Property vs Shares – where to invest?

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

Property or shares, which is the best way to be investing your money. Today on the podcast, I chat to Money Expert Glen James about this exact topic. This episode’s a goodie. You are gonna wanna make sure you stick around.

Just a quick note before we dive in. Everything I share on this podcast is general in nature and does not take your personal circumstances into account. I’m not a licensed financial advisor, and nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as personalized, financial, business, taxation or investment advice.

Before you make any financial decisions, please seek guidance from your accountant or a qualified licensed financial advisor who understands your specific situation.

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A big warm welcome to the Intentional Money Show. Glen, thanks so much for coming along today.

Hey, Clare. Thank you so much for having me.

I think a good place to start for people who don’t know you is, can you give a quick introduction to yourself and what you do?

Yeah. I effectively run two podcasts and write money books before that and now it’s almost not worth saying what I did before that because the time, it’s almost.

What I was doing before, it’s almost been eclipsed by the time I’ve been podcasting and doing YouTube shows and books. But I was a licensed financial advisor for 15 years and then had my own financial advice business at the term of the decade. I just, before I sold my advice business and went all in online giving one to many, general financial content. At the time, there wasn’t really any good online. Not saying that my stuff’s good, but at the time there was no online financial content that was quite popular for Aussies by Aussies. So I saw a need and like many of your listeners would know in the business world, if you see a gap in the market, take advantage.

My personality is if I see a gap in the market, I’ll drive a truck through that gap and see what happens. So yeah. Mainly doing YouTube and podcast shows now, and yeah, having lots of fun.

I do think it is very helpful to have the context of your background because it shows that you are qualified in this space and that you know what you’re talking about.

Because in today’s day and age, the day of the influencer as we see a lot online, knowing that someone has got the qualifications and experience behind them really means that they can add a lot more to the conversation.

Yes.

Maybe just quickly before we dive on into the episode, did you wanna quickly touch on what those podcasts are?

Yeah, sure. Our main ones that we do is the money podcast. Then we’ve got Retire Right, which is for over fifties, 50 fives. And this is Property is another popular podcast. There’s a whole other suite of shows in our realm. We’ve got, this is work, we’ve got, this is investing, we’ve got, this is business.

Financially Fierce. I almost forget, there’s a one called Dev Raga Personal Finance. He’s a doctor in Melbourne who talks to other medical professionals about money. So yeah, that’s the main things that we do. And my book, the Quick Start Guide to Investing is the most recent book we’ve just launched.

It’s about to be released, the Quick Start Guide to your first property as well, to help younger people get into the property market, be it with a home or an investment property. So I find myself really entrenched in the vibe, particularly of my audience, of what’s going on out there in, the real world.

Both audiences are pretty targeted, like the Retire Right one, I think the average age is like 55, 56, 57 around that band with their unique needs. And then the money audience is average or median age, probably 32, 33. So if you are listening to that type of content or even this type of content on your show, you’ve got a natural bend to want to do better with your money or with your life.

The data is, it’s good, but I know that there are a lot of people that might need the help who aren’t listening to these type of shows. So that’s why we can just do what we’re doing.

And it becomes a ripple effect, doesn’t it? I read a start this week that nearly 50% of Australians are not financially literate.

Yeah.

And I thought that was incredible. Like isn’t that just a huge number?

Yeah, it’s crazy, but we don’t get taught this stuff anywhere, and a lot of our parents didn’t sit us down and be like, all right, when you get paid, put money into this account. Put money into that account. It’s not a, I don’t think it’s enough knowing

how compound interest works. That’s cute, but how do I manage money when I get my first salary? That’s what is important.

And also having the intellectual understanding of something is very different to actually implementing it as well. You learn compound interest at school, but what does that actually mean for me?

I remember people saying to me, and obviously I’m a numbers nerd. I love math. I’ve gone on to become an accountant, but I remember people saying, how am I gonna use maths in the real world? And I’m like, it applies to so many different areas of your life. A classic example is of compounding interest.

So look, I think a great place to start, like maybe if we start at basics. Like when you think about the concept of investing with, knowing that there’s all these different ways that people can be spending their money. What do you think about when people say, I wanna get started investing, or I wanna take my investing to the next level.

Where do they even start or tackle this as a holistic concept?

Yeah, and it it moves on from it’s a good segue because the compound interest thing and that knowledge right. That’s good to know, but we’re behavioral creatures and beings, so it’s really important. I believe, like I’m a personal finance guy and I really believe before you even get started with your investing, whether it is to buy some shares, whether it is to buy a property or.

Insert X, Y, Z here. You need to get your main house in order when it comes to your money. And the reason I say that is twofold. The first reason is you need a system that categorically, you know. Every week or every month, there is X amount left over that is free in your life. It’s not spoken for, it’s not for food, rent going out, even saving a little bit for a holiday or a new lounge.

Like we need genuine amounts that we know that we can allocate to something for the future. So the reason why that’s important is the system. It’s coupled with two things. First the systems, what I’ve just spoken about, and then the why. So why are you investing? Why are you wanting to build wealth?

Why are you doing this? And what usually will happen is in life, if someone embarks on an investing campaign, be it buying their first investment property, being buying shares, or ETFs, or even starting a business, I know a lot of your listeners are business owners, there’s when distractions come. If the why isn’t there, or the financial foundations and structures when you are like, oh, I need a thousand dollars to buy this new thing.

Oh, I’ll just dip into my investment pot now. Or, oh, I want to go overseas or do that it. You want the why to stop? It’s no. If I do this will stop me from getting closer to my why, or it will just stop you being sloppy because you’ve got a system in place to have a good guardian guide rail so you don’t put your hand in the cookie jar.

I know it feels sloppy. It’s been a long day, long life, all that to say. We just want to make sure that when we do invest, we invest for the long term. And annoyingly in the money world, the long term is usually over six years. So there’s no point buying any investment property this year. And you wanna start a family as well.

And then in a year’s time, oh crap, we can’t afford it. Someone’s going on parental leave. Oh, we’ve gotta sell the property. You might not, within that short amount of time, recover the cost that it even costs you to get that property with your stamp duty and whatnot. And like likewise with the equity portfolio, without those systems in place and you put your hand in the cookie jar, you’re selling assets.

It may be the worst time to sell in a market. So that’s why those two guardrails really need to be there. The soft. The hard, this is why I’m I invest. I don’t want to be like my parents. I don’t want to be like my broke aunt. I don’t wanna be like my bankrupt uncle. This is really important to me.

I want to build a future that’s strong for my kids, and I’ve got a system, so I am categorically saving for the holiday, and I don’t need to touch my investment amount because the money that gets committed to the investment portfolio. Is free and unencumbered in from any other things that happen in my financial life year on year.

There is so much that you have spoken to right there that I agree with. So let’s pull apart some of the foundations. The first thing that you spoke to was the concept of having a surplus and. This kind of is actually connected to the second part as well. But we live in a day and age where I am not, people’s attention spans are shorter than ever and we are wanting quick, fast fixes.

We want quick hits of dopamine, we want quick results. And I notice that so many people are like, they see something like crypto or what’s something where I can make a ton of money really quickly without actually having. A really clear understanding about the what comes along with a potential high return is a really high risk.

And the second thing that you spoke about there that I’ve spoken about on the podcast before is what actually is your capacity? What is your surplus that you have to invest? And people often say, do I need a financial advisor? And I’m like if you go to a financial advisor and you don’t know how much.

Money you have to invest. They’re gonna say we’ve gotta start there before we can even talk about what building a portfolio would look like for you.

Yeah. And that’s one of the reasons I started the podcast to start with back in 2017, was I was sick of seeing clients that would walk in and say, we need and want financial advice.

And I’m like, no, you need to get outta debt and have a freaking budget. That’s what you need. Yeah. And that’s not sexy, but. You just need those good foundations in place.

Do you think that this is getting worse? I like when I think about like my grandma generation through to my parents, I’m noticing that our ability to wait and to do the boring stuff is be like our capacity is becoming less and less.

We just want things faster and faster. And I think that it’s because of the speed at which we are seeing things online and even we are consuming content. And yet as a content creator yourself, you’ll know that people are like their attention span. You’ve gotta get people’s attention really quickly and they want everything yesterday.

