Flow State Business

Money mindset, origin story and wealth philosophy with Michael Poon

October 22, 2022 Ruby Lee / Michael Poon Episode 271
Flow State Business
Money mindset, origin story and wealth philosophy with Michael Poon
Show Notes Transcript

I’m doing something a little different today and I’m so excited to be joined by my amazing husband and business partner, Michael Poon. In this episode, Michael and I chat about our money story, our wealth philosophy, and some really practical ways in which we manage our money.


Michael and I take the approach in our relationship and business where I am the one who brings in the money, and he is the one who makes it grows.


This chat gives you a behind-the-scenes insight into our money journey and as you’ll hear, our story is much more complex than just two corporates quitting their day jobs.


I know there is a fear out there of not knowing what to do with the money once you’re making it. And while we’re not financial advisors, it’s always nice to hear how someone else does it, as well as their philosophy around building wealth.


Michael shares his money story, how his upbringing influenced his decision to study economics and accounting, and his decision early on to be a saver-spender (instead of being a spender-spender like I used to be!).


We talk about what it was like to come together as a couple with two very different approaches to money, how I thought he was a gambler when we first met, and how my money mindset was transformed by his approach. Michael is so clean energetically around money and has been such a healer of my money mindset. Debt is no longer part of our story.


Michael shares how he approached and managed our money through the phase of our business growth, from six figures, one million and multi-million dollar growth stages. He dives into practical aspects like the importance of being disciplined and carving money off for tax, and how he re-invested our profits in the early stages of our business for learning and development.


We also chat about Michael’s investment philosophy, how this has evolved over the years and his newfound interest and passion for trading as a form of investment.


This is such a practical and fun episode! Michael carries great energy and I know you’ll love hearing the details of how we got to where we are today.


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Ruby  00:00

Hello guys, welcome back to the podcast. And today we're doing something a little bit different. And it's always a fan favourite episode. So I shall declare that this is the episode that'll be the best performing episode all year. Because we have my amazing husband and business partner with us today. Welcome Michael to the podcast.


Michael Poon  00:28

Yo, it's me. Yes, thank you for having me. I applied to be on this podcast many months ago, and I had to go through all the hurdles to get to get on it. And I'm happy to be here,


Ruby  00:39

Part of the application process involves there being sort of a like for like, exchange pretty much like information wise energetically. And there's also an element where, hopefully, we have similar social media type followings. And, you know, to point it's important to have a look at how many podcast listeners you have and how many Instagram followers you have, so that it feels somewhat equal or there abouts. We just noticed that you're still pretty much on zero with Instagram, there's been like no growth. So to have any explanation.


Michael Poon  01:16

There's a simple explanation of that. When you don't post anything, no one will follow you. But having said that, I was thinking today, maybe I should start posting on Instagram again, just like a post a day. I think I say that once a year. No lasts for a month. Because now I've got a good backlog of things to post. Half the battle for me is like, what are you going to post what's interesting today, but now I've got a bit of a backlog I can pick and choose,


Ruby  01:42

I kind of liked that you have these phases where it sort of goes up and down because it gives a little insight into the parts of your life that you're really excited to share about. So typically, Michael will post when we're travelling, when you're learning a new skill, like trading or you're starting a business with your mates or something like that. Or when you just feel really inspired about the business and you want to talk about what we're doing inside of the business. Does that feel right?


Michael Poon  02:13

Well, you've pretty much just told everyone because I've been posted in two years. So I haven't learned a new skill in two years. I haven't travelled in two years, I haven't been inspired in two years. I wouldn't totally agree with that. Thankfully for us, our business doesn't depend on me posting on socials.


Ruby  02:28

While we'd be parked. Imagine it was the other way around. It would we'd be so fun. If you had to do branding, and socials, and I had to do operations and finance.


