Manchester (MCR) UK Journal for millennial

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MCR-UK dude
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jul 04, 2017 4:24 am

Manchester (MCR) UK Journal for millennial

Post by MCR-UK dude »

Hello from Manchester, UK.

I’ve been lurking around blogs like these for some time but appears this forum is ideal to really document my ERE journey given how many cool and smart people are on here. I would love to hear your advice and gladly receive any guidance from you as I take my way from novice to FI!

I’m a 29 year old guy living in Manchester, UK. I work (salaried) as an IT salesman for a consultancy firm down south.

Until I went travelling in 2014 for a year, I see my spending habits were disastrous. When I was travelling I met a lot of digital nomads and begun to question my lifestyle at home; working very long hours (12+ daily) and chasing sales targets at a big, well-paying vendor that was actually crushing my soul and more importantly at the time, helping a stomach issue get considerably worse.

Since I’ve been back I’ve managed to get myself into better shape, but still get bogged down with ‘thinking’ and not enough ‘doing’. I’m hoping for guidance from others here

My current situation:
I recently bought my first house but I chose this one because I know I can rent out at least the ground floor room to cover a decent proportion of my mortgage. I also have a spare room which I intend to put on Air BnB for Mon-Fri workers in the city (I am right by the tram stop). Mortgage is £798 per month + bills. I expect renting the two rooms to cover my mortgage with some to spare. This is the main reason I bought THIS house.

I take home £2,780 after tax and student loan (still around £14k left to pay on that but only 1.25% interest p.a).

I also have a debt of £8,500 to my YOUNGER brother who kindly helped me with my house deposit. He has an expectation of me paying him £500 per month with zero interest, but to help him when he is ready to buy his first place – a very kind and fair deal for me.

I have an opportunity and a desire to add extra (working) income right now and really want to explore options. People have said to me about sales coaching and the like, but I don’t know too much about all of this or really where to start.

I just picked up a decent allotment plot for £104 p.a. and intend to grow plenty of food there as eating good, fresh and ideally organic food is a big thing for me

I have a pretty old car (worth about £700) that is cheap to insure, run and repair, but one I still adore after 10+ years of use!

I’m furnishing my house in order of priority; having the rent-out room ready first so I can start generating income. Everything else I’m trying to find second hand using eBay, gumtree, etc.

I increasingly use a Monzo (prepaid) card for better tracking of spending. My spending habits in the past year have become dramatically better – to the point where old uni friends were recently asking ME for advice about personal finance as they said they were ‘stuck’ in the renting/salary positions – I explained that really I still am too, though my discipline with spending is significantly better.

Right now my biggest issues (I believe) are trying to a). Prioritise what I need to put where (as in allocating funds for debt, investment, etc.) b). Designing a logical plan moving forwards for repaying debt and generating more income (i.e. more on the lifestyle side of things).

Any advice/feedback to get me started will be much appreciated.

MCR-UK dude

wolf
Posts: 1102
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2017 5:09 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Manchester (MCR) UK Journal for millennial

Post by wolf »

Hello dude from Manchester, UK. Welcome to this forum. You are in the right place to build up ERE competences. I have already read that you made good progress during the last year. Great. The start is always a bit difficult but also very exciting. Keep on asking many question about your expenses? You gotta figure out, for what you want to spend money and what not. Have you already tackled the three top expenses, like housing, transportation and food. Or do you think you have some potential saving left in those three categories?

MCR-UK dude
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jul 04, 2017 4:24 am

Re: Manchester (MCR) UK Journal for millennial

Post by MCR-UK dude »

Hey MDFIRE2024, thanks for the welcome!

Yes I'm glad my expenses are way down but still plenty left to do. How did you get over the first hurdles when starting your journey? What did you focus on that worked well?

Regarding the 3 top expenses you listed:

- Housing, I'm generally happy with. I paid for a broker after speaking with many and believe I'm on the cheapest mortgage possible at this stage. I'm happy with this, though I am looking at cost-savings for potential work e.g. there are priorities such as fixing a leaky roof, setting up the spare rooms ready for paying tenants, etc. There's definitely scope for saving on things like bills, appliances, etc. though I have been buying stuff second-hand which has made a huge difference when moving to this house.

- Transportation, I'm very happy with. My car (though I guess I could technically do without) is extremely reliable, insurance is low and cheap to run and any of my business travel is reimbursed, as is business travel by train.

- Food. Food is one of my bigger current concerns, as I tend to either overstock or understock my house and no-doubt waste money buying food inefficiently - sometimes I waste food (though rare) and sometimes I buy food out of convenience in the city when I could wait a day and buy the same food at a cheaper place. I also want to produce a decent amount of my own food.

Maybe I am being a bit naive on some of the above, in which case do feel free to say if you think so.

wolf
Posts: 1102
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2017 5:09 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Manchester (MCR) UK Journal for millennial

Post by wolf »

MCR-UK dude wrote:
Tue Jul 04, 2017 11:05 am
How did you get over the first hurdles when starting your journey? What did you focus on that worked well?
I posted my thoughts about the three main topics here. Have a look if you want to.
https://forum.earlyretirementextreme.co ... 08#p147002

Well, how did I get over the first hurdles. It was a long process which took several years. I somehow started with my mindset. In the beginning I didn't know about ERE, FIRE etc. First I learnt about Simple Living, Downshifting and Minimalism. Then came personal growth and development. I did a 7 months sabbatical which opened my mind for new things. Then I figured out what to do with my life. After two years of thinking, reading and evaluating I came to ERE and FIRE. At that moment it was absolutely clear that ERE is what I want. The right mindset and my rituals and habits (always a saver and frugal living) supported my ERE goals. The ofted called web-of-goal became clearer and my different systems were in harmony.
Then I didn't have much problems to sell my car and go car-free. Mindset, ambition, web-of-goals, win-win-situations, system thinking and a SMART goals also helps (specific, measureable, achievable, realistic, time-bound).

Hope that wasn't too much. I also didn't want to hijack your thread. If it helped somehow, let me know. :-)

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