Saturday Savers 2025 Progress Report - Week 19

Yay, it's Saturday again ! It's also 2 days before a full moon, which explains a lot 😁

Here's my weekly #SaturdaySavers update....

Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio

Here's my table of progress for the week;

How Did The Week Go ?

It's been another steady week in Hive-land. The real world continues to have to be my main focus, but I'm still managing to maintain my posting streak. I'm not likely to be able to keep it up for the whole year though, I'll have to find some way to post if I end up actually having a holiday ! Or maybe I'll write a whole bunch of posts and just schedule them for one a day 😁

In terms of HP earnings, I'm still averaging about 40 a week. It's the only one of my goals which is falling short, and I think it just comes down to having been a bit too enthusiastic when I set the goal at the start of the year.

The price of HIVE has started slowly climbing again. That's a good thing, but I'm realistic enough to recognise that it's likely to be part of the long-standing pattern of slow climbs followed by dramatic rapid drops.

The odd thing is that the price of HIVE isn't much different in terms of volatility to the USD-GBP exchange rate. I don't think it's down to HIVE becoming more stable, I think it's that fiat currencies are gradually becoming less stable. Perhaps real-world governments, banks and economists are getting less rational as traditional economies and financial systems slowly break down.

Something which did happen this week was that here in the UK, the Bank of England reduced the interest rate by 0.25%. It's a signal rather than a drastic change.

What was interesting was their reasoning. Usually, interest rate changes are seen as a tool to manage inflation. But in this case, they said it was to reduce the cost of finance to businesses. The UK economy has some serious issues, one of which being that government tax policies are killing small businesses and driving larger ones offshore. The interest rate change is intended as a signal to hopefully boost business confidence.

However, I don't think it'll work. What will happen in reality is that the retail banks will drop rates for savers almost immediately, while continuing to make it hard for businesses to borrow.

They don't get that the issue isn't whether the interest rate is quarter of a percent better (even if they pass it on, which they rarely do). It's whether businesses are confident they can afford to repay the loans and all the strings that come with them.

To get a bank loan nowadays as a business, you have to give the bank a level of control over the business. They don't take a seat on the board or anything, they just insist on monitoring BS and P&L and approving spending with the threat of pulling the loan if they don't like what they see. They also usually insist on personal guarantees from directors, which wipes out any benefit of being a limited company, putting all the risk on the directors and giving all the rewards to the bank.

So, after that lengthy bit of waffle, how does that affect Hive ?

Simple: I'm considering moving some of my fiat savings into HBD.

It won't be all of it, or even a large part of it, because the risk factor in Hive (or anything crypto) is quite high. If Hive had a significantly higher market capitalisation and a more rapidly growing user base, I'd be more comfortable with the risk. But even so, getting 15% APY interest from HBD is a lot better than the 3.5-4.5% I get from the legacy banks. That doesn't even keep up with inflation !

If you're not familiar with SaturdaySavers, it's a fabulous initiative run by @shanibeer writing as @sally-saver on the @eddie-earner account, where we all support each other in getting to our savings goals.

If you are one of my friends reading this (or just someone who tripped over one of my posts), I really recommend this as a great community that's well worth joining.

I'm normally very disorganised about saving, and the support of the wonderful people in #SaturdaySavers has been invaluable in keeping me focused. I can honestly say that without it, my HP would probably be half what it is now.

So join ! You don't have to wait until the start of the year. The best time to start saving is ten years ago. The second best time is right now !