Gambling, expected value, matched betting and CFDs

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After about 2 months of matched betting I’m beginning to see considerable gains being made from my ‘gambling’ activities. I was at first sceptical about matched betting as many of the uninitiated often are. Gambling is usually associated with financial loss and yet I, like many others who try their hands at this method of betting are able to profit at the expense of the large bookmakers. (If you aren’t already doing so, I highly recommend you give this side hustle a go).

Lately I began to think about my forays into advantage gambling in the past…. Continue reading “Gambling, expected value, matched betting and CFDs”

Shaping your path to FIRE

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Creating projections

I like the idea of making projections about when things will happen and planning in advance. I have recently been working on a timeline to FIRE (Financial independence / Retire Early) so that I can at least have a rough idea as to when I might achieve this. Like any model used to predict an event, the accuracy of it is dependent on the inputs. The more variables you try to capture, the more closely it resembles what is likely to unfold. Then there is of course the need to update it as time goes on and new information becomes available. Life can’t be predicted, so a timeline to FIRE can never be 100% accurate but it at least gives you a good guess…

Continue reading “Shaping your path to FIRE”

New Year’s resolutions

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I’ve decided to do a post about my New Year’s resolutions. Some people don’t believe in them. I was chatting with my boss about this and he’s response was something along the lines of …

“if you’re going to implement a resolution to do something that you should just do it. Why wait for the start of the year? “

Actually, when I thought about it – he has a fair point.

My rebuttal would be to say that the most people look at the New Year as a clean slate. If we have set goals last year and failed then we can forget about it and just move forward. It’s a new leaf …

I’ve always been a goal setter but I don’t normally put them to paper. They just vaguely float around in my mind. Taking some advice , I’ve decided that I should probably have a go at writing them down and elaborating on them since it increases the chances I’ll actually follow through with them and succeed. And what better time to do it. So on to the resolutions for 2019.

  1. Reach the elusive 50% savings rate

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Continue reading “New Year’s resolutions”

Is your savings rate preventing you from retiring when you want to?

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Savings rate is the all-important factor in determining financial freedom 

Only having recently discovered the FIRE (Financially Independent / Retire Early) movement myself I’m quite interested by all the different stories of those who are either working toward or have already attained financial independence. I thought to myself that I would like to set some goals and get a rough idea of what to work towards each year based on a target retirement age. I’m in my early thirties and one could argue that this is way too early to even worry about such matters… Continue reading “Is your savings rate preventing you from retiring when you want to?”

Should you sell your stocks? – Predicting the next recession

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An impending recession?

Recently there has been a decent downswing in the US stock market and stock markets globally. Generally, when a big sell-off like this occurs, it sparks investor panic and causes many pundits and market participants to begin speculating on the state of the economy and question whether we may be on the precipice of another major bear market… Continue reading “Should you sell your stocks? – Predicting the next recession”

The miracle of matched betting

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Too good to be true?

I have always found the challenge of beating the bookie at their own game quite interesting. Over the years I’ve done a lot of work in trying to come up with betting models which give enough of an edge to beat the bookies and gamble my way to a fortune. I’m yet to succeed and I doubt I ever will, but I do find it fun. Realistically for an average Joe punter, they can never profit from sports betting through knowing the odds better than a bookmaker… Continue reading “The miracle of matched betting”

Blogging for income and the importance of Backlinks – First year goals

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Blogging for a living

Many of the successful bloggers, especially those who preach financial independence often advocate blogging in order to earn passive income. Although the term ‘passive’ may be used quite loosely since it takes a bit more effort to obtain than the passive income earned through the dividends of stocks. Anyway, in starting WiselyInvested.com I have decided to follow this advice passed on by the blogging gurus. I have read many experts on SEO talking about the importance of backlinking when it comes to building website popularity and, in this post, I will explore this and try to see just how important it is. Continue reading “Blogging for income and the importance of Backlinks – First year goals”

The nature of returns

The pursuit of yield

Investing is all about making your money work as hard as possible for you. When making a decision about what where to invest we often ask, ‘where can I earn the highest return on my investment?’ Although stocks are generally the best performing asset class most people opt to invest towards real estate or just leaving the money in a high interest term deposit in the bank. Continue reading “The nature of returns”

Why I’m a big fan of the S & P 500 ETFs and Index funds

Getting into share trading

Back when I was looking to get into trade shares, and I mean properly trade shares, not as a CFD but to actually own them and collect a divided, I was at first deterred by the barrier for entry. All up I was wanting to start with say, approximately $ 5000. The thing is, I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket and just buy one stock; I wanted to diversify and spread my stake across at least a few stocks so I was better protected. Continue reading “Why I’m a big fan of the S & P 500 ETFs and Index funds”