julicorn's journey 3 - The House on the Hill

julicorn

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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. 🤞

Here I am with another numbers update Good market movements this month, so although we've contributed a little less, it's all going in the right direction at the moment. 

End of July:
Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £99,024.34
Mortgage: £208,522.86
% towards being mortgage neutral: 47.5%

Total retirement pot: £236,219.24
% of early retirement savings: 24.9%

We hit the £225k retirement savings milestone this month, which is quite exciting! The next milestone to aim for will be having 25% of our retirement savings goal. As you can see, we're not far off that at the moment, although we all know things can go up and down. 

In other news, I broke my ankle three weeks ago! So I've been a little trapped at home picking up old craft projects. At least the weather has been pretty variable, making me not quite as jealous of the people wandering around outside - and I'm getting a lot more mobile now again as well. We're off to a holiday in Cornwall beginning of September and I hope I'll be properly back on my feet again by then, fingers crossed.  

Thank you both!  

As it's the last weekend of August and investment amounts won't change any more, it's time for another numbers update. 

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £101,127.09
Mortgage: £208,020.76
% towards being mortgage neutral: 48.6%

Total retirement pot: £239,945.07
% of early retirement savings: 25.3%, target date: February '36
% of early retirement savings - lower goal: 29.1%, target date: October '34

The credit card has taken a bit of a hit this month because the Hurtigruten balance is due, so I'll need to take some money out of a savings account to cover that next month, but it's all saved and accounted for in YNAB.  

It's time for another monthly update, and this time we've hit a really big milestone - quarter of a million in retirement savings! I'm really excited, definitely gotta celebrate this weekend (in style, at the Lady Gage concert - I cannot wait! )

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £106,621.01
Mortgage: £207,517.10
% towards being mortgage neutral: 51.4%

Total retirement pot: £250,324.20
% of early retirement savings: 26.4%, target date: January '36
% of early retirement savings - lower goal: 30.3%, target date: September '34

Writing these down also made me realise there's a couple of other milestones we've hit this month: Over 50% towards being mortgage neutral, and over 30% of our lower goal of retirement savings. It's been a good month! 

In non-money news, the holiday in Cornwall was absolutely wonderful, we had such a great time. We're actually off to Corfu with my mum in a few weeks as well, over my birthday, so it's definitely quite a holiday-heavy tail end of the year. Feeling like a lucky duck right now  

Another new month, another numbers update!

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £113,112.89
Mortgage: £207,011.88
% towards being mortgage neutral: 54.6%

Total retirement pot: £263,313.69
% of early retirement savings: 27.7%, target date: October '35
% of early retirement savings - lower goal: 31.9%, target date: June '34

Corfu was absolutely lovely as well, we had a really nice week there. I got quite ill after we came back home, but am finally feeling like a human again. We might go and see some fireworks tonight if the weather holds up, which I'm really looking forward to  

julicorn

Running the risk of giving you readers some form of whiplash here: Mr julicorn and I decided to temporarily throw caution to the wind and bought tickets to see Lady Gaga in Lyon next week, so we're off to Lyon for a couple of days! If anyone has been and has any tips on what to see, I'd love to hear them. 
The tickets were spendy, but at least the flights and accommodation were actually really quite cheap. I also had a somewhat nebulous pot of money left in YNAB from when we first moved and I expected us to do a bunch of home upgrades we now don't really want to do any more, so safe to say that's gone now - and we'll have to be sensible for the rest of the month too. Either way, I'm excited and can't quite believe it's happening  

julicorn

6 days until Lyon! There's nothing like an impulse trip to make me save in other areas. We've been talking about being quite frugal on the trip itself, which is actually bringing back a lot of very fond memories from our trip to Paris back in 2015, surviving predominantly on baguettes and cheap supermarket wine (Paris wasn't the most vegan-friendly back then tbf) - although we'll have to squeeze in a couple of Lyon's vegan patisseries for sure. 
It's also really motivated me to do a lot of Prolific surveys this week, I've already made over £130 this month.

In other news, I was contacted by a friend asking me to run a workshop for his students in Germany in February and then stay for a few days with him - my initial response was mild panic (can the budget stretch to another unplanned holiday ), but turns out it's actually quite well-paid, so the panic has made space for excitement instead.  

Jessy103

The trips sound exciting and they are what you make of them, so a frugal one sounds like a fun challenge! (That might just be my wired MSE brain thinking trying to be as frugal on a trip as possible is fun 🤣)

South_coast

Baguettes and wine sounds pretty perfect to me TBH (though as an non-vegan, I would have to include cheese!)

Your plans and actions sound incredible as always, it's lovely to hear you sounding so positive

julicorn

Jessy103 said:

The trips sound exciting and they are what you make of them, so a frugal one sounds like a fun challenge! (That might just be my wired MSE brain thinking trying to be as frugal on a trip as possible is fun 🤣)

Honestly, I've turned it into a fun little research challenge already and am weirdly excited about the 'loopholes' I've found so far. For example, we would normally always get a train to the airport, which takes about 40 minutes. But because it's a weekday morning, it's actually a bit pricey (around £30 for the two of us) - so I've found out that there's a perfectly timed Flixbus that only costs us a fiver, and takes around 50 minutes!
Similarly, in Lyon itself, it initially looks like you can only get quite an expensive train from the airport into town. But I've now figured out that the local bus network includes the airport, so you can save around 30 Euros if you're willing to take 20-30 minutes longer. 

I'm feeling a bit like a frugal Sherlock Holmes right now, and enjoying it  

julicorn

South_coast said:

Baguettes and wine sounds pretty perfect to me TBH (though as an non-vegan, I would have to include cheese!)

Your plans and actions sound incredible as always, it's lovely to hear you sounding so positive

Thank you so much - and who knows, maybe Carrefour now has some edible vegan cheeses I'll report back!

debtfreewannabe321

@julicorn I'm delurking because I'd love to know what you found to eat in Paris when you go! I'm off in February 😃 and I'm dreading having to live on chips and salad (and wine 😉) for the whole time! 

julicorn

debtfreewannabe321 said:

@julicorn I'm delurking because I'd love to know what you found to eat in Paris when you go! I'm off in February 😃 and I'm dreading having to live on chips and salad (and wine 😉) for the whole time! 

We went again last April and it's basically turned into a vegan paradise in the meantime  Check out Happycow, there are almost 80 fully vegan cafes and restaurants in Paris - that's not even counting the vegetarian ones. We especially loved the patisseries. There are several branches of one called Land & Monkeys which was spectacular, VG Patisserie near Pere Lachaise was also really good (my first time having a proper Flan!). We had so much good food there, it was great. Let me know if there was anything specific you're after  
And I'll report back what Lyon ends up being like, although on a budget this time as mentioned  

debtfreewannabe321

julicorn said:

debtfreewannabe321 said:

@julicorn I'm delurking because I'd love to know what you found to eat in Paris when you go! I'm off in February 😃 and I'm dreading having to live on chips and salad (and wine 😉) for the whole time! 

We went again last April and it's basically turned into a vegan paradise in the meantime  Check out Happycow, there are almost 80 fully vegan cafes and restaurants in Paris - that's not even counting the vegetarian ones. We especially loved the patisseries. There are several branches of one called Land & Monkeys which was spectacular, VG Patisserie near Pere Lachaise was also really good (my first time having a proper Flan!). We had so much good food there, it was great. Let me know if there was anything specific you're after  
And I'll report back what Lyon ends up being like, although on a budget this time as mentioned  

Oh wow! Fab! Anything other than the obligatory salad and chips would be fantastic 🤣👏🏻