Impressive goals in this thread! I'm a little overawed, as I'm 25, and single, and therefore much, much earlier on my FIRE journey...
My 2018 goals in order of occurrence:
- Save 40% of total pre-tax earnings in first half of year (approximately £13,000) via salary sacrifice to auto-enrolment company pension and S&S ISA
- January 2018: Open my LISA (and keep open in case I need to use it for a future house purchase) and change to my new address with all financial institutions
- February 2018: Gain remaining £250 available from bank current account switches & sell my car for around £4k (already off-road and declared SORN as of 1st January)
- April 2018: Persuade my current workplace to give me freelance work during my masters at my annual review, as well as at least a +cost of living pay rise. [Aside: I've had a significant title increase since my last pay rise (1 year 3 months previously, by April), so may also angle for a decent salary bump before I leave, but the business as a whole isn't doing so well, so I may struggle to get much.]
- Mid-June 2018: Go part-time from to spend time in my non-profit lab, supervise a PhD student internship with us, and prepare for my Master's degree
- September 2018: move to Manchester (lower cost of living city) for a Master's degree in Bioinformatics & Computational Biology, funded from my savings and parents (who are willing to go halves on tuition), which will hopefully increase my long-term earning potential
- November/December 2018: pick up some freelance work from my old company during their busy season to provide some income [net: more profitable than a part-time retail job.]
In my opinion, there's significantly diminishing returns on trying to earn over £18k-ish taxable income in the coming tax year, as my student loan deducts an additional 9% at that point, so with NI+basic rate it's an effective 41% tax rate [on time I could therefore better invest in my studies.] But I'd be happy to hear contrary views if you disagree!
Overall goal: I just want to make a net break even this year, balancing savings with tuition, or maybe even a little profit using my eBay resale side business.