May 2023 results are very different from any other monthly results post so far. We had so much going on in our personal life (not money related) that in May 2023, numbers and money barely even matter. This is going to be a LONG and very personal post with a lot of positive things that happened to us as a family and also some negative ones. If you’re just here for the numbers- that’s cool, scroll down to the “May 2023 results- savings rate” header and start reading from there.

A quick idea for a drinking game: Every time I mention Winnie the Pooh, take a shot. Warning: you will end up in the hospital if you play this game, you’ve been warned.

I’m still making my way through the 2023 monthly results so here are May 2023 results. I’m aware we’re already in July 2023 but I had a few months without posting on this blog. If you want to know why, click here.

Before I share with you our May results, as I promised in July 2021, I’ll share with you what we’ve been up to the past month. After that, we can talk about the numbers.

What have we been up to this month?

As part of our May 2023 results, as usual, I’ll share personal life positives and negatives. I can’t always recall negative things which goes to show how happy I am with my life. Sadly, this month had 2 negative stories but both had happy endings.

Personal life positives

Trying to recall what happened a few months ago is an interesting activity because it’s been so long. I used Google Maps’ timeline, Google Photos, old WhatsApp messages, and our expenses to remember what happened in May 2023. I feel like Lazy FI Detective.

Going through the Google Photos for May 2023 took me through an emotional roller coaster. I’ll try and share the main events (and a lot of photos this month).

Our daughter’s 3rd birthday

We started May with a very happy event- our daughter’s 3rd birthday. This year, we decided to buy some snacks and lots of Winnie the Pooh decorations and celebrate in the playground under our building.

We had a great time with the highlight being the cakes (plural) that our neighbours made for her. If I haven’t mentioned it before, the neighbours that live above us are our kids’ best friends, especially the girls (we love the boy and the parents too). They are 10 and 12 years old and they play with our kids all the time. Sometimes they come over to ours and sometimes my kids go up to them. There are rarely 2 days in a row that they don’t play together.

Anyway, the dad made a huge pink cake with Winnie the Pooh decorations, which we shared with all the kids that were in the playground. The kids from upstairs also tried their best to make their best Winnie the Pooh cakes. I’ll let you judge for yourself. Oh, they also got her a ridiculously generous birthday present- a pink scooter, because their girls have scooters and they usually let my daughter ride on theirs. Now, they can ride together.

Lazy FI Mum takes my son to Israel

In May 2023, Lazy FI Mum took my son to Israel for a few days and left me with my daughter for some quality time and wow, did we have fun. I will write my part of the story (the UK side).

During my time with my daughter, we had 3 main events:
Lag Ba’omer parage, Winnie the Pooh musical, and a day at the Hundred Acre Wood.

Not sure if you’ve noticed by now, but my daughter likes Winnie the Pooh.

Lag Ba’omer parade

Lag Ba’omer is a Jewish holiday, you can read about it here. The important thing is that every year, our kids’ Children Centre organises a funfair (and a parade) in our local park with lots of rides, inflatables, and a petting zoo. Although they are there with their teachers, parents are welcome to join. I tried to be there for most of the day but it was a working day so I had to go home twice to join calls. Unfortunately, during one of those calls I missed something big. Apparently, my daughter and her friend went on stage and recited a few sentences they rehearsed. I did get to see a video later but it’s not the same, I’m still gutted I missed it. If that’s not a reminder I need to retire, I don’t know what is.

Anyway, that does not take away from how proud of her I am for standing up and “performing” in front of dozens of kids and parents, I’m super proud of her for that.

Later, we went to the fair and I even joined her on a few rides.

The Winnie the Poohlooza

I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give my daughter the long weekend (Friday-Sunday) of her dreams and that’s exactly what I did.

Winnie the Pooh Musical

It started on Friday when I took her from childcare straight to the Winnie the Pooh musical. Even though this was her second time watching this musical, she loved it and was very excited.

Straight after the musical, we met with my sister-in-law (my brother’s wife) who was in London for one day. We met her for a quick late lunch, and then she came home with us and joined us for Friday night dinner.

The Hundred-Acre Wood

I won’t beat around the bush, this was one of the best days I’ve ever had.

