Winter's Coming!

This will only be a quick update, as I've taken on extra work to build up a bigger and faster nest egg. I'm also spending a lot of my free time pouring over old economic data for patterns.

However, I've started to pull some of my european investments and switch for cash in preparation for the coming big R. I remember the previous recession incredibly well. In fact, it has scarred me for life - thankfully! In my case, having very clear memories of the year or two leading up to it means that I notice those same patterns when they repeat themselves. When one or two repeat, it gets my attention but the issue normally resolves itself. But right now, all of the economic data is pointing towards a nearing cliff edge. So I'm getting myself ready.

I'll freely admit, I can't predict how quickly each domino will fall. Every recession behaves a bit differently. 2008 was fairly quick to happen and slow to recover. In fact, those of us who started our careers in 2008 still haven't recovered. But we are also hyper aware of changes in the economy, which is to our benefit.

There are multiple signals that I look out for, but the main ones are:

The Housing Market

Property prices have stagnated this year. In most places, they haven't started to decline yet. But London tends to be a catalyst for changes elsewhere and the London market isn't looking great right now. Outside of London, new buyers (the GenY/Millennial/Gen Z crowd) are too strapped down with student debt, low wages and high rents to consider house purchases. So as the older owners are starting to downsize or die off, fewer young customers are queuing up to buy from them. This problem isn't unique to the UK. Australia, Canada, America and elsewhere appear to be suffering the fallout from the same generational divide in wealth. Their housing markets are starting to feel similar pressure. In fact, many are predicting a downright crash and advising clients to stay away for now. Foreign investors in the UK market have started to pull away, leaving only 5% of housing stock owned by overseas buyers rather than 12% in 2010. It could be argued that a decline in house prices is a good thing, as those in their 30s waiting to buy a home and start a family will finally be able to. However, when viewed in conjunction with other economic signs, it suggests a not-so-rosy near future.

Debt Levels

Debt is always something I pay attention to, regardless of how the economy is doing. I have an abnormally old fashioned view of debt compared to most people (all debt is bad), which I don't expect the rest of society to follow. But while I assume there will always be some state, business and personal debt, there is a scale from 'bad' to 'worse' to 'unmanageable'. At present, the Eurozone is nearing the 'unmanageable' end once again. Several debt figures should get people's attention. Individuals already have more debt, credit companies are lending out more debt and state spending is up (and a growing population means that spending will only increase further).

Unemployment Figures

These are interesting, as the data currently shows generally low unemployment. However, the total figures hide the fact that wage growth has flat-lined (as an example, I haven't had a pay rise in real terms in almost 20 years) and 'employed' includes underemployment (forced part time or unskilled jobs), zero hours, temporary contracts, those who have stopped looking for work or claiming job seeker benefits, those classed as self employed (even if not earning), and anyone else who may have simply fallen into the gap. I would be far more interested to know how many people are in full time, living wage or above jobs. And by 'living wage' I mean a salary that can cover basic rent, travel costs, food, pension savings, healthcare, other everyday bills, money to save for a house deposit within 5-10 years and repayment of the average student debt. I don't think those numbers would be so high!

Stock Market Drive

Last year saw big gains for those who were lucky enough to have timed the market correctly. Both the UK and US markets crashed and bounced back up following Brexit and Trump's win and they have continued to soar upwards ever since. The S&P 500 has broken multiple highs and is currently on its way to 2500, and the FTSE 100 has been bumping around the 7500 mark following a similar pattern. There was a market boom just like this before the 2008 crash. Markets were reaching new highs amid cheers from investors, lenders relaxed their standards for lending to buyers (oh, hang on),  the housing market began to cool off, panic set in as the number of mortgage defaults increased, then the problem spread outwards to other parts of the economy.

Today, we have the added problem of massive student loans (small mortgages in their own right), Brexit, the myriad problems in the EU (which has only very recently come out of the 2008 recession), China acknowledging their own debt problems (albeit a different situation) and a new creature in the form of subprime car loans in the US. This all feels like déjà vu to me. With the added fun of already non-existent interest rates, backing the BoE into a corner.

Good luck everyone and see you on the other side!


* EDIT: Shout out to the owner of Spicer Lemonade Stand at the Lovebox Festival and her parents for encouraging early entrepreneurial skills! I started my working life selling home-grown tomatoes along our street with my brother and sister and it was an excellent way to learn the basics of business. I hope to see you on Dragon's Den in the not too distant future!

