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DONEGANS
  • Home
    • About Alan
    • About Katie
  • Events
  • Extraordinary
  • Start Here
  • Podcast
    • Podcast Season 1
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    • Coaching Series: Christina
    • Coaching Series: Jaymie
    • Coaching Series: Andrew
    • Coaching Series: Keith
    • Stats and Feedback
  • Rebel Finance School
    • FIRE
    • Investing
    • Millionaire
    • Retirement calculator
    • Fees
    • RFS Financial Forecasting
    • Deciphering a Fund Fact Sheet
    • Return on Equity Calculator
    • VTSAX
    • Financial Independence YouTube Series 1
    • Disclaimer
    • Rebel Finance School - The Stats
  • Blogs
  • Contact
    • FAQ
    • Press
  • The Extraordinary
    • Introduction
    • Chapter 1 Extraordinary
    • Chapter 2 We are where we are!
    • Chapter 3: If you want different results do different things

Blog

Welcome to the Donegans' blog.  Start reading for help with investing, financial independence, lifestyle design, and many mini-experiments!
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How do I pay off my debt (quickly)?

22/5/2023

 
When it comes to taking control of your finances, getting rid of credit card debt and other high interest rate debts is SOO important. Trying to get ahead with your finances whilst having debt is like trying to swim the Atlantic with a 100kg weight attached to you. You're got a dead weight dragging you down. Time to ditch that anchor!

​Alan is almost 100kilos, could you image having to drag him whilst swimming?
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Debt happens - let the Donegans help you back out!
If you have debt, you're in the right place!  This is a how-to article taking you step by step through the quickest way to pay off your debt. Let's get into it...

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How to track your finances

15/5/2023

 
UPDATED: 15th May 2023

​It was August 2022, the sun was shining and there were beautiful clear blue skies over Lake Chelan in Washington State.  Katie and I were sitting at Cambell's Resort where we had come for a friend's wedding.  

It was the last day of the month and you know what that means? It's month end so drop everything for our monthly finance meeting!  Katie and I always get excited for days beforehand about planning our monthly finance meeting! 
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The monthly finance meeting is one of the highlights of our month. We find a cool location for a wonderful breakfast or brunch, open the spreadsheet and input the numbers and work out which direction our finances are going in!

This is the exact opposite of most of the population who don't like to look at their finances at all; scared of what they might find.  Your average person uses the "bury your head in the sand" strategy to manage their finances; with an occasional peek at the current account to see if they can afford things.  

If the saying "what gets measured gets improved" is true; then why are so many people so scared of looking at their personal finances??

UPDATE: this article was originally written in 2022, we've now updated it as at May 2023. Hello future!

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What gets measured gets improved

8/5/2023

 
What are you measuring? 

Cue smutty jokes!  

Seriously though what are you measuring each month? Each week? Each year? What are you tracking?
Alan Donegan: what gets measured gets improved
Alan Measuring something
One of the most interesting questions I have been exploring this year is "If things continue as they are am I happy with the direction?" 

To be able to answer that question you need to be able to know whether you are going in the right direction or not.  The only way to do this is to measure something...….

UPDATE: This article was originally written in November 2020. We've updated it in May 2023. Hello the future!


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How to talk to your partner about money

1/5/2023

 
I had just found out about financial independence (FI) and learnt from a book how to do it.  I was so excited.  I saw a way for Katie and I to live the life of our dreams and I was buzzing.  I was so excited to talk to Katie about it,  I couldn't wait to get home and tell her.  

Have you ever felt like you discovered the answer?  Like you have found the thing that is going to fix everything?
Let's talk about money - how to talk to your partner about money - The Donegans
The Donegans usual style of communicating about money
I was bursting with energy to share what I had learnt when I saw her.  I was hopping from foot to foot to tell her, but knew I had to wait until we connected.  I listened to what she had been up to in the day and then told her about Financial Independence and what I had learnt. 

The reaction I got back was not the one I was expecting.  I was expecting a big "YES! Let's go!" What I got was a unenthusiastic nod and silence.  The energy drained from my body and my head drooped to the ground as I started to see my dream slip away. 

If you have a partner, if you have a boyfriend, girlfriend or other, it can be a make or break piece of the puzzle of FI getting them on board with your vision to be financially independent. 

It doesn't have to be about Financial Independence. Talking to your partner about money and having a comfortable retirement and being on the same page is SO important!

​How do you talk to your partner about money?

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FIRE terms explained

24/4/2023

 
When you start to learn about finance, it is a bit like learning a new language.  People talk to you about asset allocation, index funds, stocks and shares, equities and more.    

