It’s time for the January 2024 results.
As a reminder, since September 2023 I’ve put all the numbers upfront. That means that if you only care about the numbers (all good, not judging), you can read the tables below and move on 🙂 There is no longer need to scroll down.
Savings rate
| Monthly | 67.01% |
| Past 6 months | 52.73% |
| Past 12 months | 49.95% |
| Year to date (since January) | 67.01% |
Net worth
| Change (%) due to savings | 1.35% |
| Change (%) due to market performance | 2.52% |
| Total change (%) in net worth (nominal)* | 3.87% |
| Inflation** | 0.38% |
| Total change (%) in net worth (real) | 3.47% |
| % of FI number achieved*** | 38.03% |
**Inflation decreases our real net worth. I use CPIH- “Consumer Price Inflation including owner-occupiers’ Housing costs”. As we are consumers and own our home, I think this is the best inflation metric for us. You can see the changes in the index here.
***Reminder- I set our FI number (how much we need to retire) in July 2020 and I update it monthly for inflation.
What have we been up to this month?
As 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 in more detail.
Before I start, I must admit these events seem very distant by now as they happened almost a year ago (my fault for not updating). That means that even the personal part of this post will be a bit more factual and less emotional.
Snow
So to set the mood, we had a tiny bit of snow. It didn’t set but it was still lots of fun to see.
Parenting course
I don’t remember what triggered it but I remember feeling that I was losing patience with my kids too often and wasn’t reacting correctly (in my opinion, and in retrospect) to some situations.
There are 2 things you need to know about me:
1. I don’t think that I’m a special little snowflake. I believe that for every issue or situation I face, someone somewhere has faced something similar if not identical and probably has some good advice (or even, god forbid- a solution).
2. I love learning.
This leads us to the natural conclusion of signing up for a parenting course. As I didn’t have a specific parenting method that I preferred, I asked Lazy FI Mum who hosted the parenting podcast she was listening to (an Israeli woman who also runs courses). I did that because I thought that if I was going to learn from someone new anyway, we might as well be aligned.
I’m ashamed to admit that even 11 months later, I have yet to watch all the recordings, it’s on my to-do list (this is an excuse, not a reason).
Funny story time
When signing up for the parenting course, I was asked for an Israeli phone number. I don’t have one, so I gave my dad’s number and forgot about it. A week later he sent me a hilarious correspondence with the instructor.
He got a text confirmation saying he signed up for a parenting course and the payment was processed. He emailed the instructor asking what it was about and that he didn’t sign up for anything.
The instructor answered “I’m not sure, maybe your wife signed up?”, to which he responded, “I’m divorced with adult children!”. I laughed so hard when I read that!
Anyway, she gave him the name (my name) that was used to sign up and the penny dropped.
Pizza night
As it was cold outside, we tried to make pizzas at home (store-bought base. I know, I’m a disgrace).
The kids loved it, and I loved it too. We had loads of fun. We should do that again.
My daughter can write!
During January, my daughter’s school held an exhibition and when I saw her part, it blew my mind!
I saw something my daughter wrote and I was able to read it straight away and understand exactly what it said. I remember being amazed and super proud. It took me a few good days to calm down.
The right part (which I needed the teacher to translate for me) says: “The wheels are the same size on the new bike”
January 2024 results- What was different this month from a financial perspective?
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), electronics, holidays, and misc
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. January 2024 was a “no childcare cost” month, which should result in a higher savings rate for such months.
Electronics
In the last 2 monthly results posts, I shared with you that I bought the Samsung Galaxy 23 Ultra back in November 2023 and then sent it back in December 2023. Well, time for a proper new phone. OnePlus released its new phone- the OnePlus 13. To this day, I love that phone. If it didn’t have a curved edge, it would be perfect. As one of the first buyers, I got very expensive headphones with them (which I sold in February 2024 to reduce the total cost of my phone).
In addition to that, our Dyson vacuum cleaner broke so we got a new one, fun times.
Holidays
In January 2024, we prepaid for 2 holidays:
- Flight for myself to Edinburgh for April for a friend’s Stag do.
- A hotel in Cretes for a family holiday in June. The holiday was for us (The Lazy FI Family), my brother (plus his wife and daughter), my mum, her husband plus my 2 sisters.
Misc
While they were here back in December 2023, we gave some family members a debit card that we mainly use for travel. Anything they spent there was categorised as “Misc”. They paid us back in January 2024. This was treated as a negative expense this month and increased our savings rate
When can we achieve FI (and possibly retire)?
Warning: This section is for new readers, it’s a copy-paste from last month’s results. If you’ve read any of my monthly results posts, please skip to the next section.
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 (unless I need a payslip for a mortgage).
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 48.90% 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 for us. 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
Warning: Another copy-paste section mainly for new readers.
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.
I know these assumptions are very prudent but I prefer being prudent and positively surprised to “realistic” and having to deal with unforeseen issues.
Summary
A fantastic month and a fantastic start to the year.
From a financial perspective, 67.01% is great, especially with all the prepaid holidays. However, it was a “no childcare costs” month, so a high savings rate was expected.
From a personal life perspective, it was great too (ignoring what was going on in Israel for a moment).
I still can’t believe I could read what she wrote without any help!
Well, that’s our January 2024 results, Have a great week everyone.
