Peering over the hill...

Cornish_mum

So sorry to hear of your loss.  Take care CM

Cornish_mum

Really sorry to hear about your mum, take care of yourself 

jenni_fer

sorry to hear of your losses. x

Grogged

Thanks all for your thoughts.

Grogged

I've been doing a little bit of investment pruning with my SIPP.
Due to the timing of some investments made from a transfer on the cusp of coronavirus, some of these are showing an unusual profit.
So I've decided to bank the initial profit on these and invest it a bit later as I think it's going to be a bit of a roller coaster for everyone in the next 18+ months.
I'm currently 2/3 invested, 60% funds and ETF, 40% in bonds.
The plan is to invest the remaining 1/3 over the next 18 months in weekly sums in the same ratio.
This is in addition to my normal monthly contributions.
(I also have a company pension as well, the SIPP consolidates my previous pension schemes , as well as my top ups).

longway2go

Grogged, I have just caught up with your diary which I am enjoying. 
I am very sorry to hear of your losses. Lwtg

Grogged

Moving On

We had my Mum’s funeral on Friday, so along with my Dad’s last week that closes off that part of my life and opens up a new one.

Due to the joys of Covid, I had to stream my Dad’s to my brother, but he could attend this one.

We’re having a simple joint scattering ceremony later in June, followed by a more social celebration once socialising is allowed again.

We were able to do some flowers, we made the coffin bouquets, using shop bought flowers and foraged greenery from the garden.

On-line flowers were very expensive and delivery couldn’t be guaranteed, so both an MSE win and a personal one as they both got arrangements made with individual care, though and love personalised for them.

Once again thank you all for your kind thoughts and wishes.

Stay safe. 🖖

Grogged

Some Investment Stuff

I’ll give an update for May tomorrow, when I have all the final numbers.

I thought I’d give a bit of an update of my investment thinking, especially as I’ve had a lot of time to reflect and finally crystallise my thoughts on this.

As ever, do your own research and my ramblings fit me, but maybe not you.

Firstly, I’ve spent the last year consolidating my investments into two pots – an ISA to act as a backstop to my EF planning and be the long terms savings engine, and a SIPP to retire on and consolidate the couple of previous pension schemes into one pot.

My short-term savings and EF are held in whatever is the best savings account I can find, split between instant access and 1 year locked away. Being lazy I just find the best home when the fixed term ends.

I also have a company pension scheme, which I top up into my SIPP.

So, in essence I have four pots – short and fixed term savings and current employer and SIPP pensions.

Anyway, back to the investments…

I chose the Vanguard platform for two main reasons – collective investments only (so no dabbling in individual shares or speculative “things”, juts funds and ETFs) and because they offer an investment ISA and a SIPP thats easy to manage.

I appreciate they have a more limited choice than other platforms, but it’s wide enough for what I need and keeps me out of mischief. (If I want to go off plan, then I can always open a trading account with someone that does allow mischief 😊).

My approach to both the SIPP and ISA is the same, both are split 70% equities and 30% bonds.

These are passive portfolios – buy investments, job done, enjoy your life.  The aim is to diversify globally, you can’t predict what the investment flavour of the month is (tech, pharma, banks, llamas, etc.) so diversify as much as possible.  I’m also trying not to have too much bias towards the UK.

Within both equities and bonds I’m aiming to have a balance of 50% accumulation funds and 50% income generating.

The accumulation funds are there to help drive long term growth and these are all global funds, for equities they are ex-UK.

The income funds, whilst they will grow, they are there to fund the running of the portfolio and to aid in quarterly rebalancing/top up purchases.  These are nearly all ETF based.

As this a hold forever approach, the only selling that happens is when the valuation of an investment is massively out of line with weightings set for it.  In that case it may be trimmed back.

I don’t need to sell on a loss, as these are all trackers following either markets or regions, so tend to follow whatever is happening in the individual market, region or world…

So onto weightings (umm donuts, NO, not donuts!)…

I only hold two equity accumulation funds – 45% all world ex-UK and 5% small Cap. Easy.

Income funds…  The primary driver is the developed world ETF, followed by UK FTSE 100 & 250 (both at 5%) and 5% of emerging markets.  That’s it for the ISA, the SIPP also has regional funds at 4% weighting as well.  This keeps the UK exposure to around 20%.

