My objectives for 2017

Hello everybody,

As discussed in my previous article, it's now time to share my objectives for 2017!

You may know that I am an avid reader of investment blogs and publications. It is a healthy habit to compare ourselves every now and then to other bloggers who are too racing towards their financial independence.
Something I noticed in the way my peers set their annual objectives, is that they tend to include a mix of goals ranging from personal growth to travel and life experiences and, of course, financial achievements.

At the end of the day, life's purpose is to grow as individuals, learn new things (often from those who are better than us), enjoy new experiences and widen our minds. At least, this is my vision of life's purpose.

With this approach in mind, I decided to consider adding some personal growth objectives to my 2017 goals - despite the fact that I still consider this blog as a pure financial journal.

Enough introduction, let's take a look at the new goals!

2017 objectives

I see my 2017 as a continuation of 2016. As you may have read in my blog, my 2016 ended pretty well, smashing all my objectives (some of which had already been revised upwards mid-year).
For this reason, many objectives are an updated version of previous goals. However, I hope you'll agree with me that the contents of these revised targets are still ambitious to achieve.

1. Achieve $2250 in projected passive income (this is calculated over the following 12 months period).
   This is up from $1,500 in 2016. I think I could have been more ambitious with this one last year, but I would consider myself lucky I was able to hit the number in 2017 given the recent uncertainty affecting the markets and the late euphoria which caused market overvaluation. Also, in 2016 I took the hit with my Santander current account. In fact, Santander cut its interest rate paid to current account from 3% to 1.5%, therefore greatly reducing my income from this source. I was projecting to get to the end of 2016 with circa £600 in passive interest, whereas I am now facing about £240 of max passive interest when considering also the increased fee for the product. #reallydisappointedwithSantander for ruining my plans.
   
   
2. Increase my Net Worth by 70% over my 2016 result.
   This target would take me to a Net Worth of £90,000 by the end of the year! This is one of my most impressive targets I think. Who would have thought that in just a few year I'd come this close to be worth 100K?
   2017 may be the big one.
   
   
3. Save in excess of £6,500 each quarter.
   As my goal of £2,500 per quarter was achieved with success in 2016, I have decided to up my game this year. I think this goal is now very difficult, but if you know me a little bit you'll understand that I like challenges.
   
   As a partial addition to number 3., I have also added the objective to save over £26,000 over the course of the next 12 months. This is simply the sum of the 4 quarters as per point 3, however I understand that throughout the year I may not be in condition to achieve the quarterly task, but still overachieve the overall target for the year thanks to better performance in other quarters. In such condition, I would consider the objective achieved.
   
   
4. Collect £750 in net dividends.
   This is a new goal. In 2016 I collected £400 net from dividends paid to my account. Not bad, but now I really want to see some progress in this area.
   
   
5. Get a bit more serious about blogging.
   This blog started with no ambitions. I still want it to be my space to talk about my personal finances and offer to other people my honest view. I would like it to become a space where readers have an opportunity to understand my point of view, to track their personal progress against mine and maybe get new ideas or inspirations about investing.
   I really believe that investing your money will be the greatest decision you will ever make, and I want to offer my example for those willing to start. Also, I am upping my game on the other objectives, so it only makes sense to spend some more time taking care of the blog and refining my thoughts over new investment ideas and analysing upcoming opportunities.
   
   
6. Learn something new an get some qualification to add to my cv. Lately I have developed few interests, like learning to code, learning a new language or learning to trade options/active trading.
   I haven't really decided yet what I want to pursue exactly, but rest assured you'll be the first to know!
   
   
7. Keep diversifying my investment portfolio. In 2016 I started the diversification process by picking new stocks covering different industries and business catgories. I am now in posession of a decently diversified stocks portfolio which should be able to maintain its value during bearish market conditions. This is what I hope at least!
   But now I think it's time to start investing/allocating my financial resources onto other channels. The first that came up to mind is gold. In moments of political and financial turmoil, Gold is considered a stable asset class. It generally appreciates during tough times, and my forecast for the next 12-24 months is that gold should outperform the main stock market indexes.
   Keep an eye on this space as I have got few good ideas to implement over the course of the next couple of months. 

This is it for the moment.

2017 will be a great year for investors and I can't wait to start working on my new objectives!

Good luck to everybody.

Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

2017

It has been a while since my last post.
What can I say, I got a bit busy during the second half of the year... sorry!

First of all let me thank @Liquid Independence as he posted a nice comment reminding me that I have I job to do here, that is to keep my readers updated :-) Thanks Liquid, you rock man!

So, the new year is the perfect excuse to take a look at 2016 and draw some conclusions.
2016 has been a great year professionally. The new job brought some refreshed ambition and higher pay! With the increased earnings I have been able to boost my savings, investments and ideas.
The the money starts flowing, you have a chance to become creative.

Let's start from my 2016 objectives. I could not be more excited to say that I smashed them!
I thought that some of them were really tough, but it looks like I am a good climber.

My 2016 objectives were:

• Generate $1500 in passive income (projected over 12 months)
• Increase my net worth by over 100%
• Save in excess of £2,500 each and every quarter of 2016
• Save more than £25,000 in calendar year 2016

On 31st Dec 2016 my end of year snapshot was:

• $1517 in projected passive income over then next 12 month period
• My net worth at the end of the year was £52,035 (which represents a +107% increase year on year)
• I have consistently managed to beat my saving target for the four quarters
• I saved a total of £26,892, part of which was invested

I feel very proud for the progress made during the last 12 months.

To help me achieve my passive income goal, I purchased the following stocks over the second half of 2016:

x15 Johnson&Johnson (JNJ) @ $117.20

x30 Verizon (VZ) @ $50.00

x35 AT&T (T) @ $36.50

x35 Unilever (LON:ULVR) @ GBX3200

x10 iShares J.P. Morgan $ Emerging Markets Bond ETF (LON:SEMB) @ GBX8650

I am very excited for some of the names above, as I think they really are quality stocks that any dividend investor should own.

Last but not least I am working on the 2017 objectives. I will soon publish a new post to introduce them.

As always, thanks for reading.
Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

July 2016 Dividends

The month of July has now ended and I am taking the opportunity to write a quick review of the performance achieved.

As anticipated in June, July has been my best month to date and I am quite proud to show my results.

During July I received the following dividends:

Porsche PAH3 05/07/2016 £18.70
Coca Cola KO 12/07/2016 £9.16
New York Mortgage Trust NYMT 27/07/2016 £31.10

This brings the total dividends for the month to £58.96!. These values are of course after tax.

The 2016 performance YTD is as follows:

As you can see July is my best month to date by a wide margin, I could not be more satisfied of my overall performance! Obviously I will try to keep the trend going and try to beat the new record.

Lastly, let's take a look at the cumulative performance for the whole year.

Not bad at all, my snowball is gaining good momentum!

This is it for the moment, thanks for reading.
Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

First Half Year financial review (HY16)

Welcome to my H1 2016 review.
The first half of the year has gone and it is now time to review the performance of my net worth and holdings for the first 6 months of 2016.


Dividends received to date

How am I doing financially?

Sometimes I find myself reviewing my objectives and achievements. When it happens, I think it can be difficult to determine a proper benchmark to use as a term of comparison, to understand if my performance is either good or bad for example.

In this article I will try to address this issue and offer several methodologies which may help answering the critical question: how I am doing financially?

GDP per capita (2016)

First, let me offer a look at the world's GDP per capita chart.

GDP per capita in the World (2016 data)

As you may know from my 'About' page, I currently live in the UK.
The GDP per capita in this country is $42,105 for 2016.
Also, let's have a look at the evolution of GDP per capita in the UK over time:

New 2016 Objectives: June review

As anticipated in my previous post, I have decided to review my 2016 objectives.

This is because two of my original annual objectives have already been achieved!

For this reason, my revised objectives are:

Welcome to the Club

The idea of writing my own blog has been growing in my head for a long time, and now that it's a reality I'm so keen to start that I was almost tempted to skip the introduction and go straight to the point, as if the reader joined the club in the middle of a discussion. But one shouldn't start a conversation with someone new without introducing oneself first. At least, a gentleman wouldn't do that.

I entered the world of the investors about a couple of years ago, but I've been doing my research for a long time before then, and I felt that I needed to grow my experience for some time before I could start sharing publicly my investing objectives, targets and aspirations in a personal blog. Now I believe it is the right moment to start.

When my interest in the investing world started to grow, I used the best source of information I had at hand: the internet. I was sure I would have found everything I needed there, as always.
However, I've been surprised by how much rubbish there is on the subject. I was looking for some articles where people just shared their experience, but most of the time I ended up frustrated to find piles of websites which irresponsibly tried to sell premium services in a sly, annoying way.

I don't know about you, but I am really tired of getting redirected on The Motley Fool, Morningstar, Guru Focus and Dividend.com (and many more websites) only to find out that in order to read the rest of the article you have to pay a subscription service.
Ok, I may be exaggerating a bit, but I really think it's not fair to manipulate people to try to sell them a $500+ annual subscription for some information which they could find themselves on the 'free side' of the internet. I find it unprofessional and unfair...I hate it!

So, we end up here and now. This space is like I am sitting in a Gentlemen's Club where I can share my own story with the other members.
It works for me, because public commitment is a powerful tool, and sharing my personal aspirations and goals will generate a stronger drive. At the same time, this website could provide some honest and unbiased examples to anyone interested in starting to invest their money. I am not selling anything to anyone, this is more like my 'investing journal' where I can write down the progress made and review my own objectives regularly.

If you've read my lengthy article until here, I like you already. The next one will be all about the exciting stuff...the numbers! I will provide a review of my 2016 objectives as of end of May.

Oh, you may have noticed that my introduction was a bit peculiar. The first thing that you say, usually, is your name. But if you don't mind I will skip that part, at least for now. For the moment, you'll have to settle with my alias.

Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

Welcome

Welcome to this space, my brand new blog where I will be sharing my personal experience in terms of investing.

The aim of the blog is to publicly share my goals, motivations, decisions and achievements.

By doing this, not only I hope to create a stronger sense of commitment and discipline in my investing activity, but it may prove useful to 'wanna-be' investors who may need some ideas to get started.