Monthly updates

Monthly Update #46 (June 2022) – Cash is King

8 min read

Another month – another update from yours truly!

It’s summer holidays, and thus I’ve spent quite some time in the proverbial hammock, as is the norm 😉

I’ve thus not had a lot of time (read: I’ve honestly just tried to forget the past couple of months – from a financial perspective at least) to blog.

But these updates are important to me, as I feel like it keeps the FIRE going (get it?! 😛 ) so I’m doing my best to continue to write them!

The month in review

At this point it should come to no-ones surprise that it seems I’ve managed to lose another couple of hundred € on a failed (Crypto) adventure. I shall spare you the details, but it seems the crypto lending platform Celsius got them selves into trouble by speculating in LUNA. And remember what happened to LUNA?

That’s right. It pretty much vanished over night. As a result (this is not the official reason though – but I believe it was the finale nail in their coffin) they’ve filed for a Chapter-11 bankruptcy. The platform is still up though, so I have slither of hope that at least a few of my €/$ will be recovered. As of June 2022 my main holdings on Celsius was (is) about €500 worth of ETH. I will be sad to see it go (if it does, which seems highly likely at this point), but on the other hand I will not be losing much sleep over it. It was a(nother) gamble that did not pay off.

Meanwhile my other Crypto lending platform (Nexo) seem to still be going strong (I hope I’m not jinxing it by saying this 😛 ), so I am at least satisfied that I chose Nexo for my main holdings and not Celsius.

However, I have been getting the feeling lately with all the general market turmoil (crypto, stocks, hiking interest rates and runaway inflation) that cash might not be that bad after all. So I will be looking to bolster my pockets with good old fashioned CASH for the next couple of months/years. I’ve been spending a little too much time on endeavors that has not brought me ANY closer to my targets as of late, so I’m trying to refocus and regroup. My number #1 target IS still – and always has been – to land another property. It seems I will need to find those ~€100,000 to land a proper(ty) deal, so that will be my main goal for the coming years. No more messing about! Eye on the ball, Nick!

On another more positive note though: I’ve made some money this month!

I had invested about €14,000 with The Many (formerly known as “Brickshare”), and after they sold all their properties all investors were cashed out. The deal finalized in June and I received a nice payout of around €15,333 (a total return of around 8.5% – after tax). It’s been a couple of years since I first invested with The Many, and while I’ve often complained about their lack of communication and transparency, I don’t think I can really complain about the outcome.

I would have preferred the money to stay invested though, as the properties were yielding a pretty good dividend. Now that I’ve been cashed out I already feel the money burning in my pocket! Given the current market situation, I don’t think I should be complaining though 🙂

The Many now only has so-called “closed funds”, which means that there is no longer an early-exit option from their projects. I’m not crazy about leaving my money with The Many for up to 10 years, although I do believe their projects are still fairly well structured and interesting. For now I have left The Many completely, and I’m not sure that I’m going to return. Never say never though, right? 😉

Despite this inflow of cash, it was not enough to keep my Total Balance in the green! Another month of horrible market conditions. Hopefully July will see some of it return, cause I’m getting sick and tired of reporting red numbers! HAHA

On a completely different note: My mother turned 60 in June, and had invited the whole family to Spain for a week! So we went on vacation outside of Denmark for the first time in 2 years. That was pretty exciting (especially since it was free! 😛 ). It was a little too hot for my taste, but looking back it was a great getaway for all of us. It seems the days of the lockdowns are getting further and further away, and life is now truly starting to go back to normal (Not counting the insane levels of inflation! HAHA! Lets not open that can of worms now!).

 

The pwetty graphs

This is only the 2nd month in history of this blog where I have to report a negative growth in the Total Balance. It sucks! But I know that the money that has been “lost” over the last couple of months will eventually return 🙂 (I had to wait 3 weeks to write this update before my mind was ready to accept this HAHA!).

Anyway, when I began this blog I had €53,000 in cash and I eventually sunk it all into Property #1. I remember how hard it was to just sit and WAIT for the right opportunity with the money burning a hole in my pocket. I think it might be a tad easier the 2nd time around – but it seems my mentality around this can shift from day-2-day haha. Last week I spent CAR hunting (our family car is aging, and it needs some repairs – so naturally I instantly go car hunting). I think I’ve cooled off now though, so I will keep the old beast alive for another year or two (at least until we land the next big property! – Maybe…I think! HAHA).

