Many high earners and investors, including those who have amassed significant wealth, still struggle to get a handle on their spending. Max Phelps will help you get your money systems in order.
Do you wonder where all of your money goes? Do you keep hitting a financial ‘ceiling’?
It’s all way too easy to be swept away by consumerism, instant gratification and invisible mounting debt – then throw ever-rising costs on top of that.
To break the cycle, it’s about understanding the deep-rooted psychological factors that drive our spending money habits and learning how to harness them to create a life of financial stability and true abundance.
To talk through this and more is Max Phelps.
Max is a money coach as well as a fellow mortgage broker and author, and in our two-part interview we’re going to unpack the the knitty gritty of his own personal, professional and passive money and investing journey, before delving into his recently released new book Spending, Fast and Slow, where he introduces you to a system that triggers you to think before you spend so you can make better decisions every day.
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Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Spending-Fast-Slow-money-disappears-ebook/dp/B0CJM7QQ4N
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https://goldeneggs.info/
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Get Invested is the leading weekly podcast for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full ‘self, health and wealth’ potential.
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So the guy that catch wrote Catch 22 was was in the in a at a party for The Wolf of Wall Street guy Jordan belf what whatever his name was yes yeah and and at that stage you know Catch 22 had been a multinational bestseller for multiple
Years been made into a movie they’ve since made into a TV series and done a whole lot of stuff so the guy done quite well and uh and somebody at this party sent to him he said do you realize that Jordan made more money last week than
You’ve made in 20 years of royalties from Catch 22 and he turned around and said yeah but I’ve got one thing with money that he will never have and the guy’s gone what he said enough welcome to get invested on the property Hub podcast channel the leading weekly show to help
You unlock your full self health and wealth potential I’m your host bushy Martin and each week I go deep with the best investors experts leaders and Founders to find out what it takes to break free from the grind discover freedom and live by Design subscribe now
And join me and get invested in the life you really want let’s get started hi Fred and Fighters how often do you find yourself wondering where all your money goes why is it that you just seem you just can’t seem to get ahead that your money’s already spent before you even
Get it and regardless of how much you earn or your income increases you just never never seem to have that bit extra to save or invest if this is you then you’re not alone and despite what you keep hearing and constantly told it’s not your fault now you can blame
Technology marketing Society at large and even your own brain for this because they all try to keep you spending despite your best intentions and efforts in today’s frantic world uh where everything is just a quick plastic card tap tap tap away it’s all way too easy to be swept away Way by consumerism
Instant gratification and invisible mounting debt and we increasingly feel like we’re just not getting hit as fast as we should and could be our money like sand just seems to slip straight through our fingers leaving us wondering where it all went and how can we get things
Back under control and none of this is surprising given that we’re also facing ever increasing housing costs whether we’re renters or mortgage holders and inflation just keeps pushing up the cost to just about everything else as I quote in my book the freedom formula actor Will Smith once said that
We spend money that we don’t have on things that we don’t need to impress people who just don’t care so what can we do to stem the tide of ever Rising lifestyle inflation if you listen to most of the financial commentators in the media you can be forgiven for
Thinking that you’re the problem and you simply need to change your attitude to money following this line of thinking the obvious logical rational and overly simplistic solution to your money wo is just to spend less and save more to cut out unnecessary purchases and spend only on what’s strictly necessary after
Searching out the best value now this sounds easy in theory so why doesn’t it work for most of us now you’ll be interested to hear that based on the experience of today’s special guest only about 10% of us rationally behave rationally with money all day and every day and this shrinking minority are
Normally referred to as scrooges tight asses accountants or financial planners meanwhile the remaining 90% behave normally they want stuff they seem to have money and the mess is too hard too boring and too timec consuming to calculate the consequences of every single decision that we make so where
Does it leave you if you’re struggling to get ahead if you find you’re consistently missing your savings goals or your credit card debt just isn’t shrinking despite all of your best efforts well today’s guest and I don’t believe that the solution is to priv in yourself of lost Pleasures or forcing
Yourself to live a misery existence instead it’s about understanding the Deep rded psychological factors that drive our spending money habits and learning how to harness them to create a life of financial stability and true abundance as you’re about to hear and enjoy it’s about slowing down your spending and setting up structures that
Trigger you to think before you spend so you can make better decisions each and every day and ultimately to get more out of life and to help you with all of this fellow mortgage broker and active property investor Max Phelps joins me to enjoy a great discussion on their shared
Vision and waking up and shaking up hardworking Aussies like yourself and thousands of others to get your money sorted and to get invested in your future now Max is also a money coach as well as a fellow author so after unpacking the nitty-gritties of his own personal professional and passive money
In investing Journey we going to delve into his recently released new book spending fast and slow where he introduced you to a system that triggers you to think before you spend so you can make better decisions every day and ultimately to get more out of Life As We explore the fascinating intersection of
Psychology and money discovering how our brains are wired to approach financial decisions both large and small as he shares his tried and tested system to spend less save more and to stop worrying about money so I’m really looking forward to this great conversation so welcome and let’s get
Invested ma thanks so much for having got a great intro thanks bushy yeah my pleasure mate I really enjo enjoyed just sort of I’ve only honestly skimmed through the book but there’s some really great stuff in there that I know everyone’s really going to uh enjoy so
Right off the bat and want to encourage people to grab themselves a coffee but uh for those that don’t know you Max can you start off by giving us a bit of a rundown on what you do differently and as importantly why you do what you
Do yeah so in terms of what I do differently so yes I’m a mortgage broker like you are but um everything for me is about the long term it’s about where do you want to take your life um and um why I do what I do is I want to help people
Get to where they want to go because I’ve been extremely fortunate in my life having grown up in the country like you did uh although with eight brothers and sisters which I don’t think you had my my sister’s one of 12 M so I I got had similar understanding of what a big
Family is yeah but you know you go up with a big family with no money out in the bush and you know the whole thing stuff we’re talking about today is just Hye dream pie in the sky now I’m sitting here you know this is my home I’m I’m sitting as a back
Backdrop here and I’ve got a great life I’m really happy and what makes me happiest now is actually sitting down with people helping them set their own goals and and have the life that they want that’s that’s what I that’s why I go to work when I don’t have to
Absolutely love that well i’ i’ love for you to unpack a bit of a Reader’s Digest of your journey so far if you can and I I want you to sort of take us through both personally professionally and and passively where have you invested your time energy money over years and why and
How’s this then LED you to where where you are and what you’re doing today mate well when you grow up in a family with no money the first priority is not being poor and and that was the focus like how do I not be broke and I was lucky enough
To get a a great job with a multinational company for unil and uh was join their sales and marketing team and a good salary was the answer so get a good job and you’ll be fine now I was lucky enough as well to uh when I came backpacking to Australia
Um I met my wife uh when I was only 21 um and uh we’ve been together 34 years now uh 34 years in two weeks time congratulations thank you um but but initially it was just uh how do we uh not be poor by earning money and
That was it um I wanted to have invested in property I I I played Monopoly as a kid I wanted to do that sort of stuff but they just never seemed to be it never seemed to be possible um and we had kids really really straight away I
Was 23 when I became a dad um and so you’ve got the pressures of family and a growing career uh and a wife taking matle back when mat Le was like two weeks if you’re lucky and P paternity leave it’s like well if your wife’s in
Labor you can take the day off mate we won’t count it you know that was it um I love it I love the fact that people get paternity leag now I think it’s amazing I would have loved to have done that but but yeah so for me it was
Um uh putting my time energy into my career and the multinational gave me great opportunities I worked for them in um in UK in Sydney in Brisbane back in Sydney again Bangkok coaching in and uh 15 years I spent um on the career path and and gave me a great foundation and
You know I did quite well out of it but ultimately I Was Made redundant and um decided I want more out of life than just working for money and so I decided to start investing in property and become a high school teacher interesting well I’m I’m going to circle back to
That because uh what I’d love to sort of break into a little bit because we we’re often uh an outcome from nature and nurture of our upbringing so how is your upbringing given that you’re one n affected who you’ve become and and your approach to money well look um firstly two two
Different facets here because I’ve got on the one hand my mom who was an amazing budgeter you know when you’re raising you know my dad predominantly earned below minimum wage he was self-employed a lot of the time and earning below minimum wage and my mom managed to feed and clothe nine kids
Admittedly we did often wear hand me- down clothes and I and I was I’m big brother so I my hand me- Downs weren’t my sister’s clothes they were from a guy down the street you know um and uh in fact there was a guy that I was at
School with and he refused to wear his older brother’s clothes because there was like a seven eight year age Gap because they were out of fashion and I wore his brother’s out of fashion clothes um so so I grew up but but my mom talked about money constantly she
Was always going through a book she wrote down everything if there was five pents missing from a purse she’d have all the kids lined up that were old enough to stand who’s been in my purse and had the money and we’d be panicking about you know we I went I went to the
Shop and you know paid for the paper papers all right I got the loaf of bread I know that I’ve got that written down that was this much no no no the price went up oh I didn’t get that and then she’d adjust the books and we’d be going
Again but every penny counted my mom used to say waste not want not and I never really understood that phrase properly until much much later waste not I understood you don’t waste anything you eat everything you never leave it leave anything and I had a problem with
Food for many years because my attitude to food was if if someone’s left something on their plate it’s like oh you don’t want that can I have it we we’re more similar than I thought that expression why not whatnot was exactly how I was brought up too M so uh
Everything you’re saying is resonating perfectly with my my own upbringing it’s one notot B I didn’t understand properly and it was want not things don’t want for things but it was something that came from the fact that we didn’t expect lots of stuff at Christmas we didn’t
Expect stuff at you know birthdays were when you got new unies I got thousands at hankies and I got and I I I love football you’ll call it soccer but you’re wrong um which is a round ball so I I would I would get a football every birthday and every
Christmas I’d get one and by the next birthday or Christmas it’d be punched or lost or something and i’ I’d have to get another one um and so that as long as I got a football that was a birthday for me football and a bit of chocolate bit
Few clothes that’s me um but it just meant that I then I got in the habit of like I don’t really need stuff I don’t need it it’s not important to me it’s not badal but I I I am one of the tide asses I am one of the scrooges that that
I don’t like spending money it makes me feel uncomfortable um and so I do tend to you know do things on the cheap but my dad was very different to my mom my dad the best financial decision ever made was to say to my mom
I’m no good with money when I get paid if I give you my money can you make sure everything gets taken care of and if I need some money to go to the PB just give me some money and I’ll be fine best financial decision he ever made and he
Meant he couldn’t ruin the family finances because money in his hand was gone but he also talked about traveling and he wanted to travel when he retired and to me that felt like an awful long way off and so that’s why I I came back back into Australia I traveled
Through Asia I traveled through America when I was young because I wanted to to experience stuff before I got too old to do it and so I’ve got this dichotomy between spending money on travel but being a tight ass the rest of the time yeah I love that doconomy actually
Because and some really good fundamentals that were baked in uh pretty clearly from your good mother uh you mentioned earlier that you you made the decision to jump off the the the corporate bus and then uh leap into property and into teaching which is a which is an interesting combo I’d love
For for you to sort of share why teaching and then jump into why property because uh that’s that’s something that as you know Australians have a big love affair with but there’s only very few that go much Beyond buying their own home so can you take us through your
Thinking on both of those well as part of my job in the the last four years that I was with Unilever I did a lot of training um I did a lot of sales training negotiation training and and also I had a very in Vietnam I had a
Very big team I had like 50 people through my team about 11 of them reporting directly to me so I did a lot of train training a lot of mentoring people and I wanted to do that and and I I wanted to be able to travel and of
Course for me teaching was like well I can go and be a teacher and then I get my school holidays I can spend time with the kids go traveling but I know that teaching doesn’t pay well enough so I need something else that pays better and
So um I I I remember years and years ago I was on a course and I don’t remember who the guy was but he used to say um do the job that you love but find a way to make the money that you need and so for
Me property was the way to make the money that you need um and I think it’s a great philosophy which is you know do what you love because doing what you love is what you it’s what you wake up to do every single day and so teaching I thought I’d
Probably enjoy it and I did I loved it I did I did two years a high school math teacher teaching sweaty teenagers how to do Pythagoras and whatever um you know and I love the challenge of it every single hour of it was just you know on
Your feet like how can you get this get this into the kids head and they’re just not getting it then how can you get them to remember the stuff that you did last time I I love that challenge and and I I totally enjoyed doing that yeah I love
That I’m going to Spring this one on you Max but what’s something unique or interesting about you and your background that you’ve never shared publicly before well you see I mentioned my wife a couple of times so we met when I was 21 and we’ve been married now for
Almost 32 years together for 34 um and uh now she is a Shopaholic she’s much more like my dad with money she can’t be doing with money uh and I can’t change her I can’t I can’t make her stop buying stuff I can put in place structures that help her understand what
She’s doing and that’s what the book spending fast and slow is really all about um but something that that I’ve never really talked about is the fact that I actually um I left her uh in just before a 10th wedding anniversary boxing day of um what would have been 19 uh oh
I can’t can’t remember what year 0 yeah 200 2001 it would have been I think y yep and I left her because I thought there was someone else that was more interesting um and it’s that being tempted by something but you know what I made an the best decision that I made at
The time you know we’re always always going to be tempted anyone in a long-term relationship somewhere along the way someone’s going to you know bat their ey legs in the right way and make you feel a bit special and feel like you need to do something else the best thing
I did was instead of acting directly on that and going ahead and and and sleeping with someone else I said you know what I’m going to move out of home take a step back then I know that that I need to make a DEC decision either come
