We came in £11 under budget for the holiday. I'm not really happy about it as I budgeted an insane amount to ensure that we don't have to worry. Maybe worrying is better.

OH spent an avarage of £60 per DAY at Booths. Most of this was for alcohol. He has a drinking problem and I have a rule that he is not allowed to use the shared account for alcohol. I lift this rule over holidays as I tend to have a beer or two as well, but this is too much. I'll either have to implement a rule where we each buy our own beer, or stop drinking entirely over holidays as well. I have until Christmas to decide on a plan of action.

Budget day is done and I have earmarked another £1748.13 for savings. Another £626.83 was paid into my pension as well making my total savings for the month £2374.96. This is in permanent pay increase of £95 per year or £7.92 per month for the rest of my life!

I wish that I could increase the amount I pay into my pension but I am worried about running out of money between 45 and 55 (or 57/58) when my pension money becomes available. Right now I'm paying the minimum to get full company contribution but I might start to increase this once my personal savings start to bypass the amount I have saved in pension.

I have also decided to break my main goal into 3 smaller goals to give me smaller targets to aim for (and emotional victories along the way).

Goal 1: Become Mortgage (and money promised to Nieces/Nephews) neutral for my half of the mortgage.
This will ensure that no matter what happens, I will always be able to make my mortgage payment.
Need (my half mortgage): £150 935.54
Need (nieces & nephews): £12 000
Need (total): £162 935.54
Saved: £70 056.12
Percentage done: 43%

Goal 2: Become semi-financial independent.
In other words, have enough money to sustain me if I leave my job, but I have to continue to make a second income via matched betting/etc. Another way to look at it is that I'll be saving 100% of my income at this stage. Scary.

Goal 3: Become financially independent

Goal 4: Retire

Imagining having to spend an extra year working is a lot easier when you are sitting on holiday than it is back at work.

Work sucks and if I had a way out today I would have taken it. Nothing serious happened but it was so stressful.

Because of this I am going to try to cut £400 from our shared budget (thus cutting my expenses by £200).

The mistake I made previously was to try to do it all at once which would have been to much of a shock. Instead I'm going to try to do £100 per year over 4 years.

This year it is the grocery buffer that is going. I budget £100 on top of pur redicilous grocery budget to cover extras when I've told my partner that there is no more money. No more. He should stick to the budget or pay for it with his own money.

My dietbet paid out and I made just over £300 over 6 months. I also lost about 10kg . I left enough in my account to start another game, but think I will take a month or two break first.

Matched betting is also going well. I'm using a slightly different system where I am laying the same amount as I'm betting. I also don't lay anything under £6. The purists at matched betting will never approve, but I always try to get the best result for the least amount of effort and this seems to work well. Results are never guaranteed (sometimes I win a lot and sometimes I loose a little) but over the long run it should even out.

I'm also doing much better in my second bingo offer (at gala bingo playing lucky numbers). I'm up £60 with a lot of games left to play out. Once these are done I'll withdraw my winnings and move to the next bingo site.

Finally I have subscribed to our work shareplan for £1k. We get 20% discount on the shareprice (it is taxed though) so my plan is to add a little each year. Not too much as it is outside a tax wrapper and I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket.

I had a very rough day at work today. Somebody raised a complaint to my manager that I am resistand to change because I blocked an initiative.

They are right, I did block the initiative but I had good reasons and send an email explaining my reasons. I only received one reply that only challenged one of my points.

I'm rather annoyed. How petty do you have to be to raise a complaint and turn something into a personal attack instead of challenging the issue. My first thought was: "I'm not paid enough to deal with this crap", but the problem is that I probably am .

Anyway, enough sulking. Action plan:
1) Convince manager that I had reasons for blocking the initiative and that I communicated this out - done.
2) Put together an email explaining that I'm not blocking the initiative forever, I just want the issues addressed before I give permission - in progress
3) Complain to my boss that it is my job to make decisions and I can't have people second guessing me for no reason. If I'm wrong that's a different story ( I am wrong from time to time and I'm happy to be challenged ) - unsure . I'm not sure how my boss will take this, but I am annoyed at her for not standing up for me.
4) Find out who it was. My boss wouldn't tell me which is redicilous. If you are going to complain about someone you should be brave enough to stand up to them - in progress
5) Confront them.

I really dislike confrontation but I also can't work in an environment like this. I came really close to resigning today, but I don't think I should let one person spoil the last few years of my career...

Edit: who am I kidding. I'm not going to confront them or my manager. In a week or two I'll have forgotten about this and I'll be dealing with the next drama.

Yep, there will be something else next week to worry about. My mother always say "nothing last forever"

Things that I lost sleep over 6 months ago are now insignificant..

Hope things improve for you

Thanks Moneyfordreams. I have to admit that I'm starting to feel a lot better. It helps that I'm very fortunate in the rest of my life and I have to admit that the past few days have been pleasant at work. We are working on a fairly interesting project with nice people and there tends to be a lot of banter. I still get a sinking feeling in my stomach each time I see my manager or the person who complained about me (I'm fairly sure of who it was now), but I think it will pass soon.

Two small updates:

Car's MOT was due yesterday. Had to replace two tyres and front break pads. All in just £210 which I'm more than happy about.

Matched betting is also going well. I'm £400 up for the months thanks to a VERY lucrative weekend (there were sooo many offers for Man U vs Man C) and also due to figuring out how to play the bingo offers.

I'm getting a bit worried about my accounts so I've implemented a rule that I'm not allowed to withdraw money from bookies, I have to play it out. Hopefully this will keep me profitible for them (I might have to reconsider if I get a big win, but for now it hasn't been more than £100).

Good luck with next week mfw!

I lost my first betting account today (BoyleSports). I was expecting it to happen soon, but not with an account where I was still playing through the sign up offer.

That said I was redicilously lucky (or unlucky as it killed my account) with them, winning all of the matches and making £100 from their casino bonus. I don't really blame them.

Dabbled in matched betting a few years ago but for whatever reason didn't stick at it. However now that my stoozing looks like it may die off by the end of the year due to high interest current accounts being/likely to be severely cut I started matched betting again. Even just harvesting initial offers [and there are a lot of them never mind the reloads] it's just so easy I have considered your method above but not tried it yet. Would save laying hundreds and the exchange Cheers

Jeepjunkie, I have to admit that I'm not sure if my theory is good anymore. Right now my "Profit/loss for last 30 days" at the exchange is just over £800. If I had stuck with it my bankroll would be £800 less than it is now.

I ordered a bike today through our cycle to work scheme. My partner is going to convert it to an electric bike and then I'll use it to cycle to work (I'm 15 miles away, which is a bit too far for me to do normally. I don't want to get to work all sweaty and I still want to go running with my dogs after work). I should save a bit of money (not much as I have a VERY economic car) especially if I charge it at work.

My stepbet also paid out: $15 extra. I think I make about £20 per month (stepbet, bounts & pact) simply for walking

What I do is part drive/part cycle every day with the option to vary distances, on-road, off-road etc.


I probably look a bit daft with my bright orange MTB on the roof of the city car.


Works for me, commuting is fast and cheap


Cycle to work scheme is brilliant but looking at some of the new electric MTBs which start ~2K! Look amazing though and would love to have one but the scheme only goes up to £1K


Cheers

That is a brilliant idea Jeepjunky. We see driving or cycling to work as an "or" while it doesn't have to be. It can be an "and" with the benefits of both and only some of the disadvantages of both.

I've gone a little bit over budget on my personal budget (and there is still a long way to go to the end of the month, so I'll get to practise being extremely frugal). I bought new running shoes. I planned on waiting until next month as I also had the MOT this month, but when I kicked a stone and it ended up inside my shoe (through a hole in the front) I decided that it couldn't wait anymore.

Also been thinking about goal 3 (become FI) and 4 (retire) a lot. I would like to move to a house with a big garden in a rural location when I'm retired. It has to be close to my OH's work though as it will take him much longer to reach FI. The location will make it expensive (£500k plus which will make my half £250k) so I'll have to save another £100k to achieve it.

This will mean I'll have to work a few more years. I don't think I'll be able to do it. Maybe work will become easier once I don't have to do it anymore, but my guess would be that I'll break at the first confrontation (or stresful day) and resign.

Has anyone here reached FI yet? Did you manage to continue working? Does anyone else have any theories on if it will be possible?

Ok, I think I've figured it out. Right now I have two conflicting wants/needs. On the one hand I need money in order to survive, and I want money in order to maintain a certain standard of life. On the other hand I want to have the freedom to do what I want (even if that means that I sit at home doing nothing ) and I want to retire young enough that it is still an amazing transition instead of being something that happens because I'm old.

Right now I can't have both so I have to choose between one of them, so I choose money. At some point my "want" to retire is going to outweigh my "want" for more money and at this point I will most probably retire.

If I keep this in mind I can rewrite my goals:
Goal 1: Become Mortgage neutral
In other words, I need somewhere to live. I want to sit and do nothing all day, but if I have to do it in the streets I won't be happy. This is more important than retiring and I will continue working until I've fulfilled this "need".

Goal 2: Become semi-financial independent.
This one can really be broken down into two sub groups:
[2a]: I need enough money to fulfill my basic needs (food, water, electricity, etc.). Until I have enough to pay that I can't retire
[2b]: I want to have extra money to have a decent standard of living (travel, luxury items, pets). Also more important than not working.

Goal 3: Become financially independent
This is all about financial security. While I might have enough money after reaching goal 2 to live comfortably for the rest of my life, it is dependent on something that can stop at any time (matched betting). If I reach this I know I never have to worry about money again. This is pretty important to me.

I can then add a few mini-goals
[3b] Bigger/Better house in rural location
This is all about having an even better quality of life. Being able to easily do some of my hobbies (hiking and playing with the dogs) and being able to relax in retirement. This is still more important than retiring, but the line is starting to get very blurry now.

[3c] Travel more
I would like this, but I think I would prefer to have more free time instead.

[3c] Buy lots of stuff that I don't want/need
At this point the choice is rather obvious

Goal 4: Retire

Really liked reading this. The idea of retirements so young is great. I agree work is such an odd thing to do, everyday you are doing something that a lot of people has a great distain for. Working at any job for me is not how I want to spend the rest of my life. All the work politics are the worst, the backstabbing, pointless meetings where nothing gets done. I work shifts it amazing how much people prefer a night shift where much of these things don't happen. Good luck on your journey.

Personally I like to have several income steams in addition to the day job like...


Solar FITS ~£1.8k pa for 25 years
RHI ~£1k pa for seven years
Stoozing ~£2.5k pa
Matched betting ~£ lots but not got an annual figure yet
Child benefit - does that count?
Harvest bank bonuses
Overtime
Frugal living e.g. no TV licence
Wife does the same but also self employed typing in spare time
etc


Allows us to have far to many Maldives hols, big rural choc box property, decent cars etc, overpay mort and pensions.


But of course everyone I know either can't see the point or be bothered...


I only earn a little above the average from the day job...


So you can do all your goals at the same time if you really want to


PS I never borrow money or use credit cards except for stoozing.