Summer update…

Hope everyone’s doing well and enjoying the summer months. At the very least, most of us can agree it’s going to be a much better commute now that the kids are off school. It makes such a big difference to how long it takes me to get to and back from work… So anyway I just wanted to provide a quick update on how I’m getting on.

Career – New promotion!

I had some really good news at work in that I got the more specialized role with no management responsibilities which was exactly the only kind of promotion I wanted. I really have no attraction to managing people especially those at our place. That would drive me insane as they are mostly a very lazy bunch most of whom or counting down the clock to retirement (albeit not in the early retirement sense hehe) and having to be responsible for them would be very stressful. I would never say never of course but right now, management is certainly not for me.

As my post of what makes a good job detailed, I really enjoy my current job and getting this promotion addressed one of the few faults I had with it which was the pay and contract type when compared with those who do the exact same job. As much as I try not to compare with others, when workers around you albeit nice people on a personal level just screw around most the day with no real care are on much more money with better contract perks, it does get to you at times.

As for downsides, There will be more pressure in this role in ways, however I already felt like I was in a specialized role and went the extra mile so hopefully it will really just be formalizing that contract wise and a lot will stay the same. I was a bit concerned how the others would take my promotion and if jealousy would arise, but the office banter remains the same and that’s so relieving. It’s been funny having new banter related to my new role actually and there’s no malice for sure. As for office politics and being higher up the chain in ways, I fortunately will not need to attend management meetings as my new boss will be the one doing that. Let’s see how it goes, I will provide as it’s still early days for sure..

Finance – No lifestyle inflation…

It’s been very good on the financial side recently. My new job has given me a few extra hundred a month which has helped put me very close to nearly being able to max out the yearly max ISA contribution. Being able to invest so much would of made myself from 6 years ago laugh at the thought. It shows how much things can change with effort, discipline and a helpful load of luck along the way. 

There has been no lifestyle inflation at all, I have put every penny of the pay increase towards investing and that feels good. I don’t feel deprived as I already spend money on things I want which includes the occasional Galaxy S10 and iPad Pro so there’s no being a tightwad. It was amusing though, as many people at work are literally dumbfounded as to why I haven’t bought a new car. It’s time to change your 7 year old car lad… you can afford it now. It’s time to upgrade to a Mercedes or a BMW. It has amused me very much. When I want my next car, I will buy it and it might be a step downward to be fair when I do as I already have a nice car in my eyes. I look forward to the future offers of help financially and concern over what I have got myself into if I have had to step down as it were car wise.

I also decided to pay of the last bit of my student loan which I know in ways should not be classed as debt due to mine being the type that has no real interest but it does mark the first time I am completely debt free of all kinds. That’s a very nice feeling indeed :D. I was unsure as to whether I should as I didn’t before due to thinking my money was being better invested but with ever increasing contributions coming from my new promotion, I just wanted to get the true take home amount with no money took off and I used some cash reserves from matched betting to pay it off which wasn’t really being invested anyway. I certainly don’t regret that and for those that cry ‘What about the opportunity costs…’ – the positive feelings from doing it are worth the loss..

As for my portfolio… I am well on the way to the magical £200k mark of liquid investments. I seem to be matching Weenie very closely which does amuse me :). I am not getting too pleased though as I still feel a decline is inevitable soon so I am more concentrating on the monthly investment as opposed to the total figure as I think that it’s currently higher than it probably should be or will be in a couple years time but who knows eh? Maybe this is the period of steady lower growth that lasts 20 years. I really don’t claim to know.

Side hustles – Matched betting

I have been trialing each way sniping the last couple of months and I am pleased to report that thus far that it is certainly working. I invested £1k into it and have doubled that so far. It has however been a right roller coaster of ups and downs which was to be expected. It is so much less hassle than normal matched betting though and I am fitting it into my daily routine without it being a hindrance. Let’s see how I look in the next couple of months. Below shows an example of the ride during a downtrend…

I am glad I stuck with it as it was certainly nerve racking at times especially when approaching a complete wipe out of my investment.

Personal/fun

I am going to Amsterdam again soon for another trip, pardon the pun. I certainly look forward to that as I will be treating it as a celebration for getting my promotion in a way and also as it’s time to let my hair down as it were.

