However, I am back now and ready to get on with it again, there has been some impressive net worth gain and there will be plenty of discussion on mortgages and buying houses to add some value to the site. I am also looking at sharing the way I track all my finances to allow my net worth to grow at the best possible rate as well as where I am currently invested.

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I am going to separate my investing into two parts, aggressive investing and long term dividend investing. I have made some great short term growth in stocks like Rockhopper and Afren. This aggressive investing has increased the pot of money used to invest in these companies buy over 800%. Increasing this pot of gold to say £10-20k investments these sort of investments will easily yield over £50k each.

These sorts of opportunities don’t come along often and thus the other part of the investment scene will be dividend investing. Dividend investing will be buying shares in companies that provide superior dividend payments (50% higher that the FTSE all share average) meaning that there should be a good average return of between 4.5-7%, far superior than a savings account in todays current climate.

My money is in the process of being moved into an investment position and I will be covering every purchase I make as well as following up on its progress.

Also this year, I need to concentrate on keeping my spending in check and using my accounting software to keep track of it all. I was pretty slack in this in the later half of 2010, mainly mobile purchases in cash were screwing the way I was tracking it.

How will you be investing your money this year?

Many of us split our portfolio into percentages, 80% Stock, 20% Cash and Bonds for example. The thing is, over time this percentage will change with profits and losses. You may find that your stock is doing really well but your cash and bonds are not. This may make your portfolio 90% stock and 10% cash and bonds. Clearly this is not what you set out to achieve.

Therefore, inline with No Debt Plan, make August ‘rebalance your portfolio’ month. If your stock is doing better than the rest sell some and rebalance your portfolio. Don’t forget if it has been a while since you rebalanced your portfolio you may want to adjust your percentages inline with your current age and level of risk.

My ISA currently consists of monthly contributions into M&G Optimal Income Class X, Jupiter Corporate Bonds and HL Multi-Manager Inc & Growth Portfolio. This month I am dropping contributions to the Jupiter Corporate Bonds and adding two new funds. Welcome to Aberdeen Emerging Markets and the INSYNERGY Odey Fund.

Aberdeen Emerging Markets

I’m investing in this fund due to it’s exposure to emerging markets, funnily enough! I wanted more exposure to emerging Asia and South & Central America, this fund provides exactly that. In my opinion investing in UK and US markets is pretty futile and the future for larger gains is in the emerging and growing economies of developing countries. Everything from agriculture to medicines are rapidly developing in these countries and its a good time to cash in on it. The fund is predominately held in International Equities which is in my preference.

Aberdeen Emerging Markets - Global Allocation

Aberdeen Emerging Markets - Asset Allocation

INSYNERGY Odey Fund

Bought purely because of the man at the helm…. Crispin Odey. There is nothing more to say on this fund, it is mainly UK invested which goes against my plans but I’ll swallow that pill to have Crispin managing some of my money.

INSYNERGY Odey Fund Global Allocation

INSYNERGY Odey Fund Allocations

What are you guys investing in? and why?

Analysing both of these investments the assets are located in the following ways:

Asset Allocation Q1 2010

This chart shows the aggressive nature of my current portfolio, I am currently happy to take higher risks for potentially higher returns. At the moment, my strategy is to adjust this every 5 years to increase the proportion of cash/bonds & guilts. These two categories can be further split down into the following fund sector allocations:

Fund Sector Allocation Q1 2010

A lot of my portfolio is allocated to specialist sectors; including agriculture and Indian and Russian funds. Whist this is potentially a dangerous balance these three funds alone are currently providing me over £3000 of profit. Hopefully in the coming months I am going to add an emerging markets fund to this portfolio to increase the specialist allocation. The bond allocations provide a more secure income providing some diversification to the overall portfolio. Drilling down into these asset allocations we can see in the following chart even clearer how they are distributed:

X-ray Asset Allocation Q1 2010

They are distributed globally as follows:

Global Distribution Q1 2010

In 2010 I am going to try and increase my contributions in ‘emerging asia’. I am also going to invest heavily in oil & gas production in New Zealand due to some personal beliefs in this area.

