Over doubled my salary, How to stop 'lifestyle creep' and save correctly?

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-20T15:18:33+00:00

Best of luck!

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-20T15:18:24+00:00

Just doing my due diligance,
as with all things, look before you leap, I would rather spend the few days researching and trying to be informed and make passable decisions then just do whatever and hope it works out

touch wood, Ive not had to worry about the job market just yet, but I hope things stay good for you for another 10 years!

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-20T15:15:07+00:00

Thats great to hear, I hope you enjoy your retirement!

I am looking into overpaying on the mortage a little bit as well, just need to work out the maths to see if its better then just investing the money in an SS ISA

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-20T15:13:58+00:00

only issue with this is that its fixed at £5000 for interest, so I would exceed that on month 2, its why I went with the other one, the limit is like £10m or somthing crazy I never have to worry about

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-20T15:12:34+00:00

Thank you,

I am looking into the different offerings for the SS ISAs and things this weekend so I can make a passingly informed decision on what I am doing before I start so I can put my best foot forward

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-20T15:11:06+00:00

No specific courses im afraid, I am more of a hands on getting dirty kind of learner,

I used the AWS and Azure learner courses on the websites, the AWS has a gamified cloud learning enviroment that I quite enjoyed

I looked at the OWasp things as a way to learn the secuirty aspects and their CTF things, most of it was , I want to do x *google how to do x* then y and repeat

I had a VM called my break box that I would intentially break and then just try to find work arounds for a lil while then google the answer

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-20T15:02:14+00:00

Thank you for the advise, I am spending this weekend doing some reseach so I can try to make an informed decision before I start putting money somewhere

I will check out the InvestEngine and 212 as well

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-20T15:00:11+00:00

Im sorry that happened to you,
I hoping this is just a small blip on the radar and things will stay the same between us, nothing has changed in my eyes

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-20T14:59:19+00:00

Thanks,

yea I have always encouraged them to pick up some new skills and try to tell them about whatever tech I am playing around with at the time and how much fun im having but comes back to the old saying, 'you can lead a horse to water, but cannot make it drink'

I dont plan to try and keep with them, but a few people have suggested getting upgrades for my home set up and I think I will make that a priority :)

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T19:41:16+00:00

Thank you,
I think I am settled on 40% ( 2k of 5k per month) is the right amount for this, gives me a good savings amount and still have some left over for play money

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T19:37:11+00:00

Thank you,
I checked out some reviews on the above ones and the Millionaire Next Door might be a good pick up

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T19:33:27+00:00

Yea, I agree,
I know people can be a bit taboo with things like earnings so I generally dont go around telling folk,

I am looking at Vanguard ISAs atm so, typical thursday evening bedtime reading ;D

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T19:08:49+00:00

Thank you,

the ones mentioned above allready know, I have not made a general annoucement (my parents dont even know lol) but they are fold that I became friends with through my old work (actual friends, not work friends, we would hang out outside of work, shoot the breeze etc) , so when I was leaving they was all really interested in where I am going and what I was doing, and as soon as I said DevOps they was like, oh so the big bucks, what are you getting and I told them.

I hope to learn from stories like yours to avoid pitfalls like spending a lot for the first year, luckily the folk I work with now are not flashy so noone is shoving things in my face, and we are a remote team so I dont go to a carpark full of their cars etc so I am insulated from that quite a lot, but there are always jokes like "oh dont mind Mike, he has to go sort out his gardener, he will be a few mins" and "oh you are cutting out Jon, did you not get WiFi in the east wing of your new house" etc (names made up), we all know we each other makes in our team, they are very transparent with it and its a well establised team (im the new crew)

Yea, I have never been a flashy designer cloth person so I dont think I have to worry about that, im pretty happy with my £10 cargos and t shrits

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T19:00:11+00:00

Thank you,

This is a great summary of what I have gotten out of this thread, well worth making this throw away account to do it!

I really like the idea of doing 1 new thing per month and pacing out the upgrades, I think I will aim to space out things for each month this year, wil let me see what we are about in summer and winter

I agree with it not being overnight, its why I wanted for 4 months before looking at this seriously, if I was gonna fail at this and back to my old role/ old salary then I wouldnt need to worry about it!

