A cold February month has had its good parts and bad parts for us.
Mrs Fu celebrated her 50th birthday and we threw a nice family party to celebrate. I told her she will be getting her vaccine quicker now that she has moved up an age category. She wasn’t too pleased about that!
On the downside my mother had to go into hospital for a heart operation, followed by a spell in intensive care. She seems to be recovering slowly now though so hopefully she will be ok and get back to normal soon.
Fu#1 continues to work from home, and Fu#2 is still on furlough but she has taken on a second job working on the tills in Iceland. She is enjoying the change, and the extra money, and we get to try out different Iceland dishes. It’s not as bad as you might think!
Fu#3 and #4 go back to school next week, thank god. We’ll see how long that lasts for this time.
Fu#5 and #6 are currently home educated, but they are going back into formal education in September. We accepted a place at an academy that specialises in digital skills for children aged 13-19. So, slightly different from the ‘regular’ school that Fu#3 and #4 go to, but they are excited to try it out.
The Numbers
FI Target – £1.25m to give £50k/year income @ 4% withdrawal rate.
Current FI value – £664k networth+ £455k (2xState pen £18.2k x 25) + £87k (DB pen £3.5k x 25)) = £1.20m
% to Target FI – 96.6% (96.4% last month)
Time to FI = 11 months, Jan 22 (last month- 12 months, Jan 22)
MONTHLY UPDATE AND GOALS
Last months figures in brackets
Net Worth Feb ’21 – £664,152 (Jan ’21 £661,508) +0.4% +£2,644
Assets – £876,049 (£875,180) +0.1% +£869
Cash/bank £8491 (£8393)
Main Home Q4 £441,157 (Q4 £441,157) +0% +£0
Rental Properties Q4 £181,977 (Q4 £181,977) +0% +£0
Pension SIPP £244,424 (£243,653) +0.3% +£771
Liabilities – £211,897 (£213,672) -0.8% -£1,775
Main Home Mortgage £83,950 (£84,300)
Loans, Debts and credit cards £127,947 (£129,372)
Overall Net Worth in February rose by £2.6k . My SIPP pension treaded water in February, with debt paydown making the biggest change this month.
Liabilities were down by just over £1.7k.
Assets increased by £0.8k.
Rolling year on year change in net worth from February ’20 is +£138,254 (assets +£114,409, liabilities -£23,845)
Since we began tracking our net worth in June ’18 our net worth has increased by £249k, at an average of £7.8k per month.
Property
My house price YOY change +7.98%. (Q4 2019 – Q4 2020 NW England)
The Equity in my main home is £357,207.
Main home and rental property values are calculated using the Nationwide House price index.
Nationwide’s February ’21 update says UK annual house prices rebounded in February, rising by 0.7%. The outlook is uncertain due to covid and stamp duty changes.
The UK annual % change in house prices to February is +6.9%, with a UK average house price of £231k.
Dividends
SIPP Dividends paid in Febrary were £566.
Dividends Feb 21 YTD total £831, Av. £416/m (Feb 20 ytd £731, Feb 19 ytd £220)
(Yearly totals – 2016 £425, 2017 £911, 2018 £1306, 2019 £2319, 2020 £5942)
Other Monthly/weekly goals
Matched Betting +£133 this month (+£113 last month)
£133 profit this month. We are still mainly doing casino offers and a bit of normal match betting.
Total to date since starting 40m ago £12609 Av. £320/m (£12476 to last month Av. 320/m) means we made £133 this month, broken down as follows.
Casino/slot offers to date £6032 (5915) = +£117 this month
Each way sniping to date £625 (£625) = £0 this month
Normal match betting offers £16 profit this month
Diet and Fitness – Stayed at 74kg and 19% body fat (74kg, 19% body fat last month). Now my training is consistent I need to experiment with my diet to see what will work to lose some weight as I am stuck at 74kg
My target is to get to 70kg and/or under 15% body fat.
eBay/selling – Nothing done this month.
Any comments/questions always welcome
Monthly Net worth since started tracking
#20 April ’20 £534,439 +£32,858
#22 June ’20 £569,037 +£13,570 89%FI
#23 July ’20 £569,001 -£36 89%FI
#24 August ’20 £575,970 +£6,969 89%FI
#25 September ’20 £584,439 +£8,469 90% FI
#26 Oct ’20 £601,476 +£17,037 91% FI
#27 Nov ’20 £623,482 +£22,006 93% FI
Sorry to hear abo9ut your mum – here’s to a speedy recovery.
And belated 50th birthday wishes to Mrs Fu.
First day back at school for my nephew today – he didn’t appreciate going back to the early mornings (to catch the school bus) and wasn’t looking forward to the COVID tests but was in general excited to be back at school with his friends.
You’re so close to your Target FI – any plans for when you get there? Small celebration?
thanks for your best wishes weenie
yes geting them up in the mornings now is hard work.
Getting really close to my FI number but wary that any drops in the markets or house prices could soon take me away from it. I may have a little celebration though when I get there. Any excuse to get out now.
Sorry to hear about your Mum – Hope she recovers swiftly.
How have you faired with working from home? Personally I’m looking forward in getting back to the office just from the social side of things!
Great to see you so close to reaching the 100% mark on FI as well – so close now!
Thanks Jase
It hasn’t bothered me working from home as I work for myself anyway so there has been no change for me.
Hi, firstly I love your blog, but I’m a little confused by your numbers, you state that you will reach fi next January with a net worth of £1.25M to give an income of £50k. And currently you say that your total networth is – (£664k networth+ £455k (2xState pen £18.2k x 25) + £87k (DB pen £3.5k x 25)) = £1.20m ) But since £441k of this figure is accounted for by the value of your home and because you will obviously need to live somewhere when you reach fi, how can this be considered in your fi number, as it won’t be able to generate an income for you, if you live in it? Surely then you are still many years from fi, or am I missing something?
Hi Andy
Glad you like my blog, thanks.
I consider my house in my numbers as I am going to downsize at some point which will release some equity on that front. That being said my plan allows for me to not sell my house as the returns on my BTL and pensions will mean I don’t need to touch that capital, hopefully!