Ten is the Magic Number
Well, the wheel of time grinds onwards and last month, my blog turned an epic TEN YEARS OLD!
Happy 10th birthday to Quietly Saving! 🙂
Long time or what! Except it hasn’t really felt that way.
My blog is positively ancient compared to some other FIRE blogs (not that there are that many these days), considering how many have fallen by the wayside and dropped into the abyss of the blog graveyard over the years. In the words of good old Elton, “I’m still standing!” 🙂
Last Woman Standing
Even after 10 years, I still enjoy writing (most of the time) – the blog is a means to help me focus, to document my journey, to help motivate me, a place to empty some of the thoughts rattling around my head or to articulate ideas. The blog was never about making me money, else I would have given up after year 1!
Some might describe my progress over the years as ‘plodding’ but the truth is, I’ve gone as fast I’ve wanted to; I see it as steadily and purposefully moving forwards, step by step.
The last couple of years did feel like a bit of a slog – there was barely any progress with my Future Fund due the stock markets creeping along sideways, it was all quite disheartening and demotivating but I doggedly kept at it.
At no point in the last ten years have I ever thought about quitting my goal and I don’t feel burned out from my FIRE journey, probably as I’ve just gone along at a pace I’ve been comfortable with.
That said, neither am I all bright-eyed and excited as I was at the beginning of my journey – what has crept in recently is a little trepidation as I am now on the last leg of my journey. I feel that a slight mindset change is required but I’m not quite there yet – my mind seems to be a little hesitant about taking that next step.
I need to start thinking seriously of ‘what happens next’, look into more detail on how I am going to fund my life post work, look into what my life will look like. The word ‘decumulation’ keeps popping up at the back of my mind and I’m currently just batting it away, like an annoying fly. Don’t worry, I will get my head round this.
Humdrum
Gosh, so I’ve been posting my numbers monthly (with some glimpses of my life) for a whole decade!
It’s all been pretty mundane stuff – I reckon I live a relatively ‘ordinary’ life, one which is filled with a lot of routine, same-old-same-old stuff, with good things far outweighing the bad. My life is not action-packed, there’s very little drama and no cliff-hangers!
I am mostly an optimistic person, this governs how I live my life and also I think how I invest (whether that’s good or bad, haha!).
I think I’ve gotten the right balance with my life vs aiming for FIRE because as far as my nearest and dearest are concerned, I’m just living a normal/mundane/modest/boring (delete as applicable) life on a middle income, except that I have a fanciful idea of retiring early.
What have I been doing these past 10 years?
I’ve just been living my life, which still pretty much boils down to work, gym, eat and sleep.
I tend to enjoy a good work/life balance, with quite a lot of spare time to read (books and blogs), play video games, watch tv, socialise with friends and family, and try my hand at gardening. I attend sports events when I can (eg Wimbledon, NFL and recently Premier Darts!). Travelling and holidays is usually just one big trip away each year to see my family in Hong Kong.
I have been fortunate that my adult life has been relatively free of ‘drama’ which continues to be mostly in my control, and aside from a recent health scare, there’s nothing of any note, aside from the breakdown of a long-term relationship (15 years), being made redundant at the end of 2016 from the company where I’d enjoyed a 21-year career, my sister and nephew moving in to live with me for a year or so, my BTL getting caught up in the cladding shenanigans and then me buying a home during a peak property period.
I’ve been quite content with my life these past ten years, there’s nothing really that I want to currently improve – my savings rate, perhaps?
My health is good, physical and mental and I try to make an effort with both.
The increase in costs of living does concern me a little – fortunately not in terms of heating vs eating, but in terms of the lifestyle I will lead. The income I had in mind upon giving up full time work will need to be revised and currently, I’m tracking all my expenses to see how much my mental-spending is deviating from actual-spending!
Over the last decade I’ve aimed to save/invest as much of my net salary as possible – there was a time when I was able to save 40% of my net salary, even managing over 50% during the pandemic but with increasing mortgage rates (current rate 5.3% variable) and potential house repairs on the horizon, I’m sacrificing some of my savings rate by putting money aside for my ‘house fund’ and also overpaying the mortgage. Recent savings from cuts to NI have gone direct to mortgage overpayment – every little will help.
I am aware of how lucky I am that I am not struggling with a cost of living crisis – to that extent, I think I’m in a bit of a bubble with my friends and family who are all in a similar situation of being to able to live without financial stresses.
Anyway, here’s the growth of my Future Fund over the years. 2024 shows the amount as at end March 2024:
As a reminder, my Future Fund includes my ISAs, SIPPs, Premium Bonds and my company DC pension. It is not a net worth figure and does not include any property I own, my DB pension or the state pension.
There’s been steady progress from investing on a monthly basis, the trend has been mostly heading in the right direction. The blip in 2022 is after I raided my Future Fund for my house deposit.
No need to ask me how much my Future Fund would have looked had I lumped all my investments into just one global tracker like VWRL, as I know the answer already without even checking – it would have been a lot BIGGER! 🙂
But hey ho, I can’t live life with such regrets, I can’t change the actions I’ve made; I own the decisions I’ve made, good or bad, and prefer to look forwards rather than backwards. I’ve just done what I’ve been comfortable with and what I believe might work for me.
How Long until I FIRE?
This is still the big question.
My FIRE date has always just been an estimate, never a goal set in stone as it’s just based on predictions and modellings on spreadsheets. I have no real idea of what’s going to happen in the future that will affect my investments, so I don’t have an actual date, nor indeed an actual number any more.
It’s more a range of numbers I have now and this range has been creeping up with inflation!
Here are my initial thoughts on decumulation – I need to revisit this with an updated post at some point.
I would say that I am aiming for an income which is between that quoted by Which? and that cited by Retirement Living Standards, ie somewhere between £20k and £31k for a single person.
So, I might tentatively say I’m around 2-3 years away from FIRE. It might be a bit more, or it could be a bit less – don’t hold me to it, FIRE was always going to be partly dependent in some way on events outside of my control.
This will have me pulling the plug on full-time work in my late 50s, which is alright by me.
It’s unlikely that there will be a change in my living situation in the near future, so that’s one less thing to worry about. My job is as stable as it can be, I still like the company, I like my new boss and the people I work with.
However, stress and overwork sometimes creeps in, and combined with my occasional peri-menopausal brain fog, it’s getting harder to cope with it. There will come a time when I just won’t be able to mentally juggle and multi-task or work to fast deadlines like I’m doing presently – it’s already taking more effort than it used to!
Thank You Again
Readers have come and gone over the years and I’m eternally grateful to the ones who have stuck around and who continue to support my quest for FIRE.
So as always, a massive ‘Thank You’ to all who take the time to read this little blog – I really do appreciate your comments and emails and have loved (and continue to love) sharing my journey with you all.
Thank you very much for helping me keep my focus, keeping me motivated, giving me ideas and helping me stick to my plan!
Being part of the FIRE community has meant that I have made some great friends, through online and face-to-face FIRE pub meet ups and through online investing meet ups. Thanks to Matt, Gez and Danny for your guidance on investing and thanks also to the chaps at Monevator who helped (and continue to help) me become the cautiously optimistic investor I now am (for better or worse, haha!).
I will continue to shout out to theFIREstarter for inspiring me to start this blog in the first place – still waiting for your update, @TFS! 😉
And that’s it.
Onwards and upwards, everybody!