Hey guys! Sorry for the few days of silence, I've been transitioning jobs and trying to get things prepared for the coming months :)
Welcome to the forums! One popular blog in the UK is Monevator http://monevator.com/ Oxford's COL can be rather high - good on you for living with family for a while while you save your stache.
[We don't live in the UK but may end up there eventually for a while, after our stint in Asia. DH is from the Northwest.]
Thanks a lot! I shall be visiting this frequently :D
Hi
I'm also from the UK and live in the North West of England. Well done on stumbling upon this site and be ready to do lots and lots of reading but it will be worth it!
I agree with the poster above that the monevator site is great for learning about investing in the UK. Go check out the articles on passive investing and which brokers to use.
Also, other good UK based blogs worth reading are the escape artist and the FIREstarter. All about financial independence from a UK point of view.
Check out money saving expert especially the forums which have a wealth of knowledge about saving, cutting costs, getting out of debt and investing. (I think I recognise gallygirl from the forums over at moneysaving expert ;)
I've been doing so much reading lately, it's actually really exciting, so they are now added to the list! MoneySavingExpert is a site I've been sifting through on and off for years, but usually only for snippets of information as opposed to actually trying to sort out my financials, but with this new goal and way of thinking, I shall be paying much more attention. Thanks for taking the time to reply! :D
Hi, I live in a similar area and am a similar age and am also self-employed!
I'm relatively new to all this, but here is my advice:
1. It always seems to me like everyone on this forum makes SO MUCH MORE MONEY than I could ever dream of. This is because:
i. Lots of them are older. I am just starting out on a career and am still at entry-level earnings. It is silly to compare with someone ten years older.
ii. I forget that if you divide dollars by sort of two, you get pounds. So of course it looks like they are earning twice as much!
2. My impression is that a lot of things are cheaper in America: houses, food, taxes. However, we have three great advantages in the UK: the NHS, government-run student loans system, and the fact that in most of the UK it is perfectly possible to live without a car.
3. It seems to be the norm for a lot of America to eat out for every. single. meal. This is crazy and we have an advantage in that the culture in England makes cooking every day much more normal.
4. As for the pension or ISA question... I put less than £100 into a SIPP every month. I'm planning to retire well before I am 55 but I feel that if nothing else, that money is well-protected, the tax-relief is a bonus and it will be a nice surprise when I do get to 55 - my vague plan is to perhaps use it over time to remodel my home to make it suitable for living as an older person (handrails on the bath, that kind of thing) if I don't need it for anything else. Everything else I put into an ISA. Seriously, at the moment, I am hardly thinking about what I invest in. I started off with six individual stocks recommended as good dividend-payers because I thought it would be fun, but soon switched to an index fund as I read more about investing. The most important thing is to invest SOON. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
5. MoneySavingExpert.com is really good for all sorts of things that are UK-specific - price comparisons, credit card rewards, tax advice...
6. Learn to cook. Cook for your parents between one and three nights a week. They will be grateful for the help and you will learn a really important life skill. Keep track of how much each meal costs in groceries. This will be very interesting.
7. I work out of the home a lot, sometimes across lunch and dinner. I have a rule with myself that I have to bring at least one meal a day with me. To be honest, if I'm eating at work I hardly taste it - it's just fuel - so I might as well bring something cheap that I can eat whenever I like without having to run to the shops. If I'm out for two meals I cut myself some slack and allow myself to buy one of them.
8. Oxford is a good city to learn to cycle in. I've seen better, but there are enough students cycling that the cars are pretty aware and tolerant. You could then get a (second?) job as a cycle courier!
9. Don't get sucked into recurring expenses like bills and subscriptions. Monthly, I pay my rent (bills included), phone bill (contract ending soon and will be shopping around), into my SIPP and a small donation to a charity I support. No Sky bill, no magazine subscription, no contact lens service (I used to have this. I kind of miss the convenience but to be honest glasses do the same job and I love having the extra money), no daily purchase of any one particular item (e.g. coffee).
10. You can choose what you enjoy, to an extent. I could get into some very expensive hobbies but I try to avoid those and instead choose things that are cheap or, if they do incur an expense, provide some output (e.g. gardening). I am very interested in fashion but I channel that towards historical costume research, making/mending my own clothes and imagining (and one day implementing!) the perfect capsule wardrobe. I get a subscription to Vogue every year for my birthday, but I regard it as an exotic picture book, not a catalogue. Instead, I choose to be most interested in sustainability and self-sufficient living. It's easy now, but it took a while to get into it. Anything is interested if you delve below the surface.
11. Read. From libraries. Anything. I read a lot, whatever I feel like at the time - I just finished reading a tacky detective series and a history of the Pilgrim Fathers, but am about to start The Man in the Iron Mask. To be interesting, you have to be interested.
12. The details are different for the UK but the principles are the same. Spend less than you earn. Be grateful for what you have. The biggest problem I am having is patience, because at my (our) income level things move slowly. However, I am trying to assuage my impatience by focusing on amassing skills as well as money. It's hard because I don't have space to store tools (or anywhere to do things like carpentry!) but this year I have learned how to make jam and how to keep bees, and am trying to get onto a bicycle maintenance course locally (my irregular work schedule is making this hard). On my list for next year is fermenting, canning, allotment gardening (we got an allotment right at the end of the growing season this year) and possible keeping sheep (I know a guy who knows a guy...).
I'm afraid that's a bit of a random collection of thoughts, but I hope some if it has helped!
These are absolutely great! I completely get what you mean about it seeming like everyone else earns so much, it's like "Yeah I only earned $70,000 this past year and managed to save 10% of it but blah blah blah life is so hard" and I'm here like $70,000?!?!! JESUS CHRIST. Hahaaaaa.
In regards to having a SIPP and an ISA, is it really worth having both? I've just done a little bit of Googling and have a better idea of what a SIPP is, but I can't find anywhere that really puts it into perspective as to why it's worth having a SIPP, and any examples as to what you can do with it, over having an ISA. Could you, or anyone for that matter, possibly try and explain this to me? Remember, use small words! ;)
At the moment, I plan on opening an ISA, and just throwing as much money as I can possibly muster in each month, if I have £100 quid, in it goes, if I can get away with throwing in £700, it will go in, and then I'll be investing those into Index, just like you suggested!
Cooking and not having monthly bills that aren't needed are exactly up my street, I've already started moving them around and trying to get rid of stuff. I currently hold a £48 a month phone bill, which I'm trying to get reduced as A) the service is never the full 100% that they promise, B) There are other providers offering the same package for barely £20 a month and C) It's just not worth it!
Something I did recently, that has played a massive part in changing my life, is not texting people. Might sound a bit weird, but seriously, I use Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Text and email constantly, to various friends and family etc, but one day I just got so bored with looking at my phone constantly to reply to messages that really didn't mean all that much, that I told everyone that I was no longer going to be replying to texts and Instant Messaging, so if you really valued my time and needed to get in touch, then call me. Over the coming weeks (been doing this about two months now), my relationships with people have changed dramatically, I've grown a lot closer to people I'd never have thought I'd grow close to, my relationship with my lady friend is much, much stronger, as everytime we speak, we don't subconsciously hide behind the written word barrier, my speech has improved, and my confidence in speaking has improved ten fold (I've never been a shy person, but it's almost like when I talk, people REALLY listen, my words have a new power that they previously didn't have) and basically, my life and happiness overall has improved more than I ever thought possible, just by not texting people anymore. I will admit, as the time has gone on, I will occasionally text the lady friend something like "Running late, see you in 20 minutes", but that is literally it.
Kinda went off topic there haha, but if anyone wants to try this out, I strongly can't recommend it more.
My hobbies are dirt cheap, I have been Freerunning for 10 years now, I've been in adverts and music videos and a lot of random stuff too, and all that takes is just going outside and doing it! Otherwise I pay £26 a month for the gym. Apart from that, most of my hobbies involve reading and learning things.
I absolutely love what you said at the end though... "To be interesting, you have to be interested", LOVE IT.
I used to have a small veg patch in my garden, but we have a very strong clay based soil here where I live, either way I planted some stuff anyway and ended up with more cabbage, kale, lettuce, tomatoes and carrots than we could physically eat in a week, it was AMAZING! Tasted so much better than supermarket stuff too. I would love to get back into that. I started using some of the extra stuff into make green juices and smoothies with, my skin started "glowing" as some people said, my energy levels were like I was permanently injecting myself with coffee beans and my overall happiness was just awesome! I've completely lost track of all that now, but its time to get back into it!
Your suggestions have been great, I appreciate it a lot, thankyou so much!
And to everyone else that takes time to read and reply and give me their time, thankyou so much too :)