Skip to main content

October 2024: What’s Your Early Retirement Number

Hello! 

Hope you are well. October was a pretty quiet month in the grand scheme of things. It was the girlfriend's birthday, so went out for some nice food but I was left behind whilst she celebrated with the girls in Dublin. Her present is a getaway in the countryside, so looking forward to getting away with her over new years :) 

Autumn is now upon us with the dark nights approaching again, which means the good boy will be limited to street walks in the evenings now :( On the upside the cats are in the house a whole lot more and are actually happy to snuggle up, instead of looking at you like you've insulted their whole lineage when trying to stroke them. Fickle but you've got to love them!  

Personally, on the football side Charlton and my Saturday team had a poor month. Legs are starting to feel a lot older these days with constant aches and the thought of retiring from the game I started playing 25 years ago is becoming more prevalent in my mind. Didn't feel it would end on such a low season as how it's been so far, but plenty of time for it to change.....



















The Goslings by the office enjoying the Autumn Sun whilst mother watches on,


 My pumpkin carving for the work comp. Safe to say I did not make the podium...

Your FIRE Number and the 4% Rule

For Example, if the total of my essential and discretionary spend for the month was £2k and this is generally the average monthly spend, for the year I would need to save enough money to cover £24K annual expenses (£2k x 12 months). Using the 4% rule (explained brilliantly in the below link) I would need £24K times 25 (inverse of 4%) which would be £600K to be able to infinitely cover this spend going forward, in line with inflation, in a usual market return. 

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-need-for-retirement/

For this I have gone through my monthly bank statement and categorised the spend as below. I am putting it into a P&L format, because I am a boring accountant and this brings me joy. It also makes me treat the FIRE thing more seriously and helps me improve my decision making. 

Monthly Spend 

Looking to track my monthly spend on a regular basis going forwards, with the below reasons coming to mind: 

1) Understand where my money is going to see if I need to change any habits or reduce spend in certain areas

2) Prepare future spend forecast for budgeting and investing purposes. There will be some months I will be paying out flights, insurance, presents etc and will need to make sure I have enough in my current account for these. 

3) Get a better understanding of what my FIRE number could be. When I'm out of work it's likely there will be a lot of change to my spending habits, but it will help create a more accurate yearly spend can I can input to the 4% rule to get a rough figure to aim for. 

Income - This is my net salary I receive form my full time employment. Any dividends are reinvested either manually or automatically so I do not include this in income

Essentials - Spend I need to live or occur from my work activities. I have included my Huel Subscription within this for work lunches, with any other lunch spend falling into discretionary spend. Whilst I don't need it to survive, haircuts will be included here as in reality I need someone to sort of this awful mop on my dome for the good of humanity, even if I still own a dodgy barnet! 

Investing - This is left out of the P&L Format as this will not be part of my expenditure after FIRE

Discretionary Spend - Spend incurred outside of work for fun or other non enjoyable activities (football) 

Fire Portfolio October 
I was able to save and invest a decent portion on the months leftovers into the ISA before the chaos of Christmas occurs. Some positive movements in my ISA and Workplace shares increases my net worth in October. Looking to make some adjustments to my portfolio as will be discussed in next month's update. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

November 2024 Update - Trump Is Back!

General Life Update    Making myself sound very boring now, but it was another quiet month. To be honest it was welcomed with open arms with Christmas coming up and plenty of socials throughout December. My football continues to disappoint and a hamstring injury limited my playing time. Probably being a good thing for myself and the team, but I still managed to miss some sitters along the way. Still, the one win in the month meant a big night out was needed, an opportunity we couldn't put wide of the post, but  there were some shots over the bar! Drinking is so expensive now, but sometimes you need to celebrate the wins.  Highlight in the month was an Alpaca walk with the missus. Already forgotten the fun facts the guide told us but I will forever remember them as being stubborn and greedy sods, much like our doggo! Her future dream for a house farm will only be bolstered by the experience, with the inclusion of alpacas now.  There has been time for self reflect...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Investment Strategy Explained In Numbers - Scenario Planning Example to 100!

How is Fire actually going to work? When first hearing about Fire, my mind was opened up to a new light. Disillusioned by the 9-5:30, 3 hour round commute everyday for the rest of your life until you're a shrivelled up prune.  I now had the way to escape this.  At the point of discovering Fire I was adamant I would achieve this through intense frugality whilst still being on a modest income at the time. I would be alone forever and my costs would never change in real terms (adjusted for inflation), even though we was in the middle of the pandemic. Even when going away, I would only ever go and stay at hostels and travel on a backpacker budget like some real life Peter Pan. No issues right....  Now a few years have passed and more life experience has been gained, this isn't quite what the reality will be. But this time has proved that it is almost impossible to predict what will happen the future. However, there is still every reason to try and put yourself in the best pos...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Journey to £100K in Liquid Assets

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 w...
Post a Comment
Read more