You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land;
Thoreau
there is no other life but this.
This is my one hundred and fifth monthly portfolio update. I complete this regular update to check progress against my goal.
Portfolio goal
My objective is to maintain a portfolio of at least $3,000,000. This should be capable of producing an annual income from total portfolio returns of about $103,500 (in 2025 dollars).
This portfolio objective is based on an assumed safe withdrawal rate of 3.45 per cent.
A secondary focus will be maintaining the minimum equity target of $2,400,000.
Portfolio summary
| Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund | $962,986 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund | $48,665 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund | $84,215 |
| Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund | $93,886 |
| Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) | $684,230 |
| Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) | $907,183 |
| Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) | $349,908 |
| Telstra shares (TLS) | $2,606 |
| Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) | $11,048 |
| NIB Holdings shares (NHF) | $9,240 |
| Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) | $232,696 |
| Bitcoin | $1,849,104 |
| Plenti Capital Notes | $84,000 |
| Financial portfolio value (excluding Bitcoin) | |
| Total portfolio value | $5,319,767 (-$106,105) |
Asset allocation
| Australian shares | 27.1% |
| Global shares | 25.3% |
| Emerging market shares | 1.0% |
| International small companies | 1.2% |
| Total international shares | 27.5% |
| Total shares | 54.6% (-25.4%) |
| Australian bonds | 3.0% |
| International bonds | 3.2% |
| Total bonds | 6.2% (+1.2%) |
| Gold | 4.4% |
| Bitcoin | 34.8% |
| Gold and alternatives | 39.1% (+24.1%) |
Presented visually, the pie chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the full portfolio.
Comments
The portfolio moved backwards by a significant amount this month, with an overall contraction of 2.0 per cent, or around $106,000.
This was principally due to a modest fall in the price of Bitcoin – with a loss of around 9 per cent across the month. The financial portfolio, in contrast, grew – achieving its highest ever level. Total equity holdings in the portfolio also expanded to the highest level so far, to sit at just over $2.9 million.
The chart below sets out the performance of both the full and ‘financial assets only’ portfolios since the commencement of the journey.
Australian equities performed strongly this month, growing by around 3 per cent, significantly outpacing the growth of 0.7 per cent in global equities.
Gold holdings have also experienced growth through the month, with prices advancing around 2 per cent. Bonds also grew in value by a small amount, around 0.5 per cent.
This month a further investment in the Vanguard global shares ETF (VGS) was made, in accordance with my previously discussed plans to gradually reinvest excess distributions and cash across the next 16 months.
Other islands? Assessing trends from 2017 in distributions, expenses and other crossing points
Last month I added a new measure to the previous set of monthly measures of average distribution and expenses, recognising that average portfolio income distributions are an imperfect proxy for the capacity of the portfolio to support financial independence.
Continue reading “Monthly Portfolio Update – August 2025”