Skip to content Welcome to the third edition of my Monthly Personal Finance Journal here on Peasant Investor!
Oh boy, what a month April has been. We’ve seen some real recovery across markets despite the persistent noise especially in the earlier part of the month. Volatility remains, but I continue to stay bullish on the long-term outlook. One macro event I’ve got my eye on is the wave of US debt maturities in June, which I believe could trigger the next big market move.
Let’s dive into what I did with my portfolio this month, including updates on my superannuation strategy, NAB Equity Builder investing and plans leading into EOFY.
Superannuation – Deploying More Cash for the Long Run
At the start of April, I still had around 14.5% of my super in cash, I’ve since deployed a chunk of that into the Indexed Hedged International Shares Index through Hostplus, bringing my cash holdings down to about 8.5%.
My regular salary contributions are still flowing into Indexed High Growth, and as the end of financial year (EOFY) approaches, I’m planning to make additional contributions to take advantage of the 5-year carry-forward concessional cap.
Here’s what I’ve calculated:
Unused FY20 concessional cap: ~$14,000
Unused this financial year: ~$15,000
That’s nearly $29,000 of concessional contributions I can still make before June 30. Not taking advantage of this would be a huge missed opportunity from a tax planning perspective. I’d much rather pay 15% tax instead of 37%!
NAB Equity Builder – Adding $50K More to the Portfolio
As previewed in my March update, I’ve gone ahead and added another $50,000 via NAB Equity Builder. The goal was to reduce overweight exposure to tech-heavy ETFs like NDQ/HNDQ and diversify globally with lower fee & currency hedged options. I ended up choosing:
$25,000 into HGBL – Betashares Global Shares (Hedged) ETF
$25,000 into IHVV – iShares S&P 500 (Hedged) ETF
Both provide broad international exposure while helping reduce the impact of currency swings. My next add to the portfolio may be some domestic exposure, I definitely have seen nice strength in the Australian market recently.
Portfolio Snapshot – NAB EB
Total NAB EB exposure: $150,000
Equity (my capital): ~$49,500
Monthly repayment: ~$1,500 – still manageable from a cash flow perspective
I also discovered a great app called Stock Events which forecasts dividend and distribution payments. It’s incredibly useful for planning for income, my July’s distributions are looking promising!
| Investment | Balance | Change $ | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superfund | $174,592.00 | $1,841.00 | 1.07% |
| Moomoo (Options) | $4,680.00 | -$1,500.00 | -24.27% |
| Fundlater | $10,257.00 | $249.00 | 2.49% |
| NAB Equity Builder NDQ | $48,448.00 | $474.00 | 0.99% |
| NAB Equity Builder BGBL | $28,230.00 | -$92.00 | -0.32% |
| NAB Equity Builder HNDQ | $20,320.00 | $615.00 | 3.12% |
| NAB Equity Builder HGBL | $25,000.00 | $0 | |
| NAB Equity Builder IHVV | $25,000.00 | $0 | |
| Total | $336,527.00 | $1,587.00 |
That wraps up my April personal finance journal! I hope sharing my real numbers, strategies and thought processes gives you ideas or at least a sense of what one “peasant investor” is doing in these markets. If you’ve got questions, feel free to reach out or comment below!
Disclaimer: This post is for educational and informational purposes only. I am not a licensed financial adviser and do not provide personalised financial advice. Please do your own research and consult a qualified financial adviser, accountant, or tax agent to determine what’s right for your situation.
