Retire from 8 to 5 

Winter continues in Birmingham and it was a miserable wet February. To add to that, our utilities (daylight robbery rates) were super high in February. With shorter and darker days, and a toddler who insists on playing train tracks and Lego on the cold ground floor, we have no choice but to crank up the heat.

To make us feel less miserable, we started to make reservations for a trip to Rome over the upcoming Easter break. A very long time ago, when S and K first got together, we agreed that 1 paycheck a year (8% of each of our earnings) would go towards vacations. Over time, we learnt that we could take many more hiking vacations than one beach resort vacation, and that is the approach we adopted until our son was born in 2020. For now, we do the typical hotels and apartments during vacation, but I am hoping to go back to camping and hiking trips, atleast once a year, when our son is a bit older.

In February 2024, we had a few odd expenses

• Annual water bill is due in February. Typical utilities would be 1-3%, but ended this month ended up at 8.2% since it includes £437 for our annual water bill.
• Childcare dropped down marginally thanks to 29d month, than 30-31d month! We will take whatever savings we can get! The nursery billing cycle also fluctuates a bit due to how the nursery calculates the fees.
• And our hotel reservations for the Rome vacation resulted in 19.9% travel.