100k challenge: To be achieved before August 2013

amistupid

lvm wrote: »

How exactly are you intending on saving £100k in 18 months? About £5k a month!

Do you have a plan?

'A very cunning plan.'

Obbeg wrote: »

Invest £15,000 in Gold & Silver and you will have £100,000 in 1 year.

Pigs might fly.

WorkSavePartayy

amistupid wrote: »

Unlucky old chap I've just made 73% paper profit on one in the last six weeks.

LON:XEL by any chance?

WorkSavePartayy

Right time for a quick update...

I have managed to add 3k to my savings account in the past few weeks so now have a total of £12,000 saved. There has been no significant movement with my investments. Due to me being at camp I have only spent $100 on the last 3 weeks but will owe rent money of $400 when I am back in Perth. No other outgoings.

I will be booking a holiday soon to meet up with my sister in Thailand or Malaysia in the summer so that might cut into a bit of my savings but I will not have seen her in 6 months so am dead excited about it!!

Just worked out I have 505 days to get to £100k £12k down 88 to go!

MoneySaverLog

That's a massive target, one I set myself some years back through spreadbetting, I was going to make 10% a month, it's easy anyone can do it heck they even run seminars that charge thousands to learn how to trade. You then start trading for real, and it goes against you. It's personal and you try to win your losses back. Well I lost my shirt on that crap and went into insolvency. Please don't make the same mistake.

Having come out the other side though, my goal now is still the same, but instead of having unrealistic timeframes I've gone for the 5-7 year approach using security of savings rather than using risky investments or even riskier spreadbetting shares, markets and fx.

agent69

If you have a job that allows you to save £5k a month, the obvious question is why would you rush to return to UK?

atush

WorkSavePartayy wrote: »

It was mainly small cap oil and mining companies that cost me big time. A bit of spread betting too. Lesson learnt though from now on I will only be investing in blue chips but not now as the markets are very volatile.

Volatilty is good for picking up bargains as the whole market drops. I'd be (and have been) buying Blue Chips paying good divs on the drops.

And if you don't reach your target can you stay an extra 6 months?

WorkSavePartayy

MoneySaverLog wrote: »

That's a massive target, one I set myself some years back through spreadbetting, I was going to make 10% a month, it's easy anyone can do it heck they even run seminars that charge thousands to learn how to trade. You then start trading for real, and it goes against you. It's personal and you try to win your losses back. Well I lost my shirt on that crap and went into insolvency. Please don't make the same mistake.

Having come out the other side though, my goal now is still the same, but instead of having unrealistic timeframes I've gone for the 5-7 year approach using security of savings rather than using risky investments or even riskier spreadbetting shares, markets and fx.

Thanks for sharing that with me, makes you realise how high risk spread betting can be. I thought I could crush it but lost a few thousand in a week being very reckless. I don't think spread betting is something that particularly suits my personality so I will not be doing it anymore.

WorkSavePartayy

agent69 wrote: »

If you have a job that allows you to save £5k a month, the obvious question is why would you rush to return to UK?

Simple answer really, I work 84 hour weeks in the middle of the outback. Not much of a life for the weeks that I'm up here, also all of my friends and family are back in the UK and I don't want to miss out on my life back home. It's been over 40 degrees for the last 6 days... 39 max tomorrow though!

WorkSavePartayy

atush wrote: »

Volatilty is good for picking up bargains as the whole market drops. I'd be (and have been) buying Blue Chips paying good divs on the drops.

And if you don't reach your target can you stay an extra 6 months?

Extending my visa would require me to get sponsored by a company, I know plenty of people who have done it so I'm sure I could without too much fuss yes. As mentioned above I don't really want to stay longer than the mentioned time period as I want to return to my life in the UK but depending on the job/ salary I'm on I might stay longer.

Thanks for the share advice btw

VT82

It doesn't seem like anyone has mentioned the main considerations when you have a specific goal like this:

• If you are wanting your currency in sterling, you are taking a view on currency exchange rates by not transferring it into sterling once you get it (and if you are getting 5.75% on your savings, you aren't saving in sterling). It would at the least give you some averageing of the exchange rate over the term you are saving.
• If you are wanting your capital back in a time frame of under a few years, you should be holding practically 100% cash, rather than having any equities.

I'm not saying you would be better off by following the above advice, just that it is the conventional wisdom to reduce uncertainty in your return. However, I guess that pre-supposes that you are making regular contributions to the pot, which it doesn't sound like you are.

Good luck anyhow.