The simple saving tip that helped this young couple start their property investment journey

Easy as they make it seem, Carl and Phoebe admitted that they had to make sacrifices to ultimately achieve their personal and financial goals.

“We're still living at home. We don't go out every weekend like we're not spending copious amounts of money on alcohol and those sorts of things. But we still have a really good time and, I think, after eight years we're still very much so in love,” Phoebe said. 

“On the weekend, Carl just took me out for a picnic, which is... $20, but [is] still such a romantic and beautiful thing to do on a weekend.

“To be able to enjoy Sydney for what it is on a weekend for $20…, that's a lot better than spending $200 on a night out, in my opinion.”

For both of them, saving up for their future is simply about being careful and frugal, without having to limit each other of their needs and wants. Carl and Phoebe handle their budget together, and they both agree that they should not be spending money they don’t have.

“We're pretty against credit cards and stuff [like that]. But we obviously both have our own weaknesses. Like Carl has three cars... I've got a bit of a shopping addiction... [We] manage our own funds but we save together,” according to Phoebe.

As they continue to move forward in their property investment journey, the couple still applies the same principle that helped them save for their first purchase: “Don’t bite off more than you can chew”,

Carl said: “I think we're mostly looking equity… We can get a fair bit of cash behind us… We'd like to go, ideally, next year sometime. So, we've got a good six months or so to get a bit of cash on top of what we've already got.”

“We started looking again like on just realestate.com.au just to get a feel for the market… There's a lot of talk at the moment in the media that there might be a bit of a drop. So we're just trying to wait and see if that's true or not. Also, just see what happens with interest rates. We don't want to bite off more than we can chew,” Phoebe concluded.

Tune in to Carl Smith and Phoebe Arthur’s episode on The Smart Property Investment Show to know more about the long-term process of renovating their first property and how they found the latest design trends at just a fraction of the cost.