Total Balance

Update #18 is about to go down, which means I’ve now been doing these for 18 months!

Of all the updates this has by far been my LEAST favorite one to do. But even though life has its ups and downs the show must go on 🙂

2019 ended on a high note for the average stock investor, while 2020 has revealed itself as a bit of a challenge (she’s been a bit of a bitch lately, hasn’t she?)!

Luckily for me, I’m not hugely invested in stocks (I do have stocks in my pension portfolio, but only about 30% of the portfolio).

Unluckily for me, I was “invested” in a couple of (what turned out to be) dodgy crowdlending platforms, and last month I wrote off my investments with Kuetzal. – This month the time has come to write off my Envestio portfolio…

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The first month of 2020 is already over, guys – and thank God for that.

January is usually my least favorite month of the year (long and cold), and this year was no exception. There’s really no easy way to say it! What a shitty month. Lets wrap this one up quickly, so we can get back to February and hopefully enjoy the arrival of an early spring this year (thank you, global warming).

As we all know December spelled trouble in Crowdlending land, with the fall of Kuetzal. Next in line was then Envestio. Two of my best performing platforms turned out to be dubious (as it seems). That kinda put a damper on everyone’s excitement for the new year. The fall of these two platforms basically saw all my crowdlending earnings from last year vanish over night. I guess there’s always a silver lining though; At least I don’t have to worry about paying the taxes on my crowdlending income for 2019 (HAHA – the joke is on you, IRS!)…

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It’s 2020 already! Happy New year, everybody!

Time flies, when you’re counting pennies! It’s 2019 no more, and this is thus the final Monthly Update of 2019!

The month of December saw no records broken (besides maybe the one for how much sugar one guy can eat within 1 month – yikes!)

Christmas was indeed long and expensive, in many ways. Anyway, January is here and it’s thus time to get back in the saddle! (Literally and figuratively speaking!).

Let’s look at some numbers from the final month of the decade – did I reach my goal or what!?

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It’s December already! And this means it’s time to look at some numbers from the great month of November!

This monthly update is a bit delayed, as I’ve been on “Pause” since the end of November, where we went on a holiday to Egypt (again!?) to catch some sun and some much needed Vitamin D. Since we returned from our holiday, I’ve been a bit busy at work, and the Christmas month is always a busy month, right?! So I haven’t really had the time to work on the blog.

Anyway, the good thing about passive investments, is that they continue to earn money, even though you’re on a pause 😛

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Here we go again! Another month blew by, and it’s thus time for another riveting financial update from yours truly!

It has been quite an eventful month!

I sold some stuff, bought some new shiny “stuff”, entered 3 new crowdlending platforms and exited 1 (actually planning to exit a few more). I also received my biggest payout to date, which I had been waiting for for an entire year! It feels good to harvest the first fruit from a seed that was planted more than 1 year ago!

I also teed up for another Brickshare investment, which I promised in last months update (see the project here). It didn’t quite make it onto the books this month though, as the payment hasn’t been processed yet (not sure what we are waiting for, but I will let you know, once I know more!).

Anyway, enough jibber-jabber – let’s get to it!

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Another month, another update from yours truly! 😉

I threw out a little teaser in my “One year later” post, and promised that a little excitement was on the horizon for the coming months. Well, the excitement is still in the making, so it won’t be until next months update that I can reveal, what I’ve been up to 😉

I will say this though; Brickshare announced a new project in September (in Vanløse), and they have another one on the ramp (Rødovre). I plan to invest in both. How, Nick?! You have no cash! Oh ye of little faith; where there is a will, there is a way – and I have a way 😉

Anyway that’s for next months update! Let’s have a look at what happened in the Total Balance household in September.

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Welcome to my Monthly update #12. The 1-year anniversary month of the Total Balance blog has arrived!

I wrote my first post on totalbalance.blog on the 25th of September 2018! So, I will save the birthday celebrations for another 25 days (give or take). This is a monthly update, so let’s focus on the month of August, for now? 😉

Astute followers will probably have noticed that it’s been a while since my monthly update has included an updated LEGO-model of my Total Balance progress (which I started a while back). The reason for this is quite simple: I ran out of bricks…In the search for 2nd hand bricks I realized that LEGO’s aren’t cheap! Spending €20-€30/month on bricks, JUST to model my progress, would kind of undermine my current measly crowdlending income, of around €100/month. And since my (not so) trustworthy mascot, Russel the LEGO guy has gone AWOL anyway (my daughter magically made him disappear), I figured it might be time to lay off the LEGO’s for a while.

And thus, a new era of the Monthly updates can commence! 😀

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Another month has blown by, and it’s thus time for another riveting update from yours truly.

My trusty mascot, Russel the LEGO guy has unfortunately gone AWOL. My daughter claims she doesn’t know anything about it, but it’s quite obvious who’s to blame for his vanishing (unless CatZilla ate him…)!
Anyway, I’ve brought on his substitute, Olaf instead! (Who’s naturally taking the opportunity to do a bit of sunbathing!)

To no fault of Olafs, it’s been a pretty poor month, both in terms of savings and crowdlending income. Since I’ve been diversifying out of Envestio (my best earner to date), the days of €100 interest months seem to have vanished along with Russel. – But, as always – I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve 😉 Let’s see how this month turned out!

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June has flown by, and it’s thus time to look back at another record-breaking month. – Not in terms of my finances though, but the heat is breaking all sorts of records, frying the Europeans to a crisp these days!

It’s been so hot (even in Denmark) that my faithful buddy, Russel the LEGO mascot, has moved out of his green garden, and into the Frozen castle! (I cannot take credit for this – it was my daughters idea…).

Something pretty significant did actually happen in the Total Balance household this month (besides the scorching heat), as I had to “rob” the bank to pay for the final part of the Property #1 deal…

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Another month in the Total Balance household has flown by!

As per the standard; it’s thus time for another riveting update, on my quest towards Financial Independence.

I’m joined today by my trustworthy friend, Russel the Total Balance mascot, who in the spirit of this months headline is Taking the plunge (into a pool! – Of Money!). I apologize for the poor picture quality, but I was in a hurry – and 2 seconds after this picture was taken, Catzilla dropped by and destroyed the whole scene – so a re-take was rendered mute! HAHA!

Anyway, Catzilla and Russels shenanigans a side, this month was a pretty eventful month – so let’s get to it, shall we?!

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