Part 69

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on F.I.R.E.  This week I talk about hate and how it can be motivational.  Also, a lot of changes in my finances and a further update on the BTL as the start of the first tenancy draws closer.  First, the Quote of the Week:

Quote of the Week

This time of year is difficult for me, for reasons I am not going to go into.  There is a lot to unpack from my life in the first few weeks of the year and although anniversaries should not really have that much meaning, they can sometimes be powerful reminders of where you have been and where you come from.

The quote I have chosen this week relates to an idea I have discussed before, about how hate can be a positive thing.  Hate can push you forward to achieve things and part of the reason it can be so powerful is that it is one of few emotions that can endure with just one person feeling it.  The object of the emotion may not even be aware of it, but the person feeling that hate can be pushed onto bigger and better things by holding on to that hate.  The opposite of hate would be love, but love is difficult to maintain in a single direction.  Love needs both people to feel it in order for it to endure.  

I am not saying that hate is always a good thing.  Hate is like a fire; it is a tool that can be used for warmth but too much of it and you hurt yourself or burn your food.  Just the right amount of hate can be a great thing.  It is so important to make sure that it does not develop into an obsession though, because you can end up having the object of your hate setting up home inside your mind and living there rent free.  That is not a good situation to be in.  

If I was to talk to a therapist about this outlook I am convinced they would say it is not healthy, but I am becoming increasingly skeptical about the efficacy of talking therapy when it comes to severe mental health struggles.  I will never forget my last therapist’s response when I talked about how my anger would boil over into rage, and I would be so angry that I felt like I would explode.  In those situations I would take myself away from everyone until I calmed down.  Her response was, “you need to calm down”.  Great, here is your £50.  

Weekly Update

Work is ramping up as I continue my phased return.  It is like I have never been away.  Working from home is great, but I do miss the day to day interaction with some people.  I doubt many offices will see a return to pre-pandemic ways of working this calendar year.  I think the world has changed and businesses have realised that it is possible to have a workforce primarily based from home.  What impact this has on commercial property remains to be seen, but I am predicting a lot of empty office buildings around the world over the next few years.  After all, why would a business rent a huge office space when they can have their workforce spread across multiple sites.  The danger with fewer, centralised offices is that if one location is evacuated, for example, the whole business takes a hit.  It is also better for the bottom line if the business is not paying the heating, air conditioning, lighting and power bills for the computers.  

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We have new(ish) neighbours and in the last few weeks I have had to go around and tell them to be quiet.  One time they were making noise well past midnight.  A couple of nights ago we were trying to sleep and we could hear them through the bedroom wall, as it is next to their living room.  I get that there will be noise in an apartment block, but if you are making enough noise to be clearly heard late at night, you are being too loud.  This time, my girlfriend and I both went over, instead of just me.  My girlfriend wanted to do the talking this time, so I stood a little to the side, out of sight of the doorway.  The neighbours answered and one of them started getting loud and a little aggressive.  I stepped into view and he took a few steps back.  I think this says everything I needed to know about the type of person he was.  The other neighbour is the one who normally answers the door and he actually came around this morning to try and talk things through calmly.  It was a cordial conversation and we have exchanged phone numbers so that if there are noise disturbances in the future we can just text each other.  

2021 Goals – to be achieved by 31/12/2021

1 – Reduce weight to 92.8kg.

2 – Finish 104 new books.

3 – Complete RO3 for my DipFA.

4 – Complete RO4 for my DipFA.

5 – Complete RO5 for my DipFA.

6 – Complete RO6 for my DipFA.

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Being back at work has disrupted my eating habits and I have had a bad week.  So, on to the next week.  

I have finished a fantastic book on mental health this past week, called My Sh*t Therapist by Michelle Thomas.  Although it is written from a female perspective, and there are some things that are lost on me as a guy, it is the best book on mental health I have read and there was a lot I could identify with.  When recounting her experience with a therapist, Michelle talks about a time she described a really severe anxiety attack she experienced.  It was bad she could barely breathe or talk.  The therapist said that should this happen again, she should have a mug of tea and calm down.  

This week also saw me resume my studies towards my DipFA and I have booked my RO3 exam for the end of March.  I have been doing a little bit of studying each day, gradually increasing the amount each time, to gently get myself back into the routine of work and study.  I would love to say this module is interesting but so far I am just learning about the tax status of employee cars and childcare.  It might actually be the most boring thing I have ever read.    

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £150.00 (down £3,900.00 from last update).

Stocks and Shares ISA: £19,815.74 (up £2,357.52 from last update).

Fuck It Fund: £200.00 (down £400.00 from last update).

Crypto: £60.64 (first entry).

Residential Property Value: £194,909.00 (no change from last update).

Buy-to-Let Property Value: £125,775.00 (no change from last update).

Total Assets: £340,910.38 (down £1,881.84 from last update).

Debts

Credit Card: £0.00 (down £1,853.86 from last update).

Residential Mortgage: £141,026.49 (no change from last update). 

Buy-to-Let Mortgage: £93,199.07 (no change from last update). 

Total Debts: £234,225.56 (down £1,853.86 from last update).

Total Wealth: £106,684.82 (down £27.98 from last update). 

Investment Income in 2021: £4.14 (target £5,000).

A lot to discuss this week.  The unexpected cost of rewiring our BTL property, and wanting to pay my credit card off, meant that I depleted my Premium Bonds and Fuck It Fund.  I used some of the funds released, in addition to my salary, to increase my ISA.  I have also dabbled a little in cryptocurrency.  The site I have signed up with had offers on where you could earn free crypto, so I am going to see how this develops and allocate a little each month towards this.  I might lose money, but it might very well end up being a great investment.  

Although it is frustrating having to use my savings, I feel good having reduced my credit card back down to zero after several weeks of seeing the balance creep up.  Moving forward I should be able to concentrate on building my wealth balance before purchasing the second BTL later this year.

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BTL Update

In addition to the property needing a rewire, it now appears that the gas fire is unsafe for use.  This means an additional expense to make it safe.  We are waiting on quotes, but it will probably end in the fire being ripped out.  

My girlfriend referred to this property as being a money pit so far, and she is right to an extent.  However, as an investment for the next few decades we will still make money from this property.  The other thing to remember is that this is a learning experience.  In the last few weeks I have had something of a realisation.  At first, I thought that this property was a good buy, in part, because the owners had lived there a long time and seemingly cared for the property.  However, the fact it had not had a survey completed in over twenty years meant that some of the health and safety issues would not have been picked up or addressed.  Had we bought the property from someone who had only lived there a few years it is likely that several of the issues we have had to contend with would have been picked up along the way.  

Our tenant is still due to move in towards the end of the month, so hopefully it will not be much longer before I can start reporting rental income.  

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If you like my content, please consider supporting my writing.  I spend several hours each week writing this blog and make it freely available to all readers.  I do not hide my content behind a paywall.  However, maintaining a website incurs costs.  If you can afford a small donation, it would be gratefully accepted.  Click on the Buy Me A Coffee image, or use the donate buttons on this site.

Show your support for Mortgage Advisor on FIRE and buy David a coffee.

Gaining readers is the hardest thing for any blogger to achieve.  I enjoy writing this each week and if you are enjoying this content, please take a moment to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Whatsapp or any other social media.  Shares are the ultimate sign of success for any blogger.  If you have any feedback, comments or questions whether positive or negative, please leave a comment below.  If you would like to make a donation to support the running costs of this blog, please use the donation button on the home page.

My Instagram is @david_scothern and my Twitter is @advisoronfire. You can also email me at mortgageadvisoronfire@gmail.com.

Also, please check out my cat’s Instagram @sweep_the_kelham_island_cat

Finally, have a look at Darren Scothern’s blog at darrenscothern.com.

Part 68

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on F.I.R.E.  This week I will talk about the relationship between luck and hard work, and share a frustrating and costly update on my BTL.

Quote of the Week

I do not believe there is some mystical force that acts for or against us, in a way that one could describe as luck.  I believe that what happens in life is a consequence of a complex set of factors in the environment we are in.  What happens to us depends on not only our own choices but the exposure we have to the choices of other people.  Saying that luck is down to hard work is just lazy, in my honest opinion.  People can work hard and come away with nothing.  Work rate is not everything.  It is not enough to just work hard, you also have to work smart.  It is like the idea of sharpening the axe, which I have talked about before.  If you are asked to chop down a tree you can just dive right in and spend hour after hour chopping into the tree trunk with a blunt axe.  You can build up a sweat and work to exhaustion before the tree finally falls.  The alternative is to spend some time sharpening the blade of the axe and then start chopping.  The tree will come down in fewer swings of the axe.  Working smarter is often better than working harder.  

I have just finished a book exploring luck by psychologist and magician Richard Wiseman.  I have seen him in person at a special lecture when I was an undergraduate psychology student and he is a fantastic personality.  I feel that this book, The Luck Factor, was just a little too much like pop psychology instead of being a serious, scientific investigation into luck.  The main lessons learned are that if you want to increase your luck, you need to be open to new experiences and be more outgoing and friendly with new people.  

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There are some people who are extremely unlucky, because they happen to be the consequence of someone else’s poor judgement.  No amount of hard work will stop a drunk driver smashing into you after they run a red light.  That is just a tragic example of bad luck.  Some people can be on the receiving end of one instance of bad luck after another, for example, losing their job because the company senior management ran the business into the ground.  The person could then lose their home because their landlord stopped paying the mortgage.  Try telling someone like this that if they had just worked harder, or been more open minded they would have had better luck.  

I understand that successful people want to motivate others, but I find I look favourably at successful people who acknowledge the role that luck had in their success rather than just banging on about how they made their own luck through hard work.  In a way, this concept is linked to the debate on white privilege or male privilege, although those are not the only two types of privilege.  The difference between success and failure can often come down to the factors you do not initially perceive.  An example could be someone being successful in starting a business because their parents were able to spend more time helping them with homework as a child.  Someone else may have worked harder but had a lesser understanding of the financials because their parents had been working their asses off in minimum wage jobs and been unable to help with homework.  Another person might have been successful because they got into a great school because of the postcode they lived in, whereas someone two streets down fell into a different school catchment area.

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Saying that hard work equals more good luck is simplistic.  It might be true in some situations, but those who work hard can also have their hard work crushed by bad luck.  These people rarely have the platform to speak though, and so the good luck stemming from hard work argument persists through survivorship bias; a concept I have also spoken about recently.

