Bankai's Journal

[Bankai]

My wife says thanks

I work as an analyst in a corporation and DW has a lower management position in civil service.

Re Peterson, I initially avoided the topic about him on these forums as I assumed he's a politician and I'm not interested in politics. Having come across his book and some online lectures, I now avoid this topic as I want to read the book first before I read people's opinions on him. So far, very interesting read although I just started. Looking forward to discussing the details once I finish the book.

[Bankai]

April update

April/Q2 goals:

* Exercise every day - 26/30 days in April
* Read one book a week - fail, read nothing
* Reduce time spent playing games, ideally to zero - fail
* Complete an online course I started in Jan - fail

I didn't make any progress with most of my goals in April. I still exercised regularly, however most days I was too tired/lazy after work to read anything.

At least on the financial front things are better:

Mortgage and bills: £761
Food and household: £222
Paints: £61
Clothes: £22
Eating out: £2
Travel: £19
Stuff: £25 (new pot and chopping board)

Total expenses in April: £1114
Per person: £557

Savings rate: 67%
Including mortgage principal: 74%

So close to 'the dream' (75% SR). However, I expect expenses to rise in the next 2 months as we will be going on 2 weeks vacation.

Goals for May:

* Exercise every day - I've been exercising every day for the last 36 days and I want to keep this going for at least the rest of May
* Read one book a week
* Complete an online course I started in Jan

[2Birds1Stone]

Where are you guys going this time around? *wave*

[Bankai]

We're going to the Czech Republic. I've never been there but I heard a lot of good things about it. Looking forward to trying delicious Czech cuisine and beers. We are likely to spend the most time in Prague, which doesn't worry me too much since it's considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But we will also be taking trips to nearby attractions.

[Seppia]

Make sure you visit Kampa museum near the river and Veletrzni Palac museum, so that you see a lot of Kupka paintings.
Prague is also famous for its modern art galleries, you can find cheap and excellent stuff.
A good one is Vltavin, near the national theater (narodni divadlo) and another one is Galerie Moderna along the river.

Some of my favorite artists within affordable range (if buying a lithography) are Frantisek Gross and Josef Istler

Gross
https://www.google.com/search?q=frantis ... 68&bih=922

Istler
https://www.google.com/search?client=sa ... aSye0hc%3D

[Bankai]

Thanks Seppia, these look good. We don't have a 'to see' list yet - still doing initial research/reading on Prague. I'm not much into modern art - maybe my tastes aren't fully developed yet - but I can totally see something like this https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=josef ... ohGeA0JGM: on our living room wall.

Speaking of which, lately we've been discussing buying some art to decorate the flat. I'm inclined towards actual paintings (probably of local, not well-known artists - we don't want to spend thousands) rather than printouts. It clashes a bit with my minimalistic tendencies so I'm not 100% decided yet. I wonder how many ERErs buy art?

[Seppia]

Seriously, go to Vltavin and Galerie Moderna in Prague.
You will find a lot of unique pieces and lithographies from young artists for cheaper than you could buy a printout in NYC or any major metro area.

Vltavin is the one with the largest selection of young artists (= cheaper)
Look for the online auctions (you need to create a profile to buy but you can browse without one).
I've bought from them multiple times and they are trustworthy.

http://www.auctions-art.cz/?lang=en

[wolf]

The idea for JAFI came from YOU! I only did the work.

The honour is yours! Thank you very much.

1 Jacob Adjusted For Inflation (JAFI)

[Bankai]

Thanks, wolf

Also, it's about time to update this journal.

Here are the expenses for the last 15 months.



One-offs (which have a bad habit of recurring...) were as following:

May - accommodation and flights to Prague
June - eating out fiesta while in Prague
July - home gym & Stockopedia subscription

Prague - we like to go abroad once a year. The total cost of c. £1k between the two of us is totally acceptable. And oh man, Prague is beautiful. It's also possibly very nice destination for (early) retirement.

Pros:

Food is good and cheap, transportation is dirty cheap (annual pass for public transport including buses, trains and underground is about £120), connoisseurs of good beer will not be disappointed nor will they spend much. Great architecture, friendly people, safe. Plenty of attractions: museums, galleries, theatres, multiple open-air festivals, concerts etc. Not enough time to run out of things to do. Great base to visit Poland, Germany and Austria as well as for shorter trips within the Czech Republic itself thanks to its central location.

Cons:

Waves of drunken tourists take over the city centre on the weekends. Real estate is crazy expensive relative to average income. The language is probably very difficult to learn for people not knowing any Slavic language already.