Drilling down into which sectors are involved the following bar chart shows where my money is allocated:

Sector Share Q1 2010

Heatlh care, technology and oil & gas will be my main investments this year. Oil and gas due to it’s up and coming rebound and through the recent lack of exploration, this should take off towards Q3/Q4 of 2010. Technology as I think this year will be a big year of 3D TVs, Blu-Ray and new computing devices ad screens combined with a recovering economy this sector should drive well this year. Health care I believe is always a good investor, when a bio-technology firm strikes big they strike very big so some good choices in this sector could really help my portfolio.

So, this is a brief over view. I will update monthly with how it is doing and half yearly with the asset allocations. What do you think? How does this differ to your portfolio’s? What would you recommend I change if anything?

1. My original plans were to make as much money as possible so I could retire as early as possible – this typically means my work/life balance is work/work.
2. I realised, or more accurately confirmed I don’t like working for a big corporation…. or working for anyone but myself for that matter.
3. I no longer want to move anywhere in the world at a moments notice for an undefined amount of time and have a company tell me so.
4. In a big company your only as good as your last job.

1. Build up a second income stream alongside my main job. This will probably mean this and my other blog will get a lot of my attention to help drive traffic and advertising to build up income.
2. Consider buying a small house. I’m not sure about this one at all. It would essentially rob me of all my cash, however, a mortgage is likely to save me £200-£300 a month on my current rent and the cash isn’t lost…. I will see it again when I sell it or rent the house out.
3. Finish my outstanding PhD.
4. Keep my financial goals set on being a millionaire by being frugal, saving, living with less and hopefully winning the lottery
5. Get all my possessions together from the two locations they are in and sell sell sell. To make money out of my goods but to also eliminate all the clutter.
6. Clear out all my massive online storage and disk systems of all the crap I have accumulated over the years.
7. When I have days off (Weekends etc) I actually need to do something/go and see things instead of sitting in. I think I will invest in some walking books and a rucksack and start to go walking when the snow has disappeared. Or get back into mountain biking.
8. Consider riding into work some days on a bike to get exercise and to reduce fuel costs.
9. Take up running to reduce my stress levels.
10. Try and live more frugally and track my spending more carefully as I started in the last month of December. More on this to follow in my next post.

As you can see there are quite a few things I am looking at doing. Hopefully these will all help me meet my goals of being free at 45

This allows me to skip the adverts and I no longer sit there watching crappy TV in between my main programs making me more productive. As an added bonus I realised that this also saves me money as I no longer have the TV on the second I walk through my door.

Double bonus! What do you do to save energy?

Over the last 3 weeks whilst getting back into driving I have been implementing fuel saving tips and changing my style of driving to improve my miles per gallon (MPG). Here are a few simple tips that will allow you to save money:

1. Don’t Idle, you get 0 MPG by idling.
2. Don’t drive aggressively, there is no need to accelerate rapidly. This can decrease your fuel efficiency by 33%. In town driving it can be 5%.
3. Don’t drive above 60MPH, efficiency decreases rapidly above 60.
4. Empty you car. Excess weight needs fuel to move it.
5. Keep the aerodynamics clear. Keep windows up, and store things like bikes and luggage in the car not on it.
6. Don’t use cruise control. It is not as efficient as a human at regulating a constant speed when inclines change.
7. Keep your tyres at the correct pressure. Doing so will increase your fuel efficiency by up to 3%.
8. Replace your air filters to increase efficiency by up to 10%.
9. Drive proactively. Watch what is happening ahead of you, if you see traffic lights are red then take your foot off the gas long in advance so that you don’t need to stop at the lights. This not only saves you fuel in the drive up to the lights but also saves you fuel when accelerating again when the lights change.

I’ll be starting the posts of all the steps I am taking on the way, whether its money saving, money making or budgeting.

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