So far, the money is safe

The world's most perfect teenager turned 18 at the end of August this year. With this, he became an adult in Sweden and gained access to his endowment insurance. The money in this endowment insurance includes all the deposits during his upbringing of all the birthday, Christmas and other money he has had to save over the years, and amounts to almost $8,000.

The world's most perfect husband and I were a little worried that he would sell off all his holdings and spend all the money. Instead, he asked us to issue a power of attorney with us as the proxy holder and continue to manage his investments so he doesn't have to worry about missing something like yield tax.

Junior hopes to be accepted to Aalto University in Helsinki next summer. I assume he's saving the money until then, I don't dare think about what happens if he doesn't get accepted.

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Another failure

I hope with all my heart that the US dollar strengthens its value against the Swedish krona soon, very soon. I'm guessing there are 3-4 months left of this frustration.

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All exercise is good exercise

It's mentally taxing to see how we miss our goals every month because of the Swedish krona. To find something positive, I choose to see this as exercise for my psyche.

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I'm grateful for what I have

I wish I had "save as" instead of "save" every new year. Then I would have had 9 years of statistics instead of 3 years.

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There is nothing new under the sun

Even though we reinvest all the dividends we receive, the chart of our holdings barely changes. In recent months, we have mainly purchased Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH). We acquired UNH about a month before Warren Buffett announced that he had bought into the company.

Unfortunately, our holdings in these companies are so small that they are not visible on the chart.

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I ❤️ charts

I wasn't really happy with the color scheme in my Google Sheet chart where I separately report paid ordinary and special dividends compared to estimated dividends for 2025. After almost accepting that I didn't have the ability to get the colors right, I decided to try one last time. All of a sudden, it turned out the way I wanted, I don't understand how I got it, but I'm grateful for the result.

Now I have 3 colors, the blue bar represents the total estimated dividends for 2025. While the second bar, which consists of two colors, represents the fixed and additional dividends that have been paid so far. The green part refers to the regular dividends and the red part to the additional ones.

My hope was that the green part of the bar at the turn of the year 2025/26 would be as high as the blue bar while the red part of the bar would be the icing on the cake. Unfortunately, this will not be the case as the Swedish krona has caused serious damage in my calculations this year by becoming much stronger against the USD than expected.

What the outcome will be next year remains to be seen as I have not decided whether I will adjust my set exchange rate for USD/SEK.

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To change or not to change

When I created my spreadsheet in Google Sheet, I chose to set a fixed exchange rate of 1 USD equal to 10 SEK, which was generous at the time. Since 2017, I have had tolerance on my side, but this year the exchange rate has fallen below 10 SEK.

According to wise.com, the lowest level of 1 dollar against the Swedish krona so far this year is 9.2267 SEK, reached on September 17. This means that we will miss our dividend target for almost every month, except for the first three months of the year.

The future exchange rate as of December 31, 2025 determines whether I will adjust the fixed exchange rate in my Google Sheet for the first time.

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Despite the setbacks, I have continued my search for a job

The Swedish krona continues to punish us. Aside from 2022, it has been challenging financial years since 2020 for us. During 2025, our portfolio value has reached ATH calculated in USD on several occasions, while converted to SEK, the portfolio value has decreased significantly in value compared to the turn of the year 2024/25.

Given how the recession has deepened in Sweden in 2025, I am humbly grateful that we managed to sell our condominium premises earlier this year, and at the price we had set. Since I'm not made for not working, I've been looking for a work every week since April of this year.

Of all the applications, I have only been invited to one personal meeting, all other applications have been met with quote "due to the large number of applications, you have not been selected to proceed in our recruitment process" unquote. Unfortunately, I only came in second place, which in practice means first place loser.

Some analysts say the economy will improve as early as next year, while others say it will take until 2027 for the job market to improve.

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I am so proud

We are incredibly proud of the world's most perfect teenager. Last Monday, he passed his driving test on the first try. Even though he and I have done a lot of practice driving and his driving instructor thought he should pass the driving test without any problems, it is always uncertain, depending on several variables.

In addition to factors that the offspring himself can influence, such as nervousness, etc., there are external factors that are completely beyond his reach. For example, the driving examiner at the Swedish Transport Administration may have a bad day and fail the student for no real reason, and since the driving examiner is alone with the student during the driving test, it is impossible to prove that the decision is incorrect. Luckily, he got a driving examiner who was absolutely fantastic.

When Junior was 6 years old, we promised him that if he didn't start smoking or using snuff, we would pay for his driver's license and buy him a car. However, the offspring chose to renegotiate the agreement 6 months ago, instead of a car he wanted full access to our Tesla and $1000 invested in his endowment insurance. This has meant that we have been without a car for exactly a week...

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