Wow, what a crazy past few weeks. Hope everyone is staying safe out there in regards to the COVID-19 outbreak.
I realise I broke the promise I made to myself when I first started this blog; that no matter what, I would post a net worth update every single month to keep myself honest, accountable and on track. Things have just been so crazy busy lately that unfortunately I just haven’t had the time. So here we go – a two in one net worth update covering both Jan and Feb 2020.
The last two months have been pretty decent from an income perspective – more or less the same really. Work is still busy, and the side business is continuing to do well and grow. My industry is quite stable, however it isn’t immune from the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. So I am continuing to hoard cash and am not adding any ETF/LIC units, even though they look very attractive at these current prices.
Side business / side hustle
A lot of readers have been asking me about my side hustle/small business. Unfortunately I can’t share too many details as it’s in a pretty unique and small industry, therefore I risk identifying myself if I say too much about it.
What I can give though is some advice to those that have been asking me about tips on starting a side hustle. Here’s my two cents.
The only reason I was able to start this successful side business (that is now generating significantly more revenue than my 9-5 job) was by focusing heavily on my career straight out of university. When I was in my grad role in my early 20s, I didn’t try to make some extra money by driving Uber on the weekends, building furniture on Air Tasker or trying to monetise some blog/YouTube channel/MLM scheme. I focused on my career in IT consulting, working hard to get onto some of the biggest projects for the biggest clients. When my boss asked me last minute if I could fly to Singapore tonight for a two week client engagement, my answer was “hell yeah, I’ll go home and pack now.”. When you’re young, you tend to have more energy and less commitments (e.g. significant other, kids), so you can really use that to your advantage to give yourself opportunities that you’d normally not have access to. The first time I went for an overseas work trip, I couldn’t believe some company was willing to fly me out to Singapore in business class, put me up in a 5 star $400/night hotel and pay my company $2k/day for my services to help them out on a project. I therefore gave it my 100% on every one of these client engagements. I wasn’t distracted trying to make a few extra bucks in my spare time. I used my spare time to recharge my batteries and have some fun and relaxation.
Fast forward 7 years, and even though I have left that consulting firm and am now an independent contractor, I still have strong professional relationships with my old colleagues and clients. It is through these strong professional networks that I can increase my client base and therefore grow my business.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong trying to make a extra few bucks on the weekend when you’re young. I’m just sharing my own personal decisions and journey that led to where I am.
Anyway, on to the regular graphs.
Monthly graphs
One change I made this month was to remove the valuation of my cryptocurrency portfolio from my net worth figure. A lot of it is “locked up” in pre-sales and there is no guarantee that the project will ever release tokens to their investors.
In reality, the portfolio is worth around $10 – $15k (probably a lot less now due to the market crash), but I’m just going to think of it as a lotto ticket. I am fine if it all goes to zero. And if the bull market ever returns, maybe I’ve been lucky and selected the right projects, and one of them does a 100x. But I’m not holding my breath on it.
Thanks for reading, see you next month! (hopefully)
Turbo FIRE Australia 
Nice to see the portfolio continuing to increase in January and February, hopefully March doesn’t involve too much of a hit for you.
I agree with you on focussing on your career when you’re young, I’ve also found that my network of contacts was super helpful down the track. If you do a good job and are polite and easy to get along with people will remember that in the future.
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Hi Aussie HIFIRE,
Sorry – I must’ve completely missed this comment earlier. I 100% agree with you there. Sometimes the most important thing to do in your career is simply be polite and easy to get along with. My work isn’t exactly rocket science. Anyone who’s even just a little switched on can do it. But what people remember is how you were to work with during those times. Therefore years down the track when an ex-client has a problem, hopefully they remember that not only was Turbofire able to fix it, but he was a pleasure to work with while doing so.
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