Back home or or or go ahead with someone else and I was very open about it with both my wife and also my girlfriend at the time crazy that was the case um but I did that and three weeks later was our 10th wedding anniversary and my wife
Um uh I guess seduced me again and reminded me what it is to be married and uh and now we’ve been together for yeah 30 odd years but most people think oh you’ve been together you know wonderful relationship it’s like yeah but we’re all tempted and every relationship has those
Challenges there’s no doubt about it I I’ve got to say you know I want to thank you for being open about that because not many people would uh and great respect for the fact that you’ve you know sort of recognized the opportunity and done the hard work which it it
Always is every relationship is hard work and that that’s where the satisfaction comes out of it would you reckon that’s been the most challenging you been in your life uh so far or I re it’s probably one of the most challenging there was another one that
We we got hit with later on um I mean coming back to England after training as a teacher in England um I was told I couldn’t teach because the qualification was no good and that was kind of tough and I fell into mortgage broking as kind
Of a feeling um to kind of until I could teach again but I went with a franchise organization and then three years in they went Belly Up and and they gave me the choice between staying with them and as you know as mortgage brokers we get paid a
Trailing income you stay with them and keep your Trail and and you’ll be sold on to someone else or leave and walk away from three years of um of of building up the business T which way did you go well I started golden eggs uh straight away um
So golden eggs was actually born in November 20 11 uh they went belly up they went they went into Administration in October 17th um 2011 and two weeks later I gave them my two weeks notice and then I waited until the end of the two weeks notice started up golden eggs and that’s
My business and I’ve been trading under that name ever since but it then allowed me to then focus more on investors and focus more on um doing things my way rather than doing things the way that they wanted me to yeah I love that before we get get into that whole Arena
And I want to sort of drill into your property journey in in a fair bit of detail if we can and so just by the way on that bushy you you also know that when you’re a mortgage broker there’s a huge lag between when you’re paid when
You do the work and when you get paid when the administrator stepped in they said we’re not paying for anything prior to today so then not only do they stop our Trail they stopped every single deal that we had so I had to go for I had to
Go on zero income for three months until I could get things back on track again that would have been financially extremely challenging at the time Wife and Kids for support my wife working in the business with me that was our sole source of income good Greatful if if I
Look at that combination of the the the challenges with your relationship and the challenges you had around that that business exercise what were the uh the greatest learnings and best changes that that came out of that do you think yeah it’s funny that it’s committing to
Something is a is a powerful thing to do an incredible powerful thing to do whether it’s committing to a relationship or committing to a business it’s just going you know what I’m in I’m going to do this it’s a very powerful thing and then you have to make it work
And things don’t always work out the way you think they’re going to at the start but when you make that commitment then you’ve got to do the work to make to to make it happen um and and for a lot of people I know and I
Know I was this for 15 years I I didn’t make a big commitment to do any anything much at all and the problem if you don’t make a commitment to do anything much at all then guess what you do not much at all and you chase the
Next shiny thing that comes across the across the Horizon yeah spot on now and and I guess that you know that my take home from reading that is that that long-term commitment whether it be to your business your finances and the relationship is ultimately the exercise that will uh strengthen your charity and
Your resilience and ultimately get you to the whatever you’d like to call sustainable success I love you sharing that I want to Circle back a little bit there and and get you to talk about what does money mean to you Max it’s just a tool
That’s all it is it’s a tool it’s a tool to do a job um we need money to pay our bills we need money to do the stuff that we like but it’s just a tool it’s not the be all and end all I used to be
Interested in chasing it there’s a lot of people in our profession and that’s all they do is Chase the commissions chase the deals um but it’s just a tool and if if once you understand your own self better and you know what you want then you go well how much money do I
Need to do what I need and I don’t need really all that much um you know I’m happy to buy cheap T-shirts and um you know I love where I live and and this cost us a lot of money to live here um but it’s just a tool and we use it to
Get the things that we want and if we need to make more we make more um but obviously it’s much better for me you know we hit the point a while ago to for get our passive income up if you can get your passive income up so you don’t
Have to work if you don’t want to then you can choose to chase the dollars um actually one of my favorite quotes um is is from is it uh I always forget his name is it Tom Helen the guy that wrote um as22 oh yeah y so the guy that cat
Wrote Catch 22 was was in the in a at a party for The Wolf of Wall Street guy Jordan belf what whatever his name is yes yeah and and at that stage you know cash 22 had been a multinational bestseller for multiple years been made into a movie they’ve since made into a
