Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Retirement

August 2024 Savings, plus other updates

Another blur of a month – busy at work, busy socially.

After it all ended, I felt like I had Olympics withdrawal symptoms; I had found watching all the different events just a great way to wind down – well done to all of Team GB for their efforts. I’m currently tuning in to the Paralympics.

Some good news for me this month was that the Bank of England’s base rate was cut from 5.25% to 5%.  As I am on a variable mortgage rate, my mortgage payment will be lower in September. The 0.25% I am now saving will be put towards my mortgage overpayment.

Green(ish) Fingers

Despite only garnering a single cherry tomato and a few potatoes as the sole fruits of my gardening labours so far this year (more to come, I hope!), overall I’ve been pretty happy with my efforts.

My flowers and shrubs have really bloomed this year and I’ve been doing a fairly decent job of keeping on top of the weeding and watering. I just stick a podcast on or listen to my favourite tunes and a pleasant afternoon passes by as I potter around the garden.

Aside from the paint I bought for the pallet, I’ve not really spent much on the garden this year; got some free seeds and plants from friends and did my own propagating (mostly successful) to get more plants.

Next year, I will need to spend on some bigger pots/re-potting, as some of the plants are fast outgrowing the pots they are in.

My indoor plants have done well too (pesky fungus gnats aside!) – got some lovely blooms on an orchid I bought nearly 3 years ago – only a few flowers last year, but it sprouted 14 flowers at the same time this year!

Anyway, how did my numbers look for August?

I saved 18.6% of my net salary. The above includes £59.64 from doing Prolific surveys, a £5 charity lotto win and £63.78 OddsMonkey referral fees (yes, I am still getting them, so thanks whoever!)

Shares and Investment Trusts

No change here.

Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.

(Entire portfolio here)

Future Fund 

Some volatility in August paused the rocket’s trajectory but things didn’t look too bad by the end of the month, just slightly down at £278,868.07.

Dividends and Other Income

A decent month for dividend income:

I received £646.88, of which £380.06 was from my ISAs, the rest from my SIPPs. All dividends were reinvested.

Here’s the progress on my ISA dividend income:

Goals Update

What about the other goals?

One goal achieved already!

As I couldn’t commit to work’s charity walking challenge this year, I made a bigger than usual charity donation by buying a big bunch of raffle tickets. Some very decent prizes on offer so I hope I win something (draw in September).

Am behind on my reading so need to stop watching tv and get some reading done!

And that’s it for August.

Hope you all had a great month!

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