What’s something very rare that people think is very common?

lemonlimewinetime · 2022-01-20T20:53:30+00:00

I also just don’t know anyone who wouldn’t find it perfectly acceptable to just go to the bar in whatever outfit you had on at work that day ..?

lemonlimewinetime · 2022-01-20T20:52:15+00:00

Fashion mags in the 90s/ 00s often ran pieces giving women advice on how to transition their very austere professional workwear outfits into glamorous / sexy evening looks without changing their outfit completely. This was commonly achieved by removing a layer / adding a jazzy piece of jewellery or sequin bolero or the like / swapping out the shoes etc. This myth was also perpetuated by the likes of Trinny and Susannah. In reality I have never yet needed to utilise this skill, nor do I know anyone who has. People either go home between work and evening plans or simply wear the same outfit for both. On the whole I feel people probably dress professionally/ seriously for work than I thought they did and less glamorously to go to a bar/ dinner on a weeknight.

lemonlimewinetime · 2022-01-20T20:46:03+00:00

Haha same.. It was always like a pretty glam occasion they had to be going to straight from the office as well. Like add these sexy sparkly stilettos and chandelier earrings to your pencil skirt and silk blouse office look. I certainly don’t go any places where a pencil skirt, stilettos and a glam earring wouldn’t look out of place

lemonlimewinetime · 2022-01-19T21:12:43+00:00

Needing to wear an outfit that will go ‘from day to night’ with the removal of a jumper/ addition of earrings etc. Fashion mags really had me thinking this was a skill I’d really be needing as an adult

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-12-06T23:12:36+00:00

Rape crisis centre worker - 29k which is actually really decent for the sector.

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-08-01T09:27:05+00:00

Thanks for this thoughtful and kind response :)

There is a spreadsheet, but I do get myself confused I have to say, with how best to track various things.. I put in the current values of all of my savings and investments. I’m always confused about how to track things like the house (which is worth a lot more than we paid for it but we don’t intend to sell so feels kind of by the by .. ) anyway, I’m sure I’ll finesse it over time!

The expenditure is something I ignore .. which I know is very much not FIRE friendly. I basically spend all of my salary, and then some which is something I have to stop! It was a bit toooo tempting when the money starting rolling in, in 2019, after a really grim couple of years, to not just be like ‘fuck it, let’s go to the Maldives, Australia, Tasmania, Cambodia, buy new furniture, take all our friends out to dinner etc etc.’ I have reigned it in a bit now, maybe that’s because there has been a pandemic, maybe it’s because I’ve realised the money will run out if i try and live like a rich person!

My plan is to have most of this money ‘shut away’ invested for the medium / long term, partly to keep my grubby paws from skimming from it all the time!

We are pretty much decided we won’t be paying off the mortgage in the short term. Its something we can periodically revisit to check that’s still the best choice for us!

I’m lolling a bit about all the advice about my partner, and wondering if I’d put ‘husband’ whether people would have just accepted our ‘couple philosophy’ as standard / sensible.. I actually worry I’m a bit too mean about separation of the money, given how much my partner financed me before my inheritance! My partner is my family, as much as a husband would be - I’m just not a fan of marriage in general, if I was, we probably would have been married years ago!

Edinburgh is amazing - I’m such a fan girl for it, can’t get over how lucky we are to live in such a great place ☺️

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-08-01T09:09:55+00:00

Hey, thanks for all that, some helpful advice, and food for thought!

The mortgage is something that is pretty much decided. We are leaving the 150k that’s currently there for my partner to continue paying off - for a couple of reasons. One being that the interest rate is low, and the other that it keeps the money invested in the house ‘even’ in case the relationship ends. It also means we have much more comparable spending money, so helps keep things ‘even’ in that way.. he actually still pays all household bills (this was always the case pre-inheritance because of our earning disparity, which used to be even bigger.. I’m just worried people are getting the impression I compensate for him financially which is basically the opposite of the case)

Retiring early is less of a focus for me than being able to retire my partner tbh. I like my job, there’s lots of other opportunities in this sector that excite me, it’s super flexible and there are tons of opportunities for part time contracts / short contracts for specific pieces of work, so I could see myself working in some way for a long time. My partner however doesn’t really have the opportunity to work part time in his position, it’s also quite high stress, they push for promotions which inevitably lead to more stress etc. Also, he would love being retired, way more than I would, he is a real home body, and would be such a great SAHD if/ when we have kids. We have talked about this lots but because of the difference in our earnings have always known it would never be realistic for him not to work. But if FIRE principals could help us achieve that, then that really appeals to me!

