Early-retirement wannabe

Goldiegirl

Marine_life wrote: »

I will need to fill 365 days a year!

For me, the whole point of early retirement is going to be, on some days, not to 'do' anything at all - some days it will simply be enough to 'be'.


But if you need to fill the days - why not start tracing your family history, trust me, that can take up days and days, and you still need more time.

mark55man

For me lots and lots of reading, walking and sea side viewing, catch up on 2 decades of cinema and a reasonable but not excessive supply of G&T +


plus lots of time with family if they can still cope with a grumpy old git with time on his hands (hoping the grumpiness may decrease with retirement)


(How expensive can a winter rug and a sneaky cornetto now and again be)

gfplux

Marine life,
First thanks for your very open posts. Your thoughts and plans echo many others even if not living outside the UK,
May I ask..... On all of these thoughts and plans how involved is your partner.
For me when I retired (at 53, 16 years ago) my partner gave me a few surprises. All now settled but difficult at the time.
Secondly......."how to fill my time" You are listening to the wrong people. Ask anyone retired and they will dispel the myth of having nothing to do.
16 years of retirement and every day, week, year is full of things to do or not to do.
Frankly there are too many theorist posting and not enough of real life experience of retirement that really would help all those planning that early retirement date.
Thanks again.
Pssst stop telling everyone how good it is to live outside the UK. We don't want all those immigrants stopping before they get to the UK ...... Joke

itm2

I've only got 5 months experience to draw on but I think gfplux is spot-on. The question of what to do with my time never arises. In my case I'm not the outdoorsy type but there's always a little job or project to tackle - for example I wrote my first eBook which I published last month, and am now tackling the job of digitising my old photos, slides and negatives (which will probably take months, but it's a nice trip down memory lane). I've also got 20 years of holiday camcorder footage which I'd like to edit into watchable clips - God knows how long that project will take. I'm always tinkering with technology, which is another notorious time-consumer.

I think the best way to describe it is like a weekend - if you find yourself getting bored and restless at weekends then maybe you might have an issue with retirement, but frankly I never met anyone who did. My retired friends and relatives always told me that they're never short of things to do. Now I understand what they meant.

marine_life from what you've written so far I have a sneaking suspicion that you'll be busier in retirement than you are at present!

Marine_life

gfplux wrote: »

Marine life,
First thanks for your very open posts. Your thoughts and plans echo many others even if not living outside the UK,
May I ask..... On all of these thoughts and plans how involved is your partner.
For me when I retired (at 53, 16 years ago) my partner gave me a few surprises. All now settled but difficult at the time.
Secondly......."how to fill my time" You are listening to the wrong people. Ask anyone retired and they will dispel the myth of having nothing to do.
16 years of retirement and every day, week, year is full of things to do or not to do.
Frankly there are too many theorist posting and not enough of real life experience of retirement that really would help all those planning that early retirement date.
Thanks again.
Pssst stop telling everyone how good it is to live outside the UK. We don't want all those immigrants stopping before they get to the UK ...... Joke

Thanks.

My partner is pretty much involved. On the one hand she does not want me tobe stressed at work and therefore she would like to see me retire. On the otherhand I know she would miss the money (to some extent) or rather, not the moneyas such but more the uncertainty of becoming spenders rather than savers.Secondly, she knows how all-consuming work can be so I think she worries alittle bit about what I will do. Nevertheless, we have gone through our"surprises" many years ago and I think after 25 years marriage weknow each other pretty well (or maybe that's the surprise . Seriously though we are aligned on some ofthe things we like (where to live, socializing etc.) but have things we like todo separately, in addition there will be things we want to do which might bringus closer together (play golf, more travel etc.).

I think you are probably right about the theorists although I do have adirect role model in that brother retired at 50 just under two years ago and wehave a lot of things in common. He seemsto be having fun although his wife is still working.

I am on three weeks’ vacation now which I think will help to crystallizesome of the variables that need to drop into place and give me some clear airto think things through. As I said a fewposts ago, my earliest retirement date is October 2014 but given my contract Iactually have six months’ notice from the end of the quarter in which I hand inmy notice which gives me a potential action date of somewhere between 1 April2014 and 30 June 2014 if I want to take advantage of the earliest possibledate. However, at the moment I thinkthat might slip a bit.

One huge piece of good news is that my daughter who expects to graduate inthe summer has already managed to secure herself a very nicely playing graduatejob. This enables us to graduallyrelease the purse strings.

So finally on the UK. We have thoughtlong and hard about coming back and to be honest I am still not 100% that wewon’t come back someday - just not now. Where to live is one of those things which is so personal. Ever since we went to the Alps for my firstskiing holiday we always thought of it as the perfect place for our lifestyleand that has not changed. We have plentyof (mainly Polish) immigrants here in Germany but it just does not seem to causethe same polarization of opinions as it seems to in the uk, although maybe asan immigrant myself I am more immune to those views!

