It’s been a while since my last post, but a lot has happened. First of all, I officially work one hour less per week now. I thought such a small change wouldn’t be very noticeable, but the effect is huge. My Fridays have become wonderful. I start by taking the kids to school, which gives me a massive boost for the whole day. Then I start work at 9 and finish at 4. For reference, on the other days I work from 8 to 5. And every Friday is payday!!!
Then came a raise — unfortunately a small one, because my employer “lost” one hour of my time, so he couldn’t increase my salary too much. But instead of the usual yearly bonus, he now pays part of it weekly into my workplace pension. The idea is that it doesn’t cost him a huge amount at once, and I get an extra 20% boost from HMRC.
My employer was also kind enough to make an additional sizeable contribution to my workplace pension, which pushed me much closer to the moment when my investments will theoretically generate £1k per month.
On top of all that, I’m adding as much as I can from my pocket money into my ISA — buying myself freedom.
Another change is that I realised my experiment with buying individual growth or dividend stocks just isn’t for me. I was buying and selling too often, which, as we all know, affects investment returns. Overall, I managed to get 9% in a bit over 7 months. But I understood it’s not my thing, so I’m moving everything into one global fund.
As I’m writing this, I’m in Poland visiting for Christmas and New Year. In the photo from the post, I’m showing how many kilometres we drove from our home in the UK to our destination in Poland. Almost exactly 1000 miles. Why by car? Mainly to save money. Sure, we lose about 28 hours of our holiday, but we keep around £2000 in our pocket. Why so much? Plane tickets for a family of four at this time of year cost around £2000. A rental car for about 12 days is roughly £500. Meanwhile, the round‑trip crossing plus fuel for the car cost us around £500. At this point in my life, I can’t earn £2000 in 28 hours, so everything points to travelling by car.
I’m closing 2025 with the following financial results:
– Workplace Pension – £52,180
– ISA – Stocks and Shares – £13,030
On Trading 212 I still have Main Street Capital (MAIN) – £325.49, and I’m about £23 down, so I’m waiting until it goes into the green and then I’ll switch it into a global index fund.
7 years and 10 months until completing the 1K quest.
In October 2033 it looks like the capital in my workplace pension and ISA will be able to generate £1000 per month using a 4% withdrawal rule. Unfortunately, it will still be too early for me to access the workplace pension because I won’t be 57 yet, but thanks to this I’ll have peace of mind and a few more years to strengthen my investments.
Leave a Reply