Investor Journeys—ArmandoInvestor Journeys—Armando

Tell us about yourself.

I live in Laingholm, a quiet suburb in the middle of the Waitākere Ranges in Auckland. I spend most of my time working on little design projects, mountain biking, reading, and camping.

What’s your money story?

I grew up in Chile with my mum. Money was always tight. It was just the two of us, as my siblings are much older than I am, and my dad lived overseas. 

My upbringing taught me to be frugal. I always had my own small businesses growing up, mixed in with my interests, like selling records and trading bike parts.

As soon as my career started to pick up, I wanted to do more with my money than just leaving it in the bank. My brother was always talking about investing, so it seemed like a logical place to start.

How has your investing changed over time?

When I was 20, I managed to save my first million pesos (approx. $1,700 NZD), which isn’t an exorbitant amount of money, but felt like a nice rounded number. I invested it all into index funds.

Since then, I’ve invested in property, shares in companies, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). 

Investing is one of the most important things to me. I have a system to manage my monthly expenses, and I always make sure to prioritise money for my investments. I usually invest in companies that are interesting to me, and then follow their performance through the Stocks app.

How do you use Sharesies to invest?

I love Sharesies! I use auto-invest, combined with a weekly automatic payment from my bank account, which allows me to not think about it as much. As a product designer, I like to keep an eye on the evolution of the experience and brand—Sharesies are just masters of the craft.

Recently, I transferred some of my existing shares into Sharesies (and wrote a blog about it!). They were shares I’d received as an employee of an ASX-listed company. My shares had been sitting with a registry, and I didn’t realise I’d need to transfer them to a broker to sell them. I asked around, researched online, and couldn’t find a straight answer on how to do that.

I gave up on selling my shares for a couple of weeks, until one day I was looking at my Sharesies portfolio and decided to click the chatbot icon. Thanks to some awesome customer service, I was finally able to transfer my shares into Sharesies. It was as easy as I could possibly imagine!

What does growing wealth mean to you?

There’s no shortcut to wealth. I think the ‘get rich quick’ trend is distracting people from true wealth. Investing isn’t just money going up and down in Sharesies—we make investment decisions everyday, in the way we show up at work, the way we treat others, and so on. 

At the moment, I’m trying to focus on paying my mortgages, thinking about future streams of revenue, and using the power of compounding returns in my favour.

For me, it’s all about peace of mind, and having enough wealth to support my future plans. At the end of the day, my financial strategy is just the backbone of my life strategy. 

Image credit: Eleonora Aldea Pardo