What Financial Independence really means to me…

I have done a post previously on what financial independence means to me but I wanted to now write it from a slightly different and more interesting angle fitting more of where I am now along the journey. I thought it would a good idea to construct a few different scenarios and paths towards FI. This is also good timing for me as I will be coming towards the end of Project 2235 next year and will likely commit towards one of these such paths. An important reason for this possible change is due to the income from my second side hustle coming to an end after three years (£500 less per month). Also, as a reminder, Project 2235 is essentially a big target of mine to reach a portfolio of £250,000 (Base bare bones FI) at the end of 2022 when I will just about by a whisker still be 35 years old. 

After detailing these different paths, I will then focus on some different attributes and circumstances where financial independence and finances influence in ways that matter to me, specifically when it comes to that all important lifelong happiness. I will then score and rate how my different paths help in achieving these whilst also adding in a few others that might not matter so much to me personally but might to others just to make it more interesting and fun. From these scorings, I should then be able to choose the path with the most points overall. I will weight the attributes in scores according to their importance to me.

Once I have done this, I will then look at reviewing which path I would choose if I were to start again from scratch with different circumstances. I will update the paths timeframe to FI and the scores accordingly.

General Paths to take

Below shows different paths I could take towards FI given my current circumstances. I chose the amusing two opposite ends of the spectrum of being a Monk where almost no money is spent other than bare bones outgoings and that of a gangster where nothing was saved/invested and everything was spent, I then included some more middle ground strategies. I know though that there are many variations of these one could take and I could also look to improve salary, get another job etc to change this even more but these are the base level paths for myself as it stands with my projected portfolio as of next December (End of Project 2235).

Age 35 (Mortgage free, £250,000 PortfolioMain job with a side hustle)


It’s worth clarifying that I am currently more or less in the same position as Gangster monk when it comes to weekly disposable albeit slightly less and have about three quarters of the yearly big expenses fund due to my 2nd side hustle which as previously mentioned is unfortunately coming to an end after 3 years and I will then be £500 a month down on my current income.  This is a big reason for looking at a possible strategy change as I am currently happy with things as they are at my current income and I don’t wish to get another side hustle unless it involves almost zero effort to replace the £500!

What do I actually want out of life? Why Pursue FI?

I could probably write a ten part series on this topic but I certainly won’t be doing that right now :). So… If I was to focus in on just a few key areas of importance to me in the grand living of life that would cross over with financial circumstances then I would highlight the following.

Increased Peace of Mind & Freedom (Remove negatives)

When it comes to finances impacting your life, it is often due to the lack thereof no doubt. As much as there can be different  unique problems with being a multi-millionaire, it’s pretty much the not having of money available that cause many of life’s worries and problems. One of the biggest benefits for me out of working towards Financial Independence has been the bonuses picked up a long the way, some of which are unlocked fairly early on.

Being able to lower or completely eliminate having bad debt and having a financial buffer are two hugely impacting benefits that can be obtained well in advance of even getting a third of the way toward achieving FI. The removing of a lot of the worries and others negative emotions that can exist when having debts hanging over you, and in not having money available for unexpected outgoings is awesome.

The next level of increased peace of mind comes from having such a big financial buffer that this buffer turns into FU Money. This helps in giving you the warm fuzzy feeling of not having to stand an awful job for the fear of not being able to cope financially in the interim, it allows you to speak your mind a little more freely as living month to month is now so far back in your rear view window. It allows you take take more risk, possibly to even start your own business or perhaps to consider a different career. Doing these such things from the position of FU is far easier and options available become far greater. The possessions of a large financial buffer also means there is much less immediate impact from a job loss triggered from redundancy or ill health.