For those who don’t know, Winnie the Pooh and all his friends live in the Hundred-Acre Wood. It was inspired by Ashdown Forest, which is very close to where A. A. Milne (the author of Winnie the Pooh) lived.

We visited an amazing Winnie-the-Pooh-themed cafe called “Pooh Corner”, Pooh bridge, and the homes of Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, and Owl.

When planning the trip, I checked the commute and it was 2 and a half hours each way (!). Also, the character’s homes are not very fancy or high-tech, which meant I had to bring my A-game to make this day a success. I had to bring some toys to survive 5 hours of public transport, I had to be super patient to keep this day pure fun and I had to activate my daughter’s imagination for her to have the memory of visiting the Hundred-Acre Wood and not “just” a forest. If there was ever a day for mindfulness- it was this day.

Commuting

We left our home at 07:30 am and were in Hartfield (the nearest village and the home of “Pooh corner”) by 10:00. During our commute, I told my daughter stories about Winnie the Pooh, she played with her stuffed Winnie the Pooh, she did 2 Winnie the Pooh Puzzles, she made friends on the train, and she even did some water painting (not Winnie the Pooh themed). I was so impressed by her behaviour, the 2.5-hour commute each way was the part that scared me the most about this day but she was amazing.

First stop- Pooh Bridge

As I mentioned, we arrived at Hartfield at 10:00. We were so early that the cafe was closed. Luckily, I had snacks with me and we started walking into the forest. The first stop was Pooh Bridge.

Pooh Bridge is a bridge where you can play Pooh Sticks. If you don’t know what Pooh Sticks is, you’re in luck, Lazy FI Dad is here to clear the mystery.

Pooh sticks is a game mentioned in the Winnie the Pooh books (and the musical) where two people/characters each throw a stick into the river from one side of the bridge and then see which stick makes it first to the other side.

My daughter was very excited to play Pooh sticks and we spent quite a while on that bridge. As we were so early, no one else was there and it was just us. I guess that due to the background story of the place, there weren’t many sticks around (we fixed that later).

Fun fact- In 1999, due to the number of visitors, the bridge was in bad condition. East Sussex County contacted Disney to see if they’ll pay for part of the restoration and Disney agreed.

Second stop- Pooh Corner

Based on Google Maps, we went past Winnie the Pooh’s house to get to Pooh Bridge but I couldn’t find it. Also, I noticed that by the time we finished playing Pooh sticks, Pooh Corner should’ve opened so we headed there.

As soon as we got there, we noticed a queue, people woke up. We queued for a while and then it was our turn. Holy s**t, that place was AMAZING! there was Winnie the Pooh memorabilia everywhere (even in the toilets), they had giant stuffed characters, a Museum (loads of Winnie-the-Pooh-themed items), and a shop (where we bought a book set). The food and drink were served in Winnie the Pooh dishes and there was even a Winnie-the-Pooh-shaped sandwich!

We sat in the best place, near a Winnie-the-Pooh-shaped television showing… Teletubbies! I’m joking of course, they played (on mute) Winnie the Pooh movies.

We spent more than an hour in Pooh Corner.

Third stop- back to the forest

After we paid for the book set, I asked the cashier where we could find the characters’ homes. She explained it was just near Pooh Bridge and gave me very detailed directions, so we headed back to the forest while collecting sticks on the way, of course. This time, we couldn’t miss it because of the queue. We happily waited and my daughter was very excited to see Winnie the Pooh’s house.

We then took all the sticks we collected and played lots of Pooh sticks.

After playing Pooh Sticks, we headed towards Piglet’s and Owl’s homes. These were much harder to find but we found them, eventually. I think this post has enough pictures without me adding pictures of the 2 homes.

Anyway, I checked the time and it was time to start heading back to London. Time to get on the bus station and start our 2.5 hour long commute home. We just missed the bus (that only goes by every 30 minutes or so) so instead of sitting in the bus station, we headed back to Pooh Corner for some more Winnie-the-Pooh-shaped tuna sandwiches, my daughter was over the moon.

Then, we got on the bus (and train and tube and another bus). Again, my daughter was amazing, she did puzzles, played, made friends, and told me all about her day including all the characters she met.

It was an amazing day and I highly recommend it. Although, I’m sure it’s easier if you drive. Even if you don’t, maybe stay overnight nearby.

My son’s busy board

I’m no handyman, not even close. I mean, I’m a man and I’m pretty handy with Excel but that’s about it. Nevertheless, I wanted to make my son a busy board, it looked like an easy and fun activity. I’ve been wanting to build him one for a while and his being in Israel for a week was an amazing opportunity.

To push me even more, one of our neighbours put some white IKEA shelves in the recycling area. I took one of the shelves as the base and went shopping with my daughter. We went to a few shops (Homebase and similar shops) and she picked things to add to the board. We built it together and had a great time. When he came back, he loved it and played with it a lot (for about a week until most of it fell apart, I’ll stick to Excel).

My son’s first step!

In the April 2023 results post, I shared with you that my son stood up for the first time without holding anything. Well, in May he took his first step! He stood between two chairs and instead of crawling to the one he wanted, he took a step. Lazy FI Mum saw it, was understandably very excited, and called me straight away. He did another step for me too. Well done baby!

Holding hands

I have no idea why but in May 2023, my son and daughter decided they liked holding hands when in the pram. It was adorable, here are a few photos:

Personal life negatives

My son’s severe nappy rash

In the April 2023 results post, I shared with you that he had a severe nappy rash and that we went to A&E. This time, it was back but not as bad. We went to his private dermatologist and she prescribed some medicine. Luckily, it was over again within a few days. However, that’s not the end of the health issues in May 2023.

My daughter’s Febrile seizure

Luckily, it’s been a while so I can share this but this was the most terrifying night of my life, by a mile.

Lazy FI Mum and I have a Whatsapp group for each of my kids. We write there when they wake up, fall asleep, and temperatures if they’re not well. This helped me be very accurate with this story.

During the day, my daughter had quite a few bowel movements and a fever, we gave her medicine but she was her normal self in terms of behaviour.

at 16:39, she had a fever of 38.3-38.6 (I always measure in both ears) and we gave her Calpol.

At 19:54 she fell asleep.

Half an hour later, before going to bed, Lazy FI Mum checked on the kids. She noticed our daughter’s mouth was twitching. She called me and asked me if I thought it was a seizure.

Let me pause here and say that we heard that kids can have seizures if they have a high temperature. Now, back to the story of the worst night of my life.

I said that from what I know, seizures are when the whole body shakes and I don’t think it’s a seizure, maybe a dream. However, I’m no doctor, so I suggested we wake her up, see that she’s OK and then I’ll put her back to sleep. I gently woke her up and her mouth was still twitching, I called her name- still twitching, I thought that maybe she was still half asleep. Then, I asked her a few times what her name was- nothing, twitches. I decided to pick her up and let her rest her head on my shoulder. I asked Lazy FI Mum “Is she still twitching?” She said “Yes”, and I said: “Ambulance- NOW!”.

While Lazy FI Mum called the ambulance, I kept asking my daughter questions, hoping to get an answer. One of the questions was “How old are you?”. Luckily, she showed me three fingers. Now we know she is conscious, can hear me, and understand me, but can’t talk. The ambulance was here within 5 minutes.

I took her down to the ambulance that stayed under our building to try and treat her.

They asked me some questions and took off her clothes (she stayed in her nappy, which she wears at night) and turned on the fan to try and cool her down, she was hot but refused to let them take her temperature. She cried out loud (which was temporary relief for me) at 20:44. At 20:46, I managed to take her temperature- 39.4.

During that time, she tried to talk several times but was kind of wheezing and couldn’t talk, but she was breathing fine.

Around 20:50 she threw up on me. I never dreamed of someone throwing up on me and me being so happy about it.

At 21:10 they said she needs to go to the hospital. She finally spoke: “I want mummy”. Lazy FI Mum called our neighbour (the one that baked the cake) to sit in our living room for a few minutes (as our son was asleep and we couldn’t leave him alone). He came immediately and Lazy FI Mum came down to the ambulance and I went up home to be with my son in case he woke up. Lazy FI Mum kept updating me from the hospital.

All I wanted is a voice message of my daughter talking.

At 21:30 Lazy FI Mum told me that our daughter fell asleep on her.

At 22:00 Lazy FI Mum told me our daughter was talking about the Hundred Acre Wood.

My daughter was a bit scared of the whole situation and didn’t want to let the doctors check her. Lazy FI Mum assured her it was OK and promised her ice cream if she lets the doctors check her.