TV series and done a whole lot of stuff so the guy had done quite well and uh and somebody at this party sent to him he said do you realize that Jordan made more money last week than you’ve made in 20 years of royalties from Catch 22 and
He turned around and said yeah but I’ve got one thing with money that he will never have and the guy’s gone what he said enough and that’s what for him he had enough he was fine he was happy but but Jordan didn’t have enough he had to keep chasing more dollars he
Had a business bringing $25 million a year passive income but kept chasing more and ended up in jail he spot on and I think the real prize is time not money it’s yeah time and choice to do the things that are important to you and and that’s a really
Good segue i’ I’d love for you to share your vision of what your ideal lifestyle looks like because you’re probably living it right now from what you just yeah I am sh with this so what does that look like and and what have you invested in to help make that
Happen um yes so I mean the ideal lifestyle is is you know living in a place with it with amazing views you know you know one of my favorite things to do is is wake up in the morning and open up the blinds and just look
Outside and just see the water and it’s just phenomenal and you when you’ve grown up in out in some you know crappy little place in the bush and you’re suddenly looking at this amazing view it makes you feel good already to start the
Day um I walk to work so I I I I live 6 kmers from my office I’m in the office now this is just a home backdrop but um it’s 6 km and I walk some days and I cycle some days you means I get my
Exercise it means I’m out in the open and uh I don’t set an alarm uh is one of my you know one of my things I don’t have an alarm I wake up when I wake up I walk to work if I take an hour
To walk to work that’s fine if I take an hour and a half CU I stop and do a workout or make some videos on the way that’s totally fine um you know I’ll stop and have a cup of coffee but I love
Doing the job that I do so I come to the office every almost every day somay I take I take days off you might call them the weekend um but but I don’t take every weekend off and I don’t take every day off on every weekend I normally work
Cuz I like it I I come in and I can spend time with someone try to help me and if you’ve got the time and if when you got the time and energy to help other people that’s worth so much more than than fancy cars fancy clothes you
Know it’s it’s a hollow feeling of just chasing the next thing as opposed to you just made an impact on someone’s life someone just went wow I I I understand something I didn’t understand before and that’s both with the clients that I help and also that you know if I make more
Money now it goes straight back into the business I’ll hire another staff member train another person that means another person can help more people and and on we go yeah I love it and then the holidays you got to take breaks of course you do and I know travel is a big
Part uh to you and and Kelly as as it is for my wife son and I there’s no greater learning opportunity to work out who you are and and and what’s really important to you than than going somewhere else uh but I and and I I agree with you Max I
Think true fulfillment comes from a giving fre to others without ever expecting anything in return uh the Lev level of satisfaction that comes out of it you just can’t put a a a dollar against it quite frankly uh but to have the freedom to do that is a is a
Wonderful gift in itself but I I know that to help make that happen not only have you got your uh money sit together but you’ve all also invested quite heavily in in property over the years so I’d love it love for just I have I was a
Late bloomer to the investment game and I missed more opportunities than I than I took um you know I’ll never forget sitting down in my living room um 20 something years ago and having some and the guy was a property spooker one of these people that tries to sell you some
Off- the plan stuff yeah um and I knew full well that his stuff was priced you know he was 40 Grand more expensive than than a unit down the road and I remember well and true this is in Dill in Sydney which is about you know 8 km out from
The city and it was a two-bedroom apartment at $220,000 but I knew that I could get one for 180 if I bought an established one so I didn’t go ahead with him but I didn’t buy the other one either I didn’t know anything I just no and and that that’s a pretty common
Exercise as well because it’s always 800,000 they wor now 800 it wouldn’t have matter whether I PID 220 or8 worth 800 well let’s dive in there because i’ I’d love for you to unpack for us uh the nitty-gritties of your property Journey but I want to start with why did you
Decide to invest in property at all and were there any initial fears or concerns that you had before you took the leap you know apart from playing Monopoly as a kid um I wasn’t a reader um the only books I read were the ones I was made to
Read in high school and then on my 32nd birthday my wife gave me uh Rich Dad Poor Dad yeah um fantastic book read it cover to cover in a couple of hours and then she got me the whole Rich Dad series and I started reading other stuff
And I was and I thought this is I’ve got to do this I’ve got to get into property but it was another what six or seven years before I did anything um and so i s like I say saw saw lots of stuff and thought about lots
Of stuff and didn’t act on any any of it what held you back what what held you from pulling the tree do you think Max it it was it was the fear of getting it wrong it was a like I say that you know you don’t want to get ripped off by
Someone so you don’t do when you know someone’s trying to rip you off you just don’t do it but I but I didn’t I didn’t bother getting myself educ I didn’t speak to a mortgage broker I didn’t even know such a thing existed and to be quite honest it probably didn’t exist
Very much back then you know mortgage brokers were kind of a very niche thing yeah and even then you know even now 80% of Brokers are just interested in getting you the loan they won’t sit down and take the time and understand what what you’re trying to do with your life
