Bankai's Journal

[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.

[Bankai]

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

Thanks and same to you! Even if it's barely noticeable, days are now getting longer and it has a huge positive psychological effect on us.

[Seppia]

Your numbers are an inspiration, big congrats.
You mention the Brexit deal vote is going to happen, is it confirmed?
Here in Italy the consensus in the news is that we don't know what's going to happen, did we miss something?
Our local media is very bad but I didn't see anything on Bloomberg/NYT either

[Bankai]

@ Seppia - thanks! Re the vote, it was rescheduled to ~11th Jan back in December, however there's nothing stoping PM to postpone it a bit longer. She doesn't want a vote she's 99% to lose, so (I imagine) there are constant talks and bargains within her party as well as between London and Brussels as well as brainstorming plans B, C & D (you'd think 'they' would have this worked out well in advance...). The vote needs to happen eventually though and is expected in the next few weeks.

[Bankai]

Finances

Expenses in January were £1,315 or £658 per person (1.2 JAFI annualised). Excluding the capital part of the mortgage payment, expenses were £1085 or £543 per person (0.99 JAFI annualised). Other than food and bills, we spent £363 on everything else. This is slightly higher than the last few months, due to:

1) my only 'worthy' pair of jeans which I wore almost exclusively for the last couple of years doesn't look so worthy anymore, so I bought 2 new pairs; my wife also bought few pieces of clothing
2) my wife has a new hobby which costs ~£50 per quarter
3) alcohol & eating out was ~£70 combined - a bit higher than I'd like to see

Jan SR - 74.2% (inc. pension contributions and capital part of the mortgage payment).

YTD SR - 74.2%

NW - £85.1k - this was my revised target for 2018 which I've now hit a month late. Still, feels pretty good considering the market still underperforms. However, there are some positive signs at last and I might be gradually coming back into equities. Still, would rather have this deal/no-deal nonsense out of the way before going in with any serious money.

Health

Workouts - 31 out of 31 days. However, 17 out of 31 were light workouts and only 14 were lifting days. I'd like to change this to at least 2/3 of the days being lifting days. I'm now up to 18 chin ups and it's probably time to look around for a belt for weighted chins. Haven't made any progress weight wise which is disappointing, but I only have myself to blame since feeding was not my priority. But it doesn't make sense to lift hard if I'm not eating right. So putting together a 3000kcal per day eating plan and implementing it from tomorrow is my goal for today.

Walking - 260k steps vs. the target of 310k. This means I'm already 50k behind the target, however I'm not too worried since Jan is a pretty awful month to go for walks.

Other

I haven't really made any meaningful progress in any other area in Jan as I spent most of my time after work relaxing and de-stressing. My motivation to be productive dives pretty hard in winter. Maybe this is a hint to consider moving somewhere warm for retirement. Although Scotland is a cracking country to live in if you don't mind the weather.

Goals for February:

1) Work out at least 90% of the days, with at least 2/3 being lifting days
2) Acquire a belt and start doing weighted chins/pull-ups
3) Put together a feeding schedule of 3000kcal & 130g protein per day and follow it from tomorrow
4) Read a book per week - this has been on my goal list since forever and I still manage to find ways not to make it happen. Time to change the approach and make it more specific. I'm going to link reading with sleep hygiene - I'll aim to go to bed at the same time every night and read for 30-60 minutes before going to sleep. This should allow an easy book a week.
5) With the market starting to look interesting again, go back to spending 20h per week on reading and researching

This is a very ambitious plan. Let's see how it works out.

[Bankai]

I'm blessed (or cursed) with a fairly high tolerance for repetition. This takes the form of for example listening to a new album 100x until I get bored, or playing the same game until I master it and there's no challenge anymore. Eventually, the exploitation phase is over and I go back to the exploration until again I find something that I like and I immerse myself into for weeks or months. This quality makes life easier if a bit boring and predictable (from outsiders' point of view). If I was single, I'd simplify a few areas of my life, for example, since I don't mind eating the same things all the time, food shopping and consumption.

And this brings us to... a meal plan!

The below is my amateurish but colourful attempt to plan daily intake of calories and protein that's both sufficient for mass gain as well as otherwise nutritious and healthy (WFPB diet based on whole grains, beans, fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds). My base calorie requirement is ~2200 per day. On top of that, I walk for about 90 minutes and work out for about an hour (~300 each), taking total requirement to ~2800. The plan below provides ~500 kcal surplus while maintaining ~2g of protein per kg of body weight. I expect 5 out of 7 meals to be the same/very similar each day, while, since my wife likes to cook and is very good at that, lunch and dinner will likely be different every day, however, I assume nutritional value will be roughly similar.

[Cheepnis]

Love the detailed meal plan! Approximately what times of day that you take each meal? I'm on a 5x/day eating schedule, but have been feeling I should add a sixth toward the end of the day because I get munchy after my early dinner.

[Bankai]

@Cheepnis - I eat breakfast first thing in the morning, so about 7.30 am. Work is 9-5 and I can take breaks and lunch whenever I want, so snack 1 ~10 am, lunch ~12.30, snack 2 ~3 pm. Then dinner after work, usually ~6 pm. Smoothie I usually split in 2, an hour before and 30m after the workout (which is usually 8-9 pm, sometimes slightly later). Supper ~11 pm (I don't have any issues falling asleep or otherwise don't see any other negative effects of eating late). The extra 0,5 l of soy milk is what I add to coffee or dring straight throughout the day.

Having said that, I would still prefer IF diet with ~4-6h eating window in the evening. I've been doing IF for about 1,5 year, however it's almost impossible (for me at least) to gain any weight this way. I'll likely revisit IF once I reach my target weight.

[ajcoleman22]

Do you really eat 7x a day?

[Scott 2]

5 servings of soy a day is a lot. I generally limit myself to 1-2 servings, because of concerns over phytoestrogens and male hormonal health. Have you considered alternatives like nut milk and pea protein?

3200 calories a day is a heroic amount of food without any animal products. It's tough end to end, I can understand why you'd want to eat so often.

[Bankai]

@ajcoleman22 - yeah I do... I'm still adjusting and it feels weird since I was never a big eater and I used to do IF. And now, most of the time I'm either about to eat, eating or right after eating.

@Scott2 - I'm aware of the controversies, however, it's not been proved one way or another. I just went with soy since it's cheapest, but it actually makes sense to go with nut milk to be on the safe side. And the price difference is only about £0.2 per litre (day) so not a big deal. Replacing milk leaves only 30g serving of soy protein powder per day which sounds reasonable. Thanks for the suggestion!