End of the month - March 2026

  Total portfolio: £121614 (-2458)

Here we are at the beginning of the year, checking the numbers. How am I doing? Let's see:

Debt: 200 (-100)

External funds: ZERO

Car: No

Net Worth: £121414 (-2358)

Investments UK: £56454 (-118)

Investments overseas: £1389 (-152)

Cash: £19452 (-50)

Pension: £43696 (-2182)

Passive income: £684 (25.33%)

Savings rate: 16.66%

Side hustle 2 profit (Royalties): £0.06

Side hustle 4 value (Crypto): £631 (All my funds invested in crypto were recovered)

Side hustle 5 profit (Focus groups): £0

Side hustle 6 profit (Internet):£0

Side hustle 7 profit (Reclaimed investment 2026): $3

Projects to follow up in 2026:

Hive - 26.90 % completed (generated $66 this month)

DEFI - 0.06 % completed (generated $226 this month)

Shares Account no.1 AJ Bell 10K - 22.91 % completed

Shares Account no.2 Freetrade 10K- 28.08 % completed

Cash 30K - 64.67% completed

Secret stash - 9.51%

All the special projects are going well, 25% or more of it achieved, except one, with the next aim of 25% for the AJBell shares account to be completed. Crypto went a down again. I managed to add a hundred pounds here and there, working up my 2 positions on Freetrade app - BlackRock investment funds and UK Treasury bill shares. The idea is to build a position on £10.000 and let it grow, as a secondary emergency fund, in case of need. 

A £2458 decrease, mostly because the private pension value went down, also the two small shares account dropped a bit too. Other than that, cash and investments kept most of their value, and the profit from hustle was around £200 bigger than last month. Even with the $500 that I spent extra on my holiday in March. 

I wish you a profitable well-planned rest of the year!

G.

End of the month report - April 2025

 Total portfolio: £124260 (+735)

Here we are at the beginning of the year, checking the numbers. How am I doing? Let's see:

Debt: 0 (0)

External funds: ZERO

Car: No

Net Worth: £124260 (+735)

Investments UK: £71753 (+541)

Investments overseas: £1389 (zero)

Cash: £14509 (+277)

Pension: £36262 (+193)

Passive income: £977 (30.66%)

Savings rate: 18.77%

Side hustle 2 profit (Royalties): £ 0

Side hustle 3 profit (Match betting): £0

Side hustle 4 value (Crypto): £795 (All my funds invested in crypto were recovered)

Side hustle 5 profit (Focus groups): £0

Side hustle 6 profit (Internet):£0

Projects to follow up in 2025:

Hive - 21.25% completed (generated $243 this month)

Across - 30.54% completed (generated $174this month)

Shares Account no.1 AJ Bell 10K - 19.03% completed

Shares Account no.2 Freetrade 10K- 15.33% completed

Cash 20K - 72.54% completed

Crypto was a surprise this month with some decent returns as in £795. My debt are finally all paid, for now. The wages were a bit higher, with the Easter bonuses too, and all the sums got a little bump up. I am focusing on my 2 share accounts, more seriously, as I want to have 10K on each of them. Yet, I may need twice as much if I am to get anything close to 1K in dividends yearly. Other than that, a quiet month. I am also focusing to increase the cash available, as I may look for a commercial space to buy somewhere in town. In a couple of years from now, ideally paying off in cash. 

I wish you a profitable well-planned rest of the year!

G.

End of the month report - March 2025

  Total portfolio: £123525 (-8935)

Here we are at the beginning of the year, checking the numbers. How am I doing? Let's see:

Debt: 0 (-237)

External funds: ZERO

Car: No

Net Worth: £123525 (-8700)

Investments UK: £71212 (-8473)

Investments overseas: £1389 (-592)

Cash: £14232 (+801)

Pension: £36069 36860 (+-791)

Passive income: £476 (20.69%)

Savings rate: 23.91%

Side hustle 2 profit (Royalties): £ 0

Side hustle 3 profit (Match betting): £0

Side hustle 4 value (Crypto): £476 (All my funds invested in crypto were recovered)

Side hustle 5 profit (Focus groups): £0

Side hustle 6 profit (Internet):£0

Projects to follow up in 2025:

Hive - 21% completed (generated $243 this month)

Across - 28% completed (generated $174this month)

Shares Account no.1 AJ Bell 10K - 19.60% completed

Shares Account no.2 Freetrade 10K- 14.87% completed

Cash 20K - 71.16% completed

Crypto decreasing drastically after Trump media circus took my net worth 8K down. I did paid all my Paypal debt, so back to zero debt again, as I finished with my 3-month holiday streak. I will take it easy for a while. Finishing with the Huel 2 months experiment, funnily enough, I got 3 referrals, so I get some free stuff out of it. Too bad it is only one free £10 per order. The focus is on cash building for now, as I will stay home for a while, no more holidays for now, at least until summer time. I did added a little to the Freetrade shares account too. I am half thinking to slowly redirect my crypto profit onto the shares, with the minimum amount that I can move without paying a lot of taxes, even if it will take ages (I have 10 years until I plan to achieve my financial freedom and early retirement). Pension portfolio is slightly down. Shares portfolio is slightly down. My overseas account is down 25%, as I got some money out to pay an older loan/debt. I do have a couple of months to build my savings, though. 

I wish you a profitable well-planned rest of the year!

G.

November 2023 - End of the month report

 Total portfolio: £65523 (-4744)

I am back after half a year, checking the numbers. How am I doing? Lets see:

Debt: 600 (just a holiday/work trip paid with Paypal)
External funds: ZERO
Car: No
Net Worth: £81682 (+16590)

Investments UK: £47389 (+14573)
Investments overseas : £389 (same)
Cash: £6504 (+1138) 
Pension: £27377 (+919)
Passive income: £907 (26.96%)
Savings rate: 20% 

Side hustle 2 profit (Royalties): £ 1.42
Side hustle 3 profit (Match betting): £0
Side hustle 4 value (Crypto): £848 (Total funds still invested in crypto:4400)
Side hustle 5 profit (Focus groups): £0

Side hustle 6 profit (Internet):£50

Crypto bull market started, and I am planning to redirect some funds toward shares and funds, to have some real money available, just in case. My main increase in investments is from crypto, and a bit from pension and shares. I am also planing to raise the bar, making 10K available in cash at any moment, up from the 6.5K that I got now. Still have a small debt of £600 as I bought some flight tickets on Paypal, but I plan to pay 300 twice in December and January and finish with it (they got some 3 months no interest deal I think). Trying to do some rudimentary plan, and this is what I got:

Projects to follow up in 2024:

Hive - 9.34% completed

Across - 5.6% completed

Shares Account no.1 - 1.5% completed

Shares Account no.2 - 8% completed

Cash - 65% completed

Wish you a good end of the year!

G.

Monthly report FIRE - October 2022

Total portfolio: £89609 (-101000)

I did not write anything in the last few months, as I was busy organizing one or another. I am back, for now!

Debt: ZERO
External funds: ZERO
Car: No
Net Worth: £78383 (-11226)

Investments UK: £52444(-11000)
Investments overseas : £377 (£3000 of the savings were used for September wedding and honeymoon)
Cash: £2740 (-1013)
Pension: £22119 (+1321)

Total Income: £1567 (main job)+741 (side hustle jobs)= 2308
Passive income: £741(32%)
Savings rate: 54.2%

Side hustle 2 profit (Royalties): £ 3.33
Side hustle 3 profit (Match betting): £0
Side hustle 4 value (Crypto): £677 (Total funds still invested in crypto:8430)
Side hustle 5 profit (Focus groups): £0

Side hustle 6 profit (Internet):£59

Another 3 eventful months, and meanwhile I was quite busy, organizing a church wedding back home in Romania, and I cannot really complain, as the guest there are giving little cash gifts, and after I paid all the expenses, I still had something like £10 left in my pocket (around $5000 spend overall). But this time was not as bad as first time, when we did the wedding in UK with the register, as in September 2021 we spend close to $13000. We still used the same dress and same groom suit, and shoes and all that stuff. Same rings too. Coclusion: weddings are expensive, even when you try to be a minimalistic obsessed clown. Thanks God you do it only once (or twice in my case) in your life. 

