November 2021 Savings, plus other updates

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November was a blur, here are a few highlights:

  • My house purchase was completed! I nearly cried with relief!
  • My niece was up for half-term and was with me when I went to the estate agents’ to pick up my house keys. She helped me choose new carpets!
  • My sister came over for a quick visit from Hong Kong – it was so good to see her after nearly 2.5 years. She helped me choose some new lights for the living room! I was able to hand over some family Christmas gifts for her to take back. Unfortunately, she’s still not quite home yet, as she’s currently 5 days into a 21-day quarantine in a hotel…
  • Not everyone’s cup of tea and certainly no ‘Game of Thrones’ but am loving  Amazon Prime’s adaptation of Robert Jordan’s high fantasy series, ‘Wheel of Time‘. I’ve read all 14 books and one of the the most fascinating things is hearing how the names are pronounced (yes, in my head, I’ve been pronouncing them wrong!).
  • I was awarded Employee of the Month at work, which was a real surprise (though of course, very much appreciated) as I’ve just had my head down, doing my job, nothing which I thought was exceptional.

So, how did I get on with my savings this month?

I saved 13.5% of my net salary.

The above includes £39.20 from doing Prolific surveys.

Shares and Investment Trusts

No new investments, I just topped up existing ones.

Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.

(Entire portfolio here)

Future Fund 

A wobbly final week of the month for the stock markets due to concerns caused by the Omicron variant of the virus – indeed so big is the concern, that our works’ Christmas party has been cancelled – but I ran my numbers the evening of 30th November so avoided the plunging ‘Black Friday’ values.

Not that there was anything to celebrate, my Future Fund stayed pretty much the same at £227,349.

WIth one month left, here’s how the graph is looking (I’m continuing with the original graph, rather than the house-purchase adjusted one):

Well, it was too much to hope for a V-shaped recovery but steady as she goes. Perhaps there will be a Santa’s Rally!

Dividends and Other Income

A decent month for dividends:

I received £531.77, of which £382.32 was from my ISAs, the rest from my SIPPs.  I loved how the dividend from Supermarket Income REIT covered my average weekly grocery shop!

Here’s the graph of all dividend income received so far:

Matched Betting (MB)

As you can imagin, just been too busy for this side hustle/hobby of mine, so I’ll probably take this up again once I’ve settled in my new place.

As mentioned previously, the MB guide I subscribe to is OddsMonkey*, which is great for beginners and experienced matched bettors alike. There are step by step guides and also a friendly forum for you to ask questions and get help on any of the offers.

Goals Update

I thought I might have had the library book one nailed but unlikely to read 4 books before the end of the year – I will give it a go anyway! Pitiful effort on the non-fiction books goal, but I will try to squeeze one more in.

Finally

Lots of things for me to crack on with, both at work and trying to get things organised prior to my moving into my new home.

How was your November?

[*referral/affiliate link]

10 thoughts on “November 2021 Savings, plus other updates”

  1. Congrats on leaving the house purchasing behind, weenie, I can feel your relief after all the hustle! Now it’s time to enjoy your new place during Christmas 🙂

    It must have felt nice seeing a member of your family after such a long time. 21 days of quarantine in a hotel sounds suffocating, but I sure it is worth it!

    Those dividends are looking good, will get there one day myself! 🙂

  2. Hey weenie, thanks for the update. That’s nice being able to see your sister. Will she have to go into a strict quarantine on her return? We also have been told not to have any official parties but then again I do work in the healthcare sector so it’s understandable.
    TFJ

  3. I should be on the move as well by spring. A thought occured to me as a fellow matched bettor. With a new address (postal and email) can we get a new bank account exclusively for MB?Then set up new accounts on sites where we have previously been gubbed?

    • Hi Simon
      Good luck with your move!
      On the MB front, I’m fairly certain bookie accounts are linked to the person and that a change of address won’t allow you to set up a new ungubbed account. That said, I’ve not looked into whether people have tried or not to see if it works – I guess it would all have to be linked to a new email address, new debit card etc too?

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