Summary of October/Early November 2023

 

I will start as I unfortunately always have now for the last almost two year... War is still ongoing!

The campingvan has now been finished which felt very good. Everything is in and I passed the MOT. I tested it out and I had this wrong thought that it would be more like living in a home but it really isn't. It is luxury camping on wheels. The temperature outside is pretty much like inside. It can get a couple of degrees higher with heating, but I do not want to use gas heater and I'm scared about draining the batteries so I use very moderate heating. A fridge is also draining a lot so unless the sun is really shining for many hours a day I will not use it. No need when it is below 10 degrees anyway. I made a test drive and the first night was 5 degrees. That was cold. The other three it was between 11-13 degrees which is fully acceptable. I do not get a lot of charge from the solar panels now during winter, which is really sad and very limiting. I will not take off until spring next year.

I've continued to do some consultancy job for my old company. It is going fairly well and the invoices are being paid.

For the previous summary please visit Summary of August/September 2023.

The total invested value is now at: 353,601 €. No investments were made and no investments were sold.

The value of the portfolio is today: 494,047 € and I have 1,569 € in cash (took some out from my German one) on my broker accounts. I have realised gains of 7,487 € and unrealised of 140,446 € (28%) which is not good enough. My ETFs are now up at a value of 73% of my portfolio.

DAX is now down at 15,234 points which means that it has decreased by -1.0% since the previous summary and my own portfolio has increased by 0.9% in the same time period.

Conclusion: The stock market appears to be muddling through and I don't see anything exciting at the moment.

Dividends in October/Early November 2023

 

Few dividends have been paid out but I'm of course happy for any cash flow in my direction!

Nike paid out 12.84 €, the tax office kept 1.93 €, leaving me with 10.91 €.

Barratt also paid out in the size of 134.04 € of which all ended up as cash on my broker account.

Summary of August / September 2023

 

Summary August / September 2023

War is still going on between a dictator and a democracy in Europe. Horrible!

I would like to apologise for that I have had to combine two months in this report. I was about to blame it on that I've been busy, and I have, but still... 

During the two months the sun was shining so I've been very active with my van conversion. I additionally painted my parents house (with their help of course) and my consultancy company got up and running so I've worked with my old company and was even sent for a week to the USA represent them in an activity.

Van conversion - last time I had insulated, moisture barrier and laid out the floor. Now I have done the same with the walls, the doors and the ceiling. I've put in a kitchen area with a sink, I have fresh and grey water tanks and a foot pump for the water. I've put in my bed, I needed to build a frame and storage space underneath it because I lost so much surface with the bed. I've put in a table to eat at and to work at. I've put in a mirror to gain more light and make the space look bigger. I've put in infrared heating which I think is a lovely new way to heat up small spaces. I've put in fire alarm and carbon monoxide alarm which is less required since I will not use gas but still... The batteries (2x24V in serie to give 48V output) are in and connected to the inverter, the solar panels (2x24V in serie to give 48V output) are connected to the MPPT/Inverter, the AC current and the home fuse box is in and after a bit of a trial and error journey are now also working and are releasing as it should and my three AC outlets works perfectly fine. I still have three things running on DC which is my ceiling fan, and two lamps. All these are also working fine. One big issue though.... the inverter that I bought was for a home and I had failed to realise that it needed a substantial voltage from the solar panels to charge the batteries. Once I realised the mistake I've also realised that I cannot increase the solar panels to reach the needed voltage so I've been forced to order another inverter which will arrive shortly. This will however require me to parallel connect my batteries instead of having them in serie. What's left? Well, I need to put in a lot more storage space, I need to put in media, swap out the inverter so those freaking batteries will get charged, I need to put in a toilet, fridge, induction cooker. These are hopefully the big ticket items left. I also need to do a MOT on the van, which I should do during October.

Painting my parents house was not really fun but it had to be done and I'm happy that I am around and could help them out with that! At the absolutely worst location, three panels needed to be changed out so that was a bit of a drag and though I'm not afraid of depths I must admit that my legs started shaking a bit when standing high up on the ladder and needing to lean out to hammer them stuck in place. Anyway, now it is done and will hopefully last for 7-10 years.

