December ’21 – Net Worth and monthly update #41 £828,958 (+£29,690) 110% FI

We’ve got to the end of another year, hope you’ve all had a nice Christmas break.

We had a good time over the holidays, hosting family parties, having a couple of meals out, and attending a concert in Manchester with an overnight stay thrown in for good measure.  We’ve piled on the pounds in more ways than one, so me and Mrs Fu are back on a diet and no booze for January.

The past 12 months have again been great financially for us, with our net worth increasing by over £176k. The value of our assets has amazingly now breached the £1m mark, but I don’t think yet I can claim to have joined the double comma club, so we will continue with the same strategy of keep paying into our SIPPs, paying down debt, and maybe trying to add another property to my BTLs.

Who knows what the coming year holds for the markets and property prices, so it is nice to be building a buffer in case there is a large pullback, but for now the bull run continues. Rising inflation looks to be one of the main issues, with energy prices, food costs and tax rises all adding to the everyday cost of living.

One item I can’t get out of my mind recently is the amount of equity now built up in our main home. I feel like now is the time to sell to free the money up so I can put it to work in a more productive way, especially if house price gains start to slow down in the near term.

We’ll see what happens in the coming months.

The Numbers

Original FI Target  – £1.25m –  to give £50k/year income @ 4% withdrawal rate.

Current FI value – £828k networth+ £466k (2xState pen £18.6k x 25) + £88k (DB pen £3.5k x 25)) = £1.383m

% to Target FI – 110.7% (108.3% last month)

Time to FI =  Achieved! (achieved-April 21)

 

MONTHLY UPDATE AND GOALS

Last months figures in brackets

Net Worth Dec ’21 – £828,958  (Nov ’21 £799,268) +3.7% +£29,690

 

Assets – £1,017,973  (£989,144) +2.9%  +£28,859

Cash/bank £7362 (£7402)

Main Home Q4 £490,731 (Q3 £477,066) +2.9% +£13,665

Rental Properties Q4 £202,426 (Q3 £196,790) +2.9% +£5,636

Pension SIPP £317,454 (£307,856) +3.1%  +£9,598

 

Liabilities – £189,015 (£189,846) -0.4%  -£831

Main Home Mortgage £80,450 (£80,800)

Loans, Debts and credit cards £108,565 (£109,046)

 

Overall Net Worth in December increased by £29k, due to increasing property prices and rising SIPP values.

Rolling year on year change in net worth from December ’20 is +£176,537 (assets +£150,443 , liabilities -£26,094)

Since we began tracking in June ’18, our net worth has increased by £414k, at an average of £9.8k per month.

 

Property

My house price YOY change +11.24%. (Q4 2020 – Q4 2021 NW England)

The Equity in my main home is £410,281.

Main home and rental property values are calculated using the Nationwide House price index.

Nationwide’s December ’21 update reports annual house price growth remains in double digits. The outlook still remains uncertain with a possible slowing of growth.

The UK annual % change in house prices is +10.4%, with a UK average house price of £254k.

 

Dividends

SIPP Dividends paid in December were £727.

Dividends Dec 21 YTD total £7383,  Av. £615m   (Dec 20 ytd £5942,  Dec 19 ytd £2319)

(Yearly totals –   2016 £425,  2017 £911,  2018 £1306,  2019 £2319, 2020 £5942)

 

Other Monthly/weekly goals

Matched Betting  +£29 this month (-£32 last month)

We are still mainly doing casino offers with a little normal match betting.

Total to date since starting 50m ago £13272 Av. £265/m (£13243 to last month Av. 270/m), broken down as follows.

Casino/slot offers to date £6394(6396) = -£2 this month

Each way sniping to date £625 (£625) = £0 this month

Normal match betting offers +£31 this month

 

Diet and Fitness

Ballooned to 78kg and 22% body fat due to partying. (74kg, 19% body fat last month).

Haven’t been able to train either as I cracked my ribs playing football, and have been in pain with them for the past 3 weeks, so it will probably be another couple of weeks before I start training again.

My target is to get to 70kg and/or under 15% body fat.

 

eBay/selling – Sold a couple of items from last months casino win and some other bits so Mrs Fu made about £400.

 

Any comments/questions always welcome

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6 Responses to December ’21 – Net Worth and monthly update #41 £828,958 (+£29,690) 110% FI

  1. weenie says:

    Happy new year! A great set of results, all looking great and all the best with what you decide house-wise. Although you’ll need to consider where to live as your kids are still at home so might you have to wait until a couple of them have moved out?

    • FU MON CHU says:

      Thanks, HNY to you as well.

      Yes, a lot to think about with the house. Might look to get FU#1 on the housing ladder as he now has a decent deposit saved in his LISA, so that’s 1 less bedroom! For us, thinking maybe look for something to add a couple of bedrooms to, and maybe rent for 12 months while I do the work.

  2. GreyArea says:

    Thanks for the update and an interesting blog!

    I do have a question as to how being 110%-financially-independent actually works in practice (for example, if you could no longer work) with the access ages for the pensions?

    You’ve got debts of £189k, so assume you pay these off by selling your rental properties (+ some selling costs). The properties are accounted for in your FI calculations as 4% * sale value, and I’m going to assume your overall interest rate on the debt is above/around 4%, given some low interest mortgage debt and higher interest credit card debt.

    If you downsized to an averagely-priced house (costing £288k) you’d have £202k of money to invest. However, 50k/year withdrawal gives a withdrawal rate of 25%.

    Once you get to age 55, that then gives around £430k of SIPP (assuming 7% growth from now), which only supports 50k/year withdrawal using a withdrawal rate of 11.5%, almost triple the ‘safe’ rate of 4%.

    With a state pension age of 67, there’s more than a decade of just-the-SIPP at the above rate of 11.5% before you get there?

    (There’s the DB pension happening sometime, but the calculations look pretty much the same with a requirement for a £46.5k income vs a £50k one)

    • FU MON CHU says:

      Hi greyarea.

      It is quite complicated, and I did a post on my decumulation plan here, .

      Obviously, the above assumes that I do not retire until I can access my SIPP at 55, in 3.5 years time.

      If, as you say, I could no longer work from this point on, it does need a bit more thinking about.

      Without spending too much time on it, it may look like this:-

      Keep rental properties – Rent £25k/year

      Downsize house or release equity – say 100k released – £25k/year for 4years

      If SIPP is at 430k when can be accessed, only 22k/yr is needed as rentals and DB pension pay the other 28k, then the withdrawal rate on that is only 5% (22k/440k) until I can claim state pension.

      That may work?

      Thanks for the comment, very thought provoking

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