Right, so to recap, Suzie spent her income with abandon from the age of 12 to 13, when she was shocked to discover how much she could have saved. Fired by the completely natural, healthy and traditional ambition to save for her eventual wedding, she watched every penny she made after that like a hawk. When she was 18, she put her life savings into a low-cost Stocks and Shares Investment Savings Plan, and thanks to adding 75% of her earnings to this pot for another 7 years, she has a Considerable Sum.
I forgot to calculate in her pension earnings, so let's say that Suzy's nest egg made her £10,000 between 2022 and 2023, that is, before her 25th birthday in 2023.
Suzie was not allowed to marry Scooter until he was solvent, so they were engaged for an entire year. They married on Suzie's 25th birthday, and it was all very romantic and glam. Suzie had horrified her colleagues by retiring from salaried employment a week before the occasion, and Scooter's take home pay was £2000.80 a month.
After the honeymoon, Suzie discovered that a lifetime of earning, saving, and gloating over her ISA made it difficult to be happy doing nothing but housework, shopping, and sewing, so she found some people happy to pay her to walk their dogs. Scooter refused to touch a penny of her ISA income, saying his salary should be enough.
But was it? Having looked at rentals in their town, I have determined that they had to pay at least £975 a month for a 2 bedroom flat (the second bedroom, which is tiny, fortuitous, as Suzie was pregnant by her 26th birthday) in a decent neighbourhood. I have also asked British car owners how much it costs to run a car per month. As the clickbait headlines say, the answer may shock you.
Here are Suzie and Scooter's average monthly expenses for 2023, not including their wedding or honeymoon.
Rent: £975
Groceries: £250
Car (including petrol): £250
Council Tax: £153
Gas & Electric: £150
Entertainment (including the Pub): £100
Broadband: £30
Church donations: £40.80 (The 80p was for the coffee & biscuits after Mass, 20 p a time)
Charges for both mobile phones: £30
Gifts for others (excluding Christmas): £20
Sundries: £30
TOTAL: £2,028.80
Oh la la. £28 over. Fortunately, Suzie made £250 a month from her dog-walking. The £222 she and Scooter saved from it went into a Lifetime ISA, in which they are growing a down payment for a home of their very own.
Objections
Holidays: Having been on Suzie's self-funded dream honeymoon this year, they didn't feel the need of another holiday. When Scooter gets a raise in 2024, they will put most of the extra money in a Holiday Fund.
Emergency Fund: Scooter, who enjoys his work but also reading FIRE books with the zeal of a convert, wondered if the £222 ought not to go into an Emergency Fund instead. Suzie, however, suggested that they should consider the Capital Gains of her self-earned dowry their Emergency Fund. Besides, the UK government tops up the Lifetime ISA by a 25% (up to £1000) bonus per year. This bonus is, depending on your outlook, either "free money" or a well-deserved tax return.
Scooter's Gym: Scooter quit paying gym fees, for his enlightened employer offers gym memberships in the work benefits package.
The Low Broadband Bill: They don't have a home phone, and they are willing to switch whenever to keep a cheap beginning deal.
TV licence? They don't have a telly, and I will not repeat what Suzie and Scooter said about the BBC.
Christmas: The wheels came off the budget car at Christmas, and Suzie dipped into her Capital Gains after all. However, she used most of the money to buy materials for rag dolls. She made rag dolls for everybody who didn't get a bottle of gin, and they were so popular she is planning to make and sell more on Etsy.
Clothing: After a year of no new clothes and shoes, Suzie has had it. Everyone has a weakness or two, and Suzie's is her wardrobe. Therefore, on her 26th birthday, she told Scooter she had set herself a family clothing budget of 25% of her capital gains. At this date, that represents £2,500 a year and is well under Suzy's tax threshold. Suzie, like all right-thinking capitalists, loathes taxes.
Baby Stuff: Suzie is in this unsalaried-married-woman situation because she is that kind of Trad. But like most Trads, she is in a family and a community that is delighted to shift boxes of baby stuff from one home to another. But whatever else The Baby will need when he or she is born this summer, Suzie and Scooter will pay for it out of Scooter's raise and Suzie's clothing budget.
Conclusion
Scooter and Suzie can't quite live on one salary in the city in which they live. Therefore, Suzie doing odd jobs and then beginning her own home business, which her creator (me) has decided will flourish, is the only way forward for now, unless she contributes more of her capital gains, which Scooter has vetoed.
Scooter has a solid profession, a good work ethic, an amiable heart, and a fantastic household manager, so I am not particularly concerned for his and Suzie's financial future. When they are middle-aged they will think about the penny-pinched first years of their marriage with nostalgia.
*UPDATE: You may be still reeling at their monthly rent and wondering if they would not be better off buying a home. The answer is: not yet. Even if Suzie were to scrape off £30,000 of her capital for a 10% down payment, and even at just a fixed rate of 5%, they would be repaying about £1,579 per month on any flat or townhouse in their town resembling a family home. They would also have to pay monthly home insurance and boiler insurance. If anything needed repairing, they would have to pay for that, too.
Incidentally, my musings should not be taken as a substitute for professional financial advice. If you're curious about FIRE in the UK, check out Monevator. In the USA, Mr. Money Mustache is a superstar. In Canada, the Millennial Revolution have interesting (if foulmouthed) things to say.
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