Dirty Bankers and Their Enormous Assets

Welcome to 2017!

First of all, I haven't added any new posts in a while as I've been busily jumping through hoops to stay employed (such is the new 'gig economy' we have now). Although my 'jumping' has contributed in many ways to the advancement of my financial knowledge, so I now feel as though I have some useful tidbits to add here. Especially to the younger generation, who I feel have been treated incredibly unfairly by pretty much everyone. If any of them accidentally stumble into this blog whilst exploring the deep dark depths of the internet and happen to pick up just a tiny speck of helpful information, then I will feel as if my ramblings have done a bit of good. The education system fails miserably at teaching its charges the basics of money, and today's young people are the ones who will need these skills more than anyone!

So... without going into the boring details, since we last met I've had a big career change, graduated, completed a vocational course at break-neck speed, and I'm now employed to do very geeky things by a nice team of fellow geeks (who I'll avoid naming here in case they throw Lego at me). During my detour I spent some more time within the banking industry (the 'eye of the storm' is always an interesting place) and expanded my understanding of assets vs liabilities, which I will now attempt to explain using the medium of colourful pictures and witty yet informative prose. I apologise in advance for the lack of artistic skill.

Say hello to Ben and Eric...

Ben and Eric are exactly the same age (25), have exactly the same education and student debt (£30,000), began life with exactly the same amount of money (£0) and earn exactly the same wage (£20,000 per year) in the exact same job. Because sometimes life is just crazy like that!

Both Ben and Eric are dating a girl named Jennifer, but we'll avoid that awkward conversation for now.

Both Ben and Eric work hard and are pretty sensible with money. They both decide they want to have as much money in the bank as possible by the time they are 35, so they can afford to buy a house. A small starter home in the local area costs £150,000 and the bank wants a minimum deposit of £25,000. Both Ben and Eric plan to save up the £25,000 over ten years so they can buy the house (they are both equally deluded, but we can admire their optimism for the sake of this story).

Here's a picture of the house: average sized two-bed semi, small garden with patio area, lovely south-facing views from the main bedroom. If you follow me upstairs you'll notice the additional storage space to your left and over there is the entrance to the 2 by 2 square foot attic conversion the owners had installed. Because everyone loves an attic conversion, right? Every self respecting home owner needs somewhere to keep their important-junk-that-will-be-boxed-up-and-undisturbed-until-the-year-2875!

 (I'm aware that it looks like a dolls house - don't judge me!)

Ben and Eric both have £2,000 disposable income left each year after paying tax, rent, commuting costs, bills, food and presents for their always slightly distant girlfriend. Both Ben and Eric are careful to avoid wasting money on any expensive purchases like flashy new cars, holidays abroad, high end gadgets or weekends clubbing. They live like hermits, remaining totally focused and dedicated to the cause. Constantly having landlords sell up and having to move flat gets pricey, so they both decide to live in an abandoned warehouse during the summer months to save a bit extra. Both Ben and Eric know that anything worthwhile in life takes hard work, patience and the odd stint living on the streets. 

For the first three years, both Ben and Eric save £6,000 in a savings account. The interests rates are very low and their savings don't grow all that much. But they keep going, determind to get that house!

However, one cold and frosty winter evening Ben accidentally flicks past a business channel on TV whilst searching for the latest episode of X Factor. The reporter mentions 'assets' and Ben wonders what they mean. He decides to look up that word on a completely nondescript search engine.

'That's interesting', he thinks. After a bit more reading he discovers another useful term: 'liabilities'.

'Maybe I should start buying assets instead of presents for Jennifer?' Ben thinks to himself. 'That way I will still be earning money from my salary, but my money will also be earning money at the same time.'

Ben does a bit more research into the different types of assets he can buy. Many of them are too expensive, but there are some that Ben decides he can afford with money he has saved. Ben leaves £2,000 in his savings account and splits the remaining £4,000 into a £2,000 index fund and £2,000 into a peer-to-peer property investment platform he finds (because he reads that keeping his money diversified is always a good idea). Both assets earn him an average of 7% a month. Instead of adding £100 to his savings account each month, he adds £50 to each of his assets and only £50 to his original savings account.

At the end of year four, Eric has the original £6,000 plus another £2,000 he has saved. So £8,000 in total.

