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Meet Hugh

What was your relationship with money like growing up?

It was pretty much save up whatever pocket money I had to buy the next Lego set. I was very focused on picking a target, saving toward it, and then buying it, rinse and repeat.

Money was not really spoken about a huge amount at home, but I think the lesson came through anyway. Small incremental pocket money taught me that if you want something, it takes time and patience. You do not just get what you want immediately.

And often, by the time you have saved enough, your interests have changed and you realise you did not actually need it in the first place. One trick that stuck with me: if you think you want something, wait 48 hours and see if you still want it.

What was your first job? (And how much did you get paid?)

My first job was a few stints as a tennis coach during the school holidays, cash in hand, probably around $150 for three days work.

After that I did a week labelling dips at a food factory, eight hours a day on the date gun, stamping taramasalata and whatever else came down the line. Pretty grim, but it taught me early that not every job is fun and exciting.

How did you first come across investing?

It was actually through a book ‘I Will Teach You to Be Rich’ by Ramit Sethi. It is a bit like the Barefoot Investor but more direct. Ramit does not ease you in gently, he calls you out on your bad habits. That approach resonated with me. There is no real reason why you should not be building these habits, and having someone say it plainly made it click.

Was there a memorable early investment?

I have never picked an individual stock, but I did learn an important lesson early on about understanding what you own before you buy it. When I first started out I bought a number of managed funds rather than ETFs, partly because the units were smaller and you could own partial units, which made me think reinvesting dividends would be easier.

I had come up with my own justification for why this made sense rather than researching until I actually understood the difference. I knew the managed funds had higher fees and for some reason still went with them. I thought managed funds came with higher fees and were less tax efficient than ETFs. I had read the explainer on the Vanguard website about the difference between the two and did not fully understand it, but convinced myself I had.

The lesson for me was do your research properly and actually understand what you are buying, rather than finding a justification that suits what you have already decided to do. I eventually consolidated and switched across to ETFs.

How are you currently investing and can you provide a breakdown of your portfolio?

My approach has always been to keep it as boring and long term as possible, automated and diversified. At one point I had seven or eight different ETFs with a fair amount of overlap, which I thought was diversification but was really just paying fees for the same thing twice. I consolidated down to two holdings:

The 7% VGS is really just a legacy holding I kept to avoid paying capital gains tax on selling it down. At some point that will be a future problem to deal with.

Right now I have actually paused regular investing because I am heading to London for six months at the end of the year for a university exchange as part of my postgraduate Law degree. I am treating that savings goal like a fund with a very clear purpose, building up the cash I need before I go. Once I am back, the automated investing will kick back in.

Where do you see investing taking you?

I cannot predict what my life is going to look like in 30 years, but what I do know is that the small sacrifices you make now can pay off enormously later. More than anything, investing gives you the freedom to choose rather than having your choices made for you by the financial position you are in.

I want to have a career that is genuinely interesting and not spend each day focusing on the salary. Investing is how I give myself the best chance of that.

What is one super extravagant and outlandish purchase that you hope investing will be able to buy you in the future?

I would one day love to be able to walk into a bike shop and buy a $15,000 road bike without thinking twice. Top of the line, perfectly fitted, even though I am absolutely not a top of the line cyclist. Just so I can put subpar lap times around Centennial Park on it.

If you only had 25 words to convince someone to invest, what would you say?

It is not as scary as you think. Millions of people are making money from it every day with little effort. Why would you not be one of them?

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We want to hear your ‘How I Got Started’ stories. Respond to this email if you would like to be featured and we’ll get in touch!

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Your Investing Approach Should Change as Your Life Does

Hugh has done a lot right in his twenties, automated his investments, consolidated down to two ETFs, kept it simple and let it run. But right now he has hit pause. He is heading to London for six months for a university exchange and is treating that savings goal like a fund with a very clear purpose. That is exactly how investing should work at different life stages. Bryce and Ren unpacked how your approach should evolve across the decades in an episode of Get Started Investing (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)

Ren: When you're young and you've got a full-time job but you don't have the responsibilities that come later in life, it is the time to maximise your savings rate, knowing that at some point in the future you're going to probably be investing less. That's why your twenties and thirties can be so powerful.

In your twenties the goal is simple. Get your cashflow sorted, build an emergency fund, and put as much as you can into growth assets. A low cost globally diversified ETF is genuinely all you need.

By your forties, competing priorities start pulling in different directions, mortgages, kids, school fees. This is where we introduce the rule of 110: subtract your age from 110 to get the rough percentage of your portfolio that should stay in growth assets. At 40, that is a 70/30 split between growth and defensive assets.

By your sixties, the focus shifts entirely to de-risking and generating income. The goal is no longer maximum growth but making sure a market crash does not blow up your retirement.

Investing is not a single setting you lock in and never revisit. Hugh's story is a good reminder of that.