Weekly Update

I am starting to feel the itch to go on holiday again.  It seems as though we have been living with this virus forever when it has only been a year or so.  At least now the end looks to be in sight with the UK managing to roll the vaccine out fairly well so far.  It feels weird praising the UK government when they almost always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory whilst simultaneously putting their foot in their mouth before shooting said foot.  

My routine is starting to be pieced back together as my phased return to work continues.  The way my period of ill health has been handled by my employer has been fantastic and it has made my return as seamless as possible.  The one major part of my routine that is missing is exercise.  I want to be back in the gym.  This pandemic will have damaged the health of the nation in many subtle ways and there will be a great many people who have seen their physical and mental health deteriorate in the past year.  This is the thing that many Covid-skeptics do not understand.  It is not just about how many people die.  It is also about those people hospitalised for extended periods.  It is about those people who will develop life long health complications due to Covid.  It is about the social and economic damage that this pandemic causes the longer it goes on.

I want to get back to Malta. I need a holiday.

Setting Daily To-Do Lists

Since the start of the year I have been setting daily to-do lists.  These lists include even the basic stuff, like completing my shift at work.  I have found that doing this has helped me stay on top of the basic day-to-day tasks that can be forgotten about when one is stressed, anxious or depressed.  I know it will not work for everyone, but I have found it really useful and my productivity has increased as a result.  

One thing I am making sure to include each day is some time to go do something I actually enjoy, such as reading a book or watching a movie.  It is easy to get caught up in what needs to be done whilst forgetting to look after yourself by making sure you have time to relax and decompress when stress takes hold.  

2021 Goals – to be achieved by 31/12/2021

1 – Reduce weight to 92.8kg.

2 – Finish 104 new books.

3 – Complete RO3 for my DipFA.

4 – Complete RO4 for my DipFA.

5 – Complete RO5 for my DipFA.

6 – Complete RO6 for my DipFA.

My weight has not changed in the past week, which is something of a positive.  I am trying not to beat myself up too much about this, but I have seen a little reduction during 2021 so far.  I have now completed ten books this year, which is keeping me on track to finish 104 by the end of the year.

I have not yet resumed studying for DipFA.  I had planned on studying this weekend, but something came up which distracted me for quite a while and, well, stressed me out.  I will come on to this when I talk about my BTL.  

So, on the whole only a little progress towards my 2021 goals.

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Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £4,050.00 (up £50.00 from last update).

Stocks and Shares ISA: £17,458.22 (up £296.20 from last update).

Fuck It Fund: £600.00 (up £50.00 from last update).

Residential Property Value: £194,909.00 (no change from last update).

Buy-to-Let Property Value: £125,775.00 (no change from last update).

Total Assets: £342,792.22 (up £396.20 from last update).

Debts

Credit Card: £1,853.86 (up £154.89 from last update).

Residential Mortgage: £141,026.49 (no change from last update). 

Buy-to-Let Mortgage: £93,199.07 (no change from last update). 

Total Debts: £236,079.42 (up £154.89 from last update).

Total Wealth: £106,712.80 (up £241.31 from last update). 

Investment Income in 2021: £3.71 (target £5,000).

My credit card has taken more abuse this last week, and it is going to be worse next week I fear.  Apart from that, I was able to put more money towards Premium Bonds and my Fuck It Fund, and my ISA saw some small gains as well.  I have received my first income of 2021 via a small dividend from a fund I started investing in late last year.  By the end of this month I should have my first set of rental income to report as well.  

BTL Update

I mentioned a little earlier in this blog that I have had a stressful weekend so far.  The electrical safety checks on my BTL have been completed and there is some remedial work required that is going to cost £4,200.  This is a huge blow and makes a dent in our funds for the next BTL we were hoping to acquire in a few months time.  

We are trying not to be too downbeat about this as the property is a long term investment, but it does still feel like a punch in the gut.  I was not expecting such an outlay so quickly and it is going to take some time to release the funds to pay for the work, and time is against us to get this work completed before the tenant is due to move in at the end of the month.  

Supporting Mortgage Advisor on FIRE and Buy Me A Coffee

If you like my content, please consider supporting my writing.  I spend several hours each week writing this blog and make it freely available to all readers.  I do not hide my content behind a paywall.  However, maintaining a website incurs costs.  If you can afford a small donation, it would be gratefully accepted.  Click on the Buy Me A Coffee image, or use the donate buttons on this site.

Gaining readers is the hardest thing for any blogger to achieve.  I enjoy writing this each week and if you are enjoying this content, please take a moment to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Whatsapp or any other social media.  Shares are the ultimate sign of success for any blogger.  If you have any feedback, comments or questions whether positive or negative, please leave a comment below.  If you would like to make a donation to support the running costs of this blog, please use the donation button on the home page.

My Instagram is @david_scothern and my Twitter is @advisoronfire. You can also email me at mortgageadvisoronfire@gmail.com.

Also, please check out my cat’s Instagram @sweep_the_kelham_island_cat

Finally, have a look at Darren Scothern’s blog at darrenscothern.com.

Help support Mortgage Advisor on FIRE and buy David Scothern a coffee. Click the image for more information.

Part 67

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on F.I.R.E.  This week I will talk about my return to work and a mistake I made with my daily meds.  I also look at my BTL now that a tenancy has been signed.  

Quote of the Week

Another quote that hits home.  Life does not have a plan laid out for you.  There is no grand plan, or destiny.  If you want to get something out of life, you have to grab life and bend it to your will.  There are times when you are left with no choice but to react to what happens to you, but there is also a lot of time and opportunity for you to be proactive.

There are three phases in life; childhood, adulthood and old age.  The key is to maximise the middle part and stretch it out as far as possible.  I am not saying there is no quality of life in old age, but the fact is there are many elderly people who struggle financially because sufficient provision was not made during the adult phase of life.  The earlier in the adult phase you make your plans and put them into action, the better chance you have of a higher quality of life in later years.  

Life is not just about quantity, it is also about quality.  The earlier you plan, the more of both you will probably have. 

Weekly Update

I have not felt quite right for a few days this week and it is because I am an idiot.  I take a number of different medications each day and I have a weekly planner for them.  This means each day I simply have to open the box for that day and take the meds in one go.  This saves me opening up lots of packets each day as I just organise the meds once a week.  It works great, when one remembers to actually include all the meds.  I forgot one of them, which meant I went into sharp withdrawal.  I was spaced out, tired, light headed and nauseous.  It was not a fun time.

I had thought that my symptoms were the result of my getting used to working again.  I have completed three weeks of my phased return and I will be ramping up my working hours over the next two weeks.  The plan is to be back to normal by the end of the month.

A few weeks ago my girlfriend and I started using Hello Fresh, which is one of the food subscription services that have cropped up in recent years.  I thought we should give it a try based on a number of my friends raving about it on Facebook.  The way it works is you sign up for a weekly delivery and select how many meals you want.  Then, you choose the meals from a weekly menu.  The meals come in a well packaged box with all the chilled items together with a number of ice packs.  Then, all the non-chilled items are wrapped up in numbered bags.  Included in the box are the recipe cards.

A spicy pork ragu and some homemade herby burgers and wedges.

We used the service for three weeks and the meals were, for the most part, great.  The food was tasty and the portion sizes good.  Each meal left us full.  We had three issues though, that have resulted in us cancelling the subscription.  The first issue is one of mess.  Many of the recipes require the use of a lot of different utensils, bowls, cups and chopping boards.  This is fine once in a while, but when you get halfway through your working week and you have had to cook like this for the last couple of nights, it gets a bit tiring.  There are recipes that are designed to be “quick” and “easy”, which to be fair they are.  Even then, it is still a bit too stressful in a small kitchen when you have both been working.  

The second issue, which is more of an annoyance for me than it would be for some people, is that the billing seemed overly complicated.  There was a glitch on the website when I signed up which resulted in two accounts being created and multiple transactions coming off my credit card.  It took two calls and a web chat to resolve.  This was before we had received any boxes.  Then, the billing each week was confusing with multiple transactions instead of just one, simple, bill.  For someone who tracks their finances as obsessively as me, it was a little annoying.  The final issue was that we received an incorrect order where the ingredients were for a completely different meal.  It is difficult to make roasted cauliflower with penne and mushrooms.  In fairness again, we did receive an account credit.

2021 Goals – to be achieved by 31/12/2021

1 – Reduce weight to 92.8kg.

2 – Finish 104 new books.

3 – Complete RO3 for my DipFA.

4 – Complete RO4 for my DipFA.

5 – Complete RO5 for my DipFA.

6 – Complete RO6 for my DipFA.

I have now finished eight books on my route to completing 104 new books by the end of 2021.  The last book I finished, The Remaining, was the first book in a series of post-apocalyptic fiction.  It sucked.  I was bored and disinterested and could not wait for the book to be over.  I was also disappointed that the first book seemed like half a story.  It is not often that I start a series and do not finish it.  It was that bad.  

My progress with my weight loss has stalled a little, but I put that down to the mistake I made with my meds.  As I was feeling tired and spaced out, I resorted to snacking again.  I have not gained any serious weight, but the losses stopped.  Hopefully I will be back on the weight loss journey from next week.

I would love to announce that I have made some progress on studying for the remaining modules of DipFA, but the truth is I am only able to spread my mental energy so much at this time.  I will get there though.

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £4,000.00 (no change from last update).

Stocks and Shares ISA: £17,162.02 (up £1,651.79 from last update).

Fuck It Fund: £550.00 (no change from last update).

Residential Property Value: £194,909.00 (no change from last update).

Buy-to-Let Property Value: £125,775.00 (no change from last update).

Total Assets: £342,396.02 (up £1,651.79 from last update).

Debts

Credit Card: £1,698.97 (down £58.55 from last update).

Residential Mortgage: £141,026.49 (down £357.27 from last update). 

Buy-to-Let Mortgage: £93,199.07 (up £149.40 from last update). 

Total Debts: £235,924.53 (down £266.42 from last update).

Total Wealth Figure: £106,471.49 (up £1,918.21 from last update). 

Investment Income in 2021: £0.00 (target £5,000).

The stock market moved in the right direction for me this week with my stocks increasing in value.  Although I am perfectly happy with low prices, from a pound-cost-averaging perspective, I am now in the position where I need values to increase.  This is because I hope to use the sale of those funds to help fund the next BTLs I purchase.  The BTL mortgage increased slightly as the initial interest balances out with our initial payments, but this will stabilise with the next interest and mortgage payment adjustments. 

