Times have been pretty stormy in terms of my finances the past months. After listening (way too much) to the Dave Ramsey show and watching all the imaginable youtube videos i have decided to attack the biggest debt a person usually has in their life - mortgage. I know this might not be the wisest decision in the long run as the money could (potentially) earn much more than my measly 1.85% interest rate is managing to eat away from the other end but i found myself to be the kind of person who likes to have their fortress secured. This way of thinking has led to huge changes in my portfolio. Let's take a peek into what has happened.
Net worth is a measure of what i own minus what i owe. I want to start tracking mine, alongside with the composition of where my money is invested:
Total networth: 124 345.52 €
Real estate: 89 441.9 €
The biggest proportion of my wealth is invested in the apartment i bought myself in the summer of 2017. It was appraised at 114 000 € back then. I had quite a big downpayment and ended up taking out a 29 year loan of 74 000 € which i have taken as target to pay back. My current plan is to throw 1000 € at the remaining principal (currently 24 558.1 €) along with the monthly payment until it is paid off.
Pension: 13 315.1 €
Over time my pension fund has slowly grown into a decent sized chunk. It consists entirely of Estonian mandatory second pillar. Just some days ago i decided to move it from LHV XL fund to Tuleva due to the very important lower maintenance costs that will give me better returns in the long run. I am looking into how the Estonian voluntary third pillar funds are doing to see if the 20% tax return could be a useful feature to take advantage of.
Cash: 11 615.07 €
I used to have a huge cash reserve. The past few months i have used most of it to attack my mortgage since i felt i couldn't sleep well if i was to invest it in mutual funds or stocks instead. I have a separate account for rainy days which is still a healthy 10 000 €. I am considering halving it to 5 000 € but it is a process as i need to get used to the idea of not having that much liquid assets to use in case life hits me in the face. The rest of this money is my savings/every day money that i either use or invest if there is too much of it laying round.
Crowd funding: 4 868.36 €
Entirely invested in Mintos. At the moment my plan is to grow my contribution by 100 € every month. This is the investment that i still check out every day when i wake up to see the earned cents and euros getting bigger and bigger and keeping me motivated.
Stocks: 3 731.3 €
One of my first investments. Is pretty evenly split between Tallinna Kaubamaja (TKM1) and Tallinna Sadam (TSM1). I plan on keeping these two for a long time having them as my small dividend income providers. Not planning to purchase more single stocks in the nearest future.
Personal loans: 1 000 €
A loan that i might or might not get back. Will keep it in the portfolio until the end of 2020 before writing it off as a mistake.
Mutual funds: 373.79 €
Mutual funds: 373.79 €
In July i started contributing 400 € every month to mutual funds. I am using LHV kasvukonto to get a hang of it and will consider direct investing once i am done with my mortgage. In the first stage I invest 100% of it into EXSA.
MINTOS
Crowd funding is probably one of the more fun ways of investing as something is happening every day: new investments, new interest cents and euros. I started with this platform around a year ago and am pretty happy with the results. Current state of my portfolio there:
To sum up, my current plan is to throw 1000€ of my income at my mortgage principal, 400€ every month into mutual funds and 100€ into Mintos. The rest i will use for living and if there is anything left by the next payday, I will decide where to invest it. I am curious to listen to your thoughts about paying back mortgage early versus investing. What would you do in my situation if there is the potential to pay back mortgage by the age of 30 (i am currently 29)?
Thank you for taking the time for reading!
PS: This overview is still a work in progress as i want it to be as easy and as automated as possible to publish these overviews and i was not happy about how much time it took to put the overviews together before.
