Dad on FIRE

I've been meaning to write this post for a while! Since going to Disneyland I've relayed a few tips to a number of friends so think it would be worth a wider audience!  We were meant to go to Disneyland Paris in 2020 but Covid scuppered those plan, however a few years later we managed to get it sorted. It was my wife that actually recommended going to Disneyland and I immediately had shooting pains right in my bank balance due to my perception about how expensive it can be, however breaking it down it was actually really good value. Roughly adding it all up, for a family of 4 to travel to Disneyland we managed to do it for less than £1000 .  This included: - Ferry transfer from/to Dover - 2 nights in the Davy Crockett Hotel (5 mins drive from the park) - 3 days park passes for a family of 4 - All meals / food / drink bought - 12 months free Disney+ - 2 x Premier Inn stays in Dover - Fuel from Yorkshire to Paris and back, with French toll payments Given you'd struggle to get...

  Finance update December is an expensive old month in the Dad on FIRE household!  We have; 2 x birthdays, a week either side of Christmas 2 x MOT and Services due on each car Christmas (obviously) Land maintenance service charge due It might just be me but the prices for MOT and Services seem have to crept up quite a bit over the past few years. I dug out a combined MOT and Service on one of my mucky 1.6l diesels (sorry, not sorry), and it was roughly £100 for a full service and MOT. Ended up paying £300 each this year for exactly the same thing! I'm guessing parts/labour have all gone up but it seems like a huge hike given it was a straightforward check/oil replacement etc, with no work needed. Anyway...finances for December have been a bit up and down. Breakdown for December: ISA  down £3k Pension  down £3k GIA /easy access savings up £3k Crypto  down £3k House price  down £3k Most of my assets have gone down in December, but this was expected as the pas...

Finance update Wow, what a month! The - crypto-friendly - Trump win as well as a US stock heavy portfolio meant my net worth rocketed up this month by a massive £52k! This, combined with the gains from September (+£28k) and October (+£31k) means over the past three months the figure has gone up by a gigantic £113k! Breakdown for November: ISA  up £10k Pension  up £14k GIA /easy access savings up £5k Crypto  has shot the lights out, up £30k! House price has gone down by just over £7k Those eagle-eyed amongst you will notice I've not contributed much to anything apart from crypto this month (thankfully at the start!). I'm keeping the income from my wages in some savings accounts temporarily. Christmas is an expensive old time in our household, given we have 2 kids we obviously have the Christmas costs, but we also have their birthdays closely either side of Christmas as well! In addition there is 2xMOTs and services for both cars as well! Phew! I t's a very weird feeling h...

It doesn't take a genius to see that there's been a huge trend in people opting for SUVs instead of other car types in recent years, however when I did a bit of digging into the stats I was blown away. Analysis from  Transport & Environment UK show that i n 2023, 60% of all new car registrations were for SUVs. Sixty percent! It was 50% in 2021, 57% in 2022 and if the trend continues it could top 75% by 2027! (Source:  https://www.transportenvironment.org/te-united-kingdom/articles/uk-suv-sales-have-increased-by-more-than-a-fifth-in-one-year )   But why the obsession? I just don't get it. These millions of people can't all be towing caravans or going off-roading every weekend, surely? I did a small poll on Twitter to understand what the main reasons were: As an intentional kind of Dad I'm constantly assessing how much bang for my buck I get, on things like boot space (priority!), miles per gallon efficiency and cabin space are all very much front and centre facto...

  Finance update Breakdown for October: Off the back of being up £28k in September, in October I added to this by being up £31k! Looking back, I think these two months collectively have been the strongest 2 months on record! ISA  up £5.5k Pension  up £5.9k GIA /easy access savings up £4.9k Crypto  had a great month, up £10.7k I withdrew £12k from my GIA account and used it to throw at my pension, hence the -£12k and +£15k on the chart. I will get the additional higher rate relief (£3k) when I do my tax return next year.  My rationale behind this was just in case higher rate tax relief was tinkered with in the budget. In the end it wasn't touched but I was always going to do this during the tax year anyway, I just brought it forward just in case. 2024/25 tax year: Overall in the tax year I'm now looking at almost +£90k, with all areas being in the green and Crypto has now broken even from it's high in early April! At the time of writing with Trump having just bee...

Bang on time this month for a change! Finance update Breakdown for September: After being £15k down in August, the portfolio ended up bouncing back with +£28k in September! ISA  up £8.8k Pension up £7.3k I contributed £3.2k to my  GIA /easy access savings, and this was also up £1.4k After my  Crypto holdings last month being down £12k, it bounced back £6.5k in September 2024/25 tax year: Overall in the tax year I'm looking at +£57k. Crypto is still down overall from April to now, however this was due to the ATH for Bitcoin being hit in April. I am continuing to purchase both Bitcoin and Ethereum on a weekly basis, and have done since January. A few additional charts in this update, here's a look at the historical monthly difference in Net Worth. The past could of years has been very consistent, and despite the sizable drop last month, the dotted blue line is sitting nicely between £10-20k a month increase. And this chart shows the Net Worth progress, currently at £1.08m...