Category: Personal & Finance Updates

Hey all, I hope everyone is doing well. It’s time for an update and what a time it is right now in the world for one… Just when it looked like we were beginning to break free from Covid into a new normal especially here in the UK with all restrictions being removed, we now are all witnessing what most would of thought was a thing of the past, a European war – yes a war from a Russian invasion! Not a special military operation Mr Putin. I will touch on that as part of my financial review update, I will also talk how Covid finally got me followed by talking about how Gangster Monk as mentioned in my last post has been in action delivering on my goal to almost have my cake and eat it when it comes to my journey towards Financial Independence. I will finish on a more personal update with a goal to be held accountable to in front of you all!

Finance Review during a European War 

Financial Update – Mid March 2022

The below figures are taken from the 14th of March.

• Monthly investment (Aug 21 to Feb 22) – £1500 each month 
• Savings rate (Aug 21 – Feb 22)– 55% average each month
• Investment portfolio – £225,836.18
• Cash is king fund – £1500
• Crypto Punt – £1002
• Emergency fund – £144
• Big expenses / holiday fund – £4160

Total Liquid Funds = £232,642.18 

As you can see from the graph above, my portfolio has taken the biggest hit since the Covid pandemic started in early 2020. This however is of course trivial compared to the horrific ordeal so many people are going through now in this war, and that goes for both sides when it comes to the human tragedy and sufferings that come along with war. I may have lost a lot of money and this might even stop me hitting my £250,000 Project 2235 target by the end of the year but the circumstances make the psychological hit of that easy to take if so.

Some of you may notice that my Big expenses fund has grown and my Cash is king fund has reduced. This is due to me transferring £5000 for use during this calendar year to enable Gangster Monk to live his dream. Unfortunately this was needed as my matched betting profits have now been exhausted so I had to fund my Big expenses fund from my other cash funds as I still need to contribute and invest £1500 for the rest of the year so I can hopefully still achieve my Project 2235 target.

My unexpected outgoings fund has taken a battering and is now fairly low at £144. This was due to a huge bill to fix issues with my car, such a relief though having that fund as it shielded me from that cost. The £5000 cash injection to my Big expenses fund can and will be used for unexpected outgoings until I build this back up over the next few months – I will get an extra payment from my side hustle in a month or so which will put that back above £500 and will get some more top up from a no council tax bill month too. As for the Crypto fund – Well, I’d rather not talk about the crypto fund, that’s a source of occasional thought pain mixed with embarrassment but then I just end up laughing at myself and move on… I will not sell! I just keep telling myself this is like an extreme emerging markets part of my portfolio and to be fair it is a small percentage anyway so it’s no real issue. It doesn’t stop me from feeling stupid though! I tried to ride the wave of FOMO others would have but it came crashing down on me, but I certainly knew the risks!

Russian Invades Ukraine (A European War in 2022)

When Russia was building up its forces along the border with Ukraine and in the Crimea, I really did think that it was all a bluff personally, a show of force and nothing more to achieve whatever his aims were. I was incredibly wrong on that front. I did not expect an invasion to occur and have been mortified to see the last couple of weeks unfold. It really is just plain awful and it seems the scenes and devastation will get far far worse in the weeks to come.

I can’t pretend to know what Putins intentions truly are, how much of what he says is lies versus actually what he really does believe himself too. As some commentators have pointed out, he really seems to have personalised this conflict and is now almost in a corner. Even if he takes the country militarily which will be very difficult, he has no hopes of holding it. I think what terrifies me more is what he will do whilst in this metaphorical corner he is now in and if and how he we will bite, as this cornered angry animal so to speak has nukes for teeth. He will need to keep face and come away with a win and I am just not sure how he will end up doing that at the moment. It certainly does worry me. I can’t believe this has happened in modern times on the European continent. I thought such things were things of the past, this will create a new normal now internationally as a result and I feel like that’s such a tremendous shame – The fact we are in essence going backwards – it’s quite depressing.

I will finish by saying I feel sorry for all of the suffering in this war, and that includes young Russian soldiers who are losing their lives having to fight for this cause. I have seen countless videos of events and I take no pleasure seeing dead Russians being taunted or prisoners of war being humiliated as I have occasionally saw. It all saddens me if I am honest. I can only hope this all ends as quickly as possible – I just can’t see that happening anytime soon with current events.

