All right , folks , back in 2020 , ben and I decided , as part of the COVID lockdown , that we would do a Facebook Live series where he and I went through , chapter by chapter , all of the key concepts in the armchair guide to property investing how to retire on $2,000 per week .
So we thought it'd be a good idea to replay those episodes here on the main channel for your enjoyment , to help you better understand the concepts , but also the stories that went in behind us bringing that information to life . So for the next 10 weeks , you will get , chapter by chapter and you can walk through that process with us .
Now , if you don't have a copy of the book , that's easy you can go to thearmchairguidecomau and put your details in there . We'll send you a free copy so that you can play along at home , but we're excited to share the information with you here . So let's have a little listen to today's chapter from the armchair guide to property investing .
Hey there , folks , I'm Bryce Holdaway , co-host of the Property Couch podcast , and I'm excited to bring to you a new podcast series called the Armchair Guide to Property Investing how to Retire on $2,000 per week . So I ask you this question have you ever thought about how you can retire on $2,000 per week .
Have you ever thought about the lifestyle that you want to design so that you can actually spend your time whichever way you want ? Now , for some people it's travel , for other people it's philanthropy and everything in between . But whatever it is for you , we actually want to give you the guide on how you can actually do this for yourself .
Now , the reason this podcast series came into being is because we did a series of Facebook Lives showcasing the behind the scenes summary , some anecdotes , some backstory as to how we created the bestselling book .
So , instead of just reading out word by word what was happening in each and every chapter , we talked about the concepts we rifted between each other and we gave a little bit of behind the scenes as well as content that went with each and every chapter .
So all of the audio that we created through those Facebook Lives all brought together make a nice little package on someone who wants to listen and understand the insider's guide to property and also the armchair guide to property investing , how to retire on $2,000 per week . So we hope that you enjoy this series .
If you want to get a copy of the book so that you can play along at home . That's super simple because we've got some copies . If you go to the armchair guide dot com . Dot . Au . You can put in your details there . Ben and I have bought the book for you . We'll send it to you for free .
All you need to do is pay for the shipping and tell us where to send it , anywhere in Australia , and we'd be happy to send that out to you so that you can get the most out of this experience of getting the armchair guide to property investing . So enjoy the series .
Hope it adds enormous value to your property investing and , of course , the lifestyle that you hope to design .
Hello Ben .
How are you ?
Hey Gareth .
I'm all right . How are you ? So let's do the high five Three two , one you light up there we go . Hey , gareth , folks , I'm Bryce Holdaway , he is Ben Keasley , we are the co-host of the Property Couch and we are and we appreciate that lots of people in isolation right now all around the world .
So what we thought we'd do today is we've got our bestselling book , the armchair guide to property investing , and we're going to go through chapter by chapter and explain some of the core concepts in this book , because we've now sold over 20,000 copies of this book . We're really proud of a couple of things .
Then one when we wrote it , we wanted it to be evergreen in nature , didn't we ? then we did to be a man in time .
That's right . I mean , ultimately , the foundations and the principles in the book should be evergreen in regards to how you apply yourself to your money mindset and also organize your money , and then ultimately , how you set up and invest for the long term .
I mean , ultimately it's all about land appreciation , improvements on the land , generating the income , and when you get past that you look pretty good . After you know 10 , 20 years of investing , you've got a nice little passive income for life , bryce .
Exactly so , folks , you've got to be in isolation . So we're going to provide some information , some content and hopefully it's of benefit to you . But a couple of things .
Then , on page 32 of our book , we've got this pyramid where we take people on a bit of a journey then to show them how we step them up so that ultimately , the goal of this book is to get to the real life case studies at the end , because we make a big , bold claim on our book .
Then it's the armchair guide to property investing and how to retire on $2,000 per week passive income that is , six figures . And then in a lot of cases we talk about the fact that you don't need to have 10 plus properties , you don't need to renovate on the weekends . It's really just about getting rich slow .
Our book they get rich slow property investing book , isn't it ? It's not a get rich quick book .
