UghFIRE

A few days ago I posted a link to my FIRE calculator on Reddit. I had posted it a few months before, but didn't get much interest. Most of the traffic to the calculator came from posting about it in the comments section of Strong Money Australia's post about where you should put your money . Over the nearly 6 months since I first posted the calculator, I had 822 visitors to the page. I was really happy with how many people had seen it, and had received a lot of really thankful and encouraging emails. Nevertheless, visits had dropped off. Enter me,  posting about the calculator on Reddit again. In a couple of days, the 822 visits exploded to 3,110! OK, so it might not have gone 'viral', but for someone who is just doing this for fun, I was really blown away by the interest it generated. Along with some really awesome feedback, I got a lot of suggestions of features to add to the calculator. For the most part, these were awesome suggestions. Lots I had already

Ughhrrumph is an onomatopoeia for the frustration I felt working in the job that I hated, with a boss that didn't understand my job, yet liked to micromanage (I was a low-level data analyst at the time). It was the exact feeling that got me dreaming about escaping the rat-race, and the feeling that helped me realise the importance of reaching financial independence, and retiring early ( FIRE ). I left that job years ago, but I haven't forgotten how it felt. I owe a lot to that feeling of frustration, and I don't want to forget it. Frustration isn't usually looked upon with fondness, but if I'm honest, I do a lot of my best work when I'm frustrated. For example, I made my own FIRE calculator because I was frustrated with the complexity of picking the best strategy to reach FIRE. It helped me so much to come to peace with my plan, I started this blog as a vehicle for sharing the calculator hoping it might also help others. I assume there will be more f

Franking credit refunds are a hot topic this election. It got me wondering about what exactly these changes would (financially) mean to the early retirement crowd. Obviously, everyone's situation will be different, and I doubt many people are aiming for a retirement income based on 100% fully franked dividends only. But to keep things simple, the below calculator assumes a single income earner wants to know their net income with and without franking credit refunds - assuming no other income. The calculator also assumes all dividends represent 4% of the portfolio size. Perhaps most importantly, the below refers to individuals who are pre-retirement age. As I understand it, most of the perception of 'unfairness' around the use of franking credits as a mechanism to avoid double taxation are when full refunds are paid on large retiree portfolios who do not pay income tax. That's a different problem though. Sure, abolishing franking credits completely will 'fix

  NOTE: This page is best viewed on a large screen (e.g., laptop/desktop/tablet zoomed out) I've been lurking around the FIRE community for a while now, not earning enough to make any meaningful progress towards FIRE (I went back to school). After a few years of just enough income to not go backwards, I started thinking about how I would use the income I hoped to make with my higher qualifications. Should I pay down the PPOR to reduce expenses? Pay off my investment property? Buy LICs and/or ETFs? Sell the investment property and buy shares? There are so many variables, I was really struggling to think through a clear plan. There are a stack of FIRE calculators out there, but none helped me model different scenatios I was weighing up. This calculator is the how I finally came to understand my preferred investment strategy: Ughhrrumph FIRE Calculator   In short, for my circumstances, I found if I focused on funneling as much savings as I can afford into LICs/ETFs fo