Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.

Part 3

Weekly Update

The short version of the story is that I’m still in pain. My ankle/foot is still hurting a lot but the tramadol is taking the edge off and leaving me pretty spaced out. I’ve seen a consultant who thinks I could have a stress fracture or possibly something called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). The consultant did go to great lengths to explain that CRPS is rare and that it is diagnosed through a process of eliminating other diagnoses first. If it is CRPS I could be left in pain for months and as there is no known cure, the treatment is a case of pain management. I really hope it is not CRPS.

I don’t like being trapped inside due to health problems. Since the 5th of November I have been outside of my apartment four times. Each time was to visit hospital. I would love to head out and chill in a café or bar for a little while, but the pain is simply too intense. So here I am, curled up on the sofa dictating this blog whilst watching the rain hammer down outside. I do enjoy the sound of rain though. Water generally produces relaxing sounds, apart from the roar of a tsunami.

So, here we are: Part three of Mortgage Advisor on F.I.R.E. I am going to discuss a few things in this update. I will have a closer look at some of the best books I have read on financial independence and investing. I will post links to those books on Amazon and if you are interested in buying them, clicking the links embedded in this article and buying them this way will help support the running costs of this website. I will also have a brief look at BTL mortgage affordability, and Stocks and Shares ISAs. First things first though, I will look at my weekly financial update.

Financial Update

Premium Bonds: £8,650 (no change from last week).

Stocks and Shares ISA: £6,912.39 (up £31.19 from last week).

Credit Card Debt: £3,899.99 (down £37.24 from last week).

F**k It Fund: £850.96 (no change from last week).

Surplus Cash: £295.00 (down £5 from last week).

Total Wealth Figure: £189,208.35 (property valued at £172,500) – £138,818.82 = £50,389.53 (up £486.53 from last week).

Not a bad week overall. Some weeks will see very little change but the week when I get paid will see more change as I move money into investments and pay larger sums off my credit card and mortgage debt.

Book Recommendations

If you are just starting your journey of financial education, then the best book I can recommend to start with is Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. There is limited practical information in this book, but it will change your mindset for the better. It will make you think about money in a completely different way. Most people think of money as a taboo subject. In many households money is seen as a source of stress and some google-fu will demonstrate that financial issues are one of the main reasons couples split. There are two aspects to this; the first is that people do not talk about money enough. The second aspect is that people are generally not financially educated enough to talk about money in an informed way. Rich Dad, Poor Dad will put you on the right path but it is only the start of the journey.

Another book I would thoroughly recommend to advance your journey would be Money by Rob Moore. This book looks at the concept of money in a bit more detail. Again, it’s a bit thin on the ground in terms of practical advice but the book will keep you thinking in the right way about money. Rob Moore made his fortune in property and so the book is coming at you from that viewpoint. To balance things up a little I would then suggest reading How To Own The World by Andrew Craig. This is a fascinating book that will help explain how stocks and shares ISAs work. It also looks in more detail at the mechanical, automatic way in which wealth can accumulate if you set up the right systems and processes. Another book looking at this is I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, although this is focused on the US many of the lessons can be applied to the UK as well.

If you find books like those mentioned a chore where you feel you are being lectured to, then I would recommend The Latte Factor by David Bach and John David Mann. I have just finished listening to the audiobook. At my level of financial education, it was a very basic listen. However, it approached the subject matter in an interesting way. On the surface, The Latte Factor is a work of fiction. However, through the events described there are several financial lessons learned. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason uses a similar method to teach financial wisdom. If you are interested in any of these books, please use the links in this article to purchase them from Amazon and help support the running costs of this blog and Now We Live.

BTL Mortgage Affordability and Eligibility

The eligibility criteria for the BTL mortgage are different for an owner-occupier mortgage. When you buy a property to live in yourself, you generally need to satisfy three things; affordability, credit worthiness and the property needs to be suitable for mortgage purposes. It does not matter if you are a first time buyer, a homemover or raising money on a property you live in and own outright. The three pillars of mortgage eligibility are the same; you need to be able to afford the mortgage payments. You need to have a good credit record. The property needs to be adequate security i.e. it can’t be a wreck that is about to collapse and it needs to be in a habitable condition.

BTL criteria is somewhat different and these criteria are generally correct across the market although some of the specifics for the criteria differ between individual lenders.