Covid Positive – It finally got me…

So I finally succumb to getting Covid, it was almost inevitable of course. I did manage to miss it for 2 years and was very lucky to get it after having 3 Covid jabs and to also get the more mild omicron variant instead of the earlier ones. Part of that was no doubt just plain luck of course combined with some preventative efforts. The irony however is that after going away on many weekend trips, nights out, going to Dublin and basically partying a lot in essence when we of course legally could, I ended up catching it at work of all places. My boss had the pleasure of unknowingly being almost certainly the one who gave it me whilst I was on the rota to be in the office one day, he didn’t know he had it of course so no blame is possible but he tested positive when he got home that day I was with him. Our office room pretty much has zero ventilation and I was with him for several hours so it was bound to happen.

The extra downside to getting Covid was the timing as I was going to Liverpool for the weekend. I even joked with my boss after he messaged me saying he was positive that if you ruin my Liverpool weekend that was coming up in a few days that I will kill you! Low and behold, on the Saturday whilst in Liverpool I woke up on the morning feeling incredibly hot, fatigued with a persistent cough. I pretty much stayed in the hotel that day and tested negative but I was confident it probably was Covid. On the Sunday I tested positive as expected and I ended up driving us back home early, it was also unfortunately the day where we had the bad storms with very heavy winds so the drive back was pretty awful and of course was made even worse by feeling so poorly. 

I spent the next couple of days pretty much in bed taking regular top ups of paracetamol and ibuprofen which helped keep me going. I had awful headaches and my cough was incredibly annoying. It was like a flu to me but a flu is bad enough, it was certainly not at the cold level. My immune system it seemed had in effect carpet bombed my body to try and deal with the Covid virus and I certainly felt the full impact of that as a result.

I ended up being positive for a full 12 days although I was much better after around 4 days but the more gutting thing was that I passed it on to my partner and my dad who was in Liverpool with me on the Friday (which was a good night by the way 😂). They have both got through it now though so that’s all that matters. I still don’t feel quite 100% and I have a lingering infrequent cough and also find I need need to clear my throat at times. It also affected my right ear by blocking it for a full 3 days which was one of the worse symptoms for me, apparently the omicron variant can cause that which was news to me. Even though it ruined our Liverpool trip and we lost the next 2 weeks to self imposed quarantine, I am just grateful that we all got though it, many others were not so fortunate.

Gangster Monk in action

As a reminder, in my last post I talked about how my ideal strategy going forward Post 2235 would be to act more like a gangster monk than a monk or gangster, I wanted the best compromise between living life well now even if it would move out financial independence by a few years in the process. It was all about a hedge in effect as to the risks of moving towards it at full speed when that might have resulted in depriving myself a little too much and also the greater risk of it all being for nothing due to unforeseen future circumstances.

Despite this being a future decision, this was in effect the life I had already been living at least for the last couple of years anyway. I was certainly more ascetic monk like in the years previous to that which I now think was a slight mistake but it’s got me to where I am now though, so no regrets. This lifestyle of the past 2 years had been possible due to the presence of past matched betting cash funds but these as mentioned earlier have now run out. I made the decision to create the money that I would have post Project 2235 as a result of investing less now by liquidating some of my Cash is King reserves. I could therefore be a Gangster Monk in advance right now.

For fun, I just wanted to show some real world examples of what this has looked like in the past couple of months when it comes to purchases and activities. 

*So there is a funny end to Air Max 95 story so to speak. I tried them on and they fit nicely and looked great. I went to pay for them and had to queue for around 10 minutes. The man started to bag them up but when I showed him my blue light card, he said that discount was only available online, he checked and they had none in stock online. It seems that I was over powered by the inner monk and could not bring myself to pay full price. I said no thanks and walked away…Part of me is glad but I must admit I really did like them trainers and I can’t find them anywhere online now 😅.

Personal Goal – Fatness be gone! 

So it’s time to get personal! I am not sure if I mentioned on here before but when I was younger I used to be quiet large. I ended up losing all that weight around university time (around a 4 stone loss) and have since pretty much been a stable weight – not thin by any means but not fat either. I have gone up and down by around 5 pounds on average I’d say at different times but otherwise it’s been remarkably stable to be fair.

