Work’s been really busy and has been leaving me pretty exhausted.
Or maybe it isn’t really that busy and it’s probably just a combination of me needing a holiday and menopause symptoms. I am in need of a break.
Anyway, it was a good month – an excellent Women’s Rugby World Cup final saw England victorious, well deserved. Now it’s just the humdrum of Premier League football to follow.
It was a friend’s birthday and somehow, I got roped into doing the Otley Run pub crawl in Leeds. Yes, it was fun (lots of young folk in fancy dress, but not us), we had great weather, I paced myself but really at my age, I’m not surprised it pretty much took me the entire week to recover!
So how did my numbers look for September?
I saved 25.3% of my net salary. The above includes £12.97 from doing Prolific surveys and £25 from a premium bonds win.
Shares and Investment Trusts
One of my investment trusts (Middlefield Canadian, MCT) issued a voluntary winding up order so I just sold and opened up a new holding in Blackrock American Income (BRAI). I also opened a small holding in JP Morgan Global Growth & Income (JGGI).
Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.
(Entire portfolio here)
Future Fund
The rocket continues to blast towards the moon but rather than be ecstatic or excited about it, I feel a little bit anxious, wondering when it’s all going to go pear-shaped as it just all seems to be doing too well for my liking – surely this is not sustainable? I am sort of trying to do something about it but that will have to described in another post. My FF ended up at £342,274.
Dividends and Other Income
Another good month for dividends:
I received £599.32, of which £521.03 was from my ISAs, the rest from my SIPPs. All dividends were reinvested.
Here’s what my ISA dividend income graph looks like:
Think this goal is in the bag.
Goals Update
Here’s how it looks for month 9:
Colder evenings had me curled up on the sofa reading and I read some cracking books.
The non-fiction book I read was ‘Prisoners of Geography‘ by Tim Marshall – probably one of the most interesting non-fiction books I’ve ever read and which reminded me painfully how little I know about the world and about geography. Although printed prior to the war in Ukraine, it provided bits of information of much of what was about to/likely to happen back then and some of the reasons why.
Other stuff, plus spider vs wasp, who would win?
In my garden, this fat spider won the battle:
Wasp wrap to go!
I currently can’t get to the bottom of the garden as I can’t step past this huge web which spans across my steps and I don’t want to walk through it! Might have to poke it with a stick at some point though as I will need to get to my compost bin.
While I still have a few late blooms in the garden, it’s all starting to look a little sad as things are dying/dropping off. Soon, I’ll be spending time sweeping up the leaves from my drive, plus I’ll give the drive a final going over to keep the moss under control.
Central heating was turned on today, which is a bit early for me.
Next update will be delayed as I’m on my hols in a few weeks – yay!
Maybe I will have thought of what to write about decumulation and retirement income etc by then…
Hope you all had a great September!
Hi Weenie, having declared your hand, I was wondering whether you would stick or twist – a couple of years of growth at current rates would really turbo boost your future fund; on the other hand, sequence of return risk is a particular danger in the early stages of decumulation, and a sudden jolt could leave you significantly down, without the time to recoup before you start drawing. It will be interesting to see what you decide….
I think I’m right in remembering you have a DB pension which, together with the SP, will hopefully provide a reasonable ‘floor’, meaning that the future fund is really only doing all the heavy lifting for 7 or 8 years. Is that a fair summary? As someone with solely a DC pension (and ISA) to supplement the SP, my investment horizon could be another 40 years, even though we’re conditioned to see retirement age as the goal. Frightening thought!!
Hi Martin
There’s a high chance of me sticking… obviously, that could change if some swan event devastated my portfolio.
Yes, you’re right, my DB pension and the state pension will provide me with a minimum income ‘floor’ – my Future Fund is really to fund the bridge from when I stop working until when I can draw down on those two. Anything left over will provide a more comfortable retirement. All the best with your investments!
So glad you mentioned your concerns, because I’m feeling the same. And as we’ve still got about 3 years to go, I’m kind of unfairly hoping it will happen soon so it’s out of the way for us regarding sequence of returns . (I know this is an unkind thing to wish for, as I’m sure there’s someone FIREing daily across the world – sorry, fellow FIREys!) Having said that, I have started working on building up a decent cash buffer, and for the first time am investing in a Vanguard bond fund.
