Cancer, cash and carrying on

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Work is a big one too, I had my first child in my mid 20s and have spent the last 20+ years juggling and doing whatever jobs fitted around the children and DHs (much more lucrative) job.

I’ve always kept a core number of hours in the NHS, usually 15-20, then when youngest started school I picked up other shifts/jobs to fit around, often at different clinics/trusts, some retail work etc. I’d drop back to 15 hours during school hols though.

Once he got to year 6 and with DH working hybrid, full time made sense as no childcare and less juggling required. I accepted my current role and started it 6 weeks before my diagnosis. It’s at my local trust, 4 x 9.5 hour shifts. Mix of clinical/non clinical. I was enjoying working at just one place and having a 3 day weekend worked well.

It was a drop in pay though, I was averaging 30 hours before and earning around £4k but NHS only is £3375 for 37.5 hours. Rather than rein in our spending, I was therefore doing the odd weekend shift to reduce the shortfall.

When I start back properly, I will only be doing my actual job. The salary is ok and pension, sick pay etc makes up for the drop in income. I needed to change my mindset on this and the illness has definitely done that. I’ll need the 3 days a week off to manage my other goals 😂😂

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Personal spends

We each get £250 a month to do with as we wish. I haven’t really mentioned what I do with mine on here, but I went through a phase of just spending it all - clothes, seeing friends, books etc

Start of this year, I started being more intentional with it. I put £50 a month into a travel pot for solo trips and I invest £50 into a S&S ISA. The other £150 I spend guilt free.

My current balances are £300 in travel pot and £559 in ISA.
Monzo also do a 1p challenge, but you can do 2p or 4p. I started it later in the year, so it’s currently set to 4p and has £13 in it so far 😂. If I leave it at 4p, it’ll save £2666 in 12 months 😮 but I’ll probably end up dropping it to the lower rate once I’ve caught up a bit.

New plans for money

Once we know work is going ok, we’re thinking of what to do with the extra money that we won’t be frittering!

We think we might increase our personal spends to £500 each, with the proviso that this covers at least £200 of personal investing.

We estimate we need to save £10k a year to cover family travel plans detailed above. So we need to save £800 a month approx (we were saving £300). My travel insurance will be expensive too because of the cancer ☹️

These 2 changes will account for £1000 of our ‘spare salary’, so it’s a good start. We’ll then monitor our budget and see what other changes we want to make ☺️

lucielle

That all sounds well thought out and doable.
L

EssexHebridean

Good planning. You've made me think about investing on a personal front too - I've got a modest pot of money from an inheritance a couple of years ago, and at the moment it is all sitting in a cash ISA - at a decent rate, admittedly, but I can't help but think that I probably should stick 25% of it into investments instead. Food for thought.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Hi EH

I’ve just used a S&S ISA from M0nzo snd have had a 9% return so far, which is nice. I have also put a few hundred into premium bonds over the years, never won anything!! Tempted to pull it out and invest it instead 🤔

enthusiasticsaver

I would recommend investing in stocks and shares isas if only for the advantage of no tax when you take it out. Our early retirement plan consisted of taking our PA only from pensions and any shortfall from stocks and shares isas so for the first 8 years of retirement from age 58 to 66 I paid no tax. It is only now I get my state pension and all other pensions have kicked in that I have moved back to being a tax payer. The returns have been outstanding. Goodness knows why given slow growth across the globe.

Blackcats

@EssexHebridean - I dipped my toe into the world of s&s isas by putting 50% of my annual allowance into a cash isa and 50% into s&s isa and let them race each other. S&S has won hands down - like me v Mo Farah🤣

Humdinger1

Shocked by the utter selfishness of some family @ohdearhowdidthathappen and awestruck by your ability to assert yourself. The foot is down!! DH is fab too. Have subscribed. You've got this love Humdinger xx

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Thanks Humdinger ☺️

Dakota_Rose

Couldn’t agree more with @Humdinger1.

Your financial plans sound really exciting. Between you and DH you have a fantastic amount coming in and the freedom that will allow you both is great.