But that’s not the way, to your point, that money works.

Yeah. And that’s why my content is pretty boring and not. Clickbait are hugely popular because I’m not saying this is the next best stock is a quick get rich, quick thing, or I’m just like, Hey, life’s tough. Build a system, implement a process, and let time do the heavy lifting.

I’m sorry. We do live in reality. As much as Uber Eats is cool and get my Vietnamese delivered within 12 minutes, it’s really faster now that’s not reality in terms of what matters, and that’s investing for the long term.

Yeah. Yeah. And the second thing that you spoke to the, that I really love is the why, because again, we sometimes forget and when those short term things pop up, the opportunity to go to Bali or order Uber Eats or whatever it might be, whatever your poison is, remembering why you actually decided to embark on this journey.

So why is it important for people of. All ages. Some people think I’m too young, I don’t need to worry about that. Some people are like, do you know what I’m, I’m at the end of my working career. What’s the point? It’s all too late. What is the important reason that people need to prioritize wealth creation?

At the end of the day when I ask the retiree audience, and even when I was in, advice, anyone that I met who was over 60, 67, 70, anyone that I’d met who’d paid off their home early, didn’t regret it. Anyone that I met who had extra money in super was a big balance. Also didn’t regret it. So what we need to do, we need to look back and say if people in the future are saying 20 years ago, they wish they did this well.

Fortunately, we are living in our tomorrow’s selves past, right? So often what I do in my life is I do the Glenn of Tomorrow a favor today. So how can I make sure. I’ve got this balance set up where I’m living and enjoying the now. So one eye on today and also one eye on the future because if you focus on one or the other, you’ll be selling yourself short.

I like to talk about having a simple financial plan or strategy in your life. My one is really simple. I do it in order. I give some, save some and spend some. So I give some because I don’t want to be selfish. I believe in being generous and helping other organizations, charities, people, so I systematic, systematically give some money.

Then I save some, so that’s looking after the Glen of tomorrow. And by save it’s not just money in the bank account, it’s the broader investing property, shares, all that stuff, businesses. And then I spend some, so I’m enjoying today, I’m living a decent life. And those three kind of plates, I believe they need to be quite balanced because if you look at the three of them.

If you gave most your money away, you’re certainly not helping you now or your future, right? So don’t trip over your own compassion. Two, if you invested all your money today maybe you’re being a little bit selfish by not being generous and maybe you’re not living life and enjoying it a little bit.

You’re allowed to enjoy your life. Or conversely, if you spend all your money, you’re not looking after the future. It’s very self-indulgent. And it’s just, there’s it’s party time and you need to look after your future and slow down a little bit and help some other people in need.

Wow. So what are some things, as a money expert, what are some things that might surprise the listeners about the way that you make those choices?

Is there something that you say, I. Never order Uber Eats or what are some things that you go that people, that might surprise people about the way that you manage your own money? So I’m Glen. I’m a recovering spender. Like I’ll say that first and foremost, right? If there’s money floating around, don’t worry.

I’ll find a place to spend it. Yeah. So we need to be acutely aware of our natural proclivity to money, whether we’re a spender or a saver. This might be five or 10% of people that kind of hover. And I think once you know who you are with money and how you act with money, you need to build a system around that to protect you.

So I created the Glen James spending plan. It’s still out there as a free online course, and it’s got a spreadsheet that you can download and there’s a heap of videos and I help coach people around the behavior side of managing money. So what I do, I quarantine different amounts of money because ultimately we need the.

Guardrails for a spender. So we don’t spend too much. But the savers, they need permission to spend.

Yeah.

Because how many people who are real tight with money. Some people are just tight asses as well. That’s like completely off the other scale. Hi to my friend who’s a tight ass.

And if you are listening, you know who you are.

Yeah.

Like we’re not dividing the cost of the pizza that we shared please. So I just think we need to know who we are with our relationship to money. Then build a system that compliments that. Makes it easier for the things that we potentially struggle with. So for me, made it easier to save money, right?

Yep. Made it, because for me, I was, I’m really good at being an investor, but I’m crap at saving money because once the money’s invested, I’m fine with it. Yeah. That’s locked away. Not touching it. Not selling down investment properties. Principal and interest for savings. I needed to make sure that. I would save money.

