Meet The Woman Who Got Herself FIRE'd At 42

Alice out of chains. 

One of the best things about this blog are the interactions I have with some of the like-minded readers. A perfect example of this is Annamarie, who recently got in touch with me saying that she had managed to achieve financial independence at the age of 42 (that seems like the perfect age to find the answer to life, the universe and everything else right?)

Check Out What These 9 Experts Hold In Their TFSAs

What are the experts cooking inside
their TFSAs?  

I really love some of the ideas which readers of this blog send through from time to time. One really cool one which came through recently, was a suggestion to try find out what some of the top personal finance and investment experts, thought leaders, and media peeps were holding in their TFSAs.

So I did just that! And, in the true spirit of the South African personal finance community, most of them were more than happy to help out.

An Insider's Insights Into Car Insurance

Even more stealthy than me? 

I recently came across someone pondering whether it was fair for an insurer to increase someone’s premium after they had claimed for an accident.

 Seeing it was only an accident, surely they shouldn’t be punished?

Interview With A Fellow FIRE-man

This may or may not be an actual
picture of Mr. Content

For those of you who don’t know, FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. The basic premise is that while you are working, you live within your means, invest your surplus cash every month, and then call it quits on your day job at a young age. This allows you to fill your time with projects/hobbies/interests that you are truly passionate about while you are still young enough to enjoy them.

The FIRE concept is quite well known and relatively widespread overseas. And while not nearly as popular in South Africa, there is a definite FIRE community starting to gain some traction locally. You might say that the FIRE is starting to ignite (Doh! I’m sorry - terrible!)

50 Shades Of Brown

Simon says 

My apologies to Simon for the title, but I just couldn’t resist!

A couple of years ago, I found myself at an event which I really should not have been at - I was a proper finance noob. But as luck would have it, I was there, and one of the speakers at the event was a man named Simon Brown.

I found his talk that evening to be both informative and entertaining, and so the next day I went and checked out this Just One Lap website thing he mentioned.

Top Tips From The Sharpest Pencils

Tips... 

What is your number one personal finance or investing tip?

This is a question I have wanted to ask some of the experts for a long long time. This one question would force them to take all of their skills, knowledge and experience and distil it down into only one concept or piece of advice.

I have quickly realised that a blog post would be the perfect excuse for me to pry open their minds and extract the personal finance gold that they keep in there! So I rounded up all the personal finance hooligans I could get hold of, and asked them just one question:

If you could give only one piece of personal finance or investing advice, what would it be?

Interview With A Very Stealthy Gal

Not Kristia, but pretty close.

Much like the Carte Blanche music signals the end of your weekend, for those of us with an interest in personal finance, the Fat Wallet jingle signifies that it is Monday morning, and makes the upcoming week feel slightly more bearable.

I managed to persuade Kristia Van Heerden, host of the Fat Wallet podcast, to let me pick her brain in the form of an interview.

In exchange I had to admit that Bonds are awesome and it is better to rent than to buy :) But now that the interview is done I can take it all back :)

Interview With A Very Stealthy Bloke

Guess which one is me? 

And now for something a little different... A few weeks ago I asked Patrick if he would let me pick his brain in the form of an interview, and then allow me to publish it on this blog so we could all maybe learn a little something. Patrick is super chilled, and so naturally he agreed to this. I found the interview to be highly informative and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did putting it together!