Since my June update I have failed miserably in getting any posts or updates out. This is down to a number of factors.
I think I had my first writer’s block, as many of the topics I was thinking about writing a post on appeared in my inbox as new posts by other bloggers, as if they were reading my mind…! or the topic had already been covered before in a far better way than I thought I could express it, anyway.
The main reason though is that we have been spending more family time at the caravan due to the great weather we have had. It’s funny as the kids initially hate leaving their laptops and Xbox when we go to the caravan, but, after an initial couple of hours of decompression (and sulking), they are out on their bikes exploring, playing football/badminton/manhunt, and generally being kids like we were in the 70’s/80’s. We are definitely GenX, not Xennial, Ms ZiYou.
MONTHLY UPDATE AND GOALS
Net Worth Update July 18 – £413,030.00
Assets – £713,030.00
Cash/bank <£1000.00
Main Home £400,000.00
Rental Properties £200,000.00
Pension SIPP £113,030
Liabilities – £300,000.00
Main Home Mortgage £100,000.00
Loans, Debts and credit cards £200,000.00
Net worth has gone down slightly since the last update due to the SIPP that has gone down by a couple of hundred quid. One good thing is that the dividends received seem to be increasing.
Dividends to date this tax year Apr to Aug 18/19 £621.38 (average/month of £124.28). The total for 17/18 tax year was £1083.68 (av/m £90.31)
I am in the process of simplifying the holdings in my SIPP as there are various funds and shares in there from pre-FI discovery.
We are still living week to week cashflow wise, and, as discussed in my last update, I was looking to sell one of my recently vacated rental properties to reduce debt and improve our cash flow.
Well, we accepted an offer on the property but after a couple of weeks the buyer suddenly pulled out, giving a lame excuse. The estate agent then told me that he had originally thought that they were timewasters – oh thanks.
Luckily, last week another offer has been made and accepted, so hopefully, this one will progress to completion. However, I am not raising my expectations too high, just in case!
Other Monthly/weekly goals
I probably was a bit ambitious in setting too many goals in last month’s update, so below is a brief outline of a couple of things achieved this month.
Saved on car insurance down from £283 to £154, plus cashback on top bringing it down to around £100, a saving of £180 ish. The optimum time to get renewal quotes for car insurance is 21 days before expiry according to MSE. Never auto-renew!
Haggled down FU#3’s mobile contract from £22/m (1gb data) to £12/m (4gb data) for a 12-month contract. We used this process as a learning exercise for the little Fu’s, as we rung the provider on speakerphone and let them listen in to us haggling a new contract. We told the provider we had looked elsewhere and could get 4gb for £12. At first, the provider said he could only offer us 99p discount (!) off our £22/m, but we said “Fine, give us our PAC code and we’ll be off then…as we said before, we can definitely get it for £12/m.” They replied, “Oh hang on. I’ll speak to my manager.” After a few seconds on hold, he came back on the line and said they would be able to match the offer after all. The kids loved it and learnt a good financial lesson.
eBay – we made £200 selling unwanted things this month. Still lots more to sell!
Matched betting – Pretty poor this month and still up and down on this, but have been inspired by thefirestarter’s posts on each way sniping, so I’m looking to increase this in August. With Premier League matches restarting after the summer break this week hopefully there’ll be some good deals at the bookies, too, as there was for the World Cup.
Probably the biggest win of the month was when our 15 yr. old daughter, Fu#2, exclaimed she wanted to become FI after we showed her the power of compound interest as explained in The Escape Artist’s post here. We were discussing what she should do with her Saturday job earnings and that she should invest a part of all future earnings, especially as she’s working some extra hours this summer. Mrs FU was very jealous when she produced a huge wad of cash to put into her bank account so it seems she’s pretty good at saving anyway. Jobs are great for children to have so that they can learn about money, getting along with people and the world of work in general – again, explained in TEA’s recent post here. Watch this space for an exciting future project in this area that me and Mrs Fu have been discussing with the homeschooled Little FUs #5 and #6.
That’s about it for this update, but I have been thinking about some new topics to write about, and that exciting new potential project that I will give more info on in September.
I find that your valuation of your properties is very rough – and it’s one thing to consider your main home as a home and not an asset and value it at the price you paid for it or a round steady figure – but you are in the business of investing your money in propoerty and I might have expected you to have a more detailed valuation.
