This is a Saving Ninja savings report. Go to How To Track Your Savings to check out the Saving Ninja Super Spreadsheet. Please note that I split my expenses equally with my partner and the savings rate, house equity and house value represent my share only. The spreadsheet calculates my savings rate based off £12,000 worth of expenses per year, even though my expenses are actually Less Than 10k Per Year . This is to create a buffer; I’m aiming for at least 12k to reach financial independence.

Oooo, things are starting to get pretty exciting!

I’ve crossed the £50k invested barrier! Mini goal achieved!? It actually now sits at £51,492 which is awesome. It’s getting ever so closer to that six number figure.

My ‘Years to FI’ number has gone down normally by only 1 month and now sits at 4.1 years, it will reach below 4 years soon!

Interest is still climbing healthily, earning £531 in total this month which is over 1% change. I don’t expect this to continue each month and with the Brexit uncertainties, this will be all over the place over the next year.

My pension contributions have also gone up slightly by £79 to £2,579, this is due to an automatic pay rise at work at the end of the year. It went up automatically as it’s set to a percentage of my salary. I’ll be reviewing my contributions again in a couple of months and I’ll probably up my ISA and pension contributions.

Gotta keep on sloggin’! Only 3 more Savings Reports until I’ve done a whole 12, has it been that long all ready!?

Other Thoughts

This month has been a rollercoaster of highs and lows. It started off with a very profitable Cheltenham festival (see profits below) but was followed by lots of lows with having my betting account banned (again) and going through stints of boredom!

I feel like I’m now just waiting for my wedding. It’s only a few months away so it’s too soon to not think about but it’s a long enough time to be seeming like it’s dragging on! I’m also pretty nervous about the actual process. I’m quite a socially anxious person so the prospect of standing up in front of a load of people and “performing” doesn’t sit well with me. My partner on the other hand is very outgoing and is purely excited. Is it normal for me to be filled more with more nerves than excitement?

I’ve also done some serious thinking about my future this month, it’s all been written down in a post which will be coming out next week but the conclusion of it was that I’m definitely going to be beginning contracting after I get back from my honeymoon. I know that it’s probably not the best time to begin due to IR35 and Brexit but I may as well try -  I can always go back into a permanent position if everything else fails!

Contracting should allow me to hit my pension and ISA yearly limits so my savings amount should go up to around 60k form 40k. I ran some compound interest calculations and it seems that if I started contributing this amount at the end of the year, I should hit £1 million at the age of 37. Of course I would probably quit or go part time before then, but it’s pretty exciting nonetheless!

The latest Thought Experiment is also coming out on the 15th of this month. I’ve switched to a bi-monthly schedule for these, so they’ll be an announcement for the upcoming thought experiment one month on the 15th and on the next 15th will be the release of that Thought Experiment. So after the release of one, you’ll have 1 month until another is announced, then 1 month to prepare your posts. There was some confusion about this after the change as Gentleman Family Finances rushed to get his post out on the same day that I sent out the Tweet ( admirable!)

All Aboard the Money Train…!

This month was the month of the Cheltenham horse racing festival and I had a really successful month. Here is my daily profit/loss from my matched betting spreadsheet .

I made over £5400 in under 2 weeks! All tax-free. It’s times like this when I think why the hell am I going to work every day and earning much less? Remember that you could have also won this £5400 like the other thousands of people making tax-free income with matched betting.

Head over to the Full Matched Betting Guide if you want to find out how. Or How to Earn £30 in 10 Minutes if you’re still not sold on the idea.

I’m going to continue with EW betting but I’ll also be upping my casino offers as I still have to write out the casino section of the guide , so stay tuned for that.

How was your month?