Onwards to freedom!

South_coast

Always love reading your updates SSS! They're guaranteed to get my brain whirring and fingers tapping on the calculator, testing out potential scenarios 😀 Today's revelation is that I, too, am living on c50% of my income (mortgage OP's take care of the rest for now) - although I'm very impressed you can do two adults and two children on £1000/month. Clearly I need to up my game 😀!

edinburgher

I love that a 50% savings rate on one ratio is "bobbing along"! Happy Easter SSS 🐣

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thank you both

@South_coast a 50% savings rate is exceptional no matter how many of you there are! You are doing awesomely well It's good to get spurred on to do more, but (and this is directed as much to myself as it is to you...) remember to give yourself a pat on the back every now and then for being most excellent

@edinburger you know what, you are absolutely right I was quite blasé about a 50% savings rate, and that's slightly worrying... 50% is excellent, it may be a fair bit lower than when we were a dual income family, but it's excellent nonetheless. When I first started my new job and we were settling into our new circumstances I expected a 20-25% savings rate to be the best we'd manage. Sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees!

Karmacat

SSS, here's another one absolutely loving your posts - I hadn't caught up before, sadly, but I just love that whole fan of opportunities and paths spreading out in front of you, and you and your OH having the confidence to say "that direction, roughly" and pootle onwards.  

And kudos to you and your OH about the roles within the marriage too, and the effects they may have on offspring - I'm sure that your care about the issue is the thing that matters, that and the flexibility.  And you never know how that kind of thing goes anyway: two of my nephews in London both have ultra-high income, and their wives do too, in their own right (foreign currency management and international lawyer, you can imagine!) so there's not much gender-bound politics that their kids pick up from that.  But to keep doing their jobs, they  both now have live-in nannies.  Who are female.  They didn't do the live-in thing before covid, but they do now.  Sometimes you can't win ... but I think you and your OH are winning right now  

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thanks for stopping by KC I like the "fan of opportunities" thing I find the best hikes tend to follow the "that direction, roughly" approach - makes for a far more interesting adventure. Applying the same methodology to life in general appeals

I'm feeling a bit more comfortable with our "old fashioned" setup these days. Maybe it's because the children are well aware that OH hopes to be back in work in the next few months. I must admit our youngest has benefited greatly from the situation - lots of time spent with Mum learning to count, read, and work out simple addition/subtraction sums - as a result I'm expecting a great "hit the ground running" start to school in September!

SuperSecretSquirrel

Wow, it has been a crazy 3 months! Total net worth up 5% this quarter alone! It feels like higher inflation or a market correction must be just around the corner, the current situation can't keep going indefinitely... All we can do is enjoy it while it lasts!

I crossed a pretty major personal milestone this quarter - I am now selfishly FI on paper The total value of my cash, S&S, and pension holdings amount to more than 25x of "my half" of our "comfortable" annual household budget. That's not really how we work things, but this has been a target of mine for quite a long time, so it's nice to finally get there, even if it's not a real finish line

We're 83% of the way to our "lean" household FI target, and 55.4% of the way to our "comfortable" household FI target. All good numbers that I'm very happy with.

I don't factor the state pension into these figures, but I also don't factor in the need for a vague five figure slush fund either. I guess they go some way to cancelling each other out. Very unscientific I know... I'll get a bit more precise when I run through my annual forecast in January.

We'll be spending a bit more than usual this next quarter, we're planning on some small home improvements, lots of nice day trips, and maybe a short UK break too. This is the kind of thing we actually like spending money on, so loosening the purse strings won't be too painful

edinburgher

@SuperSecretSquirrel - well done - you are going great guns!

South_coast

Whoop whoop for reaching selfish FI 😀😀😀!

Karmacat

Selfish FI is a great name  and any target is a good target  

ElmoR

I've enjoyed reading your diary for years SSS   You've been one of my MFW heroes!!

I hope you don't mind me highlighting this...about the selfish FI and when one parent takes time to focus on the childcare...

It's a pure joy to have time with the children as they grow. I enjoyed several years of part-time working and being with my daughter. What I had no idea though, was how it would come back to haunt me later in life in terms of fewer pension contributions and car insurance no claims years too. We changed to sharing one car, insured in Ex name. Hence lost no claims years and then higher insurance premiums. That was minor compared to the pension hit though, especially as it was gold plated final salary at that time. I wonder, could you / do you add additional levelers into the spreadsheets to balance this for your partner?

kind regards, ElmoR