This year started out pretty good.
I entered it while I was still on vacation in my home country and took another short one after I was back in The Netherlands. It was a sufficient amount of variety to satisfy my extended physiological needs.
Being on vacation at home is such an expat thing to be said, but apart from managing a somewhat busy schedule, I decided to adapt to the environment and live like a local, like I once was. And I liked it – my visit had the right balance between seeing people I wanted to see & being alone, being productive & living carefree, and evaluating my life & actively practicing the art of not thinking.
It was really a while since I had time to go deep into introspection, retrospection, or defining my direction. And I wrote, so I ended up not with just a bunch of drawn conclusions, but also a few topics and bullet-points for future posts. In summary, it’s time for “philosophy” to be introduced among the increasing list of finance related categories. At the end, a Monk’s Wealth is not just his money – the tagline of this blog is “Mind, body, and personal finance“, but we still haven’t touched the first two very much.
When it comes to the “body”, I took a break from the strict training regime and only worked-out casually (when with the right people or at the right place, but didn’t include it in my schedule) while on holiday. Basically, I decided to be driven by nostalgia and indulge more into the vices my city has to offer. Fast forward a couple of weeks, I already felt not healthy, so I stopped the excessive alcohol consumption and started being more picky about what I put in my body. After I came back home (Netherlands this time) at mid January, I went back to a strict regime regarding my diet and high intensity workouts to get back in shape. I’m only two weeks in, but already feel completely detoxified, fit, and showing signs of peak performance at certain exercises. My diet and training are also things that I’d like to cover more on this blog, but they’re not planned for the immediate future.
Last but not least, it was great to spend quality time with my family.
And the working life seems much much easier after a break. So much that after I’m above a certain percentage of my current FIRE goal, I might take longer breaks before even reaching 100%. But at this moment it’s early to plan for that. Not too early, but early anyway.
But let’s not forget, a Monthly Update contains the Financial Update as well – which was the original title for this series.
Let’s dive into it.
Savings and spending
Apart from the biggest expense, housing, my expenses are pretty low and under control. I rarely have consumer instincts kicking in, but when they come I welcome them and treat myself as my subconscious desired. However, I make sure that boredom is not the origin of these needs – when it is, I just shut it down. While waiting for my flight at the airport in Vienna, I was reading something and felt an urge to visit Starbucks. I didn’t.
So the saving rate was pretty good this month. As usual, I don’t want to give a specific percentage, because I don’t really track every expense I have, mainly because I know I’m keeping them low and they’re nothing to worry about at this moment.
I’m preparing a post about the difference in cost of living in different parts of Europe for the next week. I’d be really eager to read it if I were you. I would subscribe in the subscription box below and follow MonkWealth on Facebook and Twitter to be sure not to miss the new posts.
January 2019 Asset Allocation
What’s that yellow thing there!? 🙂
A small allocation at this moment, but I started testing a new vehicle out. Last week, after some research, I decided to start with P2P lending, so I opened accounts on a few P2P platforms. Not that stocks are boring, especially not when they bounce back such as this month, but I wanted to diversify my wealth into more asset classes.
It’s literally just that. I could say: “Vanguard said that they expect a slower growth over the next decade”1, but could also say: “I’m in it for the long-term and the compounding will do its magic”. I’m saying neither. I literally just wanted to put my money to work through another vehicle as well – and P2P is the one I’m currently testing out.
I expect a few more to come during this year, but let me not get ahead of myself.
By the way, after some research I opened accounts on:
- Mintos
- Grupeer
- FastInvest
- Envestio
- PeerBerry
Note: some of the links are referral links, but I still don’t have almost any experience with the platforms so I’m not recommending anything yet.
This post is not the place where I’ll cover why I chose these particular platforms nor do a comparison right here and right now, but I’ll say that I didn’t pick them at random and these few seemed like the best choices for me. Of course, after I gain some experience (and returns), I’ll follow up with posts where I’ll do reviews and comparison between the platforms as well as my allocation in each.
For now, I’ll just say that the customer support on Mintos, Grupeer, and FastInvest was fast, reliable, and precise – which are qualities I rarely see in professionals nowadays.
That being said, I think P2P lending is a nice way to get some predetermined returns on your investments. I put a small amount to test the platforms out this month, but will follow up with some more from February.
The crypto portfolio is still stable – didn’t buy anything this month, nor I plan to in February, but I may think about it if ETH dips under 80€ again. I still think that it’s a good time to get in if you still haven’t, so here’s another referral link: Coinbase.
However, cryptocurrency is hell of a risky asset class, so I wouldn’t make any guarantees, but I’m not selling mine and expecting the next bull run in late 2019 or 2020.
Whatever.
January 2019 FIRE Progress
As I said in the beginning: this year started good. The December was pretty bad in terms of gains, as the S&P fell ~400 points, so I experienced a slower rate of growth during the month. However, this month my FIRE progress went from 28,32% to an amazing 31,02%!
It makes me feel good. But anything can happen tomorrow.
And not that’s it related to my FIRE aspirations, but I’m eating well, training strong, and sleeping enough, so all three also contribute to the state of happiness I’m currently experiencing. But I wouldn’t say that monetary gains are an insignificant factor – I’d actually allocate an equal proportion for each.
Mind, body, and personal finance.
And by the way, I’m also preparing a post on happiness, coming out in a week or two. Subscribe below and follow me on Facebook and Twitter, so you’ll be always notified when I publish new posts.
Cheers!
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