julicorn's journey 3 - The House on the Hill

trix-a-belle

Gosh that makes me feel old, I stayed in Castleton as a kid (the joys of caravan holidays), definitely saw Mam Tor, & went down the Blue John mine

LadyWithAPlan

julicorn said:

LadyWithAPlan said:

Great you enjoying the scaled back work and to getting Gaga tickets

I'm honestly so excited about the latter - watched her Rio concert (with 2.1 million people attending!) on the weekend, it was spectacular. Mr julicorn and I are already planning what we're going to wear   

Dare I ask what you are both planning to wear, which Gaga era you aiming for?

julicorn

powerspowers said:

Oh have a lovely time!
Hope is gorgeous but definitely the busiest part of the peaks. If you are walking I’d recommend Win Hill over Mam Tor, same views but can be done from Hope without dealing with traffic chaos at Mam Tor. You can walk along the ridge to get to Castleton or Edale (train back to Hope). The broken road at Mam Tor is interesting, I likeCave Dale (especially if you watched the Princess Bride). I’ve spent days walking around LadyBowrer and there’s also bike hire. Allport castles or Back Tor are good longer walks (10 mile+) and not as busy as Kinder. 

Some of the caves are good, I’d probably recommend Treacliff. The Devils !!!!!! cave is an absolute rip off. 

Have fun x

Gosh it's been way to long since I logged in, it's been busy with holiday, post holiday, and polytunnel construction shenanigans! Only just saw your post now, thank you so much though It was actually super quiet, we saw hardly any other people on any of our walks - going early in the week definitely helped We actually went down the broken road from Mam Tor to Castleton, as well as up Win Hill, and loved them all. We ended up skipping the caves. Would definitely love to go back, it was such a wonderful holiday!

julicorn

LadyWithAPlan said:

julicorn said:

LadyWithAPlan said:

Great you enjoying the scaled back work and to getting Gaga tickets

I'm honestly so excited about the latter - watched her Rio concert (with 2.1 million people attending!) on the weekend, it was spectacular. Mr julicorn and I are already planning what we're going to wear   

Dare I ask what you are both planning to wear, which Gaga era you aiming for?

Absolutely! It'll be loosely Mistress of Mayhem inspired, I've got a lovely floor length red lace dress that I want to wear with sheer red gloves and a red veil, and Mr julicorn wants to wear a black suit with a matching black veil, and maybe get a lace shirt as well if we can find one at a charity shop in the meantime  

powerspowers

julicorn said:

powerspowers said:

Oh have a lovely time!
Hope is gorgeous but definitely the busiest part of the peaks. If you are walking I’d recommend Win Hill over Mam Tor, same views but can be done from Hope without dealing with traffic chaos at Mam Tor. You can walk along the ridge to get to Castleton or Edale (train back to Hope). The broken road at Mam Tor is interesting, I likeCave Dale (especially if you watched the Princess Bride). I’ve spent days walking around LadyBowrer and there’s also bike hire. Allport castles or Back Tor are good longer walks (10 mile+) and not as busy as Kinder. 

Some of the caves are good, I’d probably recommend Treacliff. The Devils !!!!!! cave is an absolute rip off. 

Have fun x

Gosh it's been way to long since I logged in, it's been busy with holiday, post holiday, and polytunnel construction shenanigans! Only just saw your post now, thank you so much though It was actually super quiet, we saw hardly any other people on any of our walks - going early in the week definitely helped We actually went down the broken road from Mam Tor to Castleton, as well as up Win Hill, and loved them all. We ended up skipping the caves. Would definitely love to go back, it was such a wonderful holiday!

Glad you enjoyed! It’s a lovely bit of the world 

julicorn

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

End of November update:

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £74,454.31

Mortgage: £213,005.57

% towards being mortgage neutral: 35.0%

Total retirement pot: £201,061.05

% of early retirement savings: 21.6%

End of December update:

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £77,493.45

Mortgage: £212,517.37

% towards being mortgage neutral: 36.5%

Total retirement pot: £205,494.55

% of early retirement savings: 22.1%

End of January update. Also worth noting that the overall goal has increased with inflation to £949,500.00, so the percentage of early retirement savings is based on a different overall target. 