I have been doing lots of delcuttering lately around my house. I have meant to do it for many years now and never really get passed one big spurt of doing one room and then I just stop and it gradually gets more cluttered over time. This time however I have made great progress and it feels so good having less stuff.. I am trying to get to the point where rooms are lived in and not showroom like which I hate but still very much less cluttered and where everything provides value or a purpose. I certainly do not want to get to less than a 100 items… I just want to get the most out of what I have and enjoy the benefits of having less clutter. Less clutter in the house, hopefully less clutter in the mind.

I think I will leave it there. Hope everyone is doing well. Let me know what you have planned for the summer. How are you all getting on?

Chris @ TheFIJourney

Matched Betting – The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Matched Betting – The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

I am writing this from the understanding that most readers will already be familiar with what matched betting is. What follows is a frank, honest and sometimes embarrassing account of my experiences with matched betting over the last 3 years. I am going to focus more on the bad and ugly parts as these are what I want to share more so. This in no way is referring to any intrinsic good and bad experiences that everyone will find if they pursue it but is simply my own story as it were… here goes.

The beginning

Roll back the clock around 3 years ago and I was reading some posts from TheFireStarter (as you do…) and I couldn’t help but notice Matched betting as an income source in his monthly reports. This really confused me at the time as I thought ‘The poor guy is gambling? How long will this last!’. It wasn’t for a couple of months and after some email exchanges that I finally realized that it might not be gambling per say. I started reading into it and researching what it was and how it supposedly worked. It really did seem too good to be true at the time and I was hell bent on trying to find the negatives. I was searching for terms like ‘matched betting scam’, ‘matched betting doesn’t work’, ‘matched betting is illegal’ etc… Even though I couldn’t find negatives I still thought to myself, why don’t more people know about this? There’s gotta be some downsides surely? It dawned on me that I had to at least try it to see if it worked for myself. I eventually did the Coral free bet offer, fully understood how it worked in the process and never looked back.

The Good

This has been an incredible side hustle for me. I have earnt more than I thought would be originally possible. It has enabled me to fully pursue my FI targets while still having money for big expenses such as a new phone, tablet and holidays etc. If it wasn’t for the ridiculous profits that TheFireStarter reports, I would feel thrilled about what I have made (shakes fist at you…..). Joking aside. This has been a great side hustle financially speaking.

As for other good things. There is no need to leave the comfort of your own home, you can do this whilst still in your pants as it were sipping a Pina colada (not that I do). There is guaranteed risk free money to be made as long as you do things properly. This last point is where I myself have feel down previously but I will get to that later.

The Bad

I think when I look at my experience with matched betting, the main bad thing that sticks out is how much time it has taken from me when I am doing it. I won’t go into specifics of what particular matched betting I was doing but it certainly would take up a big part of my week especially the weekends. I would be almost engrossed in thinking what matches are coming up, working out my profit pipeline, filling in my tracking spreadsheets etc. I remember once being out having a meal and I was on my phone placing bets and checking scores etc, I got a stern telling off at the time but this is what I was doing for a long period of time. I found it exciting to be fair so it wasn’t like it wasn’t enjoyable but it was distracting me from everyday normal stuff a bit too much. I had a break from matched betting for a good many months last year and I couldn’t believe how much free time I had as a result. It was really noticeable.

The other bad thing for me personally was, should I be doing this? Even if not illegal – the terms and conditions were starting to change to clearly state, you cannot use methods to lock in guaranteed profits etc. You are clearly breaching terms and the threat of withholding winnings is increasing. I guess the is this morally dubious thoughts were appearing. The exchange usually wins and those are likely real people placing bets and losing money after all.

The Ugly

This is the part where embarrassment comes in. I have no doubt that this is down to my personal character traits and failings but this could be helpful for others to bear in mind as it could happen to a small number of us. In typical easy matched betting, there is no real risk or perhaps it’s better to say very minimal risk. There are the risk of errors made by yourself whether it’s reading their terms of offers, placing bets on the wrong team or twice or laying the wrong amount etc. This of course can and does happen the opposite way. I have layed the wrong team and then happened to win that game as well. I have forgot to finish sequential laying an Acca and the Acca has won. My errors going for and against me have probably evened out by now however my own psychological failings could have destroyed me… I don’t say destroyed lightly.

My problem boiled down to the old classic of not accepting your losses. I had a profit pipeline. I expected a certain amount of profit from the different bets I was doing. I feel like I already had counted this money as my own even though I might not have earnt it yet. Most of what I discuss now is going back 2 years ago.