I have though over the past 6 months started to put more weight on and I am now around a stone heavier than my normal weight. I therefore hereby commit to losing that stone prior to my trip to Amsterdam in May. I will still keep Friday as a cheat day where I get to drink and indulge a little bit as if I get too strict, it will end up back firing on me as I need to have some room for treats too, life’s for living too!

My goal and aim is to lose 2 pounds a week on average over the next 8 weeks. I will be doing this by mainly lowering my main meal portions, cutting out some snacks that have started to sneak in and to do some minimum level of fitness in between (this is more for all the other benefits that come with doing this than for the weight loss alone). I will likely no doubt end up coming back from Amsterdam 1 stone heavier, but that’s an issue for another blog post to worry about 🤣. Wish me luck! 

Thanks for reading my post if you got this far, I appreciate it as always. Would love to hear your thoughts and how you’ve all been getting on. 

TFJ

Hey everyone. Hope you are all doing well and that you are starting to slowly but safely enjoy more freedoms now we are coming out of a full lockdown. Have fun irreversibly raising that pint just as Boris has…

What follows is a post that is rather finance review focussed with this being a FY End update post and all. As always though I will provide a personal and work update too. Let’s start with reviewing my current finances at the end of FY 20/21.

Financial Year End 2020/21 Review

Well, this has been the year of COVID and due to this, there was a huge crash followed by a huge rally. I lost £27,000 at one point which really did test my nerve in this game of FI. I passed the test for sure as I didn’t sell and I kept on investing as per normal. I am very very pleased that I did.

Financial Update – April FY End 2021

The below figures are taken from 25th April.

• Monthly investment (Jan 21 to Apr 21) – £1500 each month 
• Savings rate (Jan 21 – Apr 21)– 55% each month
• Investment portfolio – £206,975.18
• Cash is king fund – £10,000
• Emergency fund – £1002.89
• Big expenses / holiday fund – £2448.62

Total Liquid Funds = £220,426.69

Price difference from Predicted to Actual Finances (Late Dec 20 to April 21 = -£3.28

As I track my expenses to the penny, when it comes to reviewing my finances more in depth twice yearly at FY and Calendar Year Ends, I do a check to see how accurate my predicted finance portfolio is compared to reality. There is always a chance I have missed the odd coffee, gift or any random expense or of course simply have added things up wrong.

It turns out that I was only £3.28 down which I am happy with. It was actually £4.28 at first but then I found a pound coin when I was cleaning out my car 😀. I won’t fret over this loss that’s for sure.

FY End 2020 to FY End 2021 Comparison:

End of FY End 2020 = £169,347.41
End of FY End 2021 = £220,426.69

Increase = £51,079.28

Calendar year End 2020 to FY YE 2021 Comparison:

End of 2020 Calendar Year = £210,056.25
End of FY End 2021 = £220,426.69

Increase = £10,370.44

I am absolutely thrilled my Portfolio is as high as it is. It feels so close to that quarter of a million Base FI target of mine that I can almost taste it…and it tastes darn good. The £51k large increase year to year is partly down to the portfolio dropping substantially right at the end of last FY20/21 but still with what’s going on in the world, I am still shocked it’s recovered so well and so fast, surely a crash is coming? Yeah well if there is or isn’t, I can’t pretend to be able to predict such things. I will carry on investing and holding (Diamond hands💎 in a good rational way). 

Spending Review – My expenses 

I thought It would be good to do a mini spending review to show how some of my monthly outgoings have changed from last FY pre COVID to this FY just gone.

Monthly Average Outgoings – Select Categories

A lot of this change in spending makes sense with this last year being the COVID lockdown year. I have spent much less on fuel but perhaps not as less as some as I still have had to go into the office a couple days of the week. I have spent more money on takeaway and alcohol which is the food/drink out category whilst spending less money on going out. Most of the spend for going out was done in the summer to early autumn when things were much better and you could actually in fact legally go out.

I have saved money due to COVID in some categories but because my gift category outgoings has increased a fair bit along with smaller increases in food/drink out and purchases categories, this has resulted in balancing out my spending broadly speaking to be the same from year to year.

Disposable / Non bills monthly spending Average

I thought I would include a chart showing my disposable/non-bills average monthly spend over the last 5 years. You can see how the last 2 years have seen a big jump on the previous three. This is mostly due to me loosening up a bit and spending more money on going away on more weekend trips and just spending more money in general on activities and gifts. This has certainly been money well spent for me and I won’t be changing this any time soon.