22:14 I finally got my voice message. It was Lazy FI Mum asking my daughter “Do you want to go to the Hundred Acre Wood?” and my daughter answering in her cute voice: “No, I want to go to eat strawberry ice cream but with a cone so I can eat it and it will be crunchy”. It was the best message note I’ve ever received.

23:15, still in the hospital, she had a fever of 38-39 and they gave her more Calpol, she drank some juice, and went to the toilet.

At 00:40 her temperature was 37.

02:15 they saw the last doctor that said it wasn’t dangerous.

At 03:42 she fell asleep in her bed, while I was by her side.

Lazy FI Mum’s summary from the hospital

After seeing the last doctor, Lazy FI Mum sent me a long message with everything the doctors told her. I’m sharing this in case you ever experience something similar:

Our daughter experienced a febrile seizure, which is caused by a fever. Based on what she saw, the doctor thinks it was a stomach virus that caused the fever, which made her have a seizure because her temperature increased too fast. It’s a quite a common thing in kids up to age 3 (she had her third birthday a few weeks earlier as mentioned above).

There is probably no risk for long term damage but we need to check that she goes back to her normal self. If she does, nothing to worry about. Sometimes those seizures happen during sleep and the parents aren’t even aware they happened, as long she wakes up fine, it’s all OK.

In future, if we know that our child went to sleep with a fever and doesn’t wake up well (their normal self), we need to follow the instructions in the leaflet (you can read the information here). Essentially, if the child is not 100% “with you” (not communicating, just staring)- go to A&E or call an ambulance.

This was the first time we called an ambulance but we’ve been to A&E 3 or 4 times with our kids. I regret none of these A&E visit, better safe than sorry.

Tests that were performed on our daughter:

Sugar in her blood (in the ambulance)- OK
Several lung tests- OK
Ears- OK
Throat- OK
Several heartbeat measures- OK
Heart- OK

Our daughter’s seizure was in her mouth (face), which is a bit rare, it is usually an involuntary movement in the hands or legs. This made our doctor worry about something else. Due to that worry, they tested her heart and it was all OK.

Smooth transition

I have no smooth way of doing this but after this story, time to talk numbers.

Actually, let me try- Yes, May 2023 included the worst night of my life but it also included one of the best days of my life. I got to spend a lot of time with my daughter and my son took his first step!

OK, now we can talk numbers although I did warn you at the beginning of this post (literally the second sentence) that “We had so much going on in our personal life (not money related) that in May 2023, numbers and money barely even matter”.

May 2023 results- savings rate

Our savings rate for May 2023 was 25.33%.

As a reminder, my long-term target is 50%, hoping to hit that target for 3 years in a row.

Our (weighted) average savings rate for the past 6 months is 46.03%.
Our 12-month-weighted average savings rate is 49.66%.
Finally, our YTD (since January) weighted average savings rate is 49.76%.

May results- What was different this month?

Every month something unusual happens. Sometimes it’s a one-off expense and sometimes it’s a one-off income. The fact that this happens every month amuses me but also makes it harder to analyse the savings rate and draw conclusions. That’s why I also use the 6-month, 12-month, and YTD average figures to “smooth” the data.

Anyway, what was different this month?

In short- childcare (as usual), Bonus, Excel, Lazy FI Mum’s new job, and holiday

Childcare costs

As you may remember, we USUALLY contribute to our children’s tax-free childcare account once every quarter (every 3 months). Both children’s contributions are in the same month. This causes a huge fluctuation in our monthly savings rates. May was a “childcare cost” month.

Naturally, this makes our May 2023 results look worse than they really are.

Bonus

My employer gives out a bonus once a year. It is paid out in May so my income this month was pretty big.

A quick reminder: Due to how NI works, the month where you get a bonus is the month to contribute the least (yes, least) to your pension. You can read more about it here:

Tax hack: How to save NI with pension contributions

Excel

As Excel work has picked up, we get paid more often into our limited company. Once there’s enough money there, we pay ourselves a dividend. In May 2023 we paid ourselves a dividend.

Lazy FI Mum’s new job

In May 2023, Lazy FI Mum started her new job. I’m super proud of the journey she went through in order to find this job, she didn’t compromise, which also helped her increase her salary significantly!

