Kategori: Monthly Updates

The Quick Takeaways

This month savings rate: 59 %

This month leverage: 55 %

Rolling savings rate since February 2016: 56 %

Total value of portfolio: 652.000 DKK (99.600 $)

Years worth of annual expenses: 6.4

% Change since last month: 10,5 % 

So What The F*** Happen This Month

The stock market has been REALLY gentle to me.

Allmost to gentle.

It worries me a bit. It is kind of to good to be true.

I made more money with my investments, than I did at my job.

And a 10,5 % change since last month is just insane.

Less Leverage

Because the market has taken such a huge jump. I have not invested that much this month. In order to stick to my 10 % cash allocation. The other months I have been leveraging 100 % no matter what the market did. This means if had saved 10.000 DKK I would borrow another 10.000 DKK. But that does not mean that I will invest all of 20.000 DKK. If the market had gone no where, I would invest 18.000 DKK and keep 2000 DKK in my cash cushion in order to be in 90 % equities, and 10 % cash.

This month I had to throw more than 10 % of what I have saved in order to keep my 10 % cash allocation. I managed to save about 13.000 DKK, and I needed to keep about half of that it in order to hit my cash allocation. I just think it would be absurd to keep 6.500 DKK in cash, but still be investing 19.500 DKK with the majority of the invested money being leverage.

I have only leveraged 100 % with the money that I did transfer to my investment account. Which was about 7.500 DKK. And that’s why my leverage is less than 100 % this month.

If I can keep my leverage at about 40 % or less, my rate of the loan will then only be about 1 %. If I’m between 40-60 % leveraged, I will pay 2 % in annual fees. And if I move above 60 % I will pay 7 %.

OUCH! I have no intention to do that.

My January Challenge

I tried to start 2019 with a little challenge.

A challenge where I tried to spend less than 1000 $ dollars for a month. And I failed. But what ended up as an average month (with about 60 % savings rate). Could have been quiet catastrophic I hadn’t had a laser focus on how I spent my money.

CPH FIRE MEETUP

I have finally got everything in order for the FIRE Meetup in Copenhagen.

It will take place in my rowing club (Roforeningen KVIK) the 8/3/2019 at 6 PM. Everybody is welcome so feel free to join.

The concept is that there will be a pizza waiting for you at 6 PM for the price of 100 DKK. I know, a pizza doesn’t cost 100 DKK, but the remaining money will be donated to The Ocean Cleanup. It was a demand from my rowing club that I needed to raise some money for charity, if I should borrow the club for free.

So MobilePay me 100 DKK to 25400183 if you would like to attend the meetup.

There will be some keynote people at the event.

Jacob Lund Fisker from earlyretirementextreme.com is going to be there. He is quite famous in this community. He is visiting some family in Denmark, and I convinced him to swing by our little meetup.

Then we have Pernille Wahlgren. She is not a typical FIRE lady. But she has made herself financial independent in relative young age, by investing in stocks. She is also getting quiet famous at the moment. With her “live & think freely” concept. Which I like. She runs the page PernilleWahlgren.Dk

And we will also have Sanne Fehmerling Kristiansen. Who runs the site passivindkomst.nu. Her concept is trying to make her whole family financial independent through passive investments.

I know all of these people from documentary made about FIRE from Danmarks Radio. It was called “Stå Af Hamsterhjulet” (Quit the Rat Race). And is definitely worth to watch.

Blog Posts This Month

Challenge: Live Below 1000 $

1# Update: Sub 1000 $

2# Update: Sub 1000 $

3# and Final Update: Sub 1000 $

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The Quick Takeaways

This month savings rate: 55 %

This month leverage: 140 %

Rolling savings rate since February 2016: 55 %

Total value of portfolio: 590.000 DKK (90.000 $)

Years worth of annual expenses: 5.8

% Change since last month: 0 % 

So What The F*** Happen This Month

The stock market has not been friendly this december month (if you are selling). I’m still trying to fund 20 times my annual expenses, and this mean that a market drop is quiet lucrative for me. When the market is down, I’m able to buy more shares with the same amount of money.

