All credit to Nordea

I have not been modest with my criticism of Nordea's website. However, they have listened to us customers and fixed the errors that occurred and added functions that were requested. Today I discovered that you can rename your endowment insurance even with Nordea these days. A function that may seem unnecessary but which simplifies my transfers as I have 3 different endowment insurances.

I guess Nordea's user interface will always be a bit "heavier" than Avanza and Nordnet as they are a more traditional bank with many branches. If they just added a notification feature with the famous ka-ching sound, everything would be tip top. I have to praise Nordea for their work on their website.

I wish the best for them

While I'm not a fan of the hopefully few people who jumped off the treadmill for early retirement (FIRE) but still intended to planned to use social welfare to receive study grants, I feel for them now.

First a pandemic that decimated their dividend portfolios, then rampant energy prices and high inflation. I have read about several people who have been forced to go back to working life. The feeling and anxiety of having to go back into working life after you thought you had quit for good must be awful and not something I would even wish on my worst enemy.

Just coming back to work after 4-5 weeks off is horrible. Plus you always knew you were going back. I sincerely hope that they can soon return to the life they had before the pandemic, energy prices and inflation.

A newcomer

Yesterday we acquired 55 Medical Properties Trust Inc (MPW). It was the first purchase of that stock for our joint portfolio, Family First. Our holdings in Armour Residential Reit (ARR) which, with the exception of young master Dewlar's portfolio, we have in all portfolios bore fruit yesterday.

Although the dividend itself was not a huge amount of money, it was most welcome. In total, ARR added just over $120 to our portfolios.

Finally

The spreadsheet is now updated with the correct values. There was a clear change in the chart when the corrections were made. For me personally, it became a reminder to be more critical and really question whether the outcome is realistic with reality. A bit like what I'm pestering the world's most perfect teenager to do...

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When Junior fools you

When the world' most perfect (then) toodler was just over 4 years old, we always went to preschool after he had finished watching Roary the Racing Car. One morning felt unusually long. We thought nothing more of it and patiently waited for the program to end.

When I started the car, I discovered to my horror that we are almost an hour late. That's when we learned that Junior had learned to stream TV programs. We learned that we must stay ahead of him and try to anticipate the possible dangers of his presence in the digital world. I am well aware that we cannot lock him out of everything. The only platform he is allowed to have is Whats up, mostly based on the chat groups created by other peers at school.

Even though he is superior to us in that world these days, he respects that he is not allowed to have either TikTok or Facebook. As luck would have it, one of his buddies put up a short clip on Youtube of the two of them without our approval many years ago. YMD hates this clip like the plague and cannot get the clip removed. It has really made it easier for us to get him to understand that what ends up online ends up there forever.

Repayment instead of investment

With the change of mortgage lender, we have also changed the terms of the mortgage itself. Despite the Swedish central bank AKA Riksbanken, warnings about another 2-3 smaller increases in the policy rate, we believe, and many with us, that the policy rate will fall in the long term. Because of this, we have chosen variable interest.

This means that the interest rate is fixed in 3-month intervals. When you have variable interest, you can make extra repayments. Our agreement with our new mortgage lender entered into force before the latest policy rate came into effect. This means that our first 3 months have a slightly lower interest than we expected, about $600 per month. How we will do in the future remains to be seen, but this particular month we choose to make an extra amortization on the mortgage. Whether it is the right decision or not, the future will tell.

I own my mistakes

I have made a thought error in the spreadsheet where I compile our portfolio. This is an error that arose when the spreadsheet was created that I didn't discover until now, 4 years later. Instead of basing the compilation on the acquisition value of each share divided by the value of the portfolio, I have taken the number of shares divided by the number of shares in the portfolio.

The consequence is that the diagram shows entirely numbers. For example, the chart shows that OXLC would be one of our largest holdings. It is totally incorrect. I will rebuild the affected page in the spreadsheet and update our chart. Although I hate to make mistakes, it will be a bit of fun to see how the diagram will completely change shape.

