Being busy on the social front this month made it easy for me to ignore all the negative doom and gloom stuff that dominates the national news.
Reasons to be Cheerful
- We had a bit of a heatwave and it finally felt like summer!
- Me celebrating my birthday – another year older, am I any wiser? What do I know now that I didn’t know a year ago? Only that I look and feel the same, although I will likely have squarer-eyes this time next year as my sis got me 12 month’s Netflix subscription as a present!
- Attended our twice-postponed works’ Christmas/Summer Party, which was a real blast, hugely enjoyable. A great turn out and I finally got to meet some ‘new’ colleagues who had already celebrated their two-year anniversaries at work but whom I’d never met as they joined during the pandemic and they’re not in the office on the same days as I am!
Made use of our twice-postponed Centre Court tickets at Wimbledon and watched Rafa Nadal progress through to the next round – this might be his last Wimbledon so it was great to catch him in action. It was a glorious day out, rain started just as we were ready for the train home so the timing was perfect!
- Attended another Manchester FIRE Pub Meet – as usual, a decent turn out and a good mix of new and old faces. These meet ups are always fun and interesting. One guy turned up with his boss – yup, both on their separate FIRE journeys and wanting to leave the rat race, it was fascinating!
So, how did I get on with my numbers in June?
I saved 17% of my net salary. The above includes a £50 premium bond win, £10 charity lotto win, £30 from winning football predictions at work and £78.94 from doing Prolific surveys.
Shares and Investment Trusts
No changes here, I just topped up existing investments.
Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.
(Entire portfolio here)
Future Fund
The markets went into bear territory.
Keep calm, keep your hair on!
Monevator did an excellent post recently on bear markets.
Since I have no idea what’s going to happen, there’s been no change to my strategy. I have just continued investing as normal, flinging my money at this bear market, topping up my holdings as the prices go down, just as I was topping up when the prices were going up.
My Future Fund plummeted to £219,428 by month end. I’m now down -5.6% YTD.
I’d be lying if I said I was completely unmoved and unconcerned at the continued downturn and lack of progress.
Whilst I’m not stressing or having sleepless nights over this, I am experiencing little pangs of worry as I look at my numbers, which I try not to do too often but needs must, to do my updates! All I can do right now is to keep calm and carry on investing.
Dividends and Other Income
Hallelujah for dividends, shining a bit of light during these dark days of investing!
I received a record-breaking £852.48, of which £402.90 was from my ISAs, the rest from my SIPPs. I think some dividends which I previously received at the beginning of July were paid at the end of June instead. All dividends were reinvested.
Here’s the updated graph:
Matched Betting (MB)
Was too busy with work and going out to do any MB this month so no profits (or losses!).
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
Here’s how my goals look at the halfway stage:
Struggling a bit with the savings rate and it looks like that I am going to miss my emergency funds goal completely as an emergency has just come up. More on that in July’s update…
And that’s it
Can you believe that I’ve been in my house for six months already? Where has that time gone?
Proud to say that I’ve yet to order any takeaway deliveries and while it’s just me in the house, I think that should be easy to maintain indefinitely.
I think the house is finally starting to feel like home to me.
[*referral/affiliate link]
If you enjoyed Wimbledon then check out the odds of the last 16 for the Ladies .Usually the winner comes from the top 8 seeds but only 2 left .The fav no3 Jabeur 9/4 has never made a Grand Slam semi before and has all the pressure of expectation whilst no 4 seed Badosa 12/1 plays 2nd fav Halep 9/2 today.3rd fav the very unreliable Ostapenko 6/1 can lose to anyone.The other 12 players left must be thinking they will never get another chance like this not least with a dozen talented Russian/Belarus players unable to have taken part .
Hi Simon
Yes, the Ladies tournament is really open this year – I hadn’t checked the odds as I don’t tend to bet on the grand slams. Agree that without the Russians, it could be a dream come true for rank outsiders.
That 250k peak in your future fund stands out even more now. It will come back up eventually though just have to practice what we’ve preached for so long 🙂
Hi AMM
Yes, it does, but for me, the critical number is where I ended up after I took a chunk out for my house purchase – I had hoped to have made some decent progress but instead, appear to be moving backwards…
Absolutely, just need to practice what we’ve been preaching! 🙂
Hi weenie, glad to see you had an enjoyable month.
