Looking over the ‘demotivator’ calculator from MSE has made me consider some of the items I’ve managed to avoid wanting or purchasing over the years and just how much of an impact they’ve made on the finances during my reasonably short life so far. The additional bit of this calculator is that it will work out how many weeks you would have had to work to pay off this expense from a given salary after taxes. I thought it would…
It’s September which means a return of rush hour traffic and even more rain for us here in the UK. August was a really positive month for me with a totally unexpected and potentially life changing opportunity that I’m still trying to decide upon. We had an excellent month financially which saw a large drop in expenses and steady increase in pensions/stock funds to give a decent overall networth increase. August was also the first month that I’ve set myself…
A common theme running through most personal finance and early retirement advice is the concept of Delayed Gratification. This is where we actively choose to make a sacrifice today in order to obtain the same or greater returns later on. Saving money for a rainy day is the most obvious example of this; choosing to purchase a few less pairs of shoes each month so that you have enough money to fix the boiler when it blows up on a…
It’s payday tomorrow which means time for the monthly report! This is my 2nd monthly report and so the first chance I’ve had to actually calculate any differences. Another awesome month and I’ve been working hard to build relationships with others online on a similar journey as me. A big shout out to all of my regular readers, especially those who have taken the time to comment and share their views on the articles. A special thanks to Wade, Jason,…
It’s almost the end of August and only 121 days to Christmas which means I’ve already finished my Christmas shopping! I’m not a big fan of the over-commercialised Christmas we have in this country. I much prefer spending time with people and doing activites together instead of briefly seeing each-other purely to swap gifts neither of us particularly require and are likely to just end up creating more waste. However I do appreciate that some friends and family will still…
Regular readers of this blog and my comments on other blogs will be aware of my love for the ultimate quick and cheap commuter motorbike I use everyday. When I first moved with with my partner and moved out of the city center, it imposed upon me a necessary commute for the first time in my life. The key considerations were cost and time involved, with enjoyability a close 2nd. I’ve previously discussed the negative impacts of a long and…
Last week I had a very strong reminder of why I’m aiming for financial independence and looking to do it as soon as possible. My company announced that it intended to make several hundred roles redundant in cost cutting exercises. Fortunately the cuts are not in my department and so I won’t be affected at this stage, however many of those who are affected will have been with the company for several decades. It’s these people in their late 40s/50s…
Inspired by my new friend TheFireStarter, I’ve decided to take a crack at setting some monthly challenges which will all help towards achieving greater goals. There was a great TED Talk on the psychology of habits and how if you do someone for 30 days, it can easily become a habit which you continue forever. I’m normally pretty good with these as every year I complete the Dryathlon for Cancer Research UK as well as setting other challenges like running…
It’s payday tomorrow which means time for the monthly report! This is the first time I’ve ever kept a record of my income against expenses and so we can use this month as the benchmark to measure all future calculations. What a month this has been! The biggest thing has obviously been the start of this blog! Google Analytics tells me we’ve had over 1,500 pageviews from almost 300 different users. This is awesome and way more then I had…
Last week was gearing up towards an expensive weekend. I’d been invited out for drinks on Friday, had 2 seperate birthday parties to attend and the motorbike exhausts badly needed repairing. Inspired by the What small things did you do TODAY to save money thread over at MMM forums. I decided to look at each part individually and calculate where small savings could be made to add up to a large overall saving. Friday Several friends were heading out to…