Category Archives: Funds

October 2021 Savings, plus other updates

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Highlights this month:

  • At last, I had a mini break away from home! As mentioned in my last update, I went to London – I had tickets to watch the NFL game, Miami Dolphins v Jacksonville Jaguars. It was a great weekend – an enjoyable match with a sellout crowd in Tottenham Hotspurs’ beautiful stadium. The following day, we spent some time wandering around Camden, sampling some expensive beer and food and then happened across probably one of the coolest and most fascinating shops I’ve visited in a long time – I didn’t buy anything, just enjoyed the sights and the music!

It was a great atmosphere and yes, I did know what was going on (mostly!)

Walking into this shop was like walking into another world

  • I went to the cinema to watch the latest James Bond film, ‘No Time to Die’ – have always loved Daniel Craig as Bond.
  • Enjoyed another great Manchester FIRE meetup in the pub – great to interact with faces old and new. There were around 20 of us who turned up. Anyone who’s interested in these meetups, sign up to Financial Independence FIRE – Manchester.  Events are alternately online and face-to-face, so the next one will be online on Friday 26th Nov.
  • And finally, I am sooooo relieved to say that I have finally exchanged contracts on my house, with completion due to happen early November! More details soon – so much (more) to do!

So, how did I get on with my savings in October?

I saved 14.4% of my net salary.

The above includes another £25 Premium Bond win, and £42.24 from doing Prolific surveys.

Shares and Investment Trusts

I started switching out some of my bond ETFs into a defensive investment trust, Ruffer Investment Co.  Monevator recently did a two-parter on the 60/40 strategy but I was already getting a bit antsy about the portion of bonds I held in my portfolio and wondering what I could do. Despite not holding anywhere near 40%, I was feeling it was still on the high side.

I won’t ditch them completely but will likely switch some more into other defensive investment trusts.

Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.

(Entire portfolio here)

Future Fund 

After removing the funds needed to buy my house, my Future Fund has dropped to £227,413. It’s not half as bad as I originally envisaged – as suggested by regular commenter Jane In London, I asked my Mum for the max amount she would loan me (that I could still cover with the eventual sale of my BTL) so this meant that I didn’t have to dip so far into my own funds.

I had to sell some equities (from my S&S ISAs) to release some cash and fortunately, I sold little bits of my portfolio over July and August when numbers were green.

I’ve been dreading doing this graph update.

Regular commenter Kid Cocoa suggested rebasing the graph, as if the house money was never part of my Future Fund, so that its removal didn’t cause me any distress. I did that and this is what it looks like:

 

[edit – original post had the wrong graph]

Looking good, with the markets bouncing back after the drop in September.

However, for consistency and because I feel like I need to see the consequences (and feel the pain) of my actions, this is what the graph actually looks like:

Oof! Looks almost like the crash back in March 2020, although there’s very little hope for another V-shaped recovery, haha!

My Future Fund’s value is now what it was in March 2021 so I’ve only really lost 7 months. My FIRE plan is still intact and unchanged – this is fine, I don’t feel so stressed about it any more.

Anyway, as horrid as the graph looks, I am already looking forward seeing it go back up again.

Dividends and Other Income

A more average month for dividends:

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Invest in this Fund!

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The pandemic and resulting lockdown, combined with falling or non-existent savings interest rates has turned thousands of people into armchair investors, dipping their toes into the stock markets for the first time and potentially risking their money due to their lack of experience and knowledge.

With Winter Rock Associates, you will benefit from years of expertise, knowledge and time spent by the fund manager, researching and picking the best opportunities to produce the best performance for your money (capital at risk etc).

Investing in our fund means your money is spread across multiple assets. As some investments will perform better and some worse over time, diversifying will, fingers crossed, help spread the risk and smooth returns over time.

Our management fees are very competitive, which you will find in the small print hidden in our website but you will be benefitting from significant returns on your investment so it will be money well spent in the long term.

Investments

Here are some of the assets the Winter Rock Associates Fund has invested in:

The fund is showing an overall return of 10.9% (since March 2020) so would be a great addition to those saving for the future.

Note that the fund is only open exclusively to new investors for a short period of time so don’t delay – contact me now for more details! Don’t miss out on profits!

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I’m joking of course, so please don’t contact me! 🙂

It seems anyone can create a fund these days – thanks to Average Money Man for pointing me to Hedge Fund Name Generator and I had some fun designing the logo at Free Logo Design.

What is real, however, are the assets/companies I mention above – I do have these actual investments in a portfolio.

I didn’t use any expertise, knowledge or time to select those companies I’m invested in – my criteria was that they were a well known brand/I’d heard of them before or I used their products/services.

Using Freetrade*, I bought £10 fractional shares in each of those companies (plus others) and when they make a decent profit (eg 50%+), I sell.