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £84,246.03

Mortgage: £211,503.04

% towards being mortgage neutral: 39.8%

Total retirement pot: £217,487.16

% of early retirement savings: 22.9%


My book currently stands at around 14,000 words, for what it's worth

Stopping by for an end of Feb update with the figures only for now - struggling with a few things at the moment and trying to work out what I want to do about work mainly, so things might either get shaken up quite dramatically or not, who knows. Will post a proper update when I have the mental bandwidth. 

The stock market has not been doing great this month, let's put it like that, but we made some half decent contributions (to the ISA especially) which have at least made up for the reduction in value. 

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £86,191.96

Mortgage: £211,010.18

% towards being mortgage neutral: 40.8%

Total retirement pot: £217,309.29

% of early retirement savings: 22.9%

I'll stop by for a more in depth update next few days, but here is one with just the figures. Investments have not been great as we probably all know, and we're officially no longer half-millionaires when it comes to our total net worth - I guess that means we can open another bottle of bubbly as and when we hit that milestone again!

Current figures are as follows:

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £84,779.86

Mortgage: £210,515.79

% towards being mortgage neutral: 40.3%

Total retirement pot: £211,012.58

% of early retirement savings: 22.2%

My income will be much lower from April so I guess the heady days of the really high investments are over for the moment, although I will try and see what side hustles I can fire up or reignite. 

Stopping by for an end-of-April update! The stock market has further declined, so even with additional contributions it's been a step backwards rather than forwards. The part time work is going well so far though, so that's definitely a massive positive!

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £83,417.55

Mortgage: £210,019.87

% towards being mortgage neutral: 39.7%

Total retirement pot: £205,050.93

% of early retirement savings: 21.7%

Time for an end-of-May update Things have definitely gone up this month which was nice to see. I also went to a Rebel Finance Group meet-up, which is broadly about early retirement, but people were so supportive about me cutting down my hours that it made me look at it in a whole new light (not taking a step back from early retirement, but rather taking some of it even earlier). 
Anyway, here are the figures:

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £88,986.80

Mortgage: £209,522.41

% towards being mortgage neutral: 42.4%

Total retirement pot: £215,725.58

% of early retirement savings: 22.7%

I just noticed that the mortgage is now under £210k as well, that's a nice little milestone  
Oh, and we're half-millionaires again, so had some bubbly to celebrate that (again) the other week
I hope you're all doing well  

seventh88

Well done and congratulations (again!). It's been a little while since you dropped your hours at work now - how are you feeling for it?

julicorn

seventh88 said:

Well done and congratulations (again!). It's been a little while since you dropped your hours at work now - how are you feeling for it?

Thanks so much! Honestly really good - work still has its stressful moments, but I find myself caring a lot less if that makes sense? Probably sounds kind of bad, and I still care about the work that I do and doing a good job, but I find myself not getting as stressed, reacting as emotionally to bad news, or getting overwhelmed. 

Admittedly I could get more out of my days off, but I'm taking it quite easy still - the last couple of months have been mostly spent at the allotment, we have a polytunnel up and running now that I'm about to plant the tomatoes into today (hopefully ). The book has been on ice a little bit, but I want to pick that back up next few weeks, and also put some more effort into my etsy shop. I've also been thinking about selling cross stitch kits at craft fairs locally, and am starting to look into that. 
Mr julicorn has also been super supportive, and he's just about to submit a flexible working request himself, for condensed hours so that he has Fridays off (same pattern I was working last few years). I really hope he gets it approved, it would be so nice to get that extra day with him  

LadyWithAPlan

julicorn said:

LadyWithAPlan said:

julicorn said:

LadyWithAPlan said:

Great you enjoying the scaled back work and to getting Gaga tickets

I'm honestly so excited about the latter - watched her Rio concert (with 2.1 million people attending!) on the weekend, it was spectacular. Mr julicorn and I are already planning what we're going to wear   

Dare I ask what you are both planning to wear, which Gaga era you aiming for?

