Hello, and welcome to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby, the Wealth editor at The Australian.
Welcome aboard. If you're an investor, you're going.
To want to know about rates. I don't just mean official cash rates and I'm sure you know there are four point three five percent and have been for a long time, folks, but all the rates in the market, because you want to know if you're a saver, and I'm sure you're a saver, I'm sure you've got some cash somewhere, you want to optimize that and have the
best rates you can get out there. Similarly, if you're borrowing, you need to know there's quite a range, you know, even on the even on savings, I mean, honestly, the range is about five percent, that is, from nothing to five percent on cash, and then when you're borrowing there.
First of all, there's different rate benchmarks for investors, private investors, or property investors or SMSF investors who get app solutely sort of smushed with the hardest highest rates that are out there, but it's worth knowing someone who could actually borrow through them is right across that. And a guest I have had on the show before is Sally Tindall. She's the inside director at the can Star Group and she is going to help us today set the scene for the year ahead.
How are you, Sally, I'm great, James, how are you good?
Thank you?
Thanks for coming on again. Great to have you on. It was very good session the last time. It was very informative. I thought I might just start on that before we talk about borrowing.
Everybody's got some cash.
If you're an investor, you've got you're obvious accumulating cash so you can invest. If you've got your own SMSF, of course you've probably got more. They'll always tell you you've got more cash than you should have in your SMSF, but there are times that's very useful and you probably have that in the linked account and it's quite a job to switch them around. But let's just start with that. So we know that cash rates and official cash rates
are four point three five. We know that the rates official rates haven't changed for over a year, and we are aware that they are supposed to go down. That is everyone's guest at the moment, but who knows about that? Tell us basically where we're out first of all, as to very broadly what you might expect if you were and you had cash, what's the sort of range you could expect, and what's a good rate and what's a bad rate.
When it comes to savings, it can be such a great disparity between a good and bad rate. And one of the primary reasons behind that is that on the way up with those thirteen rate heights, four of which let's not forget we're doubles, the banks by and large picked and chose which savings account's got a boost, and which term deposits might have got a boost, and which missed out. And so we also saw banks opting to put any boost onto things like the bonus rate rather
than the base rate. So if you didn't meet the monthly conditions one month, you might miss out. So right now, yes, I can provide you evidence of rates that are below one percent, But if we look at the big four banks, one of the lowest rates out there is from Westpac East Saber. It's sitting at one point one zero percent for its existing customers when the cash rate is at four point three five. As you said before, it's astonishing to think that it is so low and that there's
some savers out there just copying that. On the other end of the scale, it is quite competitive still, which is fantastic to see for an ongoing rate, so I'm exploding those introductory rates that last for three to five months for the ongoing rates. The highest on our database is five point five zero percent. That's from four different banks. I think it's ig move, U Bank and Bank of Queensland. You do have to meet monthly terms and conditions in
order to qualify for that maximum rate. There are things like balance caps, so if you go over a certain ballots, suddenly your rate will drop thereafter. There are even age caps on some of these accounts. That Bank of Queensland one. If you're over thirty five, which unfortunately is May, I'm sorry, but you don't qualify for that account. So it's really important to read the blind grit.
Oh I find this so impuriating. I really do you know, you're driving down the highway, it's bigg at. It says, you know, cash five five five percent, you know, and it gives the distinct impression that that it's available.
With no strings attached.
And there's a little asterisk now on the corner and it's you know, for the first four months or something, and I just say, damn it, I'm not I'm not going. I'm not going to all the trouble of switching money because I don't know what's going to happen after the four months. Do you keep a record of what's what's what are good cash rates that have no strings attached whatsoever?
Oh?
