Rube's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Thanks!
Sure, I use excel and the graphics are generated and updated automatically.
I can clean and ajust my file a bit and send it to you in a few days.

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

@Elegant and others, send me a PM if you're interested to receive the excel file I use.
If you put in the amounts you paid or received plus the date (this is data which I can simply download from my bank accounts) and the category you want to file it under, it generates automatically overviews in data and graphics.

I included an "how to use" tab. I am planning to make some further improvements, but it's probably good to go for a review or understanding how to make graphics.

J_
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2011 4:12 pm
Location: Netherlands/Austria

Re: Rube's journal

Post by J_ »

Rube I think you and your family do fine on your road to FI. And you know perhaps that your road is now!, and is much more important than the goal. Because you live life now. For me it seems, when I read about your visisit in Toronto, that you florish as you go out in the world and speak to real people.

I have read about your plan to make a yourney with your family for a year, but that triggers some worries and requires many things to consider and to arrange for you.

I took a 6 week period to travel with my wife and daughter of thirteen to see a big part of Australia, and the next year I travelled with them 6 weeks trhrough the east of Canada (ere style youth-hostels etc).The impact of these holidays is still (30 years later) great. So make it yourself not too difficult to do things you long for, is only what I want to say.

Wish you all the best.

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Thanks J, and you are so right. I have often difficulties to enjoy the here and now, always looking forward what to achieve, what to do. But my life is already great, Thanks for reminding me.

Re. traveling: yes, that could be a great idea as well. DW and I traveled quite a bit before and we still have great memories, from both the longer trips (6 months) and the shorter trips (2-4 weeks).
Besides, perhaps our (working) situation is completely different in 3 years from now. So it does not make sense to worry or think too much at this point already. Maybe we can find a way to have a great longer-than-usual-holiday already by the end of this year or next year.

PP performance in practice
On another note, I think I started the PP on the worst moment in years: I was down 7% after 3 months. But today, after 11 months, I am only down 0.77%.

Last year stocks would have been a better choice. But then I am thankful I didn't put all my money in gold. Nice to see how the different parts reduced the volatility greatly.
And also good to see that the different ETF within the same group (2 ETF's for stocks, short and long term bonds) behave not radical differently.


Even though I am still at a small loss, I am okay with this.
We can't predict the future ;) , so we have to see how the PP will perform in the coming years.
I guess the graphics shows it all:

Image

Note that stocks and bonds were acquired March-April, but I have only kept track of details in May and didn't bother to look history up

Question: is anybody here combining the PP and Dividend Growth Investing?
I am considering this, well actually made a first small purchase already earlier this week. I am thinking to target finally about 40-50 different stocks to have a good diversification and mitigate large draw-downs from one or a few stocks (besides "normal" stock crashes).

I am not sure if I will see this as a Variable Portfolio of, say 10%, or to see it just as the 25% part of stocks of the PP. Or maybe I start to see it like the VP at first and when the number of stocks is grown and it has a good diversification, maybe include in the 25% of the PP.
But then, keeping track of 40-50 stocks regularly, will costs me more time than a simple ETF. So I am just rambling on here and showing that I am not completely sure what and how I want to things :D

frommi
Posts: 121
Joined: Sat Jun 29, 2013 4:09 am

Re: Rube's journal

Post by frommi »

Hi Rube,

I follow your journal since the start and i like it, its one of the very few i can`t wait for the next update :).
I was at your investment situation around one year ago and can only advise you to read a lot on investing. I think i have read around 40 books in the last year and that completly changed my view and opened my eyes. Look at how other succesfull people handle investments and then simply clone their methods. Dividend growth investing alone won`t make you miracly beat the market/index funds, you have to understand what drives stock prices and where outperformance comes from. Investing is a livelong learning process, i still actively try to find new books to read and learn from while managing my portfolio.

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Hi Frommi, thanks!
I am not sure if I can "simply" clone methods of other successful investors, but reading and educating myself will give me at least a better understanding.
I have been trading stocks and options for a couple of years since I was 19. I now know it was not investing, but speculating. In any case, it paid my college back in the days :D.
Since then I have not really done serious investing for a long time and only starting picking it up recently again.
I read the PP book, lately quite a lot online about dividend growth and I am now reading the "intelligent investor". I might not read 40 books in a year like you, but I am on my way.

I updated my excel file today, to give me more details and a better overview. I will post a February update within a few days. I will already reveal we hit the highest savings rate since starting this journal :!:

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

February update

Finances
Expenses: 1723
Income 7608 (7658 regular income, -51 CL sales (sales of January had to be split with someone else)
Savings ratio 77% (average 12 months 65%)

Our expenses were the lowest ever :) (well, since keeping this journey).
The benefit issue (for using day-care after school) I mentioned earlier, is solved and we received part of the money we were entitled to. The remaining will be settled in the coming months. Also we were reimbursed for some business expenses. That helped to reduce our expenses for this month.

