476 | From $30k Debt to a $2.78M Portfolio: How He Rebuilt His Finances and Confidence After a Failed Business Venture - Chat with James

And Ben Kingsley , chair of Property Investors Council of Australia and a back-to-back winner of the Property Investment Advisor of the Year Award , and both are partners of the multi-award winning Empower Wealth , co-creators of Moor , the Freelife Style Design app , as well as best-selling authors of the Armchair Guide to Property Investing and Make Money Simple Again .

Stay tuned as they bring you the Insiders Guide to Property Finance and Money Management .

In talking I said , mum , do not bring your West Australian paradigm over here , because if you're in Perth , you look out the window in the morning , you can dress for the whole day based on what you see . But I said not here . Four seasons in one day . And about an hour later the blue sky disappeared and it was raining .

Tell us a little bit about that .

I had a really good upbringing . My mum and dad were great . We were probably my dad was an agronomist so we moved around a lot , from started in Perth to Esperance , then we moved to Canada and then we sort of finished up in northern until we finally made our way back as a family to Perth . So that was challenging but an exciting all at the same time .

And yeah , it was . I wouldn't say we were a wealthy family . We're probably materialistic , poor , but experienced rich because we got to see different parts of the world . And yeah , dad's job allowed us to move around and see different places .

But from money chatting around the dinner table there definitely was conversations about it we sort of knew we didn't have a heap of money and a lot of the time we'd go to different parks and I still remember my heart breaking when dad would say , alright , we'll stay in the car , kids , I'm just going to go see how much it costs to be able to go to this

waterslide park or something else , and he would come back and say sorry , kids , it's just a little bit too expensive , we're not going to be able to go , and I still remember that to this day . So it must have really affected me , but it sort of showed me that you don't get everything that you ask for .

So which in hindsight has been a great lesson for me and we do a lot of two dollar chores . They were called so walking the dog , mowing the lawn , cleaning the bathrooms , the toilets , so you had to earn your pocket money . You weren't given anything , so that happened two or three times a week .

You had to do your chores , and if you wanted more money then you had to do more jobs . So then that turned into . I reckon mum did a good job with delegating , because by the time I was 10 and my little brother was 7 , we were all having one night a week having to cook for the family .

So she got to bring her cooking days down to only two or three , which was pretty smart by her .

So it was fun moving around , but it meant you had to keep making new friends and certainly took everyone out of their comfort zone . But yeah , it was good .

You've got to live the experience around that .

So things like that , where we spent half the day there and again , that's one of my favourite memories growing up , all four of us kids and mum saying I don't know if you should be doing this darling .

But yeah , those types of things I look back at kicking the footy with my dad and those types of activities that didn't cost much but they were sort of a highlight of my childhood .

So I only know this now because I get to have adult conversations with my parents , which is great , but at the time , obviously unaware and oblivious . But we were supposed to have dinner that night . We were supposed to eat somewhere but we were on the roads . We had to .

It was going to be takeout , but dad came back and said alright , kids , for dinner we're all going to share this big six litre ice cream . We went beauty how good is this then I remember there was an argument between mum and dad , that so . But anyway , what had actually happened was dad was in control of finances . That was all the money .

That was all he could afford to buy in the account . So we actually couldn't afford dinner , that . So they were obviously redlining and really taking it to the limit . So after that , that was the changing point , when mum took control of finances .

You know , I've never had this let's , you know , enjoy it with the family , and this is an experience I never got to have . So I think it more stemmed from he was just never really taught .

But that also meant that , you know , he got to start his own own agronomy business and I got to sort of see when things went well , you know , the family would be able to do more experiences and do things , and then when things didn't go as well for the business and things pulled back , that you know things got very tight and it was very much we'd sort of

go back into that very budget mindset from my mum . So yeah , it was sort of fascinating seeing both of them work together , but credit to them obviously quite different personality , wise and risk tolerances , but we're always sort of talking about it from the same front . So they were always sort of you could never work mum against dad or dad against mum .

They were always batting for the same team , I guess .

The other example of that is , you know , grabbing an old tire tube and rolling down a river . Like you know , you didn't pay an admission fee to get on the river , you know , and I'm sure the tire tube was relatively cheap and a couple of paddles . So I think you know that's another example of just being creative , I mean .

These days , they've got to have the best devices and you know , they've got to have the latest games and you know , as opposed to the stuff which you know bought a lot of cheap memories and good frills which were potentially just get on your bike , go down the park do something .

Mum said it was 20 years of hard labour , but then it's a lifetime of wonderful adult friendship and I've got a lot of friends that have got little kids and they're sort of going through hard times trying to work out , sleeping , and there was a few people that really resonated with because I was a pretty hard kid and having four kids running around , kicking

footies , breaking windows . You know we had a lot of energy in our house WWE . We were always wrestling each other as well , yeah , so I thought that . Yeah , I thought mum really summed that up really well .

But it now sounds like that your mum's probably nudging to say I've still got a decade to go because my youngest is 10 . But the lifetime of wonderful adult friendship , I really like that perspective . So you then get to some form of independence , mate , whether it's at 20 or 21 or 18 , whatever it is .

Can you tell us what the money management looked like for you when you got your first job ? Because you've had this contrast from mum going all right here's the structure and your dad with the impulse and you've seen some of the fruits of that impulse around his business that you just described .

So what sort of money identity do you take on as you start to have your first taste of independence ?

I thought I was always just going to be an AFL footballer and that would be the end . So then I went okay , well , I love sports , so I'll go out and come with his ed teacher .