So the investing was easy for me, but the saving cash was really hard. And so I just think you’ve gotta have a system that compliments your personality and then you set out, along with your why, that I wanna build wealth. So at age 55, I’ve got the option to retire from employment if I want. Then by having that kind of headline, why in your life, and I will get to your actual question, the headline thing into the why.

Every time you go to spend money, you can ask yourself, will this spending a hundred dollars at Bunnings on five watering cans in an eight pack of batteries, bring me closer to my goal or take me further away? It’s really simple. Yeah, some things that, so money’s not my problem in my life at the moment.

Like I, I do pretty good. But one general rule in my life, any type of furniture, I don’t buy brand new.

Oh, okay. Interesting.

What about a mattress, except a mattress? I would say furniture like my dining room table. Yeah. Like I’m not, there’s not a, I don’t live in a world where I’m spending $5,000 on a brand new dining room table.

Not doing. Yeah,

for sure.

In fact, the apartment that I live in now, when I was looking at it, ’cause I rent and invest elsewhere, when I was looking at it online. I’m like, oh yeah, I need a table in it. And then I saw on Marketplace that there was a table for sale. I’m like, that’s the same table as the apartment.

So the guy’s obviously moving away. I text on marketplace. I’m like, Hey, would you take, a thousand bucks for the table? He’s oh, we paid four and a half grand for it. I’m like, yeah, would you take a thousand dollars? He’s yeah, all I’m like, sweet. Tell the agent, leave it there. When you move, I’m moving in, so I don’t, Val, and this is a values thing, right?

I don’t value brand new furniture because the markup in, it’s ridiculous. I’ve, I always look for a, like my sideboard at home was from West Elm. I bought a floor demo. So instead of paying like 900 or $1,100, it was like $250. So for me. It goes back to what do you value?

Yeah.

Plug your spending in for that.

I really I don’t drive a brand new nice car. I drive a, at the moment I’m driving a 2014 Ford Ranger where yeah, I could afford to go and buy a $200,000, two 50 insert nice car here. I just don’t value that. I love cars. What else? The Uber Eats one. I did actually have a rule that I would never use it.

Today we had a meeting in the studio with eight people. It’s actually for where we, where the studio is and it probably is more of a business decision. It is actually easy for me to use Uber Eats ’cause I can just get everyone audio lunch and it comes. But yeah, I did this weird thing the other day ’cause I live in Newcastle.

I called a restaurant to put an order in and went and picked it up. Crazy, let’s save money if you want. Another thing that I do, I use the fuel apps in New South Wales, had to fill the ranger up the other day it was on empty. Brought up the app just by looking and planning my morning drive a kilometer out of the way.

I saved $20 or $19 in diesel cost. But yeah, I’m. I don’t, yeah, I’m not really, I get spendy if I go on holidays and air tickets and whatnot, but there’s a heap of other stuff I don’t value enough to it just comes down to what do you value, really?

Yeah, a hundred percent. I talk about the same thing and it’s really I think that some people just say I value everything and I wanna spend money on everything.

But when you break it down at its core, you’re not gonna get the same level of joy from a bunch of different areas in your life.

Would I’m just like, would I like to have an nicer car? Yeah, maybe. But it really makes very minimal difference to my day-to-day happiness.

I talk about scratching the itch.

I call it scratch the itch with cache or scratch the itch in other ways.

Oh

yeah. A lot of people are like, oh. Yeah, we need to upgrade the house. It’s just it’s so tired and boring and we just need to upgrade it and it’s gonna cost like 250,000 for Reno and we like renovating and all this stuff.

And I said to someone the other day, I’m like so you like renovating? Yeah. You like where you live in your house? Yeah. I’m like, what do you not like about the house? Oh, the bathroom. It’s old. I’m like, okay, spend $50,000 and renovate the bathroom and stay put. You won’t have to buy a new house.

You scratch the itch of a project and you haven’t done a wholesale renovation that costs $350,000. Likewise, I don’t like buying brand new cars. The, one of the last cars that I had, ’cause I actually love cars. It was a Lexus Sports, three IS three 50 F Sport, brand new. They’re like 90, 80 grand or something ridiculous.

