This is my 51st portfolio update in the blog. It’s been over half a year since my last entry, so yeah, it was about time to write a new update!
I have to say, I’ve lost the habit of writing, and I am not clear on where I should start. Over the last few years, I wrote updates quarterly, and I felt that was enough for me to keep myself on track with my goals. It was also easy to remember the highlights of the last three months and document them quickly.
But this year, I am being a complete disaster on anything blog-related. Maybe a good way to start is by noting all the events that have brought me to this lack of documenting persistence.
Table of Contents
Why is documenting getting harder?
Firstly, I didn’t write my yearly habit/goal list in January. That was not helpful, as it essentially gave me zero motivation to follow through with consistent updates. January was a busy month, and I put most of my energy/efforts into my new job and self-employment job. Before the Christmas break, we were told that the workload for the first quarter would be high. Then I knew in February I would have my 6-month probationary period review, so I started the year full on. It worked well, and just before the review, I was handed the development of a new concept for a new tool. That gave me a good review, a pay rise, and a positive career development outlook within the company. That was all good news; however, the development process of that tool added a lot of pressure and stress on me to the point where it started impacting on my sleep. This added up to an increasing level of tiredness until May, when the design was completed. On top of that, I was also busy doing design work on the side, which meant working on weekends. The little time off I had would be spent with my wife, friends, or doing nothing computer-related.
I also switched off from social media almost entirely, which removed all my cue reminders. I just can’t be bothered about going to X and keep reading the same repetitive (sometimes misleading) content; it does not add value to me any more, so why spend time with it? Not only that, but I also have more time to spend on something else, and I am so chilled with my investments regardless of what the markets do. No news, noise hearing, or overreactions, just stick to my fully automated investing plan and forget about the rest. It is working like magic.
Now comes the saddest part: I entirely stopped reading my favourite bloggers and barely have any FI people around me. That is the bit I would like to change. I think I could change that by finally going to a FIRE meeting. Sadly, I am always busy with work or away with friends or camping or doing something. Maybe I’ll get a better chance next winter.
Tesla update
Despite the depreciation, we are greatly enjoying the purchase of the model 3. It’s run more than 14K miles so far and drives like the first day.
Since it is so cheap to run, I take and pick my wife from work, and save time and money on public transport. It cost 40p to take her to work, that is £8 of savings per journey. It also pushes me to wake up earlier and go to the gym before work.
The car is easy to drive. We went for a long weekend camping in Cornwall, that is a 6h drive from where we live. I would have normally felt very tired after a long drive, but I was just fine thanks to the autopilot.
We bought some Tesla accessories and camping equipment so we can enjoy camping with the car. We sleep in it on an inflatable mattress and get to watch the stars (if not cloudy) through the panoramic roof before going to sleep. The camp mode is also great, as it allows us to leave the climate on, power on the USBs and play media or games.
If we are lucky, we charge the battery for free in a camping hook-up during our stay.
And below is my favourite part of the Tesla app, £1048 saved in petrol in 9 months of driving! Money spent on maintenance is £0 for now.
Owning an EV also save us on electricity for home. In June, we only paid £53.66 in electricity for both home and EV charging. But as it was a good month for solar exports, we were paid £59.34, so we ended up with a surplus of £5.68.
Quick Recap of Half Year-2025 Numbers
- Net worth: €808,315 (+5.3%) – details HERE
- Portfolio value: €346,974 (+7.6%) – details HERE
- Savings Rate so far in 2025: 13.1%
Comments
Positive numbers once again. Net worth has surpassed the 800K mark in euros for the first time. How does that compare to my last net worth projection?
I am over one year ahead, so if things don’t change, I could possibly reach the target in 2028 or 2029 😀
Investment Portfolio Breakdown
This is how my investment portfolio breakdown looks this quarter:
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** 20 % discounted to estimate future withdrawal tax payments
For the most of it, performance is on its way up and continuing.
Dividend Portfolio
My dividend portfolio also continues thriving with minimal monitoring. Earlier I realized that Trading212 was charging me 30% withholding tax on US stocks since I moved all my stocks within a S&S ISA. That explained why my dividend income only seem to reduced despite having several dividend increases. I only had to refill the W-8BEN form again to sort it out and be charge 15% again. In June, I received the highest ever monthly dividend income of £178.59. I won’t be surpassing that until June 2026.
I’ve recently added dividend stocks to the roaster:
- Foresight Group Holding Limited (FSG), a worldwide infrastructure and private equity manager, with a nice +5% dividend yield, flawless balance sheet, with an expected double-digit future growth and good valuation. I own two shares at an average price of £3.9.
- Construcciones y Auxiliar the Ferrocarriles (CAF), a Spanish company that offers high speed trains, regional trains, commuter trains, metros, LRV’s and tram-trains, trams and light metros, locomotives, and buses to a few countries in Europe and internationally. It caught my eye, the low valuation, excellent balance sheet, good growth expectations and a dividend with 10 years CAGR of 6.3%. I bought 15 shares at €47.7 each. This makes the first and only Spanish company in my portfolio.
- Siemens (SIE), I bought a few more shares in April. I now own 4.62 shares paid at €182.07.
Funny fact, I am beating the US market by basically doing nothing. I’ve sold nothing lately and only added a few more purchases.
Here’s an overview of my monthly dividend income so far:
With this I complete my update. If time allows, my next update will be in October.
