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.
May was the first month that I was able to post an update for the Ultimate Dream Fund, as it was the starting point of our journey. I said in that post that this is definitely a challenge for us; the savings target is very steep and there is a very good chance we will miss our target. June was the second month of me updating our Ultimate Dream Fund and July the third. So, August marks the fourth month of this fund growing, which excites me.
At the moment, as I said in July’s update, all of my Ultimate Dream Fund is sat in an instant access savings account, which doesn’t particularly pay a great deal of interest. In fact, the interest paid for August was a whole 70p – not really going to get us far in our plans! I must sound like a broken record, but I still haven’t opened a stocks and shares ISA. There is absolutely no reason for this; I just need to get a grip.
Anyway, as of August 31st, our Ultimate Dream Fund stands at £2,776.74 which is an increase of £445.76 from last month. Whilst I’m pleased with this amount, as it’s a step in the right direction, we need to be consistently hitting £1,000 a month savings to not fall too far behind in our plans. The only (major) sticking point with this now is that because I’m now on maternity leave, our household income is vastly reduced, so saving any money in the long term will be a challenge, never mind four figures. I really need to start working on some side hustles, though with a new baby I don’t know how easy this will be time-wise. 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!
How was August for your savings/investing targets? Are you still on track?
hi Nicola, I think managing to save £445.76 and keep such a strong grip on your finances in a month where you’ve had a baby is totally admirable – also, while there may be some shortfall while you’re on maternity leave, I am sure there will be the chance to make it up later.
Since you’ve mentioned the S&S Isa again though, I just want to say that because there has been a correction in the share market this month, there is an opportunity to buy cheap. So if you did open that S&S Isa and put the £445.76 into an index tracker, that’s one way to give the money a chance to grow strongly over the long term.
Obviously, though, don’t rush it – I would have thought having a baby was enough “things to do” for one month. 🙂
Thank you! I always try to do too much I think, very over optimistic at times 😉
Use your maternity leave to jump into the markets. It will take you an afternoon, at most. And stocks are on sale this month!
I really need to do this!
Nicola, £445.76 is like approximately 15% increase, which I think is really good. Congrats! That savings would help you for the Christmas season.
I like the percentage thing, might do that in future 🙂
Hiya. I’m new to your blog (I just found it today whilst mooching about on the internet!), I live in the UK and am interested in personal finance too. I come at it from a different angle to you though as I’m single and I work part-time so that I have free time to do what I like now (instead of in the future).
Anyway that’s not actually the point of this comment. What I wanted to say was that when you’re feeling comfortable about locking money away that you can’t access for a few years, I recommend using Zopa. I’ve been using an instant access ISA for some of my savings, like you, but for my long-term savings I’ve been using Zopa instead of a regular bank as the returns have been higher than the high street is offering (I’ve been using Zopa for 3 years now). You get weekly email updates from them which show your interest, which is always very satisfying 😀
I’ve seen the adverts for Zopa on the tv – shall have a look at them 🙂 thanks for stopping by!