Oct ’17 Go T’ Pub Performance

Firstly, apologies in the delay of posting this month – more details to follow when time permits.

Before I could blink October was over, and not only over, part way through November. Time really is flying by at the minute, and it’s times like this I am so thankful that my investments are on autopilot – I just don’t need to think about them and they continue.

For the full details over all of the portfolios as a summary please refer to the full month end report – this is specifically looking at what has happened on the Go T’ Pub portfolio only.

So the key bullet points for this month:

• New Funds added. As always, the regular contribution of £1,100 has gone in
• This month the portfolio threw out £19.60 from the VWRL – a massive increase from the £7.61 back in July, although not 3 times as much. Still – that pays for either a (cheap) bottle of wine in the pub, or 3 pints and a pack of crisps…. (London is expensive…)
• No withdrawal was made
• Left over cash from the previous purchases was left in

So already I am starting to see some benefit of putting the money aside. In effect that replaces a part of my salary, so forever tax free income (hoping they don’t change the ISA rules!).

Overall performance: The starting value was £10,685.48, with £1,100 in new funds added, and £0 withdrawals, meaning total starting value was £11,785.48. We finished the month on £12,002.06, so the total performance across the whole portfolio was 1.84%. A good increase for the month, however I am aware that as the VWRL continues to go up, I will find it harder to buy a regular 18 a month. Still… nearly £20 for the next 3 months, that is a free pint each month (at London prices…) – get in there!

VWRL ETF

So the standard units were purchased – a further 18 units purchased at £62.53 per unit, making the average cost per unit of £60.78. So it just keeps ticking along and increasing the number of units which all helps!

So – how does this now look as the graph data slowly builds up?

So…. the stock value is just a touch higher than my contributions which is always a nice feeling. As the dividend income continues to tick in and I reinvest in stocks rather than pints, I expect that this gap will only continue to widen over time, even with any market corrections / crashes! It really is rather gratifying to see how quickly the stock values have overtaken the contributions. Of course, we are still waiting for the big correction, but hopefully this will provide some inspiration for people to invest rather than go to the pub 😉

Cash Vs. Investment Trust

So  – back to the challenge of cash against investing for my emergency fund. Remember folks – you should not do this.

So, how is it looking?

Cash	Now stands at £5,127.10
S&S ISA IT	Now stands at £5,200.78

Yes, that’s right – I got another whole 4p interest in my cash ISA. So not a huge difference between the two right now, but don’t forget that if I were to have to sell to get the cash I would also be charged for the privilege of trading, but I would still be up a fraction. That won’t stop me from putting in a pretty picture of course!

At least the stock is more than the cash, but remember things can change quickly!

Conclusion

So – not a lot really changing, the total value is ticking up very slowly but steadily, with the delight of autopilot making sure I don’t stress about timing or making sure I put money in. After payday the money goes into my ISA account, and towards the end of the month, it buys VWRL and I don’t worry. Wonderful!

I would love to see that CTY values soar further up to give me comfort that I can cope with a 20% crash in the stock market, but that will take a while….

 

Oct ’17 Performance

So the month has ended, and so its time to take stock of the performance across my portfolio, and compare it to the usual index of choice. This enables me to see how I am doing. As I covered in my “How I measure performance” – basically I take the value of the portfolio at the end of last month, add on any contributions for the month, and that was my starting value. End value is the value at the end of the reporting period. Simples 🙂

October zipped by with holiday and building works, and November is already seeming to get away from me with work, the best thing is though that now all my investments are on autopilot, the lack of effort required to keep investing is good.

So, how was October….?

Portfolio	Performance	Notes
Company Pension	2.85%	No income generated as all funds are in growth or reinvested
Personal Pension	2.71%	No income generated as all funds are in growth or reinvested
ISA 1	1.68%	No income generated as all funds are in growth or reinvested
ISA 2	1.14%	The performance does not include the income that was paid out into my account, but is covered by the income so really need to consider both in conjunction. This was the largest month payout of income to date, fantastic!
ISA 3	2.02%	Although dividends are paid out, they remain in the ISA wrapper, and will get reinvested for growth. The performance figure includes both the Capital growth, and also income received which will get reinvested. The Income is the %age paid out by the portfolio but remains inside the wrapper to buy more goodies
ISA 4	1.84%	Go T’ Pub ISA
FTSE-100	1.63%	This excludes any dividends
FTSE-250	1.77%	This excludes any dividends
FTSE-All	1.67%	This excludes any dividends
S&P500	2.30%	This excludes any dividends
Dow Jones	4.52%	This excludes any dividends
VWRL	3.26%
VHYL	1.69%
GBP/USD	-0.86%	This was taken on the spot rate on the close of the last day of the month. Going forwards I will pick up the exchange rate from www.xe.com for consistency and real life 🙂

So, what to make of it all?