System failure part 5

Stated below applies to the country I live in. From the turn of the year, the guaranteed pension will be increased by 8.7%, while the income pension will only be increased by 3%. This is because the guarantee pension follows inflation, while the income pension follows the general wage increase.

Guarantee pension is paid to people who had little or no income during their working life. These may be people who had difficulty entering the labor market or who came to Sweden at an advanced age. In practice, this means that people who worked in low-wage occupations are losing ground to people who did not work at all. It's called "respect distance".

Depending on where you are on the income ladder, the gap narrows by anywhere from $20 to $200 per month. I understand and support the basic idea, but out of respect for all the people who worked hard in low-wage occupations, the difference between income- and guarantee pension must be more than crumbs.

New times await

Actually, I shouldn't be hard on our central bank governor. His unwise behavior, in my opinion, has allowed us to save an extra $1,200 every month for years. The world's most perfect husband and I understood several years ago that the negative policy rate is not good.

We chose to save the difference between the real interest rate at the time and a 3 times higher interest rate, which we considered more normal, instead of spending them. This means that we can now cope with the higher mortgage interest rate without having to make restrictions on our lifestyle.

The only consequence will be that our saving ends, a saving that we only saw as a bonus for as long as it lasted. We will continue to reinvest all dividends and therefore continue our savings. However, I feel for all young people who have just bought their first home.

I'm sure many have a certain margin in their calculation for increased interest costs. However, the majority certainly did not count on a combination of higher interest rates, energy prices and inflation. I dare say that the 2 latter factors have only been taken into account by very few very farsighted people.

Incredible athletes

I saw the movie Borg, which is about Sweden's best tennis player of all time. It made me remember my childhood. Through Björn Borg, Ingemar Stenmark, Thomas Wassberg, Frank Andersson and Linda Haglund, Sweden was a major power in various sports. Incredibly impressive for such a small country.

When mr Ingemar Stenmark competed, the teachers brought televisions into the classrooms so that we students could watch his slalom run. I remember one day in particular when I came home and we had a new tv. Our old device broke down between mr Ingemar Stenmark's first and second run. We were incredibly short of money at the time, but that didn't stop mom from buying a TV right away so she wouldn't miss the second run. I also remember that the meals afterwards were small and barely edible.

Even though I was too young to really understand their incredible deeds at the time, I am still filled with great pride in being Swedish when I think of mr Björn Borg and mr Ingemar Stenmark.

Same same but different

It has been several weeks since I had daily payouts from my investments. I am not complaining at all, but am grateful for the dividends I receive. However, I love hearing the sweet sound of ka-ching. Even if I only get $5 in dividends.

My spreadsheet is completely up to date and it is clear that the months that I get the biggest payout are January, April, July and October. Even though we have re-directed the portfolio, it is still these months that deliver the best.

Further on, I will compile which holdings we have disposed of, some voluntarily and others have been forcibly redeemed. RITM, formerly NRZ, which was our biggest holding just under 3 years ago, still holds the top spot. The stock has even increased its share in the portfolio.

I think some decision makers regret their previous decisions

Most people agree that access to stable, clean and cheap electricity is the basis for a prosperous and successful society. The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. The nuclear accident in Chernobyl occurred in 1986, and then the present Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. In accordance with the above, Europe has not had any accidents with its nuclear power plants.

That we then dismantle our fully functioning nuclear power plants in Europe is beyond all reason. The decommissioning has made Europe dependent on countries that have natural gas, mainly Russia and Iran. Two countries that currently do not have the best reputation. In addition, this increases the price of electricity, significantly. The price of electricity in Sweden is at historically high levels.

I agree with Percy Barnevik, former CEO of ABB quote "We have cheap electricity in Sweden, we have clean electricity, we have safe electricity, in short we have the electricity supply that all other countries would like to have. And our main concern is how to get out of this situation in the shortest possible time." unquote.

Europe's citizens pay a high price, both literally and figuratively. Many will freeze this winter because they will not be able to afford to heat their homes properly.

