Multi-Millionaire Road Plan Review (7)

Blueprints:

This post details my financial progress as of the end of December 2013. All posts of a similar title to this one are written to demonstrate how all prior published articles interlink to form my plan to become a Multimillionaire. Think of these posts as a self-review of my progress and the blueprints to my Multi-Millionaire Road Plan. I encourage my readers to add comments on these posts. Feel free to compare to my previous report:

Multi-Millionaire Road End of December 2013 Report:

As always I'd like to offer a huge thank you to all my readers. Without your readership, comments, tweets and following I would not find the motivation to keep posting. I hope you will continue to find this site interesting. 

In particular, I would like to thank all those readers who have recommended any of their friends to start to follow this site.

Website Progress

As you may have noticed, I am not hugely tech-savvy and in terms of a technologically impressive website it is definitely lacking. I have always felt that the pull of my site should be its content of which I am working constantly to improve. If any of you have any suggestions to improve the site then please feel free to email me at mrmoneybanks@multimillionaireroad.com. 

Recent statistics show that the site attracts on average between 350-500 readers per day. This recent boost in readers is mainly due to the popularity of The Science of Wealth post. I am extremely happy with this level of readership but would always welcome more. If anyone invites a friend or family to read an article that i have written, or shares one of my posts, just let me know and I will personally get in touch to say thank you.

Get Rich Plan Update

Picture from freedigitalphotos

I am 16 months into working life and I am now still able to save roughly 20% of my monthly net (income after tax and pensions comes out of my pay package) income. At times this is a bit of a struggle when all sorts of unexpected costs crop up. I have very recently received a modest pay rise and as such my net income after pension contributions and tax is just over £1,707 per month. 44% of my net income goes on rent and bills. This is an area to focus on reducing in the future. I try to save about £341 per month. £135.75 goes into a Company pension scheme each month and is matched by my employer. Furthermore, I benefit from tax savings from this contribution.

The income set aside for savings is taken directly from my current account into an esavings account with virtually no interest. From there, I can transfer the money either into a stocks and shares ISA or into a cash ISA depending on how much of my allowance I've used. I aim to split all savings 50:50 between, cash and bonds and in stocks and shares. When making investment I aim to buy undervalued and dividend paying stocks (assuming there are any!).

My current share portfolio is performing strongly. With an overall performance net of any tax and charges of % over the last 2 and three quarter years.The FTSE100, for example currently sits at about 6750 points. When last I wrote it was at 6700. Although it is folly and fairly meaningless to make a prediction on the stockmarket I shall do so anyway: It will go up or down or stay the same, but regardless of the movement I will look to improve my research in the hunt for undervalued shares.

If you take a look back at an article back in March 2012, I gave my original financial breakdown. I now wish to update my current asset holdings:

• £685 - Sits in cash as a deposit for the flat I currently rent.
• £860.26 Current Account. This is obviously before any spending has occurred for the month of January.
• £1,503.66 - Everyday Savings Account
• £227.93 - cashback from credit cards
• £11,624.85 - Loyalty Reward ISA
• £100 - UK Premium Bonds
• £14,468.66 Online Shares
• £2,084.05 Funding Circle Investment
• £300 - sitting as capital in a business account 

• Total Accessible Assets: £31,854.41 (October 2013: £29,518.85)

This represents a growth in Total Accessible Assets of £2,336 (7.9%)

• £4,461.95 - Friend's Life Pension (contributions since October 2012)

Total Assets £36,316.36 (October 2013 £33,469.82 - a £2,846 or a 8.5% growth)

I am very pleased with my progress over the three months. In March 2012 I began recording my tangible wealth. Back then it was £22,970. I have grown my net total accessible wealth by about 38.7% and my total wealth (including my pension) by 58% in 21 months. My original plan was to grow my wealth over the year by about £4000 from September 2012 until September 2013 which (if you prorate my progress) means that I have already achieved this goal 3 months early. Arguably, it should be acceptable to include the value of my pension as this will form part of my assets in later life, in which case I have smashed my goal.

Originally I wrote a post on a Get Rich Plan and am currently in the middle of implementation. Whilst I have a long way to go, I am currently laying the foundations of this plan. I will now go through each section, briefly:

1. Frugality - I believe that life should be lived whilst preparing for the future. As such I don't buy into the argument that you should count every penny. Instead, you should get the fundamental decisions right. for example, to automate your savings and commit a certain amount to savings each month.
2. Budgeting - all going according to plan. My method allows me to ascertain where I may be spending too much.
3. Saving - I am still trying to save 20% of my monthly net income. This is sometimes difficult as I find myself having to make unplanned purchases e.g. Wedding presents, parking fines etc. However, I am now making better utilisation of my cash, channeling more into cash ISAs, so much so that I have maxed out my limit for the current financial year.
4. Debt - Although I have three credit cards, I have no debt. I pay them off in full each month. I have one credit card that gives 5% cashback for 3 months and 1.25% thereafter. The other two give 0.5%. Read my article to explain how to maximise the cashback on credit cards.
5. Housing - My rent currently costs about £750 with bills. This is an improvement on the £800 I was paying previously. For more information on my ideas on Housing read my article: Renting Vs Buying.
6. Investing - after all taxes and expenses my portfolio has increase by about 18% since it's inception  two and three quarter years ago.
7. Tax - I have topped up my tax free ISAs. It is now maxed out. I am now starting to utilize my investment ISA with an ISA stocks and shares trading account.
8. Job - My base salary is £27,650 plus my November exam bonus of £1,000 (gross). Living as a young professional living in London has huge opportunities for networking but of course is highly expensive.
9. Time and Patience - on we go!
10. Self-belief - it's only a matter of time

As you can see, on the whole things are looking good. There is much work to be done but at 24, I have time on my side.

I would encourage all of you to update your financial position. Feel free to use my post as a template. It helps you clarify what you have to do and where you are going.

What's going on in your personal financial review?

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