Friday 28 October 2016

End of the month is coming

I start to get the feeling of this matched betting. I will have a week of playing at the end of the month, and i am very curious to see how much money i can make in this time interval.

On the other way, i would like to reach the zero point with my debts too. I am convinced that i will do it this year, but with a bit of luck i can do that on 1st of November.

The perfect body image training is working fine, with a decent 80%+ of the goal achieved. This month was mostly about work, so i cannot wait to see the results in that direction too. Few more days. That's it.

Monday 24 October 2016

Qoins - get rid of you debt, using spare change (US only)

Just when I was thinking everything was invented, our fellows from over the ocean surprised us once again. Now, how to describe this, if you already read my reviews about Acorns (US) and Moneyboxapp (UK), imagine Qoins as a Moneybox for debts, instead of investments. This a a very good idea, just because many of us will not start to invest until we will pay all our debts. Or will we? So, you have debts, this is your solution, one spare change at the time. I cannot tested yet, as I am in UK at the moment, but I wait impatiently for someone to do this over here too.

Sunday 23 October 2016

Matched betting

I decided to give a chance to matched betting. Let's see how it is working. Probably I will give a review about this at the end of November.

Tuesday 18 October 2016

The portfolio paradigm

The world is changing fast. Faster than we can predict, and one after another, we've seen the aftermath of the Brexit effect. And not only. Bonds are going down, unable to provide the much needed stability, and we will probably go to the extremes, like in Japan, were the interest is negative. Yer, you read that right, there you need to pay for the right to keep a bond. The market is still going up and down, reaching the lower and the higher value of the last 5 years in just a 5-months interval. Gold and precious metals went up for a moment, just to go back to the initial value. Petrol based companies kept going down, again and again, but they paid good dividends despite this. Banks cutting down the interests, again and again, trying to prevent a future crisis. Housing market going down, despite the fact that we do not have enough houses to provide a home for everyone. It is a challenging period, but then, these are the times where you can ride the wave, and find new opportunities to reach your financial independence faster, even if nothing seems to be safe enough. We need to reconsider all our risk-taking strategy, but in the end we will prevail. Because we are following our final goal, and we gonna reach it, in one way or another. It is also the easiest time to buy a house for the first time, helped with instruments like First buy, Isa and different financial sticks and stocks. Is is possible for us to invest in a Cash fund, a Global equities fund and a Global property shares fund using your change, through moneybox app. The possibility to own a part of an ancient castle, via thehousecrowd. to invest in emerging market, in companies that can mark their own place via crowdcube and seedrs. The possibilities are endless. You only need to keep an open mind and to search, to search with obstinacy, every day of the week.

Good luck!
G.

Friday 14 October 2016

Financial independence training

Something unbelievable happened. I work for a local borough coucil and we are offered different trainings in order to update our knowledge regularly. Now I was invited to a 3 hours training about financial independence and early retirement. Could be this the new way of reducing the expenses by helping us to retire and not pay our wages? We will see.

Friday 7 October 2016

Moneybox - now for Android too

Another good news for Android users. I was talking about the Moneybox app, the app that helps you to invest your change weekly in shares, equities and cash funds. It worked well for me, with £48 invested in one month. Their choices are solid enough to go for the long term investment, and i had some gains too, £0.33 for one month. You can try it and see with your own eyes if it will work for you or not. Go for it!

Monday 3 October 2016

September 2016 - monthly report

September 2016 - Monthly report
My Overview

Total portfolio: £11401 (-1615)
Debt: £2351 (+234)
Net Worth: £9050 (-1849)

Investments UK: £3954 (+2327)
Investments overseas : £1983 (same)
Cash: £360 (-4164)
Pension: £4988 (+106)

Total Income: £1186 (-6635)
Passive income: £19 (1.60%)
Savings rate: 22.76%

Side hustle 1 value: £392
Side hustle 2 value: £11128

What a month! My portfolio had seen a considerable decrease due to some personal expenses (close family member funeral - i will say no more). Debt increased slightly, the complete payment plan for this year is achievable despite the temporary fall behind the schedule. The investments increased just fine with the fine amount of £2327, and the biggest decrease was in cash, but in the end that is the meaning of the emergency fund, to be used in emergency, i was prepared and this is saying a lot. Total income decreased, as the secret hustle no.2 just faded away. Maybe the opportunity will rise again in the future. Passive income was a bit less than 2%, for the same reasons mentioned before, funeral and holiday in one close interval. The savings rate was decent, but i can do better than this. Side hustle no.1 is still on hold, i do not know if i will ever start it. October will be a normal month, with not too many chances to do something extra. My biggest issue is that I expect 6 months of solid work until my next break in March. We will see what will happen next.

Have a perfect week,
G.

Saturday 1 October 2016

One year health plan - month 4

Motto: All the wealth in the world worth nothing for you, if you are not healthy.
(Financial freedom wizards manual)

Weight: 82.7 kg (2.3 kg less than 30 days before - 85 kg) at 1.80 m (5'9'')
Body fat: 19%  (3% less)

In September I got 2 different intervals. First one was in holiday, for 10 days, with only yoga sessions, swimming as exercise and language learning. Exercise has been 60% successful, yoga sessions 80%, and the language training 90%.

My second training is a complete one, on three directions of action:

1. Body
- Yoga techniques (postures, breathing and meditation) 20 sessions - 100%
- Freeletics - some kind of high intensity athletic training 4 partial sessions - strength training was not done properly this month, as i was mentally exhausted due to some external factors.
- Running - 6 sessions -100%
- Wing Chun Kung Fu minimal training- 20 sessions - 100%
- Freerunning / Parkour - one feeble try - forcing a knee tendon, took me one week to recover.

Big win: My thyroid problem was solved, at least on the paper. Officially speaking, i am fully recovered. Next on the list: immunity. In October i will try a new method of training instead of freeletics, as i am not motivated enough to do that.

2. Diet
- A 70% plant based diet (with a twist of 70% alkaline food daily), no chemicals, less sugar, better hydration (300 ml water every 3 hours when possible) - I achieve this 75% of the time, i would say.
- One day a week - 24 hour fasting - did it 2 times in September, first for 24 hours, second time for 48 hours. I kind of cheated my diet at least 5 times, having sweets or fizzy drinks, in the third week, for couple of days in a row.

3. Mind
- Mindfulness techniques aka meditation: 20 times - 100%
- Memory training techniques: stopped this month
- Brain boosting supplements - For the first month i tried: Omega 3, Magnesium, Ginseng and Ginkgo biloba solution, Bee pollen (several times) and my herbal remedies (but for the herbal treatments i did it completely only 60% of the time).

Physical training - While i was good with the running, reaching even few new records, i was not doing the strength and mobility training properly.
Diet - For the same reason, I somehow ignored my dieting plans at the end of the month, but i kept my hydration optimally every day. I would say 65% of the time i ate as planned. I did my weekly fasting, but in two occasions only for 20 hours instead of 24. I added a Chinese mix of Ginseng and Ginkgo to my supplements, Magnesium Malate and bee pollen few times.
Mind - More focus, as i was totally unfocused in two occasions, with almost catastrophic results.