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.
The losses continue coming from last month; I lost a total of £1657 from depreciating assets in my pension and ISA.
This actually lines up quite nicely as I’ve upped my ISA contributions for November so I’ll be getting stocks whilst they’re cheap!
However, it doesn’t bode well for hitting my 100k invested target by the end of 2019. Even with my increased ISA contributions for the next couple of months, I’ll need some serious stock growth to hit that target, and at this rate, it’s looking to drop further - but fingers crossed for growth.
My alt-investments actually grew this month! Not thanks to Property Partner , but thanks to TESLA. As I’m sure a lot of you read in the news, when Elon announced a very profitable quarter, TESLA stock rose by almost 20%! Half of my alt-investments are held in TESLA stock so I saw a nice 10% growth.
Other News
After my wedding and honeymoon, I’ve really just got the long slog down the road to FI ahead of me. The numbers are growing quickly, and there is a lot to look forward to in the coming years, I just want to get to where I’m going now.
I want to work on my own projects, I want to live on a Ranch in a different country, or at least be in a different country, I really don’t want to be stuck in my current work routine for the next 5 odd years.
A lot of people would argue that I should stop deferring and do some of the things that make me happy now, but it’s hard. A lot of my passion projects require tons of learning and dedication, like building a video game.
As I’m finding out with trying to deeply study for upcoming interviews, there’s only so much brain time you can commit to when you’re working full time. I’m struggling to even contribute a few hours a week to my studying; if I tried to make a video game as well (or instead of), I just wouldn’t enjoy it.
I keep saying to myself that I’ll just get to the next goal, then reevaluate. At least all of this saving will give me options in the future, whichever route I go down.
Blogging
Relating to my previous rant, I also have a lot I want to change about SavingNinja. It was actually one of my goals for 2019 to re-build the website but I just haven’t had enough time!
To remedy this I’ve had a chat with Mrs SavingNinja, and she’s got a few post ideas that would be a great addition to the blog. So I’ll be handing the reins over to her at some point to entertain you guys whilst I focus on restructuring the theme of SavingNinja. I’ll also be working on a dedicated email series to give a little something back to my subscribers.
Mrs SavingNinja’s passion is actually English Literature (it’s also her profession), I have her to thank for my love of reading and writing. She also reviews every single SavingNinja post! So you’ll be in good hands :)
Interview training
Wow, I was full of such invigoration whilst writing my last post about my studious journey. Unfortunately, I’m not learning as quickly as I thought I would be. I’ve not yet had a go at any complicated algorithms (although I have a whiteboard up in my living room) and I’ve not learned much about data structures.
I have learned a lot about Big O Notation as it’s the first section of the book I’m reading . I made flashcards and did some external investigation. I think I have a pretty good grasp of the concept, so I guess I’ve made some progress.
I really would like to drastically improve the rate at which I’m learning. I have only got until June-ish until I said I’d be applying to these big hitters, which isn’t all of the time in the world, it’s just so hard to get the motivation after I’ve spent the whole day programming.-must try harder.