Reading Time: 3 Minutes “Hey let’s have pasta tonight?” “Sure”. And so off I went, like any good husband. In search of pasta. Lo and behold the sight that befell me at the shops: CLEANED OUT. Goodness, what is going on you ask? It’s because we are in PANIC MODE people. Coronavirus fever has well and truly hit. Now, I posted a couple of weeks ago on it (read here, and here) and it’s time to do an update. Because times have significantly changed since then. I’ll preface the below with the statement that it is my opinion only. You can agree, you can disagree but I hope you get…
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January Net Wealth Update
Reading Time: 2 Minutes Hello everyone! Welcome back for another episode of The Frugal Samurai. So I was thinking that it’s been a long time since I’ve shared with you all regarding my net wealth. Indeed, the last time was this post back in Sept 2017 (you can read it here My numbers revealed…) Incidentally, it also received one of the highest views on this blog (everyone loves a peek behind the curtains). I can understand why, naturally as a personal finance blog, it makes sense to be as transparent as possible with you guys, so apologies for not doing it earlier. Going forward, I’ll aim to make this a…
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3 Portfolios Anyone Can Start Today
Reading Time: 4 Minutes Happy Australia Day everyone! Hope we are all taking the time out to spend it with our loved ones. This weekend also coincided with the Chinese Lunar New Year so it was a doubly joyous occasion for The Frugal Samurai household. Happy New Year! Australia Day also marks the time when the year starts to kick off again in terms of activity and work. The Christmas and New Year slow-down period is firmly in the rear-view mirror, and it’s time to get back on the horse. It’s also the time when we reflect on our New Year resolutions and see how far (or not) we have…
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Global Total Returns 2019
Reading Time: 2 Minutes Howdy everyone! It’s going to be a bit visual today, with a couple of graphs showing what the different returns for different asset classes were for 2019… I did a similar post on this last year which highlighted 2018 vs 2017 here. First, here are the stock market returns for 2019 vs 2018: Well done to Russia, IT and Greece. Polite applause to Poland, Chile and Argentina for participating. Although it must be said that looking back, 2018 was a fairly abysmal year, and that 2019 was much better across the board. Just goes to show that markets move in cycles – and unless you have…
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Exchange Traded Funds
Reading Time: 3 Minutes Howdy all! There is one area of personal finance which yours truly hasn’t really touched on, but has a disproportionate representation in many a FIRE portfolio. I’m talking of course, about ETF’s or Exchange Traded Funds. What is it? An ETF is a type of investment fund which can be bought and sold on an exchange, similar to stocks. They are split between “active”, which is managed by a fund manager looking to outperform the underlying index or market, and “passive” which track the underlying index or market i.e. achieve market returns. They were made famous by Mr Buffet who, in 2007 bet $1m that an…
