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Hi People!

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 9:49 am
by onewayfamily
Jacob and ERE were my introduction to FIRE and other related ERE principles, and I was active on the forum for a while - I used to post under andystkilda. Since we FIRE'd last August we've gone nomadic so we started a blog by the name of this new username - OneWayFamily - to document our adventures. We want to inspire more families to live differently and spend more time with the kids, and travel around the world together.

Once we cut the cord we had a few months of basically just looking around at everyone and being amazed - it seemed like most of humanity had been swindled in the greatest scam in the history of mankind - i.e. the rat-race.

I look forward to continuing to contribute and help out where I can.

Cheers,
Avi

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:05 am
by Dragline
Nice pic! You guys look happy.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:23 am
by wolf
Welcome Avi! Welcome you as one family!
First of all: Congrats to FIRE!
Second: Looking forward to hear more about your nomadic journey as a family.
Last but not least: enjoy life! :-)

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 12:27 pm
by onewayfamily
Cheers MDFIRE - I wish you the same in your journey - I'm still working my way through all of the great thoughts in your journal.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 12:30 pm
by onewayfamily
Dragline wrote:
Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:05 am
Nice pic! You guys look happy.
Haha cheers Dragline - it's not all roses and puppies - you should have seen me stuck in the airplane bathroom with a psychotic screeching toddler for 30 minutes, everything soaked in pee, no spare clothes or nappy, after 14 hours on a flight from Oz to LA...

At least we can laugh about it now though!

All joking aside it's been a wild ride over the last year, and yes we're very happy with everything.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 12:45 pm
by Dragline
Believe it or not, I've had such experiences . . . This too shall pass!

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 1:41 pm
by onewayfamily
That's what we keep telling ourselves... but some evenings seem to go on forever.
They're great kids though, but yeah it will be nice to have a bit of a break (probably less than we're hoping for) after toddlerhood is over.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 5:07 am
by wood
Hi and welcome! Your post struck a cord with me because if I ever end up having kids, this is the kind of situation I imagine finding myself in :)

Looking forward to following your journey as well.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:37 am
by JamesR
I read your intro blog post. Very cool to get to your FIRE goal in just 4 years.

Kind of curious how you managed to get a monthly passive income of $508 from a net worth of mid 5-digits. Is that just counting the the ROI on a good month/year of your investments in the stock market? Or is there more going on? I see you quickly got into renting properties after that.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 7:21 am
by onewayfamily
JamesR wrote:
Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:37 am
Kind of curious how you managed to get a monthly passive income of $508 from a net worth of mid 5-digits. Is that just counting the the ROI on a good month/year of your investments in the stock market? Or is there more going on? I see you quickly got into renting properties after that.
Yes at that point it was mostly online savings account interest (still earning around 5% at that point in Australia), some bank account bonuses and things of that sort which are plentiful in some places like Australia and the US, and some dividends from a few stock investments.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 11:12 am
by Frugalchicos
Welcome!!

Look forward to read your blog since we are planning in doing something similar than you guys (no kids yet).

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:41 am
by onewayfamily
Less than half is from the properties now - the rest is from the other sources listed on there like P2P lending (Ratesetter is the main one in Australia and for 3-5 year loans you're getting 8-10.5% yields).
The cheapest property was $375k - the others were in the 400's. 2 had 20% deposits and the 3rd was 30%.
We have achieved much higher yields than most properties in the area by renting fully-furnished, well-presented places and allowing pets (something rare in Australia). This means we've had over the 4 years now almost solely people moving to Melbourne, happy to pay a premium to walk into a place fully ready to go - a lot of them with a cat or dog which means they get turned down by most other landlords. We love animals, and have had great experiences with all of the tenants so far.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:44 am
by onewayfamily
Sorry one more 'tip' if you can call it that - it's obvious and simple but not easy to implement, because most people are impatient. It's 'don't overpay'.

For example, one of the properties was being sold at $425k - it yielded $31k a year in rent at that time (before all expenses). We negotiated, re-negotiated, withdrew offers and after 6 months the owner got the point where they had to sell and we agreed on a price of $375k at the end - that was strongly cash-flow positive from day one, and when you don't overpay on purchase, you reduce your risk greatly down the line.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 12:20 pm
by JamesR
Pretty fantastic accomplishment. Seems like you ERE'd in 4 years, 1 year less the 5 year standard, and it sounds like more of a MMM-level retirement, great example of focus, taking on side jobs, and investing well. Not many people could do that.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 12:39 pm
by SavingWithBabies
@onewayfamily What did that process of negotiation look like on that property? By that I mean did you personally do the negotiation or have a realtor do it for you or something else? And would you say that was in a general buyers market for the area?

Oh, and I'm happy you're posting! As someone with kids on the acquisition path, it's interesting to read about people later on down the path with kids and how it is all going for them.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 3:50 pm
by onewayfamily
Thanks @JamesR - appreciate the kind words.

@SavingWithBabies - in answer to your questions:
- all negotiation was between myself and the vendor's real estate agent - this is pretty standard in Australia - via intermittent emails/phone-calls etc. - it's obviously a game of cat-and-mouse and bluffs (I love poker and have played for fun for many years)
- this was not a buyer's market, not at all in fact. That particular property just happened to fall through the cracks a bit and the vendor was very 'motivated' as they say, after 7-8 months on the market

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2017 1:37 am
by wolf
HI onewayfamily. Your last blog post about your history of FIRE is quite interesting. How is traveling in New Zealand? Based on your blog posts it must be great. I wanna go there some day as well.

Re: Hi People!

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2017 11:46 am
by onewayfamily
@MDFIRE - NZ is fantastic. It's basically made for campervanning. Also, it's great in winter or summer. You have all the 1st world amenities mixed with unbelievable natural scenery and activities, so you have the best of both worlds in that sense as well.