Category: FI Basics

Tracking Expenses to the Penny

The thought of tracking expenses to the penny always struck me as being way to strict and burdensome. I remember when I read the book ‘Your money or your life’ which talks about doing exactly that as part of its FI strategy that it wasn’t for me and even though I’d like to budget and know fairly accurately what I’m spending that it was a step to far.  I can’t really recall what specifically changed my mind or made me give it ago in May 2015 but since this date I must be honest, I haven’t looked back.

Pre FI Exposure

I have been budgeting probably since 2011 which was pretty much before I had a full time job. I tracked my incomings and regular bills but I never tracked my actual expenses when it come to what I called disposable income (money left after standard bills) or exactly what I spent on food or fuel. I simply recorded the direct debits so I could see if anything increased on a monthly basis. I would know that I roughly spend £100 on fuel for example and £120 for food and that with my regular direct debits/static bills that I would have £200 disposable income left or £50 a week to spend on daily activities/outings and spends through out the month which could include a book or a game etc.

As I knew I would have £50 a week on average, I would loosely spend accordingly. It was easy to know if I was spending more or less as I had no real savings so all I had to do was look in my wallet and at my bank balance and I’d know if I had overspent or not. During this time, I used my credit cards now and then for big purchases but always tried to pay back the balance over a couple of months. The largest balance I ever had was £2200 from the time I went window shopping at Comet and bought a £2000 TV :o.

To the Penny

As I mentioned in the intro, I decided to start tracking all my expenses down to the penny in May 2015 as part of trying everything I could to help move FI closer to being a reality. To be honest and even to my own surprise, I found this rather easy and not burdensome at all. I actually enjoyed doing it! I liked keeping my receipts and working out what category to put things into.

I still use my monthly budget which is simply an evolved version of my older budget spreadsheet that provides me a rough idea of how much I expect to spend in categories such as Food and Fuel which aren’t completely static but now on my expenses spreadsheet I record exactly what I spend for each which allow me to see if my budgets are realistic or not as an average cost per month.

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Gratitude for being on the Path to FI

I gave a fair bit of thought as to what to call this article. Some of the names that I thought of were “The privilege of being on the path to FI” and “The Good fortune of being on the path to FI”. I settled on Gratitude instead as for me this allows for appreciating the luck, good fortune and privilege of being on the FI journey whilst not making it seem like it was all random without any effort and awesome work from yourself included.

My Buddhist background

After graduating Uni I had a gap year, and during this year I got heavily into Buddhism after reading ‘The Art of Happiness’ by the Dalai Lama. Over the next couple years, I studied Buddhism very closely and read countless books on the subject, I even went to see the Dalai Lama in Manchester as well as going to a couple of weekend meditation retreats. I will no doubt do a future article on my experiences and thoughts on Buddhism but it’s worth clarifying that I was only ever interested in Modern Buddhism (no literal rebirth, Karma, nirvana) and that I don’t consider myself a Buddhist anymore. I mention this however as I am no doubt very influenced by much of what I learnt and am still very grateful for some useful ideas/practises I picked up during this time. This has no doubt informed the creation of this article.

So what do I mean when I talk about gratitude about being on the path toward FI. I simply mean acknowledging, appreciating and being grateful for the good fortune, privilege that you have for being on this path towards FI. There is no doubt that some people will feel that they are independent and are completely self made. They have put all the effort in, worked two jobs, learnt about how to achieve FI and have been disciplined throughout the process. Other people who are not pursuing FI could for sure be in the same position as me if only they tried harder, retooled, got that degree, worked day and night to start a new business etc… Now I believe that the above sentiment is indeed true up to a point and that you can be a relatively independent person but that this is in no way the absolute truth. There is so much more at play, so much that we have no control over.

Now all of what I state below is meant to be the generalities, it’s all about probabilities. A person born in a country without many freedoms or options to a poor family with an abusive relationship with parents still could end up on his path. But I would argue it is much less likely.

Time period & Country you are born into

I feel very fortunate to have been born in this time period that we currently live in as a well as a modern free country (relative yet again). We are performing so well on so many different quality of life metrics and things keep improving. This is not to deny problems and areas where there is decline but I feel so fortunate to not live in a world dominated by superstition, unequal rights, real poverty etc. Just having access to the Internet, a warm house with running water and a hot shower is bliss. We have so many luxuries available to us and countless activities you can partake in in the modern world many of which we of course naturally take for granted. Having this setup as a foundation for which to build FI on is the take home here, we live in a time period and country where FI is a possibility for probably more people than it ever has been at any time before.

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Escaping the Rat Race

There are many people who are pursuing FI almost solely it seems to escape the so called ‘Rat Race’. I am sure we can all relate to this in some way ourselves as work isn’t usually a place we go to beaming with energy and excitement looking forward to another day. Fridays don’t tend to be the most depressing day with Mondays being the best due to us having a whole week of wonderful bliss fueled work ahead! I have read so many FI forum posts over the years of people dreaming of never having to work for their awful boss anymore, no more long traffic filled commutes, no more office politics, no more writing TPS Reports! The list of things at work which we despise can be long indeed and being able to escape these things can be a huge motivator in striding towards FI.

You apparently didn’t put one of the new coversheets on your TPS reports – Office Space Movie quote

Despite work not being perfect and still providing frustrations at times, I  have definitely changed my views over the last few years as I have been in both a really bad job and now find myself in a really good job. This post will discuss my ever evolving thoughts on Escaping the Rat Race.

Work before FI

Its interesting trying to remember exactly how I viewed work before I started on this path to FI. I had only been working for 4 years from the age of 23 as I finished Uni at 22 and then had a gap year. I got into the FI world as it were at 27 so I hadn’t been working for very long without having FI as an ultimate future possibility. I do recall not feeling like rushing into work which is exactly why having 3 months off after graduating from Uni turned into 6 months and then finally into 1 year. I remember thinking that I will be working for the rest of my life so why rush, I have earnt a break after working hard (I was never one to leave assignment of the FYP (Final Year Project) till the last week or few days before hand in :D…. oh no wait, that was me!).

I think at this time my priorities were more on things that were happening at that moment. I certainly didn’t think about retiring early or that I might be able to do so. I was just like everyone else it seemed who used a credit card for certain stuff, my monthly money came to an end before the month itself usually so the last week was usually tight. I really needed that money to go in on pay day and it was a relief. I did feel under more pressure at work because of this bigger reliance on needing the cash and being hit negatively so quickly if I didn’t have it. Work was just something we all HAD to do for money we DESPERATELY needed.

Work in the early FI Days – The Bad Job

A big driver of my initial interest in FI was to escape the rat race. I loved to read articles and stories of people who needed to no longer work for an income. Work really was something I disliked. I had an awful boss who was very nasty, there was a really bad work atmosphere because of him. We had unmanageable work loads where it felt like you was setup for failure because in doing something, there would always be something you wasn’t doing that would be highlighted. The thought of being able to escape this situation was just awesome. The idea of FU money seemed to appeal more when having an awful boss.

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