And trying to help you get there um so you know if if I’d have met someone like me and that’s what drives me more than anything now is that if I’d have met someone like me when I was 32 I would have bought that Bloody property I’d
Have bought the 180 Grand property down the road or an even better one cuz I’d have known how and I didn’t know how I didn’t know that I could just you know use the equity in my heart home to do stuff that that my income was going to
Be enough to make it work and that that rent was going to cover the mortgage I didn’t know how to do it um but take us through the the degrees off i’ got a degree in economics know it’s like I’m not not dumbass or anything I just I
Still didn’t know how to do it yeah and that and that that fear is is the big hurdle for for a lot of people because it’s what you you you just don’t know what you don’t know therefore the the default position is to do nothing uh because you think it’s safer doing
Nothing but when you and I and by the way that’s part of our human nature is is is is like stay in the safety bubble of what we know and what we understand and don’t step out into the unknown World um and uh you know so I didn’t do
Anything until I was probably 38 39 before I finally went and you know I got made redundant and I went right part of this is I need to supplement if I want to be a teacher I can’t live I can’t support a family five as as the main bre
Badwi in the household um I I can’t support a family of a five on a teachers wage um especially not a traine teachers wage I need to make some money and so I’d managed to save up um we started saving the good thing I did start to do
At 32 was we started saving money we never save money yeah we bought a property but we never saved money we didn’t even save the deposit we pought our first time on a credit card we put the deposit on a credit card a 5% deposit on a credit
Card yeah yeah um unless you got started though that’s that’s key bit you got on the ladder I got on the ladder but I really got on the ladder because it was I was trying to gain the system because un Le moved me up to Brizzy and they had
A rule that was if they moved you then they would subsidize your your your housing costs well I knew Sydney was a lot cheaper than Brizzy but I knew if they were moving me to bris Brisbane I’d have to come back and if I bought a house in Brisbane they’d have to
Subsidize my move back to Sydney so so I knew I had to to kind of act act then so I was acting for all the wrong reasons but that’s what I did and so it got me my first property um and then my but that was a
Home and then we had to sell that to move to Sydney and we got we got the upgrade from the company and then the investment I I then had I I was like I now I’ve got it I need the money I need the income and so I started buying cash
Positive investment properties um in the north of England that made more money I still got mortgages because I was working there but but they were very cash positive and so he was able to supplement my income yeah take us from there so you did did a few of those by
The sound things can you sort of thread the needle on on what you so the funny thing is once I once I bought the first one the like it’s almost have the floodgates open it’s almost like my brains we can do this oh my God you get
Financing by a property I did one I did one in January I did another one in July and by then I’d left the UK we’ moved back to Australia but I was still getting paid a teacher salary up until the end of August cuz there some holiday
In the in the July August period and uh and I was literally uh on my way back to Australia we stopped uping Vietnam or we used to live to catch up with friends and I was in a bar going to the bar to order drinks for my wife um and saw a
Message saying saying that that there’s another property available and I went I like that and I bought this property via text message from a bar in so my from from like taking no action at all for like years and years and years like text message I had another one of those like
Play Monopoly maxly right just I just bought you know and I thought oh I can use my teacher salary still still getting paid in the bank account yeah it’ be fine um got myself the loan bought another property um but then we moved back to Australia and sort of had
To start again with the whole you know became a mortgage broker you know get paid for six months um and the big thing for us then was that and this is something also learned on the way is that often we make mistakes with property because even on the property we
Live in because our family needs needs change and and and we had teenagers in the household and when you’re living in a household which has got enough bedrooms but only one bathroom you need another bathroom and you typically need another living space to cope with teenage kids so we didn’t really like
The the area that we were living in as much as we we didn’t want to end up in that area we wanted a place with a bit more space but it was going to cost us so much more money that we thought you know we’re going to sell the
House put that money into property and in and start renting and so we’ve been we’ve been rent vesting since 2010 so that’s 13 years ago sold the family home and then had to buy and went to buy property and America was where it was happening at the time
Their Market was in the toilet property prices had fallen 75% not 7 and a half% not 25% they had fallen 75% I couldn’t get a mortgage but you didn’t need one so we just went and took the cash we still had a sizable mortgage back then but we took the cash put that
Into property in America bought 11 units so three blocks of like a two fours and a three 11 units in uh in Phoenix and Arizona and that pretty much set us up you know we went from having three investment properties to 14 in the space
Of um about six weeks yeah I love that I I did the same thing my wife and I jumped on a plane as soon as a GFC here we thought this is a once in a generational opportunity given how far prices had fallen and uh we we spent
