5# My Monthly Financial Independence Update

The Quick Takeaways

This month savings rate: 55 %

This month leverage: 140 %

Rolling savings rate since February 2016: 55 %

Total value of portfolio: 590.000 DKK (90.000 $)

Years worth of annual expenses: 5.8

% Change since last month: 0 % 

So What The F*** Happen This Month

The stock market has not been friendly this december month (if you are selling). I’m still trying to fund 20 times my annual expenses, and this mean that a market drop is quiet lucrative for me. When the market is down, I’m able to buy more shares with the same amount of money.

Since last month I have gone absolutely nowhere. Except for having more leverage. As the avid reader might see, this is the first time ever I have leveraged more than 100 %. I have done that because I would like to end up the same place as last month. And not have a decline in my portfolio. This is a strategy slightly inspired by Dollar-Value-Average. I could write an entire blog post about that strategy, so you will get a brief one now.

Dollar Value Average

Dollar-Value-Average is where we decide what amount our portfolio is going to rise + interest, and then we need to hit that target every month. For simplicity, let’s just say that we would like to raise our portfolio with 100 $/month. Then the following months would look like this:

1. = 100 $
2. = 200 $
3. = 300 $
4. .. And so on

If the market goes up, and we have 120 $ at the start of the second month, we will only invest 80 $, because we would like to hit that target of 200 $. If the market is down at the start of the 3rd month, and we only have 180 $, we will then invest 120 $ to reach our 300 $ target.

That strategy is called Dollar-Value-Average. It is a simple method, of buying more when the market is down, and buying less when the market goes up.

And that is what I have done this month. I have leveraged more, in order to stay at the same level as last month.

2018 and my savings rate

This is how my year looked like according to my savings rate:

• January = 30 %
• February = 65 %
• March = 48 %
• April = 55 %
• May = 53 %
• June = 75 %
• July = 73 %
• September = 19%
• October = 51 %
• November = 67 %
• December = 55 %
• Average = 59 %

I had a higher savings rate in 2017 where I managed to save 62 %. So I’m not completely satisfied with “only” saving 59 % this year. In 2016 I didn’t have student loan payments, that could be the answer to a slightly lower savings rate.

My goal for 2019 will be to save above 66 %. It will be tough, but manageable.

Blog Post This Month

Here are the following post I managed to write this month:

Fire and Water

I Have a Dream!

Quit The Rate Race

A Wuss-Entrepreneur

How Did You Do?

Did you come one step closer to become financial independent? Let me hear about it in the comments!