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| Summary of May/June 2023 |
For a brief moment I was filled with hope for the Ukrainian population. I hoped that the internal struggles in Russia would provide an opening for Ukraine to take back their land by the Russian troops rushing towards Moscow. We were unfortunately not as lucky. Not only Russia but also USA, UK etc. are using mercenary troops and not only providing them with plenty of cash for executing the jobs but these guys tend to have top notch equipment. Is there something to learn from Russia here? Is it advisable to create well funded, large military organisation that are pretty much only answering to money? When there is nothing for them to do... what do they then do? Is it in their interest to create conflicts?
I've heard colleagues complaining about that nothing is happening in Sweden during summer and all projects hit a stand still but I hadn't believed or realised just how much this is. Trying to regain my social security number was a slow process and without it one can pretty much do nothing in Sweden. You can't even get a mobile phone number for crying out loud. The wheels have slowly started to turn and I don't seem to have fully embraced my new life because it still leads to some level of frustration which it shouldn't! Why should I care if it takes 3,4 or even 5 months before I get my camping van up and running and hit the road? I think I'm too used to having things go my way. I've always claimed that I am a lucky person and the jam sandwich tends to land with jam side up for me but here in Sweden it feels as if it is jam down each and every time. Setting up the consultancy company is taking very long time which I'm not pleased with since it is a loss of money. Four weeks to start a company bank account, four weeks! Ridiculous. UKs HMRC are additionally, if I get a tax refund, sending that out as a cheque instead of paying it into the bank account as they always have done. Silly.
It costed a boatload of money to get the van sorted (i.e. repairs), I've ordered but not yet received, solar panels, hybrid inverter, batteries, roof fan, floor ventilation, insulation, compost toilet, cables to the death of me, electrical bicycle, foot water pump, tools, DC converter from 48V down to 12V, fire alarm, etc, etc. Several things are left to be ordered such as floor, ceiling and wall panels. All of which has costed another boatload of cash. Money has just been flying out left, right and centre.
Enough with the moaning... I've spent this month removing everything that was inside the van, treating rust and painting it over both inside and on the roof. I've started to put in some insulation, however until I've made all the cuts in the metal I don't want to move on with the insulation job. I need to have a crash course on electricity because now I'm over dimensioning everything in the camping van with a 5000 W hybrid MPPT + inverter. 2x24V solar panels, 2x24V lithium batteries (solar and battery connect in series to have 48V output) etc. All in line with pulling it out of the camping van and placing it on my future house instead and everything I learn building my camping van I will be able to use on my house later on. I've also done some jobs around the summer house to make it look better. Will wait with some though until my nephews arrive so that I can do the jobs with them. I think it will be good for them to learn a little and hopefully appreciate the pleasure of seeing a job done that they can claim they did.
I sold one of my holdings, Talanx, because it had increased severely in value in a short amount of time. Any dividends that had been received was also taken out so in total I took out 6,200 € from my broker account. As you will see from the report it hasn't made a dent though.
For the previous summary please visit Summary of April 2023.
The total invested value is now at: 363,739 €. A minor May investment was made in ETF Mix from my final salary, I sold Talanx and took out the cash + any collected dividends. The strengthening of the pound sterling have also helped out.
DAX is now up to 16,148 points which means that it has increased by 1.5% since the previous summary and my own portfolio has increased by 2.6% in the same time period.
Conclusion: The stock market was alright during these two months. My work / life balance has improved significantly and I give myself a pat on the shoulder each day when I've finished a job whatever that was that I wanted to do that day. So now I give myself a pat for finishing three articles and then I go out into the area and enjoy a, currently, surprisingly, sunny Sweden!