For bonds, it’s a similar picture – 40% UK weighting (10% index linked, 10% corporate and 20% government) and 60% global.  For the ISA its just one global fund, for the SIPP there are regional ones as well at 5% weightings.

The SIPP has more holdings as it’s a lot bigger than the ISA.

The quarterly rebalancing is a gradual affair, I’m not obsessive with having the weightings 100% spot on, as long as they are close that’s good enough for me.  I prioritise buying bonds over equities if I need to.

I do contribute to the ISA and SIPP monthly and top-up as needed to keep the right mix of short term “cash” and long-term investments.  As VG allow me to split my monthly investment, I have tried to keep close to the 70/30 split to try and keep purchases on an even keel and the portfolios balanced.

I’ve been very lucky with the SIPP as VG only introduced it just before Covid hit.  I’d decided to take a 12 month investment approach to drip feeding the purchases, so I’m already showing a healthy profit on what has been invested, so much so that I’ve had to trim two investments.  I continue to buy weekly, so will be fully invested by April 2021.  As for the ISA, well it’s currently down as the bulk was bough before this year, but I know it will grow over time, so am not worried.

If you’re interested in further reading on passive investing, then take a look at https://monevator.com/tag/sspu/, as well as the MSE Investment and Pension planning forums, which are a treasure trove of useful (if sometimes contradictory! 😊) information.

If you got this far, you deserve the donut we missed out on earlier… 🍩

Grogged

May Review

Ahh, the merry month of May…

Mortgage

Overpaid the mortgage by £20.65 (approx. 4.5 days interest) by TT every Monday rounding down to nearest £5 on bank account statement.

Started the year at £97.6K and ended May at £94.5K, so a reduction to date of £3.1K (3.7%).

The original plan in the heady days of the “before” was to save and make a largish OP every quarter as that allowed me to reduce the term on the NW mortgage we have, rather than reduce the payments.

This money is still saved, but quarterly payments are on hold.

We haven’t taken the payment holiday, so are still paying as normal.

Savings (Cash and EF)

This is now sitting with Ma Cuss, the EF in annual fixed term pots and the cash in normal pots.

Have kept £500 as a buffer at the bank, just to cover unexpected immediate things, even though it will only earn, what 5p this year…

Have also upped premium bonds to £1,000.

Pensions

Because of the unusual timing of my SIPP transfer (which happened in March), the main SIPP is doing very well, up 3% this month and is 40% invested.  I invested about 20% of the transfer early March and have been doing weekly top-ups since then.  I also have a small regular monthly payment as well.

The ISA lost about 20%, but this is slowly recovering, again I make a small regular monthly contribution as well.

I have some P2P money invested in Zopa and Rate Setter, but this has been winding down since January and the money released used to top up the ISA or savings, currently splitting this 50/50 between the ISA and savings. In late March I decided sell the remaining loans and have either stopped lending or put the rates up so high that it won’t be lent.  Whilst I wait for the bulk of the loans to be sold, I’m withdrawing the holding balance weekly when it gets to £10 or more.

Budget and Spendy Shiny Things!

I should really call this NSD heaven, as apart from bills, had 2 food shops (about £200), 2 flower shops (£60) and, err, 2 Amazon shops (£70) on a new under stairs light, risotto rice and a few other essentials. 6 days of shopping and 25 NSD - spending is so overrated… 🤣

Had to pay a car insurance, MOT and car tax, but these were already budgeted for.

As we now have virtually no discretionary spending, the 20% pay cut hasn’t affected the monthly budget by much.

We’ve been very lucky in being able to maintain our financial goals in lockdown.

Stay safe.

Grogged

Question - How do YOU get the best out of your chest freezer?

I need to be more efficient in the freezer department... 🙁

Now that we're using ours a lot more and it's no longer a home to forgotten fish fingers and meal portions it’s getting a bit, well, unwieldy.

We should have used it a lot more, but the kitchen fridge/freezer was, just, so convenient.  It was mainly an overflow, that being tucked away in the garage, wasn’t used as often as it should have been.

 

Apart from a few baskets, most of it is free range…

I’m thinking that maybe I should use bags for life, that way not only is everything (semi) organised, but also easier to get in and out.  I reckon we could have two levels of about four bags each.

 

How does everyone else manage theirs so that things are easy to find and use, without having to unpack everything onto the garage floor first?