The Gamestop story seems to have faded into the background, but I do not think we have seen the last of Redditors banding together to take on the hedge funds.  I have mixed feelings about this, because I want to believe that the markets are efficient.  However, Gamestop’s shares were pumped to roughly $400 per share, and just a week later they are now under $70 a share.  A lot of people made a lot of money, but for every person that made money there will be a lot of uninformed, or amateur investors who lost a lot.  

I am something of a hypocrite though, because had I noticed this story early enough I would have jumped on the stock as it shot up.  If it happens again and I think there is money to be made, I will jump on it.  The real concern with this is that the hedge funds have enough highly intelligent people working for them so that they could infiltrate the social media groups and orchestrate a pump-and-dump campaign to suit their own needs, and this could cause even more financial heartache for the amateur investors.  

The Gamestop share price has tumbled this past week.

BTL Update

I received confirmation today that the tenancy has been signed by the new tenant and it will start towards the end of this month.  The gross rent is £595pcm.  Once agent fees, tax, contingency fund contributions and insurance are all deducted it does not leave a life changing amount for spending or reinvesting; that comes through having multiple properties.  For now, the plan is to roll up some of the net rent back into the mortgage to bring the balance down and increase the equity.  This will help speed up the timeline for releasing that equity and will also serve as a buffer with the lender in case anything goes wrong in the future.  

The process of buying the second BTL will start in the next few weeks but it is a good idea for a little breather, I think.  I doubt anything will complete before the end of quarter two of 2021 as it will take that long to accumulate the necessary deposit.  Also, it will then have been six months since the purchase of the first property completed which means if there have been further increases in the property’s value it will be possible to release that equity.  Most lenders have a six month rule preventing further advances until the mortgage has been open for a minimum of six months.  

Supporting Mortgage Advisor on FIRE and Buy Me A Coffee

If you like my content, please consider supporting my writing.  I spend several hours each week writing this blog and make it freely available to all readers.  I do not hide my content behind a paywall.  However, maintaining a website incurs costs.  If you can afford a small donation, it would be gratefully accepted.  Click on the Buy Me A Coffee image, or use the donate buttons on this site.

Gaining readers is the hardest thing for any blogger to achieve.  I enjoy writing this each week and if you are enjoying this content, please take a moment to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Whatsapp or any other social media.  Shares are the ultimate sign of success for any blogger.  If you have any feedback, comments or questions whether positive or negative, please leave a comment below.  If you would like to make a donation to support the running costs of this blog, please use the donation button on the home page.

My Instagram is @david_scothern and my Twitter is @advisoronfire. You can also email me at mortgageadvisoronfire@gmail.com.

Also, please check out my cat’s Instagram @sweep_the_kelham_island_cat

Finally, have a look at Darren Scothern’s blog at darrenscothern.com.

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Part 66

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on F.I.R.E.  This week I discuss the bizarre situation with Gamestop shares, and some developments with my BTL property.  First, the Quote of the Week:

Quote of the Week

People are becoming too complacent about Covid, and it means many are dying unnecessarily.  The only time I step foot outside my home is to get food or medicine.  I try to get as much done in as few trips as possible.  Yes, it is frustrating, but I would rather stay safe and I would rather not take the risk of carrying the virus asymptomatically and passing it on.  

I was in the city centre yesterday picking up my prescriptions from Boots.  There were far too many people inside, and they had no concern over personal space.  I was constantly having to step away from other shoppers as I waited for my meds, as they tried to stand beside me.  

This situation is hard for everyone, especially when you have to go weeks or months without seeing friends or family, but dying is even harder.  Ultimately, the risk to the individual is low but much like the odds of winning the lottery, it will happen to someone and maybe someone you love. 

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Weekly Update

I am continuing my phased return to work and it has been difficult and tiring.  I should not be too surprised having had four months away from work.  I am ramping up my hours week on week and should be back full time by late February.  Being back at work has given my days some structure but honestly, I am not one of these people that needs work.  I would be perfectly happy being retired in financial comfort, which is the entire point of my financial plan.  

I have absolutely nothing to report from the week as my time has been taken up by work, reading and TV.  One source of amusement has been my involvement on a thread on Owlstalk, a Sheffield Wednesday message board.  I created a thread called SWFC Memes, and anyone who knows me will know I love memes.  For the past few days my fellow Wednesday fans and I have been roasting the club via memes.  I have posted two of the best efforts below.

The state of the club is just tragic.  I am not going to talk about it length here, as this is not a football blog, but the issues come down to money and the fact the club has none and is struggling to pay the players.  I think there is a real possibility that the club will cease trading in the next few months.  Covid has shone a spotlight on the fortunes of many businesses and highlighted just how precarious their finances are.  The finances involved in football are just insane, and although I would like to think this pandemic will act as a type of reset for the sport, the pessimist in me thinks it will just revert to normal once we are post-Covid.  

2021 Goals – to be achieved by 31/12/2021

1 – Reduce weight to 92.8kg.

2 – Finish 104 new books.

3 – Complete RO3 for my DipFA.

4 – Complete RO4 for my DipFA.

5 – Complete RO5 for my DipFA.

6 – Complete RO6 for my DipFA.

I am still heading in the right direction with my weight, but it is a long-term project.  It is easy to get discouraged when you think you have had a great week only to see your weight unchanged.  However, a person’s weight can fluctuate wildly from day to day, so it is important to look at trends over several weeks rather than focusing on daily changes.  

I have finished seven books in 2021 so far, with the last four books being quite disappointing.  You can see the list here.  The two books by Alex Boese described some truly disgusting science experiments.  I have a fairly strong stomach but some of the studies included were absolutely vile.  I also read two books on the concept of the “infinite game” which has a link back to gambling addiction.  Although the idea of the infinite game is interesting, I found both books quite dull.  In short, an infinite game is one that has no end.  In terms of gambling you can never win because any winnings will just be used to bet again.  A finite game, on the other hand, has clearly defined rules and time limits.  The game ends when exact conditions are met, be it a score or period of time elapsing.  The distinction between finite and infinite games helped me move away from my gambling addiction, as I realised there is no winning in the infinite game of gambling.  

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £4,000.00 (up £850.00 from last update).

Stocks and Shares ISA: £15,510.23 (down £741.07 from last update).

Fuck It Fund: £550.00 (no change from last update).

Residential Property Value: £194,909.00 (no change from last update).

Buy-to-Let Property Value: £125,775.00 (no change from last update).

Total Assets: £340,744.23 (up £108.93 from last update).

Debts

Credit Card: £1,757.52 (down £707.05 from last update).

Residential Mortgage: £141,383.76 (no change from last update). 

Buy-to-Let Mortgage: £93,049.67 (no change from last update). 

Total Debts: £236,190.95 (down £707.05 from last update).

Total Wealth Figure: £104,553.28 (up £815.98 from last update). 

Investment Income in 2021: £0.00 (target £5,000).

I received the £1,700 I was owed and used half of it to pay down my credit card, whilst investing the other half in my Premium Bonds.  There have been a few expenses that have cropped up in recent weeks but I am confident that the card will be paid off in full within a few months.  I am thinking of closing down the card as I am getting increasingly frustrated with the service offered by the card provider.  They have ceased offering account servicing through a website and it all has to be done through the app, which works fine some of the time.  It is when it does not work that problems arise.  This is just part of what has annoyed me, as they have also lost documents we sent in to support a claim for chargeback after we were messed about by a retailer.  It was only for £30, so hardly a life changing amount but it is still annoying.  

The stock market has been the source of some fascinating news in the last week with Gamestop shares being the subject of a lot of interest.  I have not followed the story obsessively, but I have been keeping an eye on it.  The short version, if you pardon the pun, is that some massive hedge funds had shorted Gamestop shares.  This means that if Gamestop shares were to drop in value, the funds would make money.  However, should the shares go up in value the funds would lose money. 

This is how Gamestop shares have performed during the last month:

This was a story that had passed me by despite my being active on Reddit.  There is a community there which targets the big money investors who like to short stocks.  There is something unethical about shorting stocks, especially when you are also in a position to affect the perceived value of a company.  It would be a little bit, but not exactly like, a football manager putting a series of bets on his own team to lose.  It does not mean he will necessarily manipulate the situation to that end, but there is enough potential conflict of interest for it to be a concern.  Putting this another way, if you are a market commentator you can often have an impact on the perceived value of a stock just by talking it up or down on your blog, or newspaper column.  If you also have a holding or interest in that stock, you are using your position to influence that stock and make money.  

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Anyway, back to Gamestop.  Several Redditors saw that some hedge funds had large short positions against Gamestop shares and decided to buy as many units as possible.  This led to a surge in the stock, and the more it surged, the more people bought it.  It became a self-reinforcing cycle.  The hedge funds stand to lose billions of dollars.  

On the face of it, it is a funny story.  My concern is for the amateur investors who get caught up in the frenzy and buy the stock just as it is peaking.  Gamestop shares are not worth what they are currently trading at.  People buying the shares now could very easily lose most of their cash.  The hedge funds will, for the most part, be ok.  The sophisticated investors who bought these shares will have sold them before they peaked.  The people they sold the shares to are the ones who got caught up in the hype and will stand to lose a lot of money as the stock comes crashing down.  

As I have said many, many times, always do your research before investing or else you are simply gambling.  I have not personally completed due diligence on this stock, but the company is a physical business selling video games in shopping malls and city centres.  These types of businesses are only going to struggle as gaming moves online.  Even if Gamestop evolves into a successful business, I have not seen a single credible commentator argue that their shares are worth $400. 

BTL Update

We have an application going through for a tenant who has paid a holding deposit.  We are just waiting on the final checks and references, so hopefully we will have a tenancy signed by the next part of this blog.  In light of the strange situation we find ourselves in with Covid, we have had to reduce the rent we are asking for.  Initially we had marketed the property at £675.  We knew this was going to be an ask, and so we were not too surprised at having to drop it to £635.  However, we have now had to reduce it to £595.  The latest reduction was a difficult decision to come to, but we have had a few potential tenants fall through and whilst the property is empty it is costing us money.  