Ben has £2,000 still in his savings account plus another £600 he has added that year. So £2,600 in savings. However, the intitial £4,000 in assets, plus compound interest, plus the £100 a month he has regularly added now total £5,535.65. So altogether Ben has £8,135.65.

Jennifer is no longer talking to Ben. Eric is very smug, but Ben doesn't care. Ben now has a small but growing passive income stream and has entered the matrix of asset growth.

For the next four years Eric continues to add to his savings account. At the end of eight years, he has a total of £16,000. 

For the next four years, Ben continues to add to both his savings account and both assets. At the end of eight years he has £5,000 in his savings account plus his assets are now worth £12,871.55. He has a total of £17,871.55.

After a bit more research, Ben finds two different assets that will earn him a higher interest rate at 8.5% He sells both of his original assets and puts £6,435.78 into each new asset.

Two years later Ben and Eric meet up in the pub one afternoon to celebrate their 35th birthday. Eric is sad because Jennifer has run off with a man she met on holiday named Pedro. Over the last ten years he has saved a total of £20,000. Not enough for a house.

 
Ben is happy because he has saved £6,200 in his savings account and has two assets worth a total of £17,872.07. Altogether he has £24,072.07. Not exactly £25,000, but pretty darn close!

Unfortunately, during this time house prices have risen another 5000%. So neither Ben or Eric can afford to buy a home.

But at least Ben has an extra £4,072.07 to spend on whatever he wants! Or he can leave all of his money in assets to keep growing by themselves while he pays off his student loan. The sensible option.

Ben decides to move to the Greek island of Symi, open up a bar and spend the rest of his days surfing instead.

The morals of this story are all over the place, but the assets part is very useful to know. Whatever you decide to do with your life, if you can make your money make more money while you go off and do other things then you will always be in a better situation financially. At the same time, keep your liabilities to an absolute minimum. Consider if a purchase is going to either depreciate in value or keep costing you more money in the long run. Like many people my age, I was made redundant several times during the recession and learned very quickly that I could never rely on a constant salary. These days I only care about how much I earn while I sleep. Anything else is a nice bonus.

Have Job, Will Save

I'm back in the game! I should start off by giving everyone an update on my situation. After sending out well over 300 CVs and chasing agencies and employers for months on end, I decided to take a gamble and move to a less-crowded area of the UK in order to find work. It was getting ridiculous putting in so much time and effort for minimal results (3 interviews in the space of a year) and there is a well-known saying that if you want a different result then you shouldn't repeat the same process. So I upped sticks and left my home town, my family and my friends for a completely new location in the middle of nowhere.
It was scary and lonely at first, but I had the added support of my boyfriend (who was in a similar boat). I should point out that one of his major personality traits is a ridiculous level of enthusiasm that is hard to resist, and we managed to convince ourselves over the course of one weekend that moving was the best decision. We had no accessible savings, nowhere to stay (we slept on a sofa for the first month) and didn't know if we would find work. But it wasn't much different to our situation back home. It just had more potential and that was enough!

My boyfriend managed to bag a job immediately (cheeky git that he is) and began work on the Monday. I applied for 3 jobs the first morning we arrived and got a call the next day requesting an interview. The following Tuesday I had a permanent job!

The first 2 months salary went towards sofa rent (we paid the owners part living costs), hiring a large van to move our belongings from one side of the country to the other and then 2 months rent for our new flat. After that was set up fees (a cheap bed and other furniture, work clothes due to me putting on weight whilst unemployed and then losing it again, and other random initial costs). We moved in over Christmas and by the end of March I was back to saving again.

So... current savings total is £2006 (£2k of this has recently moved to a 2 year bond, so I can free up my £5640 ISA allowance for this year). I should note that my boyfriend and I keep our finances separate and currently have no plans to combine them. Rent is split equally and we have split bills so that we pay roughly the same each month towards the flat. We have very different diets (mine is close to T-Total vegan whereas he loves JD and steak), travel needs (he has a car and drives for a living, I have a 3 hour commute by bus/foot), and attitudes to spending/saving remaining income (he mostly spends, I mostly save) so these are paid for individually as this works for us both and neither feels we have to compromise. I will therefore not be including his savings here.

Most larger bills for the rest of this year are already budgeted for, so I am hoping that I will be able to dedicate a higher percentage of my salary to savings for the next few months. I plan to include a breakdown of typical monthly expenditure in the next entry so everyone (myself included) can see where my money is going and where I could make further cutbacks.