No , it isn't Bryce and ultimately , from where we stand , it builds momentum and it builds knowledge , and then , as we always talk about , we want you to take action on that knowledge as well . So it's a book we're very proud of , because it'll basically be a book that you can pick up 20 years from now and should still be relevant .
Property prices in there may not be , but in terms of the theory it should be .
It's the only thing that's not ever green . But on the back here we've got from Effie Zahoss , who's the Money Magazine editor , Nicola McDougal , who was the Australian Property Investor Magazine editor these are at the time of publishing and Nicola Sweeney , who is the managing editor of the your Investment Property magazine .
So we're really , really proud to get their input , to say , hey , look , this is a foundational book that will help people in the 90s , in the 2000s , in the 2020s . Ben's , and our goal is that this book will serve you in the 2050s , because the concepts are ever green . Hey , let's kick it off .
Today we're going to talk about chapter one and we're going to progressively work through , chapter by chapter , the whole book , ben . So stick around , folks , if you want to get involved , and let us know in any of the questions in the comments below . We'll be happy to answer those .
But , ben , the first chapter is about building your own knowledge base , but in the lead up to that we break it into three parts . The first part is the foundation , where we talk about the state of your mind plays with the state of your wallet . Part two is around the theory and part three is around the action . So it's different Building the foundation .
Part two is around giving you the information that helps you on that foundation . And then the last part is when the knowledge is empowering , but only if you act on it . I think a wise person once said so it's really about how you can do that . So the beginning of the foundation , go on .
I was going to say , you know , when we were thinking about the structure of the book and how we were going to talk about that . The story behind that is really around the research that is out there , around money and money mindsets and money management , and there's quite a lot of people who are quite confident about their ability to manage money .
But I think , you see , in certain times that shows up in regards to challenges for household debt and what sort of buffers that they build and also how they go about that .
And we've been really fortunate to interview thousands and thousands of people and to see a lot of tens of thousands of household budgets to form a view that there are sort of two different camps .
There's the camps of the people who have optimism and a mindset that is about openness and awareness and an attitude to find that open , an awareness and sort of build the knowledge around that .
But there's also a camp that potentially based on their back story and you know the household that they grew up in , where money was challenging what they weren't in control of money then they experienced a deficit in terms of confidence to be able to move forward in regards to their ability to transform their household's financial position , and so , when we decided to
write this first chapter , we needed to go to the heart of the reason . We needed to go to put everything on the table , a bit like a scene setting exercise that we've just talked about , understanding why we feel the way that we feel . The psychology of money , you know .
Hence the state of the wallet plays with your state of mind , and that's no chore in , you know , in times like today . So I think that was the scene setting bit , so it doesn't hit you with a wow , sexy bang , this can transform your world . It's actually more of you know what .
We're going to have an honest conversation with you about some of the things that position you for foundation pillars that will then get you on this journey , and that's why we do talk a lot about that . You know , what mindset are you starting with ?
Are you starting with a theory that anything's possible and you can have abundance if you work really hard , versus this is ? You know , surely this can't happen to me , surely I'm not worthy of this and those types of aspects throughout ?
Yeah , correct , and I think it's a couple of good points that you make there . But two things that I want to set up as we go through this first chapter .
One is one of the key topics that we talk about in our book is investing in property is a process , not an event , and in our observation of doing this for the last 20 plus years 20 , 22 years for me , a bit longer for you . You're a bit older than me , mate , just a little . You got a little tee shot .
I got it . I got it landed .
It landed Is that a lot of people think that investing in property starts with going to the portals and searching for properties , and clearly we'll go into this in chapter three of the book , where we're going to talk about our five step process , but we say that step number four , not step number one .
So it's important that we get that concept to land , that investing in property is a process , not an event , because there are very , very important steps that you need to follow before you buy investment property .
Because we'll go through this in terms of building the base in chapter two , ben , when we go through the psychology investing and we're going to talk about time , target , income and expense and some of the risk profiles in chapter two . But chapter one is really about going . Okay , we've got a headspace ride . Have we got the right attitude towards money ?
Because Dave Ramsey said , money is simple , behavior is hard . We've seen that time and time and time again . Because here's a little secret , folks , and I don't want you to tell too many people that the concepts in this book , ben , are not rocket science . It's probably primary school level reading .
