Noob blogger who is fascinated by the future of digital currency. Personal finance is my baby!

Hi! My name is Matt Macreadie and this is my first post on SteemIt.

I am a father of 4 incredible kids. I have a beautiful wife named Hayley and live in the land of Oz! My family is nothing short of amazing and while I do sometimes reminisce about my pre-kid days while wiping a buttock or sorting the millionth piece of Lego, the reality is that there is nothing I’d rather do. Parenthood is rewarded in smiles!

I am a relatively noob blogger and run a humble site called BudgetBrilliance.com. It is a side hobby of mine and I post there on a monthly basis. I am passionate about helping other people take control of their personal finances. I also forgot to mention that I have a faith in Christ which underpins everything I do. My hope is to financially empower people, and ultimately, to assist schools and communities in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

I work 3 days a week as a primary school teacher. I love my job and teach an amazing group of Grade 1 students. They crack me up each day with many nonsensical jokes such as this:
Q. Why did the elephant stand on the marshmallow?
A. Because he didn’t want to fall in the hot chocolate.

I used to work as a children’s pastor. With the surprise visit of baby #4 I found that being a full time teacher, children’s pastor and functioning as sane dad to be quite the challenge. I reduced my hours at school, finished ministering at church and began to use this time to focus solely on building the income that was missing from the 2 days I no longer worked.

Consequently, I dramatically reduced my expenditure (see subsequent posts or website), began paying my investments first and, lo and behold, my income tripled over the course of the year. The extra time I created allowed me to reduce my expenditure, streamline my taxation, maximise my income and learn new investment skills. The number one lesson being: The road to wealth is to spend less than you earn!

The Budget Brilliance website has contributed exactly $0.00 to date I might add. I haven’t charged a single person yet but enjoy posting nonetheless. On the other 2 days I hone in my investments and upskill. What do we invest in you might ask? We own a modest investment property, have around $170k in an overseas fund, superannuation and invest approximately $80k in a pre-IPO company. We try to be very careful in what we invest and have seen a huge alteration to our lifestyle in the past year.

I love travelling and hope to spend 6 months in Canada in 2018. We regularly hit the road as a family and just got back from Palm Cove in tropical North Queensland last week. This is an amazing world and we love getting to know the people, animals and scenery within it.

A few extra self-indulgent titbits:

• I love longboarding but can’t do it well.
• I’d like to snowboard more but the price of lift tickets to snowboard in Australian slush is unappealing.
• I’m fascinated by personal finance as already stated above.
• I enjoy listening to country music and… rap!
• I’m fascinated by history. In particular, I’m intrigued by the European settlement of North America. The challenges, hardships and risks that were taken were nothing short of incredible. [I understand that the term ‘settlement’ will evoke some reaction, as would the term ‘invasion’. Apologies in advance for my inability to neutrally label this time period.]
• I love kayaking and fishing. I don’t get to do this often however, as I can feel the glare of 5 pairs of eyes watching me from the shoreline.

So why am I on SteemIt? Basically because I had a friend @JasonStaggers recommend it to me earlier today. I love the concept of digital currency and can definitely see its potential. How could this not be the future?? SteemIt seems like such an egalitarian concept. I love it! I have appreciated reading some of the fabulous articles here and hope that some of the things I contribute are helpful in some way.