Getting FIREd up 😀

QueenJess

It depends if you want your goals to be only financial or a mix of financial and lifestyle. You can mix where you want your life to slowly go to in, or just stick purely to finances.

For example on the coast fire, maybe it isn’t feasible as early as you want, but is there compromise? Then with a very rough big plan, give yourself little targets to get to rounded percentages on the ISA etc. Or alternatively you can ignore the overall picture of it is all slowly going that way anyway and give yourself little monthly stretch targets to get to more savings for renovating or whatever you more want to concentrate on at the moment.

South_coast

Thanks for all your thoughts - and LOL at the idea I might already be anything like any kind of FI, SSS 🤣! At the moment, the ISA would buy me 1 week's groceries per month at a 4% withdrawal rate! (If we included the pensions, it would cover council tax, electric, water, broadband and TV licence - so just mobile phone, groceries, petrol and annual expenses to go and I would be "survival FI" 😳 - but can't get at those for at least 18 years, so they don't really count!) I will try and think of some interim targets, although this was meant to be the year of "no goals", remember (hence no "personal" targets to work on at the moment) 🤔

(In amongst this, the postie has delivered my annual pension statement from old-old job this morning, confirming it has dropped by £1500 in the last year. I mean, I already *knew* this, but what dreadful timing 🤦‍♀️!)

edinburgher

Sorry if you've explained this before @South_coast but how do your percentages work? 

South_coast

It's percentage of target, Ed. Just gives a better picture than the wild £ swings that can occur month to month

edinburgher

Ah, OK, that explains why they don't add up to 100%

South_coast

No, my maths isn't quite that bad 🤣!

Cornish_mum

Hi SC, I too have found using the SWR withdrawal rate on our stash really depressing (the number is just so big). So I am working on a ready to retire at 68 pot (state pension plus my DB ~ 10 years till that’s filled), for a modest income. Then I track progress on our separate DC, ISAs and savings, as months we can leave earlier than NRA. As I find it more encouraging to think in terms of months, than % of a massive number. This pot is also our EF and renovation fund (but I find it helpful to lump it all together and then compare any spends too months of  early retirement lost).

Might help? CM 

South_coast

That's an idea, CM. At the very least, I will have got one month closer each time - purely by virtue of being a month older!

I think my figures need some revision anyway, as the current workings have me only taking a 4% SWR from the pensions and ISA and not actually running them down, which is probably way too conservative - no point being the richest woman in the graveyard! Sounds like a job for a Bank Holiday weekend....🤔

edinburgher

Our target NW is now £1,000,000, feels ridiculous I appreciate our privilege but SWR on that amount is c. £35,000 a year. That's c. 75% of current income.

South_coast

I reckon I could live pretty comfortably on 50% of my current take-home pay, which sounds ridiculous until I say that I currently live on about 25% of it 🤣 - although I do pull all annual expenses out of the savings pots, could do with totting those up and seeing what they equate to each month 🤔 Pretty sure it's not another 25% though (and even if it is, breaking even would be fine!)