Finance update After three months of negative returns, my figures have bounced back in style! I've tracked my pots for just over a decade now and May was the biggest jump I've seen. It almost justifies chucking everything I did into the markets for the past 3 months both via my pension at the end of the tax year as well as into my ISA at the start of this tax year! Overall networth is now £1.2m Breakdown for May: ISA up £12k Pension up £16k GIA /easy access savings up £4k Crypto up £15k House price up £5k Total : up £61.6k Another good chunk into my ISA in May, which means it is now full for the year, the quickest I've ever done it! My priorities are now filling Premium Bonds, pound cost averaging into Crypto, and also contributing a few hundred a month into my kids JISAs. 2025/26 tax year: Total change over the past couple of months is now +£36k. Non-Finance update Unpaid Parental Leave No weeks off during May. The big 6 weeks off comes ...
Frugality I've found that the word "frugality", or "being frugal" is commonly used as a backhanded compliment or an ambiguous term depending on the context, who is saying it and who they are saying it to. Almost like it's the polite word of saying "you're a tight arse"! But I think there's a key difference between being "tight" or "cheap" and being "frugal". Earning more (over spending less) is the generally accepted way of increasing your stack. There are a lot of payments that are a fixed amount, and so it proportionally impacts people with less income relatively more. For example a £10 cinema ticket for someone surviving on a basic income might be proportionally a good chunk of their disposable spend, whereas for a billionaire it doesn't even register. There are some notable exceptions to this rule though. Consider Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest individuals in the entire world. His frugality is b...