Financially independent

According to 4% rule I am financially independent and never have to work for money. That doesn’t mean I will not work, but just that I don’t have to. In case of 4% rule being wrong, I am not worried. I can downsize house, change town, change country or even get a job haha.  There is always Plan B. But how I got here? I have summarized my journey to FIRE in points, which I believe, were important to get me there.

Born in communist Czech Republic where I have learnt modest lifestyle (no other options). In 1989 building of bright communist future finished after 40 years so we could travel and learn how the rest of the world lives.

Jobs

I started working for money early by taking up holiday jobs. Fruit picking and labouring. That taught me value of money. Work is usually not easy if you are getting paid for it. I became natural saver but in more traditional meaning (10-15%) than in FIRE meaning (50-75%)

I finished business Master’s degree at the University in Prague. Except having great student life, I appreciated learning, knowledge, got some basics in finance and degree created a base for reasonably paid employment in the future. If you would like to retire early on lots of saved money, it is necessary to find out how to make them first. Tertiary education was my way, but I recognise there are many other ways, with some much better. For me one of the reasons why I ended up with the Degree in Business was that as a teenager I was not sure what to do. If someone has clear plan what they like and where they would like to be in future, their journey should be shorter and easier than mine.

Australia

Couple years after the University I have moved to Australia and within 4 years I got there another Degree (this time Accounting one) and permanent residency. Australia is the best place for living which I have seen after visiting 30+ countries. There are quite high living cost here but also salaries are one of the highest in the world. It would be much harder to become financially independent on USD$1,000 per month average salary back in the Czech Republic than on USD$4,000 per month which on average you could get here.

After completing the University in Australia and after having few casual and part-time jobs, I got first salaried position in accounting firm and one year later at the university. Best thing about that was that suddenly I had average income, but I was still living student lifestyle. We shared our house with housemates, had second hand furniture and did not eat out much, though I could afford more than that. That left us with significant savings.

Real estate

We bought our first apartment. Still having housemates but place was ours. Any spare cash went to paying off the flat. Once our equity ballooned, within couple of years we bought 2 more investment apartments.

We sold off the first apartment we had and we bought our first house. House was generating bit of income thanks to having housemates. Also we have sold both of the investment units to pay off the mortgage on the house. At this point we were couple on average income each, having no mortgage, further income from our housemates, some interest income from our savings. And main thing was that all spare cash got saved to be used in future as deposit on next property. At this point it was important to avoid lifestyle inflation. We could afford expensive cars and holidays, but trusty used Toyota Corolla and second hand furniture did us just fine.

Now we could actually buy another investment property debt free. We have rented it out and instead of interest income we started receiving rent. We were also able to make some improvements on this investment house like new deck.

Twins

Now was time for twins. After 7 years of trying everything possible, our wishes were heard and we were blessed with our twin boys. Life changed dramatically as you would expect. We were ready and when I have seen it was a bit too much for my wife, who was looking after them on while on maternity leave, I have quit my job to help her out. Later on when my wife was due to go back to work, she just stayed at home. We were lucky that we were preparing for financial freedom for years and we would probably quit the jobs anyway just for a change. Having our boys gave it much more purpose and thanks to all our preparations in previous decade we could live off passive income. We could probably live off it indefinitely according to 4 percent rule, and definitely it works just fine last 2 years. We will go back to some kind of work. But not for money as the main motivator.

Sunshine Coast

Now we were considering for our family of four, what is the best place to live in the world? At that point we have been living in Sydney for 17 years. Obviously after taking in account many things like safety, convenience, health care, schools, ocean, weather, property prices and other, we have decided to try to live in Sunshine Coast in Queensland. We have bought small acreage property (10,000 sqm) with 2 houses on it, with swimming pool, park like garden with mature trees, within half an hour from the beach. We got small loan for it, but most of the repayments should be covered from the rental income received from the second house on the acreage. Sunshine Coast is retirement choice for many Australians as it has most of the amenities of the city but is much quieter. You can get more property for your money than in most of the cities in Australia. Winters are mild, ocean is warm all year round and it is still only 1.5 hour to Brisbane. Life is good here.