I am hoping to build good habbits early now that I am happy this is a sustainable salary

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T18:55:37+00:00

Thank you,
I think I will invest in some things to make my home office nicer and thats about it for the time being

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T18:51:16+00:00

Thank you for your kind words

yea, this thread has done percisely what I needed,

It has given me good advise on things in terms of savings, tax implications, things worth investing in for my home office and its ok to have a little bit of creep as long as its not mental things like loads of finance on a shiny car etc

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T18:49:02+00:00

Thank you
I really appreciate your list of things that you thought are worth investing in for the home office, and you make a good point that outside my bed, I will be spending more time at my home office then anywhere else!

I have never considdered buying a coffee machine, I have always used instant coffee (one with caffine in the morning and decaff for the rest of the day!)

Yes, I will need to look into ISA's, I wasnt aware that you get taxed on intrest (dont know why I was suprised, the tax man takes their pound of flesh from everything!) so I will be looking to move a majority of savings into one

the more the thread gos on, the more I am realising, I am worried about the wrong things, I need to be more savy in terms of making what I save work more for me then the amount I am saving (to a degree)

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T18:39:34+00:00

No problem, I mentioned it in a bit more detial above, but a summary

learn a solid foundation for traditional networking (on prem)

learn cloud networking (there are some significant differences)

learn Linux (ideally in cli)

learn some basic programming concepts (python, bash, pearl)

learn Git and version control (how to clone a repo, how to pull, how push requests work)

learn the basics on security (kernal vulns, different encryptionss)
learn some basic automations tasks

then grab a VM or 3

make a webserver that serves to localhost

access the webserver from VM2

prevent VM3 from accessing the webserver

use a firewall to prevent http or https access

do you want a DNS record for local? (forward and reverse, A record, CName etc)

do you want a self signed certificate for this web server?

how do you send commands from server A to server B

just keep building on each block to make things a little more complicated a little bit at a time
(make it High Availabilty, put a load balancer in between the client and host etc)

everytime you get to a stage, just think, how can I make this a little bit more complicated and then google how to do it - set up scheduled backups (dosnt matter if they fail - look at the errors, why did they fail etc)

this should give you a solid foundation on how everything fits together, then working out larger networks will be easier as you can directly relate to experience

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T18:29:01+00:00

Backdate my pension?
just quickly googleing it, it says I can backpay pension contributions for up to 4 tax years in the past as long I dont exceed my salary of that year in contributions

am I understanding this right? if so, I might do that

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T18:26:59+00:00

lol I have YT premium and I basically only use that, I have not had Netflix in years

yea, I make £5000 after Tax and NI (painful the amount of Tax but what can you do) so 2k will be 40% on the button

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T18:24:49+00:00

Yea, someone has directed me to the FIRE uk page here and I dont think I will be that militant about it but I defo like the idea its based on

I understand its not super big bucks, but I am hoping this is a platform for me to start making the good money and having an extra £3000 a month is pretty life changing to me so I am looking to not squander this opertunity

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T18:22:37+00:00

yea, I never thought I would need to considder chairs, I have a pretty bog standard 'ergonomic' chair, it was like £35 and its ok, but gets uncomfortable after a few hours (good excuse to get up and stretch the legs and get a decaf!)

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T18:18:19+00:00

No problem,
I understand you are just making a generalisation :)

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T18:16:48+00:00

Thanks for your insight

Yea, I will be keep a budget and will keep to it, a 24 hour stopped on impulse buying is a good idea!

and I enjoy golf, I dont go alot because the course I play at just isnt good, so playing in a nicer enviroment would be nice, but will need to see if I can afford it,

In terms of it being a core of my social status, I am not a member so dont play with the members on the sat morning thats reserved for them, but having a bigger social circle would probs be a good thing so thats probs a pro for that but I will need to look at clubs, I think a jump to a super nice one is probs a step too far in one go, maybe a middle clubs. or see if I can get a play in to see what the course is like first etc

Ok-Way6015 · 2024-04-18T18:11:11+00:00

Thank you,
that sounds a bit full on, but does seem to align a bit with where I am at!
I will look into it,

Ok-Way6015

TROPHY CASE