Well, the Dow had a stunning month, smashing everything else around (for once!) – however for diversity I would not put all of my money into just one index, so really its the VHYL/VWRL that matter to me. The VWRL is shooting up which isn’t really reflected in the Go T’ Pub performance. That said, overall across all my investments I was still up over 2% on the month – so continuing to tick up to my goal!

So not at all bad – the only one that is below the starting value is ISA 2 (my other half’s ISA) – but then if we add in the incomes it’s paid me out, that would be above the line. Overall, in 6 months this year, some generally good upwards ticking.

Where does this leave me on my target of 2025? Well, still not there, but another couple of months closer to the target date so definitely moving in the right direction – although caveat of the fact that the market continues to head upwards.

I have also recently started keeping a note of what my forecast liquid fund will be on my target FI date… in other words, how much can I get my hands on before my pensions are unlocked. Right now, it isn’t as high as I would like, so once my cash reserves are restored I will look to see how much I can increase my contributions to build that. Hopefully a pay rise will make that happen!

How was your October – still ticking up towards your goals?

Oct ’17 Income and Expenses

So before I have even blinked October has come to an end and it is time to look back at how October went. Time has once again flown by as shown by my lack of posts in October, and it has already been a little expensive. So, how did the month look?

Income

So a full month of a sensible income now that the tax code fun has settled down. This means I in effect got a reasonable pay rise for the rest of the year (subject to change of course) which means I find myself with a bit of extra cash – bonus!

My other half’s ISA also chucked out more money this month than ever before, so it is starting to really demonstrate the benefit! I really am getting excited about this now as the constant money going in is really paying out more to help day to day fun.

Expenses

So, what has hit this month? Time to unpick the numbers – with some time off from work things are a bit more expensive than I would normally have.

Item	Notes	Amount
Things I choose not to avoid*	Mortgage, Insurance, shared bills etc. – yes, we could move somewhere cheaper, not have insurance, reduce our bills a bit and so on, but we are where we are.	44%
Groceries	All the food and other stuff needed for home	2%
Alcohol for home	Home alcohol consumption only	4%
Bicycles / Car related	Any costs related to either the bikes or the car	0%
Alcohol Out	Generally, its the pub….	2%
Eating Out	I include purchased lunches in this as well as meals out etc.	5%
Other	My catch all for anything I may have missed….	12%
Holidays	Any spending related to holidays, flights etc.	5%
Savings	Anything left over! This includes money into ISAs, mortgage payments and non relief pension contributions. My company pension comes out before it hits my bank account so isn’t included, nor do I include the “top up” of money when my money goes into my personal pension (i.e. I put in £100, I register it as £100, not the £125 that gets credited in my pension)	26%

So, what to make of all of this? My “standard” costs you may have noticed are somewhat higher than normal. This was due to a one-off additional cost in one of my standard elements that form part of the things I wont change. I could have said no to the extra but there was no way I was going to – it’s part of my journey!

So, what else was in there that caused the large drop in my savings rate?

Holiday – so some time off, this covered the transport, food and drink both in the holiday and out in pubs / restaurants whilst away. I definitely don’t regret spending on it, and for a relatively small amount of money had a very good time away – a break is always good.

Eating Out. Ok, so this month that was an expensive time! Well, I went out for dinner a number of times over the month meeting up with people I haven’t seen for a while. An expensive way of doing it, but some very good fun evenings and got to try a couple of new restaurants!

Other. Ok so this was a little high this month – the downside of buying tickets for the Royal Opera House! London can be a very expensive place if you are not careful. I haven’t been to the ROH for a few years now so this will really be a treat. Yes we could have got cheaper seats, but I do believe in a little treat once in a while, and I want to be able to see the stage!

Despite the reduced savings rate, this is where my cash flow fund comes into its own. My direct debits / standing orders kicked in as usual – still filling up the Go T’ Pub ISA, my other half’s ISA and my pensions. This means my investments are continuing to tick up each month even when I have these challenges! I do need to be careful to make sure I have enough money in my CFF for Christmas.

How was your October?