Michael Poon  02:37

This is a message for everyone. When you've put in a situation I record right rise to the challenge. If there was no one lifted to it, if you went so personable, and you know an obvious choice to be the face of our, our business, then I'd step into it and I recognise, probably do a shit job. So


Ruby  02:55

I didn't even want to go down the path of what would happen without operations if I was in charge of all of it. So let's


Michael Poon  03:03

Yes, it'd be a lot of fines for late payments and things I'm sure probably compliance compliance breaches,


Ruby  03:09

I would just try and like energetically create a force field or something. And I'd be like, surely there's some kind of magic that can fix these operational issues. And I don't actually ever need to get in there. That's that's how I would approach it. So today, what I would love for us to chat about because it has been asked, as you know, many times over how we manage our money, but more so than that, our Money Story, our wealth philosophy, I've talked a lot about it on the podcast, and I'll share the things that you and I discuss behind the scenes, but it's always really nice hearing it directly from the person who's literally managing our wealth. And I will always say to our listeners, that I'm the one who makes the money and you're the one who makes it grow bigger. And I really love that about us because there's so much ultimate trust with both roles. When it comes to money. 


Ruby  04:09

Like you, you trust me so much when it comes to me doing a certain sale or a launch. And, or I say I'm going to do private coaching, I'm going to charge this much and this is how many clients that I've matched to and who I want to call in and the numbers around that and you know, I'm I'm desiring to have a 200k month and when that comes in and you know you were talking about things like that, you'll be like, okay, great, and then there's ultimate trust with you. And what you do with that money in the background so we can discuss what that is exactly. And this is going to be super relevant because as you know, we have a lot of entrepreneurial mostly women listening in, who are growing levels of wealth but deep deep down, if they were to admit it and they do, definitely is there is this kind of fear have what to do with the money and feeling fear around doing something wrong with the money. And whilst we're not financial advisors, it's nice to kind of hear how somebody else does it or the philosophy behind it as well.


Michael Poon  05:15

Yeah, to be honest, you probably put too much, trust me, I would like you to have a bit more oversight, actually, of our financials. So I wouldn't recommend exactly our model. I think you have a bit of an oversight. But a lot of people, you know, you play to your strengths. And I love numbers. So, and you love talking. So that's what we do. But yeah, I'm happy to talk about, I suppose my money story. So yeah, I just I grew up in a sort of a middle class household. And so it wasn't like we were always struggling for money. But I always heard the normal things that we didn't have enough money to do this. So money doesn't grow on trees, those sort of conversations, always growing up thinking, I don't want to be like that. I want to have more money. So I can do do stuff. So the big interest in money study, economics and counting in school. 


Michael Poon  06:05

And I took on the philosophy early on, actually, probably my early teens, I wanted to be a saver spender, not a spender saver. I can't remember who told me about that concept. But he said, It's better to save first and spin. Rather than spending and the save and pay back. It's like, you know how a lot of people will go on holidays at the time on credit cards and things like that. So I had that philosophy, then I bought my first shares when I was 15, or 16. And yeah, just so I really like money in investments. And yeah, I did study financial planning and superannuation management and things like that. So I've got a good background of money. But I wouldn't say I'm an expert. And yes, as a big fat disclaimer, don't listen to me for financial advice, go see a professional, but happy to share, share the journey. So I think good point, a good starting point would be actually to talk about, I suppose when you and I decided to get serious about our business. 


Ruby  07:06

I think even before that, let's talk I don't think I've ever shared this on the podcast, but how different our money stories were even just getting into a relationship together. And I'm sure that there was a certain point where we started talking about our ideals around money, because I was not a saver spender. I was a spender spender. And that is very, that was a very interesting moment where I had to almost unveil myself and not in that way people but in the in the money way. And tell this guy who I was getting very serious with, that my money situation wasn't good. It was really bad. And I was really ashamed of it, and how you took that on? And what we did to then get through that, and ultimately start a business together. I mean, who goes into business with a spender spender? You did?


Michael Poon  08:07

Yes. But we'd been together long enough. And I figured that we could work around that or could fix that 


Ruby  08:15

We were like, our relationship was so our whirlwind. Our initial romance was, we were moved in with each other. Within What three months?


