Monthly Spending – December 2020

On January 2, 2021January 1, 2021 By A Way to LessIn Finances, FIRE, Monthly SpendingLeave a comment

Summary

Welcome to our December spending post! Our total spend for the month was £2,454.

Finally, we made it! Sometimes it felt like 2020 would never end, but here we are. For more of a review of the year, see Mr Way’s 2020 Personal Review and our Financial Review too. We’ll also be posting a summary of our total spending throughout 2020 in the coming days.

Our total this month is slightly over our £2,000 target, but that’s down to Christmas and our car insurance renewing. We also paid a deposit for some wedding food. See below for more detail!

Continue reading →

2020 Financial Review

On December 31, 2020December 31, 2020 By Mr WayIn Finances, FIRELeave a comment

Here it is! Our financial review for 2020. Below, we’ll detail how we each got on this year, including progress towards our FIRE goals.

If you want to see a more personal review of 2020, see this post by Mr Way.

Continue reading →

2020 Personal Review – Mr Way

On December 24, 2020December 24, 2020 By Mr WayIn Coronavirus, Finances, FIRE2 Comments

Well, what a year! It’s finally time for my 2020 Personal Review, and boy has it been a crazy one.

Nobody saw the global pandemic coming, but there have been so many other things going on in my life too! It has been pretty manic at times and hard to process everything that has happened. Hopefully my ramblings below make some sense as I attempt to put 2020 into some sort of order!

Continue reading →

Monthly Spending – November 2020

On December 1, 2020December 1, 2020 By A Way to LessIn Finances, FIRE, Monthly SpendingLeave a comment

Summary

Welcome to our November spending post! Our total spend for the month was £1,818.

There weren’t any big expenses this month, just a few Christmas presents etc. Steady away! That’s what national lockdown does for you. See below for the full details!

Continue reading →

Monthly Spending – October 2020

On November 3, 2020November 3, 2020 By A Way to LessIn Finances, FIRE, Monthly SpendingLeave a comment

Summary

Welcome to our October spending post! Our total spend for the month was £1,952.

This marks another month below our target of £2,000, even considering we had to buy a new washing machine! Coronavirus restrictions have certainly seen a reduction in our spending, as there aren’t many things we’re allowed to do! With another ‘national’ lockdown looming, we expect this to continue.

Continue reading →

Monthly Spending – September 2020

On October 4, 2020November 28, 2020 By A Way to LessIn Finances, FIRE, Monthly Spending1 Comment

Summary

Welcome to our September spending post! Our total spend for the month was £1,636. We’re really happy with this as it’s significantly below our £2,000 target.

Before we get into the spending, we want to apologise. We haven’t been creating any blog posts recently, other than these monthly spending breakdowns. We’re determined to get back on it soon, but we’ve just been so busy since Baby Way arrived in July. He’s taking up so much of our time! There has also been a lot of work for Mr Way managing his tennis club (he’s the chairman!) and Miss Way has started doing some teaching over Zoom. Mr Way has also been told he’s in line for a promotion (about time!!) this side of Christmas so his work is busy too. A combination of all of these things have meant the blog had to take a hit. Anyway, on to the spending!

Continue reading →

Monthly Spending – August 2020

On September 5, 2020September 4, 2020 By A Way to LessIn Finances, FIRE, Monthly Spending1 Comment

Summary

Welcome to our August spending post! Our total spend for the month was £1,970.

We’ve been eating out more than usual, as Miss Way increases her socialising and introduces Baby Way to family and friends – at a distance. We also had an MOT on the car this month, and bought a lot of house plants! Considering those factors, we’re happy to still come in under £2,000.

Continue reading →

The Benefit of Salary Sacrifice Pensions

On June 20, 2020June 10, 2020 By Mr WayIn Finances, FIRE, Optimisation9 Comments

I recently went through an interesting exercise at work and wanted to share the findings here. Essentially, my company don’t offer salary sacrifice pension contributions and I wanted to persuade them to consider it!

As you can probably tell, I’m bit of a personal finance nerd! I created a document showing the benefits of salary sacrifice to both employer and employees. I even added some Sankey Diagrams to demonstrate the difference it would make!

The information below shows what I submitted to my employer. Hopefully it will help explain the different pension contributions as well as giving you inspiration to request similar changes from your own employer!

Continue reading →

Monthly Spending – May 2020

On June 6, 2020June 5, 2020 By A Way to LessIn Coronavirus, Finances, FIRE, Monthly Spending1 Comment

Summary

As lockdown continues, our May spending has been significantly impacted. We love seeing those zeros in the Transport category!

Our total spend for the month was £1,700. This is well within our £2,000 target again.

We break our main expenses down into broad categories starting with the big 3; housing, food and transport. Everything else falls into the entertainment category, with any large inclusions explained in detail.

Continue reading →

Why We’re 100% in Equities

On May 9, 2020May 6, 2020 By Mr WayIn Finances, FIRE, Optimisation7 Comments

Our investment strategy has always been 100% equities, with no allocation to bonds or other asset classes. There are several reasons we came to this conclusion, which we want to cover in this post.

When we say 100% equities, this is within our actual FI funds, which are housed in our ISA and pension accounts. Our emergency funds are in 100% cash and cover roughly 6 months of living costs. For more info on how our FI funds look at the moment see our 1 Year of Blogging post.

Our 100% equities allocation consists of index tracker funds with a global spread. This reduces the risk of being over-exposed to any particular country.

Continue reading →