julicorn's journey 3 - The House on the Hill

Bargainhunter30

I used to do airport transfers out of Lyon airport and there were several independent operators, might be worth a look.

Like this one:
https://www.hoppa.com/en/france/lyon-saintexupery-intl-airport?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23137711581&gbraid=0AAAAA_cu-xfT0emZoT1CMSwzjCfjdywPd&gclid=CjwKCAiA8bvIBhBJEiwAu5ayrJQMSZHiaLdD5eDOWvwLUF2y_z4HN7J7yQ6a8W53LzelEOcyvruY2xoCCokQAvD_BwE

julicorn

Bargainhunter30 said:

I used to do airport transfers out of Lyon airport and there were several independent operators, might be worth a look.

Like this one:
https://www.hoppa.com/en/france/lyon-saintexupery-intl-airport?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23137711581&gbraid=0AAAAA_cu-xfT0emZoT1CMSwzjCfjdywPd&gclid=CjwKCAiA8bvIBhBJEiwAu5ayrJQMSZHiaLdD5eDOWvwLUF2y_z4HN7J7yQ6a8W53LzelEOcyvruY2xoCCokQAvD_BwE

Thank you! If we land on time, the bus option should be absolutely fine though, and it's included in the 48hr ticket that we'll get anyway  
I now just hope we don't have big delays anywhere, but I guess that's always the risk!

julicorn

Aaaaaand I'm back! We had the absolute time of our life in Lyon, I'm so so happy we impulse booked that. We already met some other concert-goers on the plane (so were clearly not the only nutters flying to Lyon for Gaga ), and the concert itself was absolutely incredible. Really nice venue as well, and we had fabulous seats. I'm still so uplifted from the whole thing, it was just fabulous. 
We then had a lovely day-and-a-half in Lyon itself as well, and it's such a nice city! It was never really on our list of places to visit, but we absolutely loved it. It's so varied as well - ancient roman theatres, medieval parts, really grand squares, modern bits, secret tunnels... We'd love to go back. And it was so easy to get to from Gatwick as well! And the people there even let me use my not-very-good French, they're clearly not as instantly annoyed with tourists as the Parisians are  

As a bit of a different concert-related aside, there's a gig I've been meaning to get tickets for in March in London, but I've been putting it off because I spent too much on Gaga tickets (and it's a smaller artist, so not likely to sell out quickly). Well, he just announced yesterday that before that London show with a string quartet and everything, he's actually doing a warm-up / trial run show... in Brighton! So my tardiness has really worked out in my favour this time, saves us the trip to London  

Last point for now: I'm back on Prolific this morning, and currently a bit annoyed that some of the bigger surveys I did over the last few weeks are taking their sweet time paying out! I've currently got £46 pending, and not enough to cash out. It's really not a big deal, but I've gotten so used to submissions being approved within 24 hours!

beanielou

Glad you enjoyed yourself. 

julicorn

Thank you @beanielou !  

South_coast

Oh, I'm so glad you had such an amazing time 🩷! You've also just got me researching Lyon, not somewhere I ever would have thought of before!

julicorn

South_coast said:

Oh, I'm so glad you had such an amazing time 🩷! You've also just got me researching Lyon, not somewhere I ever would have thought of before!

I really recommend it! There were a few museums we had on our list to visit as well, but we just didn't have the time and energy to do all of it. There are also quite a few film history and Little Prince things dotted around. 

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  

It's the end of November, and time for another update  

Current figures:

Investment ISAs: £114,521.80
Mortgage: £206,505.10
% towards being mortgage neutral: 55.5%

Total retirement pot: £264,400.93
% of early retirement savings: 27.8%, target date: November '35
% of early retirement savings - lower goal: 32.0%, target date: July '34

A small increase, mainly based on the contributions we made this month (which have actually been pretty healthy - Prolific has been kind to me, and a couple of regular savers matured as well). Investment values have actually decreased a little, but I can't really complain after some strong months. 

julicorn

In non-financial updates, the list of holidays continues to grow  

We have the Hurtigruten coming up in 2.5 weeks, I'm so excited! It feels unreal because we booked it so long ago, but I really can't wait. 

In February, we're then going to Centerparcs for Mr Julicorn's birthday, and then later in the month to Germany for the student event I've been asked to host (plus spending time with our friends in Berlin). 

And now we've just booked a holiday for May. We got an Interrail ticket in the Black Friday sale, and are going to take the train to Strasbourg first (staying 2 nights), then go through the Black Forest to Zurich (2 nights again, luckily managed to get a good deal on an aparthotel there with Expedia points, a discount and Black Friday offers), and then onwards via the Bernina route to Bologna, to meet my parents there for a few more days. I then figured out that the cheapest flight back involves a 7 hour layover in Barcelona, so I guess we're including Barcelona too - I'm excited, we haven't been since 2012 and even a fleeting visit should be nice  

It's been a lot of planning, coordinating, and booking trains though, and I've had to borrow some money from the emergency fund, to be replenished in the coming months. We'll also have one travel day left so might use that for a late May bank holiday weekend away - Rye and York are current considerations, will have to wait until train plans and prices are published for the journey back before making a decision. 

I reckon after that, we'll have a quiet summer though, with trips to the allotment rather than abroad  

julicorn

I was talking about my holiday budgeting challenges with Mr Julicorn yesterday (he doesn't usually do the money planning, although he's on board ), and he suggested we give ourselves a daily spending 'limit' / target for the Hurtigruten and track that. I'm actually a bit proud of him, it's not something he'd normally suggest  
So I've set up a beautifully convoluted spreadsheet, and while doing that also realised you can auto-convert currencies in Google Sheets (handy, because the onboard spending will be in Norwegian Krone). A weirdly enjoyable way to spend a Sunday morning  

I'm about to show some new prospective tenants around our allotment site now, fun times! We already did one of those sessions on Thursday, I'm glad the weather is much nicer today. That means more spreadsheet fun times this afternoon, because I get to work out the plot allocations. What a day!
We also want to go into town and do the (hopefully) last few bits of Christmas shopping, and tomorrow I want to bake some cookies to post along with those presents. Mr Julicorn already decorated the house yesterday while I was wrapping some of the presents, it really feels pretty festive already.