The 5 year plan to £50k

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HAHAHAHAH!! WHAT??££!!£!!???

40k saved up and scared to rent for even a 6 month period?!?

Absolutely unbelievable. You could rent a house for 1k a month, pay all utilities for 6 months and still have 30odd grand left over.

You seriously need to address some issues. That is absolutely insane.

And my rented place lets us have a dog. We had to pay an extra £90 on our admin fees but its no drama. So rent near your work and then get a cat. Jesus christ.
 
El Pew said:
What? No it doesn't. IT contracting may be one of the few ways he can earn the sort of money he's after in that short of a time frame. Plus, with contracting you are effectively self-employed and can use various tax shenanigans (e.g. pay yourself minimum wage salary but take a dividend from the company - dividends are taxed lower than income) to reduce your tax level and increase your effective income.

To do this properly though you need to have good skills in a specialised area - something like Oracle Databases, MS System Centre suite, VMWare, SAP, etc etc. If you have the right skills it's much easier to get a contracting position because the barriers to entry are much lower than full-time permanent positions. Plenty of positions come up for 6-18 month positions at day rates of anywhere between £400-1000 with these skill sets, if you can blag your way on to one of the lower paid opportunities that gets you the experience to earn more for your next position.

See here's a plan for you OP:

1. Skill up in a specialist area of IT. This may include buying yourself some kit to practice on, and will definitely include paying to get the relevant qualifications which will be a requirement for some positions.
2. If possible get some practical experience as a full-time in your chosen specialisation - get a job as a low-level VMWare guy if that's an area you fancy. Gain experience and contacts.
3. Set yourself up as a self employed contractor
4. Apply for as many contract positions in your area of expertise as possible until you get something. There are shortages in many of the areas I listed, hence why people are willing to pay contractor day rates. Be prepared to travel for the right contracts, definitely to London, maybe abroad - UAE/Qatar/Saudi are red-hot for IT at the moment if you can stomach it. Many contracts will include expense allowances for travel/hotels.
5. Get the experience, finish your contract, move on to the next. It's not fun job hunting every 6 months but the high rates can give you flexibility to take months off between contracts if you want.

I went from a general IT dogsbody to a specialist area which I had no experience, within 5 years I was easily in a position to go as an independent contractor - I haven't given up my perm job yet but I have moonlighted on short 5-10 day contract projects at £500+/day during my leave periods.
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Indeed. I know the world of contracting rather well :p

There are however absolutely loads of general contracts which will pay the kind of numbers (after efficient taxation unlike a PAYE £50k salary) for which i am sure being "in IT" already he would be able to tender for quite easily. You make it sound as though it is a specialised world or nothing - not true, plenty of support desks and support roles are contract based. These roles wont pay the 4-5's that you mention, but £50k Salary is the equivalent of a day rate at under £200 - these rates are not specialist ones.
 
Another thing...

With 40k you could enroll in a course that will improve your career prospects, you could rent a place near the college. You could come out with something very worthwhile.

But in all honesty I actually think you are so indecisive and wimpy that you wont do anything to better your life at all. Your idea of living is fretting over the prospect of leaving your parents while watching cats play pianos on youtube.
 
Nix said:
Do you know how long it would take me to save up 40k?

Run it by me again why you're not moving out right now?
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The reason I have saved anything at all is because I haven't paid the going rate for rents down here. If I moved out I'd be paying £600/month for a small flat. I would have saved *nothing* from the 15k job (in fact I'd probably have gone into debt). I'd be saving £500 a month now rather than £1300 a month.

That of course ignores the possibility that I could have moved up country years ago, where rents are lower, and incomes higher. Which I accept I could have done.
 
I'm not asking why you didn't move out. I get that, I got caught in a very similar trap.

I'm asking why you're not moving out now?

You have nothing holding you back. Nothing.

I have about an 1/8th of what you've saved up. I'm going to go travelling with it and when I'm back I'll probably be lucky to have 1/20th of yours left yet I'm still moving out.

You have nothing holding you back. It's time to stand on your own two. It really, really is.
 
I seriously cant get over the fact you have 40k put away and you wont even risk any of that money on trying something new with your life. I would love to have 40k put away. It would be for a house deposit in a place I know and have experienced as a mature independent adult.

If I was aspiring for a career that money would be invested in courses. You have enough money to live my lifestyle of renting and feeding myself for 2 years.

This is downright insane. Does your Mother know you are sitting on 40 thousand pounds? My Mother woulda kicked my ass out if she was paying for me to live a life where saving 40k was possible.
 
Think of all the money you'd save if you lived with your parents forever!