Do not neglect your health, and remember that it is better to prevent than to treat. I did spent something like $3000 on my oral health, doing a complete check-out/treatment/everything that was needed and spending some inordinate amount of time with the dentist. Got all my widsom teeth out, in order to prevent future problems too, a bit radical, but I hope I will benefit from this in the far away future. 

Other than that, work is work, going ok for now, still need to wear the mask on the interactions with clients, so meh! Royalties from my Amazon books are now almost inexistent, and crypto is nowhere like the beginning of the year, but still brings some hundreds pounds. I got a £50 check and some £9 payment from the survey websites, as I do them in my free time, on the train or while watching TV. 

Other than that, will be a quiet year. Oh yeah, I started a new savings account with Santander, this is some one-off occasion where I can save up to £200 monthly for one year for 2.5%, and as I had some money in the bank, I will transfer 200 every month in order to get 27.50 extra after one year. 

See you next time,

George.

Pocket money - early financial education

A good way to teach your children to become financially aware and make some pocket money, while doing more or less pleasant work, is to generate income via different websites. After a lot of trial and error, i would suggest two of them, where i am doing monthly at least 50-120$ myself.

One is Slicethepie , a website where you review the newest music or trendsetter pieces of fashion/technology. These days they got a mobile promotion, where you can make some easy money reviewing mobile related products.

Another one that i use only for few minutes once a day is the Mechanical Turk website from Amazon, where you can make money by working on HITs. HITs - Human Intelligence Tasks - are individual tasks that you work on. It is as easy as that, as a Mechanical Turk Worker you: can work from home, choose your own work hours, get paid for doing good work.

I wish you good luck in your journey.
G.


Disclaimer: One of the links is a referral link. I think that it is only fair to use it, as a small reward for my work in testing various websites.

Captain Obvious and the parental influence on achieving financial independence

Some interesting survey finally done in UK. Read more about it here. 

Positive parental influence on money issues has a lasting effect

By Marina Gerner

The importance of financial education

People aged 18 to 34 - dubbed the millennial generation - who enjoy a positive parental influence around money have twice the savings and half the debt as those who don't, according to Experian's Millennial Me & My Money survey. In a survey of 4,075 adults (about half of whom were aged 18 to 34 and the other half were aged 35 to 55), 67 per cent say their parents or guardians have had a positive influence on their money management habits, while 17 per cent say their parents have had a negative influence. The survey showed that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree: those respondents who were aged 18 to 34 (so-called millennials) who believe their parents had a positive influence on their money habits had almost double the amount of savings compared to those who say their parents had a negative influence - £9,842 and £5,282 respectively. Those who have benefited from a positive parental influence also have less than half the outstanding debt (excluding mortgages and student loans), amounting to £2,322 versus £5,139 for those with a negative parental influence. 

Commenting on the survey, Clive Lawson, managing director at Experian, says: "It's striking to see just how much of an impact parental influence can have on the financial wellbeing of millennials in adulthood. What this research made clear to me was the opportunity that we as parents have to set foundations by helping our children learn from our experiences of managing money and enjoy the advantages that might bring them later in life." In contrast to those who have been positively influenced by their parents, those who stated their parents had a negative influence are twice as likely (32 per cent versus 14 per cent) to save none of their disposable income each month. They are also twice as likely to have run out of money before payday in the past (44 per cent versus 21 per cent) and more than twice as likely to have missed an agreed credit repayment (17 per cent versus 7 per cent). Furthermore, they are more likely to have gone into an unplanned overdraft (33 per cent versus 19 per cent) and more than twice as likely to have defaulted on a credit account (10 per cent versus 4 per cent). They are five times more likely to have a County Court Judgment against their name (5 per cent versus 1 per cent). Robert Gardner, founder of financial services firm Redington, has also emphasised the importance of parental influence. He says: "It has been suggested that our attitudes towards money are formed by age seven, so if your parents prefer to spend, spend, spend on credit cards rather than save, then it's likely you will have the same attitude. That's why financial education is so important and the earlier, the better."

