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 “Monthly Spending – May 2020”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 “Why We’re 100% in Equities”Our first full month of lockdown has had a huge impact on our April spending.
Our total spend for the month was £1,559. This is well within our £2,000 target. It’s actually our second lowest month since we started tracking. Beaten only by August 2019 when we were in Africa and most of our accommodation and food was pre-paid!!
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 “Monthly Spending – April 2020”What a strange month!! Our March spending is slightly different to normal to reflect the current situation we find ourselves in.
As we’ve detailed in our recent posts, our lives have changed massively. We’re hoping the lockdown will help us to reduce our expenses even further, especially as our income looks more unreliable by the day!
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – March 2020”Somehow, a whole year has passed since we started blogging on A Way to Less! We’ve learnt a lot in the last 12 months and our circumstances have changed quite significantly!
Despite everything that has changed, we continue to make progress towards our FIRE numbers and keep making small improvements to our overall lifestyle.
Continue reading “A Way to Less – One Year Blogging”Our February spending went slightly over our target of £2,000 with a total spend of £2,391 because of a few big expenses. Most of these were annual amounts so should average out through the year. See the sections below for a breakdown!
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 “Monthly Spending – February 2020”Pursuing FIRE is a fine balancing act. On the face of it, delaying your FIRE journey would seem like a bad idea. Who wants to spend longer tied to a job when they could be doing anything else?! But there are other factors at play here!
Continue reading “Delaying FIRE to Enjoy Today”Welcome to our first 2020 spending post! Our January spending was quite good, totalling £1,789. We’re aiming to stay below £2,000 on average throughout 2020 which should be achievable if we carry on like this!
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – January 2020”As you probably know by now, we’re expecting a baby in July! As money is our favourite topic, we wanted to understand the financial impact of having a baby!
Aside from the obvious emotional impact of expecting a baby, there are some very significant financial aspects to think about.
Continue reading “Baby Impact Assessment”
2019 has been a year to remember for us, with highlights including:
Clearly, 2019 has been more expensive than we would have liked!
Despite this we have still managed to achieve all of the above, as well as an unwelcome new car purchase, while saving in the region of 35% of our income. We much prefer to see a figure above 50%, but considering what has happened this year we are happy to still make significant contributions to our ‘FI funds’.
Continue reading “Happy New Year!”