Supporting Mortgage Advisor on FIRE and Buy Me A Coffee

If you like my content, please consider supporting my writing.  I spend several hours each week writing this blog and make it freely available to all readers.  I do not hide my content behind a paywall.  However, maintaining a website incurs costs.  If you can afford a small donation, it would be gratefully accepted.  Click on the Buy Me A Coffee image, or use the donate buttons on this site.

Gaining readers is the hardest thing for any blogger to achieve.  I enjoy writing this each week and if you are enjoying this content, please take a moment to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Whatsapp or any other social media.  Shares are the ultimate sign of success for any blogger.  If you have any feedback, comments or questions whether positive or negative, please leave a comment below.  If you would like to make a donation to support the running costs of this blog, please use the donation button on the home page.

My Instagram is @david_scothern and my Twitter is @advisoronfire. You can also email me at mortgageadvisoronfire@gmail.com.

Also, please check out my cat’s Instagram @sweep_the_kelham_island_cat

Finally, have a look at Darren Scothern’s blog at darrenscothern.com.

Part 65

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on F.I.R.E.  This week I will discuss the inauguration of President Joe Biden, highlight a UK based artist and provide a further update on my BTL.  First, the Quote of the Week:

Quote of the Week

The man is clearly an idiot, and now the circus has left the White House some semblance of normalcy should reign in the United States.  It feels as though, since 2016, the world has just gone batshit crazy.  We have had Trump in the US, Brexit in the UK and Covid-19, not to mention the storming of the Capitol and the proposed invasion of Area 51.  All you can do, when you look back, is shrug your shoulders and sigh, “covfefe”. 

The covfefe thing is brilliant, and something I missed the first time around. For those who do not know, a few years ago, Trump tweeted, “despite the negative press covfefe.” We have actually been very lucky with the last twelve years of US Presidents because they have all been the subject of quality memes.

The vaccine roll out seems to have stalled and there are reports that supplies earmarked for Yorkshire, where I live, have been rerouted to the south.  I cannot say I am surprised; it often feels as though the south views the north as some untamed wilderness full of uneducated peasants.  The map I have taken from Reddit and posted below illustrates how many view the UK.

If I was in charge of rolling out the vaccine, I would prioritise those working in healthcare first.  We need the front line workers to be protected.  Once complete, I would then look at vaccinating those working in essential areas such as supermarkets, public transport and teachers.  I would then turn my attention to the vulnerable; the elderly and those with significant underlying medical conditions.  Arguments can be made for all sorts of variations for rolling out the vaccine, and there is merit for several of the alternatives.  This is just my opinion coming from a perspective of zero expertise.  

Weekly Update

It would be impossible to go through this week without mentioning the Bernie Sanders meme that has gone viral.  I love memes almost as much as I love coffee, and this meme has really made me laugh.

I have completed my first full week back at work, on reduced hours as I continue to get back into the routine of employment.  According to some rough calculations, I have approximately 187 days to work in 2021.  Yes, I will be ticking these off day by day.

I do not want you to get the wrong idea; my employer has been fantastic in their support during my absence.  My line manager especially has been amazing and has made my return to work as painless as possible.  This has been a huge help in facilitating my return.  

Laura Slade

I mentioned last week that it was my girlfriend’s birthday and one of her presents was a painting I commissioned from Laura Slade, an artist based in the UK.  The painting was of our cat, Sweep.  Below are some pictures of the painting, and the photos it was based on.  Laura was friendly and prompt in her replies.  It was a pleasure dealing with her, and I would happily order more art from her in the future.  You can reach her on Instagram here.

I am delighted with the finished painting, as is my girlfriend.  Sweep is such an important part of our life, and we both love him very much.  He is old now, but there is still so much love in him for us.  He loves to sit in our lap and purr, occasionally bumping heads with us.  He is the best.  

Across the pond it was a relief that the inauguration went ahead without any disturbance.  I felt bad for President Biden that he did not get the full, normal experience, that any incoming President would expect.  I am sure that he will be a stabilising influence on the US and will hopefully repair much of the damage Trump did to the image of the country around the world.  From a personal point of view, I am hoping for more quality memes now that Biden is the President and not just the VP to Obama.  

Please show your support for this blog and buy me a coffee. Click on the image to be taken to my supporter page.

2021 Goals – to be achieved by 31/12/2021

1 – Reduce weight to 92.8kg.

2 – Finish 104 new books.

3 – Complete RO3 for my DipFA.

4 – Complete RO4 for my DipFA.

5 – Complete RO5 for my DipFA.

6 – Complete RO6 for my DipFA.

I have been making some progress towards losing weight.  I started the year at 119.9kg but I have reduced that to 116.6kg.  It is still a long way to go to get to a healthy weight.  I need to try and remain focused on slow, steady progress.  The last few years have been awful for my health, and part of my mental health struggles have been down to my weight.  It was only a few years ago that I was under 95kg and exercising regularly.  I can do it, but I need to realise on an emotional level that it is going to take time. 

Looking at my goal to complete 104 new books in 2021, I am on track so far.  I have finished four books and you can see my readings lists here.

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Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £3,150.00 (up £500.00 from last update).

Stocks and Shares ISA: £16,251.30 (down £540.34 from last update).

Fuck It Fund: £550.00 (up £125.00 from last update).

Residential Property Value: £194,909.00 (no change from last update).

Buy-to-Let Property Value: £125,775.00 (no change from last update).

Total Assets: £340,635.30 (up £84.66 from last update).

Debts

Credit Card: £2,464.57 (up £236.93 from last update).

Residential Mortgage: £141,383.76 (no change from last update). 

Buy-to-Let Mortgage: £93,049.67 (no change from last update). 

Total Debts: £236,898.00 (up £236.93 from last update).

Total Wealth Figure: £103,737.30 (down £152.27 from last update). 

Investment Income in 2021: £0.00 (target £5,000).

The stock market continues to tumble with three of the last four weeks seeing a drop in the value of my investments.  I was hoping the market would be steadily recovering by now, but the surge in Covid cases has brought the nation back into lockdown.  I suspect we will not see any major improvements in the market until the majority of the population is vaccinated and life returns to normal. 

I have not yet received the funds to pay back towards my credit card but I am hoping to have that money in time for it to reflect in next week’s figures.  

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BTL Update

I wrote last week about a potential tenant who would be paying six months up front.  Unfortunately she was unable to find a guarantor, and so I declined her application.  Even if she paid six months up front, there is still the uncertainty about her ability to pay the rent from that point on.  I was told the woman was unemployed with bad credit and had two kids.  I hope she finds somewhere to live, but as a business decision it just did not make sense. 

We have had several other viewings in the past few days, but I have not had feedback yet.  There has been an issue with the electricity supply which has been frustrating to resolve.  The previous owners had a prepayment meter and there was residual credit left on it.  That credit has now expired, which means when people are viewing the property in the late afternoon or evening, there is no light for them to see what the property actually looks like.  

I have never had to deal with a prepayment meter before, so this was a learning curve, but I have managed to get the account transferred to my name.  I just need to get back to the property for the electric key so I can top up the supply.  

It is frustrating that we do not yet have a tenant, but these are strange times.  Whilst the property is empty we are having to pay the mortgage, council tax and utilities.  Despite all this, it is still a good investment for the long term with the property value already having risen slightly.  

Supporting Mortgage Advisor on FIRE and Buy Me A Coffee

If you like my content, please consider supporting my writing.  I spend several hours each week writing this blog and make it freely available to all readers.  I do not hide my content behind a paywall.  However, maintaining a website incurs costs.  If you can afford a small donation, it would be gratefully accepted.  Click on the Buy Me A Coffee image, or use the donate buttons on this site.

Gaining readers is the hardest thing for any blogger to achieve.  I enjoy writing this each week and if you are enjoying this content, please take a moment to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Whatsapp or any other social media.  Shares are the ultimate sign of success for any blogger.  If you have any feedback, comments or questions whether positive or negative, please leave a comment below.  If you would like to make a donation to support the running costs of this blog, please use the donation button on the home page.

Please show your support for this blog and buy me a coffee. Click on the image to be taken to my supporter page.

My Instagram is @david_scothern and my Twitter is @advisoronfire. You can also email me at mortgageadvisoronfire@gmail.com.

Also, please check out my cat’s Instagram @sweep_the_kelham_island_cat

Finally, have a look at Darren Scothern’s blog at darrenscothern.com.

Part 64

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on F.I.R.E.  This week I discuss what having rights means, before looking at my return to work.  Also, the usual financial update and some interesting developments on my buy-to-let.  First, the Quote of the Week:

Quote of the Week

There is a lot of talk about rights at the moment, in terms of wearing masks, vaccinations and free speech.  The frustrating thing for me is that when hysterical people start raging about their rights, they are normally not considering the rights of the other party. 

In the past week, Donald Trump has been banned from several social media platforms.  Some commentators have criticised this as a move to curb free speech.  I have two arguments to counter this assertion.  The first argument is that the social media platforms are private companies, and they have the right to choose who can be a member.  They have the right to set standards for the content posted and the way in which their services are used.  If a member is violating those standards, then that company can ban them.  The second argument I have follows on from the first.  Freedom of speech does not give someone the right to free speech without consequence.  In addition to free speech, people have a right not to be the subject of slander.  This is why we cannot make false claims about another person; we have free speech, but the other person has rights to protect them.  

In a similar vein, it seems like not a day goes by without someone complaining that they were ejected from a business for not wearing a mask.  There are a few things to unpack here, and it is an emotive topic.  In most cases, if you have a medical condition that means you cannot wear a mask, then I do not believe you are well enough to be outside mixing with other people.  Note; I am not talking about people who would prefer not to wear a mask due to a medical condition, but people who legitimately cannot wear a mask without risking their physical health.  I suspect that when most people claim they cannot wear a mask, it is a preference rather than a necessity.  I am not saying those people cannot have that preference; they can, no matter how stupid I think it is.  What they must understand, however, is that a private business can refuse entry to whomever they want.  Also, other customers have a right to not be put in unnecessary danger, and if you do not wear a mask out of a preference, then you have no grounds to disagree with someone who has a preference not to be in your presence.  

Sometimes you have to fight stupid with stupid.

A somewhat trickier issue arises when people do not feel like they can wear a mask because of mental illness.  I understand why some people cannot wear a mask due to PTSD, or anxiety, or related issues such as autism.  Accommodations do have to be made for people in this situation.  I do not think there is an easy answer here, but a potential solution is special shopping times for this vulnerable section of society as well as priority over home delivery slots.  There is a need to balance the rights of the individual who cannot wear a mask due to mental health, and those who are wearing masks.  As a society, we are generally so wrapped up in maintaining our own, often skewed, perception of our rights without consideration to the rights of others.  

