Ruth has been asked this question a lot over the past couple of months: “So, how is Jonny’s retirement going?” The short answer is: excellent. And it’s probably easier that I, Jonny, answer the question. A couple of months ago, I left my two-day-a-week graphic design job. Effectively ending a 30-year career. We had reached a point financially where I no longer needed to keep earning a regular PAYE income, and we decided it was time for me to stop. But I don’t really think of myself as retired. I think of it more as making work optional.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a steady stream of residential rental property investors finding their way to The Happy Saver. They generally arrive after years, often decades, of believing that property was the way to build wealth. Not a way. THE WAY. But something has changed, and often, it’s them. Eventually, they reach the point where they think: There has to be another way to invest my money. The Googling begins, and they discover there is another way that doesn't involve investment properties. But selling the property turns out to be the easy bit. What do you do with the money? Working that out requires a complete re-education. This blog is for all the people I meet who are done with property, but very unsure about what to do next.

I’m pretty good at financial admin. Most of the time, I really look forward to it. I genuinely get excited about the first of the month because that is when I check the value of each bank account, our ETF, and our KiwiSaver, and use that information to update our net worth spreadsheet. Tracking my net worth, however, doesn’t tell me how our investments are actually performing. It’s all well and good investing in something, but if it’s not making any money, what’s the point? Which is why I’ve always used an online share portfolio tracker, a Kiwi company called Sharesight, to do all the maths I’ve got absolutely no interest in doing myself. It tracks our ETF investments and tells me whether they are actually making us any money, or not.

By all means, use a financial advisor if you want to. But don’t assume that you have to, or that you will make more money by doing so. You are perfectly capable of managing your own money, including investing. My point today is not that financial advisors are bad (although some certainly are); it’s that many of you don’t need one. We have been led to believe that we can’t manage our own money. We constantly hear the words “Seek financial advice.” But when doing so pushes you towards an entire financial industry that has developed around our fear of investing money, and is extremely profitable for those who work within it, I question the advice they give.

I've been feeling a little frustrated lately. I'm sitting in my living room, laptop on my lap, gazing out at the snow-capped Old Man Range. Things aren’t going badly, quite the opposite. Our investments have passed $800,000, our emergency fund is full, and Jonny is about to finish his graphic design job for good. We’re CoastFI and tantalisingly close to financial independence, but not quite there yet. After years of saving, investing and optimising, there’s not much left to do except trust the plan and wait. And I’ve got to be honest: waiting just that wee bit longer is frustratingly hard work.

I know that by now the fuss over the mid June 2026 SpaceX IPO has died down, but that is exactly why I waited a few weeks to write about it. Successful investing is mostly about ignoring the noise, but sometimes that is easier said than done. Now that it's well out of the headlines, and so that you can recognise a storm in a teacup next time one appears, I want to dig into what happens to your ETF or Index Fund once the fuss dies down. You actually become a part owner of a company that has chosen to list on a stock exchange.