I met my wife in our first year at university in Melbourne in 2007. As a student couple overseas, we spent a lot more time with each other on and off campus since we were in the same course and didn’t have any family there. We made our own and common friends, which allowed for social interactions as individuals and a couple. However, we were basically living together unofficially.

After graduating in 2009, we moved in with each other and lived together officially. From there, we transitioned into a working couple and started building our careers in Melbourne and Sydney. The benefit of being together for a long enough time through different phases of our lives means we had more practice and experience with managing our finances as a couple. This came from learning from the many mistakes we made and having the opportunities to improve on our management style.

Before marriage

As a student couple, we kept our finances separate and this worked because we were fortunate enough to only have to worry about expense management and income from part-time jobs. We graduated with no student loans and were able to find full-time jobs within six months.

I read this post from Bridget Eastgaard at Money After Graduation on What Should Your Net Worth Be By Age. She made this point that I agree with – The net worth number you end up with by age 30 is going to be almost wholly dependent on how much financial privilege you enjoyed in your 20’s.

The biggest determinant Bridget mentioned was how much money your parents donated to your cause. Our parents were able to fund our higher education and together with the partial scholarships we received as international students, we were able to graduate with no student loans.

The second biggest determinant Bridget mentioned was how much money you earn. Our bachelor degrees were in accounting and finance and our starting full-time jobs were in the banking and accounting industries. The pay is above average when compared to the other industries.

When coupled with the fact that we had more experience than the average couple in managing our finances after graduating, this gave us a headstart in building up our savings and net worth. We have to acknowledge the financial privilege we have enjoyed and be honest with our money story. I’m just relieved we didn’t waste and squander this opportunity afforded to us and we keep working hard on this journey to financial independence.

Anyway, back to the topic, we continued to keep our finances separate even after moving in together. We had separate bank accounts for our savings, separate investment accounts for our stocks and no joint accounts. Expenses such as rent, utilities, groceries, entertainment and travel were tracked in a monthly spreadsheet that were split evenly between the both of us. We were also individually responsible for paying our credit card and other bills.

The reason was simple. As long as we were not married, we should not be sharing our finances no matter how much of a future we saw for both of us or how long we have been together. Although our savings, investments and net worth were growing positively with each month, the rate was slow because we didn’t implement a couple personal finance strategy.

It was tempting to start joining our finances and using our dual income to achieve a higher savings, investments and net worth growth rate. But we figured we were still young and it was more important to have a clean and simple personal finance relationship with each other.

After Marriage

We moved back to Singapore from Australia in 2014 and got married in the same year. My wife was 26 and I was 28. Marriage to a couple that has been living together for several years like us is not as significant as to a couple that is only going to live together after getting married.

However, being married means we now have a legal basis to implement a couple personal finance strategy. This may be a technicality to many people but it was an important milestone for us. Over the years, we started to realised that I had a keener interest in personal finance than my wife. After we got married, we still didn’t open a joint account but I started to manage both of our savings, investment and retirement accounts.

It was more efficient because I was able to allocate both of our funds accordingly to increase the growth rate without being limited by what’s hers and what’s mine. It was also more effective because I was able to access a greater pool of funds for investment. Of course, this is only possible after we have both agreed on a common savings, investment and retirement strategy i.e. I was provided with the mandate to do the above.

I like dealing with personal finance at a micro and macro level but she only likes looking at it on a macro level. This is why I enjoy researching on high interest bank accounts, cash rebate credit cards, bonds, shares, ETFs etc. However, my wife only checks in at the end of each month on the performance of these accounts.

This way of managing our finances as a couple works for us because we took the time to understand our personal finance personalities. We also developed ourselves individually first before working together as a couple towards our goal of financial freedom. Most importantly, we spent a lot of time and effort building a foundation of trust before taking this approach. The next decade would be the most financial demanding and I am interested to see how this works out for us.

I have always wondered what direction this blog will take when I started it 2 months ago in Feb 2016. It seems to be a mix of the technical and psychological aspects of personal finance. As much as I like writing about the things we do and updating the numbers in our portfolios, income & net worth, I enjoy exploring the psychology of personal finance as well.

After all, our values and beliefs drive the actions we take for better or for worse. Besides, I’m about to turn 30 in June and there’s nothing like a major life milestone that makes you become more self-reflective. One valuable lesson we have learnt from our experience of studying, working & living in Australia & Singapore and getting on to this journey of financial independence is the importance of letting time pass.

I read personal finance blogs from all around the world and it’s amazing how we can be at such different stages of our lives but yet have the same goal. The problem for me is when I start reading about bloggers that have already achieved the goal. The way they lead their lives is how I imagine it would be like for us – to be able to focus & do what you want and what matters to you without the financial pressure to make it work out.

Working in the office

Even though we know the steps we need to take to get there, it might be another decade or more before we achieve it. We work in the accounting and banking industries as accountants. While not the most exciting occupation, the pay is decent and has already put us in a better financial position. If we keep working in the office for the next several years, it might even shorten the time it takes to reach financial independence. However, working in the office can be a real grind every day. If we are to jump out now and do something that matters more to us, it might lengthen the time it takes to achieve financial freedom.

Now you can start to understand the topic of this post. The more I think about it, the more I realise that when you have figured out what needs to be done, doing it is sometimes just a matter of letting time pass. We do what we can to increase our salary income by working hard & smart but no amount of career navigation will significantly shorten the time we need to get there. It really comes down to just not overthinking it at work, reducing our expenses and keeping ourselves focused on the goal.

What we also try to do on the side is build up another source of active income. This doesn’t refer to our dividend & interest income but should come from putting our effort into another active activity. Again, it takes time for the steps we take to yield results.

Investing

The same lesson applies to our investments as well. When we got serious with investing in 2015, we over allocated our cash on hand to the stock market because we were anxious to really make some ground in our journey to financial independence. In short, we rushed it. What should have taken years to build, we tried to do it in a matter of months.

The recent bear markets have taught us that you can’t speed this journey up by over-investing. We have to be patient, do more research, allocate cash to the stock markets according to our target asset allocations and wait for it to work. Buy consistently across time and even more so during bear markets but it can’t be done at once. That’s how we learn and that’s how knowledge compounds.

Personal Life

Time builds character and we have both grown up significantly since graduating from university. We have learnt not to over-plan when it comes to life because we have no idea what’s actually going to happen in the future. We couldn’t have imagined ourselves working in Melbourne, Sydney and Singapore over the next 7 years after graduating in 2009. How do we know what will happen in the next 7 years from now?

It’s frustrating to know that the mistakes we have made along the way have added years to the timeline. But those mistakes came from not being afraid to try and they made us who we are. As long as we keep ourselves focused on the goal of financial freedom, the importance of letting time pass is to allow ourselves to actually enjoy this journey wherever it might take us. Life doesn’t stop living and neither should we.