10 Questions with Insider Accountant

Today is the 25th edition of our periodic guest post series called 10 Questions. We have a list of 17 questions we pose to fellow financial bloggers, and they are free to pick and choose 10 or answer all of them. Let us know if you would like to be featured in a future edition of 10 Questions.

Today’s questions are answered by The Insider Accountant, who writes about finances from the perspective of a financial insider. He talks about general client mistakes (no ethical breakdowns here, names and details have been changed to protect the innocent) general career issues, and personal finance.

Mr. Insider is killing it. He’s just 32 and has a net worth of 500K! Even more amazing, he plans to have $2,000,000 by 40. The former is an impressive accomplishment and the latter is an aggressive goal. One of the things I love about the personal finance blogger community is all of the folks out there doing amazing things. Insider Accountant is no exception.

Tell me about your blog and why it’s great
My blog is www.insideraccountant.com, which I decided to start so that I could make an Australian accountant’s contribution to the personal finance blogosphere.

I like to think that I’m not like most traditional accountants in that I find our industry quite hypocritical (see The things we think and do not say and Is your financial adviser a hypocrite?), and so I thought I could shine some light on finance issues from the point of view of a finance “professional”. I also share my experiences in building a career in the finance industry (e.g. How to get your accounting career off to the right start), which is hopefully of some use for others that are looking to do the same. Working in the finance industry is a great way to make a lot of money, but it’s a shame that it doesn’t always help our clients do the same! (see Some not so good things you may not have known about mutual funds).

As well as all of that accounting stuff, I also cover off on other personal finance issues to hopefully keep non-finance people interested (e.g. How to stop your pets from costing you the earth).

What post are you most proud of and why?
I quite liked Life can’t just be put on hold until we achieve Financial Independence, but my most-viewed post is actually Escape consumerism by reducing exposure to advertising.

Do you enjoy writing?
Yes, I find writing to be a way of relaxing and I get a sense of satisfaction from putting my thoughts down in words. Sometimes when I look back at my posts it actually helps me to reinforce some of the points that I was making at the time that I was actually doing the writing, and helps you get a bit of perspective on some personal events in life as well (e.g. Does it take something big to change your perspective on life and money?).

Because I find my industry so hypocritical, I also find it quite therapeutic to write down my thoughts on this hypocrisy because I can’t actually say anything about that at work.

1500 Days is about early retirement. Do you have early retirement dreams? At what age do you think you will retire?
Yep, I definitely have early retirement dreams, and hope to be retired by 40 (that seems to be a common goal in our community!). Our target for net worth is perhaps a bit higher than others in our community, partly because real estate prices in Australia are so high, and also because the net worth in our superannuation (Australia’s 401k system) isn’t available to access until the age of 60 (or later if they change the rules).

We have a decent net worth of over $500k now, but by age 40 we should be over $2m.

If blogging isn’t your full time gig, what is?
As the title suggests, I’m a partner at a large accounting firm in Australia. It takes up a lot of my time and can be quite stressful, which makes achieving financial independence even more important for me. It might sound a bit glamorous to have a job title like that, but trust me when I tell you that this shit gets old very quickly.

When you are 90 and look back on your life, what do you hope to have accomplished?
I read something recently about savings, and it said something like “earn more, save more or want less”. This really resonated with me, as I no longer want so much “more” out of life than I already have. I have a beautiful wife, two great kids, life in a great city with plenty of family and friends, have achieved my career goals at a young age and travelled the world (e.g. Our London Adventure).

Aside from what I have accomplished already, I want to retire early, renovate our next (and final) house, improve my German language skills and spend more time with my kids. If I can do those things and live a more relaxed lifestyle (like I’m on holidays forever) that’s probably all I’m looking for now.

What is the best money management or investment tool that you have come across?
I love the whole idea of cloud accounting products (even though they will replace our industry’s jobs of the future), and am currently using Intuit’s Quickbooks Online.

We don’t have access to Mint and Personal Capital here in Australia, so we have to use packages that are more like accounting software instead. That’s not a huge issue though since we use these packages for clients at work anyway.

What is your favourite style of beer – and what is your favourite beer in that style?
My favourite style of beer is actually pale ale, and my current drink is Storm Pale Ale which you can buy at Aldi in Australia at a very good price (I wrote about this in my Liebster Award post).

While I quite like this beer, it’s not quite as good as a couple of other Pale Ales, namely Coopers Pale Ale and Beechworth Pale Ale, both of which are more expensive (Beechworth Pale Ale is about $75 for 24, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised that I don’t get that beer very often!).

What is the best thing you’ve read lately?
I’m currently reading “Fool’s Assassin” by Robin Hobb, which is a fantasy book that has nothing to do with money at all. I quite like this genre, but given my busy work schedule and PF blog-reading habit (yes, I’m addicted to reading PF blogs!) I don’t seem to get as much time to read books as I used to unfortunately. That’s definitely something that I will remedy in retirement.

What do you do for exercise?
I run on a treadmill every morning before work, or if the weather is better I go for a bike ride. This is a habit that I have got into since  began reading PF blogs in a serious way back in September 2014, and while I have missed this on perhaps 15 days in that time (due to hangovers or being away), I don’t plan on ever stopping it. When we move into our next house I might even walk to work.

Thanks again to The Insider Accountant for answering our questions today. Keep in touch with him over on InsiderAccountant.