Back from Bali and my second post within a month. Here we go!
Will be looking to do monthly posts highlighting any points of significance that have taken place, but this post will cover some umbrella areas over the last 5 years or so that have got me to where I am today and evaluating the upsides and pitfalls of my decisions taken,
FIRE/Liquid Assets Portfolio
As discussed in my last post, I mentioned how my Fire portfolio/Liquid Assets had reached the £100k mark. I have used this definition as a measuring stick instead of net worth due to being more relevant to my targets going forward, with the 2 below items being excluded from this.
Pensions - These can only be accessed from 58 (could end up being later) and I'm not interested in having to wait that long to take an extended, voluntary leave out of the workplace.
Student Loan - This is a significant amount, however without a salary I would not have to pay any of this back so it’s irrelevant from my expenses when not earning an income.
Breakdown and commentary of mentioned portfolio below.
Whilst it's nowhere near where many others into FIRE at my stage of life, I'm pretty happy with the progress in the last 5 years. As you can see I have pretty much all of my savings in the S&S ISA.
This has mainly been down to my savings rate and markets being strong in this time, instead of earning a high income as I will discuss below.
Income
Covered this in my last post so will be brief on this. I have only received income from my Employee Salary and have looked to improve this through completing my accounting exams, which are now complete. Will look to improve this further by gaining greater experience and skills going forward.
Will also look into trying to create other revenue streams in the future, but not a real priority in the meantime.
Spending
After years of treading water from 18 and through most of my 20s, I needed to ensure there was a surplus of savings. Whilst I wasn't increasing my salary, I knew the area I would need to address was reducing my spending. Although there was some decisions to make I didn't want to make my life a joyless mess. At points that still happened anyway, but that's life and not a spending issue.
Housing
The biggest potential expense and also has the potential to play a big factor in happiness given the personal circumstances. When I got back from Australia, I knew I would be at home for a while before I could look into moving out to my own place or with others. I've always had a good relationship with my parents, whilst there have been some minor tensions with my dad but nothing beyond trivial. They also do shifts, so I have had a lot of time of my own as well.
My best friend at the time had just moved into his own place and there was the possibility of moving in with him. It never materialised and that could have been a brilliant time, but shortly after he found his wife to be and I was able to save a bit more. So all turned out well.
Not much further down the line there was other friends I tried to sell the sizzle of moving in together to gain that bit more freedom and enjoy the social aspect, but where and what we wanted in terms of housing was too far off. At this point in time I didn't want to move in with strangers around London.
Later into 2019 the family got our first ever dog. Despite the stigma around living with your parents, the love I have for the good boy stopped dead any interest of moving out. Not long after I got a girlfriend and by 2021 she was really pushing to move out together. I reluctantly agreed to it and it ended up being a disaster! The place was really nice but showed the relationship was terrible and controlled. 6 months later Dobby (Me) was free and I was back with the parents and even better, the goodest boy, and been here since.
Whilst this wouldn't be for everyone, especially at my age, I genuinely think this has been the best option for me from the options possible, giving me my competitive advantage in terms of growth, and I feel really lucky to share more time with my parents. As I said before potentially moving in with friends would've been great, but just never materialised. Going forward I think I need to find a place of my own soonish for their sake more so than mine.
Socialising
Through my sports teams and still being round friends from school, I was regularly socialising with friends on nights out and having weekly cheeky Nandos. We never used to do anything to grand in terms of our nights out, but it was consistent and nights out could lead to far too many rounds being bought. Part of being in your twenties and this has settled down with us growing up.
There have also been plenty of holidays, ranging from boys holidays, stag doo's and solo travelling. All have these have been great money spent on memories..
Ideally I would like to keep in touch more with my friends than I have done and will be the first to admit I should've been more proactive in this over the years, especially with old university friends. So if anything I could've spend more or been more wise with what I spent on.
Health and Fitness
Being someone who has played sports from a young age health and fitness has been of importance whilst not being obsessive. I have a gym membership, but at a local gym and not one of the high end ones.
Now I'm in my 30s I'm getting more conscious of my fitness, recovery and nutrition. I might end up paying for a high quality gym facility and look more closely into the food that I eat, along with getting some health checks undertaken. The nutrition side would be easier if I had my own place and control on what's in the fridge.
Relationships
Maybe it's part of being an only child or just growing up in my household, but I've always liked my alone time and never felt like I must have a partner and was never a serial dater. I did have a girlfriend over 2020/21, but being a savage, Covid hid a lot of issues with the relationship that meant it wasn't suitable for either of us.
However this has changed from 2023 and have been taken by my lovely partner who I have just come back from Bali with. Genuinely the relationship not was expected and has been great (I'm not just writing this because she will be reading :P)
She is also interested in personal finance so this has been a massive help in regards to not overspending in the relationship, but we definitely do spend on holidays, experiences and dates to keep it all exciting :)
Possessions
Keeping up with the Jones’ has never been an issue for me and this is reflected in my possessions. I have a very A to B car and don't have much interest in jewellery and gadgets. Whilst I'm not a fashionista with Louboutin's and the latest Vivienne Westwood gear, I am conscious of my appearance and don't want to look like Graham Potter from his early Brighton days. I have skimped out on some clothes, which has been a waste, so now I try to get clothes with have decent quality and last a while. I am also reluctant to get rid of clothes/shoes with sentimental value. Especially the Birkees.
Thank you very much for reading. Until the next time.
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