Take a peek at my hand?

Apodemus

Just because it has all become tame doesn’t mean it’s dull, so please keep posting the quarterly updates!

Ray_Singh-Blue

Update #19 Q3 2019

Confession time.

I like toys and gadgets. Especially when they relate to running and cycling.

Within the last 24 months I recently bought: one pair of Garmin powermeter pedals, one Garmin bike computer, one new Garmin GPS watch, another Garmin GPS watch for my wife, and another Garmin GPS watch for my son. That's around £1300 of Garmin gizmos right there.

In my running club, everyone is wearing a Garmin on their wrist. And the club is getting bigger all the time. Even one of my colleagues - who as far as I know runs no further than the kettle - now sports a Forerunner 235 GPS watch around the office.

Enough! I just went out and bought £5k of Garmin Shares. My first punch of the investment scorecard in 2 years.

So the portfolio now looks like this:

VWRL £133K - the passive core
Cash £100K - ballast
Garmin £5K - an old habit dying hard

The balance sheet says: Investments £238K, mortgage £283K

Thanks for reading, as always.

Ray

bowlhead99

Out of curiosity I looked at the Wisdom Tree (Bloomberg Aluminium Subindex) ETF's NAV history from 31/12/14 to now. The dollar price of Aluminium is down, though a dollar has gone from being worth 64p to 81p, pretty much covering the dollar loss that would have been made by holding it over the last 4.75 years and paying the running costs without ever getting any dividends. So if you had hung on until today, you may not have lost any more than you had already lost by December '14. Aside from the opportunity cost of not investing in some more productive asset or interest-bearing cash

Really the best and only time to hold an Alum ETC as a speculator would have been the two week period from 4 May 2018 when it spiked up in value by 26% before plummeting again at a similar pace. Hindsight is 20:20 and all that.

Good luck with Garmin - up 12% in two months and about 40% in just over 11 months - what could possibly go wrong

Ray_Singh-Blue

Update #20 Q4 2019

This thread is now 5 years old. The finish line - where investments match mortgage - is in sight.

Mortgage outstanding: £278K
Investments: £257K
Difference: £21K

It has been quite a good year for equities, which now account for 59% of my portfolio. (The rest is fixed rate cash). The rising tide has floated all four of my boats.

VWRL +14%
Garmin + 12%
Nike +7%
HSBC GLOBAL AM UK FTSE ALL WLD IDX C ACC NAV (MDAABG) +4%

If you have been paying close attention, you'll notice 2 new boats in the fleet.

First, the HSBC FTSE ALL WORLD INDEX which I bought by mistake. I intended to buy a FTSE100 tracker, in a pre- general election punt. But I bought the wrong thing. Ah well, now that I have it I guess I'll hold on. Very similar taste to VWRL (bit like chicken...) & no harm spreading the love a little.

Second, Nike. The story is similar to my Garmin investment in update #19. I'm a bit of a tight-wad by nature, so when a company persuades me to part with nearly £200 for a pair of shoes, they are doing something right. My conviction level here is smaller than with Garmin, and so is my investment: 1% of portfolio. So these 2 sporty shares make up just 3% of the portfolio, while the two index trackers makeup 56%. I'm not sure that 3% is a meaningful amount. I guess I'm just putting a toe back in the waters of active investing, rather than diving in headlong a la Aluminium and Greek ETFs of yesteryear - and thanks Bowlhead99 for bringing that little episode up

With Rayette's ISA allowance still untouched, and with a fair wind, there is a chance that update #21 will be my last. I think this thread will have run its course by then, and just one question will remain: should I cash in all chips and pay off the damn mortgage, or should I keep playing...? I hope by now you know me well enough to guess what the answer will likely be

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, thanks as always for your words of encouragement and caution. May 2020 bring good things for you and yours.

Ray

Ray_Singh-Blue

Friends, I'm drawing this thread to a close.

An end-of-year bonus has taken me across the finish line.

mortgage: £277,487
investments: £278,684

Nike and Garmin... I sold. Made a little profit, but would have made even more just buying a global tracker. So that is my plan from now on. The accounts currently hold VWRL, cash, and nothing else. One thing I have learned from this little journey: simple is good enough. Why didn't I know that in 2014?

Can I leave you with this little thought.

For someone to accrue £1 million in a world equities tracker, starting with nothing, they would have had to invest:
£10,000 each year since 1997.
or £20,000 each year since 2004.
or £30,000 each year since 2008.
or £40,000 each year since 2010.

It's achievable. Just start early and stay the course.