You need to own the property you live in, either outright or with a mortgage.
You need to earn a minimum amount, normally £20K-£25K (although it varies lender to lender).
You need a deposit of at least 25%, although some lenders accept less, the rates of interest will be much higher. The deposit source cannot be a loan.
The anticipated rent needs to exceed the mortgage payments by a certain amount. You will hear a lot of figures thrown around regarding “stress tests” on mortgage affordability. A bit of google-fu shows some lenders are stress testing at 5% and require the rent to be 125% of the mortgage payments at 5%.
There are rules around who you can let the property to. Letting to a family member opens up a can of worms, for example.

Although I am looking at BTL properties being the foundation of my financial independence, I am a qualified mortgage advisor and have taken years to educate myself financially. If you are thinking of taking on a BTL mortgage, I strongly advise you to seek advice from a qualified professional who can look at your specific circumstances and tailor advice accordingly. I take no responsibility for your own actions.

Using the above criteria, if you are earning enough money and have a deposit saved, it can be quite easy to obtain a BTL. The biggest barrier myself and my JV partner will encounter is when we get three BTL we may be considered portfolio landlords. At this point, some lenders get a little more cautious about offering further BTL mortgages. However, a lot could change in the year or two it will take us to obtain that many BTL mortgages. Once you are a portfolio landlord, you generally need to approach more specialist lenders to obtain new BTL mortgages.

There are costs associated with BTL that many amateurs do not consider when buying their first rental property. As of 14/11/2019, Stamp Duty Land Tax is payable on all BTL regardless of purchase price. If you are buying a rental property for less than £125,000 then you pay 3%. This is one of the reasons why many landlords accumulate properties in the £70K-£100K bracket. There are costs to bring the property up to the safety specs needed to rent it out, as well as agent and management fees. If you do not educate yourself first, you will almost certainly lose money on a BTL.

What I like about BTL is that the income is regular, and the underlying asset is stable. Over time, property prices increase. This is demonstrable over decades, if not centuries. There are risks with BTL such as a tenant not paying on time or simply refusing to pay altogether. However, there are steps you can take to mitigate this risk such as enhanced tenant screening, using guarantors or even insurance against tenants not paying rent. Although BTL is at the foundation of my plan for F.I.R.E., there is another important part; my stocks and shares ISA.

What is a Stocks and Shares ISA?

A stocks and shares ISA, sometimes known as an investment ISA, is a tax efficient way to invest in individual stocks or investment funds. There are many share dealing accounts out there but not all of them have ISA status. A basic share dealing account will allow you to buy and sell shares. Each account provider will charge fees in one way or another. Some have a flat fee per trade, whilst others allow a certain number of free trades per month before you are charged. In a stocks and shares ISA, these charges are still applicable. The main advantage to a stocks and shares ISA is that you are exempt from Capital Gains Tax on any profit made. If you are looking for long term capital growth, then you need to protect your gains within the ISA bubble.

Within the ISA you can choose to invest in a vast range of funds or individual stocks. There have been countless books written on how to pick funds or stocks, but the best advice I have received is to make the process as “hands-off” as possible.

There are many types of investment fund and there are several ways to categorize them. You can look at accumulation or income funds, or actively managed funds or passively managed funds. There is a lot of information to take in. However, as I stated a few sentences ago, my research suggests that the key to long term growth and wealth is to make the process as passive as possible.

Before I go into further detail, it is perhaps important to first explain what a fund is. An investment fund is where a group of people put their money into a pot. That collective pot is then used to purchase shares in other stocks or funds. You then see your money increase or decrease in line with the assets the fund has invested in. This is, obviously, a very basic definition and entire books are written on the subject. What I have found is that much of the complexity is unnecessary. My approach is to invest in passive index trackers.

These funds are not actively managed and as a result, have much lower fees and charges. I invest in funds that track the FTSE 100, FTSE 250 as well as a US Equity Index tracker from Vanguard (my preferred fund manager). Like with property, the stock market increases over time. There are peaks and troughs and some of those troughs are major, but over time the stock market has always bounced back and it tends to outpace inflation.