Absolutely! It'll be loosely Mistress of Mayhem inspired, I've got a lovely floor length red lace dress that I want to wear with sheer red gloves and a red veil, and Mr julicorn wants to wear a black suit with a matching black veil, and maybe get a lace shirt as well if we can find one at a charity shop in the meantime  

This sounds like an epic dress up ! 

julicorn

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

End of November update:

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £74,454.31

Mortgage: £213,005.57

% towards being mortgage neutral: 35.0%

Total retirement pot: £201,061.05

% of early retirement savings: 21.6%

End of December update:

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £77,493.45

Mortgage: £212,517.37

% towards being mortgage neutral: 36.5%

Total retirement pot: £205,494.55

% of early retirement savings: 22.1%

End of January update. Also worth noting that the overall goal has increased with inflation to £949,500.00, so the percentage of early retirement savings is based on a different overall target. 

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £84,246.03

Mortgage: £211,503.04

% towards being mortgage neutral: 39.8%

Total retirement pot: £217,487.16

% of early retirement savings: 22.9%


My book currently stands at around 14,000 words, for what it's worth

Stopping by for an end of Feb update with the figures only for now - struggling with a few things at the moment and trying to work out what I want to do about work mainly, so things might either get shaken up quite dramatically or not, who knows. Will post a proper update when I have the mental bandwidth. 

The stock market has not been doing great this month, let's put it like that, but we made some half decent contributions (to the ISA especially) which have at least made up for the reduction in value. 

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £86,191.96

Mortgage: £211,010.18

% towards being mortgage neutral: 40.8%

Total retirement pot: £217,309.29

% of early retirement savings: 22.9%

I'll stop by for a more in depth update next few days, but here is one with just the figures. Investments have not been great as we probably all know, and we're officially no longer half-millionaires when it comes to our total net worth - I guess that means we can open another bottle of bubbly as and when we hit that milestone again!

Current figures are as follows:

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £84,779.86

Mortgage: £210,515.79

% towards being mortgage neutral: 40.3%

Total retirement pot: £211,012.58

% of early retirement savings: 22.2%

My income will be much lower from April so I guess the heady days of the really high investments are over for the moment, although I will try and see what side hustles I can fire up or reignite. 

Stopping by for an end-of-April update! The stock market has further declined, so even with additional contributions it's been a step backwards rather than forwards. The part time work is going well so far though, so that's definitely a massive positive!

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £83,417.55

Mortgage: £210,019.87

% towards being mortgage neutral: 39.7%

Total retirement pot: £205,050.93

% of early retirement savings: 21.7%

Time for an end-of-May update Things have definitely gone up this month which was nice to see. I also went to a Rebel Finance Group meet-up, which is broadly about early retirement, but people were so supportive about me cutting down my hours that it made me look at it in a whole new light (not taking a step back from early retirement, but rather taking some of it even earlier). 
Anyway, here are the figures:

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £88,986.80

Mortgage: £209,522.41

% towards being mortgage neutral: 42.4%

Total retirement pot: £215,725.58

% of early retirement savings: 22.7%

I just noticed that the mortgage is now under £210k as well, that's a nice little milestone  
Oh, and we're half-millionaires again, so had some bubbly to celebrate that (again) the other week
I hope you're all doing well  

I know my updates are pretty much non existent right now, but I should at least give some numbers updates!

End of June:
Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £92,611.87

Mortgage: £209,023.41

% towards being mortgage neutral: 44.3%

Total retirement pot: £223,058.73

% of early retirement savings: 23.5%

My own retirement account has just gone above £100k again as well. 😊

My main next hurdle was going to be £225k, let's see when we get there. 🤞