SF's road to MF/FIRE - Take Two!

slowlyfading

Another NSD done :j I definitely feel like I'm on a roll. Hoping to not spend tomorrow and make it until Saturday as I think we'll need milk then.


Not much else to report; it's all nicely boring in our household right now.


Just sat figuring out different variables for our FIRE goals. If only there were more hours in the day!

slowlyfading

Gosh, I'm so impatient things are progressing quickly enough for my liking. I know that this journey is a long term one, so I need to sit tight. Never been very good at that


Finances wise, I feel so much more confident about them this month. Much more in control and not doing any unnecessary spending. In fact, the only thing we've done this month so far that isn't on the budget plan is we have booked a self-catering cottage in Scotland for a week in the summer holidays and I can't wait :j :j


Did the main shop - food, misc, and petrol - as I do it all at the supermarket. I spent:
- Food - £64.84
- Misc. - £10.06
- Petrol - £29.68


Happy with that all on plan and within budget.

Jessy103

Ooo a summer holiday in Scotland sounds lovely. I've always wanted to go, it looks so beautiful! I hope you have an amazing time! x

slowlyfading

Jessy103 wrote: »

Ooo a summer holiday in Scotland sounds lovely. I've always wanted to go, it looks so beautiful! I hope you have an amazing time! x

Ah, thank you! I can't wait, already

slowlyfading

I tell you what, it's such strange times.

The worst thing is not knowing when I will get to see my parents, or my in laws again. The uncertainty is the worse! Thankfully I have my home with a garden where my two boys can play out, but it's tough. DS1 is missing school, his friends and his teacher. He doesn't really understand why he's not there and why he's not allowed to be outside with his friends. DS2 doesn't really have any concept that anything is different which is lovely. He is also loving having his big brother around all of the time to play with

Finances wise, it has been a strange old month. It doesn't look like April is going to be any different. I am self isolating due to a health condition so at least my spends should be low! In fact, the only thing we are spending on at the moment is food. DH is still going to work as he is considered a key worker which worries me but nothing to be done about that at the moment. He seems okay about it though.

Think I might have to write here everyday just to process some thoughts! I'm trying to keep my YouTube channel and blog going through this, though it's difficult to know what to talk about.

longway2go

Hi SF, it is a strange time we have 2 little boys aswell (17 months and 4 years). I think it's lovely they can keep each other company.
In relation to finance stuff, I would say people will be really keen to understand how they can cut back and the help they can get from govt if you could cover something like that I'm sure it would be popular. 

slowlyfading

longway2go said:

Hi SF, it is a strange time we have 2 little boys aswell (17 months and 4 years). I think it's lovely they can keep each other company.
In relation to finance stuff, I would say people will be really keen to understand how they can cut back and the help they can get from govt if you could cover something like that I'm sure it would be popular. 

That's definitely something to think about, thanks for sharing that

slowlyfading

So, another day at home.

I am trying to focus on the positives! So, in March I have:

• managed 19 NSDs
• overpaid our mortgage by £67
• put £700 into our savings/investments.
  

I have decided that, over time, I need to bulk up our emergency fund. It currently stands at £1,000 which it has done for a while. But, if the current situation has taught me anything, it's that our emergency fund/cash savings is quite small and nowhere near enough. I can't decide on a number, but in the short(ish) term I'm going to aim to build it up to £5,000. Any of my self-employment income going forward will be diverted to our emergency fund. I don't know if I'll manage to get it to this by the end of the year, but I might re-assess at a later date.

In other news, I am not looking at my investments. I know they will have gone down quite but as I a) have no extra cash to invest and b) have no intention of selling any time soon, there isn't much point. If I was adding extra cash or intending on selling then it would be a different story. As I'm doing neither of these two things, I don't need to look!

In terms of our mortgage overpayments, I am going to try and keep these going in some capacity but our (fairly small) household income doesn't stretch too far in all directions. I do want to keep it going though! Part of our early retirement dreams is a paid off house so I just need to continue the juggling act a bit

It's the strangest end of the month I've had in a while... hope everyone else is okay!?

Lomcevak

slowlyfading said:

I have decided that, over time, I need to bulk up our emergency fund. It currently stands at £1,000 which it has done for a while. But, if the current situation has taught me anything, it's that our emergency fund/cash savings is quite small and nowhere near enough. I can't decide on a number, but in the short(ish) term I'm going to aim to build it up to £5,000.

...

It's the strangest end of the month I've had in a while... hope everyone else is okay!?

It has been a very strange month - three and a bit weeks ago I was in LA, feels like years ago.

One thing I found helpful with emergency funds is to keep 'emergencies' and 'loss of income' separate, even though it's tempting to lump them together in one big 'emergency fund'.

The emergency fund is there to stop a lack of immediate access to cash from turning a small problem into a a big problem - e.g. a car breakdown meaning you can't get to work and can't get paid, or an unattended toothache turning into dental surgery - and it is also an achievable first step, as even £500 can be a reasonable emergency fund for most people. Double up to £1,000 and that covers most things. Loss of income is a separate problem, but if you budget already you know what the target is; e.g. based on the last six months I know I need a minimum of £971.81 to cover food, mortgage, and bills in April. Obviously that's would make for a pretty extreme month, but i'd make it. Six months of baseline expenses would be closer to £8k or so, I can't cut the budget to the absolute bone each and every month, but when I had my lightbulb moment ten years or so ago that first £971.81 felt a much more achievable target. So I just did a series of steps; £1k emergency fund, 1 month 'bare bones' loss of income, 3 months 'bare bones' budget, 3 months more comfortable, etc. Constantly felt like I was making progress towards the next milestone, which made it a much easier target than starting off looking at the £10k I eventually ended up with. 

Needhelpsaving

Hi, I'm just delurking to say we did the same thing as Lomcevak with our emergency fund. We do keep it as a big lump sum, just because that works for our household. Again, we worked out what we would need as a bare bones to cover our household expenses - we even discussed what could be removed if in dire straits (TV package, swimming lessons etc) and we worked on saving a month of expenses at a time as well. 

Then over time, we have gone slightly above 6 months of expenses (again about 8k for us), this then means we have a buffer, like last month when our fridge freezer needed replacing. 

We always try to top it back up if we've had an expense, and we also make sure that we check it regularly in line with direct debit updates for council tax/water etc to make sure it is always reflective of our fixed expenses. We only have petrol and food included as our variable expenses in the fund, as if in a bad situation, we would cut back to make it stretch. 

I agree with Lomcevak that taking it a month at a time is a great way of feeling like your making progress, as it gives you increments to work towards and before you know it, you'll have 3 or even 6 months saved. Hope that helps x