Absolutely, It's one of my favorite things to look at, because you know, when it comes to being a savings account, you know, you've got to look at your savings goals. You've got to look at how much money you actually have, how much you're regularly putting in, but also your lifestyle
and your personality. If you are really finicky and you would happily meet the terms and conditions with glee every single month, without breaking into a cold sweat in the last day of the month, you know, stressing about whether you've made you met the terms and conditions for that month, and then all go for it. You know, get that really high ongoing rate of five point five percent if
you qualify. But for those people that just tend to want to set and forget, it's better looking at once with no strings attached, and so in the highest rates in that regard, we're looking at something like mcquarie Bank. It's offering five percent and an ongoing rate, no strings attached. In fact, it's actually got an introductory rate of I think five point three five memory for the first four months, but then it reverts to five percent for balances of
up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You know, So that's a pretty decent rate.
Right, So they are there, and as you see, but even in that case there was not so much a string attached.
But it's like it's not a pure offer. There's a variation built in and they're very hard to escape, rightn't there.
There's a variation built into almost anything. Because I'm looking at my notes. There's two others that are offering an ongoing rate of five percent. But Australian Unity is Freedom Saver that's capped at fifty thousand dollars and A and Z's plus Flex Saver offers you five percent, no strings attached up to five thousand dollars.
That's not much good always.
It, Maybe grumpy servers, let me better accept that these days, you've just got to you've just got to accept that they're all up to it, and you've got to thread your way through because no one is offering a clean no bullshit, you're no rate anymore.
No, there is no way out of reading the fine print, if that's what you're asking, James. But the one thing I would say in defense of savings accounts is that it's one of the easier products to switch. You know, you can open an account within say five minutes, if you've got you know, a bank that's really there in
that application process, in streamlining it. I remember trying A and Z pluses the other day, and the real delay in the you know, me opening up an account was having to find my driver's license because I didn't know
where I had it. But you know, moving your money across is pretty simple too, and typically on those savings accounts, you don't have you know, all your card details stored to make purchases and things like that, so it's not as problematic as say switching a transaction account or switching a credit card.
Okay, yes, all right, very good.
You were telling me also that we'll take it as read that the consensus in the market is that there will be red cuts this year mid year. Perhaps that's still very much the consensus. So, but you made a point that the banks will we'll kind of go their own way to some extent anyway, won't they on on what happens to efficient reads? And my reading of it obviously is I mean bond markets is where they fund and in the real world through not going down? Are they?
No, they're not. It's interesting to watch. Actually, we would have normally seen fixed rates start to come down in a hurry in the lead up to a cash rate cut. We're not seeing that at the moment. We saw fix rates drop like flies back in July, August, September of last year. Things really cooled because wholesale funding costs took a dive back then, but have just popped up lately and have been consistent, you know, in December and January. In fact, in December we saw more lenders hiking fixed
rates than cutting. That's not typical behavior in the lead up to a cash rate cut, which really interesting. So when we do finally see a cash rate cut, it will be interesting to see how the banks respond. As you said, they don't have to dance to the beat of the RBA's drum. I cannot see a world where they do not play a ball for at least the
first couple of cuts. But if we see a smattering of rb A rate cuts in quick succession, after a while, we might find that some lenders choose to only pass on part of a rate cut, or not pass on that rate cut at all to their variable mortgage customers. It will be interesting times ahead, I think, particularly if we see a large number of cuts.
Okay, very good, I think I mean, I mean in a way that's the essence of what you need to know, folks on the on the saving side, and how ridates will will affect your investments. We'll take a short break and then we will come back and we will look at the bigger issue of borrowing and what happening to rates in that area. Back in a moment, Hello, Welcome back to the Australian's Money Puzzle. I'm James Kirby and I'm talking to Sally ten at the Canstar Group.
The doyen.
There's a male and a female. There's a doyen and a diyena. Did you know that you're a doyenne.
Of rates comparison? So tell me about in terms.
Of what now if I'm going out to borrow, and obviously many of our listeners and when they think of lending, their thinking for property. So I'm going out to borrow for property, let's say, on a mortgage as opposed to an investment a home.
What am I? What should I be? What should I be expecting to pay?