 

The boring income statement

Platform Invested Transactions Last month Current value Monthly income
Commodities
GOLD (Coins) € 5,333 € 0 € 6,000 € 6,000
€ 6,000 € 6,000
Stocks (Dividend portfolio)
Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) € 1,000 € 0 € 1,582 € 1,398 € 0
Granite REIT (GRT.UN) € 1,859 € 0 € 3,361 € 2,938 € 4
PROREIT (PRV.UN) € 2,018 € 0 € 4,762 € 4,140 € 19
Toronto Dominion Bank € 1,000 € 0 € 1,213 € 1,068 € 0
TransAlta Renewables (RNW) € 2,000 € 0 € 2,572 € 2,461 € 8
True North Commercial REIT (TNT-UN-T)* € 3,552 € 0 € 3,631 € 3,459 € 20
€ 17,121 € 15,464 € 51
Stocks (Indices)
iShares Global Clean Energy (IQQH) € 6,667 € 7,039 € 7,024 € 0
iShares MSCI World Min Volatility (IQQ0) € 4,417 € 5,234 € 5,185 € 0
Xtrackers MSCI World ESG (XZW0) € 2,721 € 2,459 € 2,339 € 0
€ 14,732 € 14,548 € 0
Properties
The-Many (Brickshare) € 0 -€ 14,687 € 14,687 € 0 € 646
Property #1 € 68,667 € 0 € 68,667 € 68,667 € 0
€ 83,354 € 68,667 € 646
Crypto
Celsius (ADA, BTC, DOT, ETH, MATIC)* € 0 € 588 € 426 € 0
Binance (ATOM, FTM, LUNA, ONE) € 0 € 72 € 50 € 0
Nexo (BTC, ETH, MATIC, EURx) € 0 € 4,875 € 4,603 € 25
€ 5,535 € 5,079 € 25
Cash
Bank #1 cash (main savings) € 800 € 2,400 € 3,200
Bank #2 Opportunity money € 15,333 € 0 € 15,333
Broker account (CAD, EUR, DKK) € 51 € 158 € 209
€ 2,558 € 18,742
Total balance € 129,300 € 128,500

Despite an influx of cash from The Many selloff and my savings of €800 (it’s summer – we always spend a little extra during the summer holidays) and a little passive income, it was not enough to prevent my Total Balance from moving south. Better luck next month, Nick!

My stock holdings have taken a pretty massive beating for the last couple of months, and Crypto has only added even more fuel to the fire (no pun intended!). At least it looks like July is going to be a bit better on this front! (if we don’t count a potential Celsius write-off!).

The only thing positive I can say for this month, is that USD is now almost on par with the EUR. This is crazy! I don’t remember ever seeing USD:EUR being 1:1, but it’s pretty darn close right now. I’m not sure this is to my advantage (long term) though, as this is typically bad news for Europe overall.

 

The Classic growth charts

As always, I include the classic growth charts for tracking purpose.

For the first time in a very long time, we’re now pretty cash heavy. Historically that has been difficult to me, as there is a psychological aspect to having cash that I sometimes struggle with. One part is the opportunity cost of not having it invested, the other is the simple “I have money – then I must spend it”-mode that I’ve often found myself in in the past. It must be something that’s deeply rooted in our societal education. Everywhere we look there’s ads and commercials that urge us to spend our money. The only way I’ve found to combat this, is to simply “hide” the money from myself. So I don’t have it in my normal bank account, I currently have the majority with my broker. Which is also not great, because here I also find myself inclined to spend them! Albeit this would be on stocks or ETFs, so I would be buying future income 😉

However, I’m waiting on the perfect property deal to present itself, so until then I (we) will be very cash heavy. I can live with that for now 🙂

 

In conclusion (TL;DR)

I finally received a nice payout from The Many, and I’m now pretty cash heavy!

Celsius announced that they’ve filed for a chapter-11, so I’m mentally preparing myself for another write-off here (about €500).

