Lately I’ve been feeling a real urge to try and regain some control over my future. I think in part it’s been prompted by the fact that that our mortgage is coming up for renewal at the end of this year and so it’s felt a bit like we could actually make a change to our lives if we were in a position to do so.
Ultimately we don’t have enough equity right now to change anything, but it has prompted me to make an actual plan.
I turn 40 next year and so I made a plan. It’s a six year plan (but actually with a four year contingency, so a ten year plan in reality). So, a plan for what I want life to look like when I’m 50 – Project 50.
My planning started with the purchase of a petrol blue Leuchtturm notebook. Because if you’re going to make a life plan, it’s probably a good idea to start properly, as you mean to go on. Starting properly cost me £17! Seriously, like, I know inflation and all that has been a thing and I’m still getting used to butter costing the best part of a fiver, but still. Can’t get through too many notebooks or we’ll definitely be looking at the plan being extended to a 20 year one!
I started by thinking about what life will hopefully look like then:
- house in the country;
- a bit of land;
- part-time (or at least fairly flexible) work that isn’t tied to London;
- health and happiness (and maybe a dog or a few semi-feral cats).
I made a list of all of our assets, monetary assets that is, because whilst my ability to recall the lyrics of almost any late 90s, early 00s pop song is indeed an asset, it isn’t going to help me. Although obviously if that can be of use, you’d best believe I’ll exploit it.
I worked out what we will need in terms of money – house, SDLT, fees, costs, cars, emergency fund etc. I deducted what we have and I now have an ambitious six year plan in terms of what we need to save to make that life change a real possibility. At a high level we need to:
- spend less;
- make and save more;
- make the most of tax-free allowances; and
- hope our house appreciates faster than the area we want to move to.
Easy, right? Well, let’s see.
In the meantime, in a vain attempt to make it feel like I am doing something tangible, I created a desktop wallpaper moodboard for my Mac that helps to remind me about what my future dream life looks like:
I used this template from Canva with some tweaks to allow for the dock at the bottom of my screen and some icons along the right hand side.
I don’t really believe in manifesting, but I do hope that if nothing else, it will stop me making some of the stupid impulse purchases I might otherwise make.