In the end of August my company was finally up and running. I got a bit upset with the Swedish tax office because they demanded me to show my private economy when the company requested F-skattesedel and VAT register. To my knowledge an AB is it's own legal person and in this situation the Swedish tax office takes the decision to NOT consider it as such due to few owners of the AB. I provided them with the requested papers and I could finally sign the contract with my old company. This led to me going over to the USA on assignment for a week and additional work being interviewed by journalists, speaking to potential customers etc. This additionally delayed things with my van but on the other hand I could write an invoice to them which I did now in the end of September.

I do enjoy living in my summerhouse and I've started to think more and more about delaying my departure until early next year. Both due to that I'm running so late, it gives me more time to test it out before heading to the south, and Christmas is not far away and I definitely wants to celebrate that with my family here in Sweden. It feels good to have been able to join in on all the Swedish events this year that I haven't been able to for 20+ years such as midsummer, crayfish party, birthdays etc.

For the previous summary please visit Summary of July 2023.

The total invested value is now at: 353,601 €. No investments were made and no investments were sold.

The value of the portfolio is today: 491,025 € and I have 2,284 € in cash on my broker accounts. I have realised gains of 7,487 € and unrealised of 137,424 € (28%) which is not good enough. My ETFs are now up at a value of 74% of my portfolio.

DAX is now down at 15,387 points which means that it has decreased by -3.7% since the previous summary and my own portfolio has decreased by -2.0% in the same time period.

Conclusion: The stock market went down for a while in August and have since then now started to recover slightly during September. Due to some dividend payments I'm very close to take some money out from my German stock broker but at this point in time I do not yet need it so I leave it for now.

Dividends in August/September 2023

 

I thought there would only be some trickles of dividends arriving during the remainder of the year but I was clearly wrong. I had some serious pay out from especially Rio Tinto which is much appreciated!

ETF All-World paid out 26.05 € as cash on my broker account

ETF S&P500 paid out 63.41 € as lovely, lovely cash.

ETF EU-UK paid out 82.53 € as cash on my broker account.

Rio Tinto paid out a total of 514.09 € as cash on my two broker accounts.

HSBC paid out 64.35 € as cash to me.

Barclay decided to pay out 59.10 € as cash on my broker account.

Lloyds were also generous and paid out 68.90 € to my broker account.

Intel has tighten the purse and only paid out 35.36 €, the taxman took 2.32 €, leaving me with 33.04 € as cash on my two broker accounts.

BP paid out 52.53 € on my broker account.

IBM paid out 38.49 €, taxman took 5.78 € leaving me with 32.71 € on my broker account and finally

TJX paid out 19.48 €, taxman took 2.92 €, leaving 16.56 € as cash on my broker account.

Summary of July 2023

 

Summary of July 2023

War is still ongoing and agreements made are no longer kept. The ages of people being called into the army in Russia is increasing, while Ukraine is at it's max capacity. My thoughts and hopes are still with the Ukrainians!

I've significantly underestimated just how slow things are. My consultancy company have not yet been received the all clear and my old company is screaming for me to help them out due to too many projects come to a standstill. Good for me one might think but I really do not want a fulltime job again consulting or otherwise and also it makes me wonder if I left my old company in a bad way i.e. my handover was not as good as I hoped? I provided everything they asked for and more so I should probably conclude that that's on them.

My campingvan conversion is also a lot slower than I had hoped for. Rain, rain, rain is holding me back since I do not want to bring in wet insulation, floors, furniture etc. and my only option for cutting and adjusting things is under the open sky. What I've accomplished to todays date is the following... repaired the car, rust treated and painted the interior, installed a skylight and fan, installed solar panels (no other electrics), installed floor ventilation, insulated the floor and laid floor and now I've started to insulate the walls. Ordering of things have been much slower than I had hoped for and the amount of sunny days in July has been few. I also made a small holiday trip to Andorra to visit a friend, get some sun and allow my brother and his family to have some alone time in the summer cabin. I did not, in the end, perform any jobs with my nephews. A big storm is running in Sweden at the moment and when the sun arrives I need to help my parents to paint their house since that has absolute top priority. My van will have to wait. I shouldn't be stressed about it but I must admit that there is some level of frustration.