Scoring attributes
Financial Buffer, Low or no debt, Less Job-loss impact, FU Money

Increased Abundance

When it comes to the impact of healthy finances and in particular a good flow of money being available to spend – The increased level of abundance that can be obtained is a huge benefit. Life can already provide much abundance of course and often times much of this can be free and relatively cheap no doubt. It however is also true that there is increased options and choice available when there is more money at hand. This can help add more food and drink to the buffet table of life so to speak. This can be in the form of increased travel and holidays, expensive purchases that can then provide on-going experiential happiness going forward such as buying an iPad, ps5, new guitar etc. There can be more disposable income which can allow you not to sweat over frequently gifting things to people, eating out, going on weekends away etc. This all helps to lubricate life in a positive way.

Scoring attributes
Holidays abroad, Multiple weekends away, Good disposable income (multiple activities), Everything designer Label, Big ad-hoc expensive purchases, Frequent Gifting, Frequent big expensive purchases, Amsterdam every month

Early retirement possibility

Now we get to discuss one of the major elements and goals of Financial Independence for most people involved in the pursuit – the ability of course to retire early. As readers will be aware, there are many different attitudes and goals within the FI scene and some people will simply aim to retire as early as possible whilst others may be pursuing just the ability to retire if so desired. I certainly now fall into the latter camp although originally I was firmly entrenched in the first.

For me, the huge benefit when it comes to early retirement goals is the ability to be in a sense early retirement ready. Work in older age can become completely voluntary and along the journey, there can be a sense of progressing along a scale of working also becoming more voluntary the closer and closer you get to being able to retire early. This feeling and situation certainly makes work stress feel less of an issue in my experience. The other main benefit of course relating to pulling the trigger on early retirement is the increased freedom of time. You can then choose to free up time by stopping working early but still have the option to carry on if you feel the time spent at work is still valuable and enjoyed.

Scoring attributes
Voluntary work in old age, Early retirement, More freedom of time

Risks

When it comes to working towards financial independence. There can sometimes be risks of having the pursuit rise above all else. It can be possible to pursue it from the perspective of fully admitting that you are delaying happiness now and depriving yourself to an extent for future predicted happiness. This can be done by investing every last penny and forgoing things in the here and now. The risks with doing this could be that you will never actually see your idilic version of early retirement or that when you get there, your health may not allow you to enjoy it as fully as you had hoped. There is also of course the opposite risk of not being able to retire early and due to this, you may need to work in a job you dislike for a long time and perhaps even during some period of chronic Ill health where working could make your illness even worse – work becomes pretty much forced.

Scoring attributes
Depriving yourself, Early death/illness risk, Working mandatory during Ill health/old age, Longterm work stress

Strategy Review Scoring (Age 35 – Mortgage free, £250,000 Portfolio – Main job with a side hustle)

Now that I have detailed some of the most important themes and attributes of why financial circumstances and seeking financial independence matter to me, I will now look at reviewing the strategies against these.

Points awarded are out of 5, with 5 being the best and 0 the worst

(N) This equals the weight of the score so if this is two then the points will be doubled


FI strategy at 35 Post Project 2235 – And the winner is…

Gangster Monk

Using the scoring adjusted for weighting based on importance to me, I can see that the middle path of the gangster monk gives me the biggest bang for buck on life happiness. This strategy would result in me taking around 3 years longer to reach FI however when balancing for risks and considering in turn focussing on happiness both in the now and later, it should result in more happiness when spread over the 12 years it would take to actually achieve financial independence. This really does confirm my gut feeling choice which would have been somewhere between FIRE Monk and Gangster Monk. I already have so many of the benefits at this stage of my journey towards FI that delaying my actual fully FI ready date by just over 4 years would not actually matter to me as I know I’d likely be happier along the way. 

What if I was starting from fresh?

As described in the introduction, I thought it would be interesting to see whether my choice of path was influenced more by my current position of being mortgage free and having a large portfolio to begin with and if I would choose the same path if starting again. I have chosen age 30 as this might be a typical age to start after getting to a decent salary and perhaps paying off some debt etc. I could of easily have been in this situation myself if it wasn’t for fortunate circumstances and the discovery of FI. I have adjusted the investments and weekly disposable figures slightly due to having £700 less income due to now having to pay for a mortgage. These however still reflect the broad ratio of my first scenario figures.