And I don’t do car loans or car finance. I just went and bought a second hair. One for 41,000. Done. Yeah. Itch. Nice fun car. No car loan. Paid it in cash. Move on with my life, but it’s all about slowing down and see if there’s other options before you just go for it and make a dumb decision. Yeah, I love that.

Okay, so step one, get the financial foundations in place. Get clear on what your values are. Stop wasting money on crap and each the scratch another way. And then that’s the foundation of starting to really. Build your wealth machine is really understanding what’s important to me, why?

And have I got the structures in place? So then the inevitable next question that I’m gonna ask is that when you are at that place okay, great. I’ve got my foundations in place. I know how much my monthly surplus is. What’s then, when. Particularly in the day and age of information, which is what we are in today, there’s all these different things that you can do.

I know people are saying I just go and ask Chat GPT. What’s your thoughts around that as a start to your investment journey?

Number one, I actually wrote the chat GBT last night. I’m like, can you tell me the answer to this? And I posed a question and then I wrote, please don’t gaslight me. Just tell me if you don’t agree with me.

’cause it was like these, it almost had bias where it’s like, can you grow a plant on the moon like question mark? And it’ll be like, yes, Glen, you can grow a plan on them. It’s don’t tell me what I wanna hear. Tell me. No you can’t. And back to investing. I think you need to work out. What your time horizon is in concert with your why.

So if you are wanting to retire at 55, maybe we’re not salary sacrificing to super because we can’t get that money out of super. I think the best investment anyone can make is probably there. Income career. I wrote a whole book based on that. It was the prequel to my first book, sort your career out and Make more Money.

That’s the best way to get more money into your life from your career. And you’re like, oh, Glen, I’m a teacher or a nurse and I’m in a government band. I’m like, sweet. It’s a job discussion, not a career discussion. Get a different job within that career of nursing, move up. The bands like, oh, but I like nursing.

Okay, you like being on the same salary then I live In reality, there’s some things that you can’t change. Yeah. I’m just a big believer in having information in front of us taking action. And if you have information in front of you and don’t take action, don’t whinge about the outcome. Is that too harsh?

You can edit that out if you want. No, I love it. I’m all for a bit of tough love.

It’s come on. We live in reality. So once you work out what you want to do, so some people wake up in the morning and I want to buy an investment. Property. Property. All right. Go buy ties.

As long as you’ve got your foundations in your place, you’ve got your emergency funding in place, knock yourself out. What I think. I know a lot of your audience are business owners. The best investment other than your income is probably in your own business. So that’s not, I’m a solopreneur with one person.

I’m talking people who have a business who might employ people and produce products or service. How can you really turn that up to print 30% year on year? ’cause you’re not getting that 20 or 30% from markets or any investment property year on year. And then the challenge is once you’re leaning into your own business and start really producing money, and for me, this is the season that I’m in.

My business is inherently built around me, is the key person. So I really don’t have a business, quote unquote, because if I’m not here, it doesn’t run. It can run for a couple of months, but if the recording stop, things stop. So what I’m focusing on now is getting the money out of the business, off the table into other growth assets, and that’s a really big challenge because so many business owners, they’re like I’ll retire and sell the business.

It’ll be worth a couple of million dollars. Get to retirement. Can’t sell it for three or 400,000. So you have to hedge that risk that in the future you can’t actually sell that business. So even if you are like me, where you’re a key person, the business is primarily built around you. You need to get money off the table into other assets as soon as you can.

Yeah. And if you have a business where you are not the personal brand, how are you systemizing the business so that it is a sellable asset? Because even in, organizations where someone isn’t the key, face of the brand or whatever, there’s still a key person. The business can’t run without them a lot of the times.

No. And if you are fortunate enough to be in that role, get a general manager, have someone run the business for you. Go on a holiday to Europe for three or four weeks, turn off everything and give that a road test. And I can tell you if it runs fine and you don’t have to put out fires while you’re in Prague, I can tell you’ve got a business that’s worth something.

’cause it runs with or without you there.

Yeah.