Total Expenses monthly spending Average

Building on the last few charts, you can see how the last 2 years have seen an increase in my monthly spendings and how even with COVID happening, my overall expenses have remained pretty much the same. I am starting to confidently now think I have hit a sweet spot in my spending where any question of depriving myself whilst on the journey has certainly been quashed for now.

Post 2235 Project Thinking

In my last few update posts, I have had some musings on Post Project 2235 and this post is no different. I wanted to update you with my latest spreadsheet contents to show my further thinking on this:

I have added extra details on how long it would take me to reach £600k which I consider to be my main FIRE number whilst also adding rockstar levels of £900k and £1,000,000 FIRE 🔥. I have also noted down how much money I would have left for Big expenses spending each year at these amounts. This is on top of £1200 that is reserved for Bills/Disposable income which matches what I spend now which is where I feel comfortable at.

To recap on Post Project 2235, I currently invest £1500 a month and aim to reach £250,000 in Dec 2022 (formally known as Project 2235). After this time, I now intend to lower my investing from between £500 to £750 so that I can have my Big expenses fund topped up so I can live well along the journey. I want to fully enjoy the next 14 years so there has to be some extra money which I will also put towards doing my house up inside as well as for annual holidays and buying the odd iPad Pro etc. 

I have previously used matched betting winnings to secure this big expenses income but I have no interest in that anymore and unless there is a very very low risk, low effort way of earning the extra £500 a month then I don’t think I am interested. This also goes for pursuing a new promotion with more stress and pressure or simply getting a second job (technically third as I still have a 2nd semi permanent side hustle). I have to balance the cost of being possibly less happy at work, losing more personal time if I got a third job versus how long extra I will have to work if I invest less each month.

If I invest £500 less each month for example then this will give me £6000 big expenses money each year but will mean instead of hitting £600k at 45 years old and 1 month, I will hit it 1 year and 10 months later at 46 years old and 11 months. Now to be honest, if I can secure £6,000 a year without then needing to get promoted to a job I hate more (likely be management level where I am now) or changing jobs entirely (I really like my current job) then delaying FIRE by nearly 2 years would be worth it if the quality of those 11-12 years was far higher. This is even less of an issue when my plan is to try to work until at least 50 so I can secure a state and public service pension of £24k equivalent (£600k FIRE) as a backup or so I can use my actual £600k FIRE as a bridge into that, it helps me sleep better at night for sure.

With this in mind, if I invested £750 less each month which meant reducing investing by half then I would get £9,000 a year for big expenses which would match my £9,600 post FIRE big expenses amount which would mean I know the money I live on is the same before and after I FIRE, no deprivation at all. I would reach £600k at 48 and then work another 2 years to get my more guaranteed £600k backup FI.

I have not settled on any of this yet, I know so much could change all these plans and I am fully aware of that but it’s really fun to think about none the less 😁…

Personal & Work

And finally, a brief personal and work update. So what have I been doing? Well, things are starting to open up a bit now but really I won’t be going properly out until May 17th when you can go to pubs and restaurants and so many other places in doors. I have visited a few friends out doors but that’s about it, oh I also have been to a shopping retail park.

I have had to delay my Amsterdam trip for the third time now to September as this was planned for May 17th but you can’t currently travel to the Netherlands and with that country likely to be amber rated it’s just not worth it even if we allow travel and they do by then. I had to pay the difference in new airline and hotel rates but it only cost an extra £90 so can’t complain too much.

I have lost 6 pounds in 3 weeks as part of a six week plan to get back to my ideal weight before May 17th. I have done really well with this so far, only Fat Friday exists where I eat more and drink as well but otherwise being I am being very healthy with what I eat and also I am working out daily still at home.

As for work, things are very busy lately and I am still in the office twice a week, sometimes three and then home the other days on a rota. I am still liking this arrangement as I find it’s the perfect balance for me. The hospital is in a much better place right now thankfully, the lockdown and very successful vaccine rollout thus far has changed things so much for the better and we have very few COVID patients now and are resuming normal services.

I would love to hear from you all, let me know what you thought of this post and what you have been up to, any trips to beer gardens?

TFJ