Age 30 (Mortgage monthly £700 payment, £0 Portfolio at start)
Main job with a side hustle (same income as now)


Strategy Review Scoring – Age 30 (Starting from fresh)

Points awarded are out of 5, with 5 being the best and 0 the worst

(N) This equals the weight of the score so if this is two then the points will be doubled


FI strategy at 30 (£0 Portfolio with a Mortgage) – And the winner is…

Gangster Monk

This result is very interesting to me as if I were in this position and I was starting from scratch, I would value more of the benefits along the way it would seem than actually being able to retire very early. All of these options barring the Pro Gangster and Pro Monk approach would likely have to involve a bridging period in order to be able to retire decently early. This would mean my eventual post FI income figure may need to rely and come more from my pension income than is with my current actual position. In that option I am planning to use my state and private pensions more as contingency and safety nets in the worse case scenario where my FI Pot was depleted. These would provide more of a basic income. This has always given extra peace of mind and is done for similar reasons when preferring to own my home outright mortgage free.

I do know that this option will also include the fact that during the latter years of this strategy, I may no longer be paying the mortgage and also that there would of course be room for possible job promotions etc but for simplicity and due to this matching with my current circumstances barring the highlighted differences, I have no intentions right now of working for higher management roles or changing my job for higher pay. I like to imagine that in this imagined scenario, I am also doing the same exact job where I am happy in my role and company.

Conclusion


Well… it really does seem as though I am going to be leaning more towards the gangster monk strategy going forward. This will mean that my investments each month will be close to halved and I will be in effect delaying being Early retirement ready by 3 years. I feel though that this is completely worth it due to the benefits in happiness along the journey itself and also to mitigate some of the risks of depriving yourself and of possibly not being able to see this proposed better future life, especially when you have deprived yourself along the way to reach it.

When looking at the strategy if I were to hypothetically start this again without some good fortune that I had along the way, I am further more made to feel very grateful to my current circumstance. I would though in this imagined scenario still strive fully towards financial independence. I would in turn pick up some of the benefits very quickly towards the start of the journey and would still live life well now, I would live for both now and tomorrow. The longer length to achieve FI might indeed mean I would have to create a bridge between my FI Pot and pension money to retire in my early 50s however the fact early retirement would still be an option would still be incredible. I would still be a gangster monk. 😅

As always, Love to hear your thoughts, TFJ.

Summer 2021 Update – Freedom & Self Isolation, Crypto Punt & More

Hey everyone. Hope you are all doing well as we now start to emerge into so called Freedom in the UK or England at least. It’s certainly a good time now for me to give you an update on what I have been up to the last couple of months 😀 from fun away and isolation 😮, to some crypto FOMO…

Let’s start with a good old summary review of my finances.

Finance Review

Financial Update – End of July

The below figures are taken from 25th July.

  • Monthly investment (May 21 to July 21) – £1500 each month 
  • Savings rate (May 21 – July 21)– 55% average each month
  • Investment portfolio – £220,351.52
  • Cash is king fund – £6500
  • Crypto Punt – £2005
  • Emergency fund – £1151.64
  • Big expenses / holiday fund – £1331.16

Total Liquid Funds = £231,334.32

My finances are still moving nicely in the right direction. I have maintained my £1500 monthly investments whilst still spending a good amount of money on living life well, which is the most important balance I focus trying to maintain – living for both now and the future. 

I still feel that now my portfolio is over £225k and is often above £230k. It feels so close to a quarter of a million that I often now tell myself when focusing on gratitude for what I have, that I have a quarter of a million in liquid investments as it’s so close to that now. It feels great psychologically as I don’t think it would feel that much different now at all even if I were to hit it exactly.