Over the last century or so, the stock market has shown average year-on-year growth of 8%-10%. I am investing £250 per month at the moment into my stocks and shares ISA. Assuming an 8% rate of growth, in ten years time my stocks and shares ISA could be worth £60,000. At a rate of 10%, we would be looking at almost £70,000. Over twenty years, at a growth rate of 8%, the fund would be worth £180,000. If you google a compound interest calculator and play with some figures, you will see just how scary compound interest can be.

A couple of examples:

You are an eighteen-year old and want to be financially comfortable by the time you reach 50. You have a decent job and don’t go crazy with your cash. You invest £10 a day into a stocks and shares ISA. After 32 years, at a rate of just 5% growth you would have over £250,000. If the rate of growth was 10%, you would have over £750,000.
You are a twenty-five year old in a good job. You have plenty of disposable income and are just putting that money into a cash savings account. If you were to invest £20 a day with a view to retiring at 60, assuming 5% growth you would have around £670,000 to help when you retire. Assuming 10% growth you would have over £2,000,000.

Compound returns are so, so powerful.

Exit Strategy

You might be thinking of my own figures “£180,000 is not a lot of money to live off.” You’re correct. It is not. The point here is that the ISA is just one part of how I plan to create enough wealth to retire early. I will have the properties generating income on a monthly basis as well as the capital growth that comes with property. The ISA is a different animal.
In addition to the different funds I invest in, I also have holdings in individual stocks. These stocks pay dividends either two or four times a year. At present, I reinvest my dividends to increase my holding in those stocks. However, as I get to retirement I may look at splitting the dividends so I use some of them to live off and reinvest some of them. It is a similar principle with the investment funds. I mentioned earlier that there are accumulation and income funds. An accumulation fund is concerned with accumulating more value, which means gains in the fund are thrown back into the fund to increase the overall value. Income funds take the income generated by the fund and pay it out as dividends to those who own shares of the fund. Most of the major funds will allow you to switch from accumulation to income, so that when you are ready to live off your investments you move from the accumulation phase to the income phase. There is a part of this puzzle I have not yet discussed, which is the concept of Safe Withdrawal Rates. I will cover this in next week’s blog. For now, thanks for reading.

Part 2

Weekly Update

I’ve had a strange week since posting the first instalment on my blog. I had typed up the bulk of the second instalment the day after posting the first part with the intention of just adding a few bits towards the end of the week, such as an update on my financial position and what I decided to do with my credit card. Something got in the way though, and I’m currently talking into my phone through speech-to-text to get this update saved on the cloud, so that Darren Scothern (Chief Editor of Now We Live) can edit it and post the blog for me.

I’ve been suffering with Achilles Tendonitis in my left foot for a few weeks and I’ve been having physio for it. I did some exercises on Monday night and felt fine. In the early hours of Tuesday morning I woke up in a lot of pain, but this time from my right ankle. It was agony to even have the duvet resting on the foot. The slightest movement was extremely painful, and I could not put any weight on that side. So, I went to the Minor Injuries unit, but they could not help. I returned home and proceeded to get worse as the day went on. At around 4am on Wednesday morning I was desperate. I was in the most pain I could ever remember experiencing and I’ve had torn muscles, strained ligaments, and an assortment of other injuries. This has been the worst pain I’ve experienced.

I arrived at Accident and Emergency at around 6am Wednesday morning and saw the triage nurse quite quickly. I was wearing some tracksuit bottoms, a simple t-shirt and sweater. It was cool in the A&E waiting area with the big doors to the outside opening frequently and blasting cold air inside, but I was sweating. I took my jumper off and my t-shirt was soaked. I felt a little faint and asked my girlfriend to get me some water. I took a few sips and started feeling worse. The pain was so bad I could not think straight. I felt the blood drain from my head and face. My girlfriend and the medical staff later told me I turned grey. I told my girlfriend something, I can’t remember what exactly. I felt like I was slipping away, like an out of body experience or something. I have a heart condition that is being managed with medication, and I remember thinking, just for a split second, this is it, my heart has given out and I’m going into shock. Then everything went dark.

I opened my eyes and I was on the floor of the A&E department with a group of medical staff around me. They lifted me on to a bed and wheeled me through to a ward. I was in and out of it at this stage. I was put through a series of tests on my heart and eventually was given morphine for the pain. I left hospital after 6pm with a support boot for my foot, my crutches and some stronger painkillers. But no diagnosis. I have an appointment next Wednesday with a private specialist.