Three months over there having a really good look along the east coast month before we bought a bunch of properties but I I must say it it it has been a little bit challenging uh because while the yields were incredible and and the growth in value just just going back to
What the long-term average was you You’ made big money and and was great exchange on the the Aussie dollar and it was yeah it was and so you know dropping back to 75 cents you you’ve built in 25% increase in in equity straight off the
Bat but I must say the uh the quality of professionalism in the States versus Australia is like chalk and cheese so you didn’t get bur like a property manager as well did you oh how many how many oh my God they ripped me off yeah six months I was with a property manager
11 units guess how much rent I received on 11 units with no mortgage on in 6 months not only did I not receive a dollar they reckon I owe him 10 grand yeah it’s yeah that’s the that’s the hard part of it but but again useful learnings and and what it reinforced to
Us is just how how good we’ve got it here in this country uh from the worst property manager in Australia is still amazing bying us standards totally agree so if if you look at your your property Journey uh and and it sounds like your initial property Investments were cash
Flow driven uh has your strategy changed it all over oh yeah yeah I mean those prop those first properties bought in the UK were as it turned out garbage one of them I’ve just I’ve actually just sold um one of them was a a house I
Bought great like 8% yield so you know and back when mortgages were 5% and dropping down to 2% and 8 8% yield was phenomenal wow 15 years I’ve owned that property for it’s gone up in value from £75,000 to £15,000 so £30,000 not even a 50% growth
In 15 years out um so you know just I would never do it again like the pure cash flow um so so now what we do is um we look for places we think are where the area is fundamentally undervalued so we think there’s a bit of upside there
And then we we do a small lot subdivision buy buy buy a house with a big enough block of Landing put another house on there and then you know you’ll make money just on the build and then you’ll also make money if you ride the wave because the property prices were
Fundamentally undervalued in the area yeah I love that if if you look back on your property Journey so far what do you believe are the piece to being successful both with both money and investment and why Max well firstly you would have managed the money properly to start with um you
Know you can’t invest in property if you don’t build up some Equity or have some savings um and so that’s what we went wrong for the first 12 years um but uh secondly get find some good people I mean it’s not hard nowadays to find a good mortgage broker um and and they’re
A great start you know especially if it’s someone like you know yourself or myself where we care more about the client’s outcome than than lining our own pockets and it’s all about well what do I know that I can share with someone that will help them feel like they got
The confidence to do what they need to do to make stuff happen um and then just doing stuff because sitting on the sidelines is is a poor man’s game and and we we regret we don’t regret the things I B I might have bought that property up in Grimsby in the north of
England even sounds like a terrible Place Grimsby sounds Grim doesn’t it but I still made you know uh 30 ,000 on that place which is about $50,000 on it I still made rent every year on that property even though relatively speaking it was a bad investment compared to what I could have done
Instead whereas the the the $220,000 unit in dollet chill that I didn’t buy I know how much I lost on that one that’s like $600,000 that’s what I’m like by on that one I just didn’t do it I just sat there no I I love that so if you if you
Sort of you’ve had a chance to rub shoulders with a lot of people over the years and and with your own Journey you what what qualities and character T you think separate great money managers investors from the rest then Max yes so I me there’s two slightly different
Things there managing money is it’s a different thing and it’s a learned skill as is investing is a learned skill but but certainly the great the the the great money managers accept the fact that they’re never going to be very good with money don’t try and change yourself to be good
With money it’s not going to work you can’t change your own psychology that’s what the books about um so accept that and then put in place structures to make it difficult for you to spend your own money the second thing is then invest invest in something if shares is your
Bad go invest in shares and buy something but buy it for the long run don’t buy it and go oh I’m going to buy some shares this week and then sell them next week because they went down in value um there’s a great book actually called the Ulus
Um yes contract right book um which which is all about you know set your course you know we talked earlier on set your course stick to that course if it turns out was wrong figure out in five or 10 years time don’t just think it’s wrong because it doesn’t look great
Today or tomorrow or next week or the week after you know you you’ve you’ve done the course you only only way it’s going to work is if you stay the course um and so that’s what great investors do and is chart course and then stick to it
Most people don’t start that first step of actually even charting at course they don’t set themselves any goals and if you don’t set any goals well what are you hitting anything and everything and the next thing exactly yeah yeah beautifully said if you are sort of reflecting back then max
If you were starting out again would you invested any differently or or done anything differently with money on your started earlier I mean the first property investment I looked at I was still at Uni and I didn’t know how money worked me and a mate walked into a bank
And said we’ve seen a house we were renting as students um and he had a bit of money behind him and his family and we could have probably bought a place together if we’ have understood how things worked a bit better and if mortgage brokers were a thing back then
