January 2020 Savings Report
By Money Mage · · Frugality, SavingsI can’t believe it’s well into February already, where is 2020 going? We had a great start to the year, and I hope yous all had a great start to 2020 too!
January is one of those get-things-in-order months for many. Tax returns due. Planning for the year. Shedding Christmas bloat. Getting back into good habits.
Given my OCD & programmer-autism, I also thoroughly enjoyed the little bit of order that Sunday the 2nd of February 2020 brought.
The first palindromic date for over 900 years. 02022020 == 20200202. 02022020 is also Base 4 for 248.
Lovely… furiously rubs thighs like Vic Reeves.
With that little bit of order out of the way, let’s get into this months Savings Report. You can get them all the best of Money Mage
January 2020 Savings Rates
| Date | SR | SRp |
|---|---|---|
| January 2020 | 64.3% | 72.0% |
| December 2019 | 71.0% | 77.8% |
| November 2019 | 66.9% | 74.3% |
- SR = Savings Rate
- SRp = Savings Rate inc. Pension
Towards Financial Independence
Our Financial Independence number is quite conservative. This table shows the number of years to achieve Financial Independence in various cases.
| Date | FIh | FIp | FI |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 2020 | 4.2 | 12.5 | 17.5 |
| December 2019 | 4.3 | 12.6 | 17.6 |
| November 2019 | 4.7 | 12.9 | 17.6 |
- FIh = Years to FI based on Total Assets.
- FIp = Years to FI excluding the house, but including illiquid pensions.
- FI = Years to FI excluding the house and other illiquid assets.
All to plan. I am also increasing my contributions to my S&S ISA throughout 2020 to hopefully build a Liquid Bridge faster, which should bring down FIp and FI.
January 2020 Recap
January has been a pretty good start to the year.
We had a wee stay-at-home holiday! I had a couple of days holiday as carry-forward from 2019. We had a super-long-weekend over the last bit of January, which was awesome. We are both feeling super refreshed as January can be a bit of a cold, dark & miserable time in Scotland.
We’ve booked another wee break for the end of Q1. A cheap self-catering let. We’re going to stay on the edge of the Trossachs and Loch Lomond national park. It’s about a 70-minute drive from home. If I am honest, I think living so close to such beauty trumps the low cost of living. I am a fan of small, cheap holidays as you know. This year it looks like we may get in 5!
Ate too much through January also. The increased waistline is still there. At least it’s stable. We’re both going to cut down over the next couple of months.
I got some more free shares from Trading212 & Freetrade worth over £30! If you sign up to Trading212* you will get a free share in a global company worth up to £100. I also have a second free share worth up to £200 to give away from Freetrade* but you need to email me mm at moneymage.net to get that one. Doesn’t sound like much does it? You’d need £28K in a Marcus account for a year to earn that!
I’m now walking to work three days a week. It’s about a 25minute walk which is good for the health and mind. The other-MM has a bit of a disaster pending as the bus he gets to work is getting cancelled. We’ll figure that out through February.
I’ve received an effective 1% payrise as the firm I work for has increased matched pension contributions. I’m expecting a pay review in the next couple of months as well.
The other-MM has suggested he wants to join me in exercising. I’ve been running most weeks since 2017. These are words I never thought I would hear uttered. They certainly haven’t been uttered in the 18 years we’ve been together. Remember if you want to shed the weight, build a habit, not a fad.
Going Well
- Stress levels are way down. Job still isn’t bothering me. End of the project I am on is coming up in about 6 weeks. Ordinarily, I’d be working longer hours and thinking about work all evening. Not anymore. The change was totally worth it.
- Running. Back into running in January! I’ve been out pretty much every week in January, and some weeks more than once. Yay for Strava!
- Pension Contributions are going well. I salary sacrifice 20% of my salary, and the company now match 5%. With NI savings as well it should top 27%.
- Money Mage continues to go well.
- Reading! I’m back into reading. At least an hour most nights. This is really helping me wind down. I finished the first book* in the Confederation Series by Peter Hamilton. I am now onto the second, which is The Neutronium Alchemist*
Should do better
- On the drinking front, I’ve been pretty stone-cold sober throughout January. I think I’ve had two pints.
- Still eating a bit too much. We’ll both deal with this over the next couple of months.
- I took a little bit of a blog break for a couple of weeks in January. Had some content queued, and I just didn’t have the motivation. I was enjoying doing other things.
January 2020
January has been a pretty good month.
Month on Month net worth increased by 1.16%. This was a little lower as one of my pensions underperformed. It’s one that seems to be consistently underperforming. I’m probably going to take a look at why and look to get it out of the funds its in.
Year on Year is up a very healthy 23.28%. You can find more details in the review of 2019.
| Type | MoM% | YoY% |
|---|
I am really pleased with my increased S&S ISA contributions. I had a windfall from HMRC which went straight into my S&S ISA.
Asset Allocations
Here you can see asset allocations this month compared to January 2019.
Whilst equity exposure appears very low, all pensions are in global trackers funds. Investment in equities is almost solely via pensions. Although I am now also contributing to an S&S ISA via Vanguard LifeStrategy 80 and a small holding in Vanguard’s FTSE All-World High Dividend Yield $VHYL.
Lifetime
This chart shows our net worth growth since the other-MM started work and I graduated.
Net worth is growing well and as expected.
Whilst we’re mortgage free, and on the path, FI let alone FIRE still seems a very long way away. Subscribe now and follow me on Twitter @moneymagery. I hope you like the charts, I am a fan of Tufte*.
How is your journey to FI going?
