Moomin Valley

The Australian Dollar rose for a change from 76.24 US cents to 78.66 US cents, which means that this month we did better in US Dollar terms...

Now the house purchase is complete * and we are starting a new financial restructuring plan I thought of drawing up a balance sheet as a sn...

Following up finally on comments that bigchrisb made about paying off the mortgage faster and then redrawing the money to investment in sha...

The Australian Dollar resumed its fall from 78.09 US cents to 76.24 US cents. World stock markets fell. The MSCI World Index fell 1.49%, th...

Bigchrisb commented on my recent post that we could save money by renting our new house out rather than going to live in it immediately. Th...

I've updated my "savings components" chart to include housing equity. You can see the payment from current savings (blue) t...

The Australian Dollar was finally stable this month rising half a cent to 78.09 US cents. World stock markets rose strongly. The MSCI World...

My mother suffers from dementia. Up till recently my brother had power of attorney to make financial decisions for her, but financial provid...

A few months ago Cambria Investment Management stopped advising the GTAA ETF and launched their own in house GMOM ETF to implement their the...

Broke out of the trading range of the last year and a half. I had been thinking to rebalance away from large cap Australian stocks at the ...

The Australian Dollar fell by another 4.1 US cents this month to 77.61 US cents. The MSCI World Index fell 1.54% and the S&P 500 3.00%,...

This month profits on non-retirement accounts finally exceed the previous peak in June 2007 (in AUD terms at least). Of course, adjusted for...

Each time we tried to buy a house at auction we moved the necessary deposit money into our checking account from this account. The three ...

Today we signed all the mortgage documentation at the bank to borrow $A592k....

I delivered the 5% deposit check for the house to the lawyer this morning and she expects the deal will be locked in today or Monday. Then w...

Says this article in the Australian. We made 12.5% on our retirement accounts this year in Australian Dollar terms. Overall return on all a...

The accounts for this annual report follow the same format as those in my monthly reports . Here are the accounts in Australian Dollars: ...

Last year I forecast that net worth would optimistically reach $A1.4 million and pessimistically hit $A1 million by the end of 2014. The US...

The Australian Dollar fell by another 3.5 US cents this month 81.71 US cents. The MSCI World Index fell 1.89% and the S&P 500 0.25%, bu...

If everything goes to plan this is roughly what our balance sheet would look like, using NetWorthIQ's format, by the end of February (in...

After three years of looking for a house and participation in three auctions, I finally made an offer on a house, not through the auction pr...

The findings of the Murray review of the Australian financial system have been released. I am most interested in their recommendations for s...

The Australian Dollar fell by more than two US cents this month from 87.89 to 85.23 US cents. The MSCI World Index rose 1.72%, the S&P ...

Today is my fiftieth birthday. It feels like quite a milestone. This morning I was sitting in a presentation with a colleague from a u...

The Australian Dollar rose slightly this month from 87.35 to 87.89 US cents. The MSCI World Index rose 0.3%, the S&P 500 rose 2.44%, an...

We participated at another auction today and again ended up not buying. Someone bid $850k to open the bidding but then dropped out after ...

The Australian Dollar fell sharply this month from 93.43 to 87.35  US cents. The MSCI World Index fell 3.20%, the S&P 500 fell 1.40%, a...

I have now completed my own tax return - this goes really fast when you have a good system in place....

So, I just finished doing Snork Maiden's tax return for this tax year: The tax year runs from 1st July to 30th June in Australia. The ...

Apparently you can't even download a pdf of the supplementary tax return instructions. Instead you have to go through all these webpages...

I asked the bank to order a valuation on another house. This one is going to cost more than the previous one that we didn't end up buyi...

You can now get your credit score for free in Australia, something that has long been taken for granted in the US. My score was 998 which ...

The Australian Dollar rose a little this month to 93.43 US cents. The MSCI World Index rose 2.25%, the S&P 500 rose 4.00%, but the ASX2...

So today was the auction day for the house we were interested in buying . At this point we haven't bought it... So we got a valuation ...

So, we are thinking of getting a valuation on the house. The price of this service varies widely. These local guys charge $330. Herron T...

So, this weekend we went to see several houses in different parts of the city. We are following up in more detail on the one in the pictur...

The graph shows our monthly spending each month since moving to Australia. I've taken out some business related expenditures that get ...

Another monthly report... Much of this month was spent travelling and then catching up on work when I got back. I don't post here much ...

A belated monthly report. As June is the end of the financial year for tax purposes in Australia a lot of data only comes in a few weeks af...

The Australian Dollar barely changed this month. The MSCI World Index rose 2.21%, the S&P 500, 2.35%, and the ASX200 0.68%. We gained ...

Back in 2008 I invested in a capital guaranteed managed futures fund called Man 3 Eclipse . This didn't turn out to be a great investme...

A new investment - Cadence Capital Limited - another Australian listed investment company that basically runs a hedge fund in listed struct...

I was just thinking this morning that we need to increase net worth by $3,000 each month now just to compensate for inflation.  The Austr...

I am wondering whether to continue this blog as the only thing I have posted recently are these monthly reports and now we are above US$1 m...

The Australian Dollar rebounded this month from $US0.8742 to $US0.8933. This depressed gains in net worth in Australian Dollar terms. Stock...

As I said in the annual report, the data in these monthly reports will be by default in Australian Dollars from now on. The Australian Doll...

This year was much like 2012 career- and personal life-wise. Financially, the main difference is that the Australian Dollar fell from $US 1...

The Australian Dollar fell further this month from $US0.9124 to $US0.8928. This depressed gains in net worth in US Dollar terms. Net worth ...

Two of my Mom's managed accounts - one in US stocks and one in international stocks are finally worth a bit more than the amounts we inv...

In Australian Dollar terms we came in above the top of 2013's predicted range for net worth of $A700k-$A1 million with a final net wort...

This correlation is pretty amazing. It is also pretty clear that there is causation here too or both variables are driven by the same other...

Turns out that I miscalculated and we didn't quite reach USD 1 million last month. This month due to the fall in the Australian Dollar ...

Stock markets remained very strong globally, and particularly in the United States, this month, but not so much in Australia. The ASX 200 ac...

I have long seen the advantages of managed futures funds . The best of managed futures funds companies seems to be Winton . I previously ma...

Following hitting one million Australian dollars net worth last month , this month we reached a million US Dollars . $US1.008 million to be...

As the Australian Dollar has risen strongly in the last few days, it has pushed us over the 1 million US Dollar mark, at least intra-month,...

My taxes are not so much changed from last year as things have settled down a lot now, compared to our first few years in Australia: Sal...

I've finally done our tax returns for this year. First, is Snork Maiden's taxes. Blogpost on last year's taxes in order to compa...