1 Year Review. Please advise

Captain_Bravo

Hello everyone,
A year ago (Sep 18) I decided to start saving and also start investing my money. This forum and a lot of the threads and contributors who posted in this section almost daily, have had a major role in this, so thank you all very much !

Been working in the UK for the last 10 years, I do a lot of gardening, cleaning and general maintenance jobs, always been very busy, but always felt poor, like the money were just not adding up
This year I'm turning 40, I am married and we have 2 kids.
We bought a flat 5 years ago, sadly when prices were up, I still have 25y of mortgage repayments to do and for the moment I am locked in a 2 year deal with 3.29% until July 2020.

Both me and my wife, we don't have a private pension or a pension plan whatsoever, we've been self employed in the last decade and we just ignored this aspect completely. (We paid our taxes and NI so we are qualified for state pension )

I started my LTD company this year and now I am looking into paying money every year into a pension pot, but due to cash flow issues sometimes, I will probably do a one-off payment this year rather than having a payment plan of any sort.
We also decided to skip holidays completely this year in order to save some money and on top of that my mother gave me some cash (8000) as a gift, to encourage me.
....
(please read below)

george4064

I am not sure what you are asking here?


Good to hear that you are now paying into a pension!

Captain_Bravo

So, after 1 year, starting from scratch, I now have:
ISA S&S with Vanguard. Current value: 13832.97 (split in just 2 funds)
a) LifeStrategy 100, 11638.01
b) FTSE 100 ETF VUKE, 2194.96


Combination of bank current and regular saver accounts
From Marcus, TSB, Lloyds to Nationwide: 9400


P2P (Ratesetter & Kuflink) current value 7360.00


Total cost: 12900 + 9100 + 7000
Current value of savings&investments pot: 30592.97
Average return: 5,5%

Captain_Bravo

Sorry I've been banned today for a few hours and I wasn't able to post part 2.
This forum is kinda strange, you can't write to much, you cant copy/paste from Word, you cannot post a reply after your original post and if you press 3 times yo're done for the day IP ban


However, back to my review.
I am encouraged by my progress this year and both me and my wife we are more optimistic, realizing that we might actually have control over our future. Maybe ??

But I have no friends to talk about this and get any advice or opinion and I feel that I still have so much to learn and understand, hence I kindly ask for your opinion dear reader.
What do you think ? Am I missing something ? Am I doing anything wrong ? Or can I do something better ?

Thank you so much for reading !

Lokolo

I think firstly have a plan or idea of what you want in the future.

Do you want to retire at 55? 60? 70? Do you only want to semi retire? Will your self employment mean (if its physical, which in your opening post, sounds it), that you won't be able to continue after 60.

Do you plan on downsizing? Or maybe upsizing? You have two children, how old are they? Do you need to plan to support them for the next 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?

My post is more of a load of questions, but I think its worthwhile you think about what you actually want out of this question. Is it just retirement? General life financial question?

Captain_Bravo

Lokolo, thank you for your reply


I am in the Accumulation Stage right now, hence I take a bit more risk with my money ( VS100 + P2P )
The plan is to continue working hard, saving most of my money and invest more and more in order to achieve some sort of financial freedom

As you said, the type of work I do is physical so I won't be able to continue for a long time, even after 50 it will be difficult for me to keep up. Hopefully I will sit in the office more and more in the future, managing my business instead of doing the actual work.

So I guess the plan is to save as much money as I can in the next 10-15 years, invest them smart, diversify my portofolio and meanwhile make some decent pension contributions to top-up my state pension.


But to be honest, my main drive is to save and multiply my money as much as I can in order to be able to offer my kids the support needed to start their own businesses and live a quality life, so they won't have to clean patios and/or toilets all day, like their dad...

barnstar2077

Initial thoughts are that you have a lot in P2P. If you invest in a global equity fund like the VLS that you have, then most of the time when there is a dip and as long as you don't panic sell then it will eventually recover. However I am seeing more and more posts from people complaining about how long it is taking to get their money out of different P2P companies these days. The glory days of P2P seem to be over.

Alexland

My view is that as you learn more about S&S investments (if going 100% equities there are better asset allocations than VLS100 and a FTSE100 tracker) you will determine that the P2P is an unnecessary distraction.

Slightly off topic but if you are self employed in physical work then you might want to consider suitable levels of personal accident, critical illness and life insurance to protect your family.

Alex

Audaxer

I'm not sure of the need for a FTSE100 tracker in addition to the VLS100, as the VLS100 includes a FTSE100 ETF.

xylophone

Does your wife work for your company? Or is she self employed/employed by her own company?

A pension for her?

How old are the children?

Captain_Bravo

My wife is self employed, no pension plan, she is 37 and kinda thinks it's to early to think about pension Also I noticed a lot of people who are employees speak about pension but all self employed people I know have no pension plan whatsoever.
We have 2 kids, our girl is 9 and our boy is 5, so still small...
Thank you