Anagrams are not always good

Dissatisfaction with our counterpart to the Fed is both widespread and long-standing. The fact that our central bank chose to have negative policy rate in a boom only to be forced to raise the rate significantly due to rampant inflation in an incipient recession has not been pleasant for them.

The Swedish central bank is named Riksbanken and translated directly it means bank of the kingdom.

The nickname of the bank is Riskbanken and directly translated it means bank of risk. You know you're not popular when you get an unflattering nickname.

Tomorrow, our current central bank governor has his last press conference before he retires. He will then inform exactly how much more he intends to raise the policy rate, even though we have crossed the threshold into recession. As usual, they react instead of act.

When life gives you lemon...

Guess I've reached THAT period in my life… Waking up at 3 a.m. and not being able to get back to sleep can be frustrating. Never before in my life have I had trouble going back to sleep if I woke up, which happened very rarely. These days it is completely impossible to fall asleep again.

So instead of lying down and twisting and turning, I get up instead. I am incredibly grateful for these mild inconveniences. Some of my closest friends suffer from hot flashes and lack of sleep as well as mild depression. The person who says age is just a number is lying! Instead of tossing and turning in bed, I sometimes choose to get up and work. The amount of more productive hours per day I get is amazing, but if I could choose, I would sleep instead.

Last night I couldn't resist finishing my spreadsheet. So incredibly nice, it is with great excitement that I await 2023. Below you will find the diagram of estimated dividends vs actuals for the coming year. In the best of worlds, I enter the dividends on a daily basis, but most likely it will be weekly.

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Mortgage lender

At the end of the month, we change mortgage lenders. The last time we changed lenders was 2 years ago, before that we had the same lender for 17 years. We have previously been very loyal to our bank. For almost 20 years, we had exactly all commitments in that bank.

That's when we discovered that an acquaintance with non-existent commitments at our bank was getting a lower mortgage interest rate than we had when he moved his loans to our bank, even though we had both business and personal accounts, mortgages and securities custody at the bank.

We only have business and private accounts left at that bank today. It is a bit strange that we get a lower mortgage interest rate in a bank in which we hardly have any commitment compared to a bank where we have securities with a higher value than the mortgage.

Updated spreadsheet

It took me more than 20 hours but now there is only one page left in my Google Sheet to update before it is fully operational. As we have re-directed the portfolio towards less risk-taking over the past 2 years, many new stocks were to be added.

The most time consuming part is all the connections between the different pages. Now only the page where I manually fill in all dividends from all banks and portfolios needs updating. However, it is the most exciting page when it is updated. It shows in real time how our executed dividends compare to the estimated ones.

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Snow storm

Last night we had a snow storm that rolled in over Stockholm. I started our morning routines as usual and prepared the world's most perfect teenager for school. Junior has suffered from low iron levels since birth, so he has been medicated since he was 4 years old.

The iron medicine must be taken on an empty stomach 30 minutes before breakfast. I always let him fall asleep after taking the medicine before he eats breakfast. While I was preparing breakfast, I received a text message informing me that the school is closed today due to many buses, commuter trains and subways being closed. His joy at waking up to a closed school was unmistakable. His first thought was an extra holiday while I thought a study day at home. We'll see who wins.

The winds of change

I had managed to collect a small amount in the form of dividends during the last week. Last Thursday I bought a small amount of TROW. As we will hopefully make many more acquisitions before the end of the year, I will not update the sheet for the holdings in the Google sheet until the end of the year. It will be a huge job.

We have de-risked all our portfolios so the pie chart will have changed significantly. It will be fun to compare against the latest, which is more than 2 years old. Some of the holdings have managed to hold on, including NRZ, which has changed its name to RITM. I might start updating the sheet earlier than I planned. It gnaws at me when I have a job lying around that should be done.

Thanksgiving dinner

Since Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Sweden, we chose to have the Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. It's always a blessing to spend time with your absolute best friends. As we absolutely do not want food, drink or dessert to run out, we are literally drowning in leftovers now.

