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.

Click here to see all of my past Savings Reports and view my interactive net worth chart

In March I recorded the biggest loss since I began investing.

My portfolio dropped by a staggering £13,613 in a single month, about -13.35%.

The total gain on book cost in January stood at a healthy £9,866 and now it is negative £12,167.

As it’s only been a short amount of time since I began investing, with a huge ramp-up just before COVID-19 wrecked the stock market, I haven’t had time to earn prior stock gains so my total portfolio is seriously in the red.

I still believe that in my position, a bear market is a good thing (unless we begin a 10-year-long great depression) so I’ve ramped up my contributions and will continue to do so.

I increased my salary sacrifice slightly in March and deposited £5,239 before tax, I also added an additional £2,000 into my ISA. This bought me to the first year that I’ve ever maxed my SIPP and ISA allowances…

This would call for a celebration if it didn’t happen at the WORST time possible. As I was rushing to max my ISA and pension before the end of the tax year I ended up contributing £28,000 in the 4 months leading up to the COVID bear market. That’s absolutely decimated my total interest earned as most of my savings were made right before the drop.

To try and balance out my heavy savings at the peak, I’m going to continue saving heavily. I hope to increase my ISA contributions to £3,000 this month and leave my pension contributions at around £5,300.

This month I also invested £1,000 into Freetrade but it’s currently sitting in cash. I did this as I wanted to buy more Tesla stocks if they fall below £350; I see my ‘Other Investments’ section as a fun-fund and I’m going to try and time the market!

So far, my heavy contributions have managed to keep me above £100k invested. But another fall like this month would probably see me dip below this milestone.

Other News

COVID-19 has seemed to put a halt on everything, this month has really shown that and I’ve started to become a little frustrated. I’m not worried about financial loss, I know that with continuing to contribute, I can hopefully mitigate my net worth decline. But what I am worried about is the lack of progression.

This year was meant to be a pivotal one for progression . I’d finally begun to feel happy with where I was in life; we’d decided to go on more holidays and increase our happiness over the next two years; my goal was to climb the career ladder and find a new job, my wife had dreams of beginning a new career in London and had attended her first successful interview, which she aced…

Then COVID-19 hit and stopped everything. My wife’s potential London employer withdrew, it will be much harder for me to progress my career, and it looks like we’ll be going on no holidays this year.

There’s still no light at the end of the tunnel as to when we can get back on track, and for me that’s terrifying. With my fast-paced and analytical brain, I hate the thought of losing a year or two to stagnation; of staying in my ‘pre-FI’ life for longer; of freezing in time.

I’m starting to get in the depressive slumps again…

Maybe that’s because I forgot to take my cod liver oil tablets for the past two days?

Blogging

Yes, I’ve been absolutely terrible. I had pretty bad writers’ block before the COVID outbreak, now the will has gone completely. There just seems nothing worth writing about when this is the only thing on everyone’s mind.

Not only that; I got my best writing done on the train to work, which is of course not happening right now.

I feel that there’s going to be a few more diary entry months before I can get back to any quality content. I’ll focus on apps and interview training until I get out of this funk!

Coronavirus

Myself and my family (even the ones in Italy) are all OK. Luckily, we’ve all kept our jobs as well. I’ve actually been working over the weekend as there is so much support needed for COVID-19 programming, I’ve not worked this hard for a long time!

I should have been Snowboarding during Easter. I think that being cancelled is one of the main reasons that I’m down as it was my first foray into ‘happiness-first.’

We did get all of our money back for the flights, AirBnB and trains - so I guess we’ve got more to invest!

How are you coping?