas some people are

Starting point is 00:32:39 the complete opposite. And that's all they're focused on, that they're forgetting to live their life. They're forgetting what's important. They're forgetting that their health and their life and their passions are just as important. So that's the other thing that I think is really important when thinking about your money and your investing journey. What kind of life do you want to live? Absolutely. The money is the petrol word and the vehicle, it's not the outcome. And I think you've summarized that really well. Starting with the end in mind in terms of exactly how you want to live and then monetizing that lifestyle, it's not actually difficult to do that, but very few people take the time to to really sit down and think about how do they want to live to

Starting point is 00:33:21 reignite their curiosity and their their passions for those things that they had early on if you get clear on that vision and then make it attractive and exciting enough then when it's going to help you stay the distance and overcome the inevitable speed lumps that you're going to incur along the way to to getting there but it's going to give you a compass in terms of helping you to decide whether you're making decisions that are taking you closer towards it or further away on the day-to-day basis so look uh some great great gold you've you've shared with us encourage everyone to grab a coffee particularly if you're you've been numbing and r-ing you're not sure where to start they're all the fundamentals they're extremely well painted

Starting point is 00:34:02 out and a and a a really good way to to get off the ground so i would uh really appreciate that I want to jump now into the second bushfire round, Anna, and I want to kick off with what's your favorite quote and why? Well, one of my favorite quotes, I think it comes from working in tech, which is fail early, fail often. And the idea behind that is just get started. You're going to learn along the way. You're going to change.

Starting point is 00:34:32 Often in tech, we talk about having an MVP, which is a minimal viable product. And similarly, I think in life, when it comes to investing, you're going to make mistakes. We all make mistakes. There's all things we wish we could go back and change. But if we can do it quickly and often and learn, we can adjust. And that goes back to having a growth mindset. Yeah, beautifully said. Apart from yours, what's the top book that you recommend we read and why? Oh, I was going to suggest mine, but I think I really love Psychology of Money. That's one that gets probably quoted quite a bit. Morgan Housel, his kind of analysis of the psychology and our relationship to money is a really good one. Yeah. His recent books are a great read as well, actually. In terms of investment advice, what's the worst and best piece of investment advice you've ever received? I think I heard this recently, but it was take advice from people

Starting point is 00:35:33 who are more successful than you in the areas that they're successful and don't listen to their advice. I think a while ago, my uncle was telling me what a silly decision it was for me to sell my property in Vancouver. And I was like, well, you don't know my financial situation. You don't know my goals. You don't know my needs. And if you think it's so bad, Why don't you buy the property and you can hold on to it? So again, it comes back down to no one knows what you want and what you need. Take advice from people who've done what you want to achieve as opposed to people who have not.

Starting point is 00:36:11 Yeah, absolutely. Beautifully summed up. But we've talked a lot about habits and the importance of them in terms of the things that you're doing day to day that end up having the big long-term exponential results. So what's a personal happy habit, a rewarding ritual or a daily discipline that you employ on an ongoing basis that's contributed most to your investment success? Daily gratitude, I think, is a really important one. We can focus on so many different things, but if we aren't grateful for what we currently have, it shines or it puts everything else in a shadow as well. we have to be grateful for what we currently have, whatever that might be, even through the

Starting point is 00:36:52 tough times. So that's kind of my guiding light in being grateful. Yeah, 100% agree. Yeah. Sort of wrapping it up, is there one final thought that you want to leave us with, Anna? If you haven't started invested, if you haven't started investing, just get started and have your goals set up and think about your values and also just think about what kind of life you want to live for yourself because that is essentially the most important thing yeah that north star is really important if i if i ask you to get invested what does this mean to you just means start start somewhere you're not going to learn how to ride a bicycle by reading books you just have to start somewhere so just start love it now for those of us that have really resonated with your conversations

Starting point is 00:37:40 over the last two episodes. How can we find out more and get involved with you, Anna? Yeah, you can follow me on social. That's where I'm most active under my name, which is Anna Christina. You can also listen to me on the Get Rich Slow Club podcast or read my books, How to Not Work Forever and Kids Ain't Cheap.

Starting point is 00:38:00 We'll have all of those in the show notes so that people can click on those links to take advantage of that. And where I always like to end up the show is a bit of a call to action and challenge get invested listeners anna and i know we touched on this briefly in the green room but and i guess what i'd like to do is challenge existing inspire investors to take some action towards your goals and anna's been very generous in offering a special reward for the listener

Starting point is 00:38:29 who and will get a free copy of the book how to not work forever so but you need to email us here at hello at knowhowproperty.com.au, which we'll again, give you in the show notes and give us your best takeaway from Anna's chats here on the show. Any further thoughts on that, Anna? Yeah, no, that's great. Or they can also, I'd also love for you to follow me and send me a message as well. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well on the show. 100%. We'll definitely be sharing those. Now, if you're not one of the lucky ones, still make sure you buy yourself a copy of the book and you can get it from Booktopia or Amazon and pretty much all good and a few bad bookstores as well, probably.

Starting point is 00:39:10 So look, thanks again for taking the time to wake us up and shake us up over the last two episodes and motivating us to actually embrace investing as our best friend so that we don't have to work forever, Anna. And before we wrap up, as a very quick aside, if you're one of those that's watching or listening that's inspired to dig deeper to unpack your personal money and investment needs and options,

Starting point is 00:39:31 or you want to explore any other issues that might be holding you back that aren't working or you're just feeling stuck and you're looking for a sign, and this is it. So feel free to book in with me for a personal solution session by clicking the link in the show notes, and we'll dedicate some one-on-one time to explore how you can make it all happen better. But before we close, I need to ask you all a very big favor that will only take a couple of seconds of your time, because while we're making some really good progress, still about 7 out of 10 of you that tune into the Property Hub podcast still don't subscribe. So if you've enjoyed our shows and videos following the hours that our team and I put into preparing and

Starting point is 00:40:06 producing the shows can you do us just a quick massive favor by hitting the subscribe button now it helps the Property Hub channel more than you know and I promise you that the bigger the channel gets the better the guests like Anna are going to get and the better your investment learnings and results are going to become and to keep the conversation and your investment insights going don't forget to join us on the Property Hub Collective's interactive Facebook community by clicking the link in the show notes where myself and other professionals can answer any and all of your personal questions or queries and continue to share our knowledge with you and other like-minded hardworking Aussies in a very safe learning and no pressure environment.

Starting point is 00:40:39 So jump on board and thanks again. And again, thanks for all of your time on the show today, Hannah. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for tuning in to Get Invested on the Property Hub podcast channel, your home for property investment insights and inspiration. Make sure you subscribe to Property Hub for free. Get your weekly dose of Get Invested inspiration along with every episode of Realty Talk, Australia's online property show for red hot property investing news and insights direct from

Starting point is 00:41:06 industry leaders and influencers. And finally, I'll see you next time.

Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 2 - Ana Kresina on how to not work forever

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