Onwards to freedom!

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thanks for sharing your story KC! As for apologising for the length of the post, have you seen the size of some of mine!? :rotfl: No apologies, please

You made the leap at my current age. In similar circumstances (single, no kids) I like to think I'd be daring enough to do what you did, but I honestly doubt I would. Too cautious... I actually really like the idea of doing a bit of this and that to bring in some money while working towards a greater goal, but temping would likely see me earn half my current salary, so the romantic notions go out the window pretty quickly once reality bites.

I'm starting to realise that I'm getting a little restless in my current work situation. I don't want to jump ship as the money is likely better than anything else available to me locally, and it's not like I hate what I do, I'm just feeling a little tinge of something akin to wanderlust I guess (but in terms of work not travel). I'm considering the idea of taking a leaf out of ed's book and studying for some extra qualifications alongside my fulltime job. Thinking of starting small, maybe a home study GCSE or A level to see how I cope with that plus a fulltime job plus family life plus a little SE dabbling, biting off as little as possible as a first stab, then maybe working up to bigger and better things later.

Off to catch up on your diary now KC

Karmacat

Building on what you're doing is always good. Most people in my line of work don't do *only* that for very long - they go into supervision, they teach, they do research, they work for private companies as consultants, depending on many factors. Use the restlessness, by all means: renting out a room on airbnb, even growing very high-value crops - I'm not sure where you are, but growing saffron, say (which is a long term thing of just letting some autumn crocuses do their thing) or making chili jam to sell (artisan version sells at £4 for 200g round here) can be very small add-ons. Kindle books? Check out John Tighe (free) on youtube.

Promotion where you currently work is always going to get you the most bang for your buck

edinburgher

I should point out that my studying has hit a brick wall - apparently home improvements + baby + f-t job is more than enough for getting on with

Here's hoping that the increased sunshine gives me a much needed energy boost.

Does your place offer sabbaticals SSS? Maybe you just need some time out.

SuperSecretSquirrel

[SIZE=2][FONT=Courier New]               CURRENTVALUE       +/-MTH       +/-QTR       +/-YOY
House Value:    [COLOR=Blue]£125,000.00[/COLOR]        £0.00        £0.00        £0.00
Cash:            [COLOR=Blue]£44,669.50[/COLOR]     -£634.07   -£2,555.52       -£3.13
Pensions:        [COLOR=Blue]£66,923.78[/COLOR]      £980.21    £5,599.73   £22,911.81
Car Value:       [COLOR=Blue]£16,165.00[/COLOR]     -£435.00    £7,265.00    £5,915.00
S&S:             [COLOR=Blue]£16,304.39[/COLOR]    £1,110.80    £2,991.02    £8,559.65
Mortgage:       [COLOR=DarkRed]-£20,907.54[/COLOR]      £737.01    £4,755.18   £11,084.00
Due to HMRC:       [COLOR=DarkRed]-£488.60[/COLOR]      -£18.74     -£108.34      £172.74
Student Loan:    [COLOR=DarkRed]-£1,995.54[/COLOR]       -£0.25      £142.83      £884.19
[B]Total:          £245,670.99    £1,739.96   £18,089.90   £49,524.26[/B][/FONT][/SIZE]

81.9% of the way to 300k net worth (2020 challenge), 16.7% mortgage ltv, £39,577.75 beyond mortgage neutral in liquid assets, 14.5% financially independent.
__________________________________________________

Not a bad month financially, bearing in mind we've both been on maternity and paternity leave (and statutory pay)

It has been a truly excellent month in terms of family time

The year on year net worth increase has blown me away! It's a massive increase considering our household income, even after stripping out the car swap. Mr Market gets most of the credit

Thanks for posting KC and Ed Sorry to hear the studying has hit a brick wall. I have a feeling I'll be in the same boat once back at work... Monday will be painful I don't know of anyone at work having taken a sabbatical, but I guess I could find out if it's an option. Thanks for the suggestions KC, especially the kindle pointer, I'll watch some of those videos later

NorthernMonkey1

As a slightly pointless spreadsheet exercise, which I know we both love It's probably worth splitting the mortgage into 2 components, that which is interest repayment, and that which is capital repayment.

The interest component should be considered as an expense, to be considered in the calculation of monthly expenses, and the capital repayment component should be considered as a form of savings, as it has a direct impact on NW

SuperSecretSquirrel

That's an interesting one NM. On the one hand, I agree with what you say, the only real expense is the interest, so perhaps that's all that should be included in the FI% calculation. On the other hand, if you think of the FI calc as a cashflow operation, you should include the capital repayment as an expense as that is still going out each month, and an amount which would still need to be paid if made redundant etc.

I guess the real answer is - if planning to be MF in retirement, just don't include the mortgage at all, as it won't exist by the time you come to draw down an income from your savings and investments. However, that would give a false result in the meantime...

Personally, I'm happy to keep the whole amount in the calculation and treat the whole thing as a cashflow exercise. Since the mortgage will most likely be obliterated in nine months time I don't suppose it really matters either way

Karmacat

I really like that table, SSS - there aren't many finance tables I can understand at a glance but thats one of them. And underneath the totals of each column, you could have the percentages that you've written underneath, about how far each column is towards its 2020 total? No, they don't correspond, do they?

I know from my work as a dfw that its very motivating to see progress in the figures, and I *do* keep note enough to see that, but not in such an easy form, and I don't really have a target yet.

Well, I *do* have a target, but I'm not working towards it yet, I'm still caught on catching up on the garden and seeing friends I was too ill to see.

Lots of food for thought! Thanks!

Karmacat

Adapated your table for my own use, put the headings on my thread on here, now to fill it in!

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thanks KC, looking forward to seeing your stats table soon If you quote my net worth update post above, highlight everything within the "code" tags, copy, then abandon the reply, and paste into "code" tags in a reply on your own diary thread, you can easily copy the formatting. Of course the values will change, and you'll have different labels, and more rows, but it should be easy enough to tailor to your situation. One tip is to make judicious use of the "preview post" button when fiddling with the spacing When it's time to post a new update, follow the same process, but quoting your own earlier post at the start, and there will be far less fiddling required

First day back at work today. Boo! Hiss! :rotfl:

SuperSecretSquirrel

Forgot to add - as of 1st April we've started to experiment with spend tracking. We'll get a receipt for every purchase made (or scribble a note for any online purchases) and dump them into a pot. At the end of the month I will review the contents of the pot and plug the values into a spreadsheet of some description.

I track my own accounts (and get a monthly balance update from OH) but haven't tracked categorised spends for years. OH has never tracked spends. Quite a breakthrough getting OH to agree to receipt tracking, explained that it was necessary to truly understand what we spend before we can make big decisions like career break, career change, reducing hours, etc, so eventually we struck a deal - OH just collects receipts up, I do all the nerdery.

I'm hoping we can stick to it, but it's early days right now! Think I might be copying frugaldom's categorised spending spreadsheet and making a few tweaks. If we can stick to it, I might even consider joining that challenge sometime in the future