It’s Been A While
My Deliberate Life
by wephway
3y ago
I hope you are all well and that the financial winds blow strongly for you. I stopped blogging back at the start of 2019 for various reasons: 1) My girlfriend moved in with me and our finances became more intertwined – she gamely let me incorporate her income, expenses, and net worth into my spreadsheet, which was great but meant I felt a bit more conflicted about sharing so much on my blog. 2) Living with someone meant that my free evenings were no longer free so much – when we lived apart I always had a few free evenings each week to write a bit more for the blog. Once she moved in that beca ..read more
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November & December 2018 Review
My Deliberate Life
by wephway
3y ago
Hello all and apologies for my absence, I don’t really know where the last two months went. I wanted to get through the monthly posts quicker so I have more time for my end of year review and some other posts I’ve been thinking about writing, so I’ve combined November and December into one post. Actually in 2019 I’m thinking of just doing a quarterly review, because monthly reviews seem very frequent, and to be honest it’s getting a bit repetitive. I want to write about more interesting random topics, and looking at the stats for my most popular posts over the last year it seems my readers do ..read more
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October 2018 Review
My Deliberate Life
by wephway
3y ago
Sometimes when I’m trying to recall what I did over the last month I have a look at my spending tracker. The expenses tell a story. For example, on the 13th October: Or how about the 19th October:   Or let’s perhaps have a look at the 2nd November (going into the 3rd): One day I’m going to look back on these spreadsheets and think, Wephway, the reason you didn’t retire young is because you drank too much. You only have yourself to blame. And then I’ll probably think, meh, it was fun. The advent of contactless payments and their prevalence now in most bars/pubs has shortened queue times ..read more
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The 18 Year Property Cycle
My Deliberate Life
by wephway
3y ago
A strong caveat before you read this post, I’m not an expert and you should take any advice here with a pinch of salt (probably you should ignore my advice altogether). Do Your Own Research. After a recommendation from a friend I’ve been listening to the Property Podcast recently, picking out odd episodes that sound interesting. It’s quite good, the two Robs are very enthusiastic, and it is motivational. If you’re interested in property investment I would recommend having a listen. Personally I have an Android phone and I use the Google Podcasts app to get free podcasts, so I’ve been listening ..read more
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September 2018 Review
My Deliberate Life
by wephway
3y ago
It seemed like FIRE was everywhere last month (or ‘The Fire Movement’ as it now seems to be called). I’m not sure exactly what triggered it, I think it might have been this New Yorker article, but suddenly I was seeing articles everywhere, in The Times, The Torygraph, The Guardian, The Daily Fail. I was seeing articles about Mr Money Mustache and The Escape Artist. I even saw relative newcomer Young FI Guy being interviewed in one article. Of course there was the usual backlash. It doesn’t hurt to listen to some counter-arguments, in fact it may be good to consider alternative viewpoints to ma ..read more
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August 2018 Review
My Deliberate Life
by wephway
3y ago
I’m really late this month with my monthly review because everything’s got a bit crazy busy. My girlfriend is moving in with me, so if our weekends weren’t busy enough already there’s that to contend with. I’ve been remortgaging both of my houses, which means paperwork all over the place. I lost my wallet a couple of weeks back and have been slowly replacing the contents. And generally speaking I’ve been exercising and cooking a lot more recently in an attempt to be healthy. August began with my friend’s wedding up in St Helens. The drinks were ridiculously expensive, I’m talking £6.50 for a s ..read more
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Why You Should Calculate Imputed Rent
My Deliberate Life
by wephway
3y ago
Last week I wrote about savings rates and how I calculate them. This week I want to expand on that and show you how I factor in my house and my mortgage. Again I’m not saying this is the only right way to do it, but it makes logical sense to me and I wanted to share, so here you go. Imputed Rent – The Biggest Tax Break in the UK? Imagine two people – Adam lives in Oxford and Emma lives in Cambridge and they both own their own homes, which happen to be almost identical in size and value. Now suppose Adam needs to go and work in Cambridge for 12 months, and Emma needs to go and work in Oxford fo ..read more
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Savings Rates Revisited
My Deliberate Life
by wephway
3y ago
One of my first ever posts on this blog was about savings rates and how best to calculate them given taxes, passive income, mortgages and so on. It was one of the reasons I started this blog, to try and make sense of it all. Since then I’ve been religiously updating my spreadsheets from month to month, keeping track of my spending and net worth, and over time I have come to a fairly consistent method of working out my savings rate. Now, everyone has their own method, and I don’t for a minute claim to have discovered the perfect way, but I like my method and I felt like I wanted to share it wit ..read more
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July 2018 Review
My Deliberate Life
by wephway
3y ago
I’m not sure where to start this month as my life has been a bit all over the place. So, in the manner of an ill-prepared presentation, I’m going to do bullet points: My car continued to cause me grief. I cut my losses with the garage I had been taking it to and went to a new garage. Asking for an MOT and a full service, they did their diagnostic and came back to me with a bill of about £1100. Given I’ve already spent about £1000 on car repairs this year this felt like a punch to the gut. But I do really like my car and hope it will last a couple more years so I sent it in and, fingers crosse ..read more
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On Dieting
My Deliberate Life
by wephway
3y ago
So I started a new diet recently. I’ve been putting if off for a while – here were some of my excuses: “Well there’s no point starting a new diet before our holiday, I’ll wait til after…” “I can’t start a new diet while the World Cup is on, that’s crazy talk…” “The festival is next weekend, so there’s not much point starting a new diet before that…” I’m very much an all or nothing type of guy when it comes to these things, which is a bad thing to be. Here is my dieting history, you’ll notice I’m a bit of a yo-yo dieter: Age 0 – 16 – My parents fed me and kept me very healthy. Between the ages ..read more
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