And so I went to uni and worked at a football club , going around and helping do football clinics at schools for young kids , for different disabled programs , which was awesome fun and I absolutely love that . And then , while I was at uni , I started doing realized it's pretty expensive petrol , pretty expensive buying food at uni .

I'm going to need to do a little bit more . So I started throwing uni parties and so that was sort of a second job . So I was trying to . I certainly was not saving at this stage , I was just surviving and socializing .

But yeah , that was really good fun until I was about to graduate and just realized that I loved events and really enjoyed the organizing and the marketing and the yeah , I guess the social dynamics of how do you make a good event and why is there a bad event and how do you sell tickets and why do these ones succeed and whatnot , so sort of kept doing that

and ended up deciding to go down that route at that stage of my life , rather than even though I my friends always joke around because a few of them are teachers , great teachers , but they call me practically a teacher because I did all my crack and was ready to go and then never ended up using it .

I couldn't believe that once you employed more than 10 people , you got payroll tax . Now why am I getting taxed if I have to , if I'm actually creating jobs and giving money ? I now get another tax on top of that .

And then bass was the whole other thing and there certainly wasn't saving for bass , and so it was just a year of just working things out and hadn't really having no idea what I was doing , but certainly learning some big lessons along the way .

I think you pivoted to another career right .

So then I was doing the bar with a business partner and he could see that it was going well and he had a full-time job in construction at the time , so he wanted to be venue managing , just like me . So we ended up buying a rundown restaurant and doing it up as a Spanish tapas restaurant , which you know . It sounded great and the plans were good .

But then turns out running a bar and running a restaurant are two very different businesses and I had to learn when was the ? restaurant . What was that ? Where was the restaurant ? It was in the CBD , so in Shaftolane , so it was sort of a place where people would go for a coffee in the morning from 6am through to 11pm at night .

There'd be people going in there for a cocktail , but it was very much food-based and I realised people when they're walking into a bar they're happy to . You know , take a couple minutes as you're standing behind the bar and then you'll eventually get someone and you order your beer and you're happy .

As long as the beer is okay and it's cold and you've got enough head on it , that's all that matters . Whereas a restaurant you've got seven or eight points of contact and if you stuff up one of them you're getting a bad review and then , if you get enough bad reviews , people are going to stop going to your business . So learn that the hard way .

You know rents were going up at that stage as well and just did not manage that and did not foresee how many extra costs there were in a restaurant versus a bar .

So anyone listening that runs a restaurant and has been doing it for a long time making a profit , I've got huge kudos to you because that is one of the hardest business models to make work and you're working so hard as the owner , you've got to be the one you know that's keeping on top of it , making sure the staff are , you know , doing the right thing for

the customers . It's a hard business model ?

So I made money on the bar and then lost money on the restaurant and then ended up selling both of those businesses just because I was just super stressed , overworked , was opening the restaurant up at 6am and then a lot of the time , you know , would be closing at 11pm and around around I went and wasn't going forward .

So that was a really tough point in my life and I'd work out well , what do I do from here ? I thought , you know , I could do a hospitality in events , but it hasn't worked for me . So I thought I was going to be , you know , an AFL player , and that didn't work for me either . So what am I good at ?

There was a lot of self-doubt at that point in my life and I would have spent a few months sort of just reflecting and just trying to think well , what do I need to be better at ? Why have some of these things not worked ?

And what I worked out with from the business side is I just didn't manage the finances and didn't do the proper planning and do the proper budgeting before I'd been jumped into the businesses . So , yeah , I had a mentor of mine who said well , why don't you get into mortgage-broken ? You've got to be good with people . You know you're good at math .

You're just not good at planning and budgeting . So that would probably be something you'd be good at , provided you got the right training and you did enough , enough work around that , and you can . You know you can have a mentor that can show you all these things . So I ended up following his advice . Not because .

I thought I would absolutely love mortgage broken . I thought that it would be a really stable job and something that I could build and it wouldn't have that volatility of a cool restaurant and then it's no longer a cool restaurant or it's an awesome bar that everyone's going to and then a bar around the corner then opens up .

So I just knew that I needed to get better with my money management , my finances , and it ended up being I'm really proud of myself for doing it and end up doing it for seven years because I got to . I got to open up the hood of all these friends of mine .

Some were doing awesome , some were doing not so awesome , but some looked like they were doing awesome on Instagram and then I got to have a look at their savings and they you know their leverage with this , and then they've got finance on the car and they're just just surviving , Whereas these other friends of mine that had never really spoken about them doing

well and their Instagram certainly didn't look flashy , and they're the ones with the biggest amount of wealth and all these savings and they're about to buy an investment property . So that was probably the biggest light bulb moment for me . I went that's who I want to be and , yeah , not the other one .

So I'm having all these conversations with close friends to begin with , because you know who else is going to trust someone starting out in a job other than your close friends and family ?

So I went , okay , well , this is definitely what I should be doing and I want to do it and I think I'll be good at it and I'll be able to help my close friends and family . But I'm not going to get paid for probably six or nine months because I didn't go on a .

It wasn't a wage , I was very much , you know , paycheck to paycheck as your commissions come in . So I went I'm going to have to do something to try to clear this , this $30,000 . So I started just doing . I had like four jobs at the time .

You know I've moved into a boarding house out of Wesley College and that was an awesome community to get around and that meant that I could live for free , I could eat for free and I just took care of the boys at night time make sure they were going to bed and that sort of thing taking them on a few excursions , coaching the footy team just got involved in

a lot of things there . I'd be DJing down at the Windsor Hotel on a Sunday , so I was just doing anything just to be able to survive and just to start paying down that debt . And that was when . That was when I came across your podcast .

