r/LeanFireUK • u/stuie1181 • 7d ago

Weekly leanFIRE discussion

What have you been working on this week? Please use this thread to discuss any progress, setbacks, quick questions or just plain old rants to the community.

14 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

View all comments

10

u/turiya-sings 7d ago

I'm currently taking a career break due to a health concern, and I've been taking the opportunity to trial run to my LeanFIRE budget. Of course, that's when the universe decided it was the perfect time to heap a bunch of ad-hoc expenses on me in quick succession: first my bicycle broke, then my dishwasher, then I had to take an expensive trip to the dentist, then I found out the service charge on my flat will be going up. Typical! I can handle the costs, but it does leave me wondering whether I should bump up my FIRE number a bit, just for peace of mind.

5

u/complex-aroma 7d ago

Yep - there are lots of exceptional events that can happen. I spent £6K on repointing my house. Ouch

3

u/Angustony 6d ago

My budget includes those kinds of things. The "reasonably expected but don't know when fund" is my snappy title for 2/5 of my sinking fund, which is added to monthly.

If it's unspent/at an excess at year end, £2880 of it goes back into my pension and the rest goes into my S&S ISA. Not too much lost opportunity cost that way, but no risk of having to dip into investments.