by The Investor
on April 1, 2009
Back in the first post in this series on growing your salary or other work-related earnings, I mentioned I’ve really let my income stagnate.
While I currently work in a fun media industry that will never be among the highest-paying sectors, there’s no doubt I could be doing better.
In fact, I’ve earned around the same during the last tax year (2008-2009) as I earned back in 2001-2002!
There are some personal reasons (principally, I did very well in the early years, and also it took me a while to get re-motivated after exiting a start-up in 2007) but let it be a warning to anyone on a good salary. Don’t rest on your laurels!
Just as compound interest multiplies your savings pot, so climbing the greasy corporate pole becoming a happier, more productive employee and advancing your career will really boost your income after a few years.
If you live within your means, then the result can be more money saved, invested and returned to you in spades in years to come.
Focusing merely on cutting costs will never make you even modestly rich, at least not while you’re still young enough to enjoy it. (Compound interest will turn anyone rich if they save a little and live to 100, revolutions and wars notwithstanding).
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by The Investor
on March 31, 2009
Important: What follows is not a recommendation to buy or sell the Rights and Issues Trust. I’m just a private investor, storing and sharing notes. Read my disclaimer.
Rights, Issues and complications
The Rights and Issues Trust is a tiny, £33 million split cap investment trust focusing on UK smaller companies. It invests in small companies listed on the main London market and on the AIM market.
Split cap trusts are investment trusts that distribute dividends and capital gains arising from the portfolio differently to different classes of shareholders, according to income and capital preferences. Sometimes they involve hurdles and other redemption clauses. Split caps got a bad name after many invested in each others’ shares during the dotcom boom, and subsequently saw magnified losses in the collapse.
As I understand it, the situation with the Rights and Issues Trust is much more straightforward, and from a structural point of view (i.e. not looking at its risky small company investments, which have performed terribly in the past 12 months) it’s as safe as any other investment trust.
Name: Rights and Issues Trust
Ticker: RIII / RIIC
Listed: London
Business: Investment Trust (Split cap)
More info: Digital Look / Google Finance
Company: Rights and Issues website
The chairman and figurehead of the Rights and Issues Trust is former chess grandmaster, Simon Knott, who enjoys a certain cult following in some quarters for his share picking skills.
Getting into Rights and Issues
From an investor’s point of view, the Rights and Issues Trust basically consists of two listed securities, with the tickers RIIC and RIII, which respectively offer more Capital or Income exposure.
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by The Investor
on March 28, 2009
Every week I read a large number of personal finance and investing articles. Here’s my latest weekly shortcut to the best.
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by The Investor
on March 27, 2009
Across the Internet, around the watercooler at work, in pubs and at garage sales, people are talking about how they’re going to make some extra money on eBay, or by trading shares, or by setting up a blog.
It seems much less common to talk about your salary, or about how you plan to get a raise over the next 12 months.
Perhaps there’s a taboo about discussing your salary, particularly here in class-conscious Britain? A reticence that doesn’t extend to boasting about how you bought a small-cap growth share that turned into the next Microsoft, or the profit you made selling a secondhand scooter on Craigslist.
This is ironic; as I discussed in the first post in this series on salary, the income we make through working is the most important source of money most of us will ever enjoy.
But exactly how important is it? What is your salary really worth?
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