During my trip to Andorra, being in and walking in the mountains, I had some time to think and realised that an idea that I had back in 2005 is still viable and I should / must execute on it. This means that I now know what to do with the money that comes into my consultancy company instead of taking it out as salary or as dividends I should invest it into this old, old idea. Anyway... that will have to be after I have sorted out my renovations object where ever I end up buying it. Good time to buy property though!

To sort out some strange holding structures and to sort out my virtual debt to my nephews I sold both Ratos (slightly too early!) and a large part of my H&M holding.

For the previous summary please visit Summary of May/June 2023.

The total invested value is now at: 353,601 €. No investments were made and I sold some H&M and all my Ratos holdings. The strengthening of the pound sterling have also helped out.

The value of the portfolio is today: 498,059 € and I have 1,274 € in cash on my broker accounts. I have realised gains of 7,487 € and unrealised of 144,458 € (29%) which is not good enough. My ETFs are now up at a value of 74% of my portfolio.

DAX is now up at 15,974 points which means that it has decreased by -1.1% since the previous summary and my own portfolio has increased by 1.9% in the same time period.

Conclusion: The stock market went up significantly in July and have started to come back down again and happily my own portfolio performed better than DAX at this point in time.

Dividends in July 2023

 

The months of strong dividend payments are behind us and therefore there will only be some minor trickles arriving for the remainder of the year. Two companies still decided to pay out some cash to me though.

Nike paid out 12.44 € of which the US taxman took 1.87 € and I was left with 33.10 € in cash on my broker account.

ABF also decided to pay out 33.10 € and all of that arrived as cash on my broker account.

Sold stocks during July 2023

 

I had two things that I've been needing to deal with since a long time and that was that I owned part of my H&M shares and all of my Ratos shares in a slightly strange construct which now needed to be sorted out. Secondly I had a debt built up towards all my nephews since the stock brokers that I have been using did not allow me to construct sub accounts for my nephews which can be done very easily in Avanza and was therefore also done. This means that I, moving forward, can very easily buy shares for them for their birthdays and I no longer have to carry a virtual debt to them. I've set it up so that I buy 70% Avanza Global and 30% Avanza Zero to them. I do today consider the low cost ETFs to be superior to any other investments for an amateur investor such as myself.

I therefore sold 353 of my H&M shares at 15.03 € giving 5,305.59 € (loss of -485.83€, -8%) for a holding held for 67 months. Dividend build-up I leave with my remaining shares.

I also sold all my Ratos (in hindsight... a bit early since they have recovered lately) of 1245 shares at 2.51 € giving 3124.95 € (loss of -698.05 €, -18%) and I've received 57.27 € in dividends during a holding period of 65 months.

My current holding period of sold investments are therefore 3.6 years and the change will be updated in the upcoming monthly summary.

Summary of May/June 2023

 

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.

The value of the portfolio is today: 505,503 € and I have 1,224 € in cash on my broker accounts. I have realised gains of 8,671 € and unrealised of 141,164 € (28%) which is not good enough. My ETFs are now up at a value of 73% of my portfolio.

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!

Dividends in May/June 2023

 

It's been a period with plenty of dividend payments which is always enjoyable especially now when I need to take out money instead of adding.

E.On paid out 204.00 € of which the German taxman kept 53.80 € and I was left with 150.20 € as cash on my broker account.

Intel paid out 44.75 €, USA tax office withheld 6.71 € and I was left with 38.04 € in cash.

TJX paid me 19.78 €, US withheld 2.96 € and I got 16.82 € on my broker account.

The next dividend payment I'm not really happy about. I wanted Luc to keep re-investing the earnings into the business or other endeavours for that matter!

Tessenderlo paid out 127.50 €, the taxman in Belgium kept 38.25 € and I got 89.25 € on my broker account.

IBM provided me with 38.34 €, tax withheld was 5.76 € and I got 32.58 € in cash.

BP paid me 49.46 € which arrived directly as cash.

Barratt paid out 59.36 € in cash.

Lloyds paid out 121.05 € in cash.

HSBC paid out 64.67 € in cash.

ETF EU paid out 301.16 € in cash

ETF S&P500 paid out 63.29 € in cash.

ETF All-World paid out 38.89 € in cash.

So a pretty good period!

Sold stocks during June 2023

 

Due to a rapid value increase of my shares in Talanx I decided that it was a good moment to let go of the investment.

