I published the net worth of FU#1, our 1st of six children, in October 2020 here, so time for another update on his progress.
Last time he had just started a new job after being made redundant from the company he served his apprenticeship with.
He is still enjoying his new job and has been working from home since the last update, and has still to meet his colleagues in person!
The job is better money and has more opportunity for professional development towards his future career. So, overall, being made redundant from his first job has turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
As lockdown has eased he has started to meet up with friends again so that is a good thing for him now as well.
Fire Plan
He continues to follow the strategy of investing 50% of his net income in LISAs and ISAs, and we transferred his last AE pension into his SIPP.
He has been enrolled into a new works pension at his new company, and also has the opportunity to contribute to a Sharesave scheme. I do not know much about sharesave schemes so I will have to research it to see if it is any good. Any advice is welcome.
Net Worth
April ’21 Net Worth £33,168 – LISA £20,871, ISA/Cash £9,988, AE pen TBA, SIPP £2,309
Sept ’20 Net worth £22,633 – LISA £15,794, ISA £4,716, AE pen £1,846, SIPP £277
June ’20 Net worth £18,034 – LISA £12,814, ISA £3,591, AE pen £1,367, SIPP £262
Feb ’20 Net worth £15,512 – LISA £11,665, ISA £2,535, AE pension £1,030, SIPP £281
Net worth is up £10.5k in six months from September ’20, just under a 50% increase, and he is bang on track with his projected figures.
As mentioned above any tips or potential pitfalls to watch out for with Sharesave schemes would be much appreciated.
Take as much Sharesave as you can, they are a great offer!
Usually you get to buy shares at a discount to the current price and any gains are tax free!
Sharesave is quite good, if you intend to stay with the company for the duration. 5 year share save is much worse than 3 year for this reason. If you quit before sharesave matures, you get the cash back. If you get fired, you can usually stay in the scheme.
If the stock goes down by more than the initial discount(usually ~25%), Sharesave is effectively a bank account. If it goes up, you’ll usually have to spend ~50£ for exercising the options and selling them.
On the maximum, 500£ a month sharesave (and most companies offer less, something like £300), the final book value is £18k. Let’s assume the shares double compared to the option price -> you have £18k capital gains (and £36k value), which is more than the allowance. But you don’t have to realize all the capital gains in a single tax year, and can put part of the shares directly into an S&S ISA or SIPP, and not pay CGT on those. If the shares go up more, you might have pay CGT to lock in the gains, but the tax tail really shouldn’t wag the investment dog on such high returns.
Reference: https://www.gov.uk/tax-employee-share-schemes/save-as-you-earn-saye