We'd like to think it's secondary level reading concepts within here .
We can only write it primary school level right .
So the fact is , if the concepts are so simple and they are straightforward , why isn't everyone doing it ? It's because we let our head get in the way .
Yeah , look , and if anyone's got any questions about chapter one . You know , give us a little question , write some comments or fill it in , and we can hopefully get to answer maybe one or two of those as we go through the chapter .
Ben , you talked about the key concept of state of the wallet stays with a play to the mind . Can you expand on that a little bit ?
just to Try that again . Did that come out right ? Was it ? State of wallet ? Plays with the state of your mind .
Oh , do I just throw that around , something like that anyway .
I see , okay , it does , and that is . It comes back to the core belief , and I had this when I was younger too , right , I grew up in a household where money controlled the household , right , and it was a tense topic to talk about . And so you have to work reasonably hard to rewrite that dialogue in your own mind about being able to control money , right .
At the end of the day , money is a commodity , right , it's a commodity . It's the biggest commodity in the world outside , in my view of love and happiness . Right , those commodities are priceless and we should see more of those . But when we come back to fundamental finances and living , it's just a commodity . Right , we work for it , we get it .
It's bigger than oil , it's bigger than any other commodity in the world . So we need to learn a concept of how we can control it . And the concept of controlling money comes back to this idea that you still have to spend money to make money , but you also have to earn money to start that journey first .
And the state of the wallet versus the state of the mind , when we feel like we've got a small balance or no money at all , it affects our behavior , it affects our psychology , it affects our happiness , and so part of that is the one bit of passion that we have in terms of trying to make sure our community understands that .
And on the other side of it is this false belief that most of us do it really well , like when we drill down to households and we have honest conversations , where we're looking eyeball to eyeball for households and they're telling us you know , we've got this money thing , don't worry about that , just tell us about the investment thing .
When we drill down and have honest conversations with people , we go really , you've got this , here's what's happening with your money . And they go I didn't think about that , I didn't do that . I only have , you know , one month's supply of buffer and all those types of things . So there is , for some people , an overconfidence .
For others , there's this lack of confidence around controlling money , and that's why chapter one is just about fleshing out the concepts and the ideas , and then you're taking away , as a reader , which pieces you need to be able to get to the openness .
Right , you know , because where we want you to land after the end of chapter one is I'm open , you've reset my mind to believe that there is possibility here , and then , okay , how do I now reframe my mind and my own dialogue around taking that money story forward ? And that's where the rest of the book then starts to take shape .
Yeah , but I think not enough attention is paid to anyone who wants to look after their financial well-being around money beliefs the beliefs that are core within us that we see have the potential to actually make sure we stay on track if you've got the right beliefs , or be an invisible derailer that sometimes people cannot work while they have continual money problems
. So we have Dr Kathleen Gurney here . On page 36 , ben , we quote Dr Kathleen Gurney , who's a psychologist and special in people's money personalities , and in her book your Money Personality , she says our feelings toward it are not static , but fluid , dynamic and sometimes intense .
Ben , we love it , hate it , we fear it , we worship it , we enjoy it , but never can we ignore it . And we also put on page 37 an interesting table around contrasting money attitudes and the conditioning . So , ben , I'll go through the have-nots , thank you , and then maybe you can rip off the wool haves .
But the have nots tend to say work harder to earn more , struggle financially , make ends meet , have a scarcity attitude , find money fearful and threatening , believe it's their place in life , place too much value on how hard it is to get money , emotional attachment that controls them .
So that's the have nots and the won't haves that are having those stories and dialogues in their mind , but the wool haves are a contrast to that .
Yeah , they're totally a contrast for us . So the wool haves will say work less to earn more , live comfortably , feel enriched , have an abundant attitude , find money challenging but also see it as an opportunity , believe anything is possible , value what money can , seek knowledge and advice to take action that they can control it .
So you can see the differences there that we're trying to articulate for the reader to see that journey . So if that makes any sense , do you give us some thumbs up if it's good for you in terms of how you're starting to see the scene setting that we do in chapter one to build out this confident piece . To sort of say , if I'm negative I'm now open .
