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November 2024 Update - Trump Is Back!

General Life Update   

Making myself sound very boring now, but it was another quiet month. To be honest it was welcomed with open arms with Christmas coming up and plenty of socials throughout December. My football continues to disappoint and a hamstring injury limited my playing time. Probably being a good thing for myself and the team, but I still managed to miss some sitters along the way. Still, the one win in the month meant a big night out was needed, an opportunity we couldn't put wide of the post, but  there were some shots over the bar! Drinking is so expensive now, but sometimes you need to celebrate the wins. 

Highlight in the month was an Alpaca walk with the missus. Already forgotten the fun facts the guide told us but I will forever remember them as being stubborn and greedy sods, much like our doggo! Her future dream for a house farm will only be bolstered by the experience, with the inclusion of alpacas now. 

There has been time for self reflection in this period: Looking back on the finance journey so far, the main reflection point is judging whether I have been depriving myself in the quest of speeding up my path to FIRE at expense of necessary life enjoyment. Listening to an old Aussie Firebug Podcast with the Author of the infamous book "Die with Zero", they discussed the importance of creating 'Life Dividends' to reflect on throughout your life, along with the different life stages to create these memories. This made me debate what experiences I should ensure I undertake in the near future. 

In Bali I realised my window to experience the hostel/party world is closing ever and ever quicker. Some things are even beyond being socially acceptable for myself to be involved in. No one wants to be the oldest in the room and become that guy who is the creep (Unless your surname is Lineker). The next 2 years are big and I want to create plenty of memory dividends with my close people within this time so will be planning trips/events what will achieve this. This might include a certain stag organised by someone, if they are reading the link I sent them.......

Finance Update

With it being a quiet month, this correlates to a bumper month for my savings rate. 66% of my income was saved in November. Happy for this in grim November, but if this is the case in for the summer I will be letting myself down with all that was said above. 

For the first time ever I sold some of my shares. My old work shares reached a peak that they haven't seen for 4 years and felt it was a good time to cash some of it in. Looking at the capital gains threshold, I was shocked to see the tax free allowance has been slashed to £3,000, so it made sense to cash out some of these and make use of it. 

This month has been crazy in terms of gains in the markets after Trump's win, with the Market agreeing with some of his team appointments. Even my Tesla shares are back in the green (which I may look to cash out also). With this and my healthy November savings rate, my total gain in liquid assets for the month was the biggest I have seen by some distance, increasing by over £7,000. This takes the gain over the last 12 months to £38,000. 

How long this run will last, I'm not sure. 








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