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


We had another good month of stock market growth, with my funds increasing by roughly 2.5%.

I wonder if we’ll see this growth rise further as the world starts to gets back to normal?

The stock markets levels are already above what they were when we crashed back in March.

I just missed my 200k net worth goal for 2020, boo! But back in July I did sell £8,224 of my Tesla stocks. This cash is still waiting to be reinvested (as part of our Swedish house purchase,) so we will see this re-enter the SavingNinja portfolio as ‘House Equity’ very soon. So maybe I kind of did hit it?

I’m still unsure if I should have a cash section in the spreadsheet, as normally I wouldn’t like to hold very much of it above my normal emergency fund, I also don’t want my normal spending to effect my investment savings reports.

Other News

The SavingNinja family finally got back on the snow over Christmas in northern Sweden. We had fun snowboarding on our new boards , the weather was pretty cold and windy, but Åre really was a winter wonderland.

We’re hoping to get our again in early March!

The trip cost us £763 each for an 8 night stay with 8 days on the slopes, which I think was a pretty good deal as Åre is notorious for being expensive. Here are the cost breakdowns:

  • £850 for 8 nights in an AirBnB with a kitchen, it was right next to the slope (ski in, ski out.)
  • £215 for two return train tickets in first-class (we treated ourselves as it was a 7 hour journey!)
  • £462 for two 8-day lift passes.
  • We cooked and bought booze as we normally would have at home, with one restaurant visit as a treat. (There is nothing like bringing a hip flask of peppermint schnapps up the mountain with you!)

Even though I think that we got a good deal, this was still £1,526 between us which we could have invested in the stock market. It’s still a hard pill to swallow. The cost of lift passes are just crazy, maybe we’ll have to start hiking up the mountain. Although, maybe we should be making the most of it now before we have kids?

Blogging

The site seems to be working pretty well on the Google Developer Console free-tier. I’ll continue to monitor it for a couple more months and if it is still free, I’ll write a guide on how to set up your blogs as well.

I’ve been meaning to update my theme for the last couple of years, I hope 2021 will finally be the year that I get that done!

Sweden

We’ve been here now for 5 months, it is still not really feeling like home. We have committed to staying here for a minimum of 3 years though! And we’re still looking for our first Swedish house to purchase, maybe we’ll start to feel a little more comfortable when we move out of a flat?

I’m also still on my probation at work for 1 more month, even though I’m sure that I’ll pass, there is always a thought at the back of your head whispering that you won’t, so it will be a relief when the first 6 months are over.

It’s still like COVID isn’t really happening over here, although we’ve never experienced life in Sweden pre-pandemic. We still got to go on holiday, everything is still open, the only thing which is frustrating is that my workplace office is still shut.

It helps that we don’t have live TV either, there isn’t much COVID coverage on Netflix :)


2020 reviewed is coming up soon! As well as a new set of graphs, the savings spreadsheet will also become international to support my new multi-currency portfolio. I’m planning to have the option to input an array of different currencies and have the spreadsheet automatically look up the exchange rate and convert it into dollars.

How was your Christmas?