And I got a bonus this month :D That helped to achieve our 2nd highest income since starting this journal. Only in May our income was (and will be again) higher, because in May we receive an annual holiday allowance (common in the Netherlands to get it once a year around May-June).

So, we achieved a saving rate of 77% :!: . That won’t last though…
Still, the average savings rate over 12 months was 62% in November and has increased 1% each month thereafter and we’re now at 65%.

With the changes of the last few months (paying off mortgage partly, needing less day care, little higher income from DW) I hope that we can maintain an average of 65% or even slightly above. Oh, and we paid another few thousand to the principal of our mortgage. We’re now at 74% of the original amount. It will reduce our monthly expenses a little bit further.

Net worth increased with almost 10K, the highest ever also (you see the nice line in the graphic). I wish we could continue this line...
Apart from the high savings rate, the market was good, side business value increased a bit and I already “booked” tax return (see March forecast below).

Side business
Received another order. Not much work, mainly some emails and administration but will increase net worth with a few K during the year.

Other
Working 5 days a week, some social activities in the weekend (birthday party, meeting family etc.) and weeks pass by quickly. That was February.
I did enjoy it most of the part though.

March forecast finances
I mentioned earlier I had to pay additional tax. However, my appeal convinced them it was incorrect. I will receive the already payed tax back again and that will increase the regular income over March a bit. On the other hand, we will have some additional expenses of a similar amount. More about that later in future updates.

Graphics
It’s good to see the diversification of our assets since I started this journal. It used to be almost all in savings account (96%), now it’s down to 43%.

Image

ERE-Finances
I am pretty focused on the finance part of ERE, maybe so much I am obsessed by it. I am not afraid about it, I think it will become less in the future, it is not a problem as I can still function normally and I have always been quite keen on keeping track of finances, graphics etc.
Also, I think I can afford to spend time on this as I don’t need to learn a lot about DIY etc. I have always done many things myself, I haven’t paid other people very often to do things for me outside of car maintenance/repairs that I couldn’t do easily myself. I would like to improve on certain other things, growing vegetables, doing all car maintenance by myself, etc. but I simply don’t have the time/energy/priority for that at this moment to dive into that extensively. So for now, it’s okay.

Analogy “becoming FI” – “running a Marathon”
Some people don’t see why they should run a marathon when they are already at the finish
Born with a trust fund

Some people finish a marathon in just over 2 hours
saving rate 85% or more

Some people finish a marathon while using doping in 2-6 hours
not extremely frugal but having a very high income.

Some people enjoy the scenery while walking/running and having a pick nick before they finish the marathon in 1 day
on course for ER, determined, enjoying life* but not extreme


Some people don’t enjoy the scenery, hate walking/running, are complaining constantly and it will take many days before they finish the marathon
Cubicle drones who hate work and save (hopefully enough) to be FI at 65

Some people never finish a marathon
saving rate 0% or negative

Combinations of the above are of course possible...
*I am not saying others are not enjoying life

So far this update, thanks for reading and again: I am enjoying all these other journals (and many other postings) very much.

Gilberto de Piento
Posts: 1942
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2013 10:23 pm

Re: Rube's journal

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

I like the marathon analogy!

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Thanks Gilberto.

March update

Finances
Expenses: 2208
Income 7098 (5363 regular income, 825 tax refund, 654 Interest/cash back, 101 dividend, 151 CL sales )
Savings ratio 69% (average 12 months 65%)

Special expenses: about 800 for a new kitchen (not finished yet). But our mortgage of March was paid only early April, so actually expenses were higher but this will become visible in April totals.

Income: the regular income was common, but we received quite some additional money by the tax refund, interest, dividend and craiglist sales. Also we got 200 through a special kind of cash back action by opening 4 accounts. It’s one time only cash back, I’ll withdraw the money in June and close the accounts again but I thought it was worth to spend an hour or so to earn 200 euro’s.

Moved some savings to pay off another 7K from our mortgage. Somewhere later this year we’ll pay another 7K and then we’ll have to wait till next year again before we can pay off without getting a penalty.

My manager informed me that my salary will increase by 2.5% per April. Not a huge raise, but will still be about 80 euro’s net a month, so I’ll take it.

I received our tax-free mortgage saving overview and found out that the value was about 1K higher as I expected.

Our net worth increased 4.6K to 318.5K.

Side business
The side business value, cash on bank account only, increased also by about 1K due to receiving some payments.

Other
Spring has arrived again! Lovely weather, could even go outside in a shirt only a few days. Argh, I like that so much.

Some exciting things happened at work. Can’t go into details, but I felt “to be in action” and I learned more things in the last 10 days then in 3 months before. It seems also that everybody is accepting my decisions about how to handle this and is acting accordingly.
Sometimes I am surprised that people do see me in certain cases like a leader and the specialist who decides about pretty important (well, what’s important…) things. I don’t see myself like that.