I’ve had to come to grips with it. I don’t have one of those businesses like, sure, I’m going up to Europe and the States this year for, three weeks here and three weeks there. This will be fine for, ad hoc, but I’ve still had to work to get the content in line.

But it’s not an ongoing concern if I’m not on the on the scene. And I’ve had to come to terms with that.  I tried put different hosts in and all this, but at the end of the day. It’s built around my personality, my public profile so be it. I have to get as much money off the table as I can.

I love your transparency.

It’s

very refreshing.

I said I, I think I live in reality and I want to encourage everyone else listening. You also live in reality, so make some stuff happen around your reality. Yeah, if you don’t like reality, you can change it. But that’s probably a whole other podcast episode.

Perfect. So getting your actual income sorted, whether that’s through a business, other streams, or your career path, is the very first thing that you, the most powerful thing that you can do when it comes to actual long-term wealth creation.

So a mind exercise, a mind game, if you will. I think I talked about it in the QuickSight Guide, quick Start Guide to Investing. I think it was that, or sort your career out. I may have actually mentioned it in both books. It’s really cool. Let’s have a, let’s think of a scenario where you’ve got, you’ve $20,000 invested in shares and you want in over the next 12 months.

You want that $20,000 to grow by $10,000. So in 12 months time you’ve got $30,000. So that would mean over the course of the 12 months, that’s a 50% return, right? $10,000, 50% of 20. So we are doing 50% return. The problem is number one, with our own money or our portfolio of $20,000. If that’s your whole portfolio, there is no way on the planet that you would wanna put that $20,000 or your whole portfolio into an investment that has the chance of a 50% return in 12 months, right?

Not happening. There’s a high chance of return with high risk. There’s also a very high chance of it not happening. You’ve gotta, people gotta remember that. However, if you have got a career. 80 90 grand. A hundred grand a year income, and you worked on your job and your career and increase your income by $10,000, which is not hard for a lot of people.

That $10,000 is now an annuity in your life. ’cause there’s a very low chance you’ll ever get a pay paid deduction. So you’ve activated this extra $10,000 a year by not putting any of that investment capital at the high level of risk that needs to get a 50% return. So that’s why your business and your career is the wealth generation vehicle for your life.

’cause it funds everything else.

Yeah, I love that. Like even getting a pay rise in your existing job. Yeah. Or I know you just did an episode as well about like side hustles.

Totally.

If that’s not an option, if you’re in a government band and it’s not an option, then what else are you doing to generate.

New forms of income. And it’s funny, I, oh, sorry. You go ahead.

Oh no, I was just gonna say, within that government band, is there a course or accreditation or something that you can do to, I know teachers have this, they can do an extra bit of accreditation for learning or something like that. They might move up and have a band be or something.

So yeah, leaning into your career and how you generate money, because that actually drives everything in your financial life.

Yeah. Love that. Love that. And that’s the most powerful thing that you can do when it comes to getting ahead financially. So when it comes to picking like an asset class, you said it doesn’t really matter or was that sort of a.

General call, like if people do I start with shares? Do I start with property? Do I pay down my mortgage? Yeah. Do you think that it’s just a very personalized decision for each person?

I think so. There’s a lot of, and that’s why I said it, it almost doesn’t matter. If you wake up. You’ve always been interested in property, you listen to, this is Property podcast you, you’re always on domain and you’re always on real estate and you’re one of those people that just love property.

You probably wanna buy an investment property, right? Alright, go for it. There’s a whole thing about criteria and buying in the right location around Australia and all that, but if as long as you are living on West, less than you earn and investing the rest. You can’t wreck it, but that investing the rest after living on less than what you earn, that investing, the rest could be paying down the mortgage more because we’re saving interest.

We’re getting a guaranteed 6% return at the moment. It could be the. Investing the rest well, we’re going to salary sacrifice to superannuation, get a tax deduction on the way in, only pay 15% tax for most people. Most of the time. Let’s build that wealth that way. I don’t get mad as it comes back down to what your appetite is.

The investment property thing, far out everything. It just, I hate it. I so annoying. Says the guy with property, but it’s just oh, the tile’s in the bathroom going, all right, send someone out to fix it. Oh, the oven broke. Like it all happens at once and you’re thinking, I’m selling everything.

