Bulletproof Investing. James FitzGerald

INTRODUCTION

      Spoiler alert: this is not a book about a self-made millionaire who knows the secret to turning $200 into $100 million. It's a cautionary tale about gaining and keeping financial control. I also want to sound a warning to anyone who equates money with success and believes their financial wellbeing or otherwise defines them as a person. By sharing a collection of personal stories and experiences, I'm determined to start an important but at times uncomfortable money conversation as we enter this post-pandemic economic frontier.

      I've had the great fortune of learning what you need to do to never again have to worry about money. The best news is you can start with nothing. I don't have all the answers, but I have valuable insight from my own unique journey, which has been both fortunate and fraught.

      Today, I'm in complete control of my personal finances. I sleep like a baby and I'm optimistic about the future. By sharing my experiences and the knowledge and skills I've gained along the way I hope I can help you learn how to find and keep financial control too.

I'm not a theorist. I'm in my early thirties and my wife and I own our own home as well as five investment properties, putting us in the top fraction of a percentage of all Australians. However, I started with nothing — in fact, less than nothing. I don't come from money; you'll read that my parents have been broke three times. Perhaps more importantly, 10 years ago my personal finances were out of control. I had to learn how to build my wealth and, before that, get my finances under control. All the while discovering a way to do it when I'm naturally conservative and cautious, and saw ‘debt’ and ‘risk’ as four-letter words.

      Where there's a money shortage, there's very often anxiety. Most of us have experienced it — for some it's fleeting, passing in the space of a few hours; for others it's more persistent, if not permanent. Perhaps you can't get to sleep or back to sleep. Or it arrives courtesy of a school or university exam, a meeting at work, an unexpected bill or an awkward social encounter. Very few of us are immune to those anxious feelings, which can be overwhelming, all-consuming and above all else exhausting!

      Personal finance is cited as the single biggest cause of stress for one in two Australians. In 2018, the CBA released a study that revealed one in three Australians spent more than they earned each month, one in two had insufficient savings to handle a temporary loss of income and one in three would not be able to find $500 for an emergency.

      MLC (owned by Australia's fourth biggest bank, National Australia Bank) also produced data in 2016 suggesting half of all working Australians live payday to payday. These numbers are cause for concern and, no doubt, have been exacerbated by the global pandemic that sent Australia, the lucky country, into recession.

Additionally, the 2017–18 ABS Australian National Health Survey concluded that one in five (20 per cent of) Australians — approximately 4.8 million people — experience some form of mental illness in their lifetime. That number has increased from 17.5 per cent in 2014–15. Research by the same group in 2009 found 45 per cent of Australians would experience a mental illness at some point in their lifetime. It cited anxiety as our biggest mental health challenge, with 13 per cent of Australians experiencing an anxiety-related condition, up from 11 per cent in 2014–15.

      In 2014 the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported that 54 per cent of people who experience a mental health challenge do not seek help. A 2013 study by the University of Southampton in the UK, cited in the journal Clinical Psychology Review, found that individuals with depression and anxiety were three times more likely to be in debt. Other research has made a clear link between debt and suicide.

      Our online lives don't help matters. Of the 54 per cent of Australians experiencing anxiety, a significant number also have some form of gambling habit, a trend accentuated by smart-phone applications and the easy access to online gambling. Other people turn to alcohol, or prescription or illicit drugs, in a bid to self-medicate and ease the pain of their financial ailments.

      That's why now, more than ever, we need to have awkward but honest conversations about money. Lives depend on it.

      My own father, my best mate, endured a 30-plus-year battle with anxiety, fuelled by the oft parlous state of his personal finances. I've witnessed first-hand the vicious cycle — the coping mechanism cocktail — that is gambling, drugs and alcohol and experienced the tragic, senseless consequences. Dad's financial angst was exacerbated by the fact that his sense of self-worth was heavily linked to (if not driven by) his financial success.

This is in stark contrast to my professional mentor — who just happens to be my dad's brother — who has, since his early days in business, strived to establish and maintain financial control. I don't believe you inherit a Midas touch. My dad and my Uncle John grew up in the same loving household with the same level of opportunity and support, and the same trials and tribulations. It seems to me that, in the hand we're dealt in the game of life, the wild cards in the deck are how we derive our self-worth,