It’s the first day of work after the bank holiday so time for my monthly networth update. I’m gonna try splitting things up a bit more going forward to add a bit more depth into my figures and what’s been going on the past month.

Work

The excitement in work this month was having to spend a long weekend up in Scarborough to do an IT rollout. While I didn’t particularly enjoy the 4 hour drive up there (7 hours back!) it was nice to get out of the office and see some of the country. Being from the busy South-East, it always surprises me a bit when I leave this area and drive through some of the open countryside further north. We drove down some very quiet roads with miles and miles of hills in every direction dotted with just a few farm houses. I couldn’t resist looking up on Rightmove some of the villages we drove through and compared the beautiful 4-bedroom detached houses to the tiny run down flat you’d get here for the same price. It makes me wonder if one day it would be worth selling up and retiring up north.. even now we could buy a decent house without any mortgage up there.

Back in the office and things have returned to their normal clockwork operations, each day ticks past with increasing frequency and nothing to really show for it. I had a small awakening when it dawned on me a couple of weeks ago that the spreadsheet I’d been working on all week was almost certainly only going to ever be seen by myself. It was quite possibly work created for the sake of work. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike my job at all. I like the people, the office, the company and the location.. but it just doesn’t feel very meaningful. The work I do today will be entirely forgotton within a few months as the IT systems change and improve.

 

Life

While up in Scarborough I went on my first 5k run of the year. The nearby Parkun to me has moved to a temporary location over the winter which means I can’t get to it until they move back again soon. So instead I thought I’d take the opportunity for an easy flat jog along the seafront on this crisp Saturday morning. Christ what a mistake. I rounded the first corner and looked up horrified as the previously flat footpath shot vertically up a nearby cliffedge. Being the idiot that I am and too embarrassed to turn around only 3 minutes into the 5k I decided to power on up the hill and endured the pain which would continue for days afterwards.

 

I had a long chat with my friend Huw from Financially Free by 40. It was great to catch up with him and hear about how things are going over in FI land, we talked alot about finances and side hustles. I continue to be in awe of Huw’s energy and passion for the projects he works on and the lifestyle he leads. i know his Kindle course is going to be awesome when it gets finished and he can finally have a much needed break!

Finally, I spent several evenings this past month in various local organisation meetings. I’ve been a local parish councillor for a few years now but I’ve also recently joined the local volunteer group who organise various fundraising events in our village and the local neighbourhood plan committee who are putting together our NDP. All of these take up a couple of evenings every other week but I’m proud to be a part of them and work on improving the local community.

Money

Now that my taxes are all sorted and our mortgage overpayments maxed out for the year I decided to plough as much cash as possible into the newly opened Vanguard ISA investing in their Lifestrategy 80 fund. Ironically despite being an early retirement blog, I’ve really neglected those investments which will allow it for too long now. With the added income from my affiliate business and matched betting I should now be able to max out the ISA allowance each year with a view to hitting 250k invested in the ISA by 40. This would then cover my living expenses of about £10k per year if I wanted to retire at that point.

Saddened but not shocked would be my view on the recent cryptocurrency crash. I’ve always though it was an extremely risky investment and it seems now people are losing huge amounts of money in the near-constant tumble this past month. Personally my losses are only a tiny fraction of overall worth however I do feel for those who were drawn in my all the media spin and peer-pressure online to ‘invest’ in cryptocurrancies with money they could not afford to lose.

Smarkets were finally kind enough to accept my affiliate application. They’re pretty strict on which sites they will allow and they require you to reach a certain audience & size before consideration. Thankfully the MatchedBettingGuy website has continued to grow and they accepted me last month. This is really good news as they not only pay for each signup but also pay a % of all commission earned from those accounts which is excellent. I use Smarkets for almost all of my matched betting anyway and so it’s great to be able to advertise their services as well.

Income/Networth

From Matched Betting I made £3,122.84 in March. I’ve spent alot of time working on the Matched Betting Guy website and the various affiliate schemes used to support it. As always I go into more detail of what bets I’ve done to make that profit on Matched Betting Guy Blog.

Affiliate income paid at the end of March was £345.31. This is all income from recommending the Matched Betting guide sites I use like Profit Accumulator.

 

On to the report:

Income

Salary: £2,320.70

Pension Contributions: £608.40

Matched Betting: £3,122.84

Affiliates: £345.31

Total: £6,397.25 (+11.1%)

Networth

House Equity: £87,806.74

Cash in bank: £5,746.88

Cash in betting accounts: £19,650.33

ISA Investments: £33,362.20

Other Investments: £1,795.29

Pension 1: £19,599.49

Pension 2: £11,625.81

Pension 3: £12,353.98

Total Networth: £191,940.72