Moving forward - revised

Back at the beginning of January I set out my main objectives for 2012. The original post was provisional by reason of the uncertainty surrounding my employment situation - I came off contract earlier this year. That issue has now been resolved and I will continue working on an open ended basis (although subject to a three month notice period) on only slightly less favourable terms than applied for the last three years.

The implications of this arrangement are:

• I am at least morally committed to working for at least one more year
• absent another really awful year for equities, our finances will have a sufficiently large comfort buffer to enable me to retire in early 2013 even if mrs traineeinvestor decides to stop working
• I expect to maintain a savings rate above 50%
• absent new investments, I will have much more cash on hand than I would feel comfortable holding for very long given the concerns of the impact of inflation
• I will have to do more business travel than in previous years - I don't mind doing some but am not a great fan of being required to frequently travel on business. As it is only for one year, I'll just have to suck it up

Sigh.....twelve months to go.....