It’s been a while since I’ve made a specific FIRE progress update. I have been tracking my net worth and investment portfolio monthly through my Monthly Goal Progress posts. But I thought it would be good to have some progress update specific to FIRE.

In an overall sense, my main vehicle of reaching FIRE (my australian investment portfolio) isn’t quite where I want it to be, and there was a large decline in value due to selling off some older investments to help with the deposit for a property in May 2022. A lot of changes have happened since my last update but the goal is still VERY much alive!

See below for an update on my net worth, investment portfolio, and more!

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Net Worth

In July 2022, my net worth is sitting at $126,915. This includes the recently purchased property and all other investment and cash accounts.

Over 2022, There hasn’t really been much growth as you can see from below. Ever since the highs of late 2021, my net worth has slowly been decreasing due to volatility in the sharemarket. This will recover over time and with it show an increase in my net worth.

My net worth overall is in the same position that it was in roughly September 2021 – which is a bit frustrating honestly haha.

Investment Portfolio

Currently in July it’s sitting at $16,530.

While I’m very happy at my decision to put money into a home (unit) for a place to live in the future, I’m also quite frustrated at the value of my investment portfolio itself. However, to be fair, a lot of my investment portfolio did include my house deposit – which ended up being more than expected once everything was bought and paid for.

At the moment it’s sitting at the same level it was in late 2018 / early 2019. This is very disheartening as my investment portfolio is my main vehicle to reach financial independence.

I’m hoping that over the next year my annual return can be at least 6% or more.

Future Planning, FIRE Number, and Calculations

While I am very confident I can grow my investment portfolio again and in a faster time due to my income and working hard on saving, given the value that it’s at right now and my main goal of reaching a minimum of $850,000 by the time I’m 40, let’s do some maths to see how much more I’ll need to invest now per month:

Given I’m also a year older now (28) which reduces time for compounding to occur, investing $4,000 a month is quite a challenge to say the least.

I’m definitely not ruling it out as impossible, no where close. It’s 100% doable given assumed salary increases over the years and perhaps a better rate of return.

I’m no longer tracking my Savings Rate per month, however I am still tracking expenses and I will be able to assess my yearly spending against categories whenever I want to.

New Business Venture and Potential for More Income

In 2021 I started Nathan’s Mobile PT and I now employ 9 trainers across Australia. I’ve seen some really good growth in revenue for this (>$20k in first full financial year 2021-22). This has generated a small amount of profit but I’ve been focused on re-investing that profit into more ads for clients and trainers.

Going forwards with this, I’m confident that this will become a very large source of income for the future which will be able to increase my investment speed and hopefully my FIRE number/age.

It’s still fairly slow days but it’s going well.

Wrap up

There’s a bit of an update on my FIRE journey. As mentioned above, it’s not where I was hoping to be at this stage and there have been a few set backs along the way.

However, I’m still fully confident that this will be a possibility and I’ll be documenting my journey along the way to prove that it is 😛

I’d love to hear from you and how you are going with your FIRE journey!

Nathan