It’s been a freaky few days. I’m still in a lot of pain but it’s not as severe as it was yesterday*. I can’t stand without support. I’m using crutches to get around the apartment. I never knew that the ankle could cause this much pain. It’s difficult to describe just how bad it is. It’s like a white, blinding flash of pain starting in the ankle and surging through my body like an electric charge. Yesterday, had they offered amputation with the promise the pain would go, I would have taken it and thanked them.

On that somewhat depressing note, here is the second instalment of Mortgage Advisor on F.I.R.E.

David Scothern: 07/11/19 (edited by Darren Scothern, 08/11/19).

*after having this checked over by Darren, my pain got so bad that I considered calling an ambulance. In the end, I had a telephone call from a doctor who told me to increase my painkiller dosage. Before going to bed last night I took eight pills: 2 x codeine, 2 x nefopam, 2 x paracetamol and 2 x amitriptyline. It seemed to work, although I am not promoting this course of action. If you’re in pain, please seek medical attention and do not self-medicate.

My Financial Education

I grew up in a working-class household where financial education was not “a thing”. My parents were very young when I was born and whilst I could not have asked for more loving or supportive parents, they were basically still children when they had me. It would have been unreasonable to expect them to impart financial wisdom on me. What I learned about money, initially, I learned from them. What they learned, they learned from their parents. And so on.

I remember sitting at home when I was a teenager one evening. I was maybe 18, or 19. For some reason, I was thinking about interest. The idea that money could create money was fascinating to me. Even at this age, despite not knowing the terms passive income, compound interest, or what things like asset allocation meant, I knew that if I wanted to be wealthy my money would have to work for me. I remember crunching numbers and working out how much I would need to have saved in an ISA to earn £1,000 per year in interest. The number seemed so far off at the time. Without a solid financial education, it was.

I started dabbling in share dealing a few years ago but most of my trades were ill informed. I won some. I lost more. I was learning about money, but slowly and without direction. It was a chance discussion with a friend and coworker that turned my groping around in the dark into a laser-like focus.

My friend, who is as frustrated and unfulfilled with working a J.O.B. as I am, told me about a book he was reading by an author who was a financial guru of sorts. The tag line of the book was that your home is not an asset, and instead it is actually a liability. I was intrigued. Some of you will know who I am talking about, and specifically which book I am referring to. It is Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I signed up to an Audible account and started listening. The book changed my life. That is not hyperbole. The book…

Changed

My

Life.

Robert Kiyosaki discussed things I had known on some level, but not well enough to put them into words. After I finished Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I bought another book by Robert Kiyosaki, Cash Flow Quadrant. I finished that book quickly and purchased another by him; Guide to Investing. I was enthralled. Over the course of 2018 I finished several books on finance and investing, with a few other personal development books thrown in, and I kept a list of what I had read or listened to. Here is the list:

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
Rich Dad, Poor Dad: Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki
Rich Dad, Poor Dad: Guide to Investing by Robert Kiyosaki
Shares Made Simple by Rodney Hobson
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Money by Rob Moore
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
FU Money by Dan Lok
Deep Work by Cal Newport
Start Now, Get Perfect Later by Rob Moore
The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing by Pat Dorsey
Start With Why by Simon Sinek

I also read a fair amount of fiction, history and politics books. On a side note, Audible is an absolutely amazing service. I struggle to read physical books for long periods as I suffer from cluster headaches and migraines. I also have floaters in my vision that make reading frustrating for me as I see black spots all across the page. So, Audible allows me to listen and learn in a relaxed frame of mind. In 2018 I completed 33 books. As of November 4th, 2019, I have finished 79 books on a range of topics. As you have probably guessed there are quite a few finance and personal development books in there:

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
Property Investing Secrets by Mark Homer and Rob Moore
Multiple Streams of Property Income by Mark Homer and Rob Moore
Life Leverage by Rob Moore
No Money Down Property Investing by Kevin McDonnell
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
How to Own the World by Andrew Craig
Fake by Robert Kiyosaki
The Naked Trader by Robbie Burns
Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas
The Complete Turtle Trader by Michael Covel
Financial Freedom by Grant Sabatier
Trend Commandments by Michael Covel
I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
100 Side Hustles by Chris Guillebeau
Reset by David Sawyer
The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins
The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko.
Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin
High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard
The Complete No Nonsense Guide to Property Investing by David Tarn
Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker.

