• • 4 hour+ Zoom chats with a couple of friends from uni, whom I hadn’t met up with for 6 and 12 years respectively – we had a lot to catch up on!

• • Attending two FIRE meet ups: the London one and the Manchester one. Of course, with the meet ups being on Zoom these days, you can be dialing in from anywhere and we even get some FIRE peeps from overseas joinng in. I know many people might be ‘zoomed out’, but unless you talk openly about FIRE with your colleagues or family and friends, I’m guessing these sessions will be different from your usual Zoom calls. Anyway, I’ve put in the links so people can join ‘Meet Up’ and see when the next events are on (the next Manchester one will have discussions about savings rates and the next London one will be talking about aiming for FIRE as a couple).

• • Downloading the Zombies, Run app – (thanks go to Faith of Much More With Less for the heads up on this fun app!). I’m not paying for subscription so have to wait for the new missions but that’s ok, I can be patient!

• • Buying some ‘working-from-home clothes’, in other words, a couple of pairs of leggings, £5 in the sales!

• • Rewatching ‘The Matrix’ for the gazillionth time – I liken Neo’s Red Pill moment to when I discovered FIRE and went down the proverbial rabbit hole myself…

• • Being riveted by the whole ‘meme stock‘, r/wallstreetbets vs hedge funds thing. I even had a few small ‘bets’ myself (using Freetrade*) on GameStop, AMC and Blackberry and came out eventually +12%, although the whole saga continues to unfold. Certainly the fallout from all this will be interesting. Silver, anyone?

• • Rotting my brain with guilty-pleasure TV shows like ‘Married At First Sight – Australia’ and ‘The Masked Singer’….don’t judge me 🙂

• • Spending a whole month with just my Sis in the house since nephew is still with his dad from before Christmas, as pointless him coming back yet with his school shut. It’s been surprisingly ok…

• • Not a highlight but making another trip to the dentist which had me going home minus £300 (2 missing fillings replaced – ouch!).  That went on my credit card and I may just plug this with some emergency cash.

Anyway, how did I get on money-wise in January?

I saved 46.6% of my net salary – not a bad start to the year.

The above savings includes a top up of £20 from Matched Betting profits (from last month).

Shares and Investment Trusts

No new investments apart from ones mentioned here, where I adjusted part of my investment strategy earlier this month.

Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.

(Entire portfolio here)

Future Fund 

After the end of year rush upwards, the stock markets wobbled a little so I saw no real gains, despite new capital being added. Some ‘experts’ are saying there’s going to be another big crash at some point. Yeah, whatever.

At the end of the month, my Future Fund stood at £220,324.

Steady as she goes

Dividends and Other Income

Not a bad start to the year for dividends:

Continue reading →

• • Being chatted up in the gym – a first! It was a couple of days before Lockdown #2 and with no one going to pubs or nightclubs, I guess a lad’s gotta try when the opportunity arises! It was good for my ego, if nothing else, that I’m still approachable whilst sweatily huffing and puffing through my weight training exercises 🙂

• • Earning £200 for participating in an investment trust investor community – not bad for 10-20 mins a day for two weeks! If you’re interested in doing investment surveys (to earn Amazon vouchers and possible selection for future investor communities), register here (this is not a referral link).

• • Buying my first Christmas present and a new pair of trainers. Still not in the Christmas spirit yet though.

• • Transferring an old work DC pension to one of my SIPPs – the whole process (from request to actual transfer) took a while, my money was out of the market for several weeks but it looks like I’ve inadvertently/luckily timed the market correctly.

• • Catching up with my uni pals on Zoom, six years after we last saw each other.

• • Working 4 days a week – no overseas trip this year meant I’ve got holidays to use up as I’m only able to carry a few over. It was nice having long weekends, even when I didn’t go anywhere or do anything special. However, this has shown me that cutting my hours down in the future probably wouldn’t be a viable solution to ‘glide’ into early retirement (if I stayed in this job) – long term, it would place too much pressure on my boss and the rest of the team.

Anyway, how did I get on money-wise in November?

I saved 58.8% of my net salary – December is going to be a bit more spendy so I thought I’d try to stick in as much as possible this month. Not enough to hike my average up by much but good enough.

The above savings includes top ups from £20 Matched Betting profits (from last month) and the abovementioned £200 from taking part in that investor community.

Shares and Investment Trusts