julicorn's journey

I thought I might as well share my current savings goals with you guys, makes me a little more accountable than just shuffling stuff back in forth in a spreadsheet!

By the end of December, I want to:
1. Save up £1,200 for a holiday in Europe in the spring, probably Budapest
2. Rebuild our home maintenance fee fund to £500
3. Build up a home improvements fund of £1,000
4. Try to keep up the £1,200 mortgage overpayments per month, but only if we manage to put £500 a month to fund the above.

Currently, this is what that looks like:
Budapest: £200/£1,200
Maintenance fees: £0/£500
Home improvements: £100/£1,000
OP July: £900/£1,200

Will see how that goes!

It's Sunday, it's raining (hallelujah!), it's the end of the month and we're well and truly YNAB poor, i.e. there's lots of money in the bank, but none left in any categories for this month. We went over a little bit on groceries this month, especially because we had some friends over last night as well, but it's not that dramatic. I've also agreed with Mr Julicorn that I'll be doing the food shopping in August, because at the moment I'm basically complaining that he's spending more money than necessary without me actually doing any of the shopping. :rotfl: Seeing as that isn't exactly fair, I'll take over next month and see how I get on. Either we'll save lots of money, or I'll realise that we NEED to spend that much money, which at least will stop me from nagging in the future. Win win!

From a bigger picture perspective, I'm getting more and more into the idea of wanting to retire early. My parents both had to have heart surgery in their mid 50s, and I really just don't want to still have to work at that age (I mean, I might still, but I'd like to be in a position where I can make that choice rather than having to rely on it). It would be really good to get some perspective on our current plan, because I know really that investing would probably be the more sensible way, especially in order to benefit from all the compound interest, but that's not we're doing right now.

Basically, we're wanting to move into a bigger (ideally 'forever') home in about 5-8 years time, when we are early/mid 30s. For this, we're overpaying the mortgage as much as possible in order to build equity in our home. Cost wise, we're looking at the type of property that's worth about twice as much as our current flat. I know we could make more in interest from investing, but at the same time I feel like overpaying is the safer strategy with market fluctuations and all that jazz, seeing as we're talking relatively short term in the grand scheme of things. (We are also contributing a fair bit more than the minimum into our work pension schemes).

Once we're in the bigger home, my current plan is to start investing into stocks & shares. We're currently paying just over half of our take home income into the mortgage (including regular payments + overpayments), so should be able to save up/invest quite a bit in the future.

Every now and then I'm not sure if I'm attacking this whole thing from the wrong end. But then, really, most people I know my age aren't doing anything at all in terms of aiming for early retirement/financial independence, or in fact even for saving up for property. So maybe we're doing ok simply by doing SOMETHING. :think:

Cheers Pinky!

August has started off really well. Between savings interest, bank rewards and a refund, I've already got enough money to make a £100 overpayment (which I sent just now :j )

That savings account I opened needed me to write a cheque for the starting balance. The freeholder of our flat also wanted the maintenance fees as a cheque. I mean, seriously, this is the 21st century and suddenly people want me to start using cheques - what on earth? I swear they were phased out ages ago (I'd only ever written 2 in my entire life before last month).

Anyway, I've taken today off because I had quite a bit of overtime built up, and am just doing a bit of life admin stuff while watching property programs and the news. Living the dream, basically.
It's the pride weekend here as well. We usually go to the festival and then the village party. This year, we left it too late to get tickets, so will probably have a much more quiet pride weekend than usual. I can't wait to watch the parade though.

Hope you've all had a good start into August as well.

JennyP wrote: »

Early retirement is wonderful! Can't tell you enough how much I am enjoying my freedom - this is my first year. Not averse to doing bits of work but not having the nine to five is fabulous!

That's awesome, glad to hear you're enjoying your freedom! I sometimes mention my plan to friends of mine, and the responses usually range from "are you that unhappy with your job?" [no, I love it!] to "I wouldn't really know what to do with all that free time". But really, for me it's not so much about doing less, but rather about having that freedom and being more intentional with my time.

Dating workshops sound excellent! That's such a great idea.

Giving up work for me is still in the far distant future, so it's hard to think of anything concrete that wouldn't change by then. If I were to stop now, and could comfortably live without an income, then I'd like to focus a lot more time and energy on art (which I don't have the time and energy for as much as I would like at the moment). I'd also quite like to do some work in the area I'm already in, but with more flexibility (e.g. working as a consultant, running workshops, those sort of things). To be fair, my role within the company has changed a fair bit, so it allows me to do quite a lot of those things anyway, but still within full time hours.
And on a more day-to-day level, I'd like to spend more of more time outside, going on walks, exploring the area a bit more. At the moment, I just find myself quite tired from work and social commitments, so tend to just spend my free time on the weekend pretty much 'recovering'.

I'm super looking forward to the week we've got booked off work in August though. It's the first time in over 5 years that Mr Julicorn and I have a week off and are just staying at home (rather than go on holiday or visit family), and I honestly can't wait. We might even be able to finally paint those window frames we've been wanting to sort out since February :rotfl: