Where have you been and where do you want to be? (Part 2)
Hello again everyone. I am back with another post which I hope you all enjoy.
Last time I did a post on the positives of the last 5 years of my life - here. That covered Part 1.
This is now Part 2 where I will cover where I want to be in the next 5 years. I am really interested to see if it reflects the reality of where my life ends up heading.
Where do you want to be in the next 5 years?
Well, on a tropical island with a Pina Colada of course…
Although that does sound great, I don’t think being on a tropical island is my ultimate goal. Let’s dive in and see where my scatter brain takes me on this overcast evening in the UK at the end of July 2022.
So currently I am 30 years old (31 this year). Therefore, in 5 years time, I will be 35. So all things considered, I will still be relatively young and hopefully have a long healthy life to achieve everything I want to even if things don’t go exactly to plan.
So what categories do we want to cover so that I can add some structure to this instead of letting my brain run wild? Let’s go for the following:
Personal life, lifestyle and travel
Work and finance
Personal life, lifestyle and travel
So in this section I want to cover places I would like to visit and also what I want my lifestyle to be like day to day. I also want to cover my personal life.
What I must stress here is that I am serious about FIRE so this first port of call for me is ensuring I meet my financial targets (I will speak about them in the next section). Therefore, this might mean I have a less extravagant lifestyle over the next 5 years when compared to some people. I think to achieve FIRE, it will be important to stay disciplined for the most part. Although I do realise that I can’t just put my life completely on hold. There are ways of having a great time without breaking the bank all the time!
Anyway, the finance bit (which will cover FIRE) is in the next section. Travel wise I want to make more memories with the Mrs. We enjoy travelling to different places and working out how to get to the next place. When we travel we normally fly to one place and then use public transport to get to the next - often flying back from a different part of the country.
I want to plan more trips around Europe to places I haven’t explored very much (e.g. France, Germany, Greece, Turkey). I also want to one bigger trip somewhere like a return trip to South America or a trip to New Zealand or Japan. Let’s see how I go - maybe some trips with work will help me visit more countries and I can capitalise on staying somewhere for longer. I also want to travel around Scotland and the UK some more (for example the Scottish islands on the West coast and places like Bristol, Oxford, Cornwall, Dover, etc.).
In terms of lifestyle, I am quite happy with the way it is at the moment. I like to have plenty time to relax. I live close to the sea so I like going for walks there. I also really enjoy going hiking - maybe a target should be to keep track and hike as many mountains round the UK as possible - off the top of my head, I have hiked Blencathra, Helvellyn, Schiehallion, Ben Nevis and Ben Lomond. Let’s hope the next 5 years bring some more.
Most of the time, I spend my weekends doing relatively low cost activities. We don’t eat out overly often (we do have the odd takeaway). I sometimes go out for drinks and socialise with friends in Newcastle city centre but not overly often. And the Mrs and I do enjoy the occasional glass of red wine at home. We have a nice house with a pretty big garden so I can’t really grumble at all at our quality of life.
From a personal life perspective, I want to make sure I keep healthy so I really need to start running more often. I ran a half marathon in 2018 (in 2hours I may add) but since then my running fitness has gone downhill. Since COVID particularly I have put on a few pounds. For me, it is really important to stay fit and healthy if my target is to achieve financial independence early in life. There is no point in accumulating all this wealth if I cannot enjoy life due to being in poor health.
The Mrs and I got engaged recently so I am looking forward to organising and celebrating the wedding with a small group of friends and family. We have been a bit slow in organising but I am sure we will get around to it. It will be a major milestone in our lives. Maybe we can double up the bigger trip travelling with the honeymoon. Both of us are not the type that sits around the pool at an all inclusive hotel so an active holiday travelling from place to place would be our ideal trip.
Work and finance
So the serious stuff. As you will all know by now, I am serious (or intentional as the name suggests) about FIRE. It is a major target of mine and something I aspire greatly to achieve.
I have been tracking my wealth since December 2020. The Mrs and I both now track our net worth each month which currently stands at £315,108.02 to be exact.
Our initial target for FIRE is £800,000-900,000. I think it might be a big ask to reach this number within 5 years but I would like to reach £500,000-600,000 by then. If I can reach FIRE before 40, I will be more than happy so I think a target which is 60-70% of the way there within 5 years would be a great result.
How might we do this I hear you ask. Well this is the million dollar (or 0.8 to 0.9 million pound) question.
I have a relatively high paying job but I intend to try my best to increase my salary further within the next 5 years. My thinking is that if I work hard for the next 5 years to move up the ladder, I will be able to take the foot off the gas relatively soon so it isn’t such a big sacrifice. Currently my profession has a major labour shortage so there are opportunities to take on responsibility earlier than might be possible in other professions. I am also a Chartered Engineer so this helps with justifying why I am suitable. I was also lucky enough to receive a salary increase of approx. 17% in my current job due to my company realising that the competitive landscape had changed.
Otherwise, the Mrs is about to start a new job which means her salary has increased by approx. 20%. I think this new job should also open up new opportunities for her so let’s see if she can move up the ladder too. Although no pressure. I think even if we are not to increase our salaries, we can still save/ invest enough currently that should mean we reach our targets comfortably.
We also have a lodger who rents a room in our property. They pay around £500 (bills included) which we use to add to reduce our expenses. This then helps us invest more. We hope to keep doing this while we can as it is an easy way to add some additional income.
Along with our net worth, we also track how much we spend each month. This helps us see how much we might need once we do actually hang up the boots in our 9-5. It also helps us optimise our spending habits. We can see the money we spend on things that bring us limited value. This helps change habits as we think twice before spending money on these things. Although I have to admit, I still have some bad habits but I am trying! I plan on writing regular blog posts which go through our expenses so keep posted.
Overall, if we can keep doing what we are doing, I am sure we will get there. I am pleased with the results so far. But it will be consistency that gets us there. That and a little help from compound interest.