Home gym - we paid £580 for home gym consisting of a power rack, a bench and an olympic barbell with a set of plates. Why not a gym subscription instead? Several reasons: the cheapest gym is £15 a month or £180 a year so home gym pays for itself within 3 years. Going to and back from the gym costs extra time. If going after work, which would be best from time optimisation perspective, you can expect queues to the best/most popular machines. There's always (small) risk of someone stealing your stuff. And there's also sweat on handles, benches etc. We can both use the home gym and the shower is always few steps away. On the other hand, the footprint of these items is massive, but we only kept a desk with pc in our spare bedroom anyway. Resale value if we leave the UK should be around 50% or so. There are some limitations to what you can do, i.e. no standing overhead press or deadlift, but overall it covers almost all the exercises I want to do.

Savings rate* was:

May - 46.4%
June - 85.8%
July - 62.6%
August - 75.1%
YTD - 62.3%

With (hopefully) all the big expenses for the year already behind us, I expect spending in the months ahead to be in the region of 1 JAFI** per person. This should allow for SR of 75% for Sep-Dec.

NW is £79k, up from £65k in December. My 'soft' target for 2018 was to increase NW to £80k. It looks like I'll beat this comfortably thanks to a pay rise I got taking me for the first time above the UK average & median income.



Cash is in 5% savings. Pension is in index funds. Shares are in individual stocks in S&S ISA.

* I include both pension contributions and capital repayment part of mortgage payments as savings.

**JAFI of $8500 translates to £6550 or about £1100 a month for both of us.

[Bankai]

Expenses in September were £1094 or £547 per person. This is a whisker below 1 JAFI pp. Excluding the capital part of the mortgage payment, expenses were £864 or £432 per person. Other than food and bills, we spent less than £150 on everything else.

Sep SR - 79.5% (inc. pension contributions and capital part of the mortgage payment)

YTD SR - 64%

NW - £81.5k - the target of £80k hit 3 months ahead of plan. The revised target is £85k by year end.

Workouts - 24 out of 30 days (80%). I'm up to 11 pull-ups (from 7 in mid-July). Gained 2kg over the last 2.5 months. Eating 3k kcal as an ectomorph is not easy.

Walking - 291k steps vs. target of 300k.

Overall, pretty good month.

[Bankai]

Finance

Expenses in October were £1140, or £570 per person (1.05 JAFI annualised). Excluding the capital part of the mortgage payment, expenses were £910 or £455 per person (0.83 JAFI annualised). Other than food and bills, we spent less than £206 on everything else.

Oct SR - 78.4% (inc. pension contributions and capital part of the mortgage payment). This is the third month in a row when I'm at or above "the dream" (75% SR).

YTD SR - 65%

NW - £79.7k - market correction hit me for ~£4k (or 5% of my NW) between my trading account & pensions. Since I sold/was stopped of most of my positions, I'm sitting on the sidelines waiting for the market environment to improve. There are currently too many uncertainties in the market for my style of investing to be profitable.

Health

Workouts - 28 out of 31 days (90%). I'm up to 13 pull-ups (from 7 in mid-July). Benchpress is 91% of bodyweight - would be good to get this to 100% by year-end. Weight is the same as last month - I didn't eat as much as I thought I did.

Walking - 353k steps vs. the target of 310k. YDT I'm at 3m steps & 40k behind the target.





Shares represents the value of my trading accounts, however I'm currently mostly in cash as mentioned above.

[2Birds1Stone]

I continue to be amazed by your low spending. I'm going to try my hardest to get our household spending to <$36k/yr, and even that seems like it will be a struggle.

[wolf]

1.05 JAFI annualised

Since creating the JAFI-metric, I'm using it also in my monthly controlling. Great to see, that you do, too!
And having a JAFI around ~1 is great! Keep the good work, as always.

[Bankai]

@2B1S - we're not that far away, I'm probably ~35% lower (than $36k) while living in a (much?) lower CoL area.

I think the keys to our low expenses are as follows (in this order):

* (relatively) low mortgage payment
* walking distance to work, groceries & parks (no car)
* my wife likes cooking and does it pretty well (low eating out)
* internet as the ultimate entertainment (no recurring expenses on 'fun')
* 1 cheap holiday abroad per year (£700 for 2 weeks in central/eastern Europe beats £4k for a week in Vegas or Dubai anytime)

@wolf - yeah JAFI & 75% savings rate are good benchmarks to always keep in mind. Being at or around both consistently almost guarantees to reach 4-3% SW at some point over the next several years. Although overkilling both (i.e. 0.8 JAFI & 80% SR) would be even better.

[Bankai]

Finance

Expenses in November were £1,141 or £571 per person (1.05 JAFI annualised). Excluding the capital part of the mortgage payment, expenses were £911 or £456 per person (0.83 JAFI annualised). Other than food and bills, we spent £249 on everything else. Big win this month was taking food expenditure down to £214. I'm not really sure how this happened since we were not really trying to cut food expenses. Not so great were £33 spent on alcohol & £100 on stuff.