Michael Poon  08:27

Yeah, yeah, cuz we both needed a place to live. So we just decided we may as well just move in together. We're gonna be spending time at each other's place anyway. So why rent two separate places and almost live in one remote with a sprint one, and then if the relationship doesn't work, then you can have it, I can have it, whatever it is, we'll just part you know,


Ruby  08:45

I love that that was your point of view, because that is so not my point of view. It's like, Oh, my God, I met this really hot guy, and I'm gonna move in with him. And I love it. You're just like, okay, so logically, I mean, we had two houses, and we made a pitch to one.


Michael Poon  09:02

But that we'll see, we both were looking at the same time. So why not just, you know, pull our resources. But get going back to that, well, for me, there wasn't like a major red flag or I thought, like you had a spending problem. And it's not like you were like, had made major credit card debt with 10 different cards or things,


Ruby  09:20

I had one credit card with, I think about five grand on it. And I had no idea how I was going to even pay off that five grand, remember, and you were like, Why don't you just pay it off with your next paycheck? And that just, I don't know, I don't know why I had it so simple. And I just thought we'll know because my mentality before that was I'm just going to put more money on the credit card.


Michael Poon  09:42

Yeah. And you thought I was a gambler. Remember that I had no money.


Ruby  09:46

Well, that's because I had so many fears about being with a man who had a gambling problem. Yeah, for obvious reasons with my childhood and the family that I grew up in. But the reason why I thought that is because When I first met Michael, I worked in HR, he was working in one of the business units at the company. So we essentially met at work. And there was a big salary review upgrade of everybody in the company. And I saw everybody salaries, everybody salaries was printed out from the minimum wage person, to the person CEO, essentially. And you could kind of see, you know, being an HR we have the nosy beaks and the sneaky beaks don't believe anyone who's in payroll and HR who says, I never look at people's salaries, because it's literally what our job is. And I saw what your job was, you know, your job title and what everybody was pretty much getting paid. So I had a good idea. 


Ruby  10:44

And when I first started to date, Michael, he's like, I'll come over to my house, and I'll go out for dinner or whatever it was. And he said, I'm living with my brother. I was like, okay, cool. So I went over to his brother's house. And lo and behold, Michael is not just living at his brother's house. He's sleeping on the bloody couch, like just bumming off his brother. And I'm thinking to myself, what's going on here? You've got all this money, like high six figures, actually, there's probably even like a two in front of it with bonuses, mid twos, and you're sleeping on your brother's couch. And I just had all of these wild thoughts. Did I tell you that straightaway? 


Michael Poon  11:25

Did I straightaway because I also had a big wad of cash because I was Melbourne Cup season. And I just got lucky at the races and won a couple of grand and I had it all in $100 notes.


Ruby  11:36

Yes. And then I got anxious about that. Because I said, Do you gamble on horses?


Michael Poon  11:40

Yes, I'm living on my couch, living on my brother's couch. Got all this cash. So I could see how you put two and two together? Yeah. But it was actually the opposite. I'd been on my brother's couch for about 18 months after the relationship before broke up. And I said to my brother Carter, stay at your house for a couple of nights and ended up being 18 months. And I loved it because I had no bills in my name. They had no anything. All I did was give my brother money to you know, pay for board or whatever you want to call it. If I didn't meet you, I'll probably still be on the couch I reckon


Ruby  12:14

I still remember what Dave said shout out Dave. And Dave was just like, he pulled me aside when Mike and I found a place to live together. And he's just looked me dead in the eyes, like, thank you.


Michael Poon  12:29

He loved it. He loved it, I reckon.


Ruby  12:31

So anyway, we decided we'd move in together, we rented a home together. And it was for both of us the most expensive we hardly use that word. So it was weird even saying it's the most expensive property that we'd ever leased both you and I independently. Remember sort of looking at the weekly How much was it? 550 or 600 a week, something like that. Yeah. And it was in a really nice part of Melbourne. And I just remember thinking holy crap, 600 bucks a week, what a waste air quote, waste of money. Because up till then both you and I were mostly property slash home owners and had brick and mortar home investments and things like that. So I'd never paid that much for a rental. Neither had you. But we thought Fuck it, let's just do it. And I think I even remember saying to you, we'll go 50 50 on the rental. And that felt good to me, but you bought all the furniture. And I felt so guilty about that, because I couldn't contribute. 


