Changing digs and coming out of my cave... for a wee while atleast :)

beanielou

Fab post El xx

edinburgher

Don't suppose you did any share shopping today El?

elantan

Karmacat wrote: »

That is a great post! And there's obviously some more thinking to be done, I didn't realise I was doing the wishing my life away thing at one stage, so its great you've copped to it - how can you sort it? Or make some steps to it, anyway ?

It has been an interesting time in many ways KC we are now conscientiously recognising when we are doing it acknowledging it and then bringing ourselves into good things like the present ... something like " oh i cant wait till we retire so that we can cozy up in front of the fire" to " oh i cant wait till we retire so we can cozy up in front of the fire but you know what we can do that right now yeah not for as long but hey we can still manage it" that type of thing.

We've recognised its a time issue more than anything, we just never have the time, so we need to simplify our lives even more, and there was me thinking we had simplified our lives already :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

elantan

edinburgher wrote: »

Don't suppose you did any share shopping today El?

I'm back on the funds just now Ed but yep 20th saw me buying some

Have set a couple of alerts though for various shares ... well you never know lol

edinburgher

Me too, dribs and drabs into bond funds to take the sting out of pension peaks and troughs. Response to EU seems a bit muted, but after yesterday's leaps I suppose I shouldn't grumble.

elantan

So I got my first sets of results, I did well, one part was an A the rest B's I am happy with it and hope it continues in that vein I didn't mention on the book of faces my results as there are a few people I have on there that didn't pass and I felt it would be rubbing it in their faces, however I went to uni yesterday and it appears that some other students didnt feel the same need to of respect for their fellow student, one in particular was so irritating that when he asked me what I got I replied " oh a pass" he then said oh I got 62% spose you should be happy with a pass eh , to which I replied " yep" then he said " so you gonna tell me how much of a pass then?" he was saying this loudly so that everyone could hear, and I was getting more and more angry as i knew there were several that had failed and I could feel their pain, eventually I couldn't take it anymore and replied " look I got a pass, I got higher marks than you but I am more interested in getting all of our class a pass so would rather spend my energy helping them " got up and did a diva spin and walked away, the room fell silent for a minute then soon went back to normal. After a while several of the people I knew that had failed came up to me and thanked me as they were really worried about their failing and were feeling stupid especially with him going on and on the way he was.

So we have a wee group formed getting these people the passes they need to carry on with the course, one that i hope will develop and continue as we go through the course as I know there will be plenty of times when I need help.

After that we did another assessment, I got high marks and compliments ... apparently I am a caring person that has a good understanding of the role I am training for, that was very nice to hear and gave me a wee boost.

In financial news money is tight, there's nothing new in this and it is how we expect it to be until atleast I have qualified and started earning a good wage. Part of me finds this exciting, I seem to enjoy solving problems, messing about with numbers and things so part of me enjoys these challenges, part of me is scared as there is always the impending how will we manage hanging over our heads.

The biggest part of me thinks, if we can manage just now when things are so tight then when I qualify not only will our life be easier but we will also manage to save more money for early retirement.

Sheesh more deep thinking for today ... need to lighten it up a bit I think lol

elantan

edinburgher wrote: »

Me too, dribs and drabs into bond funds to take the sting out of pension peaks and troughs. Response to EU seems a bit muted, but after yesterday's leaps I suppose I shouldn't grumble.

Are bonds a good thing to get into just now Ed? with the current financial state of the world I was not so sure tbh ... Greece for example and from what i understand people are buying up Spanish bonds ? Then there is the QE plan for Europe ?

edinburgher

Well, there's two parts to this. The first (the bit I don't even want to think about) is what happens when the stimulus ends. At some point, all the extra world GDPs of imaginary money will need to end and the debt will need to be unwound. That will trash the value of everyone's investments, which is part of why governments are fighting to avoid a hard(er) landing.

But then there's the short-medium term, which could probably see them kicking the can down the road for another 5 years and keeping the bubble inflated. This is the part of the journey that I'm thinking about. Short of sitting on cash, I pretty much have to accept that everything is overpriced and just stick to my asset allocations.

If stocks go up, the sorts of bonds that I'm buying will go down, hence grabbing opportunities to top up bonds. The fund I use is all investment grade, so the woes of less successful economies hopefully don't invalidate my approach.

elantan

what bonds are you looking at Ed? i have heard a lot of people say UK bonds are the safest ... however, i am not so sure ... the UK is in a huge mess financially, much worse than a lot of people understand, so didnt want to risk my money there if that makes sense ?

edinburgher

Main fund is VANGUARD INV SER GLOBAL BOND IDX HGD GBP ACC.

I went for the dead high tech approach of saying to myself 'who do Vanguard invest the bond components of the LifeStrategy funds with?' and going for that. I also hold some investment grade corporate bonds.