Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. A shorter post than normal this week as I’ve not been feeling too good over the weekend. This week I take a look at yet another Tory disaster. Also, a brief look at financial mistakes. Finally, the usual financial updates. As always we start with the Quote of the Week:
Quote of the Week
“This fictional party was a business meeting. There was cheese and wine, and it was not socially distanced.”
– Allegra Stratton
I can’t help but feel like the latest Tory fuck up has changed the way a lot of people think about them. For a long time the Tories have managed to hold on to, and seduce, a lot of traditional Labour, Lib Dem, and more recently UKIP voters. The thing is, people are gradually waking up to the truth, which is that the Tories don’t care about the average person. It’s an Old Boys Club that operates to transfer wealth from the working class to the rich. They hold the general public in contempt and the latest shambles regarding the Christmas parties, a.k.a. Business meetings with cheese, wine and no social distancing is just utter rubbish. This government is not acting in the best interests of the public. They are not simply incompetent; they are evil. As for Allegra Stratton, she can fuck right off. I have absolutely zero sympathy for her. She’s not sorry for what she did. She’s sorry she got caught.
This Tory government seems to exist in a bubble. They don’t seem to know, understand, or care about the plight of the country. It’s all about their own advancement. I hope enough people have now seen through the clusterfuck that is the Johnson regime, and at the next general election the Tory party is absolutely hammered.
I’m not saying that the Labour party is the answer here. What is the Labour party now, other than a slightly better version of the Tory party? What does Starmer actually stand for? I hate being in this situation, and I hate arguing on this basis, but we are at a stage where literally anyone else would be better than Johnson, and anything would be better than the Tories.
Linked to all this is the sheer absurdity that the police are not looking into this breach of the lockdown rules because of a lack of evidence. Here I was thinking that part of the police’s job was to investigate and collect evidence. Would the police rock up to a murder scene and just shrug their shoulders because the killer didn’t wait around with the murder weapon?
Weekly Update
My surgery didn’t happen. It was postponed at the last minute. It’s not a bad thing in many ways, as with the surge in Covid cases due to the Omicron variant, I’m not sure I wanted to be in hospital. Also, I’m still experiencing instances of lightheadedness. The operation will probably take place mid-January, so it’s not too long to wait. I don’t have a huge amount to update on this past week because everything was building up to my surgery.
One benefit to the surgery being delayed is that I can work the next couple of weeks. This is important because I’m moving to another team, and it’s always better to be present when changing teams, I think.
The best part of the week, for me at least, was the start of Season Six of The Expanse on Amazon Prime Video. This will be the final season of the show, which means that much of the later story that takes place in books 7-9 may not be adapted for TV. This is a shame as it’s such a great story. Hopefully, The Expanse finds a home somewhere else.
A Brief Interlude
I’ll never hide this blog behind a paywall, but it does cost money to run the site. I spend a minimum of six hours each week writing the blog, and maintaining the other parts of davidscothern.com. It is a labour of love. However, many of you have asked how you can show your appreciation. I set up a Buy Me A Coffee page but the main feedback was that you couldn’t pay by card. Well, now you can! My page now supports card payments and Apple Pay. So, if you want to show your support and appreciation for the content I create, please buy me a coffee.
2021 Goals – to be achieved by 31/12/2021
1 – Reduce weight to 92.8kg. (Current weight 123.2kg).
2 – Finish 104 new books. (Current total: 113).
I’m in the middle of a sci-fi series that tells the story of an alien invasion. The focus is on a small group of characters who only see glimpses of the wider picture. The series started well, but has gradually declined in quality. There’s only a couple of books left in the series, so I will finish it. I predict that within a few weeks of completing the series I’ll not remember the name of a single character though. Check out my reading list page for the titles.
Financial Update
Assets
Premium Bonds: £20,000.00 (no change from last update).
Stocks and Shares ISA: £42,229.79 (up £243.23 from last update).
Fuck It Fund: £2,250.00 (up £50.00 from last update).
Crypto: £714.93 (down £11.19 from last update).
Pensions: £52,525.63 (up £1,063.78 from last update).
Residential Property Value: £210,058.00 (no change from last update).
Buy-to-Let Property Value: £135,550.00 (no change from last update).
Total Assets: £463,328.35 (up £1,345.82 from last update).
Debts
Credit Card: £1,146.41 (up £144.85 from last update).
Residential Mortgage: £166,365.78 (no change from last update).
Buy-to-Let Mortgage: £92,976.55 (no change from last update).
Total Debts: £260,488.74 (up £144.85 from last update).
Total Wealth: £202,839.61 (up £1,200.97 from last update).
Investment Income in 2021: £3,475.39 (target £5,000).
It’s that time of the month where my mortgages have been paid and my investment contributions have been made. It’s now just a matter of waiting for the next pay cycle to start. The salary in December is always paid a little earlier than normal and by the next part of this blog I will have made some additional investments.
It’s still going to be a few weeks until I get the credit card back down to zero. A lot of spending is taking place on the card so we can accumulate our points. It won’t spiral out of control, and I’m not worried by it.
In a few weeks the updated valuations for my properties should be released. Assuming that there is another increase, I’ll be able to release some of the equity on my BTL, and use those funds to help purchase another property.
Your Worst Financial Mistakes
We’ve all made financial mistakes at some point. My worst financial mistake was taking out thousands in student loans to get a degree that has done absolutely nothing for me. Second to this would be my long running addiction to gambling, but thankfully that’s now a thing of the past and it’s almost three years since my last bet. I was curious what other people thought of their financial mistakes. Did people regret things they had done, or things they had not done? I reached out on a few forums to see if there were any trends.
There were several people who felt the same as me, in that they felt like they had wasted money on university. There were several more who regretted not buying bitcoin when it first came out. What surprised me was that more people did not express regret at what financial opportunities they had missed. It seems that most people considered debts they had taken to be their biggest regret, whether that was credit cards, payday loans or mortgages taken with a partner.
All this supports my belief that financial education in our society is lacking. If people had a better understanding of how compound interest can be lethal on debts, they would probably think much more carefully about taking out payday loans, or spending on credit cards.
Biolink
You can now find all my social media pages by checking out my Biolink at bio.link/davidscothern.
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Finally, have a look at Darren Scothern’s fantastic blog at darrenscothern.com.
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