Middle Class Caveman

You’re spot on here @GazzaGarratt, you and I had many conversations about struggling when Maddie was born and we dropped to one wage with multiple mortgages etc! You have to pick and choose your moments.
 
I love kicking out direct debits! I’m always surprised at home much goes out each month that I’m not thinking about. 

Yeh I know what you mean mate, I was having this conversation with my wife the other day. In order to get to a place to put money away you have to strip your life right back and the. Build from there but it’s hard my man. Let me know if I can help you at all, I’m a bit of a money nazi and can often see things others can’t!

Great advice @Docwagon , I've been very prudent over the last 10-15 years but that was more to survive rather than save. I think its also about where your life is too e.g. I could've saved when my kids were younger, but the middle-teen ages are quite tough as you have more new direct debits (phones, data plans, etc) alongside increasing existing ones (e.g. food, etc). I'm not putting myself under too much pressure to save a huge amount right now, more so focusing hard on when's the next time I can get rid of or decrease some direct debits.
 
Also, this is ALWAYS about priorities, as we always have different ones depending who we are and our situation. Personally, don't be scared to cancel Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Disney, and any other rental plans for just one month. You would be surprised how much you can save and how much you don't really miss it. They're made to turn them off or on whenever you want so just do it! I cancelled my Amazon Music 2 months ago and i've seen myself use Spotify free version on my PC for a while and I've not yet come across a song I can't play. Equally the adverts don't bother me that much at all as they aren't after every song.

This is exactly it @Docwagon , I’m a teacher - I don’t make a lot either but it’s about making and plan and sticking to it!

Yeh I know what you mean mate, I was having this conversation with my wife the other day. In order to get to a place to put money away you have to strip your life right back and the. Build from there but it’s hard my man. Let me know if I can help you at all, I’m a bit of a money nazi and can often see things others can’t!

During the first lockdown both of my portfolios saw a negative return but you have to take the rough with the smooth and ride it out!

dam, I’ve been rumbled!

This is exactly it @Docwagon , I’m a teacher - I don’t make a lot either but it’s about making and plan and sticking to it!

One of the smartest things I ever read was from The Richest Man in Babylon.  "No matter what you make, somebody is getting by on 10% less.  Figure out how they do it and you can save 10% for retirement."
 
Maybe it's picking up a part time job, maybe it's eating beans and rice for half your meals, maybe it's cutting your cell phone plan to a minimalist one...but there's a way.  FWIW, in 2003 I had a negative net worth of about -$27k.  Now I have a positive net worth approaching half a million.   My wife doesn't work and I'm a cop, so it's not like we just made a ton salary wise.  It's just not carrying any debt other than the mortgages (primary residence and one rental house), putting back 10-15%, and letting it grow.  We had to be pretty cheap in the early years, but that's part of it.

Yeh I know what you mean mate, I was having this conversation with my wife the other day. In order to get to a place to put money away you have to strip your life right back and the. Build from there but it’s hard my man. Let me know if I can help you at all, I’m a bit of a money nazi and can often see things others can’t!

@phil bottle @techno  @J4MES OX4D
 
i get what you’re saying, I actually skipped Cold War. I bought it and played for a little bit but literally put it down before Xmas. So I think I’ve had my break from cod.
 
Fortunately for me, this one doesn’t ‘feel’ like any of the others where as Cold War just felt like MW.
 
By all accounts they’ve done a good job, the maps are good, the guns handle well and have up to 10 attachments, they’ve made changes to the game modes so you can play up to  10v10 on all of the different game modes.

It’s no Black Ops 2 but then no game ever will be. 
 

@phil bottle @techno  @J4MES OX4D
 
i get what you’re saying, I actually skipped Cold War. I bought it and played for a little bit but literally put it down before Xmas. So I think I’ve had my break from cod.
 
Fortunately for me, this one doesn’t ‘feel’ like any of the others where as Cold War just felt like MW.
 
By all accounts they’ve done a good job, the maps are good, the guns handle well and have up to 10 attachments, they’ve made changes to the game modes so you can play up to  10v10 on all of the different game modes.

It’s no Black Ops 2 but then no game ever will be. 
 

@G_dub52  this one is much faster paced than Cold War. The time to kill is rapid.

@phil bottle @techno  @J4MES OX4D
 
i get what you’re saying, I actually skipped Cold War. I bought it and played for a little bit but literally put it down before Xmas. So I think I’ve had my break from cod.
 
Fortunately for me, this one doesn’t ‘feel’ like any of the others where as Cold War just felt like MW.
 
By all accounts they’ve done a good job, the maps are good, the guns handle well and have up to 10 attachments, they’ve made changes to the game modes so you can play up to  10v10 on all of the different game modes.

It’s no Black Ops 2 but then no game ever will be. 
 

Not a chance I'll go near this filler shite lol though I hear the campaign is relatively decent.

How did we let this bot post up that link?? 😄
 
In all seriousness, cheers for the heads up Elliott @Middle Class Caveman , I must admit that is impressive since the Savings market is decimated with the Bank of Base Rate remaining at 0.1%. Have you seen any decreases in that time with anything else you've used with them at all? I don't any of this crypto-bs but since this is something ideally for the kids future which we're looking into next year that sounds like a good option for sure.