But if you want to have a little portfolio of shares, that’s also really easy to do. As long as you, when you commit the money to that, you keep your MITs off it for five years.

Yeah,

numerous ways that you can enter and the book, quick Start Guide to Investing that will go into detail to show people how to start investing in shares, the mortgage, the payoff, the mortgage or invest thing.

That is a discussion, which is, it’s very nuanced. And sometimes it could be as simple as let’s focus on getting the mortgage down a little bit more. If it’s a newer mortgage or a bit younger, or we’ve got higher interest rates because there’s less there’s a higher loan of value ratio. It might help paying down the mortgage just to get that under control and then saying, okay.

We still want to pay down the mortgage, but we want to maybe salary sacrifice the superannuation a little bit just to optimize the future and save a little bit more on tax. It really is one of those, every time we do an episode on invest or pay down the mortgage, it’s like the most clicked title.

And if I could do every episode every week, that topic it would, it’d be really good. But I think it does come back to what do you want to do? Okay, we’ll do it, but before you just do it, just know if you are paying down the mortgage extra and there’s a 6% interest rate, a salary sacrifice to super.

If you wanted to do that instead on paper, that will always give you a better return because of the actual investment in the super fund, but also the tax saving along the way. That you just can’t touch it until your preservation age. So there’s a trade off there,

which is going up because people’s life expectancy is increasing.

Yeah. Yeah, who knows? So at the moment you can access your super at age 60 if you stop working completely and retire from the workforce or have it as a small technical thing or a change of circumstance, or if you’re age 65, you can take it all. But I think it’s more about. What do you wanna do?

We want to build wealth for the future. Okay. Why? We don’t want to not have a home when we’re older. You might have come from a house that we’re renting all your life and it’s a birth, a big personal thing of yours to smash that mortgage. All right, clear the mortgage by age 50. Then go on DARE then from 50 to 65, pump super and pump other investments like if you live on less than you earn and invest the rest.

Pay down debt. The rest you can’t wreck it. Yeah, you can optimize in terms of tax and the arbitrage of the different interest rates between the mortgage rate and the investment rates. As interest rates go up, probably is more of an, and I don’t think they’re gonna go up much more, but it probably is more of a no brainer.

If it was 9% interest rates, like the 2010s or nines or whatever it was, yeah. Probably focusing on the debt, but. Do what you want. How about that? And I do what I’m hearing under this as well, is that whatever it is that you want to do, it’s way better to be doing something, taking action than sitting, being paralyzed in fear.

Oh, I don’t know whether to go here or do this, or what to do. It’s like just freaking get started. Yeah. On your investment journey, or don’t invest anything and just pump your business and make that a cash cow. Then when that’s pumping cash. Buy property and buy shares with that. Once it’s outta the business, just don’t do it in your same entity.

In the same entity as you would probably, but yeah you can’t wreck it. You can just optimize it. And I think that’s what you need to know. Take action. If you’ve got a spouse report partner, make sure they’re on the same page. And if they’re not on the same page, that’s okay, but just know which page each other is on.

Exactly. That’s also very important.

I think that’s another huge thing when you’re talking about wealth creation and a big decision to make. I think that your life partner will have a massive impact on what that looks like over the span of your life.

Totally. And if you are the one that’s into money and into taking risks and all that, and.

And people say, oh, I dunno what to do. I always say, what’s your spouse or partner say? Just do what they say. Might slow you down from making a big mistake. Might slow you down by taking less risk. Could be a good thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting take. On that note I think we will wrap up for today, Glen, if people are loving your vibe and wanna come listen to your shows or check out the program that you mentioned earlier, what’s the best way that they can do so?

YouTube podcast players, whatever. Awesome. When people ask me that where can people find you? I usually say. Don’t find me, you’ll only be disappointed.

I’m gonna put the links in the show notes for the episode for today so that if people are listening, they can find links to come and connect with you.

I thank you so much for coming along and sharing your wisdom on the Intentional Money Show today, Glen. And yeah, I hope you’ve inspired the listeners to get started on their investment journey.

Well, Clare, it was worth what everyone paid for it, so thank you so much for having me today.

Thanks, Glen.

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* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podc