Can you believe it has been now ‘unofficially’ 1 year since I started to knuckle down and blowing money on material items that didn’t really bring any long-term happiness? You know, things like cars for example (swapping them every other year etc), which I now drive an old Land Rover. I do have a valid excuse transporting 3 dogs around each day and I am eventually looking at an electric van when the price comes down / battery technology is more advanced / reliable.

So back in June 2018 I essentially started off at ?0. Zero, bugger all, nowt, zilch etc. Realising at the age of 28, this had to change and I wish I had now found out the process of FIRE in my mid-twenties (not late) as those few years of sweet sweet compound interesting gains would be glorious, I decided to knuckle down and so, here we are 1 year later!

Jun-19 May-19 Apr-19 Mar-19 Feb-19 Jan-19
?? 48,743.43 ?? 41,770.18 ?? 37,687.25 ?? 29,873.04 ?? 24,666.31 ?? 17,919.05

Here are the value of my investments since the beginning of the year. I don’t have tracking from Jun-18 to Jan-19, but looking back through my Investment Accounts I was saving between ?1,500 – ?2,000 per month (ish). For months that I do have tracking for, see below key stats;

Average (?) Savings P/M: ?6,249
Average (%) Savings P/M: 59%

It’s only been recently where I have pushed to over 60% each month, which I’m super chuffed at personally. I would’ve never thought about being able to do this and I’m glad that I’ve shown the utmost resilience to not blow it on something trivial. I also very much like that financial cushion that this provides, meaning that if the business went belly up and/or something drastic was to happen, I’ve got at-least 1 years worth of expenses to live off. The good news is that if I keep this up throughout 2019 (which sounds like I’m hinting at giving up which is not the case at all!) then I would be expecting to achieve a total pot of savings of ?86,237 for the year (2019).

However, I won’t unfortunately be able to do that and it’s all down to the magical tax man. For those of you who submit self-assessment tax returns, you will know / feel the pain come the start of each year lumping over a whole bunch of money to the tax man. My self-assessment returns have been calculated for 2018/2019 and shall we just say that this tax figure is around 3 months worth of savings in total (insert sick emoji here).

The Tax Man Plan

My plan is to reel in even more of monthly expenditure towards the later end of this year, expenses and/or increase the betting income to help alleviate / cover this. If I can do this in a way, I anticipate to only utilise 2 months of my year putting down what I need to save / owe on the tax return. Some of you may ask ‘why don’t you stash some away each month in the build up’? Well I do, but not the total amount that is owed… Time in the market instead of timing the market right… Plus as well, I’d rather have it in the market gaining sweet sweet interest until ultimately the very last day the tax man is scratching at the door.

TARGET / NEW GOAL 2019: Reach a total savings pot of ?80,000 for 2019

Based on these savings for 2019, my FIRE date is still looking at around 10 years (even less is I average higher % returns each year on my investments). Bring it on!

So anyway, onto the financial overview;

Financial Overview

Income & Savings Rates

My income this month came to a total of??10,250, of?which I saved ?6,266.00?resulting in a?savings rate of 61%! June was a ‘relatively’ less expensive month – I had to make? a few payments to Carnival Cruises as we have an up and coming cruise holiday soon (which we cannot wait for) but apart from that, all good.

Unfortunately my stocks and shares account took another bashing – Carnival and Imperial Brands the two worst offenders. I’m sticking with them as there’s no rush but equivalently both of them have lost a total value of around ?1,000. In 2020, I’m probably going to look at transferring my stocks and shares across to the Global ETF that I have the majority of the nest egg in. It’s easier, it’s simpler and many books favour them over ‘active’ investments.

On the other hand, my S&S ISA is showing some mental gains 🙂 –

30% since the account opened! Say whaaaa?! I wish that was reading 30% in the month of course, but I’ve opened my S&S ISA account, I really can’t complain of the 30% personal return – do note that this isn’t 30% of my total pot because the way Personal Return is calculated is;

We use the money weighted rate of return method to calculate your % Personal return.

(Just as an FYI). Still, as long as it’s green, I’m aiming for around 6-8% per year growth over the course of this journey and so far in year 1 absolutely smashing it!

Expenses / Matched Betting / Amazon Affiliate store soon to follow!