Any time I talk with people who speak about their money problems I keep hearing the same old excuse repeated: It’s too difficult to save money, I cant be bothered to save money, It’s too much effort to save money And really; who could blame them? In a modern world where we are constantly bombarded with advertisements and marketing aimed at getting us to spring into action and spend our hard earned money. Companies who make it as difficult as…
I first saw this photo a few months ago on a finance forum in a thread about starting a pension fund. The thread starter was roughly my age and asking whether he should begin saving into the company pension scheme. The details were roughly that the company would double his own contributions at 4% salary sacrifice.. however like most young people there was the constant draw of nights out and flashy gadgets all battling for a slice of his income…
I can’t believe we’re almost 2 weeks into March already, these past couple of weeks have flown by and I apologise for not keeping you more up to date with what’s been going on to try and lower some of the expenses in our lives. Many commenters over the past few months have (correctly) identified that some of our expenses seem overly high for just 2 people and so I’ve been making a big push these past few weeks to…
What would you do if someone came knocking on your door demanding over £500? Would you invite them in for a friendly discussion to sit down and work out the calculations used to reach this figure.. or would you tell them to shove it and crawl back under the rock they came from? Having recently watched a TV series (on catchup, no tv licence required) which followed a team of court bailiffs; I’ve seen plenty of such reactions and they’re…
My very first memory of budgeting and saving for anything was back as a child when I had to save for my first television set. This was in the early 90s when the cheapest colour set cost about £120 and my pocket money consisted of about £1 a week. Throw in a few birthday and christmas cash gifts and the savings time required came in at around 2 years. A lifetime for someone at that age! While my siblings would…
Before we dive head first into 2015 and a wave of inevitable soon-to-be-broken new year resolutions, I think it’s important to reflect upon what we’ve worked towards in the past year and to identify the major achievements. 2014 was a real life changing year for me. It marked the point of 5 years full time employment and utilising some of the accumulated funds to stabilise for the future. We bought a house Like many young people out there in the…
While recently discussing the costs and benefits of a company car scheme, Vawt from Early Retirement Ahead made an excellent point about having cruise control on the vehicle to help minimise the chance of receiving a speeding ticket. This effectively valued the addition of cruise control on the vehicle in the form of reducing future financial liability. While not a typical asset class; there are plenty of examples of businesses valuing investments which seek to limit or reduce future financial…
It’s been an interesting week in the world of ERG. For the first time in my life I’ve been calculating how to spend money I don’t actually have. Typically when we think of people spending money they don’t have, we imagine those taking on debt or diverting funds away from other expenses in order to fund luxury and non-essential purchases. However in my situation it has been spending money which will potentially be owed to me in the future.. and…
Sitting on the train for the past few days commuting to a client site in Central London has given me plenty of time to browse the daily news articles for a healthy dose of doom n gloom. My current favorite is the Daily Mail, not for it’s journalistic ability.. but for the pure entertainment factor generated by the comments section. One mention of the EU and quickly thousands of comments appear shouting the praises of UKIP and how we’re about…
I think it’s fair to say that for a majority of us this journey towards financial independence is going to be a long one. Even the gods of early retirement such as MMM still had to dedicate many years of their life towards the final goal. Unless you’re unlucky enough to win the lottery, taking a look over the percentage savings table will show many of us are working our way through at least a decade of income generation in…