While it's convenient to have leftovers that you can just take out and reheat, I'm not a big fan of leftovers. I want to be able to eat what I want, not what is in the fridge and has to be eaten.

By the way, I'm not sure how I feel about Donald eating turkey 😉

Another misjudgment on my part

I was hoping that the dividend for the year 2022 would surpass the year 2018. After going through the dividends we've received so far, it doesn't feel particularly likely anymore.

I can rejoice that the year performs better than the pandemic years 2020 and 2021. Since the interest on our mortgage has tripled during the current month, we will not be able to save as much in the future. An educated guess as to when we will pass 2018 in dividends should be 2024.

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An improvement

I've previously written about our holdings in niche banks with friendly user interfaces but woeful foreign withholding tax refunds. Now one of the banks, Nordnet, has changed its routines for the coming year. From 1 January 2023, they pay back the tax already the month after the deduction is made. To manage this, they will use a flat rate.

This means that you no longer get 100% back. I'm not going to get annoyed that I won't get the full amount back. My focus will be on the joy of getting my tax refund almost 3 years earlier than before, all depending on when I make my acquisitions. Well done Nordnet!

Everything is relative

Last night we received the terrible news that Poland had been hit by rockets. Today the news has reported that it was Ukrainian robot that was going to shoot down an incoming Russian robot. In order for the war not to escalate, I really hope that it was a very tragic mistake and not an aggression with intent.

Speaking of something completely different and far less important in comparison to a war, I read the day before yesterday that inflation had stopped in Sweden. Just read today that it looks much worse for us compared to Europe and America if you look at core inflation, that is, inflation where energy and food are excluded. Good news across the board would be most welcome now.

Terrifying times

I just read that the war going on in Europe just got closer to us. According to information, robots have struck in Poland, with 2 deaths as a result. Why this has happened and what it will lead to, I dare not speculate at the moment. Just when I thought the end of the war had begun, this happens.

Winter is coming

Our dividends have roughly halved if you start from our record year in 2019. 2022 has the potential to be better than 2018 depending on the size of any extra dividends at the end of the year.

Unfortunately, as recently as today, we received domestic figures showing that job losses and notices are increasing in the country. This is a clear indication that we are heading into a downturn. That, in combination with both high energy prices and interest rates, means that hard times await many this winter.

System failure part 4

Stated below applies to the country I live in. If you are hardworking, you usually earn more money. We have 3 different breakpoints when it comes to income tax.

Breakpoint 1: You can earn just under $1,800 a year without having to pay income tax. It is mainly so that students can work during school holidays without having to pay income tax.

Breakpoint 2: On an income up to just over 47,500 dollars per year, you pay a certain percentage in municipal tax, depending on which municipality you live in.

Breakpoint 3: On anything over $47,500 per year, you pay an additional 20% in state income tax regardless of where in the country you live.

When it comes to committing crimes, the system works the other way around. Of all the crimes you manage to commit between the first discovery of the crime and the time you end up in court, you are only punished for the most serious crime. This means that you get a penalty discount when you misbehave. However, you are punished for working hard and trying to create something for yourself and your family. This system does not contribute to increased willingness to pay taxes in my opinion.

The choice fell on MAIN

It was MAIN and not ARCC that was acquired last Friday. More factors than one determined the choice but the main reason is that ARCC did not reach the target course that we have set. With the support of past experiences, ARCC will most certainly reach our target price in the near future.

It usually happens when I spend my cash on other stocks. Fortunately, our money factory has started delivering dividends again after two bad years. That means I will be ready for ARCC...

I could not help myself

There are 3 factors that made me unable to resist and also update dividends vs invested capital in the spreadsheet of the world's most perfect teenager's holdings.

Factor 1: I was brought up not to put off things I can do today until tomorrow, and that I have a high work ethic.
Factor 2: I wanted to see if I could still get the spreadsheet to work with all its connections even though I haven't updated it in two years.
Factor 3: It was so much fun working with Google sheets again. 

