How to spend money to improve life?

I'm in the fortunate position of having built up a large amount of savings, and I'm not sure what to do with it.

I could quit work or work less, but (a) work is my downtime, during which I recover from social activities (I'm a self-employed content creator) and (b) I want to maintain a decent income on my last three years' tax returns in case I ever have to move home and pass a rental check.

Buying a home is an obvious answer, but I've looked into this and very quickly became burned out by the social requirements of engaging with agents etc and the stress of making decisions. I'm currently renting a flat and getting quite a good deal on it (no rent increase in the last nine years).

I hate travel as I dislike being in unfamiliar places.

I do my own haircuts, etc, not because I can't afford to the financial cost of having it done professionally, but because the spoon requirement of interacting with the service provider is too high. I can't do phone calls as auditory processing disorder means I don't understand what the person on the other end of the phone is saying, which puts a hard barrier in the way of using many services.

I'm on a fixed daily diet to manage a medical condition. I don't drink.

I like reading but prefer to get books from the library as the need to return them by a deadline ensures I'll be motivated to read them.

I enjoy running and hiking, but beyond the cost of the bus fare to get to my favourite routes and occasional gear replacements, this is free.

I take dance classes but from experience, I lose interest if I spend too much time on this hobby. In the past I tried going to weekend events but found them too exhausting.

I enjoy doing online courses and am considering going back into education in a more formal way, but again I worry the social requirements will be overwhelming. Also, my biggest obstacle to completing the courses I'm already taking is lack of energy/time.

I've spent thousands on counselling, coaching, etc, none of which has been helpful and some of which has been actively harmful to me. My mental health has improved dramatically since I stopped doing all this.

I could pay to get a faster autism diagnosis, but I think I'm already near the top of the NHS waiting list.

I dislike having a lot of stuff/clutter, and find shopping a hassle. Figuring out how to accept deliveries is even worse than doing it in person.

I worry about investing/locking away money in case it becomes inaccessible (phone call difficulties as well as the usual risk of losing money on investments).

In summary, I'm pretty happy with my life, don't particularly want to change anything, and definitely don't want to add anything into it that's going to cause me hassle. But I'm stressed about having money sitting there gradually getting eaten by inflation and feel I should do something with it.

I've already made small changes, such as buying things because I feel like it and not spending too long researching the options to ensure I get the best deal, and being more generous towards friends in terms of buying drinks etc.

What do you spend money on that improves your life? Or how do you invest/use it to give you a feeling of security?

Parents
  • you got it right yourself in your first few lines... buy a home.

    this is important step to take, and yes its super stressful if you have a really bad solicitor, i advise you to never use a recommended solicitor, and never use premier property lawyers or any lawyer that is part of the simplify group because they are rubbish and take a year to complete the job and then they fail to do the land registry.

    but owning your own home is one required thing you need before you can think of retiring as home ownership is the key thing that makes retirement possible... you cannot retire when renting as rent requires too much money and it increases too much all the time. home ownership allows you to have low cost life that makes retiring possible especially once you paid mortgage off and have no big bad mortgage or rent bill to pay that threatens to make you homeless upon failure of paying. so ownership is required for any future plans for anyone.

    once you have set out everything you need to actually be able to have your life on course to be able to retire in the future without effort, then you can focus on spending on random extras.... like a playstation 5 or something, i find a playstation was a required spending for my own mental health but then again i have grown up with playstations so not having one kinda made a massive gap in my life.

Reply
  • you got it right yourself in your first few lines... buy a home.

    this is important step to take, and yes its super stressful if you have a really bad solicitor, i advise you to never use a recommended solicitor, and never use premier property lawyers or any lawyer that is part of the simplify group because they are rubbish and take a year to complete the job and then they fail to do the land registry.

    but owning your own home is one required thing you need before you can think of retiring as home ownership is the key thing that makes retirement possible... you cannot retire when renting as rent requires too much money and it increases too much all the time. home ownership allows you to have low cost life that makes retiring possible especially once you paid mortgage off and have no big bad mortgage or rent bill to pay that threatens to make you homeless upon failure of paying. so ownership is required for any future plans for anyone.

    once you have set out everything you need to actually be able to have your life on course to be able to retire in the future without effort, then you can focus on spending on random extras.... like a playstation 5 or something, i find a playstation was a required spending for my own mental health but then again i have grown up with playstations so not having one kinda made a massive gap in my life.

Children
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