Life Update

Howdy folks! Hope all is well.

Well, what the bloody hell is going on with the world? I won’t highlight too much on what is happening because it’s hard to avoid it or ignorant to ignore it, but Christ almighty, I would’ve never thought ‘War’ could we so close between the West and East. My prayers are with Ukraine and hope that a ceasefire comes as soon as humanly possible.

It puts things into perspective with the whole ‘life’ question when something so deadly is only becoming worse and worse and whether or not tucking away 50% of your salary is worth it when such turmoil is happening politically.

Financially, things are of course a bit all over the place and turbulent – Meta down 50% since start of the year, PayPal down 38% since start of the year – two huge tech companies which part of the fund I’m in (Global All Cap Index) with Vanguard does have a 1-2% allocated to some of these larger tech stocks.

I’ve seen a drop in the Index Fund I’m part of – nothing ‘huge’ but a noticeable drop none-the-less.

Financial Update | February 2022

So how have those financials been looking for the month of February?

Income | £11,576

Income has continued to relatively stable and averaging around £8,000 per month.

Expenses | £5,775

Oooof – almost double the expenses. Well, you can thank the royal HMRC for that. February time each year is always a slightly depressing time of the year due to the self assessment tax return / bill payments needing to be made for all self-employed workers. I fit into this category (being a business owner) – coupled with the business having to fork out VAT, Corporation Tax etc, February is a super expensive month.

But this is part and parcel of the UK tax systems for business – all got to pay our fair share / into the pot! (Even though lots of big businesses do not!)

Savings | £5,775

Equalling a savings rate of 50% – a little below the usual 60% that I strive for, but given the tax bills and outgoing expenses for February, I’m not too disheartened by this. I’m going to work hard on focusing on achieving 60% throughout the months to come. I don’t think the goal of hitting £400,000 by the end of 2022 will work out, more like £350,000 – £360,000 depending on if we aren’t at WW3 by that point.

Investment Growth | –£6,876

Oooof – another drop to add. This -£7,000 drop coupled with the -£9,000 drop last month in January is causing a bit of a small blip. Even though it is a little disheartening writing about these losses financially, in the grander picture (seeing the graph below) these drops don’t really come across as completely ‘soul-destroying’. Only a small dip, just like at the start of COVID-19 pandemic.

Perhaps this says it all that Index Fund investing is just a very logically and methodical way to invest, spreading yourself over the market in a multitude of different verticals and horizontals (countries and industries) and ‘go with the flow’ type mentality?

Investment Graph

Ending

In other news, I’ve now managed to get electricity to the shed! Of course, with the help of my father who came around and showed me the ropes in a few electrical wiring bits and pieces. The shed runs off a 3pin plug at the moment and has its own trip box installed (just in case I’ve fluffed some wiring up). I do have a 10mm 3 core cable that has now been sunk into the ground that directly comes from my home consumer unit. Fortunately, I do have a friend as an electrician, so going to just call him over to come take a look! (Last thing I would need is for the shed to bring the entire neighbourhood of electricity down – knowing my luck, that would be the case). But given my Dad has lots of building work experience, of course I do trust his judgment and instructions!

We’re pressing on ahead with the garden office – currently in the middle of liaising with the builder on a few technical drawings and other bits and pieces. We are aiming to start this in July 2022 and finish within 4-5 weeks.

That’s all folks! Hope you’re all keeping well / FIRE savings are going well your end.