For those eagle eyed out there that have noticed a crypto financial figure in these numbers, I will now discuss this with a tail between my legs so to speak 😅…

Crypto Punt

What can I say? I’m now a billionaire! I didn’t think it would ever happen if I am honest but I now have over a billion….magic coins. Yes that’s right, I hope you are envious of this fact. I finally succumb even myself to FOMO and got involved in crypto.

I really don’t like crypto if I am honest, I have talked about it before on this blog. I certainly don’t believe in it long term, I don’t think it’s better than fiat currency as I think there’s so many negatives around it which I won’t go into now. Needless to say, I am not a fan. I have however been following crypto for a long time on and off and I have to be honest, there’s been lots of shadenfreude when it’s been tanking and then slight annoyance when it’s been rising.

A couple months ago I had the chance to invest in DOGE when it was 0.04cents and I was tempted on a few separate occasions to take a punt but decided against it in the end. I did partially regret missing this afterwards but when this was combined with the massive cryptomarket bull where Bitcoin reached $60k, an epic FOMO storm was created within me when the possible next DOGE was put forward, I won’t name it for now… I didn’t want to miss out on another opportunity, I felt the need to scratch the itch I’ve had with cryptocurrency and having read somewhere where it was suggested sin simple terms – would you be more annoyed having not taken a punt with an amount you can afford to lose versus annoyed with missing the chance of a large gain. I thought yeah why not, take a punt with less than 1% of your portfolio that would then still give you a nice risk reward ratio but would not change your life in anyway were you to lose it all. I would then have a small bit of skin in the game as it were and maybe this was the best compromise for me. I wanted to ride the wave of hype and collective FOMO and be able to get off before it came crashing down, easier done than said yeh?

Well fast forward to now, I got in about 3 days before crypto went on a downward spiral to where it is now. Superb timing no doubt on my part. I am now 43% down but I will not sell because of course I would risk missing out on a future rise which is certainly possible and that would be too annoying plus in a strange way it’s been pretty exciting along the way I have to admit. I did the old thing of checking the balance daily, reading Reddit, watching YouTube videos etc to now having graduated to only having some price alerts set on my phone and checking once a week or so manually. Will I lose it all or will it 10x, 100x? Who knows. All I can say is to people who have done similar to this, see you on the ******* Moon! – A cold desolate wasteland that doesn’t support life and that costs a lot of money to get to.

Liverpool weekend trip

Me and my partner really love going to Liverpool and we now almost make it a legal yearly requirement to at least go twice. We like to go once in the spring/summer and once in November/December for the Christmas winter market. I originally had booked Liverpool when Boris announced when Phase 4 freedoms would come into effect so if there hadn’t been a month delay (which I fully support) we would have been there during minimal to no restrictions and at a time what I thought would be with very low COVID numbers like last summer especially now that we have so many vaccinated, I certainly was wrong on that one!

We really had a great time as to be fair since the restrictions loosened on May 17th in England and you could once again go in doors in pubs/museums and restaurants etc, things felt normal enough minus the lack of being able to dance perhaps. We did lots of walking, shopping around, drinking & eating and saw some live music once again which was lovely.

Self Isolation 

We had a great time in Liverpool but it did come at a cost. After being home for 3 days we both got a message from the NHS app saying to isolate as we had come into contact with someone who went onto get COVID on the Sunday whilst away. This could have been from when we were queuing to get into a few pubs on the Saturday night (technically Sunday early hours) or maybe the train journey on the way back but who knows for sure. Up until this time, we had only had to isolate for one day previously when waiting for a test result of another member of the household but this time around we would need to isolate for 6 full days. 

I went back home to my house to reduce the risk in case I had got COVID but she hadn’t as I didn’t want to affect anyone else. I must say this was very strange at first to be truly under house arrest fully on my own, well I did have my cat but he isn’t the most talkative to be fair. I quickly ordered in some food shopping and a friend dropped a few odd bits around and then it was just me on my lonesome. 