Such a good question, and it's a really good one to keep your eye on, particularly if we do see cash right cuts coming down the line. The average owner occupy a variable rate at this point in time is six point three three percent, if for you, and that's by the collected by the RBA they collected from the bank. So it's a fantastic realistic figure of what the average
is playing paying. But of course there's people that are above average and below average, and when it comes to the mortgage, you want to be aiming below, not above. For new customers looking as an owner occupier for a variable rate, they're actually getting a little bit lower as
an average at six point twenty four percent. What that explains to us, it's lovely evidence that a new customer is more likely to get a better deal from a bank than an existing one, even if they're coming in refinancing or haggling, you know, you really they are chasing new business, particularly new home loans. Now those two averages again,
you've still got to go lower. The lowest ongoing variable rate on our database at this point in time, I'm excluding things like green loans here is five point seventy five percent. Now that's significantly lower than six point three three percent, and a lot of people go, oh, but you know it requires a big deposit. I want an offset account. I want a bank that I know, you
know that I've heard the name of. Let me tell you there are over thirty five different lenders on our database with at least one variable rate for owner occupiers under the six percent mark, and some of them include offset accounts. Some of them, you know, will cater to loans that have small deposits, some as little as five
percent for new buyers. But also no, there's not a big four bank in there, but there are spin offs from the big four banks in there, things like Timely Home Loans which is backed by Bendigo Bank, or on Loan, which is backed by CBA. So you might be able to have your cake and eat it too if you do a bit of research when it comes to a competitive rate.
Oh, thank you for that.
That's really interesting, and it seems they are competing. They really are competing at the moment to big banks. There's sperits for they're convincingly competing and the spirits for they're not. It seems they really are at the moment. Oh, there's a margin battle going on inside the Big four.
They did say at one point that they were walking away from that fight, and we saw that at the end when CBA nab westpact they ended the cash back if you remember that, and they said we're walking away from this fire. They've come straight back in as far as I can hell. A and Z still has its cash back on some of its loans. But CBA and A and Z really competing in that digital mortgage space. So CBA's got their Digi homelan, A and Z's got
their A and Z plus home loan. The other day we saw A and Z. You know, it already had the lowest advertised bearable rate out of the big four banks. It cut even further down to six point oh nine percent. I think it is right now, and I've just realized also it comes with an offset account. It's only available to refinances and you have to apply online. You can't really apply through a broker, but at six point oh nine percent, that's highly competitive from a big four bank.
Have you ever looked at in terms of, you know, on loan as you say, come Bank, U Bank, which is actually NAB and you mentioned the one that's actually Bendy Gore.
What was that one again?
Timely Homelans. Yeah, used to be called TikTok, but now it's called Timely. Yeah.
I noticed my daughter her a circle. They're familiar with all these banks and they never know that they're they're backed by the Big four and they're unaware of that and they think they're different banks.
Does that matter? Do you think to people who are borrowing?
Oh, look, as long as you're comfortable with who you are, you know, the bank that you're, the lender that you're borrowing from. You know, as long as you're happy with the customer service, as long as you're happy with the features in your home loan, go out there and get a competitive rate. Does it really matter that it's a big full bank or not? Or does it matter that you know that it's back by a big full bank. It's interesting to see the different strategies with someone like
Timely homelan. You really have to look in the fine print to see that it's backed by Bendigo and Adelaid Bank. But for our loan, their strategy absolutely is to say, hey, we are part of CBA, We're a division of CBA that you know, and that they're hoping is going to bring people in with a cracking rate that's under six percent with that you know CBA logo in the corner. I think it's five point ninety nine at this point.
And they give you a discount for every year that you have the loan with them, so it can drop quite you know, over the coast of line.
But yeah, so it seems to be a different attitude inside the banks too, to this issue that some of them say, yes, you know, we should go on the front foot and say who we are, and others say, let's not, let's not tell them straight away, let's not make it too obvious.
It's interesting.
