Dojo Money Thread

Nathanial Essex

Nathanial Essex

Joined
Jul 28, 2018
Location
London
Discuss all things money; investments, debt, questions, tips and everything beyond and in between.

Back in 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, I was lucky enough to be referred to a financial adviser when opening a student bank account. I ended up opening a stock ISA (savings account where the money goes into stocks and shares) and invested in it on a monthly basis for 7 years. I done it because I knew shares would be cheap and will bounce back, and they did. When I cashed it in to put a deposit down for my house, it was worth a good £3k or £4k more than what I out in. It equated to like a 40% interest rate or something like that.

Anyways, as Covid hit I decided to start a little hobby investing my spare cash into stocks using Trading 212. Below is my performance so far and as you can see, I've lost money on everything but not concerned as these are companies who have taken a massive hit and I'm hoping they'll go back to normal within a couple years.

I didn't invest in other companies like Tesla, Amazon and Apple which have seen massive increases.

Screenshot_2020-10-28-19-20-43-415_com.avuscapital.trading212.jpg

So in black is what I have invested and the red is the loss I've made with only one company, Zoom, turning a profit. Metro Bank were over 4,000p per share and has plummeted to around 60p. Investing any spare cash into there because even if they get to half of their peak, that will end up being a massive return.
 
So since Trump lost the election stocks have had a boost. £24 profit on Shell and will be putting more in once I come across money.


Screenshot_2020-11-09-20-13-20-977_com.avuscapital.trading212.jpg
 
The first lockdown made me financially comfortable for the first time. Ever.

Then the pubs reopened and I'm back to where I was in February.

I think I need this pandemic to last a lot longer if I'm gonna get anywhere in life.
 
Coronavirus helped out a lot in terms of paying down my small loan that I needed to take out last year (long story short; mechanic quoted me at $640.00 for parts and labour, on changing a wheel bearing and brake shield. Not only did he fuck up royally {broke the bolts holding my suspension together, because he didn't do the job properly}, but he charged me for a replacement spindle {which he also broke} and the bolts... and because he had to wait 4 hours for it, he charged me for the labour of waiting as well. So $640.00 became $1,480.00 :mad:), as my mortgage was deferred for 4 months (had up to 6, but didn't need it for that long). We had just come back from Mexico and my card already had a sizable balance (due to the trip; it's a card I don't use but for emergencies and large purchases), plus my main card had a balance of $900.00 but it was slowly going down and my line of credit was dipped into by $2,000.00 ($2,500.00 limit). I was able to pay the loan of just over $7,000.00 down in 9 months, as opposed to its 2 year term. I would've been able to pay the card down no sweat, but I saved a ton on interest and the LOC is with my employer, so all of the interest went to my employer, as opposed to other entities.

Was also able to save up a decent chunk as well and pay for some home renovations on top of that, so the pandemic hitting and getting my mortgage deferred, really helped for the short-term of 2020. Now my payments have continued (for 2 months now) and my mortgage is going back down, while I'm able to still save :D.

I do have a few more car-related things to look after in the next 6 months, but the heavy-lifting will be done in the new year (approx. $1,000.00 parts and labour, but I shouldn't have to touch anything on the car for 3 years minimum, after that :D), so Christmas will work out fine, as well as fixing our back patio (the FINAL thing that the house needed, after we bought it last year) and it looks like we will be able to go out East next year, without it compromising our bank accounts at all; we are very lucky.

As I've been in finance for almost 6 years now (5 years 9 months), I don't trust securities and stocks too much; the markets have been so volatile for the past decade and fund managers kill you with fees, so unless you have your ear to the ground 24/7 and are really on-top of your stuff, it's hard to have any success, outside of long-term success; I've seen a ton of lows and little to no highs.

RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan)/401K/whatever your country calls it is a waste of an investment at this point, as the tax savings you get annually, do not compensate for the chunk that you lose once it is able to be withdrawn; no matter how or when you deposit it, the government will get their cut. Canada has a Tax-Free Savings Account that has now been around for 11 years; you can only contribute a max amount each year, but any interest gained doesn't get included, thus if it is put into a vehicle that nets a sizable return, you get quite of bit of free money and the government can't touch it. I always recommend to people, to move your cash into a TFSA and don't bother with an RRSP

Real Estate is still the safest investment you can make and it's still the best bang for the buck, when taking risk into account; my house is already worth north of $50,000.00 more than it was when we purchased it last year and that will only be going up (albeit not significantly).

Nathaniel, good on you for investing at that young age; I wish I had an idea of that, as I always had a decent chunk here and there that sat in savings; could've invested a bit every paycheque and gotten a decent rate of return.
 
Having children is very expensive. Since our first child, my wife worked 4 days a week when she went back to work and our childcare was around £1,100 a month. In addition to travel cost, it pretty much meant the majority of my wife's earnings were going on that. That meant we did not save too much money but with bonuses managed to get to a point at the beginning of the year we had around £10,000 saved.

Then I Iost my job and Covid kicked in. Savings were devastated and I just got my new job in time to keep our heads above water until my wife goes back to work. Just hoping I can hold this job down as it hasn't been the best start so far. I also took out a credit card to make a mortgage payment which brings my debt to to just under £9,000 where it was previously £5,000.

Next priority is to bring down the debt and get back in a position where we are debt free. After this credit card is done I'm not touching a single bit of credit ever again.
 
