The Financial Dashboard – January 2019

The goals for January were:

Sell five more childhood toys. Sell five more car parts – Failure
Develop a single spreadsheet for all my financial data/ graphs etc – Success
Finish my Investment Strategy Statement – Success
Check our household green credentials – Success
Check utilities for potential savings – Success

Checking the assets and liabilities:

Assets

Liabilities

These are taken from my Beast Budget spreadsheet. This month my net worth grew by £867 (~3%), so that I’m now sitting just under £30k. It was a pretty poor month on the savings front with no overtime or extra shifts, the added expense of a holiday and the GMC and Royal College both deciding to take their pound of flesh. I’ve saved another £200 on my 5% Santander saver, and started paying down our wedding loan to a family member, but the Royal College bill went on the credit card (slap on wrist) nudging my debt up. February will also be lean as I start a new job and wait for a new payday. Luckily my new pay should be a fair bit more thanks to the vagaries of the NHS. Got to love a nationalised monopoly!
Goals:
Goal failed: Sell five more childhood toys. Sell five more car parts

I continue to fail here, and I wonder if that’s because I’m trying to sell lots of unusual oddments and expecting everyone else to want my old shit. I have gradually increased the amount of stuff listed on eBay, and have sold ~£20 quid worth of kit. I’ve also braved Facebook and Gumtree, with some success. I’m going to change this for next month and make it a more achievable sell £50 worth of stuff.
Goal achieved: Develop a single spreadsheet for all my financial data/ graphs etc

I’ve streamlined our various household spreadsheets into a new, improved Beast Budget, adding some new functions and graphs at the same time.

Jan Net Worth

Jan Credit Card
Goal achieved: Finish my Investment Strategy Statement

Now complete and to be found here.
Goal achieved: Check our household green credentials

This was a really interesting exercise, and exposed where I’m lying to myself in my bourgeois way. I ran our household information through the WWF Carbon Footprint calculator (1).

Carbon Footprint

Oh dear. Where’s it all going?

Breakdown

Ah. Breaking it down:

Home – We’re doing pretty well. Our energy is supplied by Bulb (message me for a £50 referral bonus), which is 100% renewable electricity and 10% renewable (bio)gas. All our lightbulbs are LED, our boiler is old but regularly serviced, our white goods are low-energy and the whole house is well insulated with double glazing etc.

Stuff – We don’t buy much in the way of clothes or consumerist claptrap, and I think this is mainly raised by the fact we bought new appliances when moving into our house.

Food – We’re doing reasonably here too. We eat meat three or four times a week, but I want to get this down to two. We eat a varied seasonal diet from local organic sources, and I want to grow and preserve more at home.

Travel – Oh bugger. This’ll be the (count ’em) four short haul, four medium haul and two very-long haul flights we’ve made in the last year. Seriously bad for the environment and won’t be doing that in 2019! I also need to get my bike serviced and start using it for local journeys.

This has been useful enough as an audit exercise that I’m going to check my progress quarterly for 2019 to see how I get on improving matters.
Goal achieved: Check utilities for potential savings

I try to check for potential savings every 3-6 months. Uswitch and MoneySavingExpert reckon we can save £45 over the year if we switch to EDF, Lumo or Octopus (2). I’m really happy with the customer service with Bulb (fanboi), and I’m willing to suck up £45 to know my energy is coming from renewable sources. Our previous Plusnet connection went from £27 to £38 in December, so I called their retention department who couldn’t match Virgins 100mbp for £22/month offer. We’ll wait and see whether the reality matches the quoted service.
Budgets:

Groceries – Budget £300, spent £185.03, last month N/A. We had lots of Christmas food left over, but happy with this!
Entertainment – Budget £300, spent £97.30, last month N/A. Going to look into entertainment spending this month.
Transport – Budget £460, spent £103.12, last month £233.69. Remarkably little this month, but MOTs and tuning costs loom.
Holiday – £150, spent £133.09, last month £0. Went skiing, fully catered chalet kept £ costs low and moods high.
Personal – £50/ £0/ £0
Loans/ Credit – £350/ £400/ £556.67. Upped payments to credit cards now.
Misc – £50/ £30/ £20.

