End of Year Post 2023

 Another TRANSITORY year is coming to an end. Yes, the same story as every year: Saving money for the future. Investing money to have a better life at a later stage. And not much going on that is memorable.

In fact, it is really difficult to remember anything from this year. At the beginning of the year, we were in Berlin to meet some friends and family. After that, there is a big hole in my memory. What I know at the very least is that I have vacation days that I can transfer into 2024, which means that I did not have a lot of days off this year. But, due to extended home office, it almost felt like I didn't work at all. How lucky I feel.

I looked at my plans from one year ago. I got gifted a new phone, which is great. I still don't have a new PC, but that can wait. I don't have a new matress either or anything else in that direction.

When it comes to stocks, I had my first 5-bagger. Broadcom as substantially increased in value in the latter half of this year. It even reached 1150 dollars this month. Up until the end of the first half of 2023, it had never even reached 900 dollars. And to keep in mind, this is the stock I bought in mid march of 2020, when people were scrambling to buy toilet paper.

Not only did my Broadcom shares increase in value by 5 times, the stock has been paying dividends on top of that ever since. And since I bought those shares at a very cheap price, the amount of dividends I receive are quite high, considering how much I get back in relation to how much money I put in. It won't be that much longer until I get back 10 per cent every year on top of the shares being worth more and more.

Apart from that, I bought some other investments. The main theme this year were Australian lithium stocks, which pay dividends and have a substantial amount of lithium reserves they can tap into. This will be important in the future. People tend to think that more lithium mines will open in the future, but this is a lengthy process that takes a lot of time and bureaucracy to overcome. So I'm betting on the big boys right now.

I also took advantage of high interest rates. Right now, it seems that more and more people like to buy bonds before rates sink again, but I already seized various opportunities in the first half of this year. I basically "knew" that inflation would come down again at some point and that the expectation of high interest rates would dwindle.

My wife is working part time (about 50-75% of the hours she had before) and around Easter next year, this should go down to 50% of what was still the case in August. I view this as a positive thing. We wanted to have an easier life, and I believe it is possible to live like this in a frugal way. This is what we are good at and it improves quality of life.

On a more global scale, the war in Ukraine is still going on and probably won't end in the traditional sense for a much longer time. Then we also have a new war. Congratulations to Israel and Palestine for being little babies fighting over a ball. This conflict will never come to a peaceful conclusion. As long as religious beliefs are involved, there is no reasoning that could end this. Also, I view this conflict as some sort of global "social experiment". You know those youtube videos where they enact a scene where either a baby is being abducted or a man hits a woman? This conflict is that on a global level. I'm basically waiting for some big youtuber to reveal that it was all a test: We were supposed to call it out for being a bad thing (people dying, being tortured, innocents suffering), but instead, most people failed the experiment by picking a side.

My predictions for 2024:

• Interest rates will fall eventually. Probably around the middle of the year. This will lead to an economic recovery and a bull run in the stock market. I tend to be a bit cautious and preferably err on the side of pessimism, but I think things are going to go well still.
• The conflicts in the world will drag on, both in Ukraine as well as Israel. There will be lots of talks about how China handles Taiwan, but in the end, it will just be stuff that the news channels will like to spin as doom and gloom to keep people watching
• People will again lose limbs and lives on new year's eve (pick any year in the future), and children will still die of heat exhaustion because they were forgotten in cars in summer. Some things never change.

My goals for 2024:

• Have the kitchen repaired (should happen in January)
• Have the cat's teeth cleaned and have the cat fully vaccinated (first half of the year)
• Save money for a trip to Singapore (whenever that is)
• Invest in stocks that pay dividends
• Save money specifically for future years, in order to "secure" them in case something changes in the way we decide to work
• Find a way to spend the 25 vacation days that I need to spend in a good way

I don't expect 2024 to be a groundbreaking year in any way. The predictions that Tesla stock would reach 8 dollars of EPS were complete bullcrap. Earnings are of course stagnant in this difficult economic environment. And it is already clear that next year will be the same, even if the outlook, like I said, improves. It will take time until this carries over into earnings. The only stock that will really shine will be Broadcom. But that's okay. Things will fall into place eventually.