Skip to main content

*Interactive Investor Offer: No platform fee for 1 year*


How much do you pay for your investment platform? Fancy a free one?
Simply click the link below, open up an ISA/SIPP/GIA then either fund £5k or transfer in from existing provider and you'll get the platform free for a year, saving potentially £360
https://ii.co.uk/recommend-ii?ii_referrer=13iio6o6r2279-8930g46kttxm

Contact

Email Me

March 2025 update & 24-25 annual review


 

Finance update

Another negative month for returns, but it could have been worse (just wait for my April update with the impact of the Trump tariffs!). Ended up down £6200.

Breakdown for March:

  • ISA down £5k
  • Pension down £6k
  • GIA/easy access savings down £5k
  • Crypto up £2k
  • House price up £5k
  • Total: down £6k




The big moves for the month came from me moving a lot of savings into my pension. Mainly to duck under the higher rate tax threshold and also to swerve the High Income Child Benefit Charge.


2024/25 tax year review!

At the end of the 2024-25 tax year, my net worth has gone up by £140k. This is broken down as follows:

  • ISA
    • Contributions: £20k
    • Market gains: £20k
  • Pension
    • Contributions: £34.5k
    • Market gains: £23k
  • GIA / Premium Bonds
    • Contributions: £0 (Despite putting in over £10k here I've left this at zero as I've moved the bulk of it into my pension in March so didn't want to double count contributions on both assets)
    • Market gains: £6.7k
  • Crypto
    • Contributions: £8.5k
    • Market gains: £16.6k
  • House equity
    • Contributions: n/a (mortgage free)
    • Market gains: £9.7k

This is how the net worth increase running average is looking. Was so close to breaking the average £20k a month but the big drop in February (and presumably in April!) means it has dropped to about £10k a month.

And this is how the allocation propotion is looking. No plans to move house, so unless house prices skyrocket then this should stay fairly static. Next year I am planning on not contributing as much into my pension for a couple of reasons; firstly because I've spent a good few years front-loading it and it *should* tick up to a number I'd be happy with at age 55. Secondly because I am taking 8 weeks Unpaid Parental Leave this year, it means I have less of my salary to sacrifice into my pension in order to duck under the high rate tax band.



Side hustle update:

My accidental foray into a side hustle this tax year has been an absolute boon! I've worked out that I've had just over £13k in passive/very lazy side hustle income for the year. The vast majority of which (£12k) has come from investment platform switching incentives and referrals.




Non-Finance update
  • Unpaid Parental Leave
    • No weeks off in March, but I do have a week at the start of April for Easter holidays.
    • For more on this, see my seperate blog on Unpaid Parental Leave here
  • Trips
    • Berlin (me and the Mrs, wait....just us two!?!?)
      • A rare trip away with just me and my wife to Berlin for the weekend. Lots of sightseeing, beer drinking and wurst eating!
      • Highlights for me was the extensive Berlin Wall exhibitions on Bernauer Strasse, as well as the Stasi Museum. If you are into your history but want to stay off the tourist traps then these two are great.
      • The Kulturmuseum was also good and had an exhibition on Heavy Metal in East Germany.
      • The weather was fantastic, start of March and 18 degrees and blue skies each day.
      • The only niggle was that all German airports decided to strike on the day we were due to fly back. They announced this on the Friday and the strike was due to take place on the Monday, not ideal! It didn't really make the new much in the UK but thankfully we had a friend 'in the know' who tipped us off, so we were able to book an alternative flight on Sunday night instead of Monday morning. Our flight was one of the last ones leaving, and it was very bizarre seeing blank flight departure boards (see picture) 


 

 

 

 


 

 


 


  • Other things:
    • Foraging - I've found an absolute tonne of wild garlic near me, about half a mile carpet of the stuff! So I've been making lots of pesto and mayonnaise from it
    • Bike rides - Now the weather has turned, we've been on a few more bike rides with the kids. We are off to Sherwood Pines in Easter and will be taking our bikes there.
    • Lord of the Rings - we have finished reading/listening to the first book and are on chapter 3 of the second book now. My daughter dressed up as Frodo for World Book Day, with my son as Harry Potter and we made some old looking maps to go along with their costumes which they really enjoyed


 

 



That's it, that's the update,
See you next time!







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All about me

I'm a 38 year old father of 2 young children. I  currently live with my wife and kids in Wakefield, West Yorkshire and work  in Cyber Security.  I've always been obsessed with frugality, optimising time and money and discovered the FIRE movement (Financial Independence Retire Early) in the mid 2010s. Over the past few years,  I have pursued a heavy savings rate and have directed this into savings, investments and overpaying the mortgage. Twitter Account:  https://twitter.com/Dad_on_FIRE Key milestones: 2022 - Mortgage free!  10 years after buying our 1st house. 2023 - Coast FIRE In 2023 I had enough in my pension that it would coast up to a figure I would be happy with at age 55 (circa £1m) 2024 - Hit  £1m net worth 2025 - Took 8 weeks off work (through Unpaid Parental Leave) My Net Worth journey: Most people pursuing people have a figure, an overall number to achieve. My FIRE aims however, are currently not set in stone, largely down to having...
2 comments
Read more

March 2024 update - Millionaire!

  In this update we have: Reached Millionaire status on my net worth Harvesting gains from Crypto Platform Incentives Holiday plans Overview: (click to enlarge) (click to enlarge) Net worth update:  Current net worth: £1,030,167 Up £28k from last month, and up a massive £70k from 2 months ago!!  My last blog post was probably a bit premature as a couple of days after it, I breached the millionaire net worth figure!  When I started out on this journey less than 10 years ago with a rough net worth of just over £100k I didn't think I'd be saying that as a 37 year old with two small kids that I'd be a millionaire! Also I'm not sure whether it is mainly due to "millionaire" status not being the same as it was when I was young (thanks inflation/money printing! #BitcoinSolvesThis ), or whether it is testament to our concerted saving and investing over the past few years, probably a mix of both. Either way I'm extremely proud of what me and wife have achieved, and...
6 comments
Read more

FIRE Bridge Calculator

The 4% rule is all well and good, but I've never really got to grips with this as a tangible model for calculating FIRE mainly because of the complications when working out the restrictions on when you can access the pots at different ages (predominantly pensions). Instead I prefer to break down FIRE strategy and planning into two distinct sections: Pension provisions . Including overall pot, what this might work out to be in retirement, and what age you can access. Bridge Pot . This will get you from your FIRE age to your above Pension pot access (above) In the past I've developed a pension calculator for the former , and here is my calculator for the latter aspect. What I've developed here is an Excel sheet which works out what you need between your desired FIRE age and your pension pot access age, aka your "FIRE Bridge pot". This has helped me to visualise when I could 'push the button' on FIRE, how much I could live off in the 'Bridge years' an...
3 comments
Read more