I place the bet on a horse. I am just about to click the lay button on an exchange and the odds disappear…I can no longer make £18 as expected. I place the bet anyway hoping someone will snap it up. Nothing… and the odds that are offered increase. My profit goes down even further. Screw it… I just place the same amount of money on the horse. It’s 17/1 anyway so prob won’t win. I overlay in terms of odds and liability. Guess what happens? The horse wins and instead of £18 up, I am down £18. This annoys the hell out of me. So.. I do a real bet that Italian series b team 1 v team 2 will not win 3-2.  It currently 1-0. I risk £300 to make back that money. The game finishes 3-2.

The feeling of needing a result desperately to go a particular way is heart wrenching. This is gambling, this is a problem. This is what can lead to compulsive gambling. The above example is one of many that I had done during this Period. Once I remember risking £700 to win back a £100 loss. I didn’t want the under dog team to win. It was 1-0 to the favourite at 65mins or so when I placed the bet. It then went 1-1. I went for a long walk in the cold with drizzly rain and every 5 minutes checked the score in my phone. Luckily it stayed 1-1 but this feeling was horrible. When I win back the loss,I would do no further actual gambling for many weeks or months until an error annoyed me that little bit too much that I chased. Chasing £5 turned into a £730 loss once and then onto my lowest moment of all. I risked £3000 to win back that £730 and I won. Pure luck of the draw. I dread to think what could have happened.. if I was chasing £5, then £730. What would I do to chase £3735. Due to being on the pursuit of FI, I had the money to risk after all…

You’ll be glad to know, I have never chased losses since the £3k bet. I feel incredibly lucky as I dread to think what could have happened if I did lose it. All my previous effort of matched betting would have been eliminated on top of losing the money, I would of felt like I had lost all the time and effort as well. How have I changed since? I don’t count any money as a given in any profit lines and it never feels like it’s my money already. I accept losses, mistakes and not earning what I thought I might. I feel like thankfully, that brief terror 2 years ago has been surpassed now. I am quite confident I have changed as around 3 months ago, I layed the wrong team with similar sounding names, lost £300 and just marked it down as an error. The thought of chasing never even occurred to me.

What’s next?

I am looking into no lay each way betting. The money I have put aside is not even included in my funds so it’s a punt really. I will look at it like an investment where it will have volatility but hopefully there is an upward trend like there is for others. I feel very comfortable with this as have already done something similar with 2up. The losing streaks never bothered me as long as I understood the variance would switch around and that it would likely work in the end. It is an exciting time, it’s a bit of an experiment. I have stopped normal matched betting because of the amount of time for me that it was taking. The idea of simply placing bets, no tracking other than totting up balances monthly really appeals to me. I will report back on how I get on :D..

For all intents and purposes, I have no regrets at all of getting into this and I have TheFireStarter to thank for helping me discover this. I feel I have gotten over the Ugly experiences as I no longer have any inclination to chase at all. I hope you don’t judge me to harshly on my failings as discussed, I just hoped sharing this might be of help to someone who was a bit like the old me.

Let me know how you have got on with your experience of matched betting in the comments!

Chris@TheFIJourney

What makes a Job good?

What makes a Job good?

I was working on an issue at work the other week when I noticed a new email pop up in the lower right-hand corner as I often do. I so happened to catch a glance of who it was from with the subject which stood out very clearly — ‘IT Restructure Consultation’ which was sent from the top dog in IT, my managers manager. As I was reading, there was a deadly silence in the office and I was consumed reading the content which discussed an upcoming restructure with an invitation to myself for a group consultation, I was one of those marked as at risk. Everyone in the office more or less at the same time shouted up “Did you just get that email about an IT restructure…?!”. Everyone in my team had got it and the speculation started en masse…

Fast forward to writing this post. I have since had that meeting and I will discuss what comes of it when its finalized which won’t be too long thankfully. Until then, I wanted to write a post on what makes a Job good? What, that in my experience of having had a very bad and a very good job has taught me personally.

The Bad Job

When I first got into the FI world as it were, I was working for a company that at first wasn’t too bad. I felt fortunate that I had got a job with the field I wanted relatively quickly and without too much hassle. I quickly however started to really dislike going to work to the point where the whole FI journey really did feel like tunneling out of a prison and moving to Mexico to show tourists around the coast. I think having a bad job really contributed to me considering a more bare bones FI and really saving as much as possible to the extent of slightly depriving myself of some things I have since loosened up on. What follows is the main reasons for disliking the job so much.

