We want to be wealthy! A thread to share ideas on how to achieve financial independence

[ilyana]

I asked a question in another forum about how to get wealthier and improve my lifestyle and financial situation in my late thirties, and I got some really helpful advice.

Several posters were keen to set up a thread to talk about topics we don't get taught about at school, such as investing in stocks and shares, lucrative side gig ideas, and air miles on credit cards, and so here we are!

This is a positive thread about encouraging other women to aim high and reach their goals, so please only contribute with positive, relevant advice. Of course, questions are very welcome too!

Hi there, yep I've done stoozing quite a bit. I'm in quite a high-paid job and have lots of savings/investments that I don't like eating into. I am about to take my 3rd mat leave and also have had career breaks. So when I'm on mat leave and paying high childcare costs I put all spending on 0% credit card, then pay it off by the end of the period. Just means I've earned interest on the money for the 18 months. Usually back at work by the end of the 0% period and means I never need touch investments as pay off with recently earned money.

I would say to any women who are contractors, if you can, go through sn umbrella organisation if you plan to have a maternity leave. So my contract will "end" on the start of my mat leave, but my umbrella organisation are still my employer. So they have to pay me maternity leave. It works out I am £12,000 better off this mat leave than if I'd been employed directly through the company. This wasn't anything I'd read anywhere. I looked at the contracts before I started and realised this trick "might" work. I'm amazed it has. I'm the only person at a huge organisation working through an umbrella organisation but very pleased with my decision (make sure your vomosny give you umbrella uplift on salary to too for ni etc.)

I've started watching, thanks for the recommendation! She's really good. Lots of interesting things to think about

@PerfectYear321
30000 Avios is about 1 return trip in economy in europe

Wow! Very valuable tip

Not necessarily true all the time, it totally depends on the flight but can vary tremendously which makes Avios very hard to value. We have flown return to Europe for less points. Also, sometimes it better to pay a small portion and spend less points.

Great thread guys 👍🏻

@EnidSpyton another one who would be very interested in a link for copy editing/proof reading. I am in a healthcare profession so could probably do specialist stuff for that I reckon?

My OH has great earning potential, whereas I will never be out of work but won’t earn truckloads if I stay in the public sector. We were actually talking about all this this morning - we have some investments and looking for ways to increase the amounts we invest.

We also want to live too though - no problem with living frugally 95% of the time (and we do!) but we’d like a few more holidays!! So also need to earn more for that 🤣 It’s all about balance isn’t it!!

5 types of pasta + 5 types of grain + 5 types of lentils + 5 types of beans makes plenty of meal options for under £1

I can personally attest to this, I’m trying to run down our pantry cupboard in preparation for moving, and in the last week we’ve spent £7-8 in the butchers, the same in the greengrocers and eaten extremely well.

Buying loose rather than multipacks is great too. I’ve started buying toddler DD a single slice off a roast joint in the butchers which does her weekend cooked lunches for pence with no waste or oven use.

Joining in - I shall check out the original thread too.

Credit card people - with the Avios, does that work out better than straight cash back, eg the Amex platinum 1% cash back - say I got £300 in cash back this year so technically I could spend that on a flight if I fancied or do you get more flight for your money with the avios ones? Not sure if I’ve made any sense!

I’m stoozing currently but will have to pay tax on all the interest so will have to move the money to premium bonds I think, therefore may or may not work out.

Does anyone look at Boring Money? I find it really helpful - Holly sends amusing email updates, the top ten funds/ETFs/trusts lists are helpful as you can see what everyone else is doing and quickly lists the recent returns. They have women specific events as well and send out invitations for market research - you get vouchers per interview.
I also like Pete Matthews, Maven money etc.

@BeastOfBODMAS what sort of meats / cuts are you looking at in the butchers to only spend £7-8? I only buy free range / outdoor bred and try to buy only British and Irish (animal welfare is more important to me than eating meat every day), and it seems to rule out a lot of meat and poultry now.

Those who have mentioned seatspy - I had a look and am as confused about it as trying to book on the British airways website with Avios! Can someone explain to me how I would find reward flights to, say, Belfast?

Following all of these tips with interest. I’m on maternity leave currently with my second child (of two) and am a public sector worker, so I regard my ability to do much to increase my earning over the next year as being rather limited…but always good to learn more!

For ISAs, why Vanguard?