This self isolation was to be put to good use though. I finally had absolutely no excuse to declutter my home once again and this time more thoroughly than I had ever done before. I planned to go through every draw, every wardrobe and all cupboards. I wanted to act as though I was moving home and even made up some cardboard moving boxes where I would put valuables of my own that were sentimental, a box for my late moms sentimental items and also boxes of other things that I would not be leaving in their final home so to speak. Everything else was to be put in my garage ready to be taken to the tip! This was the clean out of all clean outs. 

I am thrilled to report that I fully succeeded in this. It was a very mixed experience as I found many things from my childhood, many things belonging to my mother such as diary’s, pictures I had never seen, things she had kept from her youth and valentines cards my dad had sent to her, cards that I had wrote to her when I was very very young. It was half upsetting, half fascinating but was so rewarding. I felt a huge weight had lifted as I had been needing to do it for such a long time but would always find it hard to start. It was very heart warming to see my mother as being a teenager, a young woman in love and someone now my age. I found the whole thing put me in a deep reflective mood that lasted a good few days. I am so so grateful for the self isolation as strange as that sounds as it finally allowed me to get this done.

Otherwise during this isolation, my work carried on as normal as I could of course do this from home. I had to cook more for myself that I’ve been used to in the last year which was interesting too, I felt like a student again- beans on toast 🤣. I also got to play a little bit more of my PlayStation 5 so it can’t be bad can it…and most importantly, neither of us actually had COVID in the end.

Manchester weekend trip

When I booked the Liverpool trip a couple months previously, I also booked a weekend away in Manchester 2 weeks after Liverpool. Thankfully, our isolation ended before this so we could still go. We had only been once before on a day trip and we wanted to give it a proper visit by staying overnight and for a whole weekend. 

I must say, we really enjoyed it far more than we thought we would. The night life was really good and we went to an Irish bar and saw some quality live music, there was loads to do around Piccadilly gardens and with the tram so close to our hotel, Wetherspoons so close and the train station – it was all so effortless. Apart from just drinking and eating, we went to the Manchester museum and the saw that lovely T-Rex fellow in the picture who was called Stan. We also really liked the amount of shops and especially liked the Arndale centre. My only regret is not arranging to meet up with weenie who I have no doubt wasn’t all that far away ☺️. This time around, we did not get any pings to isolate when we got home thankfully.

Freedom and Dancing

So as I write this it’s almost been a week since freedom day in England. This of course has been fear day in equal measure for many people. My own thoughts on this is that I do get the argument of ‘If not now, then when?’ And that it would be worse if we did this going into the winter but I just think personally that we should have still mandated masks in supermarkets, public transport and public buildings and perhaps still limited very large events to reduced capacities. I think this would of been very important psychologically at the least in making people not forget that we are not through this yet and also to help make many people feel safer and to still reduce some risks to people no doubt without much inconvenience felt.

I could not resist however myself going out on the freedom Friday to Birmingham so that we could finally get to have a dance and some normality if just for a few hours. We stopped over night and danced for almost 3 hours straight in a cocktail bar. It was absolutely brilliant but did feel a bit strange and perhaps invoked some nervousness or Feelings of – is it right to do this? We wore masks on the trains and in other pubs until we got to the table but in the dance club, it wasn’t practical to wear masks whilst dancing so we had a few hours where it felt again like 2019. We won’t be doing it again for a while but it was great and thankfully no pings yet and for now our lateral flow tests are negative still!

Work

There really is no change on the work front. The rules haven’t changed for the NHS which I think is the right thing so we still have to have the 2 metre rule and masks whilst in the office. I still go into work on a rota 2 or 3 times max a week which continues to be a great balance.

I am very conscious now though for our hospital that the next couple of months may be very delicate and difficult for our staff. With the numbers rising and expecting to rise higher and higher we will see more patients hit our hospital which we are already seeing now. I can only hope the gamble pays off and we manage to cope until we reach the peak and then it gets better from then. Here’s to hoping for all our sakes!

Well, I hope you have enjoyed reading my update, let me know your thoughts and what you have been up to, Any dancing or is it just me that’s a bit mad?

