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My wife and I are both freelancers... and freelance musicians. This is not the sort of job that has the security of employer mandated superannuation contributions and all of that stuff that salaried employees have, however, we do have our own particular non-financial benefits in exchange for that lack of future security.

However, as we are now hitting the middle age area (just past 40 for both of us), we are starting to realise that we need to start building some sort of plan for the future when we are older. Well, I guess it is more along the lines of... I need to think about it, as my wife has pretty much no idea when it comes to financial matters. Whenever I talk to her about it, you can see her eyes glaze over... however, more recently, she has come around to the idea that it is important and something that we should be building upon at the moment.

The Goal

For me, the idea of building some sort of retirement plan is first and foremost to ensure that we will not be a burden for our two children. It isn't just to preserve a lifestyle or to go on holidays or anything like that... it really is more about the idea that we would be a drain on our kids.

... and the second most important goal after that, is to ensure that we leave something behind for them. Interestingly enough, I have read that many superannuation and pension schemes were designed to drained to 0 on average but that economists are starting to realise that people actually want to pass their holdings to the next generation in order to get them a bit of a leg up! Haha... like one of the Economics Nobel Prize Winner recently said (well, I paraphrase)... economists often overlooked the existence of humans in the economy!

The Current Situation

We are in the fortunate position where our expenses are incredibly low, especially when compared to families of roughly similar composition and ages. We are not extravagant spenders and tend towards saving rather than spending. I read once that the true measure of wealth is not so much your income, but the balance between your income and expenditure. In other words, how long can you last if your income was suddenly cut off. Many people (especially in Western countries) operate at large deficit and much of the income goes towards servicing debt and expenses. So, our expenses are low and our debts are almost non-existent. So, that matches nicely with our levels of our constantly fluctuating incomes!

We have a few illiquid assets in the form of our family home and the musical instruments. Technically, the instruments ARE liquid... but I'm sure as hell not selling them until AFTER I'm dead! To me, they are an extension of me (plus my tools to keep earning income!) and to sell one would be like selling a child... in fact, I might even sell a child before selling a violin!

We have some superannuation built up over the years through intermittent freelance work in Australia. However, that is far from the minimum required amount that would be required for the "average" retirement. More recently, I've made it a habit to deposit some savings into both the superannuation funds, which the government matches as well.

Finally, we have some exposure to incredibly high risk cryptocurrencies (which we have written off to be 0 expected value), some liquid assets such as silver collections and stock market exposure.

The Plan

So, given that we still have some time before retirement... our plans are to try and catch up on some of the superannuation that we neglected for the previous decade or two. Our retirement will rest on several legs: private superannuation, government pension, stock exposure and house/asset ownership. The last leg is the long bet of cryptocurrencies, which I am hopeful for, but I wouldn't consider it to be a definitive position to rest my retirement upon!

So, there is the ongoing commitment to deposit at the end of each month a set amount into the two superannuation funds. This is currently set to be above the "average" suggested daily rate in order to try and catch up some lost years... and speaking of superannuation funds, I'm starting to research better superannuation funds that have a better long term track record. A percent or two here and there makes for some relatively large differences further down the track!

The big enabler recently has been the unexpected bull run in the cryptocurrency markets. This means that the previously dark-horse for leg of retirement needs to be rebalanced with the other legs. In this current bull market, I've already set targets for selling and taking profits (which one has triggered, and second is was close to triggering). The proceeds from these sales will go towards boosting the regular superannuation and some market index based or blue-chip investments on the stock market.

So, plans are afoot to make little changes in the here and now, which will hopefully realise our future goals! I'm hoping that the extra financial discipline now will serve us (and our children) well in the decades to come!

Handy Crypto Tools

Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
Kucoin: My second choice in exchanges, many tokens listed here that you can't get on Binance!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.