2024 EOY Review
Hi everyone - welcome back! I hope you have all had a wonderful festive break and I wish you a very prosperous 2025.
Living Life
Wow - another year gone. Time just seems to be flying at the moment.
2024 has been another great year. Maybe doesn’t quite match 2024 when I got married, went on a honeymoon to the USA and got to go to Japan with work but it has been a nice wholesome year all round.
See some of my 2024 highlights below:
January / February / March:
Went to see “The Classic Rock Show” at The Glasshouse in Gateshead.
Visited my family in Scotland and drank a few cocktails for my brothers birthday.
Out new Indian lodger moved in and started teaching us how to cook authentic Indian food.
I met up with some friends and had some drinks in Edinburgh.
I took a work trip to Oslo in Norway.
I met up with family in Scotland and spent the day in Hospitality at the football team we support.
April / May / June:
We went on holiday with the Mrs’ family to the Lake District.
I took a work trip to Dublin in Ireland.
We went on a day trip to Whitby.
We went on holiday to Paris.
I started a new job.
We went to a Bruce Springsteen gig at the Stadium of Light.
We visited family in Scotland.
I went to the rugby at Twickenham with friends.
July / August / September:
We went on a day trip to York with friends.
We went on a long weekend to Bristol and Bath for our wedding anniversary.
We went on walks around the local national trust parks.
We had a few days together in London.
We went on holiday to Poland and visited the Mrs’ family.
I went to the boxing at Wembley Stadium with friends.
We took a day trip to Alnwick.
October / November / December:
We announced that we were expecting a baby to family and friends.
We celebrated birthdays and enjoyed meals out.
Some friends visited us in Newcastle.
We spent Christmas and New Years’ Eve with friends and family.
We visited Scotland and I went out for drinks with friends in Edinburgh.
I hope you all had as great a year as we did but if not I am sure 2025 will be much better!
We are really looking forward to meeting our little one and I expect next year will be fully focussed on us starting to build our own little family.
Spending
In 2023 we had a busy and “spendy” year - spending £42,205.40. This year, we have managed to be a little more economical and spent £37,516.65. This is 11.1% lower than last year. Overall, there could probably have been some areas where we could have been a bit better but I am pretty happy with that given that we did do quite a lot throughout the year.
This year our average monthly spend was £3,126.39.
FI Fund
This year the $SPY ETF (S&P500) returned 24% which is pretty epic when you consider the uncertainty around the world at the minute. The FTSE100 only managed a 5.85% return in comparison. It will be interesting to see what 2025 has in store. It looks like interest rates will continue to be cut (although maybe at a slower rate than expected a few months ago). I continue to have a relatively large allocation to Government Bonds which will have reduced my returns a bit this year and I will be the first to admit that I have been too early. That said, Government Bonds still provide a good yield and I still expect some significant turbulence ahead (time will tell).
The FI fund includes our full net worth. The recent upside in the market combined by our commitment to continue aggressively adding to our portfolio has resulted in our portfolio doing very well this year. It is sitting at £534,274.53 which is £123,049.41 higher (or +29.9%) when compared to last year at the same time (£411,225.12).
I feel incredibly blessed to have built this portfolio with the Mrs and hope we can continue to improve on this and reach our goals in the years ahead - even with the little one on the way.
As a summary, here is a record of our net worth over the last 4 years (nice to see the progress):
December 2021: £319,152.82
December 2022: £321,662.47
December 2023: £411,225.12
December 2024: £534,274.53
Inspired by the Mad Fientist, we track our net worth slightly differently. This helps us visualise the trajectory towards FIRE based on current monthly spending and investing habits.
The graph has the following assumptions:
Income from investments (post-FIRE) = 4%
Monthly savings / investments = £3,000 per month
Return on investments (pre-FIRE) = 7%
Also, as another way of looking at it, we break our FI milestone (an arbitrary £800,000) into 12 equal bars to track our progress against that. Each bar indicatively represents achieving financial freedom for each representative month of the year. Therefore, we are currently sitting at 8 months of financial independence each year.
Overall, this year has been a good one but it means nothing if we cannot keep up the momentum. Let’s hope next year is just as fruitful. Whether the markets are up, down or sideways, I plan on continuing to invest aggressively. It is nice to be motivated by a good year like this one.
I wish everyone a successful 2025 and beyond!
