It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

[Deleted User] · 2 July 2019 at 1:02PM

Spider_In_The_Bath wrote: »

We live on about 18 thousand a year. Everything else we earn is saved for FIRE (hopefully in about 5 years' time).

We run two cars, have a pet, go on holidays and days out etc. easily on the 18 thousand.

When I see people wanting retirement funds of 30 - 40 thousand a year I have no idea what they would spend the money on.

Anonymous101 wrote: »

We follow an FI lifestyle, expect to retire in our 40's and think we are fairly conservative in our spending... Yet we are spending £40k per year as a couple. Even when our mortgage is paid off I'd expect we'd be around £30k per year. That's being conservative with cars and holidays, not living in a huge house and keeping a lid of food bill. We don't eat out all that often or drink excessively. I can easily see how people can be spending twice what we are.

I don't understand how you can be 'conservative' when (using your 30K figure) you would be spending £2,500 a month, every month.

On what?

Everyday bills (food, electricity, insurance, cars etc) are probably around £800 - £1500 a month depending on house size and family size etc.

So where does the other £1,000 go every month?

I really cannot work out what you must be buying, or paying for things.

When you say 'conservative car' what sort of make and model do you have in mind?
And for 'conservative' holidays again what price range?

I know most people do not want to give too much personal info away so generic examples only if you want.

************************************

Sorry for slightly hijacking Sea Shell's thread. I am interested in the thread as her circumstances, living costs and FIRE fund are / will be very similar to ours.

Bravepants · 2 July 2019 at 1:24PM

BoxerfanUK wrote: »

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel like 'less is more' as you get older? Spent most of my life accumulating things as indeed we all do, but seem to spend more time getting rid of 'stuff' lately and weirdly, I feel much better for it. It seems to de-clutter my mind.:)

Don't get me wrong, we are certainly not hoarders or anywhere near packed to the rafters, but just getting rid of stuff we don't use anymore that's just taking up space I'm finding really satisfying.

We still like nice things of course, and if we really want something we buy it, but I'm getting as much pleasure out of letting go as I do from 'acquiring'. Find myself walking around the house or up in the loft thinking 'what can I get rid of next' :rotfl:

Same here! Well, more me than my partner.:)

Maybe it's something to do with reaching a point in life where we no longer have anything to prove. We've all been through the ups and downs of life, some of them quite dramatic, some of them quite tragic and we've become humbled by life and realised than peace, self-development, learning and clarity of mind is much more important to us than collecting stuff to keep up with the Jones's.

I sometimes hanker after starting again and having a "boxing up party" like The Minimalists, and then only getting out what we need and use.

One thing having less stuff gives me is space to breathe, less time looking after things, and housework becomes easier too.

Audaxer · 2 July 2019 at 1:36PM

Spider_In_The_Bath wrote: »

I don't understand how you can be 'conservative' when (using your 30K figure) you would be spending £2,500 a month, every month.

On what?

Everyday bills (food, electricity, insurance, cars etc) are probably around £800 - £1500 a month depending on house size and family size etc.

So where does the other £1,000 go every month?

I really cannot work out what you must be buying, or paying for things.

Well, we hardly ever drink, don't smoke, and have the odd meal out. The only 'luxury' is that we each have a car, but mine is 8 years old, and needs replacing soon. We usually have a few holidays each year, but now mostly here in the UK. I am cautious and have no debt, but £30k a year is quite easy to spend.

It's great that you can get by on £18k a year, but I don't know how you manage it.

jimi_man · 2 July 2019 at 1:49PM

Spider_In_The_Bath wrote: »

We live on about 18 thousand a year. Everything else we earn is saved for FIRE (hopefully in about 5 years' time).

We run two cars, have a pet, go on holidays and days out etc. easily on the 18 thousand.

When I see people wanting retirement funds of 30 - 40 thousand a year I have no idea what they would spend the money on.

I can, easily. As an example. Seashell posted the breakdown of the yearly budget and one of the things I noticed was that the fixed costs of Council Tax, electricity, gas, water, Sky and Broadband was £280 a month. That figure is roughly my Council tax alone. As it’s a bigger house it requires more electricity and more gas – though water and Broadband would be the same. And Sky, though I don’t have that. Maintenance costs are also more.

The groceries spend was £48 a week – presumably for two. That’s not a lot, though it is at Aldi. Personally I tried Aldi but it was awful – the meat and fish are especially poor and the fruit and veg are just average and the choice is appalling, however I do get that they offer value for money. I do prefer the quality of a decent butcher and fishmonger and I like to support local shops as well as going to the supermarket, rather than just concentrating on saving every penny. But the flip side is that they are expensive.

Whilst we don’t use a gym, a lot of the other costs are similar – though we do more miles. (I do fail to see how two people can only spend £40 of cash in a year. Charity donations, parking, the odd newspaper etc require more than that over the year, however everyone is different!!).

People might have more expensive cars, holidays, so it’s easy to see why people might want more. £12-13k per year to live on, I would think, is at the very low end of the spectrum (though this is a Moneysaving site!) And it obviously suits the OP. By that rationale, spending twice that might suit other people.

I'm planning on £3000 a month retirement income. Who’s to say that’s any more wrong than £1000 a month as above?

Anonymous101 · 2 July 2019 at 1:59PM

Spider_In_The_Bath wrote: »

I don't understand how you can be 'conservative' when (using your 30K figure) you would be spending £2,500 a month, every month.