Keep the good ideas coming!

cyclonebri1

Look again, I'm back in. I was about here about a godzillion pages ago,

There is only one reason for early retirement, simples, 1 word, CHOICE

The 1st choice is to carry on working or otherwise. My praise goes out to those who are so happy or content that they wish to carry on.
The unfortunates are those that simply have to work for economic reasons:

So, the choices;

Doing exactly what you want covers the lot. Doesn't matter what your intent. You can spend your wealth down, you can give it all away.
You can start afresh and work for charity, volunteer etc.

You can self indulge, at best go fishing everyday, or blow it at the pub, the betting shop etc.

The message is, unless you fund your retirement, someone else will make the choice for you.;););)


And as an aside, I post this on my 40th wedding anniversary here in the UK, the only place I could ever call home.

Marine_life

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Look again, I'm back in. I was about a godzillion pages ago,

There is only one reason for early retirement, simples, 1 word, CHOICE

The 1st choice is to carry on working or otherwise. My praise goes out to those who are so happy or content that they wish to carry on.
The unfortunates are those that simply have to work for economic reasons:

So, the choices;

Doing exactly what you want covers the lot. Doesn't matter what your intent. You can spend your wealth down, you can give it all away.
You can start afresh and work for charity, volunteer etc.

You can self indulge, at best go fishing everyday, or blow it at the pub, the betting shop etc.

The message is, unless you fund your retirement, someone else will make the choice for you.;););)

You're back ...and we missed you

What you say is very true and I truely feel sorry for those starting out in work today that finances and the pensions industry in general is in such a mess that I fear economic necessity is what might leave many with no choice. On the other hand I look at the younger geenration and I think many are happy with less (compared perhaps to their over-ambitious parents).

We will certainly be leaving a property for the children so long term they should be fine however some of my thinking on choices is that while I continue to earn good money, in part it means that I can continue to support the children. Of course many will say "live your own life" and indeed that is pretty much what my brother has done and his boys have all had to accumulate university debt (but they don't seem that worried).

But back to choices.....I am "lucky" in my job in that I have nobody looking over my shoulder and my day is my own (I have often joked that I could leave and I think it would take six months before someone noticed) but the days are long and the stress pernicious.

Life's choices are not all easy.

cyclonebri1

Marine_life wrote: »

You're back ...and we missed you
Much appreciated, as you gather my choices are made, this isn't a focus thread for me, but I still keep track,
What you say is very true and I truely feel sorry for those starting out in work today that finances and the pensions industry in general is in such a mess that I fear economic necessity is what might leave many with no choice. On the other hand I look at the younger geenration and I think many are happy with less (compared perhaps to their over-ambitious parents).

We will certainly be leaving a property for the children.

We reached the point probably 2 years ago where we realised the kids, now partnered by "high fliers" would no longer need our support or our legacy. That is a fantastic relief to any parant that can get there.
so long term they should be fine however some of my thinking on choices is that while I continue to earn good money, in part it means that I can continue to support the children. Of course many will say "live your own life" and indeed that is pretty much what my brother has done and his boys have all had to accumulate university debt (but they don't seem that worried).

But back to choices.....I am "lucky" in my job in that I have nobody looking over my shoulder and my day is my own (I have often joked that I could leave and I think it would take six months before someone noticed) but the days are long and the stress pernicious.

Life's choices are not all easy.

But they are choices, some good, but some bad,;)

jamesd

Marine_life wrote: »

I'm not sure i want any more exposure to the stock market at this point but with savings rates so low its difficult to know what to do for the best (any ideas and thoughts welcome ;-)

Two that come to mind for some people, only one applicable to you:

1. My rate of return on invested money via isePankur P2P lending is currently over 30%. Over 20% seems easy and 25% not hard. But you need to take your time to get money invested. It's not a place where you can just invest a lump sum on day one, you have to wait for the borrowers and that takes time. It's available to all EU residents.

2. At least one VCT is paying the equivalent of 9% tax free after the 30% income tax relief on the purchase price. Before allowing for the chance to sell at say a 10% capital loss after five years and reinvest for another 30% tax relief chunk. I haven't decided on this yet. UK people only.

Each has risks but 5% of investable assets in each might be interesting.

Marine_life

jamesd wrote: »

Two that come to mind for some people, only one applicable to you:

1. My rate of return on invested money via isePankur P2P lending is currently over 30%. Over 20% seems easy and 25% not hard. But you need to take your time to get money invested. It's not a place where you can just invest a lump sum on day one, you have to wait for the borrowers and that takes time. It's available to all EU residents.

2. At least one VCT is paying the equivalent of 9% tax free after the 30% income tax relief on the purchase price. Before allowing for the chance to sell at say a 10% capital loss after five years and reinvest for another 30% tax relief chunk. I haven't decided on this yet. UK people only.

Each has risks but 5% of investable assets in each might be interesting.

Thanks for the tip - I am interested in getting into peer-to-peer lending so I will take a serious look at that.

I will be honest (and few will agree or approve) but I have made my best returns playing online poker. Typically I play small stakes tournaments ($5 to $20 entry fee). I have been playing since 2004 and after my initial investment of around $250 ($50 to set up an account on five different sites) I have made around $30,000 and never had to reinvest. The problem is that each tournament takes around 8-9 hours so I have not played so much in the last 2 years but I will play again in retirement. Its not for everyone but it works for me.