Even after looking up these terms multiple times it still didn't stick in my head.  It wasn't until I found books and teachers that could explain it in simple ways that I started to get it. 
Katie Donegan, Alan Donegan, explaining Financial independence, retire early FIRE Terms
FIRE can be confusing when you first start. here's our guide to the FIRE terms and explanations.
On top of all the finance terms the FIRE (financial independence / retire early) community has invented it's own set of terms and definitions for you to learn. In this article I am going to break down all the different FIRE terms from Lean FIRE to Fat FIRE and all the way to Coast FIRE and beyond. 

​FIRE Terms explained.

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What is the FIRE movement?

17/4/2023

 
FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early, and is a movement of people around the world that have rejected the idea of working until traditional retirement age. They get on top of their finances so that they can do what they want with their time. 

Katie and I found the FIRE movement (before it was called the FIRE movement!) way back in 2015. 
Alan Donegan and Katie Donegan - part of the UK FIRE movement
What is the FIRE movement? What does it stand for? How does it work?
Back in 2015 it was just called Financial Independence (FI) and Katie and I loved the idea of becoming financially independent so that we could spend our time doing whatever we wanted!  Read on for our definition of FI, more about the history of the FIRE movement, and how you can get involved!

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Wealth: Luck or Process?

10/4/2023

 
The pre-course questionnaire for the Rebel Finance School asks you what you believe about money.  Over 1,000 sign-ups for our 2022 course filled it in and one of the top beliefs they held was "Realistically, chances are I will never be wealthy!"

​I find this fascinating.  Why are you signing up to a finance course if you believe you can never be wealthy?  Maybe looking for a glimmer of hope?  Maybe looking for confirmation that it is all too complex and you were right and can give up on that dream?
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Is wealth luck or a process? Do you need to win the Lottery? Can anyone copy what Katie Donegan did to get to financial independence?
After 3 years of talking about money, running the Rebel Finance School for thousands of people, and reflecting on our journey to financial independence, I can tell you that most people believe their only routes to wealth are:

  1. Winning the lottery (slim chances but why not, it is only a few quid each month)
  2. Inheritance  (maybe great Aunt Tilda will die and leave me money)
  3. Building a business and selling it (but I can't do this as it takes money to make money)
  4. The latest get rich quick scheme (of course they convince themselves that it's legit and it'll work for them!)

Is wealth really a game of chance or can anyone do it?

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Rebel Finance School 2023

9/4/2023

 
Katie and I were sat Buenos Aires last year wearing hats, gloves and all the warm clothes we owned.  We were outside drinking hot drinks, eating alfajores and working on the Rebel Finance School course.  We didn't care how cold it was as we had purpose.  We had figured out that we needed to re-write the debt week of the course. 

​With only 5 days until we ran debt week we had decided to re-write the entire week into 2 sections, the first "how you get into debt" and the second "how to get out of debt".  We were inspired, driven and it could have been any temperature.  We had a mission to help people with their finances.
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When you feel like you are doing something important, you don't care about the cold, you don't want to fall asleep and you just want to keep going.  Read on for the big announcement of dates for this year and more about how Rebel Finance School has grown and changed over the 4 years we have run it. 

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Donegan Update - March'23

5/4/2023

 
We are into the third month of the year.  Can you believe that spring is coming (or autumn for our antipodean friends!)? How are you progressing so far this year?  Are you flying towards your goals like a turbo charged dart or have you hit a patch of mud, got stuck and stopped?

What did you hope this year would hold?  What were your visions?  Did you have big plans?
Alan Donegan and Katie Donegan riding a bike in Chiang Mai Thailand
The Donegans in Chiang Mai in February
Given we're three months in, I thought it was time for a Donegan update and hopefully this will be the inspiration that you need to either keep on going towards your dreams or reignite the fire inside you.  

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Do I need an emergency fund?

3/4/2023

 
March 2020 and covid was just hitting.  Katie and I were in New Orleans meant to be on a dream trip. Katie was going to learn jazz piano and I was going to write.  We had a lovely house to stay in and we were looking forward to the time of our lives.  In the week that followed everything changed. 
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The Rebel team called me and told me that Google had cancelled our Business School event in New York.  Over the next couple of days, every live event that Rebel Business School had on its books was cancelled, one by one.  We went from a healthy business with lots of money coming in, to only having money going out.  We had fixed costs of £15,000 a month for wage bills, services and more and we had no money coming in.

This was the biggest crisis of emergency that Rebel, and I, had ever faced.

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FIRE didn't work out for us

1/4/2023

 
It was a bleak, grey rainy day at Heathrow in January 2020 and it was to be our last day in the UK for a while.  Despite the greyness of the day we were full of hope.  We were about to board a flight to Thailand to see our friends Kristy and Bryce from Millennial Revolution. This was the start of our nomadic adventure, travelling the world, experiencing new cultures and eating breakfast in amazing new places.   
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We had so many plans, Thailand and then off to the USA to run an event, travel to New Orleans for Katie to learn jazz piano and beyond.  You may have read our recent post Travel with Purpose.  Somewhere along the way we lost our purpose........