So one of my good friends , jared , he , sent me through your podcast in 2016 and it honestly changed my life , boys , because at that stage I hadn't learnt that much yet in mortgage broken and that was . It was like every Thursday I'd listened to your podcast and I just was building more and more on my knowledge .

And I think it was I think it was Bryce , you mentioned about debt snowball and that was when I was in 30k of debt and I went , yeah , okay .

So I looked into a little bit more and decided to do the small debts first , just because I think more psychologically for me felt like I could be ticking things off rather than going for the biggest debt , even though that was more than the highest interest rate .

So eventually , yeah , knocked that debt off from just doing whatever I could and slowly started to build up a savings account and by the time that I would have been buying an off the plan apartment , I'd listened to enough content from you boys .

I still drive past this apartment complex that I can see today , and I think it'd be guys every time I do , because I would have bought an off the plan apartment in an okay suburb , but certainly it wouldn't have done what property .

A couple of things . If people were looking at you and they were seeing that you're at Wesley and you're coaching the footy club and you were deejaying down at the Windsor Hotel , is that the South Perth Windsor Hotel ? Yeah , it is .

You're down at the Windsor Hotel in South Perth and if you started posting Instagram shots , your life would have looked pretty good . Your whole life's real would have looked pretty good , I would have thought . But if people can get behind the scenes ? So I really wanted to sort of lean into that what you were saying before about as a mortgage broker .

You saw these Instagram lifestyles that weren't making sense on paper , but it's a really useful reinforcing point for people that are listening to this , because things aren't always as they seem .

Jim Rohn said that things aren't always as they seem and I think if people can really get that to land , because here you are with the look of everything's going okay and yet you were $30,000 in debt . So that's one thing too Debt snowball versus debt avalanche If you go to Make Money .

Simple again our book , we talk about debt avalanche , which is actually pay off the most expensive debt first , whereas the debt snowball is pay off the smallest debt first , irrespective of cost . So you have some wins and it's interesting to see how people tackle that , because the debt avalanche is actually the statistically smartest thing to do , right .

But the debt snowball actually plays into human psychology and I think that's the reason why it works , because we've talked a lot about it being 20% science and 80% behavior .

The science of reducing your debt says you should do debt avalanche , but the behavior side of the debt says that a lot of people get more benefit out of doing debt snowball , and so that's interesting that you do that and I thought it's worth leaning , because some people will be listening to them going what are those terms ?

They are different ways of tackling debt and the path that you chose is a spreadsheet would spit out an answer and say you've taken the wrong path . But the fact that you actually did it and you gained your psychology and your behavior around . Reducing that debt is something that's really good . So , mate , how did it feel to get to the end of that ?

Snowballs run down the mountain and , all of a sudden , you've paid it off . What did that feeling feel like ?

What do I wanna move to ? And I started believing myself that I can do . Whatever the next goal is gonna be , I'm gonna be able to do it .

So , yeah , I just kept saving and it just got me in a much better mindset . So I think , just from the other probably thing outside of paying down the debt was a lot of your mindset minute things that you talk about , bryce , that probably led me oh , it did . It did lead me down a path of self development and starting to look for other podcasts .

I think it was Jamie , was that the guy that spoke about his ? He was a pastor and he said it's very much , ben , what you love to talk about . If it is to be , it's up to me . He worked out that he doesn't wanna be putting it in someone else's control .

He wants to take control of his own life and his actions and rather than relying on God or on family , and that really struck me .

I remember walking around Hillary's Boat Harbour listening to that episode and , yeah , that episode was the one that I went okay , I'm gonna get into more self development , but I'm not great at sitting down and reading , but I do love to walk and run or even swim , get podcasts as I'm swimming now , and that just taught me so much from just all these different

podcasts I won't go into , but that just got me as a person in a much better space and it was funny . Then I ended up meeting my now wife once . I was in a really good head space and a really good financial space as well .

Can you tell us a little bit about the spruces that you were exposed to when you were a mortgage broker ?

So , again , I had no idea what spruces were , but and I was just at the time starting at the mortgage-breaking business and any leave was a good lead and I was just trying to put food on the table at that stage and , yeah , was certainly learning as I went and would ask my mental questions , but it wasn't like every single hour he was able to answer all my

questions . So I was very much sort of having to work a lot of things out myself which is why your podcast was so good and realised I can't remember what episode it was , but when it was talking about spruces and you went into a little bit more depth about it , I realised shit , I'm actually working with two spruces here . What do I do ?

So I finished off the there might have been one or two deals in the pipeline that I'd committed to and then , yeah , as hard as it was at that stage because I wasn't earning much money , I said , sorry , guys , I'm not gonna be able to take your leads on anymore , which they weren't super impressed about .

Just because I knew that now that I knew this information , that this is not gonna be giving people the greatest results in the future , I'm not gonna be able to sleep well at night . So .

So that's actually a rare event that you were able to navigate . And how did you find other ways to be able to do your craft if you weren't taking the leads from the spruces ?

Looking at valuations for clients that are wanting to buy an investment property , there's no equity there for them to be able to purchase another investment property , or if they're looking to move and sell , they're in negative equity . So it was a lot of meetings , a lot of driving around and this is before , before digitalization of the mortgage-breaking industry .

So it was just a lot of kilometers and a lot of dollars spent for really building up a great network , but a lot of people that couldn't actually do anything . So that's when I started doing events on the side to be able to keep earning enough , so then I could keep saving .

So I went back to my original passion , which I absolutely loved , and originally just did it just because I knew that I'd get the business , the mortgage-breaking business , to a stage where that would be able to pay for everything and provide a good life . But I just knew at that point in time it wasn't going to be able to pay for enough .

So , and I didn't have a home that I was living in at that stage I was still living at Wesley .

