Category Archives: Savings

August 2026 Savings, plus other updates

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A delayed update as I was on annual leave at the beginning of the month and didn’t even open my laptop.

Compared to previous months, August was ‘action-packed’!

During the month, I…

– Attended various social events with friends and colleagues

Left was how it looked just after the start, right was as it was ending

– Saw the eclipse! Unlikely to see another in my lifetime?

– Attended a couple of festivals; one in York (Ministry of Sound Classical) and a local one featuring cover bands (eg Take That, Oasis)

– Took part in a charity sports day event organised by work at a local running track/sports club. Despite the rain, I completed 10k (not all at once and not all running) but my claim to fame is that I was the oldest person there and I didn’t come last in any of the events I took part in, including sack race, skipping race, 100m sprint and team tug of war! Actually I lie, I came last in egg and spoon but didn’t drop my egg once, haha! Anyway, for my efforts, my body was hurting for about a week afterwards! Also, my nephew was doing a weeks’ work experience and helped with photography duties!

So, how did I get on in August?

I saved 27.8% of my net salary.  The above includes £50 Premium Bond winnings, £12.66 from Prolific surveys, £65.32 from Google Ads and I took £500 profit from my options account (not had a chance to do an update on my options but I’m still doing them).

Shares and Investment Trusts

No new shares or ITs were bought – I just reinvested in existing holdings.

Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.

(Entire portfolio here)

Future Fund 

At the end of August, my FF had continued its upward trajectory, hitting £428,532.39 – the rocket continues its mad flight ever upwards to the beyond. I should be rejoicing but still not really…

Dividends and Other Income

An average month for dividends: Continue reading →

July 2026 Savings, plus other updates

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Apologies for the lateness of this update, just not been able to get round to it.

July was a blur, where I continued to enjoy a great summer of sport, pottering around my garden when I could, watched the epic ‘The Odyssey’ in the cinema and had a couple of social outings with work.

This month was also sad as my uncle passed away and I met up with cousins who I hadn’t seen since we were teenagers. Kind of sad that it takes a funeral to bring the family together in this way.

Anyway, how did I get on in July?

I saved 33.8% of my net salary.  The above includes a £200 charity lotto win and £10.57 from Prolific surveys.

Shares and Investment Trusts 

No changes made to this portfolio after last month’s AI-led rejig – all dividend income was reinvested.

Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.

(Entire portfolio here)

Future Fund 

At the end of July, my FF was at £410,208.97, so the rocket continues onwards and upwards. Happy but anxious still…

Dividends and Other Income

An average month for dividends: Continue reading →

June 2026 Savings, plus other updates

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This month will just be remembered for the heatwaves and football.

The scheduling of the World Cup matches haven’t been great – I love the World Cup (but hate the corrupted FIFA) and have watched pretty all matches bar the ones in the wee early hours. For that late England match against Mexico, yes, I took a day off work to recover!

Tonight is the crunch match between England and Argentina so let’s hope the lads do us proud!

Anyway, how did I get on in June?

I saved 25% of my net salary.  The above includes £11.71 from Prolific surveys and £100 from Nationwide, its ‘Fairer Share’ to all members.

Shares and Investment Trusts – Computer says ‘No!’

For quite a while, I have needed to do a full analysis of my income portfolio but I’ve not had time to go through it all.

So I asked AI (Microsoft Copilot) to analyse for me and it did so in seconds what would have taken me hours…

To cut a long story short, after a few prompts, it ‘recommended’ that I sell or trim 10 holdings as my portfolio was “heavily skewed towards REITS, infrastructure and specialist income trusts and underweight in core dividend equities“.

This got narrowed down to 5 offenders and after some research and consideration, I sold according to its recommendations and added some new investments (Edinburgh Investment trust, which was on my watch list; Rio Tinto and iShares UK Dividend ETF, both which I have held in the past).

I prompted AI to compare the before and after portfolios and its reply was:

“This is a meaningfully improved portfolio vs your previous version — you’ve reduced some clutter and strengthened the backbone.

There are still too many alternatives and “yield vehicles”, with some overlap and redundancy present.”

Yeah well, I am happy with that, glad that it’s an improvement.

Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.

(Entire portfolio here)

Future Fund 

At the end of June, my FF was at £403,521.69, so the rocket is still flying high, though starting to level out a bit? Still feel a tad anxious that something is about to burst…

Dividends and Other Income

Another great month for dividends: Continue reading →

A Dirty Dozen

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I have been so busy just going about my everyday business, that not only did I forget my blog anniversary earlier this year but I completely skipped last year’s anniversary! Must have been menopausal brain fog! Oh well!

Happy  belated 12th birthday to Quietly Saving! 🙂

Anyway, wow, long time or what!

My blog is ancient! Old school and retro? I’m fine with that!  It  works for me – so many (far glossier and modern) FIRE blogs have fallen by the wayside over the years, disappearing into the internet abyss. Sadly, I’ve not had the time (yet) to seek out new ones to add to my redundant blog list. Think the young people aiming for FIRE prefer vlogs.

Last Woman Standing

Do I still enjoy writing this blog? Yes, I still find it freeing to be able to write like this. The blog helps me focus, documents my journey, helps motivate me, it’s a place to empty some of the thoughts rattling around my head or to articulate ideas. It also keeps me accountable.

Some might describe my progress over the years as ‘plodding’ but the truth is, I’ve just gone as fast I’ve wanted to; I was never in a rush to FIRE and I’ve not suffered from FIRE burnout, have just steadily and purposefully moved forwards at my own comfortable pace, step by step. It’s my race, not anyone else’s.

And now here I am, on the final leg of my journey, having set a FIRE date of 2027!  I will do an update post on that as it’s been 10 months (already!) since I made that announcement.

My mindset about FIRE has shifted because it finally really isn’t that long now, yet I have to admit that my mind is still resisting a little about making that next mental step, which is diving into the detailed particulars of decumulation…

Don’t worry, I will get my head round this, I do have a plan of sorts.

Humdrum

Gosh, so all this time, I’ve been posting my rather unexciting numbers monthly (with some glimpses of my life) for 12 years! 

There’s nothing extravagant about my relatively ‘ordinary’ life; it’s one which is filled with a lot of mundane, routine, same-old-same-old stuff, with good things far outweighing the bad. I’m an optimist so that’s how I see it.

What have I been doing these past 12 years?