TFJ

April FY End Update – Finance, Spending Review & More

Hey everyone. Hope you are all doing well and that you are starting to slowly but safely enjoy more freedoms now we are coming out of a full lockdown. Have fun irreversibly raising that pint just as Boris has…

What follows is a post that is rather finance review focussed with this being a FY End update post and all. As always though I will provide a personal and work update too. Let’s start with reviewing my current finances at the end of FY 20/21.

Financial Year End 2020/21 Review

Well, this has been the year of COVID and due to this, there was a huge crash followed by a huge rally. I lost £27,000 at one point which really did test my nerve in this game of FI. I passed the test for sure as I didn’t sell and I kept on investing as per normal. I am very very pleased that I did.

Financial Update – April FY End 2021

The below figures are taken from 25th April.

  • Monthly investment (Jan 21 to Apr 21) – £1500 each month 
  • Savings rate (Jan 21 – Apr 21)– 55% each month
  • Investment portfolio – £206,975.18
  • Cash is king fund – £10,000
  • Emergency fund – £1002.89
  • Big expenses / holiday fund – £2448.62

Total Liquid Funds = £220,426.69

Price difference from Predicted to Actual Finances (Late Dec 20 to April 21 = -£3.28

As I track my expenses to the penny, when it comes to reviewing my finances more in depth twice yearly at FY and Calendar Year Ends, I do a check to see how accurate my predicted finance portfolio is compared to reality. There is always a chance I have missed the odd coffee, gift or any random expense or of course simply have added things up wrong.

It turns out that I was only £3.28 down which I am happy with. It was actually £4.28 at first but then I found a pound coin when I was cleaning out my car 😀. I won’t fret over this loss that’s for sure.

FY End 2020 to FY End 2021 Comparison:

End of FY End 2020 = £169,347.41
End of FY End 2021 = £220,426.69

Increase = £51,079.28

Calendar year End 2020 to FY YE 2021 Comparison:

End of 2020 Calendar Year = £210,056.25
End of FY End 2021 = £220,426.69

Increase = £10,370.44

I am absolutely thrilled my Portfolio is as high as it is. It feels so close to that quarter of a million Base FI target of mine that I can almost taste it…and it tastes darn good. The £51k large increase year to year is partly down to the portfolio dropping substantially right at the end of last FY20/21 but still with what’s going on in the world, I am still shocked it’s recovered so well and so fast, surely a crash is coming? Yeah well if there is or isn’t, I can’t pretend to be able to predict such things. I will carry on investing and holding (Diamond hands💎 in a good rational way). 

Spending Review – My expenses 

I thought It would be good to do a mini spending review to show how some of my monthly outgoings have changed from last FY pre COVID to this FY just gone.

Monthly Average Outgoings – Select Categories

A lot of this change in spending makes sense with this last year being the COVID lockdown year. I have spent much less on fuel but perhaps not as less as some as I still have had to go into the office a couple days of the week. I have spent more money on takeaway and alcohol which is the food/drink out category whilst spending less money on going out. Most of the spend for going out was done in the summer to early autumn when things were much better and you could actually in fact legally go out.

I have saved money due to COVID in some categories but because my gift category outgoings has increased a fair bit along with smaller increases in food/drink out and purchases categories, this has resulted in balancing out my spending broadly speaking to be the same from year to year.

Disposable / Non bills monthly spending Average

I thought I would include a chart showing my disposable/non-bills average monthly spend over the last 5 years. You can see how the last 2 years have seen a big jump on the previous three. This is mostly due to me loosening up a bit and spending more money on going away on more weekend trips and just spending more money in general on activities and gifts. This has certainly been money well spent for me and I won’t be changing this any time soon.

Total Expenses monthly spending Average

Building on the last few charts, you can see how the last 2 years have seen an increase in my monthly spendings and how even with COVID happening, my overall expenses have remained pretty much the same. I am starting to confidently now think I have hit a sweet spot in my spending where any question of depriving myself whilst on the journey has certainly been quashed for now.