April finance forecast
Car maintenance will be added to the budget (450) and two times the mortgage payment (620 more) as well as some additional kitchen stuff (estimate about 300). So April will be a month of high expenses.
I expect to receive about 250 additional interest due to an action of our bank, but that’s it. Nothing else expected apart from the regular income, So it will probably a low savings rate for us.

I also did our tax filing and we’ll need to pay about 600, but that will likely be in June / July.

Graphics
Savings account percentage of the total net worth went down from 43% to 41% due to the move to the mortgage pay off.
PP total is not doing much, but who would have thought that long term bonds would be up by almost 6-7% in a year?!
Gold is down about 25%. I am planning to re-balance this month. Likely I will purchase some additional gold to bring all back to 25%.

I added a graphic showing current expenses, expenses when we would now not be working (Expenses ERE) and theoretical WR at 3% and 5% and actually realized nor-regular-work income.

Image

Thanks for reading again!

Hankaroundtheworld
Posts: 470
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:50 am

Re: Rube's journal

Post by Hankaroundtheworld »

Hi Rube,
Just have been reading your journal, and congratulations to keep expenses so low for a Dutch situation. I just visited my sisters in the Netherlands, and one of them (with one kid) is spending 3500 euro per Month, and the one with 2 kids, at least 4000 euro per Month !! When they complained that they need to work till at least 65 (especially when I told that I want ERE now), I told them to change their behavior of consuming, and start saving more. So, congratulations to you !!

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Rube's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Henk and Rube,

I get part of my inspiration to stay frugal from this blog: http://zuinigaan.blogspot.nl/2014/03/ve ... -maar.html

My expenses are roughly 1500 euros per month, and I guess my boyfriend spends at least another 1000 euros per month (maybe more, I don't know all of his expenses, I know he pays 400 for housing and utilities, 300 for groceries, and 150 for health insurance... ). But she manages to spend for example 150 euros per month, and that includes groceries, gifts, clothing... Plus she currently has a mortgage of only a few hundred euros per month because she paid it down rigorously.

It's inspiring, or it may also be a bit frustrating if your expenses are roughly 7-10 times higher than hers... But I'll go with inspiring...

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

@Hankaroundtheworld: thank you appreciated. And, you’re doing quite well yourself also.

@DG: Yes, I say inspiring. And I could down further if I would be alone (in decision making). But, I need to compromise with the family sometimes (and they with me, ha!) We found a quite okay level where we’re all happy I guess. When I would not work/have more time, we could save some more. But the time it would consume is not worth the effort for me right. We’re working 40+26 hours and have 2 kids to entertain (or they entertain us maybe??).

April update

Finances
Expenses: 3261
Income 5953 (5429 regular income, 240 Interest, 284 CL sales)
Savings ratio 45% (average 12 months 63%)

Special expenses:
2 x mortgage due to late debit in March. So nothing unexpected, it’s just messing up my monthly figures :evil:
Another 385 for the new kitchen. I still need to install it, but we got now almost all materials and equipment so no major expenses on this anymore expected. Without these special expenses the total would have been 2279 versus 2333 at the 12 months average. So I am not worried about the increased costs this month.

Income: the regular income was common. My pay raise came out net at 67. Some nice interest and CL sales of together a little over 500.

Decided to pay another 7K to our mortgage. Now we have to wait till next year before we can pay off another 10%.
Our net worth increased 3.9K to 323K.

Side business
The side business value, cash on bank account only, increased also by about 0.6K due to delivering an order and receiving a payment.

Investments
For the first time we jumped (slightly) into the PP 13 months ago we’re positive!
Bought some gold to re-balance the PP, but need to buy some more to re-balance correctly. Need to find some time to do so.
Bought 4 dividend growth stocks (well, I a hope it will turns out to be dividend growth stocks ;) ). All just small investments.

Due to the investments and paying 7K to the mortgage, the Cash and savings account parts is decreased to 38% from 41% last month.

We save on average about 4K, where do I need to invest it each month?? :?:


Other
Ehm..been busy (a bit) in the weekends to prepare to install our Kitchen. Hope I will be ready with in May.
I have been only in the office a few times this months. I was very busy with work and it was more efficient to work from home. Nobody noticed, my manager is not aware (he’s working from another continent). Furthermore nothing special I guess.

May finance forecast
Ah, May will likely be good for the savings ratio: DW and I expect the annual “holiday allowances”, roughly about 4K additional. So income in total around 9.4K. Also I expect to be reimbursed by my employer for € 400 so if nothing unexpected will happen, our expenses will likely be around 2K or even a little lower.
If that would come true, it would result in a 78% savings rate and our highest ever :shock: and bring the 12 months average 1% up (down 2% this month..)

