Welcome to the Lazy FI Family’s July 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	32.31%
Past 6 months	57.33%
Past 12 months	55.18%
Year to date (since January)	58.49%

Net worth

Change (%) due to savings	0.43%
Change (%) due to market performance	-1.28%
Total change (%) in net worth (nominal)*	-0.86%
Inflation**	0.23%
Total change (%) in net worth (real)	-1.08%
% of FI number achieved***	42.03%

What have we been up to this month?

As promised in July 2021, I’ll share with you what we’ve been up to over the past month. After that, we can talk about the numbers in more detail.

Both my kids went to school

My son was still not going to nursery, so he could join Toddler Friday at my daughter’s school. They had extra toys for younger siblings to come and play for an hour in the morning. Both my son and my daughter had lots of fun.

Peppa day

I love London, you never know where you’ll end up in this city.

It was a Saturday, and I took my kids (again) to the Transport Museum. After the museum (and Nando’s, of course), I asked them if they wanted to see Trafalgar Square because they liked the book about Peppa Pig visiting London. In the book, they show Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, and Trafalgar Square. Anyway, they said “Yes” and we headed there. They liked seeing Trafalgar Square “in real life” and not just in the book.

Then, they asked if we could go to Buckingham Palace. I realised it wasn’t too far so I took them there too. They even saw policemen on horses on the way.

Urban Farm

My daughter’s school took them on a day trip to Spitalfields City Farm.
Lazy FI Mum and I always try for one of us to join these trips, and I’m really happy I did.

First of all, it was great to see her and her friends get excited about the animals. Second, sadly, I saw another kid hit my daughter in the face for no reason. As the teachers missed it, I was happy I was there to push that kid away and comfort my daughter.

MRI

I have back problems, so once every couple of years, I get an MRI. Fortunately, I forgot my wedding ring at the MRI place. Everything is great between me and Lazy FI Dad, so why did I say “fortunately”?

Because I got to take my daughter with me to pick up my ring, and I really wanted her to see the place because she was due for an MRI as well, a few days later. The team were very nice and even let her see the MRI machine, which took away a lot of uncertainty for her.

By the way, the MRI was to check that she’s OK after the seizure she had (which I shared in April 2024 results).

Family visits

My mum, her husband, and my two sisters visited London, and we got to see them once or twice, which was nice. We went to Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace (yes, again).

A few days later, my dad came over and stayed with us for a few days.
We went to Epping Forest (I love that place), a Mystery Dine and a visit with my daughter to the Bank of England Museum, which was surprisingly interactive. That’s the price my daughter has to pay for having an accountant dad.

July 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 Misc.

Childcare costs

As you may remember, we usually contribute to our children’s tax-free childcare account once every quarter (every 3 months). This causes a huge fluctuation in our monthly savings rates. As my daughter is old enough, we only contribute to our son’s account nowadays (woohoo!).

July 2024 was a “no childcare cost” month, which should result in a higher savings rate for such months.

However, as I mentioned, towards the end of June, we brought a babysitter to be with him a few hours a day. Although not through tax-free childcare, it is still a childcare expense.

Holidays

While my dad was here, Lazy FI Mum booked another visit to Center Parcs for September 2024.
We booked a 4-bed cabin for us, the kids, my dad, and Lazy FI Mum’s mum.

As soon as Lazy FI Mum booked it, my dad offered to pay for it. He repaid us in August, so this is a holiday expense in July 2024, but it will be a “negative expense” in August 2024.

Misc

Our neighbours from upstairs went away on holiday, so Lazy FI Mum’s mum sublet their flat from them.

I paid my neighbour in July 2024 and Lazy FI Mum’s mum repaid us in August 204 so it’s another case of an expense in July 2024 and a “negative expense” in August 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 50.85% FI by April 2026. I’m still excited to be over the 50% mark.
As I say every month, 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 be as low as 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 being “realistic” and having to deal with unforeseen issues.

Summary

From a financial perspective, it was a very decent month. The savings rate is a bit low, but that’s because of 2 expenses that will get “reversed” in August 2024. If I ignore these two expenses, our savings rate would be 46.77%, which is more in line with other months.

From a personal life perspective, it was great seeing family and spending quality time with my daughter over her summer holiday.

Well, that’s our July 2024 results. Have a great week, everyone.