In the garden:

I’m mid-way through building the raised beds and I’ve prepared the greenhouse ready for seedtrays next month. The raised beds are 2 foot high (to ward off carrotfly) and constructed from old pallets I’ve scavenged with tanalised upright supports. I’m collecting a load of free topsoil found on Gumtree next week to fill them up and then they should be ready for planting.

Goals for next month:

Sell £50 worth of stuff
Calculate and set a budget for Entertainment
Reduce consumption of single use plastics
Finish the raised beds
Set up an account with an investment platform

What’s in the pipeline:

Stoicism, Ascetism and the modern world
Property Renovation Lessons Part III
Frugal Motoring – Should I buy a Hybrid?
Plus the usual Full English Accompaniments and other drivel…

Happy February everyone,

The Shrink

References

The Full English Accompaniment – No-deal Brexit will cure obesity

What’s piqued my interest this week?

Bear with me.

Are you ready to starve?

Is basically the sensationalist headline that’s been flying around in various forms in response to our governments arse-covering. Pretty much all the major supermarkets have warned a no-deal Brexit will bring food security issues and provision to UK supermarkets will be… spotty (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Remember the #courgettecrisis of ’17 caused by crap Spanish weather (6).

The argument from the Brexiteers is that we should grow our own, in some sort of dig-for-victory rose-tinted halcyon view of post-war Britain. Has anyone explained that crops take time to bloody grow? And the reason the UK became so reliant during WW2 on home-grown produce was food scarcity and rationing? They’re not going to be able to magic up the tomatoes for your £1.99 own-brand high-salt high-sugar pepperoni pizza out of Morris the pensioners’ greenhouse in Didcot.

Knock-on effects of no deal Brexit are no more cheap fruit, veg, meat and processing from the continents fields and factories (7). The price of food will rise. We already have it bloody good compared to the rest of the world. The average UK household spends 8% of it’s earnings on food a year. Compare that to the rest of Europe where it’s more like 10-15% (8).

This is thanks in no small part to cheap imports and the competition between the big supermarkets. They’ve squeezed every inch out of overheads as they’ve grown to maximise profits, with vast supply chains that have taken years to develop. Even then their headline figures are minimal. Check out this chart I pinched from Reddit for Tesco, which has their net profit at a shade under 1.5%:

They can’t soak up wholesale food cost rises. It has to go the consumer. The range of food available will decrease to be more seasonal, and the price will go up to reflect the more expensive supply chain. There’s no need for a bloody sugar tax, Brexit will do that for us (9, 10).

So who are going to be affected as food prices go up?

Well the working class, or should I say those in lower socioeconomic classes, who disproportionately voted to leave (11). Because you have to buy cheaper food, and cheaper food is made with more sugar, more salt, more industrially produced refined products to cover up the lack of actual food (12). Poorer people eat less varied diets consisting of more commercially grown produce imported to the UK. Processing means factories means mileage and countries crossed (13). It doesn’t have to be that way; a healthy varied seasonal diet can be cheaper. It just takes thinking about, time and effort (14).

Outcome of post-Brexit scarcity: either people eat more varied seasonal food because they have to, because that’s all that’s available; or they eat less of the high-sugar, high-fat, low-fibre processed shite that is associated with obesity etc, because it’s expensive (15, 16). The sloven stacking microwave burgers into their slack jaw can now only afford two rather than three at once. Both improve public health (17).

So maybe Brexit will solve one of the greatest ongoing public health crises, starve the nation and (by cost reduction) save the NHS. £350 million is a lot of ready meals.

I’m aware of the irony of this rant given the Full English title.

Have a great week,

The Shrink

Other News

The return of the 100% mortgage, backed by BOMAD (18) – Ermine gazumped my rant punch here
A UK company has launched an in-kerb EV charger for roll-out across London (19)
The monumental cock-up that was TSBs IT upgrade cost £330million (20)
Following Pat Val questions are arising about the auditing firms (21)
Oddbins is the latest high street chain to go under (22) – Must admit I thought they went years ago
Manufacturers are stockpiling raw materials ahead of a no-deal Brexit (23)
Savings account rates are gradually creeping up (24)
Not really news, but I came across this awesome table of disruptive technologies from Imperial (25)

Opinion/ blogs:

The kitchen garden:

What I’m reading (now affiliate links):

Tombland – C.J. Sansom – I love the Shardlake series, detective novels set in the Tudor period with a crippled lead character. Beautifully written.

