It’s been ages since I’ve posted, but I’m fortunate to have some time to put into words what’s been going on with us. In financial terms, we are mostly FI. In family terms, we are very lucky. If all happy family
finances are alike – it must get boring. But, our life doesn’t seem boring, there’s always something to l say (even if it’s not written down, nor read).
Family finances over the last few months
I tried to post around the end of the tax year, but my phone died, and the way I post this blog changed – and I stopped posting.
I don’t need to share what I write (it’s not a job), and posting is a bit of a distraction from the rest of my life. (I’m also now addicted to staring at my phone, like the rest of you, so creating content is a lot harder when your attention span is shot. On the bright side, my Facebook account is locked- so no more fb for me!
Anyway, due to the stock market performing really strongly our finances keep hitting new record highs each month and markers like having £XXX in ISAs or SIPPs or Net Worth come and go with such regularity that the significance is lost on me – the banality of wealth.
That doesn’t mean that all the work has been done – for managing family finances is like tending a garden. Your trees may grow, and you need to prune them. You need to weed, water, and fertilise the plants.
You can turn the falling leaves into mulch and sometimes you need a lot of shit to get anything to grow.
Financial independence still requires gardening skills. Like, how much money to have in pension assets (upfront tax relief, but taxable later on), or ISAs (no relief, but tax-free). It seems that the best use of our free cash is to put it into pensions. But that does mean that we can’t use that money for another 15+ years.
To ride out the next 15 years requires us either to work, have pre-pension funds or tighten our belts.
Working seems to be the way to go. The Lady works 3-days a week now and I’m working about 1,300 hours a year. That means I’ve got time to pick the kids up from school, take loads of holidays and avoid too much workplace stress.
It also means that my taxable profits are engineered to be taxed at 19% for corporation tax, that we avoid Scottish higher rate tax, and money is diverted into pensions above that.
Working to pay for a higher cost of living would involve massively more tax to be paid.
That’s the benefit of keeping cost of living relatively low.
I don’t actually pay any income tax as my earnings are below the threshold, and I get to claim the starter rate for savings. Financial engineering at its finest.
Spending
We do spend a lot of money and our spending is matched by our income. What is a challenge is filling up the ISAs each April – which I do – because free cash is a hard thing to come by when you just balance you
income and outgoings.
Money and money worries, I’ve stopped worrying too much about it. But our spending it is high at about £63,000 in the last 12 months. We could spend more – on cars for example. But we do spend a lot on other things.
Other Things
We’ve had some nice holidays this last year. Skiing in January. Denmark in Easter. England in July. Turkey in October. We’re going again skiing in December January for about 18 days in December/January – a few nights in Verona, a week in the lower mountains, before a week in the Dolomites should be amazing (and cheaper than a package holiday for 1 week).
Budget Panic
The budget was this week and I for one felt like I’d dodged a bullet. It seems that the Labour government either doesn’t know that millions of people have millions of pounds in assets that are untaxed or lightly tax, or don’t have the steel to go after them.
I read a clickbait article from the Daily Fail bemoaning the fact that the £20,000 ISA allowance won’t increase before 2030.
I, for one, am surprised that the ISA allowance is as high as it is and wasn’t tinkered with. If I have another 5 years to fund our ISAs, that’s another £200,000 that we can safely avoid paying tax on. By which time, our bridge will resemble a runway for a privatejet if I could afford the air passenger duty!
The Fail does like to rile people up – somehow losing the winter fuel allowance of £200 was a tragedy, but those same readers have 100 times that a year to squirrel away. It doesn’t make sense, does it?
Job
I started a contract last August and worked for a year or a bit on it. But due to declining workload, I have been moved over to a different part of the same company.
Potentially much better long-term and in new areas of business and with different clients. The new job has an office in a “nearby” city in Scotland – but checking the commute times, this “hybrid” role would have had me on the bus/train before 6am to get to the office and home in time to put the kids to bed. Driving an option or staying overnight like a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday type – and the obvious impact that has on the family.
That scared me – because I always said I am not going back to the office – but it’s easy to make old tomatoes when no one is calling your bluff.
As it is, I did stand my ground, and my contract says, “Working from home”, which is a massive relief to me.
The job starts Monday and I’m looking forward to it and left on good terms with the old team. (Good will and being likeable probably helped me get this job as, as much as I had to formally submit a CV… It was a personal recommendation from the old boss that made the difference.
Family and Friends
October is a month of parties and holidays for us.We had a holiday in Turkey with the Lady’s family. The Master and Little Lady really enjoyed it there. The weather is just right (high 20s during the day, lots of sunshine but not too strong), and the price for 5* luxury is quite cheap at that time of year.
We also spent a few days in the Lake District on our way back from Manchester Airport. The Lake District (or Wee Scotland as the locals don’t call it) was fantastic. The variety of scenery is immense and there’s lots to see and do there.
The kids had birthday parties, and we had a big Hallowe’en bash at our house – I think about 40-50 people were there, which included kids. It’s still great to spend time with friends – after the long years of covid and having young kids. We’ve come thoroughly through it a wide range of friends.
But now it’s November, the long hard slog to Spring begins. I don’t like the darkness, but we’ll get through it.
Hopefully, I’ll have more time to post in the coming weeks and months.
Take care. GFF