Been nice knowing you. May the road rise before you and the sun be ever on your backs.

Ray

LXV

This is the first time I've seen this thread. Thanks Ray as it has not only made me join the forum after many months of reading, but also thank you for inspiring me to us your journey as a goal too!

I'm currently 31, married with a 2yo daughter. Mortgage of 254k. Started 4 years ago but still very much a novice (i have been half lucky with some risky stocks that came good but have also been stung in the same arena so have started to address and currently been building in VG LS80 and VG Global All cap). I have approx 40k split between S&S ISA on HL and Vanguard, Company share save, P2P and savings. I can probably save between 6-8k p/a including overpaying mortgage 2k pa (which I may now address) and putting 8% salary into company pension (6% company matched). This also allows us a nice lifestyle with holidays we want & to do what we enjoy.

I plan to do more research before dropping some more of my cash (due a large bonus this month). I will then set what I believe to be an ambitious but achievable goal to reach the crossover point between mortgage and investment/savings.

Do you or anyone on here know of any similar threads of journeys like yours?

Thanks again, now on with more reading and research! Any advice appreciated!

Ray_Singh-Blue

Update #21 Q1 2020

Guess I'm back already. At the end of December my investments exceeded my mortgage, but this is no longer the case.

Since I last posted a butterfly flapped it's wings in Brazil, or a pangolin sneezed in Wuhan, or something. And now the world looks completely different. Condolences to anyone badly affected by the pandemic. I am sorry for you. My losses so far are purely financial, but for some people the losses are far worse.

Staying with the purely financial: thank goodness for cash. Boy was I glad of my 50% cash allocation over the last few weeks. Funny thing cash. It just sits there doing nothing for a few years, you can start to doubt yourself. Then suddenly the markets go to custard and it saves your bacon- if you'll excuse the mixed culinary metaphors.

Here's what happened in my ISA accounts:
January 11th: £140K cash + 1945 units of VWRL. 
March 23rd: £140K cash + 1945 units of VWRL.

Put like that, I think it doesn't look so bad. Not planning on selling those VWRL any time soon. So don't really need to worry what they are selling for right now.

On the other hand, those things are cheaper than any time in the last 5 years. So I just bought some more:
March 31st: £100K cash + 2546 units of VWRL.

And that wraps up my investing activity for the 2019/2020 tax year.

Cash allocation currently 40%, which is right on the limit of what I'll accept (50%+/-10%). Value of investments £253K. Mortgage £274K.

Final thought: remember guys, there are no pockets in a shroud. Spend a little & if you can, look after those you care about- they may be going through hard times right now.

Ahchoo
Ray

Ray_Singh-Blue

Update #22 Q2 2020

This month's flavour is vanilla again. Sorry about that.

As markets appear to be recovering, I sold some VWRL, moving back towards the balance I prefer. Also during the last 3 months I have avoided spending £7500 on hoke and cookers, and have instead introduced it into the ISAs.

So at the end of this quarter, ISAs are worth £286K and contain 2183 units of VWRL (53%), £134K of cash (47%), and nothing else.

Happily this means I'm back in positive territory with regards to the mortgage, which is now refixed at an interest rate of 1.44%. Unhappily this Rockefeller-esque affluence still hasn't secured me a date with Jennifer Aniston, but I live in hope.

Count those beans people.

Ray

Ray_Singh-Blue

Update #23 Q3 2020

Not sure why I am still here, it has become a habit. One quarter if I don't post, you'll know I'm probably dead. But right now I'm mid 40s and in the prime, so will crack on a bit longer.

I'd like to say I sat on my hands again this quarter, but it's not quite true. I played a bit of higher lower again, selling and buying and selling VWRL. Also - confession - I coudn't stop myself buying Garmin shares again, see update #19 for the back story. But that's all. 4 trades. Cost £20. A night at the pub, or a quarter of a night if I'm there with my running club.

Current situation is that ISA balance is £299K. 44% equities in the form of £122K of VWRL and £10K of Garmin shares. 56% Cash, £167K, getting around 0.9% interest.

Outstanding mortgage is £266K. Damn thing.

However: this thread was started from a position of slight anxiety about money. Big mortgage, small savings. I can happily report that the cure for such anxiety is to shrink the mortgage and grow the savings/investments. It all seems less important now & I confess to not having been on this site much at all recently, prefering to frequent forums about running and Jennifer Aniston.

But I still love you, somewhat.
xx
Ray

DireEmblem

Have you considered swapping VWRL for VWRP, the Acc version?