Food Of The Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge: A Radical History of Plants, Drugs and Human Evolution – Terence McKenna – An ethnobotanist explores humanitys’ fascination with hallucinogenics, and the role of altered states of consciousness on the development of human society.

Enchiridion by Epictetus – Bedside reading for a bad day

References:

Frugal Motoring – Should I buy a Petrol?

In Frugal Motoring I discuss how to cheaply purchase cars, the pros and cons for various purchasing methods (straight up cash, loan, PCP, lease), diesel vs petrol vs hybrid vs electric, ongoing political/ government motoring related machinations and how to keep your car running. Here we’ll look at the pros and cons of Petrol cars.

The efficiency question

Up until Diesel-gate and the associated NOx emissions concerns, diesels were considered the environmentally-friendly option, the motoring posterboy for efficiency. As I’ve previously discussed, this was highly politically motivated. In artificial testing conditions used for published measurements diesel engines get better MPG, but petrols were never that far behind, and they’ve closed the gap. The ’91 Honda Civic VTEC-E would see 59mpg (1). The lean-burn 4A/7A-FE 1.8 petrol engines in turn of the century Toyota’s, favorite of mini-cabbers, would realistically see 45mpg in daily use, and up to 60 on a run (2). And then turbos became a thing. Mmmm… boost.

Turbos not only increase power, but increase efficiency by increasing the stoichiometric ratio (the ratio of fuel/ air) so there is more oxygen available for complete combustion. Manufacturers moved away from 2+ litre engines, towards 1-1.8 litre forced induction (turbo-d and supercharged) engines in larger cars, and even dinkier 0.5-1.5 litre engines in small cars. With improved engine design and compound induction systems these engines produced the same power (bhp) as the older, bigger, dirtier engines (though commonly less torque). Manufacturers have also lopped off chambers and used harmonic balancers to return to the heady thrills of the 3-cylinder thrum. Fiat have even gone back to a 2-cylinder screamer (3). Marvellous. The most efficient petrol cars at the moment are 1l superminis, offering up to 80mpg (4).

There have been issues with this progression. As mentioned these small petrols lack torque, and as such probably aren’t as fuel efficient in the real-world as on a bench test. Revving required for that 1.2 engine to lug your six-up Peugeot 3008 soft-roader off to Asda for the weekly shop (5). These engines are more complex, lighter weight and with tighter tolerances. To keep the engine in the peak powerband manufacturers are using six, seven or eight-ratio semi-automatic gearboxes. These are necessarily more complex. There are concerns about durability of both engines and gearboxes (6).

A couple of conservative manufacturers (Mazda, Toyota) haven’t taken the turbo route. The lean-burn concept, where over-stoichiometric fuel/air ratios are used to ensure maximum combustion, has continued to be developed. Mazda (in the SkyActiv-G) pushing compression ratios up into the diesel cycle range to produce highly efficient engines (7). NOx is also kept to a minimum due to lower combustion temperatures (they say).

Ultimately, diesels remain more efficient than petrols. Diesel is about 15% more energy dense by volume than petrol, and can be up to 40% more efficient in application (8). Using a worked example; a Ford Focus the 1.5TDCi runs 74.3mpg, whilst the 1.0 petrol will see 60.1mpg (9). At current average fuel prices of 128.9p for petrol and 137.1p for diesel over an average 10,000 miles a diesel driver would spend £838.86/year on fuel (10). The petrol driver will spend £975.03. As always, do your own sums.

Headline figures

We’ve seen that you’ll save money filling up, but what about purchase cost, tax and servicing. Diesel cars are generally more expensive new than their petrol counterpart. The worked example table below taken from a Which? article demonstrates the maths (11):

Petrol

You’re paying more up front, and in some cases that front-loaded cost is not recouped over a five-year period. This is less of an issue for the frugal folks buying a car and running it for 20 years, or avoiding PCP, sticking to a bangernomics budget. Some of your initial outlay is also recouped at sale. Residuals for diesels have historically been higher, usually at least £500-£2500 more depending on the age of the vehicle (9, 12). This, in my opinion, is due to the increased fuel economy (offering a greater % saving at lower price points) and a perception of greater reliability (earned through very good historic reliability in the old direct injection, non common rail lumps). Modern common rail diesels fitted with dual-mass flywheels (DMFs), EGR valves and all manner of other devices may continue with the former, but will struggle with the latter. Watch out for rattly DMFs and leaky injectors. I wanted but didn’t buy a diesel version of my last car because it was £3000 for the diesel, and £2000 for the petrol. Once you get into super-bangernomics <£500 territory I would argue you will struggle to find a diesel that isn’t on it’s last legs.