Ruby  13:33

You guys I had I was that, you know, I don't know, how would you describe it like that poor little rich girl. I had a good salary. I had properties. I was saving. But spending a credit card debt, had a nice car had just come out of a divorce myself splitting assets and had zero cash, no cash saved up, and was still living paycheck to paycheck. You You remember that? Right? I'd have to wait for my paycheck in order to pay my part of the rental or to contribute to groceries even.


Michael Poon  14:07

I couldn't work it out. Like where all your money went, clothes? Was it clothes?


Ruby  14:11

It was paying off debt, clothes, makeup going out. It was going out for dinners and drinks every weekend because I was in recruitment, recruitment and HR, we'd always go up for these fancy bars and we'd spend like 500 bucks and on one Friday night or over the weekend, we would go out and you'd always have to buy new clothes because of the job we were in and it was ridiculous. You know, just thinking back now how that even happened. And that's why I really understand when, you know, my clients say I made all this money but I just don't know where it went. I do get that because I lived that and it's I guess for you where you're just so clean energetically with money. It totally wouldn't make sense to you


Michael Poon  15:00

That's pretty easy to track where it went. You just look at your credit card statement. That's where it went.


Ruby  15:05

That's the thing that I never looked at it, I was too scared to look at my credit card statement, I was too scared to look at what the minimum repayment was, I just remember thinking to myself, if I look at it, it will destroy me. So I'd rather not look at it and just live in ignorance around it. So that was my money mindset really poor. And it was literally a poor money mindset. Even though I was earning 121 50 a year, nothing to show for it, guys like zero. So then Michael, in many ways, and I have told you this as well, babe, you have been such a healer of my money journey, and money story. And I publicly just want to say thank you so much for just being patient with that. And I mean, I know ultimately, it didn't really take that long, because within 12 months of being together, it was good. You know, like, I felt like for the first time, the richest I'd ever been because I'd been clear of my debt. And to this day, you know, debt isn't a part of our conversation, which is so beautiful.


Michael Poon  16:09

Yeah, no, I said no more dinner. No more eating out. So you went hungry. I said, No more clothes. So you're naked. A lot of a win win. You got to save money and


Ruby  16:20

oh, my gosh, they need they need to get reacquainted with your humour.


Michael Poon  16:25

I've been pretty good to now. I've been trying to sit on my hands and not say anything too controversial.


Ruby  16:34

Hi, lovelies, I am on a mission to really amplify the podcast this year. And as a result, I need your reviews. If you're loving this episode, I would love to offer you a call it in journal, which I will send wherever you are in the world. All you need to do is leave me a review, screenshot and tag me on Instagram to let me know that you've done so and my team will be in touch with you with all of the other details in advance. Thank you so so much for helping me amplify the rituals podcast. Let's get back to today's episode.


Michael Poon  17:11

So we whipped your money habits into gear. And then we bought a house together? Because we're having a baby. Oh, yeah, that's


Ruby  17:22

right. We fell pregnant. That's right. It's funny, isn't it? Money, money, stuff got clean. We fell pregnant. And then we decided to buy a house. Yes,


Michael Poon  17:30

we bought the house. We had the baby. And then we're living suburban life. And about six months in we thought we don't want to live suburban life.


Ruby  17:40

Can we quickly backtrack really quickly. So. So when we bought the house, Michael had to put the full deposit of the house down. And it was because a lot of my cash was tied up with my divorce settlement, which was coming through quick backstory. Me and my ex husband, we were married for eight, nine years, and just never bothered to get the actual divorce for a long time. And I was in denial about doing all the paperwork and all that blah, blah, blah. And then when I met Michael, I'm like, Oh, shit, I need to actually properly get divorced so that we can separate our assets. And I can have a clean start with this man with Michael. So that's why it wasn't yet anyway, just timeline wise. So then when we finally got the divorce settlement stuff done, it was still taking a while to go through all the banks and all the legal stuff. And so Mike had to put the whole deposit down. And I remember when we were signing the documents over, what did I say to you?


Michael Poon  18:41

After I signed it, you're going forth wondering if you're going to put my name down as well as the purchaser. 


Ruby  18:47

How crazy is that? And we were together for some time we're having a baby together. And I still had this insecurity around essentially money, not Michael, but around money because I hadn't paid. I felt like I had made zero contribution to buying this house and it was his house. And even though I knew that we were gonna get like, you know, whatever it was like 80 85k Dropping in any day. I honestly felt so unworthy. There was so much unworthiness there and guilt around money. But that was a interesting moment for sure. And I was so grateful that you put me on the title and almost shocked and you were shocked that I was shocked.


Michael Poon  19:26

Yeah, well, logically to me, because we're having a baby and we're all committed. If something was to happen, you're gonna get half anyway so let's just cut to the chase I'll put your name on the property now. So we don't have to worry about the paperwork later.


Ruby  19:41

This is why we worked so well you gotta say I'm like fully emotional on feelings I'm oh you know like all this inner child stuff in mind it's like well logically you actually already get half


Michael Poon  19:53

cuz you Yeah, you're a bit stressed because of the your divorce everything but fortunately, I've been through a divorce I knew all about So I was like, Don't worry about it, we'll get done. It takes time. And funnily


Ruby  20:04

it is still very much an abundance thing. You know, we're always very open with each other about our past relationships. And we talk a lot about how we went through that the breakup the money, staff, how we separated assets. And, you know, with your key relationships, you always have this theme where it's like, well, if it's over, I'm not gonna sit here and fight for the money or fight for assets or fight for this. And that, you're just like, I'm happy to just walk away and start again, because I can always just make more money. And I can always just buy another house. And I can always just, your mindset was, so once again, like so clean, your aura is so clean, when it comes to that stuff, you're just so happy to just cut the cord and walk away.


Michael Poon  20:48

Yeah, could be another thing I read somewhere. Whereas you can take everything away from me, and then all this, I'll be back to where I am in a couple of years. So that's the mindset I had. So if you take everything away, finding of the house and the TV, and whatever you want, and then I'll be back to where I was in, in further ahead in a couple of years. And that's proven true. I've had a couple of major relationships. And yeah, that's sort of proven true that I've been able to get not have a back on track, but further down the road. So yeah, I'm not too worried about that. I don't downside. i It's, it's feels very manageable to me.


Ruby  21:22

Yeah. You even said that when we were starting the business. And the maybe it was like, in the first six months when it was still really unstable and a bit wobbly. I said, Oh, my God, I was having one of my like, teary time of the month episodes. And I was like, what if I need to go back to work? And what if you need to go back to work? And what if all this fails, we did it for nothing, you're just like, well, then we just start again, like, we


Michael Poon  21:45

still got skills and experience. So it was kind of worth we get another job. And it might not been at the level of salary. We were previously. But who's to say that. But with this, we're still, in my opinion, very employable. But we had so many avenues to exhaust before we got down that dirt road. You know, I think what was a career coaching we started with, so we, we had all these different business ideas. Yeah. And we hadn't, you know, posted more than one today. And we hadn't approached this person or applied for this. There's so much opportunity. So I couldn't see us exhausting all that for a couple years, though. Even if that sort of business fell flat, there'll be something else to try.


Ruby  22:24

Yeah. And what I have talked about quite extensively, whenever I share our story, is you had quit your job, because you'd had enough, you kind of got to a point where you're like, you know what, 19 years, I'm out, like, I'm happy to walk away. And you said to me, go back to work, and scratch that itch, because there's still something in you where if you don't do this, you're always going to be left wondering, should I have gone back to work and I love that I love that you saw there was still a bit left in the tank for me to go back into corporate and then you took the role as Mr. Mommy, like you're really the primary carer for our kids, you cooked, you cleaned, you did all the shopping. And I went back to work. And the reason why our game plan was always to start the business. But it was a way for me to go scratch that itch. And secondly, to build a stronger financial runway so that we would have this balance and this security that energetically we needed to start this business full time. So what was the calculations there from a money perspective for you? When When did you know? We've kind of been like, we've got that runway now. Because at some point you said, Why are you taking a promotion what what happened to our main game plan because we've got that now.