So I started doing events , you know , just on Saturday nights and then on Sundays , and then started doing some summer beach festivals and other bits and pieces just around the mortgage-breaking 9 to 5 , monday to Friday , to be able to keep that savings increasing and keep moving forward rather than sort of staying stationary .

You were helping people into these leads enthusiastically saying , well , this is a good thing , until you knew otherwise . So I think it's . I think it's a reasonable point to lean in on . And enthusiastic amateur still has integrity , their heart still in the right place for the client . You're trying to deliver the best service .

But the fact that you are an amateur , even though it's enthusiastic , still means that the clients can still be getting the wrong outcome . Are you happy if we , if I , was to label you because I've been an enthusiastic amateur plenty of times over the journey ? Can you identify with that ?

And looking back now , now that I know the correct structure on how to do that , I was , I was doing those investment loans not , you know , cross collateralizing it and those types of things which at the time , that's what I was advised , you know , by a BDM of that bank , because that means they're going to , you know , keep more clients and more revenue .

So I was definitely you can definitely label that for me because I was very enthusiastic , but I was definitely an amateur and I reckon it probably took , I reckon nearly over three years before I started to really understand structures you know correctly from an investment point of view .

And so you know that two to three year program that it took for you to sort of get a grasp of strategy first , and then tactic second and then execution third . You know , so that plan to become what you plan to become piece is really important when you're in a professional advisory role .

So the fact that you became eventually and you obviously got to that sort of you know investments-heavy broker and you're able to do all of that sort of work and you're obviously quite successful at it because you know you were able to then start to pivot your journey so you get rid of your debt , and that's probably a really nice little segue into telling us

about the property investment journey and what you've been able to fantastically create on the back of you know , those past experiences and you're someone who wants to touch the pot to see if it really is hot . Oh , yes , it is hot . You know you'll try and learn , try and learn , walk a mile , see a mile type approach . So take us into the journey of right .

You're now thinking about money in a different way . You're thinking about how money can make money for you . You've got an advanced business on the side there and in a lot of cases , a lot of people make their wealth through business and usually investing more into your business whether it be capital or time can potentially extrapolate that .

But you were smart enough to also identify that there's passive investment opportunities there as well , and you know , you realize that you could potentially do that through property . So take us through that learning process that you went through to sort of say , I really like this idea of passive investing , and you know , and then , how you went about that journey .

So I felt like I had enough knowledge from a financing structure point of view and then I felt like I had enough knowledge from what assets are now going by through your free podcast , which was just again , absolutely life changing , and I say this on behalf of everyone that's a listener that isn't going to go on the show and is too nervous and doesn't want to

share their story or too busy .

Thank you , both Gents , for the amount of content that you put out and the amount of change that you have done in the Perth and Australian property market , because , yeah , you've changed so many people's lives with the free content you put out and I'm sure your business is successful because of the ethics that you two Gents have .

But there's so many people that , like me , haven't used your services but have used your knowledge and all your teachings and going out and putting in practice to better my life but better everyone else's life that's also used that same knowledge . So I just wanted to say thank you first of all , boys .

And then , what type of asset strategy did you decide on , based on your cash flows ?

I hadn't proposed at this stage , but I knew that I was going to propose and she was the one which made life so much more better and made me way more content and it was yeah , it's an awesome thing when , yeah , you're then doing it as a team and it's not just me listening to Polkars , and I can actually roof it with my partner .

She's from the UK , so she was only supposed to be here for three months and six years later she's still here . But we had a lot of battles about what we're going to buy , because we knew we wanted to buy that . You know we'd love to have a family in the future , so we knew that we wanted to buy our family home to begin with .

Before we looked at buying an investment property and we had the savings there ready to go and we were looking , actually in Vic Park for these nice cottage houses that we thought would be really good , and then we were looking in other suburbs .

We actually spent four or five months every weekend we'd cycle around together of a different suburb that we were interested in buying in , just to get a real feel for all the streets and we had so many arguments .

A few times Harriet just cycled , cycled back to the car , which is bad enough , because I was pushing very much for more , the cheaper end , and she was very much pushing for the more expensive . And her argument was well , I haven't decided to live in Perth , to live away from the ocean , so why can't we just buy in Cotteslay ?

So we had all these arguments and we ended up coming to a middle ground and deciding on Scarborough , because Scarborough hadn't gone through much growth at that stage and you had these suburbs all around it . Trigg is a beautiful suburb and again quite a wealthy suburb . And then you go south and then you've got City Beach . So again two fantastic coastal suburbs .

But then Scarborough , it's sort of a bit of a mixture of apartments and it's a real energy and I absolutely love it . But it was still quite affordable when we were looking . So we started looking for property there because you can walk to the beach . It's a bit hard with public transport but you can still drive 15 minutes to the city .

You've got all these bars and cafes and restaurants that you can walk to . They just finished this big redevelopment of the foreshore , so it went from a very much like a party spot to very family friendly and then Sunday come 9pm at certainly a party spot down on that foreshore . But yeah , it looked like a great spot to bring up a family .

So we were sort of sold on that because we could afford it and it wasn't stretching us too much . And then it was just coming down to we know the suburb . Now we need to work out what we can actually afford with our money and that was when COVID then hit and we were looking at buying existing .

But then we wanted to buy something big enough so then Harrod's family when they come over to stay with us from the UK that they could then stay with us too . I wasn't super keen on sharing the TV with my AFL on the TV and having her dad with the EPL on , so I thought it would be great to get a granny flat , if possible with their own living area .

