January 2025 update

Finance update

Another good month in January. All asset classes up. In the months from September to the end of January it is up a total of £150k, although a few days into February has already knocked -£20k off that, so we'll see how we end up come the end of the tax year. On that, I've not done a 2024 summary post like a lot of other financial bloggers as all of my targets are aligned to the end of the financial year rather than calendar year, my ISA allowance and pension contributions mainly.

Breakdown for January:

ISA up £11k
Pension up £13k
GIA/easy access savings up £7k
Crypto up £12.5k
House price up £3k

Total: up £49k

My Crypto holdings have exploded in the past few months, doubling in price from September to January. I am still pound cost averaging into Bitcoin, Ethereum and Cardano £50 each a week and will continue to do this.

At the moment with my ISA filled and my pension target met for the year I have been ploughing the spare cash into easy access savings for approximately the past 3 months. This money has missed out on the Trump rally at Xmas but has been immune to the recent downturn in the markets given all the talk about tariffs. I will be deploying this spare cash once I know more in March, especially around a potential bonus at work. It will be used before the end of the tax year to alter my "adjusted net income", and what is left will be used on my ISA allowance for the next tax year.

2024/25 tax year:

Total change for the financial year is now a gain of £182k

Side hustle update:

I've received my switching incentive from Interactive Investor in January, as well as a few more referrals, so my 'side hustle' had its best month yet.

Non-Finance update

Books - Having increased my target for 2025 to 25 books I thought I better get a few under my belt! In January I read 'The Trial' by Franz Kafka and I also read "Adventures in Time: The First World War", a book aimed for kids but I decided to read in tandem with my son in case he had any questions. He seems to have grown out of the Horrible Histories series somewhat (there's only so many poo facts a 9 year old boy can take!). He said he wanted to not only know more facts, but more context, and this book certainly delivered on that front! It is over 400 pages long but he absolutely chewed through it, mainly because of how well written it is, telling the story of the conflict through a collection of shorter stories. It is littered with context and stories that bring it to life. As a history graduate I am also a bit ashamed to admit that I actually learnt a lot from this book as well! Notably about the conflicts away from the Western Front, both towards Russia and also in the Middle-East. If you've got a child who wants to learn more about a specific part of history then I would highly recommend checking out the Adventures in Time series. Heck, if you're an adult that wants to do that, I'd also recommend it!

Trips

Hull / Spurn Point - Immediately after Christmas I had a few days off work and took the kids over to Hull to stay the night. We stayed close to The Deep and just over the river from the Museum Quarter. The kids loved all of the museums and the trip seemed bigger than it actually was. I also took some advice from a good friend of mine - Ryan Gibson - who is also an advocate of the FIRE movement and blogs about work/lifestyle here and about cycling and trips out with small children here. Ryan said I should heard over to Spurn Point, and he has since posted a good writeup about Spurn Point here. The kids loved it and we spent all day there. This was just before we had the load of snow at the start of January so it was cold but blue skies. My littlest also managed to find a fossil and she was made up!
Me and the kids are also listening to The Lord of The Rings as well, and they are absolutely loving it! I thought it might be a bit heavy for them but the audiobook is so well done that they are gripped (even with the lesser/side quest chapters like The Old Forest and Tom Bombadil!). In our adventures out in the forest they pretended to be Hobbits and they were spotting trees with faces. Cutest thing ever!