February was a bit of a blur.
And a weird one for me, as mentally and emotionally, my head was full of stuff (good and bad). HRT has helped with my exhaustion but the month still left me feeling rather tired.
Bullet points of what went on this month:
- Stayed up to watch the Superbowl as usual. Ok, one of the reasons why I felt tired!
- My closest uncle passed away peacefully after a long kidney illness. At least I was able to spend some time with him late last year. RIP TQ.
- One of the ladies I knew quite well from the WI passed away from illness – she was only 52. RIP Liz.
- Numerous social outings, catching up with friends and the Manchester FIRE meet up, the last one at the now-closed BrewDog Outpost (more on this later).
- A trip down to London to see family, which included a visit to the National Gallery – I could spend an entire day there!
- Finally admitted and told my oldest friend (from school) that we had grown apart and that was ok. She didn’t think it was ok.
Throughout it all, I continued to suffer badly from eczema and am only now in the recovery phase and feeling normal-ish.
Anyway, enough of that, how did I get on in Feb?
I saved 28.4% of my net salary. The above includes £25.18 from Prolific surveys.
Shares and Investment Trusts
UK share prices continued to rise and I found that some the investments in my income portfolio had gone up so much that they breached my portfolio allocations. I ended up top-slicing a few of them (including BRWM, MYI and LWDB). Mostly reinvested the funds from sales into existing holdings but will also be opening a new position in 3i Infrastructure (3IN) and to a lesser extent, Cordiant (CORD).
Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.
(Entire portfolio here)
Future Fund
In a crazy fashion, my FF continued to spiral upwards but of course, this snapshot was taken before all the shenanigans with Iran and the Middle East.
At the end of Feb, my FF ended up at £384,009.41.
that last bit is almost as straight as a ruler!
Will the rocket ship make an appearance next month? *Spoiler alert* – probably not!
Dividends and Other Income
An average month for dividends:
I received £365.58, of which £319.04 was from my ISAs, the rest from my SIPPs. All dividends were reinvested.
Goals Update
Nothing much to update:
Gone to the BrewDogs
BrewDog went into administration and was bought out by US firm, Tilray. Part of the purchase included some of BrewDog’s pubs but the venue where we have enjoyed our Manchester FIRE meetups these past 5-6 years is not one of them so we need to find a new pub for future meetups.
My first venture into crowdfunding was as part of BrewDog’s Equity Punks scheme. It was only a small investment, less than £1k and I had no real investment expectations, other than me liking the brand and their beers and hoping the company would do well.
Sad times for big private investors and the staff who lost their jobs. One tiny bit of good news is that Tilray have (for now) stated that they will honour the 15% bar discount I (and other Equity Punks) enjoy.
And that’s it for Feb – hope you all had a good one! With days starting to get brighter, I hope spring is in the air soon!
Sounds like quite a lot of physical and emotional (sometimes interconnected) challenges to process there, Weenie. Likely the weather hasn’t helped much either. No wonder you are feeling tired!
I hope things pick up for you, and you feel more energised as we go into Spring.
Hey Weenie
I’m sorry you’re not feeling 100% but the HRT is helping a little. Similarly, for solidarity, I’m struggling with the menopause and have very little ability to concentrate, learn and retain new information. This makes work extra hard when we’re all being pushed to learn AI and Tech is moving at a rapid rate. My paraglide into the finish line has been abruptly U-turned as work has turned from a wonderful place to work, to a corporate using stacked ranking, employee tracking, and I expect down the line a forced return to the office 5 days. We’ve gone from a company that pledged to help women in the menopause to a company where you’re too afraid to speak up about it in case you’re put in the bottom 10% of the bell curve. It’s forcing me to look at “lean fire”. Your rocket ship is flying, do you think you’re still on track to go at the end of 2027?
Condolences for the recent loss of your Uncle and your friend, it brings it all into perspective with judging when to pull the trigger on work vs having enough vs we’re not here forever so make the most of everyday and that doesn’t include sitting in an office.
Have a good March.