My 5 year plan

fatrab · 25 January 2018 at 11:13AM

We're in a similar position, my wife owns a flat which she rents out. We keep our finances separate at the moment but it will be an investment/income for us when the time comes to retire. My wife is a little bit younger than me and has a good career and a good pension. I don't. My pension is pretty poor to be honest. So getting everything paid off is my primary goal.

JoJoC, if you're paying 5% and your employer is matching it then that's a great start. I'm no expert on pensions either I'm afraid, I only heard that was the way to calculate how much you should pay so I don't know how much that would equate to at retirement age.

Storm, you've definitely got age on your side and you've realised early enough where you have gone wrong and are putting it right. I wish I could go back and make my younger self do the same.

Storm89 · 25 January 2018 at 2:07PM

Yes I suppose that's the worry isn't it jojo about being able to afford the 2 mortgages. I don't know if we are wanting to move or not. We are done having kids but are in a terraced house with not very nice neighbours on the right hand side. It's a new build so if we moved would probably be to somewhere that was a similar price so we aren't adding to the mortgage. I've seen houses that are older and bigger for same price as what ours sells for (others on the estate with same house as us). But with moving costs etc might just be best to stay put.
That will be nice to have the income of the flat fatrab when the time comes. The more I think about it the more I would like to do something like that in the future. It's also a bonus that your wife has a good pension - calculating pensions is quite confusing!

fatrab · 25 January 2018 at 3:14PM

Now I've got myself thinking. There's 2 ways to have more money to pay towards the debt. Increase my income or reduce my outgoings further. Well, to be fair I think I'm doing ok at reducing the outgoings. But there's always room for improvement.

Saving and extra £25 per week doesn't sound a lot. But when you're already being as savvy as possible, what next?

I don't want to consider weekend work just yet. Time to get the thinking cap on........

fatrab · 26 January 2018 at 9:20AM

Another NSD added to the tally for January yesterday.

Today was going to be another one but I may need to buy something for breakfast. I didn't plan to be in work today due the operation, but I was offered a lift from a colleague which saves me from having to drive and I've got plenty to be getting on with.

Turned down the offer of a babysitter tonight. As much as I would have liked to go to the pub for an hour, I am looking for ways to save an extra £25 per week/£100 per month and the pub would have been £20+ and then possibly a take away as drunk me doesn't seem to like cooking! No, going to the pub is definitely not in the plan for the next month.

Also, the weigh in didn't go as well as planned. I'm 16st 13lbs this morning. Not been able to stick to the 16:8 exactly but have cut down snacking between meals and the portion sizes are being reduced so I'm a little disappointed that I hadn't lost a little bit more. There are no snacks on tomorrow's shopping list.

Feeling a little downbeat as you can probably tell from the tone of today's update, but it's Friday so there's a plus point and I'm a day closer to being debt free!!

Working_Mum · 26 January 2018 at 9:48AM

AW fatrab I feel for you - it has been a tough week for you but be kind to yourself you have had an operation (which will throw you off balance), you have debt busted, you have a 4month old and you have lost some weight- that is a win win win on many fronts!!

I went through a hideous divorce about 9 years ago and I spent a lot of time upset because of how my ex was treating me - what I realised was that I was the one who hurt myself with unrealistic expectations of how he should behave and then when that didn't materialise I felt a failure etc. Shakespeare said "expectation in the root of all heartache" and I totally agree.

I learned that if I just give everything my best shot BUT without any expectation my life was ace - almost immediately everything was ok because I was chip chip chipping away at my goals and cumulatively that was having an impact.

You are doing really well, don't let your shoulders drop!! You are making smart, proactive choices and you should be proud if that!!

Have a great day, hope it is really productive and you enjoy your weekend.

Storm89 · 26 January 2018 at 9:59AM

I agree with working mum and think you're doing brilliantly. Have a great Friday and don't worry about the pub- maybe staying in doesn't need to be so bad. You can watch a film together & not spend any money or consume as many calories as from a takeaway and alcohol in the process. I think we could all take from the 'without expectation' advice to be honest - it's easy to feel disappointed if we don't do something we had expected.

enthusiasticsaver · 26 January 2018 at 12:19PM

JoJoC wrote: »

What a goal to have

Do you know, I've really not thought about retirement (other than having a pension that I have been paying into for the last approx 10 years) but the thought of being semi-retired around 50 and retirement at 60 sounds unbelievable! What a position to be in

Ultimately I think that'd be an achieveable goal for us - 20 years until I'm 50 and 18 until hubby is 50 so really, we have time on our side.

Thanks for the inspiration - think i'm going to explore this idea more.

Never too soon to think about it. We started overpaying into DHs pension when he was about 27. We didn’t concentrate on mine as much as we should have so I had a fair bit of catching up to do as I worked part time but we achieved our retiremnent goal 2 years early. Aimed for 60 but went at 58 as soon as we could afford it.

enthusiasticsaver · 26 January 2018 at 12:26PM

Well done on paying off HMRC and hope the hand gets better soon. Good idea to skip the pub both from money and diet point of view. I think the dieting is a lot harder than saving money. I have about a stone or so to lose so am monitoring snacks, cutting down on fat and sugar and upping exercise.

fatrab · 26 January 2018 at 4:07PM

Good afternoon

Thanks for the kind words. I'm not disappointed about the weight loss. That was the wrong thing to say upon reflection. What I meant was that I'm concerned that the small changes aren't having as big an impact as I thought they would. Onwards and . . . well . . . downwards on that front hopefully!!

9lbs in 4 weeks is still ok and I'm only targeting 1lb per week on average! Small changes... might become medium sized changes shortly. Watch this space.

I did have something for breakfast this morning and it may has well have been called a "Guilt Sandwich"! It was £3.30, neither money saving nor healthy. I am fortunate that I'm not a coffee drinker so I have no desire to spend the same again on a mocha latte frappuccino or whatever it is you crazy kids drink nowadays!

So I'm going into the weekend looking for more ways to money-save. This will most likely only be achievable by eliminating waste, stretching meals and becoming more efficient with our current spending.

That includes pub and eating out.

Have a nice weekend

CoffeeCakeYarn · 26 January 2018 at 5:00PM

''Guilt Sandwich'' - I'm totally stealing that!

I love it! I had ''Guilt Chips and curry sauce'' last week. Don't beat yourself up, if it's few and far between it ain't the end of the world.

My 5 year plan

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