Where is the money coming from?
I am no gambler, I have no discernible talents and I have a parent that will likely leave me debts over fortunes... that's going to be an interesting blog post, "My Family and Other Animals"
If you are keeping up (stay with me reader, I am trying to be concise), you will know or have learnt that I am notoriously bad with money.
I simply do not care about it enough, its a necessity of course, but I find it quite abhorrent, we are slaves to it...
Wait.
That's getting deep, lets step away from that! Keep it light Paul, keep it light...
I am currently employed as a Building Surveyor and I specialise in insurance claims and latent defect warranty claims. Yes, it is as boring as it sounds, really boring, but it pays well and I am bloody good at it.
I rent a lovely two bed flat and it is cheap, I have little debt and I shop and eat well, buying fresh each week and only what I need, I do not own a freezer.
Ok my alcohol bill is high, but I will deal with that in a separate blog and as a person.
My total monthly outgoings (rent, all bills, food, Sky, mobile phone, fuel etc.) are around 50% of my take home pay, and as a result I have well over £1000 disposable income a month.
I hate putting figures down it feels gross, arrogant and boastful, but it is the point of this whole blog.
Over a grand to do with whatever I want.
Pound Signs In My Eyes, Lets Spend!!!! I am Frankie Four Fingers walking in to a Casino!
Reader you are way ahead of me, I know, "this guy could put away £1,000 a month and not 'miss it' and at the end of 11 years have £132,000 saved"
That's not bad!
However, it also is not enough to buy two places in Turunc, even though they are amazingly reasonable, I could get one and have some money left over.
OK, not the end of the world, but hardly ground breaking and I would still need to work full time to live, stay with me on this part, I will get to it, I promise.
I have a very smart younger brother, a finance and business whizz, a First from Swansea University in International Business Management (the first in our family to get a degree) and currently holding a Head of Global position in a large International Company.
This man is going places. He loves business and money, making and watching them grow, its his drug.
Me, I just throw myself down the side of mountains on push bikes (bloody lovely expensive push bikes I might add), each to their own huh? So with his guidance I have opened a stocks and shares ISA and have started putting money into it and buying shares.
I have no idea what I am doing, I have an app and each month money goes in from my bank account and my financial guru tells me what to look at and buy.
I buy the shares then I watch it do 'its thing'. Its like magic, honest, graphs and P/E ratios, the works
It is growing, it is currently worth more than I have put in, it is going the right way (yes I know it can go the other way, but lets not think like that, lets be positive) and I plan to up the amount going in over the coming months.
Have I found a new drug of choice?
The beauty of this is, whilst it is my money, it doesn't feel 'accessible' and therefore I am not tempted to dip in and you know buy a new mountain bike for instance.
Although those Transition Patrols... ooof! Come on, that is pretty!
It is driving a new discipline in me and I like it.
This alone is not enough. As I said I am employed as a surveyor in insurance and I will be for at least the next couple of years. However there is a big market to be self employed in this industry and that pays even more for less hours.
I will have the potential to put around £20-25K away a year and if I did that for only 9 years that is anywhere between £180,000 to £225,000 before investing, now we are talking!
Now I can maybe buy two properties, one to live in, one to rent out for a passive income. Yay, go me!
So, why don't I do this right now and have more years of that level of saving and maybe turn an 11 Year Plan into a 7 Year Plan (just not as catchy is it?).
Simple, I need a financial buffer before I make the switch, it will take a while to build a pipeline up as self employed and secondly I am about to go back to an old job in a slightly different role that is quite exciting. I get to coach people, help guide the business and maybe bring in new clients and work streams.
Reader, are you now thinking "But how will you live once you have bought these properties, the rental income won't be enough and you can't do surveys from Turkey"
Good question.
I am looking at doing some personal education, maybe ethical hacking, maybe proofreading, maybe even some desk topping of claims, certainly something I can do online for a few hours a day, a remote based role that gives me a small income.
Told you I had a plan.
I am reborn, I am a saver of pennies...