PYRAMID SCHEME! 
 
Only joking mate! Sounds like good returns and percentages and I'm pleased your doing well. The problem is you need some money to accumulate more. I couldn't afford setting aside anything. Just life in general is survival. I can only dream of having money leftover to set aside. 

"Pls click my referral link" 😂

Hey all, seeing as I’ve not played many games since Maddison was born it’s been hard to really contribute on here. So I’ve decided to do a post about money instead because I’m a shallow husk of a person and that’s all I can really talk about 😢

In all seriousness though, as we make our way out of what has been a really tough time for most people I felt like this might be a good time to offer some advice or at least my experience when it comes to securing financial freedom.
 
There are so many ways to do this and I could go in for pages and pages but today I want to share what I’ve done for Maddison since her birth. I’m a fan of the low and slow investment method and I’ve been using a company called Wealth Simple for almost 5 years now. When Maddison was born I set her up a JISA for stocks and shares, Wealth Simple do the investing on my behalf.
 
Essentially any money you put in goes into the big pot of everyone’s money and they invest it into a diversified portfolio for you based on a little questionnaire you take when you register about your level of risk. 
 
They manage the first £5k free and then it’s a 1% fee each year for any monies after that.
 
The picture below is of Maddison’s account I started when she was born, I put in £500 to start, £50 each month and then £100 for Xmas and her birthday. You can see over the last 19 months her account has grown by 12.7%, which in simple terms is about a 9% return each year. You won’t find that in the bank. For some perspective if her account continues to grow at 9% and I continue to put in £50 a month her account will be worth £29,000 when she is 18. This is a speculative figure of course but imagine
being able to hand over £30k to your kid at 18 to help them along their way.
 
I have my own account too (as well as a lot of other investments on other platforms) but I use wealth simple for my pension fund as I don’t intend to touch it, it’s growing at 9.5% a year. 
 
If you are coming to the big FG meet up, why not use wealth simple to
save up for it? £10 a month in there over 10 months and you could have £109 rather than just £100.
 
Obviously with any investments there is risk but the longer you invest for the smoother the edges become and the better the returns. For reference I’ve been ‘investing’ in my long term plan for over a decade now (on Vanguard platform first, now wealth simple) and even the lows of the last recession and COVID haven’t stumped my growth.
 
Here is my link to wealth simple, if you register with it we both get some more cash managed for free! 
 
Wealth Simple
 
 

Wel I played last night for an hourX first impressions are good. Very fast paced, great actions, nice maps. I like it.

yeh I’m the same, although I’m going to have to get it on PS4 and by all accounts that’s not the best console to play it on, still the game looks good and is what we expect from a decent COD

Wel I played last night for an hourX first impressions are good. Very fast paced, great actions, nice maps. I like it.

Let me tell you a story. 
 
In World Of Warcraft classic, you need world buffs to be competitive and push progression. What's a world buff you ask? Well, it's a buff that's obtained out in the world. There are a few of them and they generally last one to two hours, and if you die, you lose them all. These buffs are immensely powerful, to the point that without them, you're not progressing until your whole raid's gear is very high level. Acquiring them is a monumental pain in the ass as you need to be in certain places at certain times, and often cost quite a bit of gold. It can take hours, or even a full day to get them all, depending on how dedicated you are.
 
Anyway.
 
So I'm in AQ40 (a 40 man raid) and we're facing the final boss. It's progression night. This is literally the only guy left in the whole raid and although I'm filling in a spot for someone who couldn't make it, these guys spent weeks getting to this point. Everyone's buffed. People have spent hundreds of gold, and countless hours getting their buffs and shit ready for this fight. 
 
Now the boss is a big eyeball in a square room. At the front of the room, the wall has a gap in it, this is where you enter to start the fight. Now as soon as the boss sees you, he fires off a laser beam which will kill almost anything one-shot. Even the toughest tanks struggle. It then, within a matter of seconds, wipes out the rest of the raid. 
 
So we're all standing to the side of the gap so the boss can't see us (LOS as we call it, or Line of Sight), discussing tactics and whatnot.
 
I bump my keyboard. My character moves 2ft to the right.
 
ZAP.
 
Entire raid killed. All world buffs gone, people have repair bills, and we have to spend the next 45 mins getting our shit together. The boss does not die that night.
 
I took Deadums to a whole new level I did. 
 
 
And yes, this is a true story. 

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FITNESS PPR
 
DATE: 13th March 2021
SESSION: Week 5 Day 
CALORIES: 2890kcals
 
Atlas stone 3x3@65/75/85kg
Paused Bench Press 3x6@112.5kg
 
FEELINGS:
 
Wow this week has kicked my arse. Going back to school was real difficult and by Friday I was wiped. I actually went out to my gym, sorted out the atlas stone stuff and nearly fainted on the first set.
 
So some sleep, good food and a friend to help me the next day and I was ready to rock and roll!
IMG_1431.MP4 IMG_1432.MP4