Izzy Bradshaw says she hasn’t been able to save into a pension – and can’t imagine ever being able to retire 

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 Izzy Bradshaw, 27, an English teacher who lives in Weymouth with her boyfriend, Jordan, 25. Izzy is teaching English as a foreign language in the UK before moving to Asia for at least six months to study for more teaching qualifications. She is currently paying rent for two properties and doesn’t feel ready to buy a home. Izzy is not adding money to a pension and is not sure she will ever be able to retire. All Izzy’s savings are in cash and she finds the idea of investing daunting.

Monthly budget

My monthly income: I’m temporarily teaching English as a foreign language at a summer camp in the UK. Including overtime, my monthly take-home pay is around £3,000 a month. My boyfriend works remotely as a software consultant and has an income coming in. 

My monthly outgoings: I’ve moved to Weymouth temporarily, so am paying for the rent for a houseshare in Dorset and a flat in Sheffield. 

In the Weymouth houseshare with my boyfriend, I’m paying £300 a month for rent and bills. My boyfriend is living with me and paying £700 per month in rent. He pays more as I am also paying rent for a property in Sheffield. 

In Sheffield, I pay £525 in rent for a two-bedroom shared flat with a housemate. Other regular expenses include: groceries, £120; council tax, £88; utility bills, £90; broadband, £25; mobile, £8; car fuel, £40; public transport, £100; subscriptions like Spotify and shared Disney+; £17.50; cash savings, £100 – and other sums into various sinking funds; eating out, £100; clothes, toiletries and household items, £100; day trips, £50 to £70. My car insurance costs £450 for the year. 

Growing up with my parents and sister in Durham, we were frugal as a family. My mum worked as a local public footpaths officer for years and my dad did a number of different jobs. We’d always go on camping holidays in the UK and didn’t eat out much.

After going to university in Sheffield, I started my career in teaching. At the age of 22 I was a qualified primary school teacher, earning £25,000 a year. I started suffering from burnout in this job, and left for a marketing role within the teaching sector, taking a pay cut of £2,000 a year. I’ve also done supply teacher work, but my income from it was low and very unstable.

I also recently spent five months backpacking in South East Asia with a friend. The whole trip cost me £5,000 and I gave myself a budget of £10 a night to spend.

I’m currently teaching English to students from overseas at a summer camp. It is a temporary role and I am taking home around £3,000 a month, which is the highest amount I’ve ever had coming in. However, I know money comes and goes and because this is a temporary role, I am still being careful with my spending.

Travelling a lot makes me realise just how expensive it is to live in the UK. The cost-of-living has made me question whether I want to be here on a long-term basis. I keep track of my spending and have a spreadsheet outlining all of my monthly outgoings. It sounds a bit nerdy, but I enjoy doing this.

I’ve always been careful with money and I think this comes from my parents. If I spend money on one thing, I know I have to sacrifice something else. I don’t have a fixed income or stable job, so I have to be careful. I purchased tickets to see Taylor Swift last year and, despite being a huge Swiftie, I couldn’t bring myself to pay £60 for any merchandise!

My interest in money, budgeting, teaching and travel led me to create my TikTok channel, izzysadventures98, in 2021. I’m not making any money from it, but enjoy posting content every day. I hope to start making money from it next year, but there’s no guarantee that will happen.

I use sinking funds with Monzo to set money aside for different things. I have a pot for travelling, one for emergencies and one for weddings I’m attending next year. I also add about £100 a month to an easy access cash savings account, which has £1,300 in it. I have £12,000 in a cash Lifetime Isa, but this was an inheritance I received from my grandparents.

I don’t know enough about investing to feel confident enough to put my money in anything like a stocks and shares Isa. I’ve read articles and seen online videos about investing, but I need to sit down with someone who can teach me how it works and how to do it. The idea of potentially losing money does worry me and I don’t want to put my money into something that isn’t guaranteed.

I’m paying rent for two properties temporarily. One is in Sheffield and the other is in Weymouth, but I’ll only be based in the latter for a short period. My boyfriend and I were considering buying our own home on the outskirts of Sheffield, but the recent stamp duty changes put us off and have made this more of a challenge.

Buying a home could also be a struggle for us financially, as my boyfriend doesn’t have much disposable income and I don’t have a stable income. I’m not at the point in my life where I’m ready to commit to a location or job and cannot see myself getting on the property ladder for some time.

As my work is temporary and short-term, I am not putting money in a pension. I can’t recall the exact sums, but I have about £2,500 in one of my old teaching job pensions. I’m not too worried about not adding money to a pension at this point in my life. At some point, I will have a stable job and income and be able to increase the size of my pension pot. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to afford to retire.

In the future, I can see myself living and working overseas in a teaching role, perhaps at an international school. I would like to consistently earn £30,000 a year as this amount, particularly if working in a country where the cost-of-living is cheaper than the UK, would give me a good quality of life.

I don’t want to be working in a job which has no work-life balance and I have to work 60 hours a week.

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