The world's most perfect husband served me a ham and tomato sandwich while I was working with the spreadsheet even though it is Father's Day. Below is a chart of the ratio of dividends to invested capital in Junior's own small portfolio. The value of his portfolio is roughly 10% lower than invested capital depending on his holdings in NVDA and RBLX.

Unfortunately, both holdings are stocks he chose himself as he loves playing computer games. Had those holdings developed better, I think his interest in his portfolio would have been greater.

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A different kind of generation

My mom realized several years ago that dad won't stop working so she takes care of a eleven month old baby 3 days a week. Their generation was raised to have a different work ethic than compared to today's generations.

Although the most perfect husband and I work 6 days a week, we do it on different terms than my parents. We have a goal with what we do. We will finish on time. My parents only work because they were brought up to work.

I even try to provoke them, mainly my dad, to stop working. I say to him quote "it is good that you keep working since that will give us children more to inherit" unquote. Unfortunately nothing helps. I have realized that it is best that they are allowed to do as they wish.

Back to normal

The value of our portfolios is more or less what it was before the pandemic and even if we lost one of our stores, we still have one to fight for. So life is almost back to the same state as before Covid-19. With an addition of high inflation and rampant energy prices. Although inflation and energy prices are causing some concern, I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.

This has led to me getting some extra energy back and starting the tremendous work of restoring my beloved Google sheets. To get a feel for how my spreadsheets work, I started with the smallest portfolio, the world's most perfect teenager's very own. It was a great feeling to fill in his holdings and watch the chart grow. I will leave certain functions such as dividends vs invested capital for the time being. One thing at a time.

Below is a chart of his holdings purchased with his savings of the 50% rule. Step 2 is not yet completed.

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Father's Day

Today we celebrate Father's Day in Sweden, and I haven't bought anything for my husband on behalf of our son. I had planned to buy him something yesterday while he was at work.

One of the world's most perfect teenager's friends slept over between Friday and Saturday so I completely forgot to buy a present. I was busy taking care of the boys. My own father is quite happy if he doesn't need to be celebrated. He is 77 years old and works 6 days a week. A workaholic personified. I know my husband doesn't care if he gets a present or not, but I do. Also, this will backfire on Mother's Day.

The experiment part XIV

Although I have not updated the blog for 2 years, the world's most perfect husband and I have continued to work according to the plan with minor adjustments. Something that has not changed is that all dividends from the one pension insurance have been reinvested in OXLC. It took longer than I thought, probably due to the pandemic, but finally half of the OXLC holdings are funded by dividends. One of my Google Sheets is updated, many more to go…

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I have no proof but

I feel that economic fluctuations come much faster today than 20-30 years ago. My theory is that since we now live in a Just In Time economy unlike in the past when wholesalers and retailers had large inventories, the economy should also have changed.

I speculate that the reason it was slower for a recession to take effect in the past was because when demand fell, inventories were replenished and manufacturing continued. This meant that it took longer before the economy slowed down. However, it also took longer to get the economy going as existing inventory were sold off before production resumed after a slowdown.

Today, the time between production and end consumer is significantly shorter, which means that the economy should also move faster. In my opinion, we should reflect on old truths to see how they can be improved to anticipate and hopefully mitigate future fluctuations in the economy of our time.

Exchange rates

If the truth be told, the current decline in my portfolio is largely (only) dependent on SEK strengthening against the USD. Most of the time the exchange rate is in my favor, but every now and then it goes against me. Given that 99% of our holdings are on the Nasdaq, a drop in the dollar hits pretty much the entire holding.

The result is as if each share decreases in value on the same day. Should the American dollar fall a lot in relation to Swedish krona, I will invest in dollars. It should be safer than my cryptocurrencies investments…

Aim for the stars and you'll get halfway there

When you have a mother who is 5'6 and a father who is 5'10 and at the same time you set your goal to be 6'2 yourself, I don't know if you are goal oriented or foolhardy.