Great thread. I'm looking at getting into the stock market but dunno where to even begin. What would you guys recommend. UK based
 
Nathanial Essex said:
Having children is very expensive. Since our first child, my wife worked 4 days a week when she went back to work and our childcare was around £1,100 a month. In addition to travel cost, it pretty much meant the majority of my wife's earnings were going on that. That meant we did not save too much money but with bonuses managed to get to a point at the beginning of the year we had around £10,000 saved.

Then I Iost my job and Covid kicked in. Savings were devastated and I just got my new job in time to keep our heads above water until my wife goes back to work. Just hoping I can hold this job down as it hasn't been the best start so far. I also took out a credit card to make a mortgage payment which brings my debt to to just under £9,000 where it was previously £5,000.

Next priority is to bring down the debt and get back in a position where we are debt free. After this credit card is done I'm not touching a single bit of credit ever again.
Click to expand...

All there is to it.

It's good to have 1 credit card open and used regularly, to keep your credit score up and for emergencies; however, it should be as low a rate/annual fee as possible and have a low limit (my emergency card has a limit of $3,500 and I will NEVER raise it and my regular-use card has a limit of $1,500 and I will NEVER raise it).

But yes, while credit can be a boon for a car or to pay off something that you can't pay off all in one shot, it should only be looked at as a last resort or rather, the last of resorts.
 
Truck_1_0_1_ said:
All there is to it.

It's good to have 1 credit card open and used regularly, to keep your credit score up and for emergencies; however, it should be as low a rate/annual fee as possible and have a low limit (my emergency card has a limit of $3,500 and I will NEVER raise it and my regular-use card has a limit of $1,500 and I will NEVER raise it).

But yes, while credit can be a boon for a car or to pay off something that you can't pay off all in one shot, it should only be looked at as a last resort or rather, the last of resorts.
Click to expand...
When I was younger I was extremely sensible with credit cards. The 2 I had were a John Lewis (department store) card and another store card and I used both for their benefits and always paid it off as soon as I spent.

I very recently got an Amazon card because they gave me £40 and I always spend on Amazon so would easily rack up points. It was working well with me paying things off the second I made a purchase but bad habits came in and I started spending money I didn't immediately have. Paid it off but think I'll benefit more from not using it than I would the points.

Largest credit card has a £13,000 limit which I'll keep for emergencies but looking to pay of all my debts by the end of next year.
 
Nathanial Essex said:
I use Trading 212 (details above) for money I can afford to lose. I got a Stock ISA with Santander that I put money on on a regular basis.
Click to expand...
So you can have two different ISAs for stocks? For some reason i thought you could only have one in the UK
 
Screenshot_2020-11-21-10-38-25-774_com.avuscapital.trading212.jpg


Portfolio continues to rise as news of a vaccine being imminent makes the stock market rise. I have a gut feeling things wil crash again before they get better but going to take a gamble and invest a lot more in Metro Bank and Shell. If I invest a £1,000 in Metro Bank and it goes up to a quarter of it's value before the pandemic and scandal, that's a return of over £10,000.
 
Sticking with crypto for the time being. I'll be ramping up my stock journey hopefully in the first quarter of next year. It will be interesting to see what happens with the markets
 
ShenSun said:
Sticking with crypto for the time being. I'll be ramping up my stock journey hopefully in the first quarter of next year. It will be interesting to see what happens with the markets
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How's that going for you so far? Always heard crazy stories about bitcoin and such but don't know how much of it is reality.
 
Nathanial Essex said:
How's that going for you so far? Always heard crazy stories about bitcoin and such but don't know how much of it is reality.
Click to expand...
So far so good. It's very risk though. If you get involved, only invest what you can afford to lose. I do think the stock market is more safe overall. I'll see how it goes over the next month or so and keep you updated
 
Biggest pain over the last few years has been nursery fees. Cost almost £2,000 a month when both children are in full time. My son is going to school next month and my mum is taking care of my daughter for most of August. This meant a lot of money saved and I was able to pay off two credit cards.

Was going to be the first month in years where I approached pat day with money in the account but a couple last minute bug spends means it going to be a tight finish. Regardless, feels good to clear those credit cards. Just one big one to go.

Oh yeah, my gas and electricity bill literally more than doubled, partly because our government decided to increase the gas/electricity bill cap in the middle of a pandemic.
 
I've been investing into low-cost Index Funds. The idea is that you'll own stocks of thousands of companies so that your investments match the overall growth of the stock market, which historically has always gone up as a whole, besides dips every few years that always recover. Once I feel good with my foundation I might start investing more into individual stocks or crypto. I'm a little behind where I'd like to be because I had a ton of student loan debt since I went to grad school at a private school, and just paid off my loans a year ago (I would have probably done something different in hindsight!).

I found the main thing that has helped my finances the most is to put everything on "auto". Auto pay credit cards in full/loans/any debt (and pay extra on your loans if you have the means!), auto invest, auto save. It helps build good habits and supports that whole "pay yourself first" concept. It also removes the temptation to push back savings or investments till "next time", and then you end up never putting money away or end up carrying a balance on your credit card.

I wish I really got started in my early 20's with investing, since I'm going to miss out on a ton of growth, so I implore any early 20 somethings here to get started with investing right away, haha.
 
Nathanial Essex said:
Anyways, as Covid hit I decided to start a little hobby investing my spare cash into stocks using Trading 212. Below is my performance so far and as you can see, I've lost money on everything but not concerned as these are companies who have taken a massive hit and I'm hoping for black ranboo mask they'll go back to normal within a couple years.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Small businesses always need more effort to survive since they don’t have enormous profits and large money supply. So more companies lose revenue and even become bankrupt. Unfortunately, it is inevitable when such force majeure circumstances take place. But there is a way out. You can save your business and even use some options to thrive.
 
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