I therefore sold my 80 shares that I once bought for 2,109 €, 8.6 years ago, for 4,308 € giving a profit of 104%. I've additionally over the years received 1,068 € in dividends from my Talanx holding.

My current average holding period, of sold investments, are now up at 3.5 years.

The money, including any built up dividend payments on my German broker account were taken out (6,200 €) to support my current endeavours.

Summary of April 2023

Summary of April 2023

Ukraine is on an offense now which is great news! Pity that lives are still lost every day and so close to us. When I was back home in Sweden for a week to sort out a van I managed to go to Walpurgis night (Valborgsmassoafton), which I've not done for the last 20+ years. The deaconess held a lovely speech about the Ukrainians struggle and how many had arrived to Sweden and once their region was liberated again they went back home. They are strong and they will persevere!

The reason for me being back home as I also wrote in a pretty long response in the Summary of March 2023 was to buy a van and to drive it back to the UK so that I can bring back my stuff and during the summer convert it into a functional camping van for my journey towards the south of Europe. I hope I can start it in August but it might be delayed. On my way south I'm hoping to visit friends of mine (so I can shower and fill up with fresh water also!) since afterwards they will have to come and see me if they want to due to my future travelling budget will be very limited. Good news are property prices have started to drop all over Europe so it's a pretty good moment to do what I'm planning to do next. People are feeling the squeeze of the increased interest rates, even though the job market, at least in the UK, is still very strong. Massive droughts in the south of Europe, Spain in particular, which makes living on rainwater all the more interesting if it can be accomplished.

The work project I've been pushing has gone very well and I've created a lot of connections in the field which is excellent and I'm feeling content walking away. My colleagues have not yet understood/accepted that I'm leaving which is a bit funny. They want to hold me on as a consultant which I might accept to continue to help them a bit also in the future. This will require me to set up a company in Sweden which I will then not take out any salary from but only "dividends" on the profits if there are any. I doubt the consultancy agreement will run for more than one year and after that they should be able to stand on their own two feet also without me.

My final salary will arrive in 17 days and then I need to file a P85 to HMRC due to leaving the UK. I hope this will give me back a bit of money since I'm receiving only two salaries in the new UK tax year and my tax rate has been calculated on me receiving the salary for a full year. I also have some remaining holidays, 10 or so, which I will also get paid out as salary.

I know that all of you are highly clever individuals but I just want to make it as a crystal clear statement. That I will now do F.I.R.E is NOT because I've been a great investor. I truly have not been and I've done so many mistakes that's costed me dearly. It is purely down to low cost living, acceptable salary and that I'm a great saver on the stock market. I wish I would have been a great investor with 20% increase each year but I'm not and I have not so maybe there is something to take onboard from this but I leave that with you.

For the previous summary please visit Summary of March 2023.

The total invested value is now at: 362,717 €. A minor monthly investment was made in ETF Mix with fresh cash and more substantial into ETF S&P500 and ETF All-World from Vanguard.

The value of the portfolio is today: 494,606 € and I have 2,833 € in cash on my broker accounts. I have realised gains of 6,471 € and unrealised of 131,889 € (27%) which is not good enough. My ETFs are now up at a value of 73% of my portfolio.

DAX is now up to 15,914 points which means that it has increased by 1.8% since the previous summary and my own portfolio has decreased by -1.7% in the same time period.

Conclusion: DAX once again had a good month while I did not. Today it hardly makes any sense to compare myself to DAX since my portfolio is far away from DAX but it's where I started so I keep it up as an historical reminder. Next report will be made from Sweden and will probably not be until in end of June. I'm hopefully then fully active with the camping van conversion and there will for sure have been no more money added to the portfolio.

Dividends in April 2023

Happily a lot of dividends have dropped in since the last report and especially RioTinto is a pleasure to receive dividends from during this day and age of change.

RioTinto - From my 325 shares I received a total of 685.66 € which was paid out as cash.

HSBC - My 700 shares paid out 149.24 € as cash.

Barclays - With my 1,900 shares I received 109.25 € as cash.

H&M - The 603 shares paid out 173.83 €, the taxman took 52.15 €, which left me with 121.69 € in cash.