But more important than money, she’s happy in her new job and feels challenged, which is great.

Holiday

We had quite a lot of holiday expenses in May. Funny enough, about half of them were credit card charges from our visit to Israel back in April. The other half is flights to Israel in October.

That means that even though we’re going again in October, the flights have already been paid for and that expense won’t show up again in our numbers in the future. I love prepaying for holiday expenses.

May 2023 results- Net worth

In May 2023, our net worth increased by 2.31%. The 2.31% is made of two parts:

1. Our actual savings increased our net worth by 0.84%
2. Our investments increased in value, which increased our net worth by 1.47%**.

Achieving FI– how far are we on our journey?

Reminder: I set our FI number (how much we need to retire) in July 2020 and update it every month for inflation (I use CPIH* index).

At the end of May 2023, our net worth is 31.61% (April 2023: 31.26%) of that number.

We are still above the 30% mark and set a new record for the fourth month straight, beating our previous all-time-high 31.26% (April 2023). Woohoo!

Real change

The 0.35% increase in our FI journey (as a percentage of our FI number) from 31.26% to 31.61% means a real (inflation-adjusted) increase of 1.11% (31.61 / 31.26 – 1)**, which can be broken down into these two parts:

1. Our nominal net worth increased by 2.31% as mentioned above.
2. The CPIH index increased by 1.18%, which decreased our real (inflation-adjusted) net worth**.

As you can see, 2 factors are out of our control:

• The market performance (are our investments worth more or less this month?)
• Inflation (are things more expensive than last month?)

As these factors are out of our control- I tend to focus on our savings rate.
25.33% is pretty low, but not when you consider it was a childcare month AND we prepaid for our October flights. The 49.76% YTD savings rate keeps optimistic about maybe even reaching 55% this year, especially now that Lazy FI Mum is back working.

When can we achieve FI (and possibly retire)?

As I told you in the October 2021 results, calculating an FI date is not relevant for us anymore. We will move back to Israel sometime between December 2025 and August 2026. As my models are split into tax years, that means April 2026 is our relevant date.

Once we move back to Israel, I will either move to “just” teaching (no accounting) or try and keep my current job but part-time.

If anyone’s wondering if moving to Israel will help or hurt our FI journey, I present to you this article:
Tel Aviv named as world’s most expensive city to live in – BBC News.

No need to click the link, the title gives it away. Good luck to us.

In any case, we will not reach our full FI number by the time we move to Israel. Therefore, the only relevant question is…

How far into our journey to FI will we be by April 2026?

Based on my “regular” (which is more like a worst-case) scenario, we expect to be 45.37% FI by April 2026. We are still close enough to the 50% mark to make it happen. I think it’s going to be very close to that benchmark in the end.

As a reminder, this number is based on our UK level of expenses. I don’t know how expensive Israel will be. We’ll need to track our expenses for a few months there to get a better understanding. Also, I will have to learn all the little local tricks (like I learned in the UK) on how to save money, get free stuff, and reduce my tax bill.

The April 2026 model assumptions

My model assumes that only our ISAs, LISAs and pensions (essentially, our stock/equity investments) will generate an annual real return of 4%. Meanwhile, I assume our real estate and cash will retain their real value but not increase.

In addition, I assume no future income from teaching as I can’t reliably forecast how much I’ll earn from this side hustle. That means any future income from teaching will be treated as a pleasant surprise.

Another future income I ignore is my job’s annual bonus. Just like teaching, any future bonus is not guaranteed. That means that if my employer has a bad year, the bonus can potentially be 0%. My model assumes every year is such a year. Again, any bonus that does come through will be treated as a pleasant surprise.

In May 2023, as mentioned above, I got such a bonus, and it was treated as a “surprise” in my model.

I know these assumptions are very prudent but I prefer being prudent and positively surprised to “realistic” and having to deal with unforeseen issues.

Well, that’s our May 2023 results, have a great week everyone!

Notes

*CPIH- “Consumer Price Inflation including owner-occupiers’ Housing costs”. As we are consumers and we own our home- I think this is the best inflation metric for us. You can see the changes in the index here.

** You might get a slightly different number (by 0.01% or so). That’s due to rounding. The numbers I share are the accurate ones, the equations are so that you understand the way I calculate the numbers.