About two weeks ago I began getting notifications from my hosting provider;

It’s time to renew your hosting plan!

When this happens, I know that I’ve managed to clear another year of blogging!

Putting that in perspective, I can compare it to finishing my bachelor’s degree in engineering. That also took me 4 years (give or take), and those were some of the hardest years of my life. I struggled a lot with especially the digital signal processing subject (not my cup of tea). I was close to throwing the proverbial towel in the ring more than once.

But I persevered, and I’m glad I did.

What happened in Year 4?

It’s a bit of a blur at this point to be honest – HA! As always, I’ve had to go back and read some of my previous posts to get a clear idea of what actually happened in year 4 of my blogging “career”.

The most notable event that happened in year 4, was that I got a new job (thus a continuation of what happened in year 1 😛 ).

The 2nd most notable thing was the remortgage of our primary home. This was supposed to grant us a better cash flow to put towards investments, but because of the interest hikes and the energy crisis, the remortgage has added a limited amount of cash flow to put towards our Total Balance.  Due to the overall added cost of “living”, our savings have not been growing as much as I had hoped this year.

I also began another “adventure” with crypto lending platforms Celsius and Nexo. So far I’m 1/2 on those platforms, as Celsius has filed for a chapter-11 bankruptcy. We still don’t know what’s going to happen to our crypto that are stored with Celsius, but my guess is that we’re not going to see it again (you can still logon to your account and see “your” crypto balance, but you can’t make any exchanges or withdrawals). Since it’s not huge amounts (<€1000ish per platform) I’m not too stressed about it. Annoyed, yes.

As a result of the high market volatility that we’ve seen since the end of 2021 (and still going strong here in late 2022) I’ve started hoarding cash (again). I think the coming year could present exciting opportunities to put the cash stash to work (again)! We shall see what happens 😉

 

So, what have I learned so far?

Slow and steady wins the race?…I know it’s annoying, but there really is no magic shortcut to becoming financially independent. It’s a long marathon, and you are bound to experience ups and downs along the way.

This year has been a tough year. I’m finding it harder and harder to keep up with my monthly update, and I’ve not had the time or the stamina to post much more than the monthly updates. I’m hoping that my blogging momentum is eventually going to return – but if it doesn’t, so be it 🙂

I’m determined to make it to at least year 6, as this is when the first major payout from my Property #1 is expected (5-year flex mortgage is up for renewal).

I took my career to a new path with a younger company, and I think it has definitely paid off. Not in terms of income (I made more in my previous job), but I think one of the reasons why I can’t find time to blog as much as before, is because I actually enjoy my job these days. I’ve found the joy in IT work once again, and I hope I can keep the passion alive for years to come! So, I guess I’ve learned to listen a little more to my gut feeling. If you’re unhappy in your current employment – find new employment!

The Total Balance progress

It’s been a pretty rough year in terms of investment returns. After the first couple of years I’ve gotten used to growing my Total Balance with more than 20% per year (most still from savings).

Unfortunately, this trend was bound to be broken eventually. This year our Total Balance has only grown by about 10%.

The market was unkind to everyone this year, and our household was no different.

In the end Year 4 did not really pan out the way I (we) had hoped, but such is life. Maybe next year will be better?! 🙂

We certainly hope so!

The goals for Year 5

I have a pretty clear and simple goal for year 5:

To keep saving money, and hopefully eventually turn them into a down payment for Property #2 🙂

I have not had much success in reaching some of my previous goals, so this year I will simply strive to achieve that one simple goal! And even if I should fail (for whatever reason), as long as my Total Balance is bigger in 1 years’ time than today, then I’m not going to complain 🙂

So, you could say that my ultimate goal is (and always has been) to keep adding more €€€ to my Total Balance 🙂

(Also, next year I’d like to try and finish my birthday post a little earlier than this one… HA!)