On what?

Everyday bills (food, electricity, insurance, cars etc) are probably around £800 - £1500 a month depending on house size and family size etc.

So where does the other £1,000 go every month?

I really cannot work out what you must be buying, or paying for things.

When you say 'conservative car' what sort of make and model do you have in mind?
And for 'conservative' holidays again what price range?

I know most people do not want to give too much personal info away so generic examples only if you want.

************************************

Sorry for slightly hijacking Sea Shell's thread. I am interested in the thread as her circumstances, living costs and FIRE fund are / will be very similar to ours.

I suppose its all relative. As it is we're still hitting a pretty high savings rate, well over 50%, but could of course cut back further to really speed up our FI process.

I'm happy to discuss this more away from this thread if you'd like to contact me via PM or something but to keep it on topic and relevant here I'll give high level run through of where I'd see our £30k retirement budget going.

As you say £2,500 per month

House (Energy, Water, Council tax, Sky TV) - £450
Household maintenance saving - £250
Food (£35 each pw, plus one meal out pm) - £300
Pet (Vets, Pet plan etc) - £50
Mobile phones - £50
Holidays / weekends away / days out (annual allowance of £5k) - £300
Cars (Allowance for maintenance, Tax, MOT, Insurance Etc) £200 x 2 = £400
Petrol - £250
Personal spends (Birthday presents, socialising etc) - £150
Hobbies - £300

Of course we could cut back (obviously on hobbies and personal spends) but I think this gives a fairly comfortable retirement without going over the top.

[Deleted User] · 2 July 2019 at 5:32PM

jimi_man wrote: »

...I'm planning on £3000 a month retirement income. Who’s to say that’s any more wrong than £1000 a month as above?

No idea who says it was wrong as it was not me.

I have made no comment on what is right, or wrong.

People are entitled to spend what they like. I just cannot work out what they are finding to spend it on.

[Deleted User] · 2 July 2019 at 5:36PM

Anonymous101 wrote: »

I suppose its all relative. As it is we're still hitting a pretty high savings rate, well over 50%, but could of course cut back further to really speed up our FI process.

I'm happy to discuss this more away from this thread if you'd like to contact me via PM or something but to keep it on topic and relevant here I'll give high level run through of where I'd see our £30k retirement budget going.

As you say £2,500 per month

House (Energy, Water, Council tax, Sky TV) - £450
Household maintenance saving - £250
Food (£35 each pw, plus one meal out pm) - £300
Pet (Vets, Pet plan etc) - £50
Mobile phones - £50
Holidays / weekends away / days out (annual allowance of £5k) - £300
Cars (Allowance for maintenance, Tax, MOT, Insurance Etc) £200 x 2 = £400
Petrol - £250
Personal spends (Birthday presents, socialising etc) - £150
Hobbies - £300

Of course we could cut back (obviously on hobbies and personal spends) but I think this gives a fairly comfortable retirement without going over the top.

Thanks for the info

I will stop hijacking the thread now. I was just curious as to what people were going to use so much money for.

I hate shopping so could not work at all what people are buying with so much every month.

Audaxer · 2 July 2019 at 5:53PM

Anonymous101 wrote: »

I suppose its all relative. As it is we're still hitting a pretty high savings rate, well over 50%, but could of course cut back further to really speed up our FI process.

I'm happy to discuss this more away from this thread if you'd like to contact me via PM or something but to keep it on topic and relevant here I'll give high level run through of where I'd see our £30k retirement budget going.

As you say £2,500 per month

House (Energy, Water, Council tax, Sky TV) - £450
Household maintenance saving - £250
Food (£35 each pw, plus one meal out pm) - £300
Pet (Vets, Pet plan etc) - £50
Mobile phones - £50
Holidays / weekends away / days out (annual allowance of £5k) - £300
Cars (Allowance for maintenance, Tax, MOT, Insurance Etc) £200 x 2 = £400
Petrol - £250
Personal spends (Birthday presents, socialising etc) - £150
Hobbies - £300

Of course we could cut back (obviously on hobbies and personal spends) but I think this gives a fairly comfortable retirement without going over the top.

Yes, it easily mounts up. When I looked at you food bill for the month at £300, including a meal out, that seemed low compared to our supermarket spend, which is usually over £400 but then realised ours includes non-food items like toilet rolls, kitchen rolls, shower gel, deodorant, various cleaning products etc. Have you accounted for these sort of things somewhere else?

On my spend spreadsheet I also have a column for Cash withdrawn. That is less than it used to be when I was working, but we still need to withdraw cash a few times a month so it counts as part of our monthly spend.

Thrugelmir · 2 July 2019 at 6:20PM

BoxerfanUK wrote: »

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel like 'less is more' as you get older? Spent most of my life accumulating things as indeed we all do, but seem to spend more time getting rid of 'stuff' lately and weirdly, I feel much better for it. It seems to de-clutter my mind.:)

Definately. Unless the item in question has a usefull purpose it now goes. Rather than things , oh and me exchange "experiences". Simple life now. With majority of money now going on theatre, gigs, travel etc.

MallyGirl · 2 July 2019 at 7:23PM

m_c_s wrote: »

Same here but one needs to be careful to only consider inanimate objects at times!

My DH does start to make comments about not standing still for too long when I get in a declutter mood!

It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

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