And then I started hearing whispers in the industry about a building grant that was going to be , that was potentially going to be getting announced , and then I heard actually you guys mentioned it as well on your podcast that there was going to be stimulus going to kick start the construction industry because the pipeline was falling off a cliff .

So I pivoted because prices were still actually going at a reasonable price and they certainly weren't dropping during that period in Scarborough . So we pivoted and spoke about how about we build ?

There's a block of land that's in the perfect spot that we'd love to live in , we're in an okay rental situation at the moment and then we can build this house and then have this granny flat attached . So we went , put an offer on land before anything got announced publicly .

From a grant perspective , and because I was in the finance industry , I knew our income and we were first home buyers . So I thought if they're going to give out grants , they're going to be giving it out shortly to first home buyers under this certain income threshold , and so we had enough money to be able to finance it ourselves anyway without it .

But it was a good hanging I guess low hanging fruit . That would just really help our LVR if we were to be able to get that . So then we pulled the trigger quite quickly with a really long settlement , so then we could then engage a builder to get all the designs and everything done up .

So we had our plans ready to go by the time our block had settled and we got to submit that straight away . And then by that stage everyone had their , the grants that were out , and then everyone was fighting over all the land in Perth .

So we were super lucky and we certainly didn't complain about any little bits and pieces . The builder didn't quite get perfectly by completion time because understood that they probably didn't make too much of a margin on our house .

So we were just stoked to be able to get in and there was a you know a couple of minor delays , but they did a really good job considering what the whole building industry was going through .

Okay , so that's 2020 , and now you're sort of fast tracked or accelerated your planning because there's more properties to come . So take us to that next part of the story .

We knew we could pull the trigger on something that was worthwhile and following all the rules that I've learnt from both of you , gents , and it was just as interest rates there's a lot of noise around interest rates , so Perth had been pretty hot , like the whole , all of Australia , and then all of a sudden everyone was talking about interest rates are about to

rise . So things just sort of dropped off all of a sudden in Perth and I went oh , this is probably the moment to pull the trigger because we can afford , you know , if interest rates do go up to five or six or seven percent , provided we get the right asset .

And so we ended up going to home open and there was a fair few people there , but no one ended up putting an offer on . So we ended up getting that at a pretty good price . And again , same sort of thing in the suburb of Bayswater , beautiful suburb near the river , not too far away from the CBD , about 15 minutes from the CBD .

It was also going through a lot of redevelopment at that stage because it was essentially a construction site , because the Metro Net is building all these , as you Gents would know , building all these new train stations connecting Perth a lot better , which is really great policy .

By the way , it's looking fantastic now and so I just thought , you know , in a year's time this is going to be an awesome place to live , but right now it absolutely sucks because of all the work that's going on .

And I looked at the plans and there's all these cafes that are going to be going on in underneath the Bayswater train station and only two stops from the airport , and so we ended up pulling the trigger on a property , a nice sort of cottage that , yeah , 1930s built but had recently sort of been redone , with a whole roof and whatnot , and it also had a

granny flat out the back actually . So I saw that as , if interest rates do really rise a fair bit , then there's potential to be able to get two lots of income rather than one . So that was sort of the , even though it is a bit closer to the train line than I'd probably like . So you do hear the noise .

That was the thing that was making me decide whether it was a good decision or not , but like one of your podcasts , I think , you said you're never going to get the perfect property . There's always going to be an eight out of 10 or something like that . So there's always going to be something that you're going to have to accept isn't quite perfect .

But the more and more density that Perth gets , the more and more you're going to be thankful that you're in a suburb with the train , and that'll probably become less . But tell us , talk to us about Harriet , right ? So you've compromised from Cotteslow to Scarborough , which was well played by you , and for those it's the only .

It's the suburb with the only high rise on the West Coast of Australia that Alan Bond somehow got through Council back in the 80s ?

And then I guess the third part about it is did you cycle around Bayswater as well ?

So yeah , it certainly wasn't just sort of sitting along the ride and just backing me in with whatever . She knew that I love learning about property and it is a safe investment at the UK . You know she's seen what the UK market has done for her parents so she understands that that's a good place to put your money .

But yeah , she certainly needed , you know , a few months of discussions and going back and forth before she was comfortable enough to support pulling the trigger on an investment property . And once I sort of had to show the numbers , show the type of property and how that wouldn't you know , wouldn't too negatively impact our life .

Because usually if you have a good experience then normally you can continue to rinse and repeat , right . So tell us about you know sort of what it's been like to then make that final step . About the third purchase .

But overall the tenants have been great . We didn't get any any uplifting price though , because you know that's when that run really then started with the RBA and lifting rates . So that was so I was sort of looking and going .

You know it is an extra bit of a headache and you do have to , you know , be engaged and manage things and it's not all rainbows and butterflies . But I knew that long term that it was it was , it was the right call and because it's a you know very much , it was a construction site you know for a lot of last year and early this year .

I guess it didn't surprise me that much that prices didn't really move during that period and we're in it for the long haul anyway . So I just knew that .

You know , worry about that in 20 years time and then and then so we got to the yeah , so the next , the next property again probably needed two months of back and forth discussions with my wonderful wife Harriet , and I've tried to get her onto the podcast . She , just as in , tried to make a listen to it , but she's just not that interested , unfortunately .

I knew we'd already had the conversations about you know where my business had had had a sorry I'd finished more with broken by by this stage because my events company had had some really successful couple of couple years .

So I we had some funds to be able to put into into something and I wanted to make sure it wasn't into a new car or into , you know , a boat or something I knew I wanted to put that into property .

So we'd sort of already had that conversation but we hadn't decided that now is the time to pull the trigger until February came along and I'm playing your podcast and and she's having to listen to it begrudgingly and you guys started talking about Perth and I knew that I look at the numbers and I'm now nerd with this sort of thing , so I knew it was looking

good , but with you guys in my years , for six , seven years . it sort of just gave me that last push of confidence to go . Yeah , it is a good time to pull the trigger , Because when this cash rate does start to start to drop , whenever that is the Perth market supplies , just we're not building up homes and there's so many people coming in .

So , yeah , that was the final push I sort of needed to . And then , yeah , the next week we were looking at a property that had been on the market for 30 something days and no one had put an offer in and it was . You know , it has own Ikea Pire here .

Once it has a little bit of a Renault , it needs a bit of love , whereas all the beautifully renovated homes in the summer we're going for , you know well above . So we ended up pulling the trigger on that one , with tenants in there and it's got subdivision potential and we'll look to do that at some point in the future .

But yeah , at this stage that one's just a hold and we'll worry about that later .

So there's a couple of if people haven't got the sense from you know the last bit of the conversation we have that you're going to be successful , james , based on your resilience and your ability to keep getting back up and taking action .

One thing you just said a second ago is the biggest clue you've left in this entire podcast about your current and future success .

You said I'll worry about that in 20 years time , when someone starts talking about time horizons that are in decades , that is the very clue that gives us the full appreciation of where you will take this property portfolio , because the people who have too short a time horizon are usually the ones who get influenced by external noise and all of the things that are

happening . But you're going . My time horizon is so long , but okay , we've got some fluctuations in interest rates . Now you're starting to already think about what's going to happen when interest rates come down . That's a cyclical thing and that's a time horizon thing . So that's incredible that you see it that way .

So you now have a portfolio of properties on the north side of Perth in really great suburbs . So in the backstory you were happy to disclose what that portfolio looks like . Are you comfortable sort of talking to what you've built that to now ?

And there's still properties that I still look at realestatecom , even though you know we're capped out for probably the next few years , so I'm going to have to sit on my hands , which which is okay , but there's still .

You know , there's still some good properties out there and prices compared to your Melbourne's and your Brisbane's , and you're not that far away from the CBD . So I know the market's really hot right now , but it is still affordable , especially here in Perth . So , yeah , I think you've just .

My advice would probably be you know , just do whatever you have to do to get that savings up , to be able to pull the trigger .

And if you're lucky enough to be able to have parents that can help you out , you know you don't have to get that second job , maybe so lucky you , but but if you don't have parents that are able to help you out , like us , then then you're going to have to do it yourself .

And if you end up doing it yourself , yeah , you're probably the self , the , the pride you're going to feel of doing it yourself is is something really awesome . So I'd really recommend people just grit their teeth and and go make it . Make it for themselves .

And you know , hopefully they don't get into the 8% , but if they do , I'll get a second job , I'll get a third job to make it work .

Lifestyle choices , spend time with your family , travel , being able to provide for your family and security . You've given us a hint about the when you were growing up being experience rich , what , what , what are those things actually mean to you ? If you tried to land the plane , what is that ? What ? What sort of lifestyle choices do you want ?

What sort of what sort of family time are you actually chasing ? What are the travel experiences that are really important to you ? And and I'll be really keen to understand what what does security actually mean to you ?

My goal is to make sure that they have an awesome retirement and money is not a thing that's going to need to be worried about . And , yeah , I mean my dream , dream goal is to be able to take , you know , all our siblings and family big extended family and parents , you know on holidays and enjoy , you know faces overseas all together .

I love my snowboarding because we lived in Canada . That was where I sort of got introduced to the snow , so I'd love to , yeah , even make an annual big family holiday that I could maybe help out some of my family members to be up to , to get over there every year .

So that's probably a bit of a North Star at the moment that I'm focusing on , but I guess from a security point of view , it's yeah , I always knew I didn't want to have to worry about money and I guess the next challenge is going to be , you know , if and when Harry and I have kids still , I guess , giving them enough grit and not being being handed

things . They've got to go earn it for themselves but still give them a great life . So I'm sure that'll be the next challenge when we do have kids . And , yeah , how to make sure that they don't just get handouts but they get to have the same satisfaction as what Harry and I have in life with doing it ourselves .

There will be a pause , I suspect , as you start to have kids and that cashflow impact and so , but at the end of the day , you've got the power of compounding behind you , and so as those kids get older and you start thinking and looking into the future , around those sort of five year , 10 year , those decade periods , that's where you'll fulfill the lifestyle

choices that you'll be able to be able to generate . And second to that , the time with family that will start to show up more and more .

So as the debt to value ratio starts to change around and these properties become more cashflow reliant on rent and less on you , that's the story that will take place and eventually you'll land the debt plane and you'll be able to build off that passive income . So it just takes the pressure off .

And I think there's still too many people out there who we're seeing who are partnering up and having or starting a family before they have their home asset behind them , let alone any type of appreciating asset behind them , and that's just going to really challenge them in those lifestyle choices and also put them on the back foot , and so you're a perfect example

of putting it in the right sequential order and getting on taking action . So credit to you , to Harriet , well done to both of you . So , bryce and I just love hearing stories like yours . We could have kept talking all day , because you're making a meaningful contribution to society .

You're also getting on with , you're living your best life , and I don't think there's much more you can really do other than that , and you've taken last lessons along the way , and you've also experienced a little bit of two steps back to go three steps forward , so , but you've shown that grit to get out the other side .

So congratulations to you , and I look forward to basically seeing where you take this journey .

For the whole part of this conversation , we talked about resilience and getting back up on your feet and trying new things and backing yourself in . There's a whole bunch of lessons that I'm glad we've got from this conversation with you , as well as the property stuff . But why did you say yes ? Why did you want to come on ?

