Early retirement costs & targets - September 2021

I mostly begin these monthly review posts with how much we spent, but as that's frequently a bit depressing (aka, more often that not it's more than I think we should have spent), this month I'm starting with the targets update.

Early retirement targets update

Three quarters through the year, of the twelve targets that I set:

• 6 are green, meaning they're either completed or on target

• 2 are orange, I'm still in the game on these, or at least I'm not missing by enough for them to be red

• 3 are kind of orangy-red or reddy-orange, depending whether you're a glass half full or half empty type of person. If the bar starts with orange it's because I view it marginally more positively (or less negatively) than those that have the bar starting with red...if that makes sense!

• 1 is red

Would it be better to have a whole sea of green? Perhaps, but that could also mean I'd set targets that were too easy. I quite like that there's still work to do, to see if I can improve any of the colours before the end of December.

Early retirement target tracker - September 2021

Perhaps the target I've been most happy with has been my running. It requires persistent effort, and it feels good to know that I've consistently turned the doorknob and got out for my run. I ran an event in August, my first since Boston marathon three and half years ago, and even though I was a little disappointed in my performance, I loved meeting up and running with my friends. I've therefore decided to sign up for another event, a marathon in Lucerne, Switzerland on 31 October. Having committed to this, I'm starting to remember how much a marathon hurts...oh well, it's too late to back out, I've already said I'm going to do it. I won't be running with my friends, but hopefully my daughter will come from Zurich to watch and shout "keep running, looking good..." when in fact you know you look like $%&*😂.

Early retirement costs

Shock, horror...we again seem to have spent a lot. I think I say that almost every month!

At least groceries were less than they have been recently, so that's a good thing. They're probably still higher than they should be, but at least it's an improvement! In fact, I met someone in our town who'd read my blog, commented on our grocery bill, and gave me instructions to switch supermarkets. We'll give it a try, although it's over a half hour drive away which isn't ideal, I like walking to the shops.

One thing has gone down though, in fact it's disappeared. Now we've decided to Airbnb the house that we occasionally use in the UK, I'll treat the bills as an Airbnb investment cost and not part of our living costs. When we use the house ourselves, I'll include the costs for those periods in the cost table.

Our early retirement costs - September 2021

So, what made our costs high this month? We ate out more than normal, five times during September, bought a shed to store things in (maybe not the best purchase, it's much smaller than it looked on the internet), got a cover opening assist thingy (not the proper name I suspect) for the hot tub, I bought a tennis racquet (or racket, or maybe I'll just call it a bat just to mess with the tennis aficianados😂), and I'm having French lessons. Sally's booked a trip to Portugal with her sister, I've registered for a marathon, Sally's enjoyed a spa day, some facials and also taken some exercise classes. In summary, these things quickly add up!