Personally, I use the price I paid for my house indexed to the local HPI price and update that every 3 or so months to give a monthly figure for housing assets, equity, LTV etc…
It’s maybe a bit of a waste of time on my behalf, but I used it recently when remortgaging. The lender wanted to have the house valued and I didn’t want to take the time to show them around and to do the tidying up that civilised people do when a stranger is coming. 🙂 I pointed out that we had paid off 6% of our 75% LTV mortgage and that house prices has risen by 4% ergo our LTV is now 70% so give me the better deal without any hassle.
That’s not to say that one way is better than another just a comparison of different methods.
Hi GFF
Thanks for your comment.
I know the figures for the property valuations may look as though they are round figure guesses at first glance.I have valued our main home based on a recent valuation, less £50k to be conservative, done by a local estate agent who was selling/sold the house next door. The rental properties are based on what properties on the same street have sold for recently and what price/offer I have accepted to sell the current one, so I know that is an accurate market valuation.
I consider my home to be an asset as it is definitely in my plans to sell it as part of my FI plan.
Hi – good to see your update.
Here’s a question, that may be difficult to answer – do you track these figures at all? It seems you’ve rounded them all, and only updated the SIPP figures from last month. I know it might be too sensitive – but getting the exact figures each month could really help you. And I suspect the liabilities might changing in scope – mortgage should be decreasing and other borrowings may be decreasing/increasing?
Depending on where you are the housing market is changing a lot – London is going down according to Nationwide (but not Halifax). But others areas are seeing gradual increases. Similar to GFF I index my house to Nationwide (where my mortgage is). It’s not 100% and slightly undervalues my house (given I bought on the stamp duty border and have put in improvements) but it’s a good indicator nonetheless.
And your daughter sounds like she is on the right path – learning to save and invest at such a young age is a great start to life.
Hi Ms Ziyou
Yes, you’ve caught me. I’ll hold my hands up, I’ve been making everything up – no not really, only joking! 😉
I do track my figures. You are right though, I have rounded my figures up or down to the nearest thousand, that is why no real change has been shown in the debt figures this month. Generally for those items they are not accessible online and I only get yearly statements, hence I have not used exact figures and only near enough approximations. I hope to provide more accurate figure in future posts, but for now if asset figures and debt figures are within plus or minus £10k in total that is good enough for me. As my SIPP is online I can access that value instantly without any trouble, that is why I have used the exact figure in that instance.
Going forward I may start to use an index to track my house price as you and GFF suggest.
Yes its great that Fu#2 has shown some interest in FI as you can’t force these things onto them.
Thanks for commenting
Sounds like you’ve had a brilliant month! Great work on the car insurance and phone contract 🙂 It’s always worth keeping your eye on those regular expenses. I got an email update from the energy club from Money Saving Expert and I’m now in the process of moving my gas supply to a cheaper supplier for the third time in five years. That’s really cool that your daughter is already interested in FI, just keeping young people away from too much debt would be a win for me!
Thanks for your kind comments.
Got to keep those expenses down as you say.
Yes it would be great to keep them out of debt and avoid the mistakes I have made myself.
How fab that your daughter had been saving her earnings even before you had the FI talk. Although am sure she’s picked up on various discussions in the household previously. Neither of my daughters could hold onto their cash for 5 minutes at 15 so kudos to your daughter.
Look forward to hearing about the future project, am intrigued!
Yes, I thought that she’d spent her wages as she doesn’t get paid so much and I told her I’d save £5 a week for her in lieu of spending money. She mostly buys her own clothes now as well.
Thanks for popping by.
Well done on the ebay selling – I so need to get on that but never seem to get round to it.
And that’s great news about your daughter, firstly saving her own money and now wanting to aim for FI. 15 was about the age I stopped getting ‘handouts’ from my parents – we only got ‘pocket money’ from doing chores and helping out in the family business at weekends – school uniforms were still bought by mum but I was buying my own clothes too at that point so had to save my cash. I think I would have been highly sceptical of the concept of FI at the age of 15, unless a family member had achieved it.
All the best with the matched betting, hopefully the new football season will prove profitable for all of us!
Mrs Fu is the ebay expert so i can’t really take the credit.
Yes looking forward to the new season, we now have wifi at the caravan as well so may get a bit more chance at the weekends now I will be able to use my laptop.
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