Heck, always live alone with no girlfriend/wife/kids and you'll be saving mega.
 
McGray said:
Think of all the money you'd save if you lived with your parents forever!

Heck, always live alone with no girlfriend/wife/kids and you'll be saving mega.
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Then when his parents pass away he will inherit a house of his own so that he can store his money in the newly empty rooms. He can live like Scrooge McDuck, but with 50 cats and an inability to clean his own underpants.
 
You could easily afford to buy a flat and pay a very low mortgage, even if your salary does drop a little after March.

You could even buy a two bedroom flat and rent out the other room which should allow you to continue to save at your current rate should you be able to either extend your contract or find somewhere permanent.

There's no need to earn £50k, you don't need a house unless you're planning on starting a family with someone (if that were ever the case then presumably your potential partner would also be able to contribute) it seems that you're very close to you family so I wouldn't suggest moving away - just lower your expectations slightly unless you're prepared to put the effort in.
 
Jez said:
There are however absolutely loads of general contracts which will pay the kind of numbers (after efficient taxation unlike a PAYE £50k salary) for which i am sure being "in IT" already he would be able to tender for quite easily. You make it sound as though it is a specialised world or nothing - not true, plenty of support desks and support roles are contract based. These roles wont pay the 4-5's that you mention, but £50k Salary is the equivalent of a day rate at under £200 - these rates are not specialist ones.
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Fair enough. I took £50k to be a minimum though, not the final target - and if you have a few months off between contracts you'll rapidly drop below the £50k annual at £200 per. I'd go for something more specialised partly to offset this, and partly to open up future possibilities - the kind of roles that pay £500 per day are often ones that can transition into £50-60k permanent roles with all the job security that that entails. Or, you can go the other way and become a hyper-specialist contractor - I know of people who are at the level where they can charge £500 per hour as uber-specialised firefighters.
 
So I see your reason for not moving went from: it not being affordable on your 26k salary, to you simply not wanting to.

The more you wait the more you will be less inclined. Do you stil seeing yourself living at home in your 50s?
 
Work hard in current job to make it permanent. Rent a place that will be a nice kick to make sure your not out of the job when your contract is over. While doing this look at college/universities courses. If you have no idea what job you want, just pick a course that sounds interesting to you, and go from there.
 
El Pew said:
Fair enough. I took £50k to be a minimum though, not the final target - and if you have a few months off between contracts you'll rapidly drop below the £50k annual at £200 per. I'd go for something more specialised partly to offset this, and partly to open up future possibilities - the kind of roles that pay £500 per day are often ones that can transition into £50-60k permanent roles with all the job security that that entails. Or, you can go the other way and become a hyper-specialist contractor - I know of people who are at the level where they can charge £500 per hour as uber-specialised firefighters.
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I know of people that have been in the same place for 7 years on £1200 a day.

MENTAL.

Just a general VMware/Server support role.
 
El Pew said:
Fair enough. I took £50k to be a minimum though, not the final target - and if you have a few months off between contracts you'll rapidly drop below the £50k annual at £200 per. I'd go for something more specialised partly to offset this, and partly to open up future possibilities - the kind of roles that pay £500 per day are often ones that can transition into £50-60k permanent roles with all the job security that that entails. Or, you can go the other way and become a hyper-specialist contractor - I know of people who are at the level where they can charge £500 per hour as uber-specialised firefighters.
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Totally agreed :) I was suggesting an upgrade to a "better" area where could climb a ladder (as per your specialisation suggestions), remember he is only on £27k right now so he will easily better that doing virtually anything.
 
diamount said:
288k for that? Surely you jest.
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I'm not surprised about the amounts, plenty of IT consultancy companies will charge that amount even for relatively 'easy' work like Windows administration. I am surprised by the length of time though, I thought most places had rules against employing contractors for more than 2 years without at least a 6-month gap between periods - HMRC tend to look down on these sort of 'permanent contractor' roles as some sort of income tax dodge.
 
In what little time I had today after work, I signed up to Linkedin. I have no contacts on it yet tho, and I haven't worked out how exactly you use it.

Then looked for flats in Truro where I live. Room in shared house (no pets) £400 - £500 pm. "Maisonette" (crappy little single-room places where you sleep in your kitchen) £600 pm. "Studio" flats and 1-2 bed terraced houses £800 pm. Somebody actually trying to rent out his caravan for £400 pm.

Truro is very expensive. Anywhere out of Truro I have to get a car to commute to work. Will look more seriously (longer) tomorrow and try the surrounding villages.

P.S. I'm not paying £800 pm on rent. Just not going there. Absolutely no way. I would cry myself to sleep each night if I paid that much.
 
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