Summary This was a strange month for spending because we were in Africa for almost the whole month! We had already paid for the vast majority of the trip in advance. You can see the damage in previous spending posts! We break our main expenses down into broad categories starting with the big 3; housing, food …
Category: Money
Inheritance
A Divisive Subject Do you plan to leave an inheritance? What about receiving one – do you factor this in to your financial plans? Inheritance is a divisive subject and people have very strong opinions on what ‘should’ be done. In this post we will explore what inheritance means to us and how we plan …
Monthly Spending – July 2019
Summary There was a lot going on this month – we even got engaged!!! Excluding the engagement ring and the £500 spend on US dollars for our Africa trip this month’s underlying spending was very much in line with our monthly averages. An annual insurance premium increased our usual housing spend slightly but we were broadly in line with our expected totals. We …
Monthly Spending – June 2019
Summary This month was slightly over our ‘normal’ spending of ~£2,000. We had an annual membership fee to pay, as well as a couple of big outlays for our Africa trip added to the total. See below for more detail! We break our main expenses down into broad categories starting with the big 3; housing, food …
Monthly Spending – May 2019
Summary This month’s spending is a little different because the balance for our Africa trip was due. As you can see, this meant we shelled out over £6,000 on this alone! We’ll go into more detail on this below. Ignoring these payments for a moment we actually had a fairly normal month, spending £1,942. We …
Why We Keep Our Finances Separate
Society Expects This is another one of those aspects of life where we have challenged the ‘norms’ of society. We decided to forge our own way of doing things by keeping our finances separate. The accepted norm for couples is to merge finances, particularly when you own a house together as we do. In our …
Monthly Spending – April 2019
In March we produced our first ever monthly spending report. Here is our second! Despite going away this month we have managed to stay very close to our March spending amount. We’re really happy with this and hope we can keep up the £2000 per month average! We break our main expenses down into broad …
In Defence of the 4% Rule
What is the 4% Rule? The 4% rule was created based on historical market returns data. Simply put, it showed that a typical retiree could withdraw 4% of their portfolio while keeping the initial pot intact. The withdrawn amount would increase by inflation each year. The rule came about from work by Bengen and later, …
My Money Journey
The Beginning It all started normally enough. I grew up in a comfortable lower middle-class household. We never really discussed money. My parents weren’t flashy by any means, but they saw it as a matter of personal pride that we never went without. Looking back, it’s fairly clear that there wasn’t any significant money being …
How Do You Save for ‘FIRE’ in the UK?
As somewhat of a personal finance geek, I (Mr Way) have learnt a fair amount over the last few years. As a result, I wanted to share my specific take on saving for FIRE in the UK with you. I am not a qualified financial advisor and nothing in this article should be considered financial …