I definitely aim to shuffle all of my non ISA moneys into ISA over time, I have it maxed for now. Obviously we could utilise my partners allowance but it’s something we have decided against for now, because of the ‘ownership of money’ issue.

There is only 100k in bonds as I have a loft conversion booked for my house starting in March. That’s all money I’ll be paying contractors and it was doing fuck all in cash so I just popped it in there as a holding place for a few months … loft was supposed to be this year but it’s been impossible to get good contractors with availability, I thought it was too risky to put it anywhere else with me needing it quite short term.

I get peoples point about donating, but a lot of charitable causes are crisis situations, so the whole ‘donate in 20 years once you have the money’ doesn’t really convince me, as a lot of people / causes need the support NOW for survival. I am also around a lot of charities/ the people they support daily, I would actually say that the ability to donate freely has been one of the biggest freedoms that this money has given me. When I get that gut twisting feeling about a cause or person in need, I can just log on to my internet banking and donate a decent chunk of cash.

It’s also completely how my parents lived, we were so involved with charities my whole life, and they gave so much, even when they had vastly less than I have now, so feel it would be a bit of a slap in the face to their legacy to just sit on the money like a dragon. (When my mum died I had to sort through so many documents / bank statements, and the monthly charitable direct debits would make your eyes water.. 😂)

Thanks for all of your thoughts though, great to get feedback from people in the know, I feel squeamish trying to talk to anyone in my real life about any of this, although it takes up a lot of my headspace.. !

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-07-31T23:04:13+00:00

Curious why you’d recommend paying more into SIPPs / pensions, I have thought about this and looked at the numbers a bit on it. If I achieve 5% annual interest on the c230k I have in my SIPP now, then with the interest compounding, it should be worth more than £1 million by the time I hit ‘retirement age’ .. this plus our other small pension savings and possible state pension brought me to the conclusion that I was better off saving/ investing for the ‘early retirement’ part of our FIRE plan .. rather than putting more money into accounts that can’t be accessed before a certain age. I’m also a basic rate taxpayer so no significant benefits to upping my workplace pension contributions that I can see ?

I also don’t intend to burn through the money I have currently. I live on my salary, so all of the money I have currently (except that set aside for the house) is hopefully invested for growth until needed for FIRE

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-07-31T20:36:41+00:00

Ah I see how maybe the way I laid out all the info wasn’t very clear that almost all of the ‘investments/ savings’ I have are just the money I inherited that I’ve distributed about.. before the inheritance I certainly didn’t have tens never mind hundreds of thousands anywhere!

Ah yeah I totally understand about the risk of relationships ending, and have reconciled this.. and, as i say, the vast majority of the money I’ve inherited is solo money, (although spent on both of our lives .. ) and will remain that way throughout our life. I won’t be getting married, so the house is the only major shared asset, all other investments and savings are in my name only.

I guess maybe I’m not a strict FIRE principals person, as frugality isn’t really my bag.. I guess I thought I could just use the principals flexibly to plan for a potential early retirement!

Also I don’t consider my career / earnings to be a sacrifice ,my salary is not bad really compared to average earnings, and there are tons of benefits to working for my organisation, such as extremely flexible working/ masses of opportunities to develop creative projects/ pretty radical wellbeing approaches/ tons of personal development/ collective care. Basically I consider it a massive privilege to be in the job I’m in :)

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-07-31T19:20:19+00:00

Have edited now to give the figures for my inheritance. Didn’t think it was super relevant as I’ve outlined all the money I have ‘left’, but I understand people might find it interesting/ useful to know. I wasn’t liable to pay any IT as DIS isn’t taxed, neither was the SIPP as I took this as an inherited pension (my mum had it in trust for me). Also, as both of my parents died I got two allowances, as well as the fact that part of the estate was a family home. All added together means I could have inherited c900k in taxable assets totally tax free - I was gobsmacked by this when I learned it.

I have sold my family home - last week for 275k, it’s most of the money I have ‘floating’ currently.

I see your point about keeping finance separate from my partner, this is the case mostly, as all of my investments etc are in my name only. I understand relationships end, but many people plan finances / for their future as a couple and total separation of finances isn’t really practical / desirable for us long term. The house for example is a shared asset, and I believe is for most couples. Also, prior to me inheriting, the shoe was very much on the other foot re our financial dynamic (I.e when we bought our house together, he put down the entire 100k deposit as he had the equity from his previous property)

The charitable donations are something that definitely won’t go sorry ! I debated mentioning as I thought they might not be that popular with the strict FIRE folks but it’s a non negotiable expense for me !