The world's most perfect teenager is our only child and the sons of our best friends, one of whom is my godson, have become some kind of spare brothers to Junior. Both of these two young men are 6'4. Although I like the offspring to be ambitious and have high goals, I think he will struggle to achieve this. At the moment he is just over 15 years old, 6' and weighs 130lb.

I think I'm on to something...

I'm probably the only person in the entire world whose portfolio value decreased yesterday. Despite the fact that pretty much every stock on earth rose yesterday after America released its October inflation report.

Like when companies hire the people who hacked their computer systems, they should hire me to manage some sort of hedge fund.

I just need to find an investment company bold enough. They and I together would make billions.

Exciting times await

I intend to buy ARCC. However, it has not come down to my personally set target course. It will be exciting to see if ARCC reaches the target course or if I'm barking up the wrong tree. Sometimes I completely misjudge the market and my target price is completely wrong.

It is during these moments that I really need to take time to reassess and not try to get back into the market too quickly. I have gotten significantly better at stepping back and evaluating the situation compared to 5 years ago. There is still room for improvement.

I can't make head nor tail of it

I did not make any acquisition yesterday. It didn't feel right. Since it seems to take a little longer before the midterm election is set in stone, I think I will wait a bit and see what happens.

At the same time, I hate to react and not act so we'll see what happens. I might take a little chance and listen to my dad's saying quote "it's better to do wrong than to do nothing at all" unquote.

To buy or not to buy is the question

Today I am moving the tax refund I received at the niche bank to Nordea. The money will be of better use to me with Nordea. I manage to reinvest the withholding tax several times during the years that I have to wait otherwise.

Even if it doesn't amount to hundreds of dollars, the money is mine and should therefore be in my account, not on any settlement account. I haven't decided which stock I intend to buy yet.I might get to keep my cash for a while, the dollar is expensive against the Swedish krona right now.

A clear improvement

For the first time ever, today I received a message from Avanza that they made an error regarding a payment. This time the quarterly dividend from OFS. On previous occasions they have simply withdrawn the money without either explanation or a heads-up. This time we got a message that they made a mistake and they will take the money tomorrow. Appreciate that Avanza owned up to their mistake and informed us. Well done!

Here we go again

As recently as the day before yesterday, I wrote about incorrect payments. Now it was time again. This time I understand what happened. Instead of paying the fixed amount for the dividend, they have paid out the value of the share.

This should mean that their system cannot handle these payouts automatically, but must be handled manually by staff. As an experienced bank customer, I calmly wait a day or two for the money to disappear from the account without either explanation or apology. I know that the bank does not do this on purpose and that it probably costs them large sums when the errors are to be found and corrected. Someone is about to have a very bad day at work!

System failure part 3

Stated below applies to the country I live in. I read an article from one of the prosecutors in Sweden. He wrote about a real case.

Quote "The police are looking for a person who has been wanted for several months. When visiting his address, it turns out that the man has moved abroad. There, he most likely lives well on his compensation of $900 he receives every month from the employment agency, despite the fact that he is detained in his absence." unquote.

When the state loses control and pays out tax money without control, it will eventually lose the trust of the citizens. That will ultimately lead to the biggest problem of them all: the willingness of honest hardworking taxpayers to pay taxes and contribute to society will cease. 

To understand the whole picture

Even though I don't like either snus or cigarettes, I have no problem with owning shares in Swedish Match. I don't even have a problem with us buying this or similar companies for the world's most teenager's portfolio. However, I do not like that one of their products, white snus, is marketed as tobacco-free even though it contains nicotine extracted from the tobacco plant.

Teenagers have previously been able to buy the product, but as of August this year, an 18-year-old limit has been introduced. I am aware that in order for my holdings in "less nice" companies to yield returns, people must use their products. Few things annoy me as much as when people are shocked to discover that companies that make and sell cheap products don't pay fair wages. What do they think? That they can buy a shirt for $8 which, in addition to the material cost, also includes VAT and profit would have been produced under fair working conditions. We should not put ourselves on a pedestal.

