Millionaire Challenge

Listerbelle · 10 August 2018 at 12:19PM

A very belated catch up from me!

I'm still living abroad, and still caught up with day-to-day life with two kids (now 8 and 3) and a husband who works long hours and travels a lot for work.

Our net worth continues to increase, but we are well aware that we should better leverage ourselves if we are to head toward the 10 million figure in our lifetime. (I'm 48)

Two of our three residential rental properties are nearly paid off. The mortgage on the third has longer to go but that property has always been a net income producer.

Since becoming a parent of two children, I have become more aware of my environment and our impact on it. I joined a local "Buy Nothing" Facebook group in the hope of occasionally obtaining a few items for our children, which would both save us money and reduce the worldwide demand for tat.

I was in the middle of Kondoing our home when our younger child was born, but realized that I simply didn't have the energy required to sell the things that I no longer needed. Slowly I gained the confidence to simply give away hundreds upon hundreds of pounds worth of items. I discovered that the more I gave away, the more things would come our way from the group. I very quickly learned to tell my family that a new item is "on loan from the BN group for a couple of months before it goes to the next family".

Soon enough, I was taking the term "Buy Nothing" very seriously. Do you know what happens when your household has a great income and you realize that you no longer actually need to buy new clothes, shoes, boots, toys....fruit, vegetables, bread?

For us, several things have occurred:
* We are obviously improving our bank balance.
* Our home is less cluttered and feels more peaceful
* We are much more aware of other people and their needs, and make decisions relating to this.
* Our children spontaneously offer up their things for another boy/girl/family
* Environmentally, fewer items go directly from our home to the bin or recycling.
* Reducing trips to the shops means we have more time for other things or people.

A year or so ago I mentioned the value of a pound in your hand is actually worth anywhere from 2-12 pounds depending on what you do with it. This is even more apparent to me now.

I still wish that I had the energy and tenacity to have my own business. While I know that we couldn't make it work for our lifestyle right now, I am slowly forming some realistic and achievable plans.

Kayalana99 · 10 August 2018 at 12:42PM

lessonlearned wrote: »

Still not made a decision on BTL because tbh I can't see them giving a higher return than the one my investments made.

I'm quite happy with what I have achieved so far this year.

You know me very B2L pro but the goverment is trying to stop house prices rising to 'help people on the market' and it feels they are focusing all their efforts on B2L Landlord's atm.....

I hate to say it, but I really do believe house prices will drop soon, and personally *right now* I would say wait it out, because the goverment are still 'focused' on LL's.

lessonlearned · 11 August 2018 at 6:57AM

Good morning everyone

Kaya.....good advice there. You are right. I will wait and see.

Listerbelle -how lovely to hear from you. I love your post, you sound so positive, upbeat and happy. I really resonate with what you have to say about simple living. This is the direction my life has been taking over the last year or so.

It is truly liberating isn't it. I hardly ever "go shopping" now. I just dont feel the need. I have more than enough clothes, shoes, etc

The effects of simple living are really quite astonishing. I too have found that the more I give, the more I seem to receive. The universe in balance I guess.

. And of course the major benefit is more time.......

And you are so right.....the £1 in your hand can be worth a lot more that a mere £1. It's how we spend that £1 that counts,

Because I now live well within my means my modest income more than covers my day to day living. I have been able to take out a small mortgage so that I can buy a nicer property without depleting my capital. The capital can work for me rather than me having to dip into it to fund my retirement. I haven't had to draw down yet to supplement my pension income, instead I am able reinvest my capital and watch it grow.

I put this down to simple living. I too am very conscious of the impact we make on the environment and try to do my bit to reduce consumption.

Obviously when I move I will have things I need to buy, but I shall take my time. I wont suddenly go on a mad spending spree and I will continue to declutter and either sell or donate my unwanted treasures.

Onwards and upwards.

Kayalana99 · 30 August 2018 at 10:15AM

I had to go back two pages to find this!!!

How is everyone?

I guess perhaps cause it's Summer? Honestly don't have loads to update myself...I've decided on a career now Web Development and I'm taking that route with the IT part of my degree and have been working away on CodeAcademy for the past 2 weeks. Going pretty well tbh and it's nice to have something to focus on. I might want to get into software development down the line which was really the end goal but I believe web development is the easier option for getting a job and getting started quicker.

Can either start my own business or get a job too doing it....so swings and roundabouts. I want the adult company and going out to work but I also don't want to put the kids in 9-5 childcare... + if I started a business I could keep my current job till it was earning enough...but taking one step at a time.

To update on my friend I was helping, he bought a puppy and has been a bit distracted since so I don't think that is going ahead...I guess I was offering too much support really and I can only do so much before he needed to do the work himself which he didn't ...so what can you do. I tried.

Still going for my starter goal of earning a 30k wage by the time I'm 30 and it feels a lot more do-able now as starter web developers jobs are around 20-25k and ones that need '3-4' years experience tend to be around 35k-40k mark....so fingers crossed all goes well.

Muhren · 30 August 2018 at 11:44PM

A little update from me - the good news is, I have just passed the £190k NAV mark, the not so good news is that it is looking unlikely that I will reach my end of year target of £200k. Not the end of the world, it was quite an ambitious one anyway

This hasn't been helped by my company's shares having taken a bit of a hit this year as we are getting rid of one part of the business. We will be getting shares in the new company but we will have to wait and see how I stand in terms of my overall holding once it has gone through and the dust has settled, which should be early next year hopefully.

Honeybears · 31 August 2018 at 11:37PM

Hi all I have just joined and would love to be a millionaire in the next 10 years😩. My main issue I feel is that I can not seem to come up with a solid plan of action to get there! I had thought about starting a small business but can not really think of any business ideas! Creativity is not really my strong point🤣 so was thinking about maybe going into the property business and doing services apartments or HMO but I do not have any disposable cash at the to put down a deposit but have started saving so that hopefully by the end of next year I can have £16k saved up to put down on a deposit for a house. The house I get will be my second mortgage which will mean I have to pay extra taxes on it. I was thinking about going on a course about investing and creating passive incomes but first there are so many out there I am not sure which ones are good or they are super expensive

lessonlearned · 1 September 2018 at 7:59AM

Good morning everyone.......lovely to see people starting to post again. I guess now that the summer is drawing to a close more of us will be ready to forge ahead again. And what a summer ....glorious weather. And still a bit more nice weather to come.

And welcome to Honeybears, nice to see a new face. I often wonder how Tink, the lady who started the thread, is getting on.

Well now news at last. I legally complete on the new house on 10th September. It's taken 4 months, feels like a marathon. I won't bore you with all the ups and downs but let's just say the old mantra "persistence pays off' has worked once again.

Got there in the end. :rotfl:

Other than that not much news. Finished the course of acupuncture, feel much better although I think knee surgery is still on the horizon, but if I can postpone it for a while, by having acupuncture and the occasional steroid injection then all to the good.

On the Money side. Well as you all know moving house ain't cheap but I am happy enough. I have taken out a small mortgage so as not to completely clean myself out and shall be left with some working capital for renovations and some for investing. My investments are doing ok, currently at around a 10 per cent return, so better than the banks and of course it's all passive, so no effort required from me.

I have more or less decided against BTL for now. I don't think a BTL would beat 10% and I really don't fancy the hassle if I'm honest. Maybe if I were younger.

Your plans sound good Kaya. IT may of course not be the high payer it once was.....my husband was an IT consultant ......but I think there is still money there, especially in coding. Don't know much about web design if I'm honest. I understand there are "off the shelf" packages but like anything else I'm sure if you are good then you will get the business and make good money.

Do you still do any photography........

My DIL arranged a shoot for the baby last week and I got chatting to the photographer. We talked about the photography business and he admitted that it's getting tougher for freelance work. Apparently newspapers have slashed their rates.

He was in his 50s and is quite happy just "plodding along". He is in the fortunate position that he made big money in the past and is now well established and actually has taken his foot off the pedal to deliberately scale down his work load so he can devote more time to his son, so for him it's more of a hobby business now. Very interesting chat.

Muhren......we are about neck and neck with our net worth. Don't worry about not quite making your target.....just keep at it, you'll get there.

Hope everyone is well and having fun.....and of course making lots of money.

GooeyBlob · 2 September 2018 at 9:04PM

Excellent thread, thought I'd say hello even though I'm a little late. Hope people don't mind listening to my story, despite the progress so far I'm a long way to a million.

I'm 47 and have always lived frugally and saved and invested as much as possible but a couple of years ago I wondered if it would be possible to become a millionaire on my then salary of £29K. I didn't actually know what my net worth was so sat down on the laptop with a free spreadsheet and started to work it all out. I had to dig out old statements for pension pots, S+S ISAs, savings etc, added a conservative estimate for the house I bought outright for under £50K almost 20 years ago and came to a figure well under the half way mark, but a still impressive £420K. Not bad for someone who started work penniless in 1993 and has never earned a big salary. Naturally, I shop at the reduced section every day rather than doing a big weekly shop, brew my own booze and only buy clothes twice a year in the sales. Hey, that's just the way I was brought up. Scrimp and save.