Of course, I don’t recommend this ‘strategy’ to anyone – I’m just saying this is the strategy I’ve followed and I’ve had a bit of success recently (with a large dose of luck!).

This is my ‘fun portfolio‘, which allows me to do daft things like pretend I’m a hotshot trader, buying and selling with impunity, and giving in to FOMO! I even follow some ‘experts’ on YouTube for latest buys and sells!

The main thing is that I leave my core investments (my ETFs and investment trusts) ticking along (untampered with) in a sensible but boring way, as long term investments should.

Yes, it was very exciting last month when I sold my £10 piece in Tesla for £20! But that’s as much excitement or risk I would like or need investment-wise.

Anyway, if anyone fancies getting us both a free share worth up to £200, sign up via my link – good luck and perhaps you too can enjoy creating your own Winter Rock Associates Fund! 😉

 

[*referral link]

Milestone Reached!

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I don’t normally check my portfolios before the end of the month but recently, I’ve been itching to because I knew I was close to a big milestone.

I logged onto my investment accounts this morning to see that my Future Fund (ie my FIRE pot) has finally surpassed £200,000! Woo hoo!

Back in June 2017, me and John Kingham of UK Value Investor blog were in a friendly ‘race’ to see who would hit £200k first – I lucked out and got there the quickest.

I had predicted that it would take me 5 years; it’s actually taken me around 3.5 years to get £100k.

Eleven Years

This milestone has been more than 11 years in total in the making!

The first £100k took me around 8 years – 5 years for the first £30k, when I had no plan and no direction, then 3 years to get £70k after I’d devised my plan to aim for FIRE.

Yes, if only I’d made a plan earlier, I could have reached this milestone in a fewer number of years, but I can’t dwell on what I could have and should have done in the past.

I feel quite giddy and am very pleased with myself, that I’ve patiently stuck to my plan over the years and did not get distracted or fall off the rails.

Of course, by the time I run my September-end numbers, it’s possible that the stockmarket will have fluctuated and I may be back below £200k but I think I’m allowed to celebrate this small win now, when there’s not a lot to celebrate in the world currently.

Anyway, thank you readers of this blog for helping me get there in the first place!

Onwards to the next £100k!

Investing Mistakes

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It’s been quite shocking to read about how trading on the Woodford Equity Income Fund has been suspended, meaning that many people are unable to sell and withdraw their money.

Neil Woodford took this drastic action as millions of pounds began pouring out of his funds as his previously loyal investors tried to leave what appeared to be a sinking ship.

Following the Herd

Back in 2014, I talked about how I was caught up by all the wave of publicity and invested in Woodford’s new fund.

He was like a rock star in the UK investing world, one of the few to become a household name.

Not smiling so much these days

A year later, I wrote that I was still happy with my investment as I saw some decent gains.

Fortunately for me, and not due to any kind of special investing foresight or premonition, I sold my entire holding of the fund early 2018 (for a profit) as I was switching the bulk of my actively managed funds into ETFs as part of a portfolio re-balancing exercise.

I pity the folk who have remained invested and who now cannot access their funds, so yes, I dodged a bullet there.

But all is not completely rosy with my own investments as I’m in a situation where I too have some funds which I cannot get access to right now (and I’m not talking pensions).

Properly Moosed

Back in 2016, I thought I’d go into property crowdfunding. It was something new, investments linked to something tangible, it looked like a good model, though I acknowledged then that there were risks.

So, I invested in Property Moose and all seemed great. I was receiving small regular ‘rental’ amounts for the properties I’d invested in, all looked tickety-boo.

In Feb 2018, the secondary market was suspended. Something was up.

In a nutshell, Property Moose’s business model wasn’t working. The model whereby investors purchased shares in each property and were paid monthly dividends was  unsustainable and ultimately discontinued.

The directors decided that the best possible long-term solution was to move all properties into a single PLC portfolio. This solution was voted on by investors and received a 99.48% majority.

All properties have been revalued and sold off to UK Diversified Property plc.

All investors who opted to stay invested will receive allocations of shares within the new company. The share price will be valued against the valuations, costs, and revenues generated by the portfolio of properties.

This company intends to be listed on the London Stock Exchange and will probably be like a REIT (real estate investment trust).

And this is where I’m at now, I can see that I haven’t lost my money (so far), I just can’t cash out and neither am I receiving any of the rental income from the properties.

I knew this was going to be a risk, which is why the money I’d invested came purely from my matched betting profits.

Yes, I was effectively gambling with proceeds from gambling in a way, but it’s still annoying that I can’t just walk away from this investment with my cash.

It’s not a huge amount, just under £2k, which if I lose won’t be massively detrimental to my wealth/portfolio.

Am just massively annoyed at myself if anything.

What’s happened to Property Moose might probably be an exception, other similar types of investment companies have been successful but I won’t be investing in anything like this again.

Live and learn.