All Saints Day

Tonight we will go to the cemetery and light a candle at my grandparent's gravestone. It is incredibly beautiful in the cemetery at this holy day. An indescribable number of candles are burning in all the cemeteries around the country in the cold November darkness. This will be my first visit to the grave after my grandmother passed away at the end of December 2020.

Wise from experience

As recently as last month we had dividends paid to us that were incorrect. In total, it was more than $2,000 for one of the holdings. The next day, the payment was withdrawn. This is how it has been with the smaller niche banks since day one.

The first time it happened we didn't know the payment was incorrect and happily invested the money. It wasn't as fun the next day when we discovered that the account was overdrawn and we had to transfer money from our other bank. That month, more money was involuntarily invested than planned. Last Thursday we received several tax refunds totaling close to $1,600 at one of the niche banks.

If this refers to the ordinary tax refund, it should, like all previous years, first be paid during the first quarter of the following year, not during the last quarter of the current year. Whether it is an improvement by the nisch bank to be faster with repayment or an error remains to be seen. I'm hoping for the former.

He will never stop reminding me

Unlike the world's most perfect husband who dislikes cryptocurrencies, I've always been a bit fond of them. A couple of years ago I got a wallet and acquired a number of different currencies. I won't lie, the day after I made my last purchase (which is a little over a year ago) the value dropped, and it dropped a lot.

To date I have lost more than 82% of the entire wallet value. For now I have to pay the price and wait out the market. At best, I might get back what I've invested.

Money is money after all

When young master Dewlar AKA the world's most perfect being was christened, he received an amount of money as a gift placed in a sustainability fund by his grandparents. After just over five years, the amount had more than halved.

Since this was a gift, we didn't really know how to manage the fund. In the end we just bit the bullet and informed them how poorly the fund was performing. They were surprised. Actually, they had not wanted to buy shares in a sustainability fund, but the bank clerk had insisted that it was a good investment. And that it was for a good cause.

We sold off the fund and bought Swedish Match instead. Maybe not politically correct for a teenager to have holdings in a tobacco company but you have to put your house in order.

It could have been worse

I unfortunately have to admit that my tracking of our holdings and dividends that I so carefully entered into my Google sheet completely crashed during the pandemic. When our business began to suffer due to Covid-19, I had to spend all my time on the company and its future.

The fact that the value of our portfolios fell by more than 60% did not directly help garner commitment to tracking dividends and investments. In hindsight, however, I have to commend us for continuing to invest and keep fighting despite everything. Plus we are one of the lucky ones, we didn't lose anyone to Covid. My 96 year old grandmother passed away with Covid, not off.

I almost had a heart attack

I think it is important to surround myself with people who think differently from me for my personal development. I got into a discussion with a municipal politician about tax money. When the person in question seriously said that he saw no difference between tax money and money in a limited company, I could hardly believe my ears.

Despite my desperate attempts to get him to understand the difference between voluntarily buying a service/product versus being forced to buy a service, he couldn't tell the difference. I discovered that there are limits to what views I want in my life in order to evolve…

Math grade 9

The world's most perfect teenager needs to practice math. I think that the autumn break is an excellent opportunity. As a good mother, I planned to use the 3 tests they had already done at school. Since I had very good grades and had an easy time at school when it came to math, I thought this would be a walk in the park.

I then drew up a timetable for how we would calmly and methodically manage to go through and calculate all the tasks. We passed tests 1 and 2 without much difficulty. Then we came to test 3. When we had the last two and most difficult tasks, I hit the wall. I've googled, watched Youtube videos, done everything in my power to learn how to solve these two. I even tried to make a pact with the devil... 

In addition, our son has been a little less engaged in the maths lessons. Therefore, he is not at the top of the list of the teacher's favorite people. So asking the educator for help is completely out of the question. One of the tasks wants us to quote "Express in simplest index form, with a prime base." unquote. I can hardly remember what prime numbers are...