I'm sure I don't have to see services to know that the it's a younger demographic would go with the online only spin offs of the big four because they don't need that comfort that older investors seem to want when they're in the market. Because you mentioned there you mentioned that you mentioned a panel of rates there a few minutes ago, and you said, yes, there is no I didn't ask you, but you said, yes, there is no big.
Four bank in there.
So it's still it's still an issue for people, whether they are dealing with them or not. So okay, that was the home buyer, the investor then, and the SMSF investor. What would investor going out to buy their first property, what should they be, what should they be aiming for? What's the average and much? And then we'll know what they should be aiming for.
So six point five to nine percent is the average of investor owner occupiers across the board. Yeah, and that we see that quite consistently through the rates. Some people have a lot smaller margins for investors, some have a handful have the same rate for investors and own occupies. The lowest on our database at this point in time is five point nine four percent for an investor on
a variable rate. And I could only find three lenders that were offering investors at least one variable rate under that magical six percent mark, So you know, it's a
lot significantly higher. And if you're aiming to get something under six percent you really, you know, go to be hamstrung for choice there, but just above six percent, we've still got a decent smattering of competitive rates even if you want interest only termed, because I think the banks recognize that, yeah, you might pay slightly more for interest only, but they know that's what a lot of investors are looking for.
They are quite available. Are there two investors interest only?
Absolutely, you do see a much greater proportion of investors taking out that interest only option. I was actually looking at the ABRA data just before this to see the mix in terms of interest only across the board, across the whole loan book. It's sitting at around ten percent, which is incredibly low. We keep looking at this data to see the signs of strets because one of the things if you were struggling to pay the mortgage would be to switch to interest only. We haven't seen a
big uptick in interest only loans. It's squarely in that investor space that you're looking for interest only loan terms. The banks typically only give it to you for five years at a time, that they might extend that after.
That, And it's ten percent of the loans out there are interests only and that's law you're seeing as a portion as that is, because I would have thought if you could get an interest only loan, why wouldn't you This is always a debate I have with people, but I think, like, why on are they would you pay? Principle if it's an investment and you intend to buy it in set it in five ten years time.
Well, it's ten percent across the whole loan book, so that's owner, occupiers and investors combined, So higher percentage when it comes to investors. But you're right, some banks will start nudging you after a while and say, okay, Jones, it's time to start paying down your debt and not just treading water. But it is a popular strategy among investors, that's for sure.
And as you also alluded to there, if on the reverse of all that, if people are starting to have trouble paying, then what they do often is they extend.
If they could move to interest.
Only, or they could make the mortgage longer, move it from twenty five years to thirty years, so thirty to thirty five. That's another thing people are doing, isn't it.
It is a strategy, it's one. It's one of my least favorite strategies.
So explain why you don't like it.
Okay, So, if you are struggling to pay the mortgage, you bring your bank up. What are my options the best Well, one of the best ways would probably be to ask for a brake cut. And I would suggests you call up your bank and ask for a rate cut first before you tell them anything else.
So elementary smart, Yeah, go.
And get yourself on the lowest possible rate. You probably can't refinance at that point if you're in hot water financially. I don't think a new lend is going to take you on. But you know, in that initial phone call they don't need to know that. You just go and get yourself the most cracking rate you can by haggling with your current bank, and you can use interest rates and examples from other banks in that negotiation process, as
you know, perhaps a tactic. But then call them back and say, well, even after that rate cut, I'm still struggling to pay the mortgage. What can you do? And so they could move you on to interest only, they could extend out your loan term, or you could go for part payments. These are three strategies. I'm sure that there are more if you're moving on to interest only terms, they might charge you a slightly higher rate for the privilege of switching to interest only, but you'll see a
significant drop in your monthly repayments, so you should. I don't have the numbers quite handy, but the long term damage of being on in only for a couple of years isn't that perilous when you look at you know, extending out your loan term, for example, So you might be five years into a thirty year term and the bank says, okay, well, James, instead you could extend out
your loan term for another five years. It will see a relatively minor drop in your monthly repayments, but the long term damage of paying interest to your bank for five extra years can sometimes run.