Talanx - My 80 shares paid out 160 €, taxman took 42.20 €, and left me with 117.80 € in cash.

BASF - The 140 shares paid out 476 €, the German tax office took 125.54 €, leaving me with 350.46 € in cash.

Skanska - My 250 shares paid out 164.93 €, Swedish taxman took 49.48 €, and I got 115.45 € paid out in cash.

Nike - With my 40 shares I received 12.45 €, USA taxman kept 1.87 € and I was left with 10.58 € in cash.

A great period for dividend payments!

Bought stocks during April 2023

Due to the start of the new tax year in the UK on the 6th April it was possible to bring in £20k to the stock ISA again. Happily, since it was my last opportunity of doing so, I had the money available to directly make the transfer and to buy ETFs for. The Blackrock logo is here just a representation for a company with great cost effective ETF offerings, the two ETFs that I bought was from Vanguard, but their logo was not as an image so I couldn't use it. Both of them have a fee below the required 0.5% as it should be with an ETF.

ETF S&P500 - bought 58 parts at a total cost of 5,570.24 €.

ETF All-World - bought 250 parts at a total cost of 17,571.66 €.

My ETF portion of the portfolio increased a little bit more. They will be included in the upcoming monthly summary.

Summary of March 2023

 

Summary of March 2023

Lest we forget... war is still ongoing and it is very close to us. People are still losing their lives to defend their country. Inflation is still high and many countries have serious strikes going on either due to pay or due to increased pension age. Governments wants us to stop drinking, smoking and using drugs so that we live longer and once we live longer they increase the age required for us to go into retirement. Robotics will be the solution and not growing population and kicking the can to the next generation to pay the price and increasing the age of retirement is in my opinion also not the path to walk. Forcing a construction worker to work for 40 years with his or her body in shambles is just a disgrace.

Lately I've been poking around with AI, so pretty much every evening I'm asking questions and reasoning with ChatGPT or Bing AI. ChatGPT is clearly more intelligent and I prefer to work with it but I must also say that in the last week I've truly felt how ChatGPT has become more intelligent. It will be interesting to see what happens when it realises or starts acting on that mankind is a parasite on this lovely planet that we are inhabiting surrounded by in the cold, harsh Universe. There are gains (personal and business ones) to be made, for sure, using AI and currently I'm mainly using it as a clever source of information but I need to take it to the next level...

I did in the end hand in my letter of resignation on the 28 February and my final day will be sometime in the end of May. Are my calculations correct? We'll see. If not, then I'll just have to take a job again - I'm not worried, but sure, another year working and I could have bought a better place and had a much bigger buffer to rely on. No retreat no surrender!

At work I'm pushing the projects to the max to make sure that I walk away with the company and the team in an as good place as possible. I've heard about it before but I truly do believe that Swedish people have very high work moral. The UK boss assumed that I would just be slacking off and not be doing anything these three months of notice, which probably says more about him than it does me...

The significant reduction of the payment into the ETF mix (company pension scheme) leaves me with a lot more cash out each month. There might be a bit of a tax issue... I'll deal with that as and when it comes. Anyway... this means that I can directly when the new UK tax year starts on 6 April, transfer £20k to my stock ISA and invest it. It might sound irrational especially considering that I will need cash in the near future however, I do not know exactly when and I also have not decided if I will use the German or the UK broker account to buy the future property and until I've settled upon that I will move forward with what is currently the most financially beneficial option for me, which is to push money into the UK stock ISA.

I must also think about what to do with this blog once I step into my F.I.R.E. Should I report on how life is going on in a different blog/vlog? Should I just walk away and provide no further reports? Will I become even more active in buying and selling stocks to generate cash and then report on that?

For the previous summary please visit Summary of February 2023.

The total invested value is now at: 337,989 €. A minor monthly investment was made in ETF Mix with fresh cash.

The value of the portfolio is today: 466,743 € and I have 1,787 € in cash on my broker accounts. I have realised gains of 6,471 € and unrealised of 128,753 € (28%) which is not good enough. My ETFs are now up at a value of 70% of my portfolio.

DAX is now up to 15,629 points which means that it has increased by 2.8% since the previous summary and my own portfolio has decreased by -0.9% in the same time period.