Michael Poon  23:48

I remember that time I was very curious. I was overwork and I'm very curious to find out what being a stay at home dad was like, Yeah, I'm really thankful I got that opportunity. It was great. But I did get itchy feet. I think I became a stay at home dad around 2016 The Olympics were on I remember, Teddy not watching the Olympics together. And then after they finished, I was getting itchy feet. I was looking at things like drop shipping and currency trading like I need, I needed to do something. And then you were talking about your business, but back then I think you're gonna do your thing, I was gonna do my thing. And we're going to conquer the world together. And then one day, I just had a realisation pool our resources, I'll just support you. You'd be the face because clearly, you're much more social. And you know, I'm good at the business side. So let's do that. Not just help but you know, be a 5050 partner. So I figured we work in full time or part time, maybe full time still. And I said let's play it safe. Let's get six months of savings to cover six months of expenses of our living expenses before we you quit your job full time. And then we've got good six months to start making some income or enough income to cover our expenses, which were too much. When you look back,


Ruby  25:04

I remember, this is where our kind of energetic minimum came in, where we said, and I know this numbers thrown around a lot, but that was where if we could just make $10,000 a month were covered. That was where that came from not just some number that was set in the industry, that was actually our number based off what we would deem as for food and groceries, all the basics to go on a couple of holidays.


Michael Poon  25:30

Yeah, we could have coffee a day and not have to work for anyone else. That was the big thing. We didn't want to work for the employer again. So we thought think Mr. session should be hates, even after tax for our, you know, the modest lifestyle we had back then. So sometime in 2017, we made a decision to get six months of savings under our belt. And we did other things like because I was still at home, we just accumulate a lot of shit, especially in our garage, we had a big garage, and I had camping stuff and memorabilia, so and heaps of fishing stuff. So just started to sell, or that I wanted to really minimalize but we had probably I don't know anything for five or 10,000 all up. And then we said, well, let's sell the house because we didn't want to live in the suburbs. Let's move into the city somewhere a bit more energy. Yeah, just felt a bit more vibrant. And let's rent and then we could rent and then part of the apartment to be got could be dedicated in office and then that because of business expense. So it was a bit of that sort of thinking to it. Yes. 


Michael Poon  26:34

So eventually we we sold our house made a profit because we just we bought in 2015 and sold in 2018, I think so made a bit of a profit, then we were debt free living in the city, minimal possessions because I sold everything. We had more than six months runway by the time you finished work because you had to give three months notice or something 22nd of March was your last day, which was our wedding anniversary as well. So that was a good day to remember, I might not remember the wedding anniversary, I remember the date that we were officially officially full time into visit together March 22 2018. And we weren't really making regular income by then. Not at all, but we had the six months. And then that's the same day that we changed our niche, our niche. And you said not going to be a career coach anymore. I'm going to be a business coach, specifically side hustle, coach.


Ruby  27:31

Yeah, goodness, we did that. Honestly, it was such a great move. And I was I remember even back then I was panicking about like, what people would think about me changing my business niche, especially having just like, left my day job, and then going well, let's change the whole brand that's kind of given us permission to go all in with it. But it really was the best decision. Because it you know, I guess now we live through this mantra of following the frequency of what feels good, and it was easy. And people were asking us about how we started the business and all those wonderful things. So that my loves is the whole context of my money journey. And Mike's money journey. And that I just really wanted to help you see the behind the scenes of that because it wasn't like I or two people in corporate quit their jobs. 


Ruby  28:24

So the business, there's so many complexities around that, especially because Mike and I are going to talk so much more about our business partnership. And we have to have you back on to talk further about this. But before we close off, we'll probably go for another five or 10 minutes. I want to talk very specifically about your mentality of managing our wealth now, in I think this is really cool to kind of talk about it in three main blocks. So what you did to manage the money and your thoughts around it during the six figures when we were in six figures annually revenue per year. And then once we started to accumulate to a million dollars, what changed? And now like having a multiple million dollar brand, what's changed again, and if nothing's changed, and that's really cool, but I think that's always a question of how do you manage funds as it exponentially goes up in a very short period of time?


