I'd like to think so. Our life looks quite different from 5 years ago. From the big 3 ERE items, we have food sorted as we eat almost exclusively at home, only eating out maybe once a month. We don't need or want a car so we don't have one. Currently, we both commute by bus, however, this will change back to walking once we finally buy a flat. Owning will also cut our housing expenses to a more reasonable level. Our current expenses are 6.5% food, 3% commuting, 22% housing. The move will reduce housing to ~19% and eliminate commuting.MDFIRE2024 wrote: ↑Sat Nov 04, 2017 1:24 amYou have low monthly costs per person. Is that already a sign, that you have implemented many ERE principles, behaviours, habits, ...?
We don't buy a lot of stuff either - checking our expenses log, we spent an average of £37 a month on 'stuff' during the last 4 years. Many of these items won't need replacing anytime soon (i.e. Vitamix or good quality pot, pan, and cutlery) or ever (kettlebells). The ones that will require 'upgrade' are mainly electronics. The smartphones we bought last year made other items obsolete (kindle, tablet, camera, mp3 player), but we will still need to replace smartphones themselves (probably every 4 years or so for an acceptable cost of ~£3 a month) as well as PC/laptop. Other than that, I think we kinda have everything we need and want already.
One thing I'm not happy with yet is how much we spend on clothing (ridiculous £64 a month over last 4 years). I recently started shopping at charity stores and just got 2 nice brand new sweaters for £8.5 total (similar quality new ones would be ~£30 each). So that's certainly a step in the right direction (for me at least as my wife was already doing this for a couple of years). I guess the main issue here is the fact that clothes become 'unfit' for work long before they fall apart, so I'm accumulating more and more of them. This will stop being a problem once I retire, as I'll have probably ~2 decade's worth of clothing stocked.
Yes, we expect to stay in here for at least 5+ years, probably longer. We like Scotland a lot and have some close friends here. However, once we retire, we will want to travel for some time (possibly even few years). At that point, we will have to decide if we want to keep a 'base' and just rent the flat out for few years, or maybe sell it and move somewhere else once we have enough of traveling. There is plenty of time to decide on this and for now, buying just makes more sense for us (unless Brexit kicks us out of course).MDFIRE2024 wrote: ↑Sat Nov 04, 2017 1:24 amRegarding "renting vs. buying": Do you expect do live in that city longer, e.g. the next few years? A huge plus could be higher real estate prices in the future. That means that if you buy and sell it some day you will have a surplus. In Germany the real estate prices in "university"-cities have exploded.