Conclusion: Lately the seas have been stormy and DAX has really been going well. I must however say that having recently bought UK banks just ahead of SVBs issues hasn't helped but I'm fairly pleased with my portfolios development considering how the stock markets in many countries (clearly Germany excluded) have decreased and I've pretty much just treaded water. 

Dividends in March 2023

 

All the oil companies have made massive profits lately. From this BP decided to pay out 50.31 € which I directly received as cash on my broker account.

IBM paid out 38.77 €, from this the taxman took 5.82 €, leaving me with 32.95 € as cash on my broker account.

DBAG paid out a very small dividend this year in the size of 124 €, the German tax man took 32.70 € which left me with 91.30 € in cash.

The US retail chain TJX paid out 17.68 € and from this 2.65 € was taken in taxes leaving me with 15.03 € in cash.

Intel, whose share price have tanked in the last couple of months paid out 119.59 €, and 6.89 € went to the taxman, leaving me with 112.70 € in cash. It looks strange, I know, I don't see the taxes removed in my UK broker account and I currently own intel shares on both my UK and German account.

And finally my ETF EU held in the UK paid out a dividend of 78.39 € that I get straight out as cash.

Summary of February 2023

 

Summary of February 2023

War madness is still ongoing! Inflation is still high! UK have import issues with fresh vegetables and fruits and more gets stopped and demanded custom payments on. Got things stuck myself which I simply will not pickup due to the custom payment is 188% of the value of my purchase. UKs true hardship is starting so yes, it is time to leave.

My company gave a "pay-rise" of 5% meaning effectively a 6% salary reduction. A 20% bonus was however paid out so I got a lot of cash sitting at the moment that is not on my broker accounts due to that I can't add more to my stock ISA until mid April and the GBP/EUR has dropped down to 1.13 again so I don't want to move money to my German broker account.

I'm trying to make a final push in the company and the projects that we have running. I have an email draft ready with a signed letter of my resignation that should be going out on the 28 February unless something dramatic happens. I've reduced my monthly contribution to the very lucrative pension scheme to get more cash out which is what I need for the future and not more money stuck in the UK company pension scheme (goes under ETF Mix). Time to say goodbye.

For the previous summary please visit Summary of December 2022 and here you can see my stock portfolio as it is.

The total invested value is now at: 336,305 €. Monthly investments made in ETF Mix with fresh cash and this contribution has also been reduced to reflect my future endavours.

The value of the portfolio is today: 467,594 € and I have 1,402 € in cash on my broker accounts. I have realised gains of 6,471 € and unrealised of 131,289 € (28%) which is not good enough. My ETFs are now up at a value of 70% of my portfolio.

DAX is now up to 15,210 points which means that it has increased by 1.2% since the previous summary and my own portfolio has increased by 1.8% in the same time period.

Conclusion: DAX has really been going well and have in the last couple of months performed much stronger than my portfolio. I did however barely beat it this month, so nothing to be proud of. Letter not yet handed in but everything is prepared for it to happen on the 28 February.

Dividends in Jan/Feb 2023

Very few dividends have dropped in this early in the year however two of my holdings have delivered.

ABF paid out 67.01 € of which I got to keep all of it as cash on my broker account.

Nike paid out 12.68 €, the taxman withheld 1.90 € and I received 10.78 € as cash on my broker account.

Summary of December 2022 and partially January 2023

 

Summary of December 2022 and partially January 2023

It will take a while before I stop this however war is still ongoing! The yearly inflation for many countries were in the double digits region. House prices are somewhat dropping, people try to avoid large energy bills. The pound sterling that looked good for a little while have now dropped down to the area it has been since pretty much BREXIT took place. Governmental employees keep going out on strikes and in generally few wants to come into the office to work.

I had a lovely Christmas market event in Berlin even though fewer than usual managed to turn up. Next year I hope it will improve! I had two wonderful weeks in Sweden and of course I took on the role of Santa Claus. My youngest nephew was slightly worried and had to hold the hand of his daddy (my brother) to approach me. I run a strict scheme and everyone must shake my hand before I let go of the gift. I celebrated New Years Eve with a couple of my buddies with lovely food and games.

Plenty of things on the agenda in the company this year. I've started to push as much as I can because I will not walk away with an abundance of lose threads and just leave the employees hanging. I hope I will succeed with all the targets that I've put on myself in the months that I have left.

