Welcome to Lazy FI Family’s February 2024 results.
For those who only care about the numbers (all good, not judging), you can read the tables below and move on 🙂 After the numbers, I share what happened in our personal life and then what happened in our financial life.
Savings rate
| Monthly | 33.72% |
| Past 6 months | 52.50% |
| Past 12 months | 51.01% |
| Year to date (since January) | 49.79% |
Net worth
| Change (%) due to savings | 0.70% |
| Change (%) due to market performance | 1.60% |
| Total change (%) in net worth (nominal)* | 2.30% |
| Inflation** | -0.38% |
| Total change (%) in net worth (real) | 2.70% |
| % of FI number achieved*** | 39.05% |
**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.
The month of Excel
Looking back at February 2024, it was the month of Microsoft Excel.
First, I taught more hours in February 2024 than I usually do in a good QUARTER!
Second, I signed up for (and attended) the Excel summit in London plus a course that I really enjoyed about how to incorporate dynamic array formulas (the “#SPILL” formulas) in financial modelling. As you already guessed, I’m super fun at parties.
Third, I created an Excel file for my daughter to play with. It has addition questions and 3 subtraction questions. She loves it because:
- If she gets a question right, the row gets rainbow colours and it says “Well done” + her name.
- Once she answers 12 questions, she clicks a button and it will create 12 new random questions.
- I finally solved it!!! While typing these lines the penny finally dropped on how to solve a challenge that was driving me nuts for way too long! I stopped typing this post and opened the Excel file. When my daughter wakes up tomorrow she will finally have a new feature in the file- if she answers all 12 questions correctly, one of 2 images of a unicorn will appear.
Just look at this beauty (the file, not the unicorn).
My dad’s visit
My dad came to visit us in London, went to work elsewhere in England and then came back. For my kids (and us), it was like he visited twice and we spent lots of time together.
We went to the zoo, libraries, and Nando’s (of course). He even took my daughter to school one day.
A Peppa-based day
One of my kids’ favourite books back then was “Peppa goes to London”. Two of the places she visits are Big Ben and Trafalgar Square, which are within walking distance from each other. I decided to take them (and the book) to see the places they’d been reading about, we had a great time.
February 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), holidays, and Excel
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. February 2024 was a “childcare cost” month, which should result in a lower savings rate for such months.
Holidays
In February 2024, we prepaid for flights to Israel for my brother’s wedding. This is the brother that now lives in London.
Excel
Despite teaching a lot in February 2024, I wasn’t paid for all of that teaching. However, I did get paid for a cool automation project I did for a baker. He asked me to create a file for him that will tell him everything he needs to buy based on a list of baked goods he needs to make for an event and the quantity for each.
Took a while to create but it ended up pretty good and he was happy with it, hurray. Anyway, I got paid for that in February 2024 🙂
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 49.33% FI by April 2026. We are so close to the 50% mark, that I can taste it. 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
From a financial perspective, 33.72% is pretty low but it’s mainly due to prepaid holidays and it was a “childcare costs” month, so a low savings rate was expected.
From a personal life perspective, it was a fantastic month with Excel and family (what else can a man ask for?).
Well, that’s our February 2024 results, Have a great week everyone.
