A new month means it is time again to update The Ultimate Dream Fund again, as I continue our journey to early retirement. The Ultimate Dream Fund is named because it is our dream to retire early, and we need the funds to make that happen! One day, this fund will provide us with the money to live on when we leave our 9-5 jobs and time will be all ours. That’s the biggest motivator for achieving our goal.
I’m going to post updates on our fund for two reasons; one, so that I can show that living a frugal lifestyle means that we can retire earlier than we should do and still live a good life on the journey, and two; to keep me motivated for the long haul. This journey is going to take us a long time, but it’ll be worth it in the end. This plan also includes us being mortgage free, so that our monthly outgoings are reduced and manageable.
January marks the ninth month of doing these updates, so we should be making some good progress by now. It definitely is going much slower that I would have liked, though I suppose that it was going to be inevitable at this point in time. This is the third month of having my stocks and shares ISA, which I’ve moved some more money into during the month. I’m looking forward to the moment when the snowball starts! I know that slow and steady wins the race, but it seems like our progress is slowing a bit too much, though we are in a better position than many, so I should be pleased at the same time.
Related post: I’ve Started To Invest – Finally!
As of January 31st, our Ultimate Dream Fund looks like this:
That overall is an increase of £298.53 for the month of January, which I’ll admit isn’t great at all. I must admit I’m disappointed in that number, and disappointed in myself that I’m not doing better. It is slowly creeping upwards, though we are far from having our first year of early retirement saved. In our budgets, we’re aiming to save £18,000 per year for early retirement, though obviously if we can save more than that, we won’t complain! But, if I want us to meet our long term aims, I need to start bringing in more money; If you would like to work with me, please check out my Hire Me/Advertise tab!
Finally, here is the progress of the fund since it began in June:
How was January for your savings/investing targets? Are you still on track?
I always find January’s to be an expensive long month so I wouldn’t worry about it to much. I feel Feb- April gives you a better indication on how well you will do.
I have paid so much in insurance and all the little things that I wanted to do this year.
I would love to read your view points on when the snowball effect actually occurs – as in the feeling of it… because I have been at this a while and still don’t feel it!