Financial Independence – Page 6 – Back on the road again

Planning to quit or stay through a reorganisation

20160317_135957 — Clock watching at work – is it worth it?

I had a plan; a fairly foolish idea when I work for a charity in a dynamic sector that is reliant on public sector funding in austerity Britain.

Nevertheless, I can’t help planning. My plan was to finish work from my three-day a week admin post in about eleven months time in 2017. In this plan I would get a card signed by my lovely co-workers all wishing me well and I would then retire in to the happy land of financial independence. This wasn’t a plan I had shared with my employer and now I hear that a company reorganisation is in the pipeline for the summer and I am feeling out of control.

This reorganisation means that I will be moved from my friendly and relaxed office that is just 10 minutes walk from home [the best commute ever] to a new [and windowless] office where I will be the ‘new girl’ who has had to cycle for 30 minutes through the chaos that is Greater Manchester traffic. In the new office everyone else is at the other end of the corporate spectrum to me; instead of turning up in my scruffy hiking gear, putting the radio on and just getting on with my job at my own pace, I will be expected to wear business clothes, get involved in office politics and become part of the corporate machine.

Some background. I gave up senior management roles some years ago when we took our 50-year-old gap year. I took on a role that I can easily achieve with my skills so that I don’t have the stress and responsibility that goes with a senior position; although this means we have less money, it also means I have head space for other projects and being so near to home I wasn’t wasting time commuting. Working three days a week also means that I have time to devote to my other work as a motorhome travel writer.

As far as financial independence goes, the money for our retirement in 2017 is in the bank [hurrah] and a little bit more besides. By next March the plan says we will have both enough saved and sufficient pensions to [hopefully] get us through whatever post-retirement throws at us.

I am lucky that our financial independence gives me is the freedom to walk earlier than I planned if I don’t like what I am offered by my company and Mr BOTRA supports me in this, although resigning will mean we eat in to our emergency savings that help him to feel secure. I am therefore trying to take back control and have a negotiating position and a fall back position. I am hoping I can get agreement to work from home [no nice colleagues to chat to but no pressure to corporately-conform either]. If this Plan B is allowed I can go back to Plan A and carry on working for a few more months. [Hope you are you following this?] If this negotiating position fails, I will offer to reduce my hours [thus saving the company money] so that the longer commute doesn’t eat in to my non-corporate working time … so I have a Plan B and a Plan C.

Emotions vs economics

P1080525 — Our beautiful insulated cafetiere and milk pan make great coffee and so make me happy

According to the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) in the UK we have spent £6.2billion in the last five years on stuff we don’t need and rarely use. If you thought that each of these impulse purchases added another day or two to your working life would you still buy that exercise machine, that electronic soup maker or that juicer that languishes at the back of a cupboard? For me, having a goal to retire early helps to put a brake on the impulse to buy. But everyone has to work it out for themselves and there are some interesting purchases listed here that are regretted and are now languishing in someone’s attic.

Of course, if you use your juicer every day, after exercising in your spare room and filling your soup maker then these products weren’t a wasted impulse buy for you … but we all have at least one guilty secret don’t we? Even Mr BOTRA and I bought a rowing machine some years ago that was soon listed on Ebay. Our insulated cafetiere and lovely milk pan [pictured above] by contrast was a well thought out purchase [for us] as it means that we can make good coffee in our ‘van that hasn’t become tepid before it is ready to drink [thus saving money in cafes].

Psychology Today considers there are reasons why we impulse buy; it might be that we love shopping or we don’t want to miss a bargain; because we are offered three for two or we have delusions that this new thingamajig will save us time or money or make us a better person. What it comes down to is that humans often make an emotional decision about an economic activity. Psychology Today also offers techniques for avoiding impulse buying. The NEST article ends optimistically, suggesting that individuals learn from their impulse buying mistakes and all those regretted purchases are certainly the backbone of Ebay.

Mr BOTRA and I have had an expensive month [even though February is so short] and I am certainly not going to lecture anyone on their own purchasing choices. But our shopping wasn’t done impulsively. I follow a simple process to avoid wasting money; I write down what I think I want to buy [I don’t do this for groceries you understand], consider it for at least four weeks and finally decide if it is something we still need rather than want. For us, walking boots and warm winter coats have all worn out recently and we opted to buy quality replacements that make a bigger hole in the budget but will [hopefully] last longer. We have also made two recent purchases that will result in long-term savings. The first is thermal vests; as I get older I become more of a wimp that craves the sunshine and warmth of summer; comfy and cosy thermals should keep the chills at bay and the heating bills down. Secondly, after many months of deliberation, we have bought hair clippers that will save money on hair cutting and soon pay for themselves.