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The miserly millionaire

25/3/2023

 
People can be incredible cautionary tales.  We need to learn from people that have been fabulously successful in areas of their lives.  And on the converse, we need to learn where it has gone wrong.  Find the person that has messed it all up, ask to interview them and write down everything they did so we can do the opposite!

There is gold in their failures.  There are lessons that can save you decades.  Learn from other people's mistakes so you don't have to make them yourself.  
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You can learn so much from failure and we often spend more time learning from success.  For the next 6 minutes as you read the article maybe you will learn some things you can avoid. 

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

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Why oh why......

11/3/2023

 
I started this blog nearly 5 years and exactly 112 articles ago.  I still can't believe I have written that much.  My original purpose was to share what I have learnt in life, to help you make progress and to challenge some of the traditional bullshit that stops us all making progress. 

Has much changed over the last 5 years?  Am I still writing the blog for the same reasons?  Do I have the same why? The same purpose?  
Alan Donegan writing his first ever blog post back in 2018 in Basingstoke
Alan writing his first ever blog post back in December 2018
Recently, Katie and I have been inspired to create a mission statement and to start thinking more broadly about our why, our purpose.  That lead us to write about travelling with purpose and about uncovering your why/purpose.  

In this article we will share our why for the blog and give you some ideas as to how you can identify your why, uncovering your purpose.  Not only that but Katie also shares why she is now joining me full-time in the blog and why we are rebranding as the Donegans not just AlanDonegan.com

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How do you wake up? Purpose

4/3/2023

 
​How do you wake up each morning?  Do you wake up full of joy and excitement ready to get on with the day, drawn from bed with a passion to make a difference and do things?

Or do you wake up, hit snooze, pull up the covers and dread getting out of bed?  Do you dread Monday mornings?  Do you get the Sunday night blues?

​How you wake up, how you feel in the morning can tell you a lot about your life and the way you are thinking about it.
The Donegans - How do you wake up in the morning?
How do you wake up in the morning? Full of beans and excited to take on the world or do you want to hide under the covers and go back to sleep?
Katie and I have discovered that purpose can be the difference between either being driven, happy and full of energy or dreading the week, wishing away the hours and praying for the weekend.

If you are praying for the weekend, if you are dreading Monday then something in your life or the way you think about your life is broken.  Use how you feel in the mornings as a barometer for your success in life.

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Travel with purpose

11/2/2023

 
Why do you travel?  Are you going to "see" the country?  Taste all the foods?  Experience the sports, beaches or activities?  Are you going to meet the locals and chat to people?  Or are you going to unwind on the beach and it doesn't matter where you actually are as long as there are margaritas, sunshine and pools?

What's your purpose for travelling?
Katie Donegan, Alan Donegan, Travelling with purpose
After 4 years of travelling around the world, Katie and I have started to work out some of the things we love most about travel.  This post shares some of our ideas and comes with a HUGE offer at the end (well we think it's pretty cool, you can judge for yourself!)  

No matter whether you travel or not, want to travel in the future or not I think this article has a message that can help you.  Read Onwards.........

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What is success?

27/1/2023

 
There seems to be a measure in western society that we are all trying to live up to.  An unseen, unagreed to yard stick that we are measured against. 

Do you have a degree?  Do you have a nice car?  Do you own your own home?  Do you have pets?  Do you have kids and are married? These are the questions society (people around us) ask to find out if we are succesful. 
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Alan in a suit? Does this mean he is succesful? Intelligent? Heaven forbid respectable??
They want to know what school (university) you went to, what car you drive, where you live?  Then last one really defines you.  Which neighbourhood, which town and what location tells us everything we need to know about you.  Do you live on the right side of the tracks, do you live in the nice side of town?

Do you measure up to societies description of success or sometimes do you feel like you don't fit in?  Don't measure up? 

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Comfort, Awareness & Possibility

15/1/2023

 
You don't know what you don't know. Someone said that to me as they were trying to sell me a training course years ago and it got me thinking as well as annoying me! What does that actually mean?

There are things I take for granted now that I didn't even know existed when I was younger let alone even thought they were possible for me to achieve!  
Alan Donegan
Alan didn't even know it was possible!
Even now at 44 there is SO much that I know I don't know about, let alone the stuff I don't know I don't know! 

​How do you know what exists, how do you know what is possible for you and how do you get comfortable having a go?