Random news

News no.1
Talking about statistics. According to a study consisting of 5,500 millennials, only 24% of them knew "basic information around financial literacy." For example, according to the study, only 8% know about risk diversification. As a quick reminder, where humans fall on the care-o-meter surrounding financial literacy, is pretty much, don't care. Click here for the whole thing.
(P.S. Millennial - one born between 1980-2000)

News no.2
China devalued its currency again. The Chinese Central Bank has been devaluing the country's currency (the yuan) to help boost its economy. If you can buy more of "X" in China with say, your USD, because the USD is strong relative to the yuan, you'll buy more from China. Despite the devaluation in an attempt to boost the economy, China's main stock market index, The Shanghai Composite Index, fell -5% at the open of the trading day on Thursday. This triggered a circuit breaker to halt all trading. It's essentially a timeout for stock market trading in an attempt to minimize the selling. The stock market re-opened on Thursday 15 minutes later and immediately fell to -7% for the day. This triggered an automatic shut down of stock trading on that index for the day.

Now relax, forget about China, click here and feel the music.

2016 tips and trick for a FIRE begginer

I will start with one statistics here from which i will just point out this: 

" The average working household has virtually no retirement savings. When all households are included - not just households with retirement accounts - the median retirement account balance is $3,000 for all working-age households and $12,000 for near-retirement households. "

Come on good people, will you ever learn your lesson?

1. Always, i repeat, always have a cash emergency fund of at least 3-6 monthly wages equivalent

2. Define your sources of income in retirement, how much savings you have, how much more you’ll need to be financially secure, when you can afford to retire by.

So dividends, interest, rental, royalties, profit as sources of income, i go 7k, i need 240k, as for now i will afford to retire at 54 (thanks for the Excel, Jmoney!)

3. How to begin to save more money for your early retirement? Think along the lines: avoid consumer debt, pay your credit cards balance, increase savings automatically, every time you got a raise, use it for more savings, avoid unnecessary expenses, recover lost money, consider new employment, cancel unnecessary insurance policies (this one is tricky), drive a used car instead a new one, side hustle.

4. Housing: downsize your home, relocate where you live, think about reverse mortgage or sale-leaseback, convert other assets, insure your inheritance, 

5. Maximize your retirement savings: think tax deferred savings and employer-matching savings programs.

6. If you are close to retirement: maximize retirement plan contributions, use catch-up contributions, multiple savings plans and even switching employers, if they provide a better retirement plan.

7. Control investment expenses, maximize tax advantages, move to a low cost area, 

8. For a risk adverse person: postpone your retirement with 1-2 years, phased retirement or no retirement at all (meaning find your perfect work that is not a work for you).

9. Avoid this errors: reaching for return, assuming Overly Optimistic Returns, all eggs in one basket, banking one lucky inheritance, following simplistic guidelines blindly, not investing for a lifetime, procrastination. 

I hope you find this interesting, tell me if you have more ideas. I will be happy to add them.

G.

Public opinion

Those days i meet with my missed long time friends from the little town where i was born. I just noticed something strange. Here, in this place where my adventures begin, everyone is still thinking, that it is normal to spend everything you got that month, to buy newest car, phone, build a massive house, and that saving is something you will not do. Never ever. You can max you credit cards instead, if you need money. You can pay them all your life, this is sign you are a normal person. You are probable not of this planet if:
- you can save 50% of your income
- you have no debts (God forbid, this is truly a blasphemy!)
- you want to never work again
- retirement is for people older than 65, only that you are allowed to enjoy life.

