Howdy everyone!

October has been one of those months I’m quite glad to look behind. Mainly from a work point of view. Google continues to launch algorithm updates which they say are better suited with user intention in mind, but really just tick their own ideology and agenda. I wouldn’t be so passionate about it when it’s really 99% of my work (to reverse engineer their organic algorithm).

Anyway – onwards and upwards!

I’ve been keeping my spending pretty small in October. I’ve reinvigorated my PC Gaming habits with a WW2 shooter called ‘Hell Let Loose’ and joined up with a clan to participate in a clan match a few nights a week! I hadn’t done one of those for at least 15 years back in the Day of Defeat 1.3 days (oh the memories!). It’s actually been quite beneficial for me – I’ve enjoyed the game so much that in the evenings I’m not tending to reach for the other cheese & biscuit here and there! (Losing weight whilst playing video games!)

I’ve also have had a few friends round to catchup on the some RPG role playing goodness. Here was our setup for The One Ring RPG (click on the images to make them larger).

We really enjoyed it – spent half a day going through part of the campaign and the ‘companionship’ has just reached a potentially nasty encounter. Completely in love with RPG’s, they’re a great social event, team building, problem solving social experience!

Anyhow enough of my life, how have those savings been doing this month?

Value of Investments

Here?s the total value of investments to date across all accounts;

Jan-19 Feb-19 Mar-19 Apr-19 May-19 Jun-19
??17,919 ??24,666 ??29,873 ??37,687 ??41,400 ??48,743
Jul-19 Aug-19 Sep-19 Oct-19 Nov-19 Dec-19
??58,104 ??60,882 ??68,509 ??73,577 ?TBC ?TBC

I’ve managed to break the next barrier are now in the ?70,000! I wouldn’t have thought for a second that I could save this amount of money over this period of time. It provides that real excitement that one day I’m going to hit that magical FIRE number / target and that’s it! Ultimate freedom has been returned!

Here are some stats on income / expenditure side of things;

Total Income: ?10,500
Total Saved (?): ?6,820.00
Total Expenses: ?3,680.00
Savings (%):?65%

?200 was put into Premium Bonds this month and ?220 as a top up in my pension.

I haven’t really talked much about my pension plans. Fortunately Saving Ninja has documented a very interesting blog that talks about the importance of saving hard to begin with compared to that of spending everything to begin with and having time weigh up against you. The results are very interesting to see just how magical the effects of compound interest really are. Key note: Save hard whilst your young, it’s much easier!

My plan is to focus on saving into my pension to amass ?100,000 by the time I’m 33 years of age and then simply to leave it and let the magical effects of compounding take their hold (It may not be that set in stone, but it’s the general principle of leaving my pension alone). Why’s that you ask? Well I’m also focusing on saving money outside of my pension as well which is important to me. My FIRE age is between 41 and 42 currently (given my savings rate), which is roughly 10-11 years away. On average utilising a safer 3% withdrawal rate, my spending once FIRE’d will be ?30,000 – ?32,000 per annum, resulting in roughly ?1 million to be invested wisely. Then, upon reaching the age of 55 (after not touching my pension for 22 years at a yearly growth of 6.5% my pension would’ve grown to ?416,000) I’ll be in a great financial position to start withdrawing from pension pot (probably taking the 25% tax free lump). I see my pension as a bit of a bonus to when I’m older whilst focusing on my Nest Egg outside of my pension to be my main source of income. (Perhaps my thinking is slightly illogical? Let me know your thoughts!)

Anyway, how are those graphs looking??

All relatively straight forward / nothing exciting to report really. I read somewhere that if it’s relatively straight forward / slightly tedious when saving then you’re doing it right! (Hah!).

Here’s a few averages so far recorded in 2019:

So far my average savings rate for the year in 2019 have been 60%!
On average each month I’ve saved ?6,000.

Things on the Horizon…

  • Remortgage! Got a few deals come through (all of them are ?900 product fee costs);
    • 5 Year Fixed 1.54%
    • 3 Year Fixed 1.52%
    • 2 Year Fixed 1.24%
    • I’m tempted to go for the 5 year fixed just so I know exactly what I’m paying for the next 5 years. My original deal with 1.45% on 2 year fixed. I imagine, post Brexit the government will be forced to borrow more to create jobs / boost the economy. Typically this means that inflation and interest rates normally follow suit. Who knows – I wish I had that crystal ball to hand!

That’s it folks!