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The 3 Levers of Financial Independence

9/1/2023

 
Financial independence (FI) seems like a far off lofty goal at times.  Especially if you are struggling to make ends meet, bring in money or just survive.  However, the fundamentals of financial independence are super simple.  There are three main levers for you to pull.  All the experts out there debate endlessly about how to pull them, when to pull them and why to pull them!
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This article is designed to make financial independence as simple as possible (not easy; simple) so that you know what to do next - which lever to pull and how to make progress. 

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10 years of Rebel

19/10/2022

 
Rebel Business School (RBS) is 10 years old!  I can't believe it has been 10 years since I started RBS with Simon Paine.  Of course, it wasn't called RBS back then and the course was "marginally" different, but the key principles of debt free start up and anyone can build a business and make money are still the same 10 years later!
Alan Donegan 10 years of Rebellion
To celebrate I have a huge announcement for you at the end of the article.  It is customary to give away a gift on your birthday, isn't it?

​But first, let's back up to how Rebel Business School begun and how I went from frustrated Entrepeneur to global movement. 

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PANIC: the market has crashed

10/10/2022

 
You've seen the headlines.  The market has crashed.  Stock market plunges.  Pensions in crisis! Get out now before it is too late!

The temptation to sell when you see the value of your stocks and shares wiped out is huge! In the stock market crash during Covid in April 2020, Katie and I had £184,000 (or $244,000) wiped off the value of our portfolio.   
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What should we do?  Sell before it crashes even further?  Put it all in cash under the mattress and wait for the world to return to normal?  PANIC: read the news to get insight and feel even worse afterwards? Engage with the doomsayers predicting the end of capitalism?

Here's how Katie and I have trained ourselves to react when the market drops and why doing the opposite of what everyone else does is the route to financial success.

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Donegan Update

5/10/2022

 
Can you believe it is already October?  2022 is vanishing faster than we could have imagined!  Different to our normal life posts and finance posts this post is all about The Donegans and what we have been up to.  Read on to find out about our travels, photos, learnings and courses.  All around South America and running courses around the world!
The Donegan Update October 2022

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Should I stop investing?

2/10/2022

 
Things have gone crazy in the UK. Things have gone crazy in the world markets! Our new Prime Minister decided to give tax breaks to high income earners and borrow £50bn to do it. The pound crashed against the dollar making imports and foreign travel massively more expensive and further fuelling inflation.
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My messages, email and other channels lit up with messages of doom and gloom.  The market is down! We need to stop investing!  The £ is at an all-time low against the $! Should we halt all investments until it goes back up?  Is it different this time?  It is all going to pieces!  PANIC!

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What is in VTSAX?

24/9/2022

 
Have you ever heard the term VTSAX?  If you are in the financial independence world you probably have as it is the star of the book "The Simple Path to Wealth" by JL Collins.  It is a broad-based index fund available in America (more below on British stuff) that is one of the main vehicles people use to get to financial independence. 
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But what actually is in VTSAX?  Do you know what you are buying when you get it? Obviously, Katie got excited and created some charts and graphs to show you exactly where your money goes when you buy this legendary fund!  Read on to find out exactly what is in VTSAX!

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The biggest mistake people make when they find out about FIRE

6/8/2022

 
Have you ever found out about something and got so excited you take it to the Nth degree? Do you get super passionate and go all in?  Katie (my lovely wife) gets super excited about things and then likes to go extreme.  She started CrossFit and fell in love with it and then wanted to do it every single day, whilst still doing all the exercise she was doing before.  This lasted a few weeks and she got so exhausted she had to have several afternoons in bed!
Alan Donegan at the gym.  Pushing towards financial independence
Have you ever taken something a little bit too far?
​Katie and I started a new diet in lock down in 2020 given to us by a coach, we followed it to the letter, gave it our everything and after 12 days we had lost so much weight but I was falling asleep in the afternoons from no energy.  The diet was literally stripping me of my vitality and energy and I was falling to pieces.  katie wanted to press on, I couldn't take it and we argued.  

Sometimes we all have the tendency to take things to the extreme when we find something we are passionate about. What does this all have to do with financial independence? Some people take it to the extreme when they find out about it, alienating the people around them and sacrificing happiness. 

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The 10 biggest mistakes you can make with your money

31/7/2022

 
It is tough to manage your money and get it working for you. There are financial advisors telling you they know best, there are modern finance companies trying to persuade you to give them your money, there is pressure to get into cryptocurrency and endless opportunities to invest/spend/waste your precious hard-earned money. It takes a HUGE amount of time and energy to earn money, build businesses and get ahead, and then you have to make it work for you!
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Over the last 4 years of running Rebel Finance School, Katie and I have had the honour of helping people avoid and unwind some of these mistakes. We have seen up close and personal the damage that these things do to people's financial lives.  Some have happened to us and I am sure we will make mistakes in the future!  This article is designed to help you avoid making some of the biggest mistakes we see people  making in the world of finances!

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