2742 days until Retirement

[Deleted User]

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

Lrimas

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. :money:

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?

Lrimas

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
:j:j

streethack

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.

[Deleted User]

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.

Lrimas

What a weekend!

It is my birthday today and I had an entire weekend to celebrate.

On Friday I had some "me time" as OH went out with some friends. I decided to treat myself and got myself a pie, a few beers and some sweeties from Co-op. All in £5.5. A year ago if I decided to treat myself it would have been over £50, so I am rather proud of myself

Yesterday we went for a 17km hike and also polished off half a bottle of whiskey (not at the same time ). I rarely drink these days so the whiskey went straight to my head, but I had a great night. My only regret is waking up with a bit of a headache.

Today was spend at home mostly being lazy. I got presents, cake and I'm getting ribs for dinner

The other great thing about my birthday is that my company pension contributions will increase from 10% to 12%. So I got a 2% pay increase today. (It's a bit weird that they contribute different percentages based on your age.)

streethack - thanks for reading and posting. I have to agree that it is the backstabbing that makes work unbearable for me. I was protected from it for a long time (or maybe I just didn't notice it) but now that I've moved into management it seems to happen more often. I wish I could tell people that I'm not a threat. I'm not planning on advancing any further at work so they don't have to compete against me. Why can't we just work together to solve problems instead? My favorite time at work is between 8 and 9 when I'm the only person in the office

jeepjunky - I have to admit that my stoozing is rather low. I only have about £1.5k on 0% credit cards right now. I considered increasing it, but I'm worried about what that would mean for remortgaging. Have you ever had any issues?

I also find it interesting how many people can't be bothered to be better with money. I have a colleague who has a household income of over £100k but can't afford a house. He keeps on telling me how lucky I am that we managed to buy a house. I want to tell him that it has nothing to do with luck and that he is definitely doing something wrong...

Lrimas

Budget day is done and I have earmarked another £1959.66 for savings. I made £963.49 with matched betting and another £626.83 was paid into my pension making my total savings for the month £3549.98. :eek: This is more than I earned (after tax) a year ago when I started my journey.

This is in permanent pay increase of £141.99 per year or £11.83 per month for the rest of my life! I've also increased the 'percentage done' on my goal by 2% and if every month is like this month (unlikely as there was a silly amount of offers for matched betting. Don't think it can last) I'll be done with Goal 1 in 24 months. It feels sooooooo long for a person as impatient as me, but it is really short if you think about what I'm trying to achieve - most people work years to become mortgage neutral.

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): £149909.615
Need (nieces & nephews): £12000
Need (total): £161909.615
Saved: £73264.64
Percentage done: 45.25%

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

McTaggus

Loving your diary here and your original post really resonated with me. Not as early as yours, but I'm hoping to bring my mortgage term down from 31 years to 10 years so at least I can have a choice in what I have to do day in and day out, rather than hitting the grind every single day - they pay well, but I do feel like it's slowly killing me already!

Good luck on your journey!

[Deleted User]

Lrimas wrote: »

jeepjunky - I have to admit that my stoozing is rather low. I only have about £1.5k on 0% credit cards right now. I considered increasing it, but I'm worried about what that would mean for remortgaging. Have you ever had any issues?

Well I just remortgaged with ~50k on cards. But I own 75% of the house.


TBH I've never given a stuff about CRAs/credit scores etc


MB going well but not getting to your heights


PS Happy belated birthday!

Lrimas

Woohoo! Mortgage switched over and we are now on 1.69% instead of 5.19%. That is a huge amount of savings each month.

I also shortened the mortgage term but I now regret doing that. I might have to increase it again just before I retire to ensure I can easily make the payments (I'll be mortgage neutral, but some of the money I'll need will be locked away in my pension).

Not sure how my mb is doing. I'm doing a lot of casino and bingo offers that are extremely high variance, so I have no idea if I'm up or down right now. The theory is good though (I had my mom who is a maths teacher check over my calculations ) so I should make a profit in the long run. The only thing I'm really worried about is that the disregard for money in MB will spill over to real life. If you are putting £100 on 1/5 of the board in roulettes without really caring about the outcome it can become easy to think that £100 doesn't really have meaning anymore. I keep my MB account seperate from my real account so hopefully that will help a bit.

McTaggus - Thanks for stopping by. We have fairly similar targets so we can keep each other company

Jeepjunky - thanks for the birthday wishes .