Michael Poon  29:22

Yeah, okay. So making the first six figures that's not a lot of money is like surplus money for us to invest and a lot of it was going, investing back into the business as a disciple. Really, what we invested back into was learning and development. So we invested back in courses and coaches as well to you know, upgrade our skills. So the first six months, yeah, 100 grand, you don't have to pay a lot of tax. We weren't really paying ourselves much of a salary back then just I think just up to the amount of the the tax free threshold. So it wasn't a lot. So the money Well, sort of management wasn't really there yet. Then once we broke through that, and we started to get more and more money, all of a sudden, the biggest thing I notice straightaway is that our tax bill was getting bigger. So you have to be really disciplined about putting for us in Australia, you pay GST, which is a 10% tax. And it's probably could a VAT in other places. So you have to be really disciplined, like you get the money in, but you got to carve off that 10% and put it away. Because that's for the taxman, you don't to be, you know, it'd be short for the taxman every quarter, every month whenever you have to pay it. So that was one thing. And then the rest, I would put into a managed fund or shares or something like that. 


Michael Poon  30:39

So as we were building up to a million dollars, just what I do, then the 10% will get more because after a year, we had a good year, the tax office decided to we should add the pre pay our potential tax liability in instalments throughout the year. So then instead of carving off 10%, I probably carved off 15%, maybe close to 20% of the money. And that was for the tax man to pay every quarter. Because yeah, there's nothing worse than having the taxman come chase you, at the end of the year when you do your tax return. So that's the discipline you need


Ruby  31:14

And what what exactly does it mean by carving it off? Do you physically take the money and put it into a whole different account, so you just don't see it, and it's not in the mind's eye.


Michael Poon  31:25

So you got your everyday business bank account, where income will flow in, and then you pay expenses from, but it's from that account that are put into another bank account. And that's like a more of a long term, sort of, I don't really make the most interest these days, but a longer term account, and I put the money there. And that is just for the tax and compliance. So we're not never caught short there. So I've got that discipline, it's in a separate bank account. And I, yeah, I just don't touch it, it's not our money, it can annoy you, they have to pay so much tax, that just means you're making more income. And then fortunately, we got a pretty good accountant as well to help us manage that. And this is just my investment philosophy, we're getting surplus cash, I was putting money into managed funds, and then and then I was playing around with crypto like everyone was, was getting popular. And that's all fine investing for the longer term, but you're waiting for your markets to go up so you can make a return. So I was thinking, what else can we do. And so that's when I started to get to trading. Because when you trade, you can make money when the markets go up. And you can make money when the markets go down by by shorting. So that was sort of this year, I decided, I'm going to become a gun trader, and learn how to not only make money when the market goes up, but also when the market goes down. So I'm going to teach myself that I've started still a novice got a long way to go. But you have


Ruby  32:54

been working with a coach on that as well to really accelerate your knowledge and your growth around there.


Michael Poon  32:58

Yeah, hi to coach. So and I think I said to you, I'm gonna I want to do less in the business, like the day to day stuff. And so I can focus more on the trading stuff. And that's when we bring in, you know, expand our team a bit, because I see a real big opportunity for us to manage our money that way where I'm a bit more hands on now, that's not for everyone trading. But I suppose the message is, is there's more than one way to, to invest and save your money.


Ruby  33:25

And hence why we have an amazing assistant who's come in taken a lot off your plate more also than mine a lot of your plate, so shout out to them. Everyone in the community knows Deb she is just a machine. She's an absolute unicorn, you know, to us, and we're so grateful, which has really given you the opportunity to have more of your energy flow towards ultimately growing our wealth and doing it in this way, which I'd much prefer seeing you doing that then reissuing a password for somebody in kartra.