@AngryBirdsNoMore I can’t really say as my DH is the meat eater not me! But I think ours do good deals on packs which he batch cooks or breaks down and freezes. It’s just a Lloyd Maunder chain one but quality is night and day different to supermarket apparently.

People say Vanguard for ISAs as they have some good low cost index funds, and if you’re going to be tied to one fund house in the name of reducing product charges, may as well be a decent one. If you want diversification, a platform where you can choose a wider range of investments might be better.

I have sent you a PM.

Vanguards fees are low.

Bumping as I would love to hear further advice from others on how to get wealthier 🙂

How is everyone?

I got a real spurt of motivation this evening, which is amazing given that I've been depressed for months! I think even writing down on here what I want to achieve has massively helped, and making a conscious choice to spend an evening doing positive things to improve my life instead of mindlessly scrolling on Twitter or watching TV has made me feel really good.

I've subscribed to Netflix, which sounds counterproductive (when did it get so pricey?) but I want to watch those documentaries recommended here, and also I'm using films as my reward for working on my plan. If I manage to tick off my goals each day, I get a film. It's working really well so far!

I've been looking into the British Airways Amex and think I'll go for it...there's no real downside that I can see, and there's the possibility of Avios meaning discounted flights and hotel stays, but people have mentioned making sure to get a good sign-up bonus. Is it better to wait and see if one comes along? I missed out on the very good offer at the start of the year on the card you have to pay £250 a year for. I considered it, but didn't think it was worthwhile - regretting that now!

I'm also looking into stocks and shares on my online broker account where I have some crypto. I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the options and unsure where to start. I could buy shares in pretty much anything...any company, commodities...how do people choose what to invest in if they handpick them? I took a look at the five-year trend and saw that most things have trended upwards. Is it as simple as picking things I think will continue to rise based on the graphs or do people sit down and read all about the companies before investing?

How has everyone else been doing?

@ilyana I don’t invest directly in equities but I do have a soft spot for the Lindsell Train Equity Funds which have historically performed well. So, I would probably piggyback on the fund manager’s research and pick shares from their latest fund holdings reports. You’d need to apply this to a low turnover fund (e.g. their strategy is buy and hold), and check that the transaction charges for the individual holdings were less than the charges for investing in the fund directly.

It’s an approach, I’m not saying it’s the most sophisticated one (but I spend too long looking at performance charts at work to make a hobby of it)

Thank you! Will look into that!

I think I need to do some research on ethical investing too...of course I want to make money, but I think I'd feel grotty investing in some of the companies I saw!

Vanguard do a version of their LifeStrategy funds called SustainableLife

L&G Future world ESG multi index funds - I think L&G have some of the more rigorous ethical criteria.

Mumsnet loves a low cost MI fund!

Seriously though picking your own company shares is a high risk approach. £100 in one company vs £100 in a fund investing in 20-30 companies.
I am a high risk investor in my pension (since I won’t access it for 30+ years) and I still only use funds. If I want to muck about with day trading I use one of those accounts with pretend money

Does anyone have a referral code for the free Barclaycard Avios card? You can get £19 cash back on topcashback.co.uk but I’d rather get points. I appreciate there might be better offers in the future, but I want to start collecting points now.

I'm watching episode one of this and I'm in shock at the first couple. Awkward 🫣

Being mortgage free is not always the best way to be though. Mortgage debt is higher at the moment but still a lot lower than other debt. It’s a bit male and old fashioned now maybe but the principle of investing as written about in books such as Rich Dad Poor Dad, ideas which a lot of people still follow, is that rich people are not afraid of debt. In fact generally they are in a lot of debt. Especially when it comes to mortgages and commercial property. They just ‘leverage’ this debt so that the yield on it is more than the cost of the debt. Say for example you have 200k of equity in your family home. You can let it sit there or you could release 100k of that equity and put it into an investment like a BTL property. You still have the same amount of equity (obviously you will have had some expenses like stamp duty and other purchase costs) but this time you have it earning you money from monthly rent payments (obviously the rental figure has to be more than your mortgage interest payments and expenses, which has become a bit harder due to current interest rates) and also another property that will be eventually gaining value in capital appreciation. Of course I also get the value of having no monthly mortgage payments! But this is one way a lot of people have created extra income.

Interesting post Freetodowhatiwant, and something I've been pondering recently.