And again, quite a bit of fiction. I have found that many of the best lessons I have learned about investing are the simple ones. There are no complicated systems or “hacks” for becoming wealthy. It is simple. The difficult part is that it requires persistence, discipline and an ability to think in the long-term. This is where the study of stoicism has helped me. It has helped me realise that I cannot control the external, but instead can only control the internal. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is a moving and powerful book. It is an account of Viktor Frankl’s experiences in the Nazi Concentration Camps in the Second World War. Even if you have no interest in financial independence, this book should be read by everyone. Many of Frankl’s observations can be applied to many walks of life and his work is similar to the Stoic philosophy in many ways.

Stoicism helped me by focusing my thoughts on the long term and understanding that I can only control my thoughts and my behaviours. So how does this relate to financial freedom? Well, I cannot get from my current position to wealthy overnight. If I try to get rich as quick as I can, then I will probably fall flat on my face. Instead of working on the end result, I need to work on the process. The process is internal and under my control. The end result is not. As I have read in a number of sources, the process of making money should be systematic, mechanical and the money should do the work through compounding. I do not work for my money, my money should work for me. I set up the correct process, and the money is created for me.

The Buy-to-Let Process

I discussed in my previous blog how I would potentially have £100 per month coming in from my first BTL after costs and splitting the rent with my JV partner. Compounding is where the process picks up from.

When I will receive the rent from this future BTL, I will still be earning money from my J.O.B. So, in addition to the £400 per month I save in Premium Bonds now, I will have the money freed up from paying off my credit card and the rental income from the first BTL. In total, at this point, I should be saving in the region of £700 per month. Assuming I want to get to £14,850 saved (the amount I needed for the first BTL) it would take approximately 20 months to save this amount. However, there are a couple of secret weapons. There is my own residence and my first BTL.

Additional Borrowing on a Mortgage

As time goes by, the debt owed on my main residence will reduce. Also, I live in an up and coming area of Sheffield that was voted the best place to live in the whole of the UK (Google Kelham Island). As my mortgage debt comes down, I will have enough equity in my property (the difference between your mortgage debt and the value of the property) to complete additional borrowing and put that towards the deposit. The plan is to release £10,000 this way. I will use £5,000 to fund my second BTL. The other £5,000 will be for my girlfriend to invest. Assuming I need £14,850 and I already have £5,000 from my residence, I only need £9,850. I also have the initial BTL.

When I was working out the cost of the first BTL, I included £3,000 for refurb costs. The idea is that we buy a property that needs some work. Not a complete refurb but a few quick hits that can improve the valuation. Once we have owned the BTL for six months we will be able to look at either additional borrowing or a remortgage to another lender to release the equity from the increased valuation. Switching to another lender would probably be more difficult and costly as it would require us to have taken an initial mortgage with no early repayment charges. Although there are some around, I suspect we will probably go with a fixed rate with a lender we know and trust. So, a further advance with the existing lender to take some of our money back out of the deal. It would work like this:

Purchase a BTL that needs some work, or a property that requires a fast sale and is undervalued. Or both.
Assuming we purchase a property at £90,000 we would assess what needs doing and then research what increase in value we would get from the refurb.
Try to find a property where the value can be increased by a minimum of £2 for every £1 spent.
Coupled with property price increases, it should be possible to extract some money from the property within 6-12 months.

I understand that the process requires a lot of research and with one exception there are no guarantees. From over a century of records; property prices increase over time. This is as close to a guarantee as you can get. There are peaks and troughs throughout, but, properties will only increase in value over time. Because the interest only debt is stagnant the gap between the debt and value will only increase in the longer term which potentially allows you to return to the well several times. Each BTL becomes a plant producing seeds that will turn into other plants. Exponential growth is the name of the game.

Once we have two BTL earning rental income, instead of saving £700 per month towards the third property I will be saving £800 or more. Then, I have three properties which can be used to release more equity; the two BTL and my own residence.

A rough timeline…

Mid-2020: One BTL
End of 2020/Early 2021: Two BTL
End of 2021: Three BTL
Mid 2022: Four BTL
End of 2022: Five BTL
End of 2023: Six or more BTL.

The beauty of this plan is that the release of equity from each property already owned can be combined so that two or more properties can be “working” together to produce the deposit for one more BTL. Once you get to the point where you have ten or more BTL working for you, the speed at which property portfolios can grow is astonishing. It seems like it is too good to be true, but I personally know people that have done this; people I have met personally and professionally. It can be done. It will be done.

Financial Update (read to my girlfriend who typed it up for me and compared to last week).

Premium Bonds: £8,650 (up £400 from last week).

Stocks and Shares ISA: £6881.20 (up £362.20 from last week).

Credit Card debt: £3,937.23 (down £58.42 from last week).

F**k It Fund: £850.96 (up £0.61 from last week).

Surplus Cash (not including cash marked for living expenses): £300

Total Wealth Figure (All Assets minus all Debts): £188,758.76 (including value of my residence) – £138,856.06 (including mortgage) = £49,903.

I’ve used some of the spare cash I had last week to increase my Premium Bonds and I’ve kept some cash spare. I’m not wanting to commit yet to a definitive strategy of concentrating on the credit card or building up the deposit fund in my Premium Bonds. I’ve been using the credit card for day-to-day spending and then round up the payment I make to pay the debt down every couple of days. For now, I think I will keep to this middle-of-the-road approach and see what happens in the new year.

In the next instalment I will talk a little about the other arm of my strategy for long-term wealth; my Stocks and Shares ISA. I will also discuss some of the books I’ve read in a little more detail and recommend which ones are good to start with if you want to begin your own journey to financial independence.

Thanks for reading,

Dave.

Part 1

**NOTE: If you have started here, with Part 1, I thank you for your interest. The early parts of this blog are a little rough around the edges. I was still finding my comfort zone. The format of the blog does not settle down until twenty or so parts. By all means start here, or feel free to jump ahead. If you have any questions, just leave a comment. David Scothern 21/12/2021.**

F.I.R.E. – Financial Independence, Retire Early: My Four-Year Plan for Financial Independence

This modern life of selling time for money does not work for me. I know it may be seen as a “millennial” or “first world problem”, but to draw on a recent quote “to suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”

I’m not work shy, but I want to be able to do my own work. I want to create something, be that through writing, a website, a business… I just don’t want to be chained to a desk doing something that I find as frustrating as it is unfulfilling.

It’s my plan to post once per week around the weekend with an update on my financial position and progress towards my goal. I will also discuss other random financial matters along the way.

So, on to my plan for F.I.R.E.

The Goal

Financial Independence by 31/12/2023.

What is Financial Independence?

Financial Independence is having enough passive income to meet all your basic needs, preferably with something left over for luxuries and for the enjoyment of life. It is a state where you no longer have to work for money, although you may choose to do so. It’s being in a position where you can just say “no” to anything you don’t want to do. It’s not so much about the money; the money is the tool that carves your freedom. It’s a means to an end.

What do I need for Financial Independence?

To cover the absolute basics, I need to account for the following:

Mortgage, Ground Rent & Service Charge – £300 per month.

Utilities – £100 per month.

Council Tax – £60 per month.

Food – £300 per month.

General Spending Money – £200 per month.

Rounded up, I’m looking at £1,000 per month. My somewhat ambitious target assumes that I will want to have a standard of living comparable to what I have now. £1,500 per month, although less than what I take home from my J.O.B., would be enough to ensure a very comfortable standard of living. It will be an even better standard of living if my plan comes to full fruition and I move to a country where the cost of living is lower.

Current Financial State

Premium Bonds – £8,250

Stocks and Shares ISA – £6,519

Cash Savings – £1,650

I did have more, but I’ve just used £14,000 to pay off a loan, meaning my only debt is now a mortgage of £135,236.68, and a credit card with £3,995.65 outstanding.

Each month I contribute £250 in to my Stocks and Shares ISA, and invest a further £400 in Premium Bonds. I also add £100 into what I call my Fuck It fund. This is a pot of money that I’m accumulating to cover basic expenses in the event of an emergency. The target amount is £4,500, or three months comfortable living at £1,500 per month. By the time I’m financially independent this will be a nice safety net to have.

My credit card balance is unusual. It’s not normally this high but I’ve recently booked several flights using the card, and made a large purchase for a family member based outside the UK. I’ll be getting some of that money back in December though. When I get that money back (approx. £1,800) I have to decide whether to pay that off the card or invest it. I’ll explain later why I have this choice.