The last week has seen many countries stepping up their vaccination programs.  As expected, there is a vocal minority of people stating that they will not accept the vaccine.  As stupid as I think that view is, and let us be clear, it is really fucking stupid, I will acknowledge that people have a right to choose what vaccines they receive.  As with the other examples I have discussed, there is a need to balance the rights of the individual with the rights of the people they interact with.  Just as the individual has the right to choose not to be vaccinated, so do other people have the right not to be forced to associate with that person.  This could result in a type of “vaccine passport” where only those with valid proof of having been vaccinated are allowed to enter shops, restaurants, bars, and even to cross national borders.  

The point I am making with the above examples is that we all have rights, but those rights only extend to the point they do not conflict with the rights of other people.

Weekly Update

I returned to work this week for the first time in four months.  When I say “returned to work”, what I mean is I turned on the other laptop in my spare bedroom.  Still, it was a momentous occasion.  I am fortunate to have a great group of people with whom I work, and they stepped up to the plate admirably to cover for my absence. 

I am on a phased return to help adjust back into a routine of work.  My mental health has been awful for these past few months and without this time off, I dread to think what sort of condition I would be in now.  I needed that time more than I can express in words.  I have received several messages of support in the past week, as well as many people asking me if I am ok.  The answer is still, “no”, but with the clarification that I am better than I was.  I think it will be a long time before I am ok, and I do not know if I will ever truly be ok working in this type of role.  That is not to say there is anything wrong with the role.  The issue is with my own mental health.  Since my problems started in May last year, I have changed.  I no longer have the same type or scale of mental resilience I once had.  I think it was a case of extreme mental and emotional burnout.  I may recover that, in time.  I may not.  I do know that for my own well-being, I need a change.  I suppose it is a good thing I started this journey towards FIRE when I did.  

2021 Goals – to be achieved by 31/12/2021

1 – Reduce weight to 92.8kg.

2 – Finish 104 new books.

3 – Complete RO3 for my DipFA.

4 – Complete RO4 for my DipFA.

5 – Complete RO5 for my DipFA.

6 – Complete RO6 for my DipFA.

I have had another week of weight loss, which keeps me on track for my first 2021 goal. I have completed three books so far with the last book being Barack Obama’s excellent A Promised Land. Although I do not follow US politics all that closely, I always thought Obama came across as thoughtful and dignified. His book was fascinating and surprising in equal measure. One thing I did not expect was how complementary Obama was about his predecessor, George Bush. During the transition from one administration to another, President Bush was accommodating and supportive to the incoming Obama. It changed my perception of Bush, as well as serving to highlight just how undignified Trump is.

Financial Update

Premium Bonds: £2,650 (no change from last update).

Stocks and Shares ISA: £16,791.64 (down £306.34 from last update).

Fuck It Fund: £425.00 (no change from last update).

Residential Property Value: £194,909.00 (up £7,355.00 from last update).

Buy-to-Let Property Value: £125,775.00 (up £1,275.00 from last update).

Total Assets: £340,550.64 (up £8,323.66 from last update).

Credit Card: £2,227.64 (up £1,773.34 from last update).

Residential Mortgage: £141,383.76 (no change from last update). 

Buy-to-Let Mortgage: £93,049.67 (no change from last update). 

Total Debts: £236,661.07 (up £1,773.34 from last update).

Total Wealth Figure: £103,889.57 (up £6,550.32 from last update). 

Investment Income in 2021: £0.00 (target £5,000).

Another great week of growth, although much of that growth is abstract as it relates to the estimated value of my two properties.  I take the valuations from what my lender has recorded on their index.  Property valuations are not an exact science, and the lender’s valuation is probably not going to match up with a sale valuation.  However, seeing as though it is the lender’s valuation that is used when calculating how much money we can release from the mortgage via a further advance, it is nice to see those figures increasing.  

My credit card balance has increased massively.  This is due to a number of things, such as having a girlfriend who is not a UK national and is applying for citizenship.  The application fee for this is crazy.  As my girlfriend has a smaller credit limit than I, it made sense for me to pay for it and she will pay me back for it in a few weeks.  I could have left the balance out, but that goes against my preference for transparency.  In addition to that fee for applying for citizenship, it was my girlfriend’s birthday recently and I bought her a couple of gifts both on my behalf, and her family’s.  Due to Brexit it is difficult for them to send items across Europe, so it made more sense for me to buy the items and for them to send me the money.  In short, the credit card balance will be paid off in the coming weeks.  

BTL Update

Last week I mentioned that a family was applying to move into the property.  They have withdrawn their application, but another applicant has come forward.  My agent informed me that the applicant does not have a great credit report, but is willing to pay six months upfront and have a guarantor.  I have decided to proceed so long as the guarantor passes a credit check.  Having six months rent paid upfront will be a huge positive as it allows us to invest that money ahead of time.  However, I am not getting too carried away as the applicant could decide to move elsewhere.

We have had to reduce our desired rent on the property to attract more interest.  We initially marketed the property at the upper end of what we thought we could achieve.  However, due to a limited amount of interest and after discussions with the agent, we decided to drop the requested rent by £40.00 per month.  It is a strange time with the UK in the middle of a third national lockdown, but there will still be people who need to move home.  Hopefully we can secure a tenant sooner rather than later.

Supporting Mortgage Advisor on FIRE and Buy Me A Coffee

If you like my content, please consider supporting my writing.  I spend several hours each week writing this blog and make it freely available to all readers.  I do not hide my content behind a paywall.  However, maintaining a website incurs costs.  If you can afford a small donation, it would be gratefully accepted.  Click on the Buy Me A Coffee image, or use the donate buttons on this site.

Gaining readers is the hardest thing for any blogger to achieve.  I enjoy writing this each week and if you are enjoying this content, please take a moment to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Whatsapp or any other social media.  Shares are the ultimate sign of success for any blogger.  If you have any feedback, comments or questions whether positive or negative, please leave a comment below. 

My Instagram is @david_scothern and my Twitter is @nowwelive01. You can also email me at mortgageadvisoronfire@gmail.com.

Also, please check out my cat’s Instagram @sweep_the_kelham_island_cat

Finally, have a look at Darren Scothern’s blog at darrenscothern.com.

Part 63

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on F.I.R.E.  This week I will look at shocking developments in the United States, as well as the usual update on my finances.  First, the Quote of the Week.

Quote of the Week

Excuse my language, but he really is a fucking idiot.  Never in my life have I seen an established democracy elect someone so obviously out of his depth to lead the nation.  The man is a fool, which would not normally be an issue except for the fact he is in control of the most powerful military, and the largest economy, on the planet.  

The scenes that played out at the Capitol in Washington D.C. were shocking.  I have visited the city and was awestruck by the majesty of the building, as well as the other monuments and attractions.  I think it might be my favourite American city.  When I visited in 2017, I wandered the city for several hours on my own, walking from the Washington Monument, down the National Mall with the Capitol Building getting ever closer was an amazing experience, almost as though I could breathe in the history.  I was amazed at how close I could get to the Capitol, and the following day I was fortunate to go on a guided tour.  Security inside was tight, but outside it was almost non-existent.  This is a privilege that these terrorists, and that is what they are, have taken away from the law-abiding citizens of the US.  It will be a long, long time before people can walk freely upto that great symbol of democracy, and that is a real shame.  

Like most Europeans I like to trash talk the US from time to time, but it is never malicious and is almost always in jest.  I am critical of their healthcare system, and the fascination and relationship the country has with guns.  Saying all that, I know a lot of good people in the US, and they deserve better than this moron running the country.  Thankfully, he has been banned from Twitter and Facebook, and in a hilarious development might be developing his own social media platform.  I think subscribers should be called “Trumpers”, but that is another conversation.

There is an argument to state that people get the politicians they deserve.  I think there is some merit to this argument, but it can also be a little harsh as it fails to take into account the different political systems across countries.  Take the UK, for example.  We do not elect a Prime Minister, we elect a political party.  In the US, the election refers to the President and Vice-President.  Then, there are elections for the senate and congress.  What I find difficult to reconcile is that there are so many Americans who were willing to vote for Trump, and that there are still so many passionate supporters of his.  The man is clearly unhinged, and his contrasting attitudes towards the Black Lives Matter protests and the mobs that swarmed the Capitol are a clear window into his internal beliefs.  

People joke about how 2020 was an awful year, and no doubt it was.  When you look back, however, you can trace a direct line back to the financial crisis of 2007-2008.  The western world was hit hard by this crisis, and many people lost their jobs and savings.  I stated at the time that the circumstances were similar, granted not exactly the same, but similar to the circumstances in 1930s Germany.  This led to the rise of a far-right party in the Nazis, who placed the blame of the country’s economic plight at the door of foreign governments and people.  The impact of this was the Second World War and the Holocaust.  

Fast forward a few decades and you have Trump elected in the United States, who promised to build a wall across the Mexican border.  You have black people killed on the streets and in their own homes by police officers.  You have families separated with children kept in cages along the Mexican border.  In the UK, the financial crisis led to over a decade of Tory rule, a right-wing party by definition, and the rise of political groups such as UKIP, the Brexit party as well as a seeming growth in right-wing rhetoric.  Under the Tory government the welfare state in the UK has been savaged, with levels of poverty rising to record levels.  Yes, 2020 was awful in a lot of ways but one just needs to look back at 2016 to see the election of Trump, and the referendum in the UK coming down on the side of leaving the EU, to see where some of our current problems started to gain momentum.  

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Democracy needs a reset, in my opinion.  Party politics does not work in a system of constant election cycles.  In the US, the President is elected on a four-year-term, and cannot serve more than two consecutive terms.  The elections in the US seem to take an age, and so from the outside it is as if the President spends most of their first-term trying to get re-elected with only the second-term being productive.  I admit I am simplifying this massively and I do not know what better alternative there is.  Maybe there would be some merit in electing a President on an eight-year term with a midterm vote, and if, say two-thirds of voters want a change, the President is removed from office and there is an election.  This would give the President much more room to govern effectively without being worried about reelection after just four-years.  By setting the bar for removal from office so high, in that over two-thirds of voters would need to vote for change, it would take a very unpopular President to break the almost fifty-fifty split divide in the US between the Democrats and the GOP.