If I'm positive , I'm feeling excited around my money attitude and my money mindset to take action .
So , in summary , ben , there's a couple of key messages here that we want to say . Investing in property is a process and , on an event , a goal without a date on it is a dream . So you need to be able to be very specific about what that looks like . Talked about money as simple . Behavior is hard around .
The state of your wallet plays with the state of your mind , and then , of course , we'll have different beliefs around money and so have a different outlook . So what we wanted to achieve in this chapter is largely just building a foundation around the fact that it's not just a case of buying something and getting on with it .
There is a bit of foundational work within ourselves that we need to sort out , because if we don't , we've seen it time and time and time again where it becomes a derail down the track . So , ben , on page 40 and 41 , as we close out this chapter , we have a couple of checklists for folks to run through in terms of getting mindset right .
But you have an action plan that people should consider doing , and the first one is you reckon that people should sit down and document their personal values and goals so they get a better understanding of where they are and where they want to go .
Yeah , I mean , and to help with that , we also have a really good list of inspiring ideas about what's important to you . So it sort of gets the juices flowing around what aligning and documenting .
Some people call it a vision board and I quite like that idea in terms of those money values and those personal alignment , because at the end of the day , money will not buy you happiness everyone . It is a complete lie if anyone tells you it'll buy you happiness . If you align it to personal values and to events and memory building and sharing .
Again , the biggest commodity in the world is love and friendship . You align it with that and you're unstoppable . And having enough money is important to be able to do some of those things , because I do believe people would be sitting and say , if I had more money , I'd feel happier , and in some cases there is a research that does measure .
But there is a tipping point where there is just no extra benefit you get out of having the most amount of money you have , and that comes back to what we talk about in terms of our seven stages of wealth and happiness , right , in terms of what that looks like . So I think that's good . So , yes , there's some action steps there .
We won't give them all away , but you can see them in the book there in terms of what you need to do to set yourself up . Because , guess what ? This information in here , this checklist , is a motivator . It should basically allow you to take that action which we were talking about to get to the next chapter .
Yeah , very good , ben . So there you go , folks . That's chapter one .
We are going to go through this chapter by chapter and give you the key takeaways that we have from this book , because it's really been an evergreen book that allows you to understand how to build a portfolio during pandemic times , ben , during normal times , in the 70s , in the 2020s , all those sorts of things .
So we're gonna give people an opportunity , ben , to listen to us . Let us know if this content is worthwhile . What you'd like us to do ? Hey , ben . The next chapter is the cycle . Oh , there we go .
The next chapter that we're gonna go Can't get on the screen , I'll scroll there we go , there we go .
The next chapter we're gonna do is the psychology of investing , ben , which we're going to talk about before foundational leave it . So I'd certainly encourage folks to stick around and exactly I like the analogy . That's almost a dance . Yeah , no , that is no . If you do the shopping trolley for us , then we'll be really going off . So , folks , there we go .
Hopefully that's a benefit to you . The answer , god , to probably investing chapter one was building the foundation . Next time we're going to do the full foundational leave as Ben . So if you wanna check out more information , we have a podcast that goes out each and every Thursday at 3 pm .
You can go to theprocacouchcomau to check that out , ben , or go to wherever you have your favorite place to listen to podcasts with each and every week , ben . But until next time we read out a chapter , ben .
Get your book so you can follow us reading the chapter . No knowledge is empowering , but only if you act on it .
Very good , there you go , folks . See you next time . All right , folks , hope you really enjoyed that as much as Ben and I did in bringing it to you . Now , folks , if you don't have your own copy of the Armchair Guide to Proper Investing , that is super simple Go to thearmchairguidecomau . You can get a free copy there .
Ben and I will send it out to you , as long as you pay for the postage and handling and we've got plenty more to get along in this series too , so hopefully you enjoyed it . I hope you enjoyed it .
I hope you enjoyed the series too , so hopefully you enjoy these episodes as we bring to life the book that we wrote back in 2016 , where the concepts are just as relevant today to the diet we write .