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.

I have 100k invested in the stock market!!! I wasn’t sure that we were going to make it as I needed some investment growth for two months in a row to hit 6-figures before the end of 2019. The growth was in fact so good that it was overshot by almost 4k.

Along with my second ISA-filling month of contributing £4500 into my S&S ISA, £2737 was also earned by investment gains; £581 from Tesla (the ‘Other Investments’ section) alone!

This was the first month ever that my monthly change in net-worth has grown by over £10k.

I’ve been waiting to reach this 6-figure goal ever since I wrote Being Rich Has Nothing to do With Your Salary all the way back in August 2018 when I only had 25k invested .

I had already started to feel more inclined to spend money on increasing my happiness as the 100k goal grew closer; I’ve vowed to go on a snowboarding holiday at least once a year from now on. A week in Switzerland has been booked for April, and just having it in the calendar has increased my happiness levels immensely as I’m looking forward to it so much.

My ‘years to FI’ figure has dropped by a couple of months to 2 years and 8 months which would make me 30 years old, although, I’ve set myself a stretch goal of achieving my FI figure of £300k before the age of 30 which means I’ll have to decrease my ‘years to FI’ number by 8 months.

My savings will be increased in 2020 as I’m hoping to fill my ISA and pension pots by the annual allowance (for the first time ever), so this should knock off some months.

I’ve actually increased my salary sacrifice at work to 75% in the hopes of reaching the 40k annual pension allowance by April. This will see me pay zero tax or student loan payments for 4 months (woo!)

The untaxed 25% of my salary is enough to cover my expenses, but I’ll be using my cash savings to continue to pay £1k per month into my ISA - I’m also expecting a small bonus in February which should help tide me over into the new tax year.

Other News

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and didn’t spend too much money on gifts and booze. This year has been a very special one for the Ninja family as we finally tied the knot and got married and our savings rates have never been better at 82.35% for me and 60% for Mrs SavingNinja (we keep our finances separate ).

2020 should be the year where Mrs SavingNinja opens her own ISA as she’s now got a hefty emergency fund which she’s built up whilst still contributing a lot into her pension.

We’ll be discussing our future goals in the upcoming 2019 Reviewed post; 2020 is bound to be an exciting year and I can’t wait for it to begin!

School

Last month I talked about the decision to enroll in a Computer Science Masters degree course. Upon thinking about this a little more, I’ve decided to postpone the degree and instead take a paid Udacity ‘specialisation’ course on Algorithms whilst I apply to FAANG companies.

The main reason that I decided to postpone the degree was that upon further pondering, I realised a big part of its allure was to help with FAANG potential and in-turn moving to the USA; if I were already working at one of these companies, or living in the USA, I probably wouldn’t pick up an MA just yet.

Also, the Algorithms section of the degree probably wouldn’t have been taken in the first or even second year and this is the main course that would have helped with my interviews.

Considering these things, it made sense to take an interview-centric learning path in the beginning - even if I had to pay a little (I think it’s £49 per month for the Udacity specialisation) - and apply to these companies first to see where I stand. I can then re-evaluate taking the MA next year.

Upcoming

I’ve been light with the details of how my finances have changed in 2019 as next week will be the release of the ‘2019 Reviewed’ post which will see the analysis of 2019 and the predictions for 2020.

I’ve also got a couple of exciting announcements to make in January for new tools that I’ve created and developed *hint* to help fast-track our financial independence goals whilst working together!