Looking at the UK and it is difficult to see light at the end of the tunnel.  We have had a succession of weak Prime Ministers with our current leader seeming like a parody of a British politician.  It is almost as if the UK and US had a competition to see who could have the most incompetent leader in history.  It’s difficult to see a way forward with only the Tory and Labour parties to choose from, when both parties are anything but unified and are filled with self-serving career politicians more concerned with point-scoring against the other party than governing for the people.  

Weekly Update

The main news for me this week is that I will be returning to work after several months of absence.  I have not been in the right state of mind for work, and I am still not what I would class as “ok” but I’m better than I was.  I will resume work on a phased return, working reduced hours to begin with.  I am nervous about returning to work, but I know I have good people around me who will support me as I ease back into the role.  

I have not yet found a replacement coffee machine and I am having to survive on instant coffee.  Whilst this is very much a “first world problem” it is still frustrating for me.  As someone who rarely drinks alcohol and has few vices, coffee is my main weakness.  I need a good coffee machine, but I am reluctant to give Nespresso my money after the problems I have experienced.  The thing is, they utterly dominate the home coffee market and I may have to suck it up and purchase a new machine from them.

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2021 Goals – to be achieved by 31/12/2021

1 – Reduce weight to 92.8kg.

2 – Finish 104 new books.

3 – Complete RO3 for my DipFA.

4 – Complete RO4 for my DipFA.

5 – Complete RO5 for my DipFA.

6 – Complete RO6 for my DipFA.

I have lost some weight this week after resuming healthier eating habits.  I would like to walk more, but the increasing number of Covid cases and the rapidly rising death total is making me a little nervous about spending too much time in the company of other people.  

I am working through two books at the moment, one of which is Barack Obama’s A Promised Land.  I am enjoying it and should have it finished in a few days.  I am also proofreading the first draft of the new novel from Darren Scothern; a loose sequel to his earlier novel Abominations, which is available on Amazon.  I thought Abominations was a fantastic read and look forward to seeing how the follow up develops.

I have not yet started studying for the remaining modules on my DipFA.  I plan to start towards the end of this month once I am back in work.

Financial Update

Premium Bonds: £2,650 (up £150.00 from last update).

Stocks and Shares ISA: £17,097.98 (up £293.16 from last update).

Fuck It Fund: £425.00 (up £25.00 from last update).

Residential Property Value: £187,554 (no change from last update).

Buy-to-Let Property Value: £124,500 (no change from last update).

Total Assets: £332,226.98 (up £468.16 from last update).

Credit Card: £454.30 (down £87.48 from last update).

Residential Mortgage: £141,383.76 (down £395.89 from last update). 

Buy-to-Let Mortgage: £93,049.67 (down £325.33 from last update). 

Total Debts: £234,887.73 (down £808.70 from last update).

Total Wealth Figure: £97,339.25 (up £1,276.86 from last update). 

Investment Income in 2021: £0.00 (first entry) (target £5,000).

This is the sort of week I like, where my assets go up in value and my debts reduce.  Apart from that, there is not much to say as the numbers speak for themselves.  

BTL Update

A family has viewed the property and expressed an interest in renting it.  They have made an application and are undergoing the normal checks.  It’s hard to say how long these checks might take, and it may be the case that the prospective tenants have to give notice on their current property.  I only found out about this interest late in the week, so I would hope to know more in time for the next entry in this blog.  

Supporting Mortgage Advisor on FIRE

Gaining readers is the hardest thing for any blogger to achieve.  I enjoy writing this each week and if you are enjoying this content, please take a moment to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Whatsapp or any other social media.  Shares are the ultimate sign of success for any blogger.  If you have any feedback, comments or questions whether positive or negative, please leave a comment below.  If you would like to make a donation to support the running costs of this blog, please use the donation button on the home page.

My Instagram is @david_scothern and my Twitter is @nowwelive01. You can also email me at mortgageadvisoronfire@gmail.com.

Also, please check out my cat’s Instagram @sweep_the_kelham_island_cat

Finally, have a look at Darren Scothern’s blog at darrenscothern.com.

Part 62

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on F.I.R.E, and Happy New Year to all my readers.  2021 sees a few minor changes to the blog, as mentioned in Part 61.  I did state that I would be covering my experiences of 2020 in this post, but instead I wrote about that in a special post you can read here.  

Quote of the Week

This quote is a great explanation of the FIRE goal.  For most people, work is a major part of life. Everything about life is anchored around employment, and then many people are left with no energy, physical or mental, to actively enjoy life.  The end result is a self-perpetuating cycle of work, sleep, work, sleep.  I refuse to accept that this is all there is to life, and that’s why I am determined to achieve FIRE as soon as possible.

The last few months have been enlightening for me.  I’ve been forced to put myself under the spotlight in a way I’ve never done before.  I’ve had to be honest with myself about my abilities, strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities.  I’ve realised that a lot of my mental exhaustion has come from acting a role I’m not comfortable with.  In effect, I’ve spent a lot of time “faking it until I make it”.  The problem is, I will never “make it” in that I’ll never become the person I’m pretending to be.  

I’m not making a statement that I’m a completely different person or that I’ve been lying to those who know me about who I am.  I’m talking about subtle things; lines of thought and patterns of behaviour.  There’s also an element of acceptance, in that some of the mental things I’ve been struggling with are a part of me rather than something that has happened to me.  This has helped to ease the mental strain.  

One thing for certain is that I’m not built for the corporate lifestyle.  I’m not built for work in environments like busy offices or hectic workplaces.  I need stability and calm.  I have no complaints whatsoever about the treatment I receive from my employer.  They have been fantastic in their level of support and commitment to me.  I will forever be grateful for that, and I will work to my best ability for as long as I’m under contract with them.  It would be dishonest of me to claim that I see a long-term career with them though.  I’ve been with my employer for a decade now, and I’m mentally drained.  I need a change of direction and a change of environment for my sanity and health.  This is what FIRE will provide me with, and this is what this week’s quote is stating.

Weekly Update

The biggest news this week is the completion of Brexit, which I think will go down in history as one of our nation’s biggest mistakes.  The whole campaign was fought on a foundation of half-truths and outright lies.  When the referendum was held, I think many people misjudged just how complex an issue it was, as well as just how much benefit EU membership brought us.  I really, honestly, totally and completely hate the Tory party.  I’m struggling to think of anything they have done to improve the lives of the most vulnerable sections of society, which is surely one of the benchmarks by which any government should be judged.  

I’m still without a working coffee machine after Nespresso, somewhat impressively, managed to find new levels of incompetence.  I’m waiting for a refund that was promised within two-weeks, just over two-weeks ago.  I’ll give them the benefit of doubt with the time of year, but when I called them to check the progress of the refund, at first they couldn’t find a record of the refund request.  Stay tuned to see if Nespresso complete this refund with no further encouragement from me.  

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I was a little disappointed that I did not match my reading challenge of 2019, as I only read 83 books in 2020.  Considering the year I had though, plenty of people have reassured me that it’s still a great achievement.  Looking ahead to 2021 I would like to get back to the rate of finishing two books per week.  It’s not about reading for reading’s sake.  I love learning, and listening to a good audiobook or becoming so immersed in a physical book you forget you are reading, is one of life’s great pleasures.  

2021 Goals – to be achieved by 31/12/2021

1 – Reduce weight to 92.8kg.

2 – Finish 104 new books.

3 – Complete RO3 for my DipFA.

4 – Complete RO4 for my DipFA.

5 – Complete RO5 for my DipFA.

6 – Complete RO6 for my DipFA.

I did have a seventh goal, to walk 2,500km by the end of the year.  However, after some thought I’ve removed that goal.  My reasoning is that I’ve had way too many injuries that have stopped me in my tracks, and I don’t want to create an unnecessary stick to beat myself with.  Throughout the year I will have new goals that I add to this list though.

Financial Update

Premium Bonds: £2,500 (no change from last update).

Stocks and Shares ISA: £16,804.82 (down £839.28 from last update).

Fuck It Fund: £400.00 (no change from last update).

Residential Property Value: £187,554 (no change from last update).

Buy-to-Let Property Value: £124,500 (no change from last update).

Total Assets: £331,758.82 (down £839.28 from last update).

Credit Card: £541.78 (up £72.46 from last update).

Residential Mortgage: £141,779.65 (up £38.67 from last update). 

Buy-to-Let Mortgage: £93,375 (no change from last update). 

Total Debts: £235,696.43 (up £111.13 from last update).

Total Wealth Figure: £96,062.39 (down £950.41 from last update). 

Investment Income in 2021: £0.00 (first entry) (target £5,000).

The stock market took a hit this week, or at least the stocks I’m exposed to did.  It’s not a big deal though, as the market is volatile right now due to Brexit, Covid-19 and the time of year.  My credit card balance should have been reduced by the refund I’m expecting for my coffee machine.  Also, I was expecting to make a payment to my credit card but I just didn’t get around to it with the holidays.  I have the money to pay it off, but I’ve just been a bit lazy.  My mortgage balance also went up slightly as the monthly interest was added just in time to make this blog, but before my January payment which will be credited in time for next week’s post.  

BTL Update

As expected there was not enough time to get a tenant into the property before Christmas.  There was a list of minor jobs that needed completing to make the house ready for occupation, and that list is now complete.  There is another viewing booked in for January 4th and whilst it would be nice to have a tenant in as soon as possible, I’d be surprised if we have a tenant within the next couple of weeks.  

Now that most of the work to let the property is being completed by our agents, attention turns to funding and finding the next property.  I suspect that in the coming months the market will drop as people look to sell properties they can no longer afford.  My plan is not dependent on that happening, it would just help speed up the acquisition of the next property.  If the reverse happens and the properties go up in value, then from June (six-months after completing the first BTL purchase) we may be able to pull equity out of the first property to help fund the second.  The minimum amount we can release from the first property is £10,000, and the maximum is whatever takes the mortgage LTV to 75%.  The property is currently worth £124,500, with a mortgage of £93,375.  To release £10,000 the value would need to increase to £137,835; a 10.7% increase in value.