Um and we could have bought a house for £12,000 in in in an inner city area where they would be worth you know in pounds obviously probably £250,000 today but we didn’t do that so so start get assume you don’t know and talk to people get a good mortgage broker buy agents I
Didn’t even know buy agents were a thing in America you can’t buy property without a buy agent I didn’t even seal yeah but you find a good buyers agent and they go oh we’ll show you this one we’ll show you this one I don’t want to
Buy that one so why don’t I want that one oh let me show you why you don’t want that one it’s like oh God I would have bought that one if you had have said anything I would have bought it um but you know buyers agents are amazing
In in property um accountants can be worth a weight in gold um you know but but we assume you know and I’m terrible for this assuming I can do it I know how to do this I’m smart enough I can do this myself it’s only when you talk to
Someone who really knows this stuff an idiot I was yeah like an idiot but yeah exactly and there’s a lot of Aussies who just don’t trust anyone particularly when it comes to their money and that that becomes a hurdle as well because if you don’t trust anyone
You don’t do anything which comes back to what you mentioned and that’s why that you know go go go back I didn’t trust that spooker I knew he was selling me some overpriced crap you know the fact is I would have made money but the
Fact is I could have also lost a lot of money and I could have been in in in a difficult situation because that guy was there to sell me stuff and this those people exist in Australia today you want to find out where are you getting paid how are you getting paid
Um whoever you’re talking to how are they earning their money and why are they doing what they’re doing um and if you understand why they’re doing what they’re doing you understand how they’re getting paid and you’re prepared to pay the cost or or or you know do whatever then then you know
Learn from other people there’s so much more available in books and podcasts and all that sort of stuff available today that that just simply you know it probably was there but it was so much harder to find 20 30 years ago U it was you had to really make the effort
And and and it’s almost flipped the lid now there’s almost too much information so you get totally confused with the complexity that’s associated with it but the the fundamentals haven’t changed and if we go back to the you know I had my own kyy moment in the in the 90s and
That that completely flipped the lid on my my thinking and actions from that day forward it really was a paradigm shift in in the way I I saw everything from that point on but uh I really appreciated you you uh sharing all of that before we go to a break and then uh
Get get ready for uh the next episode where we’re going to Deep dive on your fantastic new book is there anything that we haven’t covered that you want to say uh before we do that yeah I I’m not quite sure we’ve done a fair bit uh a
Fair bit so far um there any money management uh tips or hacks that that You’ personally picked up and you know in sort of researching you you your mother’s uh ability to put things in little brown paper bags uh exactly so my mother put everything little purses
So like I said the best decision my dad made was H was was going you have the money CU money in your pocket makes no sense and that’s you know that’s what one of the driving things forces behind the book is that most of us manage money in an awful way at the
Moment go back to when we got paid cash people knew you have to take the cash home and hide it now we open up a bank account when we get our first job we have a debit card linked to that bank account we have a pay going into that
Bank account and from there on in we never make the change away from that stupid habit that we’re now managing money according to our employer pay cycle which doesn’t make sense to a human being and also whatever we do after that we’ve given ourselves access
To all of our money just like as if my dad put his whole pay packet in his back pocket and it doesn’t make any sense take the money home hide the money home walk out the door with a little bit how do we mimic that in the modern world that’s
The driving force behind spending fast and slow and and and hope hopefully we’ll get more into that later but it’s it’s the nuts and credit cards credit cards I I could you know there’s not enough pairs of scissors in the world to cut them all up um they’ve
Got to they got to go they’re awful things they mess with your heads and people don’t understand why and the psychology tells us why they don’t understand why because they believe that they’re a sane sober rational human being and therefore they make S sober rational decisions when they use a
Credit card and all of the studies show that they don’t there losses to Poverty there’s no great and we’re really going to dive into all of that and the psychology around the the the you know money in our our minds and when we break down your book but I really want to
Thank you for taking the time to share the ins and outs of your personal joury Max and if anyone would like to ask any further questions or leave comments about this I want you to just join and jump into our recently launched property Hub Collective interactive Facebook
Community which you can click on the link in the show notes where you can keep the conversation going with other like-minded hardworking Aussie so uh we now look forward to continuing the conversation in part two of our great discussion Max where we’re going to Deep dive into your great new book spinning
Fast and slide so thanks again for joining us today thank you so much it’s been a blast thanks for tuning in to getting invested on the property Hub podcast Channel your home for property investment insights and inspiration and don’t leave yet until you’ve taken the next step towards living by design by
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