Monthly Finance Update #11

March Update, 2020. 

The Tiny House is now almost livable!

We’re making great progress and feel free to take a look at how far we are:  ‘Det Lille Potentiale’.

Income after tax:        0 dkk               0 €

Invested Amount:       7500 dkk         1005 € 

Cash Savings:                0 dkk                0 €    

Savings rate:                  0 %

Total invested in Indexes:    43.980 dkk         5900 €

Portfolio change since last month:    -23,51 %

Yikes!

What has happened this month?

Investments

As everybody knows Corona has made a historical impact on the stock market and nobody know where it’s heading from here. The outbreak doesn’t seem to be subsiding any time soon as the impact of the US only seems to be revealing itself this past week. 

How did it hit the investment account so far? Around – 25-30%. Ouch. In these times for myself and others, it’s a point where your investment strategy is seriously tested. 

What does the inexperienced investor tend to do in these huge double-digit drops in the market? Panic with the thoughts ‘ I’m getting out and not touching stocks for a while’. ‘ I knew this would happen. I’m never buying stocks again’. This reaction is the total opposite of buying low and selling high which if successful would equal profit. 

It can be hard to keep yourself to your investment strategy and risk profile when the media is spamming you with numerous articles in Newspapers and Facebook about this being the most unique market drops in modern history affecting this time round the whole world and almost all industries. 

I could go on but makes sense to write more on this in a separate post.

I plan to invest consistently throughout the next year with an increased amount per month to take advantage of these historical low markets. 

Therefore the amount to be invested this month is cranked up to 7500 dkk which again comes from savings as there is no income currently. Three times the usual amount. 

Slow and steady wins the race. Many rapports and scientific papers have proved this is the right strategy! I’m following these conclusions. 

“Buy when there is blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own”.

“Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful”.

Car

The wheels were stolen. What?

I managed to own my very first car for 11 whole days before my set of winter tyres were stolen from my shed.

Are you kidding me? Jeezz. 

After picking up the car plus with an extra set of tyres, they were temporarily stored in the carport waiting to be moved to the shed. I suspect someone must have spotted them at this point and guessed they would be in the shed after they had be moved. 

Lesson learned. Wheels have value! Hopefully, insurance will cover it but would have been nice to be free of the hassle hopefully reclaiming their value shortly. 

These first 3 weeks having a car have really shown the amount of flexibility and increase in possibilities that are now available. 

Besides the kind of overwhelming decision of having to choose a make, model, mileage and a few more factors all combined, I’m glad I chose a Toyota Yaris 1,0 from 2015 that has driven 100.000km. 

It fits my/our needs and surprisingly has more bonus features that I had planned which is a positive surprise. 

Overall very happy with the car so far. 

Tiny House Update

Our Tiny house build is progressing very nicely. We’re getting down to the finishing touches which really takes quite a bit longer than some of the previous jobs where the impact is bigger and easier to spot the difference once completed. 

Electrics and water systems are still to be connected properly giving the possibility of going off-grid when we want and at the same time having the option of being on-grid. 

Although we’ve postponed the investment for solar panels and battery-bank as we’re feeling a little fatigued after building for the past 4,5 months. Starting on-grid and will begin the next project later in the year. 

Our reused floor (1000 dkk, 134 € ) has been laid which has made quite the impact and overall look of the house. Love it!

Clay walls will hopefully give a lovely indoor climate

Much nice working in the warmer spring sun

Reused floor looks great

Clothes cupboard 

Our budget goal for building the Tiny House is 150.000 dkk (20.070 €).

And is slowing being used as we build. We’re at 100.000 dkk (13.400 €) spent at the moment. 

Updates on the build from start to finish will be shared on the Facebook page.

Danish readers can join the group ‘Det Lille Potentiale, Tiny House’. 

Focus next month

Moving into the Tiny House. Wow, we’re this close!


This is us, mid clay working !

Tiny House is being moved and we’ll be having our first nights in the house this month. We’ll be getting a feel for how it is and whether we’ll be needing to make any alterations with the design of the interior. 

My job is temporarily on hold because of the Coronavirus as all the students are sent home until Denmark isn’t on lockdown again. We’ll see how long this lasts. No one knows… 

Crazy to think at the moment how huge countries and societies are locking down almost everything. 

Cross fingers we’ll be Corona free in the near future. 

Financial update #10 over and out