Michael Poon  34:01

I look at the start, I love that. And like we got to build the business ground up. And I sort of know every sort of little process and tasks that we do. But now let's get someone in who's better than me. Who can really Yeah, manage the business, improve the processes. Release me let me play in my little strategy, curious field, whatever you want to call it. We like to just you know, have my blue sky thinking. Let me do my trading. And then let me play my footy. Let me go fishing. Let me go swimming. That's where I want to get to.


Ruby  34:32

Yes. Okay, so I these are some of the more common questions I do get going back into the practicalities of how we actually use the money. The question is once you start making a level of surplus and you're able to live through the money that you're receiving in your business, how much of our day to day stuff, do we actually run through the business or what was your process more so around discovering what it was a good level for us to charge through? Did you have to To speak to our accounting about that, did you just know like, how did that work for us? Because, you know, I'll generally just say, oh, yeah, you know, we put a lot through the business. And it's like, what, how? Who, when how, like, you know, all the questions come up around that.


Michael Poon  35:14

Yeah. So yeah, when when our bank accounts were getting full, so I speak to our accountant. And so what's the best use of this money? Because once you take it out of the business and put into your personal account, does a whole different set of tax and say, talk to your accountant? Workout? Is it best to increase your your salary? Does that make financial sense of taxation sense in your business? Or should you take it out? And then invest it somewhere else and invested into your investment property? And what deductions will you get or we won't get by moving the money around? It really comes back? Yeah, talk to your accountant. Because, as I say, everyone's situation is unique. And you really got to talk to someone. Yeah, who knows what they're doing. So I'm not up to date with the taxation laws or anything like that. So find a good accountant, and then talk to them. The other one that we learned as well, though, is don't feel bad for taking a little bit of money out and spending on yourself. And for us, that's, that's trouble.


Ruby  36:11

Yes, yes. And I don't think I've shared this at all here. But one of the things that Michael has been really diligent with, is having a certain other account, build and build for us, as we resume our for sure of travel, and specifically setting up our new life over in the United States and having a business run through there. And there's so much more that we can talk about, which we will definitely need to get you back on Mike to, for us to kind of jam on that. Well, you know, we're on live. Yes, I definitely actually know where you sleep. Hahaha. But I've seen even though where you should not let's not go there. Alright, shave. Are you sure? Hey. So let's talk about that. So we had to save quite a bit of money to move across to the States or at least begin the process of that. And it was into the multiple six figures that, you know, we were aiming for to just have as cash set aside, just to pocket for our visa stuff. What did you think when you first heard that from our immigration slash business attorney? And how did you decide that this was the strategy that we would do that we would take? 


Michael Poon  37:29

Yeah, I think they said you probably need about 100 grand to apply for this certain visa that we want to get minimum right? Minimum. So I thought to myself, Okay, let's double it. 


Ruby  37:40

And that's USD 


Michael Poon  37:41

 


Ruby  37:45

we did that really specifically through the monies that we were receiving through PayPal, almost like or just through, like having that amount sitting there. Right, like not touching it. 


Michael Poon  38:14

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that's another Yeah, I'm, I'm big. I'm big on carving it off and putting into another account. So that was into a US account carved it off, chucked it in there. And that was more of a bit of a set and forget maybe once a month, have a look to see how it was going. And then transfer some across. But yeah, no, I haven't withdrawn any out since we started it back in 2020.


Ruby  38:37

So amazing. Well, I absolutely think that hopefully you guys let us know that this is really useful and fun. I love podcasting with you. I just brings a totally different energy to the episode and whatever you guys want us to actually chat about more please come on over and DM me Don't DM Michael because it'll end up in his request folder and he'll never ever see it. And then like every once in a while he'll jump in and be like, oh your clients so and so messaged me. Or your client blah blah blah or your podcast listener messaged me about an episode we did years ago. So funny.


Michael Poon  39:15

I get a lot of messages saying oh, what's your address? I want to send Ruby a gift but I'll never see it until like a year later. And Oops. Oops a daisy.


Ruby  39:29

Oh my gosh. Anyway, thank you so much. They will do this again soon. And I hope you all loved it and we'll catch you in the next episode. Bye guys.