So if anyone wants to play a great game with their partner and find out some vulnerable things and really gets conversations going , I really recommend you go get those cards , because after dinner every night we would play that game and , yeah , got to really find out even more about each other , which was great .

We've even done it without my Nana myself and Harriet , which again spoke to my Nana for a lot of years , and there was a lot of things that I didn't know which that sort of prompted some great answers from her . One of the cards , sorry .

The reason for that story was it popped out and it was the question to me who would you like to thank in your life that's made a big impact on you that you haven't before ? And my answer was both of you then . So Harriet said , well , you should write them an email , and I said , yeah , I should actually thank them .

And then time went by and work got busy again and I didn't do it . And then I heard you a couple of weeks ago about jumping on that . If this is the thing that needs to push you to come on the show , I thought , all right , I'm going to do it . This is my chance to say thank you .

So , yeah , that's the reason that I'm most likely not going to use your services , boys , because I like to do things myself and I like to learn myself , but I wanted to .

Yeah , you're the reason that I'm in this position , because without your guidance and giving out this free content , there might have been a sprucer that would have sold me something and I'd be in a completely different financial position , and that's going to affect not only Harriet but that's going to affect my whole family .

So that was the reason I wanted to come on to say thank you . But if there's a 25-year-old out there that is in 30K debt right now , just work hard and there's a way out . And it's not going to .

It cannot take as long as you might think it's going to be , to get yourself out of that hole , to get yourself in a good financial position where you're not having to worry about paying the bills and keeping things afaic .

But if you're in a position where you're starting from what seems like a bit of a mountain in debt , you're the living , breathing example of someone who can actually get out of that and I think that for me , that's the bomb here , that's the wisdom bomb . I'm marked a whole bunch of clues that you've left throughout this conversation .

So , mate , I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation . I think one of the things is there is no doubt to your point there about not using our services . That is totally fine .

There is no doubt that this podcast has been a very incredible way for Ben and I to speak to a group of people who love the things that we love , but they end up going in two lanes . They end up being in the do-it-yourself lane or they end up being they want it done for them and we're just as pleased .

And I know this sounds a little bit platitude and hard to verify , but we just get a lot of joy out of getting the emails out , of getting the social media mentions where someone's actually done something and they have . And there's no commercial relationship with us because we know that the action threshold for most people is so incredibly high .

Anything you can do to actually lower that action threshold , to get someone to actually put one step in front of the other and do something , and even to your story is some of the bits in the past didn't work , but you still kept getting back up . I think we will never get sick of that .

And before we close out , ben , is there something you want to add to that ?

Okay , I'm in debt . I love the story about going to basically live in the boarding house , look after the boys , and then I mean that's free board , right , you've worked out free board and free food and it's like and I get paid to also show them around a little like just things like that . Not now .

I mean , every boarding house across Victoria and Australia is now going to get door knocked about coming to come and coach their 40 team . Look , you bought a set of assets and skills to the table but you've been able to work .

I mean , you know , when you did the university and you did teaching , you've looked at the skills that you've got and you've put them to work . You know , and that hasn't been just from a , from PA , yg or working as a teacher . You've actually done different ways of putting those skillsets to work .

So I'm sure , if anyone's thinking about this in our community about just look at your skillsets , what do I bring to the table , what am I really good at ? And then start to think about that as an idea of how can I monetize that . To allow me to , you know , get back on my feet and make no mistake , it's going to require effort .

I mean you were working six AM till 11 plus the commute . So you're doing , you know , 80 hour weeks and I mean that has been a theme right throughout summer series . And if I'm honest , if you actually listen to every winter series or summer series season that we've done , there is no substitute for hard work .

There's no substitute for putting the effort in to get the reward . I don't know , you know , it's all I tell my kids . You know , work before play and basically , you know , put in the effort , you'll get the reward . That's as simple as it gets .

I mean , if you can , just if you just bring those attitudes to the table that ultimately reward for effort , and then you know , sort of make sure you celebrate those wins along the way , that's it . You don't need any anything fancy around that . They're the formulas taking action and doing those things simply and effectively .

And if you got that drive , you're halfway home .

Mate , thanks for joining us today . Thanks , bryce .

You know , I think that's the right chemistry that's going to result in some really great outcomes . So you know , and I said at the start of the show , but I also love this idea of experiences being low cost . So it doesn't cost much to , you know , grab a floaty and float down a river .

It doesn't cost much to get out in the park and , you know , play a game or create a game or do whatever . You don't have to have really expensive costs to have great experiences . So I think that there's a great message in there for all families especially , you know , given obviously the cost of living pressures that we're currently seeing around the place .

So I mean , I could go on , but I think I should give you a go .

You and I have talked about that , but you just got to see someone who genuinely thought they were doing the right thing as a mortgage broker and now , on reflection , looks back and goes .

Maybe I probably would have done a bit differently , but in the moment , at the time , james could put his hand on his heart and say I thought I was doing exactly what I should have been doing for the best outcome for these clients . So you know there's two lanes of people getting advice that is less than optimal .

One is intentional deception and the other one is enthusiastic amateurs not knowing that it's not the right path for you to take . So I thought that was a wonderful way for our community to see how that plays out in reality .

So realizing , you know , coming out of that with $30,000 worth of debt and potentially being , you know , overconfident maybe in respects of you know how hard could it be .

I run a bar , surely I can run a restaurant but then having that really tough decision because a lot of times people are in work or they're striving for something and they're just not getting those rewards as well . So you know , making that tough decision once you've got all that sunk cost bias in the effort that you've done and trying to turn it around .