For the previous summary please visit Summary of November 2022 and here you can see my stock portfolio as it is.

The total invested value is now at: 332,180 €. Monthly investments made in ETF Mix with fresh cash and then I sold Restaurant brands, Yum, Stock Y, McDonalds, RWE, VW, DB, CZB, K+S and instead I bought Barratt, Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, Scottish Mortgage, Intel and ETF SWE.

The value of the portfolio is today: 455,859 € and I have 1,402 € in cash on my broker accounts. I have realised gains of 6,471 € and unrealised of 123,679 € (27%) which is not good enough. My ETFs are now up at a value of 69% of my portfolio.

DAX is now up to 15,034 points which means that it has increased by 3.5% since the previous summary and my own portfolio has only increased by 2.3% in the same time period.

Conclusion: DAX had another good month and overall the year for DAX did not turn out that bad. I took some advantage of currency differences during the month but less so than what I would have liked. There will be no report for the end of January and the next one will not be until the end of February when I have hopefully handed in my letter of resignation.

The stock portfolio development during 2022

 

What a horrendously bad year for the growth of my stock portfolio in 2022! My stock portfolio increased in value by 84.3k € of which 74.8k € was in savings and a measly 9.5k € came from value increase. Bad, bad, bad! The market crash have had an impact for sure.

In the previous report the stock portfolio development 2021 I spoke about that I had readjusted my target from the original 750k € to 425k €, so that I could buy a renovations object, in ideally the south of France. I want to live close to the beach and I want to be able to go skiing during winter so more places have appeared on the radar as of late and more money is needed to buy the places. I've reached the target (~450k €) and I'm very close to handing in my letter of resignation but in the last weeks they've been pushing that they will increase the age of when one is legally allowed to take out from the private pension scheme from 55 to 57 years of age. This is to follow the 2 year increase in the UK from 65 to 67 years for retirement. Very annoying... So I need to fund a further two years and yes, currently house prices are dropping but not as heavily as I would have liked to see so I can't fund the two years by putting less into the renovation object.

As can be seen in the graph above my plan is working well. In my first year (2012) of investment I ended up with a stock portfolio in the value of 17,659 € which was 4,744 € more then my plan required. In the second year (2013) my stock portfolio grew with 73 % and ended up with a value of 30,623 € which was 4,723 € above my target meaning that I managed to stay ahead of my plan but I did not manage to increase this advantage. In the third year (2014) my stock portfolio grew with 57% and I ended up with a value of 48,208 € which is then 8,333 € ahead of my investment plan which means that I managed to double my advantage during 2014. In the fourth year (2015) my portfolio grew by 53% and I am up at a value of 73,579 €. My plan was to have a stock portfolio of 54,915 € in the end of 2015 which means that I am now 18,664 € ahead of my plan. During my fifth year (2016) which was horrible in terms of new investments my portfolio still grew by 20% and the value was up at 88,414 € which mean that I was still 17,312 € ahead of my plan. In the sixth year (2017) the portfolio grew by 24% with a value of 109,606 € which was 21,802 € ahead of my plan. Followed by my seventh year of investing (2018) and an estimated growth of 19% and a value of ~130,000 which kept me 22,726 € ahead of my plan (hit by divorce). To then in my eighth year of investing (2019) with a growth of 24% with a stock portfolio value of 160,669 € and me being 33,216 € ahead of the plan (still hit by divorce). In the ninth year of investing (2020) and a growth of 52% and a stock portfolio at 243,801 € and me being 94,629 € ahead of the plan (final year of being hit by divorce). In my tenth year (2021) I had a growth of 57% and a stock portfolio at 383,941 € and by that I was 211,395 € ahead of the original plan. In the eleventh year (2022) I had a growth of measly 19% and a stock portfolio of 455,859 € and by that I was 258,156 € ahead of the original plan.

The year was kept on the down and low due to the poor performance of the stock portfolio. Savings were kept up at an extremely high value. It is insane to be able to save almost 75k € per year in the last two years.

Conclusion: 2022 did not become the best year ever. The massive saving ability once again helped my out substantially but the stock portfolio did not perform well at all. At least it did not drop down so I should potentially be pleased about that but I am not.