Blog Background

Ok, so this is a dabble in the dark, I’ve got a few savings built up during lockdown, not much but first savings I’ve ever had. I am not money orientated, I probably should be but I’ve always thought there is more to life and family, children etc have played a big part in that so far. However I’m now 50+ and looking at retirement and starting to feel a little slower, a little more tired, a little more like do I want to do this until I’m 67? No!

So when I started my current job the retirement age was 62, not for the state pension but the rather good one that the company created for its employees. Unfortunately due to having kids etc I had to pull out of that, what with the personal contributions rising to 13% of my wages, a newborn to feed and raise, and a recently purchased house to pay for I could not afford nearly 1/6th of my wages to go into a pension. The company soon realised the the pension was also rather too good and it was draining them of cash too so they folded it and moved to another less generous one, however I did have a few years in it so I get about £140/month from that, not much but something. The state pension is currently £180/week so its almost an extra weeks worth per month

The new company pension which I joined late due to the above circumstances I am projected to get £106/month from, this is poor considering and that is with a projected retirement age of 67 (I am considering stopping this one and moving the monthly contributions into DeFi but we’ll see)

So in summary my retirement age has moved form 62, to 65 (previous state pension age) to the new 67. Now I like my job don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure I can do it another 10+ years, whether they’ll want me for another 10+ years and if I lost it could I ever get re-employed and retrain at my age – unlikely!

So Project 1.5 was born, the idea is: I get up about 7am, every day, my partner likes to lie in, my kids (now older) when they are with me are either lying in too or off to college on the 7:45 bus. I start work at 9am – 5pm pretty much every weekday, I do have Flexi-time and do change this now and again but my boss prefers me to stick to 9-5 so he knows where I am and that someone is in the office (we also have flexible working which started during the pandemic and were very lucky to get 98% of people to be able to work from home) but being local I tend to be in 3, 4 sometimes 5 days a week

As such I generally have, give or take, about 1.5 hours a day (7am – 8:30am) sometimes more on the weekend but about that ‘free’ to myself. Some of this time is spent watching Discovery, Netflix, Amazon Prime or YoutTube. Usually documentaries and box sets the rest of my family do not appreciate, things like gold prospecting, searching for lost Aztec or Templar treasures, that sort of thing, or on Netflix / Amazon the series that may be a little too ‘grown up’ for them like The Boys or Breaking Bad

So, the idea is to spend those 1.5 hours doing something else to better myself, so not just crypto DeFi but also physical & mental exercise, learning, reading, creative endeavours and hopefully generating income to power all of the above from now into retirement. To shake up the post lockdown lethargy, re-energise after a thankfully brief bout covid that seems to have heightened the lethargy and stolen my mojo!

So please feel free to follow, as stated this IS NOT financial advice but purely for entertainment and inspiration to create your own Project1.5 or use whatever ‘free time’ to an find during the day to re-energise and set yourself onto a path of betterment