July 2024 Savings, plus other updates
I am in dire need of a holiday.
I’ve not been able to book my annual leave as been trying to sort out the best time to see my family and seems like that won’t be til later in the year.
As it is, I am currently covering for my colleague’s annual leave and shortly after, my boss will be on her holidays. The August bank holiday weekend can’t come soon enough.
I know I have always said to myself that I shan’t sacrifice my social life in the pursuit of FIRE but I think I might need to start cutting back. Not just from a finance point of view (although it is bloody expensive going out!) but from a sanity perspective.
Last week, I attended the following:
- Weds – Works leaving do, drinks after work
- Thurs – Met up with ex-colleagues, food and drinks after work
- Fri – Met up (again) with fellow FIRE blogger LateStarterFIRE, who was over from Australia, food after work
- Sat – family meal
- Sun – Walk in park with WI ladies
All were very pleasant and yes, I’m glad I went, and while none of them were late or drunken nights, I felt mentally exhausted after it all. Perhaps I just need to ensure I spread these dates out a bit if I am able.
Monevator’s latest post talks about introverts and I think I have become more introverted over time (with lockdown helping things along). As I mentioned in my reply to that article, a very quiet weekend might have me just talking to no one but Alexa and I’m fine with that!
I have been so glad that the Olympics have been on so that I have been able to disengage my brain and just lose myself watching supreme athletes do what they do best.
Anyway, how did my numbers look for July?
I saved 22% of my net salary. The above includes £67.94 from doing Prolific surveys.
Shares and Investment Trusts
I offloaded ADIG (abrdn Diversified Income and Growth plc) for a loss and spread the funds across other investment trusts.
Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.
(Entire portfolio here)
Future Fund
The rocket continues to blast upwards, but with the bottom dropping out of the market these past few days, the picture will look rather different when I do my August update! At the end of July, my Future Fund was up, at £280,398.75.
Dividends and Other Income
An average month for dividend income:
I received £374.93, of which £271.64 was from my ISAs, the rest from my SIPPs. All dividends were reinvested.
Here’s what my ISA dividend income graph looks like:
I’ve added the annual target of £4.3k and seven months in, I think I’m on track.
Goals Update
What about the other goals?
Live sport on tv continues to impact my reading goal but that’s ok.
What’s Brewing?
During one of the recent work’s outings, so enthusiastic was I when the discussion turned to home brewing beer that I’ve managed to persuade myself to come out of homebrewing “retirement” – I can’t believe the last time I brewed a batch was in 2018!
I think I stopped as my sister and nephew moved in with me but there was no real reason for me to not take it up again when they moved out…except now, I don’t have as much space as I did in the other house!
The homebrewing market has changed so much since then, there’s a lot more to choose from. No longer a cheap hobby though, the price of the old starter kit and accessories I bought in 2014 has doubled in price, so a good job I kept it all!
Wasn’t sure I’d be up for brewing 40 pints/22 litres after so long in the wilderness, so I’m aiming for a small batch of around 5 litres (still had to splash out on some bits of kit for smaller volume) and will see how that goes. I shall no doubt post about the (hopefully good) results when the time comes and hope I haven’t lost my brewing mojo!
Hope you all had a great flaming July!