So you know the definition of stupidity sometimes is , you know , keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result . And I'm not saying for any stretch that James has done that . But what I am saying is you've got to say to yourself when enough is enough .

Sometimes , you know , is this and the same with , you know , owning property or doing whatever you're doing , you've got to make sure that you're playing the long game .

But if the game doesn't look like it's in your favor , you've also got to start thinking about , you know , how you're going to consider the next move in the game , and that's what we saw with James and Harriet a complete reset , a rethink . You know a reinvention in a way in terms of becoming a broker . And then you know the saving story going to .

You know , train the footy club but get free board . You know , basically looking after the dormitory . So just clever ways . And so where there's a will Bryce , there is a way forward .

He's got a very successful property portfolio as a result of hard work and just continually applying and having a very supportive partner who not only says hey , I'm supporting you in in the game that you want to play here , which is the game of long-term property investing , but make sure you sharp on your numbers before you bring it to me , because if you're not ,

you're going to have to circle back and now sharpen the pencil and make sure you got those numbers around . I like that . He cycled around in suburbs and they did that as a couple to get familiar with the suburb . That's a . That's a .

That's a wonderful takeaway there , and one of the one of the pieces of language that I want everyone to to take away from this episode , ben , as we start really fresh and strong in our second week here in 2024 , is he said I'll worry about that in 20 years time .

Beautiful , I mean if , if , if we , you or I ever hear someone talking about time horizons that says I'll worry about that in 20 years time , oh my gosh , that is probably the number one determinant of the person's success . Cause , if they say , if I worry about that in a couple of weeks or a couple of months or next year , what about ?

Sure , they might be okay . But when they say 20 years time , far out . So just a really good example of using resourcefulness when you don't have a lot of resources .

Last year , yes , I gave away some free gifts on this podcast around some of the research that we're really proud of . So we've got something brewing , we've got we've .

We've huddled you , me and Stiggy We've done a little huddle late last year and we're trying to be able to be in a position , probably in early Fed Ben , to be in a position to give away some , some more opportunities for people to get some more free gifts around suburb data .

So , building on the my financials release in more at you know , at late November of last year , we've now got , obviously , a platform that has really , you know , a supercharged engine in it and we're going to be adding some insights and some other exciting things to announce shortly on that .

But then we're also going to pivot in a , like we do every February , we start putting our attention back on the property side of things , so we move away from the money management . Okay , january is about .

The month that we're in right now is about organizing a finances planning a year ahead , trapping that surplus and then starting to think about , well , how do I make that money work harder for me ? Well , obviously we're biased in terms of property is the way in which we like to be looking at that .

So we'll be talking more in February around what the outlook looks like , but also providing with you with some some really nice rich resources and sort of insights in the property space as well . So stay tuned for that .

So if you go to more M , double O , double R , dot com , dot , au , you go on filling your details there's money stretch , there's money fit , there's financial cards you can see your your details in a very quick snapshot . But it also sets you up , because we're getting close to the couple more to go Ben for summer series .

But it's at this point of every year I say if you've been enjoying these stories , right , they are everyday people who have pretty much said I listened to what you guys said , I put it in action and then I decided to worry about anything that I need to worry about in 20 years time .

So I just want to put the call out to anyone who's listening , who's been inspired by these stories . I'm coming back for you , I want you to be a part of our summer series at the end of 2024 , because we love , we love sharing these stories .

So that's thinking about your money for the entire year and then obviously your seven day float so we don't get that slippage and we get disciplined and build habits around that as well . So lots of opportunity there to improve and all we can do is provide the opportunity for you to take action , and we hope so .

Ben , if you just pay for postage , we'll send it out to you so you can get the book that helps you trap surplus . You get the platform that actually helps you do it super fast . And then , once you've trapped surplus , if you remember , the mantra is spend less than you earn , invest the surplus and wait .

Well , that's where the armchair guide book comes in , folks . So there's free resources and in February we're going to give you some more free resources around suburbs . So , folks , this is the place to be . We are planning for 2024 to be the best year yet on this podcast , folks . So stick around .

We've got lots planned and I can promise you there's lots planned in the more platform . So get in there , start using it , start trapping the surplus , start seeing your insights . And I promise you , folks I've been pressing into that to Ben and the team about something that we're cooking up to help property investors in that more platform .

So you want to make sure that you know how to use that platform when we get to announce what's coming later on in this year around , how we can help property investors with that platform . So , folks , now is the right time . So , ben , it's always a pleasure hanging out with folks like James around summer series .

We've got a couple more to go before we round out January and move into February , but until next week , and just empowering bros , but only if you act on it .

If you're new to our community , I want to encourage you to listen to our very first 20 episodes , as the concepts we share in EPS 1 through 20 are foundational principles , pillars and frameworks that you need to know for you to get the best value from our content week to week on our show . My little tip is to listen to it at one and a half speed .

Now , for those of you that are time poor and don't have the option to go back to the beginning , don't worry , because we've got you covered as well . We've created a binge guide that summarized these foundational episodes into one easy to digest booklet so that you can get up to speed super fast .

So go to the show description on whatever device you're listening to now and simply click on the first 20 episodes link to download it straight away .

Oh and , by the way , whilst you're there , you'll find a few extra goodies for you , including a link to download our lifestyle by design app more , the home of Wealthspeed and Wolfcock and our hugely popular MoneySmart's money management system , as well as how to get free copies of our bestselling books .

Now , just a reminder that anything we cover on this podcast is not considered to be financial advice , and we certainly recommend that you seek out expert advice tailored to your unique circumstances , and everything we talk about is general in nature .

Folks , I want to encourage you again to click on the show description , wherever you are listening , to access all the free goodies we have for you Until next week .