Post 2235 Project Thinking

In my last few update posts, I have had some musings on Post Project 2235 and this post is no different. I wanted to update you with my latest spreadsheet contents to show my further thinking on this:

I have added extra details on how long it would take me to reach £600k which I consider to be my main FIRE number whilst also adding rockstar levels of £900k and £1,000,000 FIRE 🔥. I have also noted down how much money I would have left for Big expenses spending each year at these amounts. This is on top of £1200 that is reserved for Bills/Disposable income which matches what I spend now which is where I feel comfortable at.

To recap on Post Project 2235, I currently invest £1500 a month and aim to reach £250,000 in Dec 2022 (formally known as Project 2235). After this time, I now intend to lower my investing from between £500 to £750 so that I can have my Big expenses fund topped up so I can live well along the journey. I want to fully enjoy the next 14 years so there has to be some extra money which I will also put towards doing my house up inside as well as for annual holidays and buying the odd iPad Pro etc. 

I have previously used matched betting winnings to secure this big expenses income but I have no interest in that anymore and unless there is a very very low risk, low effort way of earning the extra £500 a month then I don’t think I am interested. This also goes for pursuing a new promotion with more stress and pressure or simply getting a second job (technically third as I still have a 2nd semi permanent side hustle). I have to balance the cost of being possibly less happy at work, losing more personal time if I got a third job versus how long extra I will have to work if I invest less each month.

If I invest £500 less each month for example then this will give me £6000 big expenses money each year but will mean instead of hitting £600k at 45 years old and 1 month, I will hit it 1 year and 10 months later at 46 years old and 11 months. Now to be honest, if I can secure £6,000 a year without then needing to get promoted to a job I hate more (likely be management level where I am now) or changing jobs entirely (I really like my current job) then delaying FIRE by nearly 2 years would be worth it if the quality of those 11-12 years was far higher. This is even less of an issue when my plan is to try to work until at least 50 so I can secure a state and public service pension of £24k equivalent (£600k FIRE) as a backup or so I can use my actual £600k FIRE as a bridge into that, it helps me sleep better at night for sure.

With this in mind, if I invested £750 less each month which meant reducing investing by half then I would get £9,000 a year for big expenses which would match my £9,600 post FIRE big expenses amount which would mean I know the money I live on is the same before and after I FIRE, no deprivation at all. I would reach £600k at 48 and then work another 2 years to get my more guaranteed £600k backup FI.

I have not settled on any of this yet, I know so much could change all these plans and I am fully aware of that but it’s really fun to think about none the less 😁…

Personal & Work

And finally, a brief personal and work update. So what have I been doing? Well, things are starting to open up a bit now but really I won’t be going properly out until May 17th when you can go to pubs and restaurants and so many other places in doors. I have visited a few friends out doors but that’s about it, oh I also have been to a shopping retail park.

I have had to delay my Amsterdam trip for the third time now to September as this was planned for May 17th but you can’t currently travel to the Netherlands and with that country likely to be amber rated it’s just not worth it even if we allow travel and they do by then. I had to pay the difference in new airline and hotel rates but it only cost an extra £90 so can’t complain too much.

I have lost 6 pounds in 3 weeks as part of a six week plan to get back to my ideal weight before May 17th. I have done really well with this so far, only Fat Friday exists where I eat more and drink as well but otherwise being I am being very healthy with what I eat and also I am working out daily still at home.

As for work, things are very busy lately and I am still in the office twice a week, sometimes three and then home the other days on a rota. I am still liking this arrangement as I find it’s the perfect balance for me. The hospital is in a much better place right now thankfully, the lockdown and very successful vaccine rollout thus far has changed things so much for the better and we have very few COVID patients now and are resuming normal services.

I would love to hear from you all, let me know what you thought of this post and what you have been up to, any trips to beer gardens?

TFJ