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2020

As mentioned at the start of this post, I explained that I wrote a special blog covering 2020 instead of covering my look back here.  That review was one of the hardest things I’ve written as it left me quite vulnerable.  This is a difficult thing for someone like me to do.  However, I received some nice, supporting feedback following that post.  We’re in a time of year which is normally hard on mental health, but in the Covid era it will be even more difficult.  There is nothing shameful or embarrassing about feeling overwhelmed or depressed.  If any of my readers are feeling down or that they want to vent to a stranger, please feel free to use the contact details on my site and I’ll offer a supportive (virtual) shoulder.

Supporting Mortgage Advisor on FIRE

Gaining readers is the hardest thing for any blogger to achieve.  I enjoy writing this each week and if you are enjoying this content, please take a moment to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Whatsapp or any other social media.  Shares are the ultimate sign of success for any blogger.  If you have any feedback, comments or questions whether positive or negative, please leave a comment below.  If you would like to make a donation to support the running costs of this blog, please use the donation button on the home page.

My Instagram is @david_scothern and my Twitter is @nowwelive01. You can also email me at mortgageadvisoronfire@gmail.com.

Also, please check out my cat’s Instagram @sweep_the_kelham_island_cat

Finally, have a look at Darren Scothern’s blog at darrenscothern.com.

2020 Review

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.  This blog post is something of a bonus installment, as we say goodbye to 2020 and look forward to 2021.  This entry is somewhat different to my normal content, in that there will be less focus on finance and more focus on mental health, and a look back at what was the worst year of my life.  

Mortgage Advisor on FIRE has been going for just over a year now.  I started in November 2019 and the blog has evolved since that first post.  It was not my intention to write about my health in any significant way, but as the blog evolved I noticed I was getting as many messages of support about my health as I was regarding my financial philosophy.  I started this project to keep myself on track with the idea of helping other people dependent on those people thinking I had something useful and interesting to say.  So, here is my 2020 review which will hopefully help other people who have struggled.  For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to go over this chronologically.  

My year started with several ongoing health problems.  I was undergoing investigations for my heart and I had only just come off crutches after a month-long spell where I had the worst pain I’d ever experienced and was unable to walk properly.  My recovery from this pain was short lived as I found myself back on crutches for most of January and February.  At this point, Covid-19 was still half a world away and so our trip to India in late-February proceeded as planned. 

I was not in a good way and was carrying most of my weight through the crutches. I was taking eight tramadol a day at the height of the pain.

The two-weeks in India were disappointing for the most part due to the incompetence of our tour guide and travel agent.  There were some spectacular sights, such as the Taj Mahal, but the abject poverty that was evident everywhere was heartbreaking.  I don’t want to sound too “woke”, but I came away from India with a much greater appreciation for what I have in life, and for what I don’t have to contend with on a daily basis. 

Not long after returning from India, Covid-19 was starting to spread throughout the UK.  In the first days of my return, shops were being emptied of toilet rolls, hand soaps and cleaning products.  I coped very well with the lockdown and other restrictions.  I started working from home and found myself in a good routine.  I started a new exercise challenge for charity, where I was attempting to cycle the distance from Sheffield to Snagov on my exercise bike.  I was doing well until *gross out warning* blood started pouring from my ass.  I don’t think it takes too much explanation to understand why this is a bad thing.  I had to end the attempt after getting just past the halfway point.  

There are certain things that happened this year that I’m not going to talk about directly, but I do need to mention in passing because it had a direct impact on the rest of my year.  In late May, something happened that knocked me sideways.  I was in a very dark place for several weeks, and then the other shoe dropped and I was mentally broken.  I found myself in an emotional state I had never experienced before.  It wasn’t depression in the sense of sadness or melancholy.  It was complete nihilism.  There were many nights where I would just sit, unable to concentrate on anything.  For a few weeks I would go out for walks and just wander the streets until the early hours of the morning as the sun was rising.  I was on autopilot for most things and I can’t remember a huge amount.  At no point was I suicidal, or in any danger of doing physical harm to myself.  I always had a little voice in my head telling me that this would pass, and that I would come out the other side stronger.  Something had changed inside me though.

My cat, Sweep, did his best to make me feel better, just like he does all the time.

There is a thought experiment in philosophy known as the Ship of Theseus.  There are some variations of the experiment, and I will provide a simple overview.  Imagine a wooden sailing ship that is travelling the world.  Throughout the voyage, parts of the ship fall into disrepair and are replaced.  Over time, every part of the ship, every plank of wood, every mast, and every oar is replaced.  Is the ship still the same vessel that started the journey?  There is a second part to this experiment.  Imagine that all the parts of the original ship that were replaced, were cast overboard.  Then, a second ship following recovered all of these parts and rebuilt the original ship.  Which ship would be the Ship of Theseus?

Some people would argue that identity is more than just physical.  It’s about memory and emotion.  The legitimate Ship of Theseus is the one that the crew believe in.  Can an inanimate object have an identity though?  The reason I bring this idea up is because humans are similar in many respects to the Ship of Theseus.  Over time our cells die and are replaced.  We change size and shape, as we gain or lose fat and muscle.  Our brains change as we age, and memories are formed and lost over time.  Our personalities and knowledge change from one moment to the next, depending on what we encounter and experience through our lives.  Am I the same person I was a minute ago?  I guess so.  What about the minute before that?  And the one before that?

What I’m talking about now is a form of gradualism, in that we change subtly over time so that from one moment to the next, we appear to be the same.  When you zoom out and look at the bigger picture over a longer period of time, the change becomes apparent.  There are occasions where change is not so gradual, where something so catastrophic happens that you are fundamentally altered and there is a definite before and after.  That is what happened to me this year.  2020 will always be a milestone year for me.  

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I’m not the same person I was in 2019.  In some ways, the awful year I’ve had has been positive, in that it’s brought a few things to the fore that would otherwise have been left simmering in the background.  For a long time I have suspected that my numerous physical and mental health problems must have an underlying cause, and it would appear that is the case.  It is now suspected that I have an underlying condition that has contributed to many of my health problems, and although there is no cure for this condition, simply knowing the cause is enough to bring a sense of relief.  It also allows me to start tackling the root cause and putting in place measures to manage the condition, rather than treating the symptoms as and when they flare up.  

One of the ways in which I’ve changed in 2020 is that I’m no longer willing to tolerate bullshit, whether that’s in person or online.  If someone annoys me online, I just block them.  If someone wrongs me in real life, I cut them out of my life completely.  Don’t misunderstand; I’m not going to cut someone out for a simple disagreement, but I’m done placating people for the sake of others or maintaining peace if they consistently disrespect me.  Life is too short to be dumped on by others, and I’m worth more than being a doormat for others.  If someone is wronging me, it is unreasonable of anyone else to expect me to keep the peace by not responding in some way.  That person urging restraint is saying that my feelings are subservient to theirs, and that appeasement is more important.  Well, I say fuck that.  Fuck.  That.  

As I’ve struggled this year, I’ve received support from some surprising places; people who I did not expect to support me have done so.  Then, people who I thought would be supportive have not.  That’s not to say I’ve been let down as such, because this year has been an absolute dumpster fire and I’m trying to get better at realising people have their own worries and concerns.  This might sound like common sense but there is a lot of research out there that suggests we attribute the perceived poor behaviour of others to their own personality rather than external factors.  A basic example would be that if a colleague is grumpy, we think it’s because they’re an asshole rather than them being kept up all night by their newborn baby.  It’s important to remember that we are also the subject of this attribution from other people.  If I have a bad night’s sleep and I’m short with people the following day, they will probably think I’m an asshole rather than wondering why I was short with them. 

This summer was awful.  Covid-19 and my rapidly deteriorating mental health really took a toll.  My birthday, in September, was also awful.  I spent the night at home with my girlfriend in one of the most depressing mental states I’ve experienced.  I was physically and mentally broken, and I needed time and space to recover. We did go for a fantastic meal with family the day after my birthday, but even then I was still not mentally present to the point where I could fully appreciate the experience.  The last quarter of the year resulted in more hospital visits and tests for my shoulders and for further tests with a gastroenterologist.  It was suspected that I have Crohn’s but the pill camera did not show any significant worsening since I last had the test a few years ago.  So, it would appear that my various health issues are all related to this single, unifying condition for which there is no cure.

I’m not too downbeat about this situation now, after all it would do no good.  Rather, there is a sense of relief that I now have a root cause I can tackle.  This does help in some respects, but knowing the cause of something does not help with the immediate symptoms in the same way knowing your house fire started with a cheap phone charger does not extinguish the flames.  The last few months have given me the mental space to realise several things.  I’m not talking about how I suddenly realised the small things matter, or that life is special or that I’ve found god or some other banal rubbish.  I’ve realised that for a long time I’ve been acting out a role that has been causing me a lot of mental exhaustion.  It’s like the advice a lot of people give out, “fake it until you make it.”  The problem is, what if there is no end in sight?  Faking it in this way just leads to an eventual breakdown.  I suspect I would have arrived at the point eventually, but the events of this year both in global terms and also what happened to me specifically brought forward my eventual breakdown.  

Mental health is such a minefield and in many ways I believe it’s worse for men.  This comes back to the idea of playing a role or “faking it until you make it”.  There is still a stigma attached to men displaying vulnerable emotions such as fear, sadness or loneliness.  Roughly three-quarters of suicides in the UK are men.  I’m not trying to downplay female suicides or female mental health problems.  I’m a man though, and a man who has struggled with mental health problems for over two-decades now.  The support that’s out there is just not fit for purpose.  I’ve had a few experiences with counselling and not a single one has been positive.  I ended my last counselling program when my therapist responded to my description of how I get really angry by explaining I need to “calm down”.  

I’ve found much more helpful advice from words written two-thousand years ago by Marcus Aurelius, and other notable Stoics.  I wrote in a previous post about how I try to combine the best of humanism, stoicism and nihilism to inform and guide my actions.  There are things I do which also help me maintain some form of mental stability.  A couple of years ago I discovered Audible and signing up is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.  Audiobooks are amazing.  One of my greatest pleasures is going for a long walk with a good audiobook for company.  There is so much that can be learned from history, philosophy, science and even fiction.  Something else I find a lot of fun is memes.  I love memes.  I can happily sit and scroll through lists of memes for an hour a day, laughing my ass off.  My girlfriend thinks this is a little bit lame, but so what.  I enjoy it.