Tax changes

One of the reasons I believe residuals are going to equalise is incoming tax changes. As of April 2018 new tax changes came into effect, complication the law, and penalising diesel ownership. The full implications of these tax changes are detailed elsewhere, but essentially VED (car tax) continues to be calculated based on g/CO2/km, however the cost has gone up for each class, and by more for diesels (13, 14). The tax changes also cut the tax break on hybrids. Much was made of what is essentially a tax on diesels being successful. The end result is fewer people are buying diesels, and more are opting for small petrol cars (15, 16, 17). Despite new car sales falling, registrations of new petrol cars is increasing. Petrols are more attractive at the moment.

Diesel cars continued to anchor the sector's performance, with year-on-year demand down by more than a fifth

The bell tolls

They’re all getting banned anyway (18).

Current targets are for no new diesel or petrol car sales by 2040. MPs are pushing for it to be 2032. You can bet the classic car community will push for there still to be a place on the UK’s roads for fuel-burners, but I’m sure the UK Gov will find a way to tax the daylights out of it and make it a pursuit for the wealthy.

TL:DR

The petrol cars available today are a far cry from 10 years ago. Tax-changes and engine developments have made them as attractive a financial proposition as diesels. Efficiency will depend on your type of driving; if you’re a red-light racer or a relaxed pootler; if you do more stop-start town driving (where little petrols come into their own) or long runs (better for bigger sloggers).

Broadly, petrols are better for:

smaller lighter cars
shorter journeys
stop-start city traffic
anyone doing <10,000 miles/year

As usual do your own sums, but in the wait for cheap electric cars a petrol is worth considering.

References:

The Full English Accompaniment – Diversification is sustainability stupid

Dear Readers,A bit of a late Full English Accompaniment this week, as I’m working so typing away at posts in between seeing patients. MrsShrink and I have been for a holiday, a break from IT and a pause for reflection. I’ve finally been reading Tim Hale’s Smarter Investing (1), and this has prompted me to make some changes to my blogging process. One of the key points in the early chapters of the book is to turn down the volume; that most media reports, opinions and news about the market are confusing senseless noise and to make smarter investments you need to tune out the static. In a conscious effort to decrease my own contribution to that noise I’m going to reduce the quantity of my posts, and aim to maintain a high quality. This means that the Full English will become an as-and-when type affair, for thoughts that aren’t significant enough to warrant a full Musing on… post. I’ll still aggregate other posts I’m reading each time, and other categories will continue at their current frequency. For now…

What’s piqued my interest this week?

Part of our recent holiday was spent in an AirBnB on a rural farm. Coming from a country background I was to be found discussing the owners business strategy and farming approach. Their (relatively) small acreage struggled under intensive farming methods to produce a profitable crop; the soil would need continuous improvement for arable, the setting meant high winds were common with minimal cover and they lacked the scale required to make cattle or similar sustainable. To make ends meet they had diversified. The farm now had a small sheep herd, a deer herd and a small number of hardy cattle. The owners had also converted farm buildings to cottages and flats for AirBnB, and worked a part time job for the local government. For many small farmers this is the only way to survive. Big farms in areas of poor fertility also struggle to find profits, as this fantastic comment piece in the Guardian outlines (2). As consumers, diversification of our food intake is healthier too. In agriculture, just as in finance, diversification brings sustainable profits.

Have a great week,

The Shrink

Side OrdersOther News

Opinion/ blogs:

What I’m reading:

Smarter Investing 3rd edn – Tim Hale – essential reading

Religio Medici and Urne-Buriall by Sir Thomas Browne – the theological and psychological reflections of a C17th doctor. This is turning out to be real heavy-going.

Enchiridion by Epictetus – Bedside reading for a bad day

References: