December 2024 Update

I’ve just been back to the UK for Christmas for a week, catching up with friends and family. I’m now back and it’s time for the December and hence final net worth update of 2024. Before we get to that lets make some dead-certain 2025 predictions.

2025 Predictions

• no-one will know what is going to happen. Someone, somewhere will have already predicted something correctly, but it’ll be more luck than judgement. That won’t stop them milking it.
• the markets will go up and down
• I’ll keep buying assets (assuming I still have a job)
• the Donald will take charge of the USA
• wars might start or stop
• interest rates will change
• inflation will change

House of the Month

Occasionally I’ll go down a Rightmove rabbit hole and search out homes that I like the look of. This month, I found this beauty in Dorset. It’s located on a dead-end gravel road and has been very nicely improved. Asking price £500k.

Interesting Watching

I can’t remember exactly when, but I stumbled across the All-In Podcast. It must have been at least a couple of years ago. I used to listen on car journeys but I’ve now started watching it. The combination of characters complement each other well and it provides a look into a world that would otherwise be difficult to get a handle on.

https://www.youtube.com/@allin

Net Worth Comments

The stock market ‘dip’ I’ve been waiting for happened prior to Christmas and I took advantage and reduced my cash position by purchasing more of my favourite global stock market tracker fund. From memory, it was around a 2.5% drop.

Over the last year, my net worth has increased by 26%. This is equivalent to an increase of well over 3 times my pre-tax salary of a couple of years ago. I know it’s been a good year for assets, but wow. If you’d told me this could happen 15 years ago, I’d have never believed it. I’ll take this as reasonable evidence for the advantages of being brave (investing in the stock market & crypto), boring (a non-active investor) stubborn and consistent.

VWRL was down very slightly over the month, as was Bitcoin. Net worth rose ever so slightly. Cash position reduced as discussed.

I’ve updated the net-worth chart in two ways. I’ve increased by 4% target to account for inflation. I’ve also included ‘BHAG’s (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). This is a concept I first heard from, I think, a Knowledge Project Podcast episode, but I’ve had a look and can’t find it. It seems as though the term was initially introduced in a Jim Collins & Jerry Porras book, Build to Last. Anyway, the idea is you set yourself ambitious goals. The advantages of writing something down, reminding yourself of it and allowing yourself to think about it, I believe is significant.