My financial state at the moment is healthy, even with the credit card. I have plenty of surplus income and I have a decent amount of cash behind me to cover emergencies. However, the key to F.I.R.E. is not capital, but passive income. I need to generate passive income and I need to do it quickly. The key to passive income is property.

Step 1: Purchase a Buy-to-Let property.

This is going to be a Joint Venture and we are looking at properties in the £80,000-£90,000 bracket. The great thing about property is that you can buy it using Other People’s Money. So, instead of getting a return on just your own cash, you can leverage the cash of another person or business. Mortgage lenders are generally quite happy to lend against property as they know they will have a constant flow of interest being paid back, and if the borrower defaults they can just repossess the property. When buying a property to let out, it has to be on an interest only basis. The model does not work otherwise.

Interest Only mortgages are based on the premise that the bank lends you money for a set period of time. You pay interest each month but nothing towards the debt. At the end of the loan term, you pay the debt back in a lump sum. For many people this is a risky strategy, especially when they have an interest only loan on their main residence. For a BTL mortgage though, it is absolutely essential. Most BTL mortgages are set up with a loan-to-value of less than 75%. This means that the loan is for less than 75% of what the property is worth, so on a £100,000 property the mortgage would be for less than £75,000. This is to provide the bank with a buffer in the event of repossession. The other £25,000 comes from the borrower. The borrower is then charged interest on the £75,000 but the borrower gets to earn a return on the whole value of the property i.e. £100,000.

The real genius part of this model comes from inflation and compounding. Over the last thirty years, the average house price in the UK has risen from approx. £60,000 to over £200,000. An average increase of just over 4% a year. A £100,000 property now, based on long-term historical trends, could be worth over £200,000 in twenty years. The interest only balance does not increase with inflation though. So, in twenty years you will owe £75,000 against an asset worth £200,000 and not £100,000. The real value of the £75,000 will be lower as well due to inflation. £75,000 in 1999 has the same spending power as £120,000 now due to inflation. Using compounding and inflation, one can systematically create wealth.

The Cost of the BTL

Deposit of up to £22,500.
Legal and valuation fees of approx. £1,500.
Stamp Duty Land Tax charged at 3% of purchase price on a BTL. So, potential to be up to £2,700.
Basic refurb costs of £3,000.

Total one-off costs of £29,700, of which I would be paying 50%; so £14,850.
I’m using my Premium Bonds as the deposit. With interest rates as low as they are in savings accounts, I see no point in tying up large amounts of cash in bank accounts. With Premium Bonds there is no interest but there is the chance of earning money through the monthly prize draw. Since November 2018, I’ve won £325 through Premium Bonds with is decent return and almost certainly better than what I would have through a bank account.

We are aiming to have our first BTL by the middle of 2020. I have from November through to May to raise £6,600; the difference between what I have in Premium Bonds now and what I will need for my half of the BTL. In December I will be receiving the £1,800 I referred to earlier in this post. I could use it to pay down my credit card, but that balance will be coming down anyway. I think I will end up using that money to boost my deposit fund for the BTL. Instead of needing £6,600 by May, I would only need £4,800. I’m also expecting a further £800 to drop in to my bank in the next couple of days. If I throw this in to the Premium Bonds then I only need £4,000 by May.

The alternative is to hammer the payments on the credit card so I reduce the balance to zero, and then use a cash advance to make up the shortfall in any deposit funds I need. This is something I need to think about and there is no major rush, as I can always hold on to the cash whilst I decide. Another alternative is to transfer the credit card to a zero percent card and then just set up a regular payment to it to reduce the balance that way, but I’m not too keen on this idea. I have an air miles credit card and a lot of my spending goes on that card to generate the air miles. Another option I have considered is to round up my payments off the card. For example; if I spend £8.37 on lunch on the card, then I pay £10 off it immediately. This, in conjunction with regular payments, should bring the debt down over time as well.

Coming back to the BTL. Once we have the property, and we have an agent managing the property with a tenant in place, we can realistically expect to net £300 per month. We have agreed to keep a percentage of our monthly income to one side to cover expenses such as void periods, damage to the property or difficult tenants. From the first property, I can expect to see £100 per month. Not a huge amount, but it’s a start. As we scale up we will see a better rate of return and I will explain how in the next installment of this blog.