Awful Boss

This was without a doubt the worse part of the job. My boss was not a people person at all. He was so sharp and would shoot you down in an instant. The atmosphere in the room suffered as a result and no one felt like they could make suggestions or put forward ideas for fear of being bitten. He was largely responsible for the next 2 points as well.

Unmanageable work load

There was simply far too many things to be done in the day. The list of projects and tasks was too high and simply was not achievable. No matter how much work you did and whatever progress you made, there was always something you wasn’t doing which would be picked up by the boss and then criticized. This led to you never truly feeling comfortable and always expecting a telling off around the corner. You may have completed task 1 through 32, 39 and 40 but progress on task 33 would be soon be questioned.

Too Formal/Corporate (TPS Reports anyone?)

There was little banter in the office and talking for any length of time would often be looked down upon. I had experienced being timed with a stop watch when going for lunches, and we had to account for our time for every 10 minutes on a tracking system. There were discussions around whether we needed a tea making project code and that we all went to the toilet too frequently at times. There was very little banter within my team and the corporate feel was overpowering at times.

Pay/Benefits

The pay was ok for me at the time but not great for the profession and job role I had. What made it worse was that there were no benefits per se, auto enrollment for pension was set at the lowest amount allowed, and we only had no real perks. Holiday allowances was the minimum by law.

Some good stuff

Of course, it wasn’t all bad as with anything. I had some good banter with other teams and have made some long term friends as well as have gotten vast experience with my work and even using the bad negatives above as the main reason I now appreciate the good my current job provides which I will get too shortly. 

As you can probably gather, I really didn’t enjoy my old job. I had said many times as many often do, that I needed to look elsewhere and move onto something better etc and after one outburst from my manager too many (not even to me). I thought thats it…I really need to leave. So, I put together a plan to move on by the new year and to get a certification to help with my future job hunting. I remember being at the christmas meal out with my boss and team knowing that it would be my last one, it felt really good and I had no doubts at all that I wouldn’t follow through and leave the following month…. I handed in my notice 3 weeks later.

The Good Job

I left my old job just over 2 years ago. I honestly feel like in some ways I have been on holiday for the last 2 years when compared with the first. It proves the grass really can be greener (especially if your grass is mostly brown and dead :D)… All the reasons I left the old job were remedied in the new one:

• Awesome Manager (The complete opposite of my other manager, so approachable)

• Management workload (Challenging but achievable)

• Banter! (We have a good bunch of lads, and we get on well, we work hard but have a laugh in the process)

• Good Pay & Many Benefits… (Pay rise, great pension, discounts, good sick pay etc.)

There have however been a few new aspects of the job which really were unappreciated until I had experienced them. These additional things make this job feel like to me at least what really make a good job good. It wasn’t until I experienced them at this place in the absence of such strong negatives that I knew how much I now value them.

Being valued

One thing that from almost the first week in my new job I noticed was that colleagues and managers actually appreciated my work and input. I was given praise frequently and that was something that I was not at all used to. My efforts here are noticed whereas in my old job, they weren’t. People value my input at project meetings and will take my concerns seriously whereas before, I felt like people would often ask your opinion but already knew the answer and path they were going down.

Interesting varied work

I work in IT and have to work on many different projects involving vastly different technologies. We have a lot of challenges and the work itself is positively varied. It is certainly not monotonous. There are always problems to solve and new solutions to design. This helps keep work fresh enough as to not get stale.

Feels purposeful in of itself

I work in the health care sector. The work I do impacts people when they are often at their lowest and in the most need of help. The systems I help build and maintain are designed to help people get better and to treat illness. This certainly helps motivate me more than in my previous job. It feels like something I would do on a volunteering bases or part-time. I think that’s what make me feel at times like I have already pulled the FI trigger and simply choosing to do this line of work for the joy of it in and of itself. That certainly feels good.

Never perfect…

Of course, just as the old job did have good parts, there are still some negatives in my new job. The commute is slightly longer, there are some office politics higher up, system documentation is poor and some staff are very lazy to the point of affecting what you do. I am certainly not wearing rose-tinted glasses.  The difference is that all the things that really matter to me are good enough to allow me to enjoy my job, give me no dread of going to work… and that’s such a big difference!

I appreciate that not everyone can work in an environment that’s similar to mine. I know a lot of the good could change simply with new management etc. I don’t think it’s a honeymoon period as I have been there over 2 years now but I know my feelings could of course change. But for now… I really do think I have a good job. 

As always, I’d love to hear how you feel about your work, and if you have ever been in a similar situation to my first. 

Chris @ TheFIJourney