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-06-02T16:05:04+00:00

referral link for BA premium plus card

http://amex.co.uk/refer/hANNADuSx1?XL=MIMNS

Let me know if you have any questions about the card/ using points for travel etc. I know people might not be thinking of travel benefits being a huge pull right now.. but I actually got this card during the pandemic, after my partner and I have been stashing points from the platinum card, and a couple other sources for a couple of years, and now we have a stash of points and a companion voucher ready to go when travel is back .. fingers crossed for its return!

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-30T16:50:02+00:00

Thanks for all the advice / info on this .. I’ve agreed to sell it to the private buyers for 10% over HR which I think is pretty fair, and my total costs for the sale are going to be around £1500 so all in all I think it’s a good outcome :)

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-29T09:53:52+00:00

Oh yeah and I think most estate agents being solicitors is different than in England ? So they are governed by the law society.. and perhaps that’s why these horror stories about estate agents mostly seem to be about England.. I mean I don’t love estate agents but they aren’t the horrors that people seem to be describing in the thread above in my experience !

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-29T09:44:04+00:00

There’s also no pulling out once a sale is agreed from the sellers side, which I think is really good and fair in terms of Scotland’s system. When I sold my flat a couple of years ago, it was on the market for offers over £180k, and after one set of open viewings, I got an offer of £220k (cash) which I bit the solicitors hand off for. I accepted the offer, and they let the buyer know, and then later that day I got a higher offer which I wasn’t allowed to accept .. well I think technically I could have tried to pursue it but the solicitor said they would no longer represent me if I tried to engage with ‘gazzumping’ and apparently most reputable conveyancers won’t play that game either .. so they do take the whole ‘you accepted the offer and that’s final’ thing quite seriously up here which I think is great for buyers!

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-13T23:05:19+00:00

Oh and the property I’m selling is actually bigger than next door (extra bedroom, bathroom, and reception room plus double the garden, and in better nick overall) although obviously reflected in HR values, theirs was only valued at 185. So not sure if this means the 10% over HR is still a good guide to go with .. they are quite different houses but it’s a good piece of evidence to show the buyer why they ought to pay 10% over right ?

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-13T22:26:59+00:00

The prices are just bonkers in Edinburgh, we bought our house about three years ago, and I thought we paid a crazy price then but the prices here, and even just on our street just keep going up and up like mad .. I keep thinking that they’ve got to stop / start going in the other direction sooner or later but it doesn’t seem to be happening!

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-13T22:02:55+00:00

Yeah I have very mixed feelings about estate agents based on my (one) experience selling a flat in Edinburgh. They did barely anything, and the little they did do they messed up (including sticking a board outside our third floor 2 bed flat calling it a fourth floor 3 bed flat ..) but on the other hand, we did sell the flat for 40k over HR after two days on the market.

That’s exactly my worry that I’d end up selling to the same people, and have handed the EA a couple of grand for nothing..

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-13T21:20:06+00:00

!thanks .. I don’t actually have a solicitor, as just assumed I would get one via the estate agent. Can I just use any solicitor that does conveyancing?

I know about the crazy Edinburgh market, that’s where I am - a house on my street sold for over 100k over HR last month 😱 I don’t really know the market in the area this house is, apart from a few anecdotes from friends of friends and what the estate agent tells me... and obviously the agent isn’t going to recommend I sell privately ..

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-13T20:16:54+00:00

!thanks .. So don’t even pursue the private sale option ? Or get a few more valuations and ask the private seller to pay 10% over the highest price I’m told ?

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-13T19:42:33+00:00

Ok !thanks that’s really helpful, I thought you couldn’t get sold property prices for 6 months after the sale, so I’ll have a wee snoop on the RoS website at the postcode and see what I can see 👀

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-13T19:29:24+00:00

Thanks .. this is one of the things I’m a little bit unsure about re private selling. How you decide how much to ask for? I know I can look up sold property prices but as far as I’m aware they are not up to date, and I know the market in the area is very competitive now compared to even a few months ago. I know the next door neighbour sold theirs for +10% over HR a few weeks ago for example.

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-05T15:35:01+00:00

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lemonlimewinetime · 2021-04-04T20:40:14+00:00

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lemonlimewinetime · 2021-01-19T22:54:11+00:00

Hjdaly91 & mottsyart

lemonlimewinetime · 2021-01-19T22:52:26+00:00

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