Since last month I have gone absolutely nowhere. Except for having more leverage. As the avid reader might see, this is the first time ever I have leveraged more than 100 %. I have done that because I would like to end up the same place as last month. And not have a decline in my portfolio. This is a strategy slightly inspired by Dollar-Value-Average. I could write an entire blog post about that strategy, so you will get a brief one now.

Dollar Value Average

Dollar-Value-Average is where we decide what amount our portfolio is going to rise + interest, and then we need to hit that target every month. For simplicity, let’s just say that we would like to raise our portfolio with 100 $/month. Then the following months would look like this:

1. = 100 $
2. = 200 $
3. = 300 $
4. .. And so on

If the market goes up, and we have 120 $ at the start of the second month, we will only invest 80 $, because we would like to hit that target of 200 $. If the market is down at the start of the 3rd month, and we only have 180 $, we will then invest 120 $ to reach our 300 $ target.

That strategy is called Dollar-Value-Average. It is a simple method, of buying more when the market is down, and buying less when the market goes up.

And that is what I have done this month. I have leveraged more, in order to stay at the same level as last month.

2018 and my savings rate

This is how my year looked like according to my savings rate:

• January = 30 %
• February = 65 %
• March = 48 %
• April = 55 %
• May = 53 %
• June = 75 %
• July = 73 %
• September = 19%
• October = 51 %
• November = 67 %
• December = 55 %
• Average = 59 %

I had a higher savings rate in 2017 where I managed to save 62 %. So I’m not completely satisfied with “only” saving 59 % this year. In 2016 I didn’t have student loan payments, that could be the answer to a slightly lower savings rate.

My goal for 2019 will be to save above 66 %. It will be tough, but manageable.

Blog Post This Month

Here are the following post I managed to write this month:

Fire and Water

I Have a Dream!

Quit The Rate Race

A Wuss-Entrepreneur

How Did You Do?

Did you come one step closer to become financial independent? Let me hear about it in the comments!

The Quick Takeaways

This month savings rate: 67 %

This month leverage: 100 %

Rolling savings rate since February 2016: 55 %

Total value of portfolio: 590.000 DKK (90.000 $)

Years worth of annual expenses: 7

% Change since last month: 7.2 % 

So What The F*** Happen This Month

This month has been a very ambivalent one.

The finance is doing great, my portfolio went up 5 %, and I didn’t have to many expenses this month. That is why the portfolio is up almost 8% since last month. With I think is a significant amount.

I have also changed bank. Now I have an account where I make 5 % interest on the first 50.000 DKK (7.500 $). Which is better than the 0 % I made at my other bank.

I got told by the national team coach in rowing, that they didn’t want me on the 2019 season team. Rowing has been the main focus of my life since 2009. It is tough to do something that much, and then get a message that they will not spent more time on you.

My goal for a long time has been to qualify a boat for the 2020 Olympics. And the situation I’m in now is not very good to accomplish that dream.

It is a very weird feeling something I have been doing for almost 10 years, is maybe coming to an end. And it is not even my own decision. This is not my first time experiencing some resistance in rowing. The other times I have had a similar experience, it has been like gasoline on a campfire. My motivation just went through the roof.

This is first time where I’m questioning the whole thing. I have promised myself not to make any immediate decision. I will stay fit, and show up a bit more in my own rowing club, which is also nice to see all of my old friends. But I’m starting to see for the first time in my life, that there is other things in this life besides rowing.

For the first time in 10 years I’m able to go where ever I want, whenever I want. Which is a very ambivalent feeling. I’m used to having a coach telling me when and where to show up, and suddenly I’m able to do whatever I like. I can imagine this might be the feeling whenever a person has been to jail for long time. What would seem awful to the main public (training 12 times a week or being to prison) ends up being comfortable.