The markets have not been kind to us this June. We cross our fingers that July will be a bit more gentle, as the last couple of months has been rough on our finances 😉

That’s it for now! I hope to “see” you again next month! 🙂

Cheers!

11 thoughts on “Monthly Update #46 (June 2022) – Cash is King

  1. Indeed, I wouldn’t complain for a EUR15k after tax as well. Pretty good timing I would say – better to invest those than getting dividends in my opinion.

    Btw, which gold coins do you own? I’m also into that.

    1. I bought a Krugerrand, an Austrian philharmonic, a Canadian Maple Leaf and the Australian Kangaroo. I feel like I’m missing the American Eagle in my collection, but they are a tad more expensive than the actual gold value, so I’m planning to add it to my collection if Gold ever tumbles below $1000 again 🙂

      I didn’t figure you for the gold coin type of guy Haha! What are you holding?

      1. Of course I love it. You know my passion for limited supply assets. 🙂 And strongly prefer the actual thing rather than contracts of ownership.

        I’m also going for the 1oz classics, so a similar collection to yours.

        Avoiding fancier variations with higher premiums. And also, avoiding those that cost the same for 91% gold, although also part of the classics (American Eagle).

        PS That’s quite an interesting price you’re mentioning. Do you think rate hiking will make the USD so strong that we reach $1000/oz ever? Or it’s just your arbitrary “entry price” for high-premium coins?

        1. I bought the ones that I have now around $1450 if I remember correctly. $1000 is just an arbitrary price yea – I doubt it will ever reach those levels again, but of course it will depend on the EUR exchange rate. I’d the USD return to former levels (which I am expecting eventually) and the gold price returns to $1200-$1400 I might buy another couple of coins.
          Do you add new ones regularly, and do you have a favorite one then?
          I like the Krugerrand, because I remember them from the movie “Lethal Weapon” from the ‘80s 😛

  2. Thanks for the update. I can’t believe you are still staying with Nexo, how many of these peer-to-peer lending/crypto ponzi schemes is it going to take to make you stop? Anyways it’s a least fun to hear of the adventures of a more “risk seeking” investor :). I also have spend some time car hunting the last few weeks but it just seems like a terrible time to buy something. We have to hand back the zoe next June so I have to come up with something eventually unfortunately. Will be fun to hear what you land on for your cash but if you put it in some new 10% APY risk free peer to peer lending platform I think I might have a seizure.

    1. Haha! Thanks 😉

      Sometimes I can’t believe it myself either. I cant be sure ofc, but I’m actually fairly sure that Nexo is not a ponzi – but don’t quote me on it! 😛

      Anyway, €5000+\- in “adventurous” platforms is obviously not going to make or break my FIRE journey, so you’ll be happy to know that I do not have plans to play more on those horses 😛
      I will now focus on good ol’ cash for the next down payment on some sort of property.

      We’ve been looking at vacation homes, but such an Endeavour will provide more personal pleasure/gains than Financial gains, I’m sure…

      1. Nowadays, rarely which large platform is an actual ponzi scheme. So that’s not what you should fear.

        They’re just taking more risk to give you that APY (which is low anyway). And once their risk doesn’t pay off, they go legally bankrupt and users lose money.

        You can have an “adventurous” experience by yourself in DeFi, while keeping custody of your assets.

        1. They offer 12% return with no explanation as to how. It’s either a ponzi or extremely risky, probably both. In either case you can be sure the end user will be left holding the bag.

    2. About the cars! Our lease is up in September next year – so do let me know what you decide! I’ve been pretty close to signing a deal on the new Megane E Tech (350.000kr) since delivery is not expected until May. I’m so distraught about this whole used car situation. At this point I think (still) buying a new EV can be a good investment, as I don’t see the supply issues being solved anytime soon – unless there’s a deep global recession of course…which also seems to be a likely scenario! Haha
      How did it come to this!?

      1. I also think the new Renault looks pretty much perfect, but we just don’t drive enough to justify the cost with our income. We only do ~5000 km a year. I have decided to wait until January and hope the situation improves a bit. Hope to spend around 200k and get something that will last us a 5+ years.

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