You're going to pay them a lot more, yeah.
Into the ten sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, even on a you know, say six hundred, seven hundred thousand dollar loan. I wish I had the figures for you to pull it out, but it is astounding.
I'm familiar with them. In fact, Sally, I've written on this, and I've showed how how much it costs over a long period of time. And it's true. What you pay less per month is really it's really not much. You know, you're talking, you know, something the order of thirty dollars or something, and then you look at the home you pay. How much more you pay the bank over the fullness of time because you went on for five more years and it's enormous cost as you say, so a very good point.
Very good point.
And I thought the best point of all was folks, it's true. I mean, ring, pick up the phone and ring the bank. And you can haggle. I'm not a great haggler, sally, but when it really matters, I'll do it. Loans, salary, cars, that's about it. I'd probably be exhausted about that. I want to haggle in the shop about the price of a carpet, I couldn't be bothered.
That's not me.
But wherea's big ticket items, and I am. I've done it several times and it has worked, and I've been.
Amazed that they do.
They will work these days, the banks will. They have the capacity to do that. You don't have to talk to the chief of lending or whatever. They have the individual capacity to make it better deal. And they remember they don't want to lose you. Keep that in mind, folks, they do not want to lose you. It's a lot of trouble for them because because you, because you're it's it's a big deal. If you go out the door and if you if you sound like you're serious, then
they will take you seriously and act seriously. All Right, we might go to questions now because we have some great questions. We'll be back in a moment. Hello and welcome back to The Australian's Money Puzzle. I'm James Kirby. I'm talking to Sally Tindall at can Star. We're talking rates, financing loans, savings rates a cant Star as you know as a rate comparison group, so they're very good on this sort of thing, as you can imagine. I'm want
to move to questions now. The first question, I think, what's what would have been beyond both of us Sally, So I took the I took the precaution of asking James Gerard, a financial advisor who's regularly on the show, could the answer this one. But it is from a property investor, Scott. It's from Scott who says, let's say we bought a freestanding house in New South Wales for half a million that has its own mortgage and is an investment property. We then spent two years and three
hundred thousand building a secondary dwelling on the site. It remains a single title. This was financed through an equity release, establishing an additional mortgage secured at the two year mark. Let's say the property is now valued at a million and we sold. This is all hypothetical, folks, and the answer will not be advised. It'll be information to keep
that in mind. Scott says, My assumption is the capital gain here is about half a million, and based on the purchase price and new sale price, or am I missing some complexity about this investment and the cost of the additional bild. I assume there is no scenario where the gain is as little as two hundred k Okay
James says, it's more of an accounting question. My guess is that the capital gain would be assessed based on the cost base, which includes the half million purchase price, three hundred thousand building costs and other expenses as for discounted capital games. The portion of the gain attributable to the initial dwelling would qualify for the discount as it
was held for more than twelve months. However, the portion of the attributable to the new dwelling min I qualified for the discount since it was sold within twelve months. And even James the advisor suggests, I would suggest specialist accounting advice for keep in mind, keeping detailed costs at all levels of the construction would have been crucial. Great answer, James, Thank you very much. Okay, now, Sally, what else have we got here?
From Anna?
I read that the majority of home mortgages are now sold through mortgage brokers?
Is this true? And will it ever change? Oh? It's more and more true, isn't it.
I think it's it's seventy percent now something like that, of course.
So I looked up the stats from the Opera Quarterly Property Exposure Statistics otherwise known as my favorite data set each quarter. It's the treasure trove of information in there. They do have third party originated loans in there, and when you do it as a proportion of all term loans, which we do, it's sitting at sixty two percent. That's
from OPRA. It's risen in recent quarters. I think it was about fifty something back in when rates were at record lows, so it was sitting at we get this right, December twenty twenty quarter it was sitting at fifty five percent, So it's risen since then, I think because a lot of people were opting for those ultra low fixed rate loans and probably doing it themselves straight so a bank, particularly because the big ballbanks were offering it as this
easy fixed advertised rate. Brokers can be incredibly handy, Let's be clear about that. Particularly if you're a first home buyer and you're nervous about entering the mortgage market for the first time, they can really hold your hand and
do the paperwork for you. But if you are a nervous haggler, can pick up the phone and negotiate with your existing bank for you and help you out that way, or they if you are someone who hates paperwork and those deep within yourself that you need to refinance but haven't yet, again, they can be a fantastic resource where they're really prodding you for pay slips and all the information that you might need to refinance, and then sorting it all out and liaising with the bank for you.
So they really do make things happen.
That's the prouse what would the cons be.
So the cons would be I think that they have a limited number of people on their panels. Their panels are getting increasingly bigger.
They don't have all the banks do they like they give them don't give you the best loan out there, but they're just going to give you the best loan from the card that they have, which might be quite a lot of banks, but it will be every product in the market.
Yeah, but also when they work out what is right for you, they will look at, you know, features that you might want in a home loan, your goals, your strategies, that type of thing as well. So they're not just going to the laws rate you know in their book either. They're looking and they're taking a holistic approach. But they
don't have access to every single rate. So for example, when I mentioned those digital loans, particularly from like you know, CBA's unloan and CBAS Digit loan, they're not available by a broker, so you have to apply direct to the bank. I think that's just CBA's way to kind of create a mortgage pathway that's lower cost for them because obviously the banks are paying the broker's commission. It's important to
understand how brokers get paid as well. But the other thing I would say, and this is absolutely not specific to brokers whatsoever, is that with any financial advice, go and get a second opinion. Just go and sense check everything while you're doing it. So before you pick up the phone to a broker, and I highly recommend doing that, have a look at what a competitive rate looks like.
Have a look at, you know, kind of some of the office that you might be able to go and get from the bank, because then you can have an informed conversation with your broker about what might not suit you and what might not suit you, and they can tell you, well, look, Jane, your you know your strategy is X. So you really need to be looking at these options in order to shape that and then you will understand and be able to follow that conversation.
Yes, okay, very good.
Yeah, So don't don't ring them knowing nothing. Listen to this show for instance, and then ring them. You see, that will give you to be perfect. It would be a perfect own trade. Okay, folks. Now, one or two other questions. This one is I'm surprised you don't get it more often, but it's co It's from Darren, and he says, very simply, can you explain that division two nine to three tax? It sounds to me like an additional tax. Aren't earnings in excess of two hundred and fifty thousand a year?
Is this correct? Yes?
First of all, Darren's completely correct. So if you hear anyone complaining about the division two nine three tacks, well, folks, you'll know they're on more than two hundred and fifty because they'll be What happens is, to be precise, you do your let's say you're doing your Super contributions and you want to get the concessional tax rate pre tax rate, which is thirty You can in thirty grand pre pretext
as they say. Now what happens is the tax office you see, comes along and says, ah, you are more than two fifty, and so the claw back some would you believe?
Would you believe the bit of.
Advantage you get in putting the money into Super, which is by no means marvelous, but it's something. They close it back on a scale basis. Once you're over a threshold, and that's division two nine three, and Darren, you're just completely right. Nothing else to say there. We can go into detail, but that's basically it.
Okay.
Now, the final piece of correspondence is from Bruce, and it's sort of the nature of a question, but I will read it once I've asked Sally whether she's aware of fire and the fire movement. Are you familiar with the whole thing?
Sally?
I am. You gave me a little bit of a heads up though, as well, and so I read up on it even further before this conversation.
It's what do you think, what do you think of? What do you think of?
What's your initial got reaction to it? Financial independence early?
It sounds fabulous, but let's it's not going to suit everyone, and it's not achievable for everyone. So I think about my mother who's well over seventy and still working and it fulfills her and her work is a large part of her identity and has really you know, if she had retired early, I think that would have actually been a negative outcome for her. I think it's been really positive that she's continued working well into her seventy So
it's not for everyone. There's a lot of people that know exactly what they're going to do with that extra spare time and they're going to have a fantastic time. And if they've got the finances to fund it, that's fantastic. But other people will find that they don't like retirement as much as they thought they did.
Yeah, I'm a bit like you.
I like the.
First part financial independence. Sure, yes, go for it, retiring early. I don't know that's up to that's up to everybody want to do.
But I suppose a positive way to read it would be that if you had financial independence, then your attitude towards your job would be quite different than if you didn't. And there's no two ways about it. If you have that, if you have that financial in dependence and the ability to say get lost, I can walk away from here anytime.
I don't need to see any psychiatric evaluations or surveys to know that that is so much better and people are in such a better frame of mind, and maybe for that alone, the Fire movement is worth is worth checking out. So that's the Fire Movement, folks. I want to read just I'll read an ex tract only from something we got from Bruce. But it's very thoughtful and we have had lots of correspondence on fire, so this is this one. Just hear me out here. It's just
about four paragraphs. Thanks for the recent program on the Fire movement. I retired sort of earlier, fifty five, almost nineteen years ago. That is not so early in terms of say what Joe the Minx did, Joe the Minx being the author of the famous book, but early enough for me, and certainly much earlier than what I had envisaged when I started work at the age fifteen. You see,
he started at fifteen. It's quite different to retire at sixty or sixty five if you start at fifteen, compared to the current generation who've probably done third level, probably don't start work till they're twenty two, three or four. However, after reading Your Money or Your Life by Joe the Minx and Vicki Robin, I read many other books in similar but slightly different veins, and decided fifty five was
the age for me. I've never regretted the decision. However, here's three comments won the book might have started the movement. I recalled that Joe's philosophy was all about investing in government bonds and holding them to maturity. And living on the dividends of these bonds. This approach took risk out of the equation. Two subsequent books by other author has looked at survivability of portfolios of twenty percent cash and eighty percent shares, looking at the performance all the way
back to the US Civil War. The thesis was that by taking not more than four percent living expenses, the funds would never run out, and folks probably where they got the four percent draw down. You know, for retirees in Australia to think about it, it's no coincidence. And the third point from Bruce is the retire early strategy worked well for Joe de Mink because he retired at thirty one.
He died at fifty eight.
Had he planned to retire at sixty five, he would have missed out retirement completely. A lot of other interesting points from Bruce. The last part of it, this is the best book I have found of the whole lot, was The Joy of Not Working by Ernie Zelenski. That's Ernie Zelenski z e l I n Ski and he says the truth is in my retirement, I never found enough time to do all the things I want to do, and none of that includes travels. Since I had a
long career, I did so much travel. I was a Quantus Platinum flat frequent flyer, and the novelty of traveling war off many years ago. However, there are tons of pursuits that cash up retarities can enjoy if they do a little analysis. Thank you, Bruce. Very good piece of correspondence. Very nice way to end the show. And that's something I imagine we will come back to. I could give you a piece of corresponds from about the Fire movement
every week if we wanted to, because people don't. It's just captured people's imaginations.
Sally. That's no bad thing.
If it gets people's imaginations, gets them talking, gainst them thinking.
Yeah, thinking about financial independence too. I love that it's you know, breaking free of your job, if you choose to breaking you know, not having a mortgage to be shackled, to having enough for your savings to be able to cope with any kind of emergency. It's fantastic feeling.
Yes, of course, and we can't recall those stresses if you've managed to climb out of that particular phase of life. But it's something that everyone should aspire to. Okay, terrific folks. Keep the emails coming. The money puzzle at the Australian dot Com Dot You. Today's guest was Sally Tendal of cancer. I thank you, Sally, really good as always, love you to talk to.
You, Thank you for having me. James love being here.
And thanks too to Leah Samba GLU for producing today's show.
Talk to You Soon.
Really the fast sum the plant so