Blackrock, Vanguard, cooking from scratch and other travel hacks

I start with the brainy stuff.
I just look at few of the Vanguard and Blackrock funds as some article from monevator.com raised my interest. What was my research and my conclusions?


Fund name      NAV 31/7/2015      12 months yield   Fund charges%    Performance

Vanguard FTSE Developed world
Accumulated     2.23                        1.71%                        0.15                Good
Income              2.02                        1.74%                        0.15                Good

Vanguard Investment Grade Bond
Acc                   0.82                         3.20%                       0.15                  Good

Vanguard Investment Gov Bond
Acc                  1.44                         1.90%                         0.15                 Moderate - Good
Inc                   1.22                         1.92 %                        0.15                Moderate - Good

Vanguard Short Term Grade Bond
Inc                   1.00                          2.06%                        0.15                Moderate

Vanguard FTSE Developed Europe
Inc                   1.62                          2.59%                        0.12               Good

Blackrock Corporate Bond
Acc                 1.22                           3.34%                       0.17                Good

Blackrock UK Equity A
Acc                55.69                            2.86%                     0.52                Good but too big charges

Blackrock UK A
Acc                3.29                              1.80%                        1.67                WTF happen with
Inc                 4.48                              1.77%                        1.67                 all those charges?

I would definitely go for Vanguard 40% (FTSE Europe and Developed World, Bonds and Gov.Bonds) and Blackrock 60% (mostly UK and 100 UK Equity tracker - 0.07 charges and some Corporate Bonds)
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Saving hacks time, what i discovered lately?
1. Cooking from scratch. I just realized that i got enough food for a week, so i decided to just make a kind of meal plan to use everything and just after i finish it to go for shopping. I will tell you later what is the result of my experiment.
2. Travel hack no.1. If you go by train, but not so often to justify a yearly or monthly pass, you can just buy a Network Railcard. The cost is only 30 pounds, is valid for 12 months and you can save 33% from the cost of your trip. Plus you can take up to 4 children and save 60% on child fare. As a result, if you spend more than 100 per year on your train tickets, go to the station and make yourself a service. Network Railcard.
3. Travel hack no.2. If you are not from UK, but you would like a holiday here, or even if you live locally and have the time to travel across the country, National Express is offering a Brit Xplorer pass, and you can have unlimited travel 7 days (for 79 pounds), 14 days (for 139) or 4 weeks (for 219). I was imagining myself going around, choosing 7-8 hours trips just to sleep during my journey, and exploring every little corner on UK. I also heard that is some very cheap alternative for train and boat to go to Ireland, but i didn't look for it.

Wish you a perfect week! I'm out.

How did i start to buy shares?

At some moment in time after i read an endless stream of books about buying shares and playing some virtual money ( losing most of them), i decided to buy some. What i learn? First i learn that when you want to invest on long term, day trading is not good. The fees will just eat away all your profit, doesn't matter how good are you. Then i learn that is always easier to buy them yourself without hiring some clever bloke from the bank to advice you, and nowadays you can use an online platform without any trust issues. Then i learn that is better to buy mutual funds instead of individual shares. Then i found that you can buy aiming for a good dividend, in this case you do not care too much about the price fluctuation of the share as long as you get your money every year. Or you can buy aiming for an increase of the price of the share, in this case is irrelevant if the company is paying dividends or not. Then i found that mutual funds can have different fees, and a diference of only 2% in the fee level can eat away as much as 20% of your profit over the years. Luckily for us, we have now tracker funds, with shares that sell only for a minimal fee. And between the best of them i consider the ones from Vanguard, Blackrock and Unicorn.
What is the next step? Define your savings amount. Save automatically very month. Choose 3-4 equity trackers and 1-2 bonds mutual funds. Save as your life depends of it ( funny thing, this last words are not a joke at all ). Few years later you will thank me.

P.S. At the moment shares, bonds and mutual funds are only around 60% of my porfolio, as you read and learn more you will find many other sources of income. But this is a story for another day. Good luck and strong will!