I caught COVID during the heatwave so I had to stay at home all that week, when I did obviously recover we were all back to the greys! Haha a bit unlucky there, wasn’t I?
I would like to see if I can finally join the next pubmeeting, when is it taking place?
Hey Tony
Sorry to hear you caught COVID and hope you have now recovered.
It would be great to see you at a pub meet, the next one is Friday 26th Aug, More info here: https://www.meetup.com/manchester-financial-independence/events/
Nice, if nothing happens I should be able to make it. It’s a 50min drive from home but I’m sure it will be totally worth it! 🙂
Looking forward to meeing you, Tony 🙂
Hi Weenie,
Happy birthday.! Glad you have enjoyed June and wow, I cannot believe it’s 6 months since you moved into your new place, Glad you feel more settled in your house.
What a great match to see at Wimbledon. I used to want to go to Wimbledon and was in awe of anyone who managed to go. no one shared my dream so I have dropped it off my l bucket list. I have some unadventurous family and friends. I just watch the odd game on TV now.
I am trying to not look at the markets , my fund is further down than yours, I am running at about 10% down from the start of the year. I, like you, collected a good dividend income from VWRL and others in June which has been auto reinvested. They have paid out in June rather than last year when they landed in July. I just hope things will pick up and the auto reinvestments at these lower price points grow in future months/years. I am trying to leave my ISA alone and let it grow. My fund has sadly lost all its growth from last year. Up one year, down the next, the rollercoaster continues.
Thanks Sparklebee!
Fortunately for me, my friends and family love Wimbledon too! I’ve come to realise that these days, I think I prefer to go to watch live sport rather than live music, only because I have been to a lot of gigs and seen most of my favourite artists already. I might be done with festivals too now, perhaps depending on the headliners; was watching Glastonbury on tv and had no regrets that I wasn’t there in that muddy field, among all those unwashed bodies!
The rollercoaster news from the markets must be harder for you to bear as you are not working. The woman who organises the Manchester FIRE meet ups has just FIRE’d (final day at work last week). Perhaps not the best time to do so but she just followed her plan through. She said she wasn’t even looking at her portfolio…
Yeah, the rollercoaster is unnerving, I keep watching and reading the advice from others which say just “stick to your plan”.
It’s the worry of sequence of returns risk as I am now in my 3rd year of not-working and comments say, you need to watch SORR in the first 5 years of FI. Not great but will try to keep calm and manage my cash given the inflation rates which are eating its buying power making me wonder how good my original FI numbers were. I will keep going and muddle along and try to keep smiling…. Worst case, I will need to get whatever job I can to earn a bit of cash then ‘quit’ when I’ve had enough.
Glad you’re feeling settled in your new home, and I wouldn’t be too concerned by your YTD % decline — if it makes you feel any better you are walloping me in 2022! 😉
Thanks for the link to @TA’s post.
Cheers TI.
No it doesn’t make me feel better, maybe a bit less bad 😉
Wow, six months already in your new house. Time just flies.
Great dividends this month, I had a record month too!
Hey Mr Fu
I know, time just flies! Great to hear yo had a record month too!
I’m with you on the net worth–not losing sleep but those pangs of worry are becoming more frequent. I have no doubt that it will turn eventually but realize I need to do a better job positioning myself psychologically in the future. This might mean keeping a little more cash on hand, even if it’s suboptimal.
Jealous of the Wimbledon tickets!
Hi Impersonal Finance
Yes, recently, I’ve been thinking of keeping more cash. However, just need to balance the risk of keeping too much cash and not taking advantage of equity buying opportunities!
Will be trying for Wimbledon tickets again next year!
Hey weenie, thanks for the update. Time sure does fly fast doesn’t it being six months already. It’s great that it feels like home too, that’s the main thing. You should have a takeaway to celebrate ;).
That’s awesome you got to finally go to Wimbledon, that’s something I’d like to do one day for sure. I went to London last week and didn’t even know it was pride celebration day so was immersed in all of that accidentally. That’s as close as I got to Wimbledon hehe.
TFJ
Cheers TFJ.
I haven’t felt tempted with a takeaway, there’s usually a pizza in the freezer I can stick in the oven if I fancy something like that, for a fraction of the price (and a tiny bit of effort!).