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Another thing I’ve come to realise is that I’m not on the same wavelength as a lot of people.  I’m not saying I’m better or worse, or more intelligent.  It’s like I speak a different language to most other people, although that’s not quite accurate either.  I guess it’s a little like that idea that we don’t know if we all perceive colour in the same way.  Do I see blue in the same way you do?  This disconnect is part of the reason why I’ve struggled to maintain friendships.  There’s something missing in that connection.  I find a lot of social interaction unnecessary and pointless, especially with things like small talk.  I enjoy a good conversation about a subject that interests me, but I struggle to maintain interest in general chit-chat.  I think this is why I’ve struggled with networking in the past, and why I’m seen as outspoken in some quarters.

I don’t generally make a good first impression.  I know that I’m not well liked by people who don’t know me well.  I don’t really care.  When people do get to know me, I tend to get on well with most of them.  I just find, what I class as unnecessary social interaction, to be more trouble than it’s worth.  I think this is why I find online interaction much more rewarding, as conversations are centred around specific subjects of mutual interest.  

2020 has been awful in so many respects, but most of that has been because of things that have happened to me, as opposed to anything I’ve done in error.  As I type this on the last day of the year, I can look back with some satisfaction that I survived.  Although I don’t think I was ever in physical danger, my mental state took me to such dark places that I think I was just another blow away from going over the cliff.  I took everything that 2020 had to throw at me, and I’m still here and I’m ready to tackle 2021.

The strange thing about the new year is that it’s an entirely human construct.  We measure time according to the Earth’s rotation on its axis, as well as the time it takes to orbit the sun.  However, neither of these are exact.  A day is not exactly 24-hours and a year is not exactly 365-days.  We’ve created a model that is more-or-less accurate to enable society to function.  Nothing actually changes when the date ticks over from 31/12/2020 to 01/01/2021 (this is the correct format; DD/MM/YYYY – fight me!).  It’s a purely psychological change, but it can still be useful as a breaking point between what came before and what is still to come.

I’ve set several goals for 2021, which I will now share with you.

  1. Reduce my weight back to a healthy 92.8kg.
  2. Read or listen to 104 new books.
  3. Complete module RO3 for my DipFA.
  4. Complete RO4.
  5. Complete RO5.
  6. Complete RO6.
  7. Walk 2,500km by the end of the year.

I fear that a lot of people will make two mistakes heading into 2021.  The first is that they assume a new year means that the problems of 2020 will just disappear.  The thing is, societal and economic issues do not just vanish because we change the calendar.  The second mistake is that they will set goals for the new year, but will not think about how to structure or design those goals.  I talk a little bit about SMART goal setting in my previous blog post, so I will not labour the point here, except to state that the best goals are; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.  

This year’s goals pretty much went out of the window due to Covid-19, and my physical and mental health problems.  I almost hit my reading target for this year, having finished 83 books in 2020.  You can see my reading list for the last few years here.  2021 is a vitally important year for me, as I look to achieve financial freedom as soon as possible.  Although I’ve given myself until the end of 2023 to reach financial independence, I’m hoping to make significant strides towards it by the end of 2021.  Assuming that the world returns to some semblance of normality, I should be able to make substantial progress.  

If you are still reading this far, thank you.  I know this has been a little bit of a rant, and I appreciate you spending your time reading my thoughts.  I hope you have a happy, prosperous and healthy 2021.  

Part 61

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on F.I.R.E.  In the last blog of 2020, I take a look at my plans for 2021.  First, the Quote of the Week:

Quote of the Week

It’s a tradition for many people to use the New Year to look back at the previous year before coming up with resolutions for the year ahead.  The vast majority of these resolutions will be forgotten about before the second month of 2021 is over.  Studies have shown that anywhere from 70%-85% of resolutions fail, and so many people are trapped in a cycle of repeating the same behaviours they have been frustrated by for many years.  There is also some danger in assuming that just because the calendar ticks over to a new year, the world suddenly becomes a better place.  As we transition from 2020 to 2021, I fear this will be even more pronounced.  Our calendar is an artificial construct.  It does not take 365 days to orbit the sun; it’s closer to 365.265.  It does not take the Earth 24 hours to rotate on its axis; it’s more like 23 hours, 56 minutes and a few seconds, with that rotational period increasing slightly over time meaning that days are getting slightly longer.  The point I’m getting at, is that our conception of a day, week, month and year is artificially constructed to allow a relatively easy division of time.  Although the dawn of a new year is psychologically significant in many respects, life will not change just because it’s a new year.  Things change because people choose to act differently.  

If you want to change how you behave, it’s important to go about it in the right way.  The brain is a biological computer, and when you want to change how a computer behaves you have to reprogram it.  The brain is no different, except you are using your own brain to reprogram itself.  There are some tricks to reprogramming your own brain though, because the brain uses many shortcuts, called heuristics, to carry out much of its processing.  Much of human judgement, perception and decision making relies on these heuristics.  Depending on who you ask, a new behavioural habit can take anywhere from a couple of weeks, to over a year to be embedded effectively.  If you want to make the process of changing your behaviour as easy as possible, it’s important to give yourself as many advantages as possible.  I’m going to use an example to illustrate my point.

A common new year’s resolution is to lose weight.  Many people will simply state, “my new year’s resolution is to lose weight”.  This resolution is almost certain to fail because it’s not SMART; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.  It just so happens that one of my resolutions is to lose weight; something I’ve been trying to do all year without success.  So, I’ll now list my SMART resolution.

S – I want to lose 26kg by the end of 2021.

M – This means losing 0.5kg per week.

A – Many experts agree that 0.5kg weight loss per week is safe and achievable.

R – This is a realistic goal as it will bring my total weight down to a safe, normal level.

T – The goal has a specific end date, as well as a more manageable weekly check-in.  

This is just a basic example, but having a concrete idea of where you are now, where you want to be, and how you are going to get there, is how you best plan a journey.  With the example of weight loss, it’s also important to think about the things you need to change to facilitate this goal.  In my SMART statements, there is no mention of how I will go about this.  So, you can create smaller SMART objectives to supplement the initial goal.  This could be in relation to exercise, gym visits, cheat meals and other health related activities.  

Goal setting is a subject that has generated thousands of books and research papers, and so I’m not going to be able to do a deep-dive into it in a single blog post.  The point of this is just to get you thinking a little bit more about how to create an effective list of new year’s resolutions. 

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Weekly Update

Christmas has been and gone in a fairly low-key fashion, which is what I wanted.  I don’t generally like Christmas.  It’s a lot of hype associated with gratuitous spending and consumption.  Mix this up with the disruption to routine, and I generally find it a lot of hassle I could do without.  

My best present this year, without doubt, is that I still have my cat Sweep.  There was some concern that when we took him back to the vet on 23rd December, we would have to say our final goodbye to him.  Thankfully, the meds he is on seem to be working and he’s all snuggled up on the sofa snoozing as I type this.  The vet did make it clear that Sweep’s days are limited.  His health issues are not going to get better, and the meds are “palliative” in nature.  As long as Sweep is content, and not suffering, I intend to treasure each day with him.  

A couple of days ago I completed work on a new section to this site.  I’ve created a Reading List page that details all the books I’ve read or listened to since the start of 2018.  Last year I successfully met my goal of completing 104 books; 2 per week.  This year, I’ve fallen a little short and at the time of writing, I’ve finished 81 books.  I’m not too downbeat about this, considering the year I’ve had.  

2021 Goals – to be achieved by 31/12/2021

1 – Reduce weight to 92.8kg.

2 – Finish 104 new books.

3 – Complete RO3 for my DipFA.

4 – Complete RO4 for my DipFA.

5 – Complete RO5 for my DipFA.

6 – Complete RO6 for my DipFA.

7 – Walk 2,500km.

I am replacing the health section of this blog with this new section.  Throughout the year I will provide progress updates on my goals.  The first two goals are self-explanatory, but the other four I will expand on.  I am studying to become a qualified financial advisor, and the first step is achieving a Diploma in Financial Advice (DipFA).  I have already completed the first two modules, but there are four left.  I lost momentum in my studies following the personal issues I had from the summer onward, but I intend to pick up these studies in the new year.  My last goal is designed to help me achieve weight loss.  Walking is a low impact form of exercise, and I enjoy it.  I love being out in the fresh air with a good audiobook playing.  I arrived at the 2,500km target by looking at my current walking habits and increasing the activity level slightly.  It means that, on average, I’ll need to walk roughly 6.85km per day; or just over 48km per week.    

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Financial Update

Premium Bonds: £2,500 (no change from last update).

Stocks and Shares ISA: £17,644.10 (up £1,521.03 from last update).

Fuck It Fund: £400.00 (no change from last update).

Residential Property Value: £187,554 (no change from last update).

Buy-to-Let Property Value: £124,500 (no change from last update).

Total Assets: £332,598.10 (up £1,521.03 from last update).

Credit Card: £469.32 (up £469.32 from last update).

Residential Mortgage: £141,740.98 (no change from last update). 

Buy-to-Let Mortgage: £93,375 (no change from last update). 

Total Debts: £235,585.30 (up £469.32 from last update).

Total Wealth Figure: £97,012.80 (up £1,051.71 from last update). 

Investment Income in 2020: £185.90 (no change from last update) (target £2,000).

An excellent week for my ISA as the stock market made gains following the Brexit deal being announced.  I’ve not read too much about the content of the deal because I’m suffering Brexit burn out.  I’m in no doubt that we will be in a worse position than if we’d just remained in the EU, but what’s done is done.  I have no issue with the majority voting leave, except for the fact the Brexit campaign was built on a foundation of lies.  My credit card balance is artificially high, as I’m waiting on a substantial refund to be credited to the balance.  That should be rectified by next week.

That’s all for this week, and next week I will take a look back at my experiences of 2020.

A Quick Request

I know there is a small group of people that read this blog regularly and I enjoy the engagement I have with those readers through email and social media.  I would love for this project to take off and grow through 2021.  Gaining readers is the hardest thing for any blogger to achieve.  I enjoy writing this each week and if you are enjoying this content, please take a moment to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Whatsapp or any other social media.  Shares are the ultimate sign of success for any blogger.  If you have any feedback, comments or questions whether positive or negative, please leave a comment below.  

My Instagram is @david_scothern and my Twitter is @nowwelive01. You can also email me at mortgageadvisoronfire@gmail.com.

Also, please check out my cat’s Instagram @sweep_the_kelham_island_cat

Finally, have a look at Darren Scothern’s blog at darrenscothern.com.