Some of my success thus far was down to investing in a Goldfish stocks and shares ISA (remember that brand?) just after buying the house. Small sums at first, invested in a variety of funds to diversify. It turned out that this ISA was run by Scottish Widows whose funds were not at the top end of the performance spectrum, but it has taught me a lot over the years and it has still substantially outperformed savings, crashes and all. There is no comparison. Obviously, since I discovered Trustnet three years ago I haven't put any more money into this ISA. I've also been picking a few stocks.

In the last couple of years I have been investing hard, transferring poor savings accounts to S+S ISAs and doing far more stock picking but still keeping a good pot in savings for emergencies like redundancy or market crashes. At the end of August my spreadsheet told me I was worth over £510K. Cripes, I'm now a half millionaire. That's not financial security though.

It's still going to take a few years to get to that million mark. There may well be a crash in the next few years, but then that means it'll be yellow sticker time on the stock market and I'll use some of my emergency savings to fill my trolley with undervalued stocks. Another problem is that my industry is dying and I may have to find another job as I approach fifty, but I'll find something somehow. I'll negotiate these obstacles as and when they happen though, armed with a good attitude to spending and investing. And compounding is magic.

You know, today I took an hour out from listening to the test match for a stroll in the glorious Sunday afternoon sunshine. I took a little plastic pot and picked a few wild blackberries as they're free. Rinsed under the tap, those will do for tomorrow morning at work. One of my five a day, and who wants to pay £2 a punnet? I also noticed a lot of ripe elderberries, I'm mightily tempted to make a gallon of hedgerow port this year...

lessonlearned · 3 September 2018 at 12:33PM

Hi Gooey Blob. ...what a funny name.....I Darent ask.:rotfl:

Great post, very interesting story. And wow, well done on becoming a half millionaire. Just shows how "scrimping and saving" works.

Actually I really don't feel like I'm scrimping. I live a simple life on a small passive income but I don't really miss out. I travel, have a nice home, eat well, love nice clothes and furniture etc, get out and about, and have been able to give my kids a leg up onto the property ladder. My car is getting on a bit a but it goes like the clappers so cant see the need to replace it just yet.....I was tempted a couple of weeks ago with a nice little convertible but it was manual and with my dodgy knees I prefer automatics. Lol.

If I hadn't given money to my kids I too would now be almost at the half million mark but I am more than happy to have been able to gift them money to give them a good start ...no point in making them wait until I die. I intend to live for a very loooooong time. :rotfl:

I am quite happy indulging my champagne tastes on my lemonade budget so that I can continue saving and investing.

The home brew sounds interesting .....hedgerow port sounds good.:D

One of my little money stretchers is to make a lot my own bath and beauty products. All natural ingredients, no nasty chemicals and a fraction of the price. Pity Anita Roddick got there before me. :rotfl:

Oh well coffee break over, back to the packing. Only 1 week to go.

droopsnoot · 4 September 2018 at 12:52PM

Honeybears wrote: »

lots of stuff

I have a very similar issue - I have plenty of time to do stuff, some money to put behind it, but can't think of anything that suits.

I wouldn't be paying to go on a course about investing or creating a passive income - there are so many of these "courses" that are nothing but opportunities for people to sell their ideas, which may or may not be profitable - if they're that successful, why the need to pitch up in a dodgy motel off the M6 for a weekend? There is so much information on the web for free that I can't see a need for a course. The only problem is that you'll find it difficult to discover *exactly* what people do for their passive incomes - because in telling you the full details, you may then become their direct competitor. So you can't blame them for that.

Back in the day I signed up for quite a variety of "internet marketing" email newsletters, all of which talk about how to implement web sites and do proper conversion of enquiries to customers and therefore money, but the one detail always missing is exactly what you're supposed to be selling. In many cases, I suspect you're intended to sell the very same thing that the course is selling - the idea of how to make passive income. And that's about as close to a pyramid scheme as you can get, IMO.

There's a lot of interesting stuff on here, links to external web sites, and the "saving and investing" board can probably tell you a lot about investing if you read through a lot of threads. Like all forums, there are arguments and posters who don't know what they're talking about, but you'll get used to who knows and who doesn't. I'd just advise against posting something like "how do I get started investing?" as it's been asked a million times and had as many different answers. Just have a browse and soak up the information there.

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