September Update
Each month I update my accounts and monitor my spending and ensure I am on target with my savings goals. Here I will list my assets that make up my long term savings and a few comments on the rationale behind including them in my portfolio. The asset allocation changes from year to year depending on where I see value or what interests me at the time. However I do like to try and spread my money to achieve smoother returns. Below I’ve listen them in order of their current weighing:
Buy to Let £52,920 59.1%
This makes up the vast majority of the total fund. The property which is a 1 bedroom apartment in Glasgow, UK is currently valued at £65,539 on zoopla.com which is up around £300 on the August valuation although still down on its valuation in early summer. It was purchased in January 2016 for £57,000 with a home report valuation of £70,000. The property is mortgage free but I did use a personal loan and some low interest credit card cash advances to help fund the purchase. Unsecured debts currently amount to a £10,540 personal loan at 3.7% interest (about 3 and a half years remaining). I have cleared the £4,000 credit card debt which had a 2.3% interest rate that was expiring. I still have another credit card loan fixed at 4.9% until June 2022 which currently stands at £2,078. My priority is to pay this down fairly quickly and most probably before the end of the year. As mentioned before the apartment is currently let at £500-a-month giving a net return of just under £400-a-month.
Pension Funds £18,658 20.8%
This includes 3 funds from current and previous employers and a small UK index tracker fund. This is also the only stock market exposure currently in the portfolio. Some of the funds are invested in Emerging Markets and Asian Stocks with the smaller funds in UK and other Global Stocks. I add £200 a month to one of these pensions still and the value of these has increase about £400 since August.
Zopa £12,453 13.9%
Zopa is a peer-to-peer lending platform which I have been using for many years now. The money currently invested yields about 4.3% (down from 4.4% last month and continually falling) including the “early adopter” bonus of 0.5%. About £200 of the total is in the holding account earning zero interest (which I periodically withdraw). I have withdrawn about £500 month from this account this month which was used to pay down some of the credit card debts above. I intend to continue to withdraw the loan repayments in this account.
Crowd Property £2,500 2.8%
This is a fairly new addition to the portfolio. Crowd Property is a peer-to-peer lending platform for housing developers. I’ve been using it for about 18 months and had two loans paid back so far. The current total is spread over 4 developments with an 8% interest rate. Another loan is due to be paid back at the beginning of this month. I missed the funding for a new project last month so it looks like my exposure here will decrease unless I get quicker at pledging.
Cash £1,601 1.8%
My cash reserves are down a bit this month as a lot of money was used to settle one of the above credit card balances. The majority of the cash is held in a Thai bank account yielding 2.5% interest. As I am currently based in Thailand I wanted to offset some currency risk by having some assets in the country. Currently adding 25,000THB (£582) a month to this.
Gold £1,669 1.9%
A total of 7 gold sovereigns which have been periodically bought over the last 10 years. The valuation is based on the spot price of gold which is probably a bit lower than the actual resale value of these. They make up a very small portion of the total portfolio and they look nice. The gold price is up about 5% on last month in terms of Pound Sterling.
NS&I Premium Bonds £100 0.1%
The minimum investment possible and really just incase I get lucky and hit the £1,000,000 jackpot. In it to win it.
So there is the long term savings portfolio. The portfolio is currently valued at £89,606 up from £87,995 the previous month. The portfolio saw a net gain of 1.13% for the month. This gain came from a positive revaluation in the buy-to-let property, rental payments and gains in the value of stocks held in the pension funds. In addition to this I added a further £615 of new money to the portfolio.
In addition to the long term savings portfolio there is £4,570 in extra cash held in bank accounts in UK and Thailand giving a total net worth for September of £94,176 (July: £92,321).
Generally a good month with net worth increasing by almost £2,000 which is more than I earn from working (my net salary is about £1,400 a month). Going forward my priorities are paying off the credit card balance which in turn will increase my net passive income. Further ahead I’m looking at increasing my exposure to the stock market. At present I invest £200 a month into my pension funds. With new savings and rental payments this could be increased to around £700 a month in the short term.
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