I also hear you about work/holidays/menopause. I had a short holiday out to Lightning Ridge with my lapidary club which was wonderful but at the same time, it really made coming back to work difficult. I do blame menopause. I feel like I’m a different person to who I used to be. I’d like more free time to discover who the new me is.
Hope you have a wonderful holiday and come back feeling sustainably refreshed.
Hi Mrs ETT
I know what you mean – I would rather the markets be wobbling now rather than in a couple of years time!
Yes, I am finding leaving work to go on holiday and then coming back is getting much more difficult, particularly in the last couple of years. I’m mentally exchausted but need to be on the ball so I don’t make mistakes at work.
I am looking forward to a good break where I can just empty my brain of things! Thanks for the kind wishes and hope all is well for you.
Your freedom fund and my freedom fund are almost both the same size. Mine has also been growing quickly in a similar way to yours and it’s left me feeling a little anxious. On the one hand it’s exciting that it’s growing faster than my monthly expenditure, on the other it doesn’t feel very sustainable. The market usually has a way of punishing hubris, and now I am so close to my financial goals, I am expecting a rug-pull.
Hi Ron
Same, same! I should be excited, doing my graph with my little rocket is fun but it kind of feels unsustainable.
I have started making some small amendments to my portfolio, which I will document, but am wary of making too many changes that I may miss out on any continued growth!
Good luck to all of us, whatever the markets bring!
I can’t remember the last time I did a pub crawl, so well done for managing one, you really showed them how it’s done!
We’re overrun by spiders here; I was just picking the remaining apples from the tree and they like to surprise me.
President Trump is at it again with trade wars and tariffs. Hopefully, the stock market will be back to normal by next week.
Hi Sean
The cheap beer and sticky floors on the pub crawl certainly brought back memories haha! There’s talk of another next year but there’s no need for me to ever do another one again!
The big spiders are starting to come into the house. I just chase them under the sofa, out of sight, out of mind…I’d best not mention to my sister or she won’t come round, haha!
I didn’t pay attention to Trump’s recent shenanigans so didn’t check my balances – seems like it’s all recovered.
Hey Weenie,
Yes, I know what you mean, surely this rocketing net worth isn’t sustainable, I speak for myself here too. Rumblings of up to 30% correction. I’m being an Ostrich about this so far. Of course you got a small holding in JGGI, because I did the same last month (obviously!)
I hear you on work, I’m sorry you’re exhausted and I sympathise. Menopause and age on it’s own is tiring enough, without work on top. My company is a British Multinational FTSE 100, hugely cash rich and yet we continue to make redundancies, and over-work remaining staff. With staff morale at an all time low “the board” have just changed our bonus system to “forced ranking”. If you’re lucky enough never to have experienced this, Jack Welch and GE is some interesting reading. It basically involves ranking your employees top 20%, Middle 70% and the bottom 10% – the latter get zero bonus, possibly put on a PIP or fired. Even if Managers have no underperformers they still have to nominate employees for bottom 10%. It destroys employee morale like nothing else, and ultimately a company cannibalises itself when it runs out of bottom 10% and the top 30% leave anyway, because they don’t need to put up with that sort of rubbish. I’m too jaded for this nonsense and wish I could FIRE now.
Great to see you reading and enthusiastic about your latest read. Autumn colour left in my garden is Nasturtiums and Black Eyed Susan’s which are late to flower, but look very eye-catching if you wanted more, easy to grow, late colour. No heating on here yet, thanks to my Dreamland Electric throw, it’s one of the best things I’ve owned (I’m not sponsored by them!) And yes please, do think about something to say decumulation and retirement income, I look forward to it.
In the meantime, enjoy your holiday and equally the rest!
We’re seeing redundancies in Australia too, Starla – both government jobs and private sector. While I’m not ready to FIRE yet either, it gives me a feeling of a safety net at least, as we are now firmly in the ageism bracket.
