- Melbourne, Australia
- Digital Marketer
- Personal Finance Enthusiast
- Grandma stuck in 20-something body
- Corgi Connoisseur
Who am I? A digital marketing manager with a passion for finance
Hi, I’m Ruba aka The Money Marketer!
I believe that there is a real lack of financial education in our system. In fact, 85% of Aussie women under 35 don’t understand fundamental investment concepts*.
I’d love to use this blog as a tool to encourage financial discussions as well as sharing my stories and experience. Let’s learn together!
I currently work as a digital marketing manager in Sydney, recently making the move from Melbourne. Although I did a minor in finance at uni, I am in no way a professional and my advice is to be a guide to stimulate discussion rather than actionable steps for your financial health.
My Money Journey
My journey towards financial freedom started seven years ago.
I finally landed a “big girl” corporate job in marketing that I had long aspired for. I made it. Right? Unfortunately not. I quickly realised that working full-time meant I no longer had control over my time.
I’d wake up early, get ready, go to work, do my job, eat a packed lunch, go home, have dinner, go to bed and repeat. During the weekends, I would spend my time catching up on sleep and try to wrangle a little bit of fun. I knew something had to change.
Full-time work meant I lived to work, rather than the other way around. I knew I couldn’t do this for another 40 years. Looking for alternatives, I stumbled across the FIRE movement.
I thought this is it, this is how I am going to take back control of my life.
What is FIRE?
FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. This movement is about taking a different approach to money that allows you to gain financial freedom and retire much earlier than traditional methods.
You can read more about it here.
Achieving FIRE
FIRE has been a goal of mine for many years.
I didn’t necessarily want to retire early, but I wanted the freedom that money brings. The freedom to walk away from a job that isn’t serving me, work part-time or even take a long career break.
It is what motivated me to save and invest so aggressively, focus on budgeting and have a laser focus on my financial goals. While being rich sounds fantastic, that wasn’t my goal and still isn’t.
I wanted my time back.
There are many different types of FIRE and early retirement, and all my efforts have resulted in one of them – Coast FIRE.
Coast FIRE means that I have invested enough money early on that I no longer have to invest additional money to achieve FIRE. Essentially, if I never invested another dollar, I would still be able to retire in my late 40s. This allows me the freedom to focus on enjoying life. Essentially, I’m coasting! However, I still consistently invest a percentage of my income.
Some other great money milestones I achieved was saving $50,000 at 20 and reaching a total net worth of $100,000 at 22. I’m on track to completely exit the workforce by 36, if I want to.
What am I up to now?
Over the years, I have changed my mind around work and FIRE.
These days work is much better than the initial entry-level job that triggered my money journey.
For example, my current job offers a hybrid working environment.
Being able to work from home a few days a week has improved the quality of my life significantly. In fact, I’ve even written an article on why working from home is making me re-consider early retirement!
Work is also much more enjoyable as I’ve progressed in my career.
Being an expert in my field that gets to make decisions is gratifying. In my first corporate job, I was doing a lot of low-level work, being micro-managed and felt like I didn’t have a voice – all which contributed towards my strong negative sentiment to work overall.
I also noted down what made me unhappy at work and took action to resolve it.
For example, lunch. Sounds silly, right? Let me explain.
I never bought lunch at work to save money. However, I realised that I hated having to cook and pack lunch everyday.
Heating up my lunch in a microwave and eating it out of a sad little plastic container added to the monotony of full-time work that I was actively trying to break away from.
Sure, I was saving $2,000 a year but it making me actively unhappy in my day-to-day life. So, I now buy lunch at work. Getting to walk outside in the sun, meet up with my partner, try a new restaurant and eat off an actual plate makes my work day infinitely better. It is worth every cent.
Like lunch, I changed several things about work that didn’t make me happy. And, it worked! Really well.
Therefore, these days I take a more relaxed approach to my finances.
Because of who I am as a person, I still meticulously budget, invest consistently and buy everything second-hand, however it’s scaled back.
I spend more money on experiences, have upgraded my lifestyle and put my health and time over money. It’s a great balance.
On this blog, I openly share all the tips and strategies I used to get me to where I am – keep on reading to learn more!
Ruba Khan
Contact
If you have any questions, or would like to know me more please feel free to contact me on themoneymarketerblog@gmail.com
*EY Sweeney, Australian Financial Attitudes and Behaviour Tracker (Wave 5), March 2017