And I still love to work my ass off. But the big question is do I still want to do it 12 times a week, if I can’t be a part of the national team?

The Quick Takeaways

This month savings rate: 51 %

This month leverage: 100 %

Rolling savings rate since February 2016: 55 %

Total value of portfolio: 550.000 DKK (84.000 $)

Years till I hit a 7 % SWR: 2.6 Years

% Change since last month: 1.8 %

So What The F*** Happen This Month

I think we all know this month has been a rowdy one. Stock wise. Excluding this day (where everything seems to go up) my portfolio is down 25.000 DKK (3.800 $).

I have been quiet excited about the market drop. I have taken this quote from Warren Buffett quiet serious.

Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful – Warren Buffett

All stocks has pretty much only gone up for a long time.

The Shiller PE 10 were at the second highest ever recorded.*

So I can have a hard time justifying buying stocks. And because of that I have decided to have some of portfolio in cash. Around 10 %. There is several reasons for that:

• By having some cash I can rebalance if the market should take a big dive.
• And I think it is a responsible thing to do when I leverage my investments by 50-100%. It means that I can afford the leverage. If everything tanks, I still got some cash reserves to make sure that everything is good.
• Plus I would like to have a 1-2 years of cash when/if I quit my fulltime job. And this resonates very well by having 10 % cash. So if I end up with a portfolio of 2.500.000 DKK (380.000 $) I would have around 250.000 DKK in cash. Which is equivalent to two years of my spending.

BUT!

When the market did drop this month, I could finally justify buying some stocks. And Morningstar begins to call that the general market is undervalued**

I don’t practice market timing. So I will buy whatever the market does. But I would lie to you, if I said that I didn’t feel an inner resistance when everything just goes up and up and up.  And that’s where my 10 % cash allocation feels good.

Just Bring Another 2008

I think this month would be similar to something that happen back then. We just need to experience them for 9-10 consecutive months.

But this month has just proved that my portfolio can decline 4-6 %, and still be able to make the portfolio rise. 

*http://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe/

**https://www.morningstar.com/tools/market-fair-value-graph.html

The Quick Takeaways

This month savings rate: 20 %

This month leverage: N/A

Rolling savings rate since February 2016: 56 %

Total value of portfolio: 540.000 DKK (84.000 $)

Years till I hit a 7 % SWR: 3.1 Years

% Change since last month: 3.2 %

So What The F*** Happen This Month

This month has been the third worst month according to my savings rate since I started this journey back in February 2016.

I have been away with the national rowing team for six weeks. First we were on a four-week training camp in Austria, and then we left for the world championships in Bulgaria for about two weeks.

Even though we did terrible at the world championships, I’m still grateful for the experience.

Because of the six weeks away from my day job, I ended up with almost no money this month. That is not moving me closer to my FI goal. But I do love rowing. So getting the opportunity to eat, train and rest for six weeks where I don’t have to pay for it, is even more awesome!

After my last update, I ended up buying more stocks and leveraged more than I wrote. So the comparison to last month is a bit off. In the future I will do all of my savings, borrowing and investing before I make this post. So I don’t end up doing other stuff than I what I have written here.

Due to the bad savings rate I’m not going to invest, or leverage anything this month.

I would like to have about 10 % in cash. As a buying opportunity if the market will crash (Which if think it will soon). I do not believe in market timing, and the only reason I’m not investing this month is because of the lack of my saving. It doesn’t make any sense to buy a low amount of shares, because of the fees it will cost me on the transaction.

I have invested this month though. I maxed out a tax-advantaged retirement account with 5100 DKK (800 $) with funds from my account where I borrow my money.

The money of that retirement account is not included in my networth. Because I won’t be ale to use those money until I hit the “cultural retirement age” of +65 years.

Hopefully I will have a better savings rate next month.