The change to the bonus structure sounds terrible! As you said, morale would be in the toilet, what an awful way to work. I also feel sorry for the middle managers having to unfairly pick 10% to be bottom even if everyone is performing. I’ve never worked for bonuses but I imagine this would shatter teamwork/collegiality and set up an “every worker for themselves” type culture. Surely that can’t be good for business? Or is it one of those cyclical things where they never learn so repeat their mistakes? That’s what happens in government here. If we can wait it out long enough it will all turn around until the next time we find ourselves here again…
Re redundancies, I’ve been through 8 rounds in my 20+ years at The Firm. They have been more frequent recently, and the world of work seems to be an increasingly unpleasant and anxiety inducing place to be. I remember when it used to be fun?! It appears you, me and Weenie are ladies of a certain age with roughly 2.5-3.5 years to go (me the latter). As I’ve discovered from Weenies reply below, she actually worked for GE and under this system (!) so I will talk about it more there. You are right however, a cursory 10 minute look at the internet tells anyone (i.e. my Company Board?) that this will shatter teamwork, and turn a collaborative sharing environment into a mini version of the Hunger Games where workers will look at their colleagues as nothing more than direct competition to be dispatched. Regarding this being cyclical, I think from employee feedback they already know this is a mistake, but they will never admit it, so we will have it in place this year (outcomes in March), do another year so the Board can pretend they know what they’re doing, and then it will be pulled due to all the obvious damage done. We’ll then end up with the same bonus system we had 10 years ago again, you know the drill… Hang on in there!
Hey Starla
Of course you bought some JGGI, haha! Just like I have Black Eyed Susan’s in my garden! Hilarious, our similarities!
I feel like I’ll be ok with a market correction, just want it sooner rather than later, get it all over with!
I’m sorry to hear about the forced ranking bonus system – it does really suck and I know all about it as I worked for GE for 20 years… Fortunately, this system was replaced (with a system not much fairer) but we had to go through it for at least 4-5 years. I think I got the zero bonus a couple of times, but was mostly in the middle. It was very much every man/woman for themselves as a result, supposedly it was meant to encourage employees to work harder towards Six Sigma! However, it did have the effect of pushing me to join another department which was less cut-throat and where I was happier. I was young when I was going through that, couldn’t put up with that nonsense now!
Well, I had NO idea that GE was your 20 stint! This is news, and you’ve confirmed everything I thought I knew about how this forced ranking will destroy employee morale. We’ve always had fairer systems, and always the option to rank serious under-performers as 0% / below expectations, but it was very rare. I mean you really had to TRY hard to get a below ranking. This is where forced ranking is entirely different. Colleagues are reminding each other that it doesn’t matter if you’ve historically been top performing, because anyone can fall into the bottom 10%, especially where there are business areas with no underperformers. The core backbone of my section of the business is highly skilled and highly educated people (PhD / Doctorate types), with very niche skills, good luck low ranking them! Everything you’ve touched on is what I understand employee behaviours to become i.e every man/woman for themselves. I’d anticipate workers not wanting to take on challenging roles you grow into, sticking in easier roles, not wanting to work in high performing departments and seeking out weaker ones, not collaborating, not sharing good ideas, not suggesting innovative ideas or risk taking, and horrible employee / manager relations when they are forced fit into low rankings. I’m trying to understand why our Board would be so short-sighted in doing this, and it can’t be to force out low performers because we’ve already done that with constant rounds of redundancies. I can only imagine it’s the expectation people will work harder under a climate of fear, or to save 10% on bonus costs, which unfortunately will be blown on recruitment costs, when the bottom 10% look for jobs elsewhere and the top 20% do the same as they don’t need to put up with this nonsense. I guess as I have 3+ years to go, I have the luxury of finding the psychology behind this morbidly interesting. Like the Hunger Games, let he games begin! (Idiots).
(Black Eyed Susans noted – ha ha)
Hi Weenie,
I thought I’d pop back to see who was still around blogging. Why doesn’t it surprise me (in a good way) that you’re still at it and I feel so old using the word “blogging”.
Really good to see how far along you are now on your financial journey and it is amazing how quickly the years have passed us by since this thing called FIRE was first spoken about.
Anyways, I hope you are keeping well and take care.
Hey Cashflow Cop
Good to hear from you and hope all is going well for you and the family.
Yes, still plugging and blogging away – all the young uns are doing vlogs so blogs are so old school haha!
Am on the last leg of my journey now, time has flown by!