HOW I MANAGE MY MONEY: 34-YEAR-OLD WITH £28K PENSION SPENDING £950 A MONTH ON RENT

In our How I Manage My Money series we aim to find out how people in the UK are spending, saving and investing money to meet their costs and achieve their goals.

This week we speak to Jamie Wall, 34, who lives in Manchester with his cat, Leo. Jamie, a personal finance strategist and analyst, adds between £500 to £600 to savings and investments each month and has £28,000 saved in pensions. He would love to buy a high-end performance car and wants to be able to take a couple of months off work a year without having to worry about money.

My monthly income: My monthly income typically ranges between £4,000 and £4,300. This includes my full-time salary from my job as a personal finance strategist and analyst, and additional earnings from freelance consulting and occasional writing commissions.

My monthly outgoings: Rent, £950; council tax, £180; groceries, £300; gas and electric, £110; water, £20; broadband, £35; mobile, £25; transport including car fuel and insurance, £180; subscriptions, £45; money on Leo, £35 to £40; Spotify, £10.99; Netflix, £10.99; Kindle Unlimited, £9.49; The Economist subscription, £12.99; Google storage, £1.59; money into savings and investments, £600; money into workplace and private pension, £150 to £200; spending on things like eating out, takeaways, books, day trips, hobbies and holidays, £300. I try to keep around £200 each month for emergencies.

I grew up in a small town in the north of England. We were not poor, but money was something we were taught to respect. My parents instilled a strong sense of financial discipline in me from a young age, namely save first, plan ahead and do not overspend. I studied economics at the University of Manchester, where I developed an interest in behavioural finance and decision-making.

I now work as a personal finance strategist and analyst for a business within the online gaming sector, where I focus on consumer finance behaviour, savings habits and market trends. I deal with systems and habits more than spreadsheets. Outside of my main job, I run a small independent consulting practice, working with freelancers, creatives and small business owners and helping them take control of their finances.

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My own relationship with money has, for the most part, been practical. However, sometimes I have lapsed. In my twenties, I took out a credit agreement to buy a laptop. It was a 2019 MacBook Air, which cost nearly £2,000.

A few weeks after buying the laptop, I unexpectedly lost my job, so paying it off took time and was not easy. I intended to pay it off in nine months, but it took me 15 months.

This experience taught me to never take on financial commitments without a safety net. Since then, I have become much more cautious with big expenses and always try to stay a few steps ahead.

I generally allocate 40 per cent to 50 per cent of my income for essentials, 25 per cent for long-term goals like savings and investments, 15 per cent for flexible spending on things like books, weekend getaways and meals out and 10 per cent for unexpected costs and emergencies. I do a subscription clean-up every few months and cancel anything I have not used. It sounds minor, but over time it really adds up.

Each month I put between £500 to £600 per month into savings and investments. I add £300 a month to a stocks and shares Isa and around £200 a month into a cash savings account. I currently have around £12,000 in savings and investments.

Putting money away in pensions is very important to me. I see my pensions as a quiet kind of freedom for later life. I contribute around £150 to £200 per month, split between a workplace scheme and a private pension. My total pension pots are currently valued at around £28,000, and I will be trying to increase my contributions gradually.

I would like to have the option to retire before the age of 65, or at least scale back by then. I’m definitely not planning to rely solely on the state pension when I am older. I want my retirement to feel like a choice and not a financial trap.

I rent a modern one-bedroom flat in Manchester for £950 per month. It is well-located, comfortable and suits my lifestyle. I hope to buy my own property eventually, perhaps something in a quieter location with space for a dog. For now, however, renting works.

Money, for me, is freedom and flexibility. I do not chase luxury for the sake of it, but I do like having room to dream a little. I want to know I can take time off, support someone I care about, or change direction without having to worry.

My ideal salary is not a number, but the feeling of breathing room, stability and enough left over to be generous. I have a few things on my wishlist, though. I would like to own a performance car and learn to drive it properly on a track. I’d like a used BMW M4 or Audi RS Q8. A decent used M4 would cost around £30,000 to £45,000, while an RS Q8 could cost £75,000 to £100,000. It is a long-term goal of mine to buy one, and it would not be an impulse buy.

Ultimately, I want to have a family and give my future children a solid foundation for life. That would mean providing them with a good education, access to physical and mental healthcare, a savings account with their name on it, and healthy teeth! I think the latter is really important and often gets forgotten! I would also like to boost my emergency savings pot and be able to take one to two months off work each year without having to stress about it.

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2025-06-16T05:17:35Z