Australian FI Weekly #39

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Welcome to another edition of #AusFIWeekly. It’s Michelle here from FrugalityandFreedom.com, bringing you this regular selection of great financial independence links, news, and events from Australia and beyond.

Recently at FrugalityandFreedom.com…

• NEW POST: How I’m using Ethical Investing for Financial Independence in Australia – Recently, I’ve switched my new investments towards ethical index ETFs that rule out such companies as those whose core activity is fossil fuels. Read how I’ve chosen to invest, bank and spend with these values in mind.
• POST RECAP: Diary of a SelFIsolator series – In March, I made a quick return to Australia from life in New Zealand. With a 14-day self-isolation period in effect, I wrote about my experience in bedroom confinement – with Room Service by Mum. 

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Australian Links

Knowing Your ‘WHY’ is the Most Important Thing to Achieve Your Goals – All About Balance
“Your why serves as a guiding compass; giving you reason and purpose and forces you to be self-motivated. Developing a why should be the starting point for all of your projects. Having a clear why will distinguish the average goals or the ones that someone else wants you to achieve from the ones that inspire you and ignite your passions.”

How Your Money Blocks Are Affecting Your Financial Confidence – The Broke Generation
“Working out the things that hold you back with money involves a lot of slow burn thinking. It might not be a case of sitting down and writing them all out, but more a case of shifting into a state of awareness in your daily life. Then, when you find yourself thinking a certain way about money, you become aware of how it’s affecting you.”

How to Build a Life Where You Don’t Need Early Retirement – Smart Money, Simple Life
“Don’t think I’m saying you shouldn’t save for retirement, early or otherwise. You really should. Long-term savings and investments are always going to be of value. What I am saying is that life is to be lived and the real holy grail of early retirement ought to be finding a way to incorporate making a living with living in a way that mimics retirement.”

Time and Tide – Estimating Distance to the Portfolio Goal – The FI Explorer
“The past few months have reinforced that the key ancient virtue needed to interact with modern markets is humility. Taking a lead from that wisdom, the potential for the remainder to the year to look different from models, expectations or smoothed averages is high.”

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International Links

Using Design Thinking on Your Money Problems – Ride Free Fearless Money (USA)
“I am fascinated by decisions about money, which are ultimately decisions based on our understanding of systems and relationships — economic and exchange systems, relationships with others, and our relationship with our own sense of value and values… Design thinking is a way to identify and try out high-impact ideas that truly matter.”

Tired Of Waiting for FI? Here Are 11 Things You Can Do Right Now – Eat Sleep Breathe FI (Canada)
“I’d long ago read every Mr. Money Mustache article, optimized our investments, and slashed our recurring expenses. All that was left to do was wait and give the magical powers of compounding time to work… As it turns out, there was plenty I could do when stuck in the doldrums. I just needed to get creative and dig deeper.”

Focus on the Inputs – Raptitude (USA)
“Rather than trying to steer your output to a certain standard, what if you focused primarily on what goes in, and let the whole system process it naturally?”

What Will I Sacrifice If I Continue On This Track For 5,10, Or 20 Years? – Route2FI (Norway)
“People assume I just hate working, but that isn’t necessarily true. Others think I am lazy. Others think I am simply proving a point. But it is none of that. Instead, it is a deep-seated unhappiness, a result of that I am afraid of spending my whole life working so hard for things I had never wanted in the first place.”

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Thanks for reading and stay tuned for another guest curator next week. Missed one? Check out the archives here.

Yours in pursuit of FI,
Michelle @ Frugality and Freedom

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