Thank you all for your replies. I have mortgage debt as someone assumes I had no debt. Someone also asked about my investment strategies. I invest mostly in individual stocks (mainly retail, some pharmaceutical, oil, property and foreign shares), 10% in bonds, 5% speculation/experiments. I got interested in investing after reading ‘One up on Wall Street’ by Peter Lynch and since read all the books written by him and John Rothschild.
I use the bottom up approach, and since I work in retail I get a lot of information that have proved valuable to me ( more than models on excel ) before they hit the market or financial news. I am also interested in behavioural finance and how it affects the markets but of course my portfolio is not big enough to claim an experiment works or doesn’t. This is why I use ‘luck’ rather than ‘skill’. Buffet is skilful but his results have been achieved by individual investors be it at a small scale, either by chance, skill or luck. I always discuss my ‘strategies’ with anyone that is interested but of course it is not structured while some are just based on experience, information and common sense.
For those saying I should go on with Retail/ Sales/Biology, it is not intellectually stimulating for me , I am also an introvert ( not the type that hides from people , I just like my own time :P) but I would have to stay in retail if this doesn’t work out .We live in a modern world where we can apply for jobs online so I never have to quit to look for another. I prefer politics, psychology, economics, philosophy, poetry, statistic etc. ( and yes I know I should have studied one of those at University but I can’t change the past) I read writers like Taleb, Robert Shiller, Daniel Kahneman, Niall Ferguson and those types of authors and would happily go through annual reports of companies I am not willing to invest in.
Based on the replies, I have decided to take the exams starting this December and apply for jobs at small AM firms across the U.K as advised. I think the course will put a more disciplined approach on theoretical knowledge and make me more pratical . Even if I do not get a job out of it I can improve on how I invest and that is good enough for me. Knowledge is nothing if not applied and investing luckily is a world open to virtually anyone that is lucky enough to earn more than they spend.
I am still unsure how to write about my personal investment in a cover letter or CV but hopefully I would be able to demonstrate if I get an interview and if not, life goes on. We still have our ISAs
Again, thank you all for your comments, it has been very helpful. Good luck to you all, whatever you do.