Graphics
Well, what to say about. Anyone who follows my journal knows what to expect I guess.

Image

Hope it is useful for anybody (it is for me, and I just like to keep track of it anyway :lol: )

Questions, comments, feel free to write in my journal.

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

May update

Finances
Expenses: 2225
Income 9710 (9569 regular income, 142 Dividend)
Savings ratio 77% (average 12 months 64%)

Special expenses:
Some additional daycare and some more stuff for the new kitchen. In the end it didn’t affected the total amount too much because we were reimbursed by the employer for earlier expenses.

Income: very high as expected, due to the annual holiday allowances in may. It is the highest income we ever had.

Investments
Value of PP and other investments increased a little more. Where does it end, when do we get the correction?
Bought some more gold to re-balance the PP, almost done now.
Bought also some more dividend growth stocks and invested a some in P2P lending. All nothing major in the total scheme of assets.
The cash and savings account part stayed at 38%.

Other
Still busy in the weekends with our new kitchen. Hope to finish it this weekend, one week later as I hoped last month..
We bought the equipment 2nd hand (but fairly new), cabinets and counter top from IKEA. Looks pretty good if I may say myself.
Total cost 1700 Euro and I gained some skills. If we would have bought and installed in the “normal way”, we would probably have spend 4K more. I am very happy with the result.
I guess the value of the house will actually increase (at least) similar to the costs, but I’ll play it “safe” and keep the value of the house the same.

Again, I have been only in the office a few times this months. Reduced my commuting cost a bit although that was not specifically the reason.

Went on a short business trip in the EU, nothing special this time: I spend all of it in planes, trains, cars and offices.

June forecast
Nothing really special expected, should be an average month both for income as expenses.

Graphics
I added one new chart, to keep track of the difference between our average monthly savings and the average monthly increase of our net worth.

Image

Hankaroundtheworld
Posts: 470
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:50 am

Re: Rube's journal

Post by Hankaroundtheworld »

What P2P lending are you using, is this in the Netherlands, and if not, where did you go, thanks for some sharing on that

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Rube's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

I'm not Rube, but I use http://www.geldvoorelkaar.nl . I've been using it for three years now and so far so good; average PROMISED interest rate for me is around 9%, however: only two loans have finished paying back so far. If defaults happen, my 9% profit could easily turn into a loss.

Disadvantages: minimum investment per loan is 100 euros or roughly $130. Very long loan periods, currently all available ones run for 60 months (although you get a repayment every month, this means that you only get to see some real profit during the fifth year). There are not many investment options offered at the same time (currently about 10), terrible search engine and no way to be alerted about upcoming interesting offers.

I am considering quitting it, letting the current loans run their course but not add new ones. It'll simplify my investments somewhat and you can probably get a just slightly lower profit with less risk when you invest in the stock market...

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Indeed, "geldvoorelkaar" and it has all the disadvantages DG mentioned. I invested in about 15 loans for 125 on average orso. The higher yield looks nice but it's too risky too put in a substantial amount.

There is also www.bondora.com to which I transferred 25 euro to, just to see how it works.
It looks better, but I am not sure how trustworthy it is AND the interest the people that take out loans have to pay is sometimes enormous, like 30%. It doesn't feel morally right to make profit that way. For both reasons I likely won't invest a lot here either.

But the question remains: where to invest into instead, everything looks expensive at the moment.

henrik
Posts: 757
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: EE

Re: Rube's journal

Post by henrik »

I've been using Bondora for 8 months now, so far so good. They are expanding across Europe very agressively, which I guess has its potential upsides and downsides in terms of risk.

Hankaroundtheworld
Posts: 470
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:50 am

Re: Rube's journal

Post by Hankaroundtheworld »

Hi, thanks for the idea; this Bondora sounds a bit too good to be true, who knows there is a Pyramid scheme behind it, and they pay well with fresh investor money coming in, till it explodes ...
I have tried to find how your money is kept; I mean what account and how well protected?
How about transferring money back to your Bank, how does that work?

henrik
Posts: 757
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: EE

Re: Rube's journal

Post by henrik »

Logically, any P2P lending platform will have characteristics of a pyramid scheme. Loans take a while before they default and then those that don't get recovered will take a while before they get charged off. This means that when the proportion of new investors is high, the overall default rate is correspondingly lower and the returns that much higher.

My returns (actual realised, XIRR, annualised) have hovered between 20 and 22%. I'm surprised by how stable it's been, but I have every expectation that as my portfolio and the whole platform becomes more mature, the returns will go down. I believe this also happened with LendingClub and other more popular ones as they grew and matured.

Hankaroundtheworld
Posts: 470
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:50 am

Re: Rube's journal

Post by Hankaroundtheworld »

May be use some play-money of 5000 Euro, for the fun and try out, I am thinking of it

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