Nov SR - 78.4% (inc. pension contributions and capital part of the mortgage payment). This is the fourth month in a row when I'm at or above "the dream" (75% SR). I wonder how long I can keep dreaming. Probably until the next holiday.

YTD SR - 67%

NW - £81.4k - back to where I was 2 months ago (before the market corrected). I'm still on the sidelines with only one position in my account (~90% cash). The current market environment is still hostile to my investment style & there are no shares setting up constructively. My initial technical screen used to return 150-200 results before, but since Oct it's only ~50. This to me is a confirmation to do nothing. Like hunter awaiting prey, I wait patiently for correct setups. The market can do anything once/if Brexit situation clarifies. And since I use stop losses, risk to reward is just not there yet.

Health

Workouts - 21 out of 30 days (70%). Pretty shitty month as I got slightly ill mid-month and missed several workouts in a row. Also lost focus a bit & didn't eat enough to gain any more weight. BMI is still 20.5. No idea what my body fat is but it's probably single digits. I wouldn't mind gaining a tiny bit of fat along with muscles, but my metabolism even at 36y doesn't make it easy.

Walking - 257k steps vs. the target of 300k. YDT I'm at 3.37m steps & require 15,5k per day to reach the goal of 10k per day for 2018. Considering I'm at 9.7k per day YTD, it's unlikely to happen. Especially that Scotland in December is not the nicest place on earth to walk. It's getting dark at 3 pm & sun sets at 3.40pm. Oh well, I should've built a massive surplus in summer months to be able to afford to slack around Christmas. Let this be a lesson what happens if I walk (save) too little when times are good.

Other

I lapsed again into playing computer games. Most of my free time over the last 1.5 months was wasted on some old strategy games (Heroes of Might & Magic and Civilisation say hello). At least I didn't reinstall Hearthstone or Gwent, otherwise, I'd not be typing this now. But no more! All this stuff is now uninstalled (again, like it was many times in the past) & I'm ready for another few productive months. Until next time I guess... Why this is not as easy as not eating junk?

Anyways, my plans for the rest of the year are:

* continue working out every day, gain 1kg, bench press 100% body mass & hit 15 pull-ups
* re-read ERE & HIFFIAUW
* develop plan/strategy/main themes for 2019

[Jean]

HMM hotseats are our main excuse to meet with some of my friends. My favorite is the 3 (like moste people i imagine...)

[wolf]

congrats for achieving "the dream" this month!

Well, gaming. I started to play Diablo 3 a few weeks ago. It is getting dark too soon outside. So I experience the same issues. There are only a few months to go and it is going to be better in spring.

I am also on the sideline wrt investing, because of the unknowns in Europe, and rest of the world. Currently I am only saving cash and wait.

[Bankai]

@ Jean - yeah 3rd is the best part, it's not even close. My friends are not really into computer gaming as they all have kids but we play some boardgames every now and then (like, twice a year).

@ wolf - I probably spent couple hundred hours playing Diablo 2 in 2001. Part 3 was missing something in my opinion. I'm counting days to the winter solstice. There were 7h2m between sunrise and sunset today. That's less than 30% of the day.

[Sabaka]

Your expenses are insanely good man! Congrats on the SR. And I can sympathise with the lack of sunlight issue, even down in Hampshire we're blacked out by 16:30!

Good luck for the new year

[Bankai]

Finances

Expenses in December were £1,170 or £585 per person (1.07 JAFI annualised). Excluding the capital part of the mortgage payment, expenses were £942 or £471 per person (0.86 JAFI annualised). Other than food and bills, we spent £372 on everything else. Food is back up to £273.

Dec SR - 77.7% (inc. pension contributions and capital part of the mortgage payment). This is now 5th month in a row with SR >= 75%. This feels good since I only had 5 months of SR > 75% in prior 4.5 years.

YTD SR - 68%

NW - £82.7k - this is better than I expected at the beginning of the year when I set a goal of £80k NW for this year. However, it's below my revised target of £85k set in September, due to the market correction. I'm still on the sidelines sitting mostly in cash. Vote on Brexit deal is supposed to happen soon & this should add some clarity as to where the market is going this year. For now, I'm not tempted to re-enter.

Health

Workouts - 28 out of 31 days (90%). I reached 2 out of 3 fitness targets I set last month - bench press 100% of body mass (102%) and 15 pull-ups (16). I did not gain any weight though. I need to do the same with feeding as I've done with lifting: plan, execute, track, make habitual.

Walking - 238k steps vs. the target of 310k. I ended the year with 3494630 steps walked (+/- the accuracy of the app, + whatever I walked while not having the phone on me). This is 155k or 425 per day below the target of 10k steps per day. Still, around 95% of goal completed.

I've started re-reading HIFFIAUW (Harry Browne) but didn't get very far. I'm very consistent at not reaching my reading goals. Something to fix in 2019.

I will post 2018 summary & 2019 plans and goals separately.