Seeing all this, i am a bit like that legendary god of luck, Janus, with had half-face laughing, and half-face crying. I was working out some little hints. One to pay all debts and never do it again, buy only with cash. If you are as rich as you think you are, pay cash for everything you buy. As a challenge. To another friend who is always surprised to have extra expenses, but every month is stuffing another 10 new clothes in his drawer, i challenge him to make an emergency fund of 3 months expenses. To one who told me that he will always have money for everything, i challenge him to save 10% of his monthly income in a long term savings account. Y know i used their big big big Ego, but i am curious know if it will work. I told them that i will give them the next advice only after all three will fulfill their challenge (help and support each other, isn't it?). "Never work again" is a very powerful concept that lure everyone in doing it. It was right to use all those tricks or not? Morally wrong? Hush-hush! And i will do it again any time.

Tips and tricks

Motto of the day: Lack of money is not a problem, it is a result of your actions. Change them. (T.H.E.)

* Exploring the hidden corners of internet, i found some interesting things. One is a very complicated and complete early retirement calculator. I test it, seems to work well. Want to play with? Link here.
** Also, from the same guy who did the before mentioned calculator, an interesting article about predisposition to fraud. Most of us know this, but i will put the link here especially for one of my friends, you know who you are. Huh!
*** Best strategy to achieve financial independence in 10 words.
1. Working income => 2. Savings => 3. Investments => 4. Passive income
(Faster: Simplify your life!)

My two cents about financial advice

Sometimes you ask yourself if you can do it or you really need professional help? I was lucky enough to study economy for many years, but not all are so fortunate. Of course, every skill can be learned. The problem is that a lot of the people i know lack basic financial education. And they need some advice. Here is the trick. Everybody got an opinion. My uncle Paul try to give me advice all the time, yet he is barely end his meets every month. My postman told me he know a lot about investing. Everyone know. But not every one apply. As Cicero said "Advice is judged by results, not by intentions. If we listen to some others much more clever than us, here are the financial advisers not to be trusted on the long term.
1. People who lack necessary qualification and proven results.
2. Someone who build his wealth in another business or real estate, because stock investment is something different.
3. Authors and writers, because they are better at writing, not investing.
4. Academics, because they have some interesting theories, but their experience lack the practice , and real life is reacting in a surprising way sometimes.
5. Someone who is selling investment products, because the inherent conflict of interest that biases the advice you receive (true for most stock brokers and financial planners).
6. A person who made his wealth through marketing investment advice instead of actually investing

The best recommendation is given to you by proven actual results, and often you can see the FIRE in their eyes. I hope this helped you now, as it would helped me 10-20 years ago, when i did so many mistakes. The trick is to always check who are the best in the field, and to learn from them. Aim for the stars. If your adviser will tell you how can you lose your money first, before you find how you gain more, then he/she is a good one. If is telling you about the risk management and preserving capital, personalized to your needs, you already feel like winning the lottery.

 Questions to ask first, before you ask someone to help:

1: Is the adviser already successfully doing exactly what he is advising you to do?

2: Is the adviser still “walking the talk”, or is he just “marketing the talk?”

3: Will the adviser provide documented proof that his advice works?

4: What is the adviser background, education, training, skills, and experience?

5: Has the advice been tested and proven successful through multiple market cycles?

6: Does the advice provide a balanced viewpoint with both positive and negative attributes or is it a one-sided sales job?

7: Does the advice over-simplify the inherently complex nature of investing in an effort to make the sale?

8:Is the advice personalized to your needs or is it generic?

9: Is the advice a complete investment process or a half-truth?

10: Does the advice focus primarily on risk management and capital preservation?

11: How is the adviser compensated? What are his conflicts of interest?

12:  Is the advice based strictly on facts or does it include meaningless opinions?