Counting the pennies for treats

Back in the day (before Mr BOTRA and I went on our twelve month trip in the campervan around Southern Europe) we had a daily ritual of emptying our pockets, purses and wallets of any small change, from 50p downwards and putting it in a piggy bank. Every couple of months the piggy bank would feel heavy enough and we would spend an hour of a wet Sunday afternoon counting the change into neat piles, putting it in plastic coin bags and depositing it in the bank later that week. In a year we would accumulate about £250 just from the change in our pockets.

In those days we kept this money separate from our other savings and twice a year in January and August we would spent the small-change-savings in the Rohan sale. Rohan sell travel and outdoor clothing that is high quality, easy to wash and quick to dry, doesn’t require ironing and of course looks great. Part of the plan for the twelve month trip away in a small campervan was to maximise the space and practicality of the trip by taking only clothing that fitted those criteria. We didn’t take Rohan gear exclusively but they were a large part of our wardrobe and still are.

Using the savings from our small change to buy what is (for us) fairly expensive clothing was an excellent way of making this affordable, allowing us to have a bi-annual treat and taking us towards our goal of a quick-drying, iron-free wardrobe. For two people who don’t really enjoy shopping, these trips to the Rohan shop were anticipated with excitement and were all the more enjoyable for being funded by our pennies.

This seemed such a great way to treat ourselves without feeling guilty about using our savings. Our treat was technical clothing but yours might be anything; eating out, theatre tickets, computer games, books, holidays, music or tickets for rock concerts. The key to success with this seemed to be the discipline of only spending what we have saved and buying something for both of us.

Today we spend our days mostly wearing technical outdoor gear and have been able to completely do away with the ironing ritual. The outdoor clothing we have is mostly of such a high quality that I am confident some of it will see me out for the next 30 years of my life.

Nowadays we no longer need to buy any clothing or really feel a need for any expensive treats but we have kept the ritual of emptying our purses of change every evening. The amount has reduced in the last few years as more of our spending is using plastic, rather than cash, but it still adds up to about £120 a year and this currently is added in to our fund for financial independence, rather than being earmarked for specific spending. Perhaps when we finish work and are living off our savings we might once again use our small change savings for some sort of treat.

Giving thanks for our [affordable] daily bread

This magnificent sign over a German bakery suggests that bread gives life meaning and this is a sentiment I heartily agree with.

When we returned from our twelve months of travelling around southern Europe in our campervan Mr BOTRA and I had a dilemma regarding bread. Although there were many things we enjoyed about being back home, we got no enjoyment from eating sliced English bread that had no taste or substance; we had become accustomed to having a bakery within walking distance of any campsite that sold a range of tasty local loaves and rolls. It seemed in urban Salford the only options for bread were a supermarket or chain bakery and in both the bread was flavourless and insubstantial and didn’t hit the spot at all.

Don’t get me wrong, there are good traditional bakeries in Greater Manchester but these sit alongside a deli, a specialist cheese shop and an independent wine seller in the more expensive parts of the city and were a bus ride away, so didn’t tick any frugal boxes. One of the downsides of living in the cheap end of town is the limitations of the local shops.

So what to do to get our daily bread? When we lived in a larger house with a normal-size kitchen I baked bread regularly but in our diminutive kitchen finding the space to knead dough and leave it proving over a few hours is challenging … so my answer was to buy a bread maker. I was apprehensive about the outlay for something we might not use and to save money bought a compact Morphy Richards model that was half the price of the most popular model; however, I needn’t have worried, I have been using this bread maker at least twice a week for almost six years now and it hasn’t missed a beat (touch wood) and just the paddle and baking tin have been replaced. This bread maker makes a decent loaf that is flavourful with a good crust in three hours. Morphy Richards no longer make the model we bought but I would certainly consider their bread makers when / if we have to replace our bread maker.

Of course, Salford has changed in the last few years following the creation of media city and many Eastern Europeans moving here. I do now supplement our home-made bread with excellent Polish rye bread from the nearby Polski Sklep [an advantage to living in the unfashionable part of town) and we now have a Booths supermarket down the road where we can buy reasonable bread. Of course, the frugal woman in me knows that it continues to be cheaper to make my own.