Scandinavia isn’t particularly known for its long and hot summers, but recent summers have been on fire. As a figure of speech. And literally. Half of Sweden was suffering from raging forest fires last year, as it was scorching hot for months on end. Luckily this years summer is a bit more modest temperature wise (never thought I would say that) but we’ve had plenty of enjoyable and sunny days already.
One thing that has been on fire in June is my journey to…FIRE.
Highlights
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My net worth reached $566,697.57, which is a 10.62% increase compared to May.
The main contributor is the fact that I adjusted the value of my home with +$30K to align it with the current market. This was long due and I decided to take the adjustment in June. Another thing that fueled the jump in net worth is the rather significant capital gain on my company stock asset. The stock reached new record highs in the past weeks. On top of that I invested another $10K in company stock via the company’s ESPP program (employee stock purchase plan). And last but not least my pension saw a nice increase.
The jump in net worth is mostly fueled by external conditions (stock markets and domestic real estate market), but there is a little inflow of money as well. Pension contributions and the new ESPP investment.
Anyway, the record high of my company stock made me do what I had been contemplating for quite some time: Sell off shares to secure some of the gigantic capital gains it has produced thus far. I sold about 10% for a little more than $10K.
So $10K available for re-investment in other assets.
That’s when the burden of doubt descended onto my shoulders. I had been quite determined to put all that money in crowdlending schemes, but suddenly I wasn’t so sure anymore. It is easy to take decisions on paper, write posts about it, but when having a significant amount of money waiting to be invested, things are not that easy.
So what did I do? Invest $3K in cryptoassets (of which $1K were new funds). Before rushing to conclusions, condemning me and expelling me from the FIRE community, read this post (and then condemn and expel me if you please 😉 ).
That’s a bit of a crazy move, but I still have around $8K lying around. I haven’t decided just yet what to do with them… Maybe I finally have my emergency fund?
June 2019
Deposits and withdrawals
- Sold company shares worth a little more than $10K.
- Re-invested around $2K of that money in a blockchain/crypto initiative for live streaming of video.
- Invested an additional $1K of new funds in the same blockchain/crypto initiative.
- Deposited around $1K in my pension fund.
Income/gain
The income/gain looks like this:
Company shares
June saw a record capital gain completely cancelling out last months loss.
Crowdlending
My Mintos investments live their own life. I haven’t invested more funds in this asset for a number of months now, but the return keeps accumulating (and is automatically re-invested using Mintos’ auto-invest feature).
The total return approaches $150.
Portfolio
Net worth
Mortgage-free home | $330K |
Company shares | $113,145.60 |
Crowdlending | $2,193.97 |
Pension | $151,358.00 |
Cryptoassets | $2,987.18 |
Liabilities | $30K |
Net worth | $566,697.57 |
Plans for July
My plans for July:
- New micro fiction writing challenge.
- Find a new home for around $8K that I got from selling company shares (not to be taken literally…with ‘new home’ I mean assets to invest the money in 😉 ). This requires some thorough thinking.
- Keep the ESPP program running
That’s all for this time!
Awesome month there, Marc! Congratz!
Crowdestor is launching a forest project in 2 days – check it out 😉
How are you looking in terms of your enough? How close/far are you from your actual FIRE number?…
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Thanks Nick!
Crowdester, Envestio, PropertyPartner, Brickshare… and a handful of others. I will check them all. But I may end up putting all the money in a boring ETF after all 😉 I am so undecided atm.
Good question about my FIRE number. Excluding my pension I need roughly $600K in home equity+other assets in order to bridge 8-10 years until full pension age. But I contemplate different models requiring different amounts. But I will most likely partially deplete my savings until I reach 68 and pension kicks in 🙂 Moving abroad isn’t off the table however, which could be a major game changer… depending on the destination of course.
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Congrats on a solid month Marc!
Same as Nick I am curious to know how far off from financial freedom you are, as your net worth value is reaching interesting figures.
I didn’t your plan of buying a house for 8K?
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Thanks Tony! 🙂
See my reply to Nick’s comment as well, but I have a ‘working amount’ of roughly $600K (excl. pension). This amount would allow me to retire at least 8 years before full pension age here in Denmark. This is the minimum number of years with which I want to beat full pension age 😉
Buying a house for $8K?
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Sorry, Marc, I meant “Find a new home for around $8K”, haha. It’s probably something you have explained previously but missed it 😉
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+1 Finding a new home for $8k?! Please explain Marc :))
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Ha ha okay guys. Got it 😉
My bad… this sentence ‘find a new home….’ wasn’t meant to be taken literally. It is my creative use of the English language. What I meant with ‘find a new home for $8K’ is that I need to make a decision what assets to invest the money in (they’re currently not invested anywhere, hence this money is ‘homeless’).
I may be able to buy a shed for $8K. Even though I try to save money, I’m not that frugal 😉
Anyway, thanks for pointing this out! 🙂
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Haha all clarified now 😉
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Great numbers there, well done!
Will be interesting to see what ‘home’ you put the $8K into – boring index funds> 😉
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Ha ha yes I’m curious as well 😉 I haven’t decided yet. Another option is to start paying off some of the liabilities I still have.
But index funds are definitely on the table.. despite the fact they’re ‘boring’ 😉
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Great month, Marc!
Personally, I would be tempted to use some of the money to pay off some of your liabilities, although I suppose it depends what the interest rates on those liabilities are. You don’t appear to carry much cash either, so maybe an emergency fund isn’t a bad shout!
Looking forward to the next micro-fiction challenge!
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It was indeed a great month, partially aided by my upward adjustment of the equity in my home.
I will most definitely establish a cash position in my portfolio. It’s a good thing to have, both as emergency fund and as cushion in case of an economic downturn.
And…I will launch a new micro-fiction challenge soon!
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