I have no mortgage which I love. It's allowed me to do things over the last decade (like stay at home with my son for a few years, go back to university, start a business). But I'm not happy where I'm living and want to move within a year or so, and that will mean taking on a mortgage of up to £60k.

I really don't want a mortgage at my age, 50, after being mortgage free for ten years.

I've also watched the Netflix series mentioned upthread (thank you to whoever posted that) and am now reading the book. And the way he emphasizes: what does your rich life look like? got me thinking.

So although I live very frugally at the moment, and have some CC debt, I've certainly achieved some aspects of my 'rich life': mortgage free, which means I can afford to work part time and term time only, which is perfect for my family (me and son with additional needs). We manage a couple of holidays a year by living frugally in other ways, and my son wants for nothing. I have a small business which is growing and that pays for the holidays.

But, back to being mortgage free...I just keep thinking that there must be some way of making my house equity work for me. I recently thought of getting a small mortgage on my house to buy a small flat to rent out. I'm in the north, so £60k could be enough. But like you say, the interest rates at the moment make that look a lot less appealing.

And as stressful as the last few years have been and the cost of living going up etc etc it is really reassuring to know that whatever else happens, we'll always have our home. It feels irresponsible to risk that...

Anyway, I'm rambling.

Thanks for starting the thread OP. Finding it very interesting to hear people's thoughts.

I knew nothing about finance, and I really mean nothing.
Like a lot of people, when the divorce started looming, I realised I’m in no position to do anything because I had no money.
So I took myself to the library and borrowed anything I could find on personal finance.

My aim was £5000, don’t ask why, I just thought if I had £5,000 saved I’m out of the woods. £5,000 for me, 10 years ago, was an exorbitant amount, we lived in our overdraft, ExH was on something like £600/month, me on £1200.

I opened my own account and had my salary saved there. I did continue to pay the bills, proportionally, till we actually moved out. I was amazed at how much money I actually have.
My starting point was a regular saver with First Direct. The interest was minimal, but after 12 months I knew I had £3600. I did overtime for the £300/month. I think I started with £50 initially, I wasn’t sure I can save £300, but after a month or so, I was determined, so overtime every weekend it was.

I then decided to buy a place for me and DD, but I had no credit score to speak of, never had a loan, an individual bank account. I had, by then £10,000 for the deposit, a credit card I used and paid every month. We moved, and I got an interest free credit card (36 months) and I bought all the furniture (IKEA), hoover, dishwasher, washing machine. Didn’t have enough for a TV too 😂

I paid the minimum on that credit card, but pretended I am paying it off in 36 chunks, the difference I put in the next regular saver.

The day I paid the credit card off, I opened a stocks and shared ISA with a company I never heard of, but they gave a £25 M&S voucher at opening, and I wanted to have some nice food for Christmas, so that’s what I did. I started putting £50 a month in it, I’ve been doing this since, and now I have £4,000 in it. Money I don’t even miss, can’t touch easily and I see as long term investment.

In parallel, I have overpaid the mortgage. I put a third of the amount on top (think £100 when the mortgage is £300).

Every year I open another regular savings account. And the lump sum after those 12 months I put half in an ISA and half a lump sum towards the mortgage. My mortgage was for 21 years, 7 years ago. I have 7 years left, but will be paid off in 3 (when my rate comes to an end).

I think in 3 years chunks. In 3 years I would have paid off the mortgage and I will drop a day at work. Or just not do any overtime, at the moment I do 20 h a month extra. Anyway, I’ll be working less hours. I went for a promotion when my DD left home, so my salary has increased by a third. But I still live frugally and the ‘extra’ money goes into savings.

I pay 10% into my pension.

The truth: it’s not a lot of fun. It’s hard. I buy clothes once a year in the January sales. Only recently I realised that living in a very wealthy area means the charity shops have barely worn Gerard Darels and other luxury brands. I very very rarely have a coffee and a slice of cake in town, I make my own. I cook everything from scratch, even buying crushed garlic in a jar seems frivolous 😂.
I do do fun stuff, but that tends to be experiences rather than possessions. I bought a very very nice camera with switching accounts, took me 6 months, I juggled several accounts that paid between £150-200 , I did put it on a 0% credit card, but made the money to pay it off by opening and closing accounts 🤷🏻‍♀️.

I’m sorry if this is long and boring. But the idea is to start small, it takes a long time, but it is doable.