Happy 2025 Everyone!
Hope Everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year break. This Post will summarise the key numbers of my 2024 financial year and how my position has changed from the beginning of the year. I will use this to assess my performance in the year regarding spending activity and contributions, as well as how my investments did in the year . Going forward I will use these 2024 figures to assess 2025 activities.
Hopefully this can also be of use for anyone reading this in the context of their own numbers, especially for readers in the early stages of their finance journey, who might be wondering how they can save without making their lifestyle miserable and start their path in creating wealth.
Context of the Numbers
31 year old Male - Started Investing at 27 - I am still in the early days of the accumulation phase building my Fire Portfolio, but with a mindset of wanting to enjoy the years of freedom I have left before real adulthood responsibility will occur.
No real need for having nice things currently, but want to enjoy more experiences and travel without burning the funds needlessly. Doing this reducing my house outgoing by living with my family. This isn't for everyone but works for me and the family.
Working full time in accountancy in my local area where I drive to work. I am able to save a decent portion of my income to invest into my ISA.
2024 Spend
Holiday Spend
In this the cost of flights hotels and spend away is included. Flights were almost £1.5k of this and the rest consists of hotel and spend when out there. The years travels consisted of some stag doos (Sofia , Barcelona and Butlins!) , and some trips away with the girlfriend (Bali, Oxford and Amsterdam)
Being able to enjoy my youth is a priority so not grumbling at this being my biggest spend. Only complaints is felt like I hardly got away! 2025 already has some trips in the pipeline with Brazil, Portugal, Dublin with the plan to finish the year over in Australia, so this spend is looking to dwarf this years spend.
Food/Drink
This spend relates to eating out or takeaways throughout the year and the odd drink in the day at the pub. At almost £3k this is a hefty chunk of the expense. As I don't have sole ownership of the house and and the grocery shopping, this is higher than it would be if I was to have responsibility for this.
I can't say I'm the greatest kitchen so I will need to brush up on some of my culinary skills when the time comes again.
Drinking/Nights Out
There's always a few drinks after football and after a good result we usually do head to the local for a few extra after to celebrate. There have been a couple of 30th birthdays in 2024 so on the whole this is a pretty reasonable spend considering.
Sports
This spend consists of my gym membership, memberships and equipment in the sports I play, and tickets to certain sporting events. Being a Charlton Fan tickets are bank busting but I do enjoy a new football boot. The biggest gripe are the yellow/red card fines. One or two head losses on the pitch, but refs are just so card happy. I would love to know what the FA are doing to put this money to good use but I'm sure it just lines the pockets of people who do not deserve it.
Fire Portfolio @ 31 Dec 2024
From the above, 2024 was a great year for me in my quest to build my Fire Portfolio, increasing by almost £34K! This is almost in line with my net salary income in 2024. The different investment performances will be covered in more detail in the below paragraphs.
ISA Performance
The biggest investment in my portfolio is my S&S ISA with practically any surplus cash in a month going toward my ISA. In 2024 I managed to get 2 small pay rises which went a long way to helping my increase my contributions towards this.
As with 99% of people investing in the year, the investment returns for this were very good, giving me over £13K of gains in the year. Part of this gain includes dividends that are automatically reinvested by the ISA provider as well. The overall gains compared to my contributions throughout the years is summarised in the below graph.
Whilst this year has been very good, it makes me pessimistic on the returns of the stockmarket for 2025/26. However, the plan remains the same to dollar cost average and contribute to my ISA on a monthly basis. As Buffman says, time in the market beat timing the market.
Workplace Shares
In my first job out of university, I was fortunate to be able to enrol to a Workplace Share Scheme that allowed me to gain 2 free shares for every 1 I purchased. I enrolled for the maximum amount which was little in value, but allowed me to gain a great performing investment.
This year was the first time I actually withdrew funds from my investments so far. This was to make use of the capital gains tax free allowance. I can't remember how much I contributed all those years ago, but would've been round £1-1.5K. So a brilliant gain and a realised one in there too :)
GIA Performance
I opened my GIA in 2021 when fresh to it and easily impressionable. The YouTube Finfluencers convinced me that it would be silly not to purchase at least an individual stock in Tesla. Not long after a listening to a Lewis Morgan (Gymshark Co-Founder) Podcast, I decided to purchase a share in Coinbase to get some exposure to the crypto market in Feb 2022.
As you can see from the below gain/loss graph covering the time I've had a GIA, these investments haven't been exactly the rags to riches investment I thought I was undertaking. For the majority of time holding them they have been at a loss, and a sizeable one at time in percentage terms, but I didn't sell it and 2024 was the year they went back into the green. I am soooooooo wise!
If I'm honest this is was a bad investment decision and if I just put the money into a tracker it would've been a smoother ride. I will probably sell these in the new tax year and move the funds into my ISA for simplicity. It's been an interesting little journey though....
Cash
Cash is up currently as I have some big expenses to come out soon for flights and organising a stag do. Most of this is in an easy access savings account with any interest received being below the tax allowance for the year.
Net Worth!
I don't usually do net worth updates but I will include it in this post to give you an insight. The only extra things I need to include are my pension and my student loan as I do not own a property or high value car. This will give you an insight to my low pension, but mainly highlights how ridiculous the student loan system is and why my net worth is pretty irrelevant.
My Pension is currently £29,087, between my SIPP and current workplace pension. I have consolidated my old work pensions into my SIPP and have also done a partial transfer from my current workplace pension to my SIPP. this was to reduce to fees paid, but I ensured with the provided there would be no issues with fees for the transfer and it wouldn't disrupt my employer contributions to my pension going forward. As in my last post, I want to use my pension as a top up of funds instead of investing heavily in this and relying solely on my pension in the later years.
My Student Loan Debt has gone up from £50,942 to £52,490 in 2024. When I left university I believe my debt was around £30,000 and I contribute to loan repayment through my payroll every month, yet it still rises. This actually makes me laugh looking how the debt has gone, and I am genuinely curios to see it's value when it is due to be written off after 30 years. What a party that will be.
With these 2 items included, my net worth as at the end of 2024 is around £89,437, £24k smaller than my Liquid Assets incredibly. Hope 2025 is brilliant for everyone reading this post!
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