It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

LHW99

SouthCoastBoy said:

westv said:

Am I the only one that has never been to a gym? 

I'm not a gym goer, never appealed to me. However I do running 3 or 4 times a week, but that is free . when/If I retire I may start to go swimming again though. Also thinking of joining an indoor bowls clubs, something to keep me occupied in the winter mths.

Same for my / my OH. We do walk though, and there are a good variety of short / long footpath walks that we can use without having to jump in a car or use public transport.

Sea_Shell

enthusiasticsaver said:

That is a pain about the YBS Christmas Saver I presume.  We have our normal savings account with YBS so I tend to move our savings to them after our pensions go through then do a transfer.  I would not have thought they would even accept a second payment in. 

You presume correctly.    Looked this morning and the account is showing £300, but as the terms of the account are "no withdrawals for 14 days", I wonder if they themselves can't process a return of the £150 until that time has passed.

It might not be "automatic" and needs to be raised and processed by a person.    I'll keep an eye on it.   You never know, it might slip through the net and be left sitting there.

Hmmm, wonder if it'll accrue 6% interest in the meantime   

michaels

I think a few years ago I ended up with a mistake extra payment into a YBS reg saver that was allowed to stay forever but more recently when the same thing happened the transaction was reversed - perhaps not all sources can easily be reversed?

k6chris

SouthCoastBoy said:

westv said:

Am I the only one that has never been to a gym? 

  However I do running 3 or 4 times a week, but that is free .

Running free???  Ha, you have not seen our collection of shoes and medals from races! 

Sea_Shell

k6chris said:

SouthCoastBoy said:

westv said:

Am I the only one that has never been to a gym? 

  However I do running 3 or 4 times a week, but that is free .

Running free???  Ha, you have not seen our collection of shoes and medals from races! 

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt (and the medals and the hoodies, and the goodie bags)

I don't pay to participate any more.

As for shoes, I've spent most of my running life searching for the holy grail of shoes, settling on ASICS for a while.

Now my mileage has reduced, Decathlon do me just fine.

I probably only run 10-12 miles a week now, with swim or gym now throw in.

Gotta protect them knees.😉😇🏃🏼‍♀️

westv

Running? Mind those joints!

I_Love_comps

Just read through your helpful thread.  I will continue to follow ,

Sea_Shell

I_Love_comps said:

Just read through your helpful thread.  I will continue to follow ,

Welcome, and thanks.

Sea_Shell

michaels said:

Sea_Shell said:

Just going back to projections for a moment...

I just dug out my original spreadsheet from Jan 2019.    On it we had "assumed" a starting pot of £490,000.   Growth of 3%.  Annual spend of £15,000 (starting figure) and 2% inflation.  

This showed that by end 2023, we "should" have had £485,316 remaining, and be spending £16,200.

As at December 2023, we actually had £618,506, with our average spends over 5 years of £14,900.  (ranging between £11-£19k)


Make of that what you will.   

Looking good, adjusting for the unexpected inflation you were expecting to have £551k in current £s and actually have £618k

Spending under nominal budget despite inflation is very impressive.  Has your spending gone closer to plan since the pandemic restrictions were removed?

@michaels

So to answer your question (here, as opposed to cluttering up someone else's thread)

It does appear that our "personal" inflation figure is...modest.    

We did have a couple of years where spends were nearer £19k, but those included some big, one off, capital spends (boiler and cloakroom refurb).    So our underlying "normal" spends are nearer £16k, up from the lean pandemic years.

So even if we had ringfenced cash for one-offs in the future, accruing at say at £2-3k per year, we would still fall within a 3-3.5% ballpark.

Sea_Shell said:

» show previous quotes

We were 47 and 52 back then. 

Our money has to last 5 years less now. 😉

"Are you tempted to ramp up the spending now you are five years on or do you not feel at all constricted by your finances? "

@enthusiasticsaver

As I think I've mentioned before, we don't really have a "budget" as such, just a finger in the air of what ballpark is normal for us.   We would have no problem spending if it was something we needed or wanted.    We don't feel constricted by our finances.    

Most of the time it's more a dislike or disinclination to actually go shopping, rather than not wanting to spend.    Laziness rather than thrift       We keep talking about re-doing the lounge (fireplace, carpet, sofas...the lot), but we can't get up the enthusiasm for it.

Saying that, it will (mentally) be easier once we have some guaranteed DB/SP coming in, just to really put any nagging doubt to bed.   But those don't start until at least 2031.

enthusiasticsaver

I haven't really followed what you do about holidays and whether you take them?   If we did not travel we would manage on a lot less and if we did not have children and grandchildren again we could manage on less.  That plus the fact we have two cars accounts for a large amount of our income. All of those are choices we have made though. 

If you do not feel constrained by finances that is evidence you have planned well and living within the plan.  As I have said in the past we would have retired a lot earlier than 58 if we did not have children and weren't bothered about travelling overseas.  

Have you got the  £150 back from YBS yet or is it still sat in the regular saver?