Another month another dollar! Here in the UK we are most likely about to go back into another lockdown due to the coronavirus epidemic. Cases are starting to pickup again with some pretty drastic pace unfortunately and with the kids now back at school, who knows how much it will truly spread.
Work wise has been really good – a few new clients signed up and continuing to maintain the existing ones keeping us pretty busy. There’s definitely a bit of a work / life in balance at the moment, but I’m quite ok with that at the moment. We’re certainly not close to making any redundancies and one of the main things that we’re focusing on is ensuring that we don’t have that conversation! Even if it means that myself and my business partner has to work those extra hours so the staff can keep employed we will do so. I can’t imagine the worries that I would be left with if I were made redundant – something of which I know a few others in the FIRE community have happen to them! (Of course, wishing them all the luck in securing new positions).
August 2020 | Investment
Updates & News
It seems once again the markets are doing a bit of a growth / yoyo-ing exercise right now! August has seen some fantastic numbers come through on the majority of my accounts. Here are the graphs:
It generally has been quite the month! An increase of just over £10,000 compared to last month. My ISA (Green Line) has now been filled up for 2020/21 tax year so now everything is going into my Vanguard General Investment account. That’s really been most of my strategy – FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund month after month – over 6,800+ stocks featured in this index fund and proportionately broken down by industry / country size globally. I’m sure there’s probably more ‘diverse’ funds out there, but this was suits my risk profiles almost perfectly!
This graph represents the Benchmark performance of the fund and NAV (Net Asset Value). Genuinely been pretty chuffed with the performance so far to date. Even in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic, on a comparison between September 2019 to August 2020 the fund still performed relatively well. Come at the start of 2020 the fund was down -16.96%, but really most other things were as well. However Q2 of 2020 it bounced back up to 20.09%. So far for me, I can’t really fault it as it meets / matches my risk tolerances to investing.
Total Income: £9,368.00
Total Saved (?): £5,675.00
Total Expenses: £3,963.00
Savings (%): 61%
Managed to continue just over the 60% mark which I’m genuinely super pleased with myself – given that I have quite a few bills to pay regarding car MOT / new flooring. I would of course love to see this into the 70% of which I could probably just about do, but at what affect to the enjoyment of my hobbies? I think that’s an important point to make – with FIRE gaining ever more traction on the likes of YouTube, there is always that trap to fall into of trying to follow someone elses FIRE journey and ‘aspire’ to someone elses savings rate. I think that is a bit of a deadly path. Some people are able to save 80% of their salary each month – others manage 20%. There is some good points made by a few YouTubers that I watch about some of the psychological / negative affects of the super LEAN / Frugal method of FIRE. I’m certainly not dismissing it – it’s really an each to their own type scenario!
August 2020 – The Garden
The garden is starting to close down for winter. I didn’t manage to grow any brassicas at all this year (broccoli, cabbage etc)! The bloody white butterfly absolutely demolished every single one of them I had in the greenhouse. So a few winter projects are coming to light in helping to protect these plants.
Got some big tomatoes on the way! Sweetcorn I haven’t done so well this year with. Potatoes, I got two big grey buckets worth of those potatoes just out of that one trough – given that I had planted them late this year, I wasn’t really expecting a great deal! Courgette, parsnips and two token cucumbers (haha – I have failed dramatically at cucumbers this year!). Last year, I had them coming out of my ears – this year, I only managed to grow 2 oddly shaped ones.
Anyway folks, happy saving!
Great work mate and congrats on the ISA. You must be chuffed to bits? I’ve just done the same.
We are on a very similar path. I’m on about 160k combined but 120k in Pension and 40k ISA. I’m holding a lot of cash at the moment as we are about to start an extension on our property. Our plan is to be here 15+ years though and enjoy it.
I was wondering what was the rationale behind the ‘general investments’ vs Pension? I assume that’s so you can always draw down the cash? I’m just interested in why you’ve chosen the route. I assume you pay tax on the gains am i right?
Thanks again for the awesome updates
Ryan
Hey Ryan,
Ahh cheers! Well done on filling up that ISA! Feels so satisfactory to know that that money is all tax free on the way back out ;).
Ahh interesting you’ve gone down the pension route as I was very close in deciding to. I would’ve gone down the pension route (and I still do a bit – around £350 p/m at the moment I’m contributing in + employer contribution) but because of my salary setup (PAYE + Dividends) and in combination that I am to retire before the age of 55 i’ve modified my route slightly.
I believe the gov have now confirmed that they’ll be raising the minimum pension withdrawal age to now 57 – this is why I’m focusing on the General Investment Account and ISA combined as my FI date is (hopefully!) in the next 10 years when I’m 40-41.
My main idea is to have about £100,000 in my pension by 37 and then to let it sit for 20 years so come by the age of 57 (when I can withdraw it / start dipping into it), it should hopefully be around £250,000+ (based on 6% yearly compound interest) providing roughly another £10,000 p/a in retirement.
Good luck with the extension!
Cheers!
Thanks for the response Jase. I think we have very similar strategies but I am ‘hopefully’ looking at 45 which is approx 10 years for me.
My plan is roughly similar however I am looking at getting the Pension up to 160k (another 40k from my business in April, this excludes growth) and it should be a figure to let run for the next 20 years +
I am also looking at the ‘bridge’ period and have 40k in ISA’s so a little behind you.
How does the mortgage fit into your strategy? I am toying with whether to tackle this (even though interest rates are ridiculous) so having little or no mortgage may be a good strategy for semi-retirement.
Thanks again,
The investments graph looks great – who would have thought that back in March when ‘all hell was breaking loose in the stock markets’ that it would just appear as a little bump in the graph just 6 months later! I love that it barely even registers in the pension line!
You are absolutely right when you mention about aspiring to someone else’s FIRE savings rate, Jase. In the early days, I was dismayed both at other people’s high savings rates and the size of their FIRE pots. But I suddenly realised that it was pointless to compare, everyone is different, with different lives and at different stages of their lives and FIRE journeys.
I’ve got so much garden envy with your veggies – mine were not nearly so abundant but I’m learning so will hopefully improve with time!