Early-retirement wannabe

gallygirl

petepool wrote: »

How did we get here?
We earned good salaries ~£130k joint for the last couple of years but when I got promoted during my 30s we decided not to move house but pay off the mortage using an offset mortage. Once this was done the extra when into ISAs/pensions. I always used company SAYE, share save schemes to the max.
I took redundancy from a large corporate 5 years ago and was able to pick up contract work since then so didn't spend the redundancy check.

Funny that, because I bet most people have just said 'you're so lucky' as if it's been handed to you on a plate .

Glad you've taken the plunge and are enjoying it :T.

petepool

Thanks gally girl
I'd agree I've been in the right place at the right time on occasion not least for the redundancy, although it didn't seem like that at the time.
However to paraphrase Gary Player "the better I understand my finances the luckier I get"
Pete

gallygirl

petepool wrote: »

However to paraphrase Gary Player "the better I understand my finances the luckier I get"
Pete

Yup, funny that, isn't it . I'm hoping to be equally 'lucky' in 2 years time (though I'll be 54 then )

atush

Marine_life wrote: »

Given that my wife is 51 and things have moved on (if you get my meaning ) that would be a medical miracle.

I wish lol.

Marine_life

So dramatic changes are afoot in the ML household.

I've mentioned throughout this thread possibly my major non-financial concern as we head towards (early) retirement being what to do with all that spare time.

So often I hear both in this thread and on the web that most see retirement as the opportunity to really take their chance to enjoy all those things they have spent years dreaming of. Whether that be travelling the globe, making pots or knitting their own yoghurt.

I often feel horribly guilty for saying I simply don't have those ambitions, whether its because of a stressful career, lack of time or simply the fact that we have already travelled reasonably extensively. Anyway before taking the leap we have had some really tough thinking to do.

Mine is not a job where part time or occasional work is a realistic possibility and therefore any job is likely to involve both a material drop in income and a complete change of tack.

So......we are going into the holiday business :eek:

In fact the holiday letting business to be precise.

Everything has happened quite quickly but we have seen (and offered on) a property which has all the aspects we are looking for in a house as well as a fairly healthy existing lettings business. I am not kidding myself for one minute that this means we won't be working (fairly) hard but it seems to find the perfect compromise between:

a. Living somewhere we really want to live.
b. No longer being subject to the control and influence of an employer.
c. Providing a useful income to keep us going without eating too much into our capital.
d. Something to do!

Once we have exchanged contracts I will post a link here and course I will expect many of you as guests (for a very reasonable cost of course )

Exciting times are ahead

atush

Ski Chalet??? Do tell

Marine_life

atush wrote: »

Ski Chalet??? Do tell

Its not a ski chalet :-(

At the end of the day we have had to factor in a few family things such as when we will see the children (we have one daughter just about to finish university and one just about to go) so we have decided to return to the UK.

After 15 years away it's going to be a huge shock but we think for the next 5-10 years it represents the best compromise i.e. we won't have to continually pay to fly the children around the world and once our daughter finishes uni she simply won't have the time (she has a job offer in the UK)

We are quite choosy but the property we have found is amazing. Lets hope it does not fall through.

gallygirl

I reckon it's a knocking shop :rotfl:.

Jul2015

Hi,
Great thread this, its taken me an age to work through. If you don't mind I'd like to run my situation over the board and would be interested in your comments.

Myself mid forties, armed forces all my life. My wife just turned 50 private sector.

My salary is just over 40K, my wife's just over 30k.
We have ISA savings circa 100K and non ISA savings circa 207K.
We have a number of shares (some held in ISAs) & funds currently worth around 77K. I have stopped adding funds to our savings pot and put it all into shares at the moment - quite high risk ones too but I'm happy with that for now.

I will have an immediate pension when I leave the forces of around 15k/yr plus a lump sum around 44k.

My wife has no pension provision (opted out of recent auto-enrolement too). She has always had to change jobs because of my moving around so never got into the pension thing. I think its too late now but open to thoughts.
We don't own a property and live in rented accomodation.

Ideally I would like to retire in July of next year. I estimate that between us we will have circa 450-500k plus a pension income of 15k/yr (frozen until I reach 55).
Not too bothered where we live on retirement.

How would you allocate the funds - i.e house purchase money / income investments etc.? Happy to draw down the money to help fund retirement.

My asperations are to find somewhere no more than 200k and then have the 300k plus my pension for us to live on.

My thoughts are to:

1. Run the savings pot down to zero.
2. Throw a lump sum into a pension for my wife then take a drawdown.
3. Stick the lot into high income paying ftse100 shares and live off the divi.

Crazy or not? As y6ou can see we're not particularly good at organising our finances but are reasonably good a squirreling away what we can. We live quite modest lives & I estimate we spend circa 15-20k /yr at the mo. (thats food, bills, cars, entertainment etc).

Thanks.

Marine_life

Jul2015 wrote: »

Hi,
Great thread this, its taken me an age to work through. If you don't mind I'd like to run my situation over the board and would be interested in your comments.

Myself mid forties, armed forces all my life. My wife just turned 50 private sector.

My salary is just over 40K, my wife's just over 30k.
We have ISA savings circa 100K and non ISA savings circa 207K.
We have a number of shares (some held in ISAs) & funds currently worth around 77K. I have stopped adding funds to our savings pot and put it all into shares at the moment - quite high risk ones too but I'm happy with that for now.

I will have an immediate pension when I leave the forces of around 15k/yr plus a lump sum around 44k.

My wife has no pension provision (opted out of recent auto-enrolement too). She has always had to change jobs because of my moving around so never got into the pension thing. I think its too late now but open to thoughts.
We don't own a property and live in rented accomodation.

Ideally I would like to retire in July of next year. I estimate that between us we will have circa 450-500k plus a pension income of 15k/yr (frozen until I reach 55).
Not too bothered where we live on retirement.

How would you allocate the funds - i.e house purchase money / income investments etc.? Happy to draw down the money to help fund retirement.

My asperations are to find somewhere no more than 200k and then have the 300k plus my pension for us to live on.

My thoughts are to:

1. Run the savings pot down to zero.
2. Throw a lump sum into a pension for my wife then take a drawdown.
3. Stick the lot into high income paying ftse100 shares and live off the divi.

Crazy or not? As y6ou can see we're not particularly good at organising our finances but are reasonably good a squirreling away what we can. We live quite modest lives & I estimate we spend circa 15-20k /yr at the mo. (thats food, bills, cars, entertainment etc).

Thanks.

I take it you live in forces property at the moment?

Have you looked around at property prices in the areas you want to live in and would 200k buy you the sort of property that you would be happy to live in for some time?

I know there is the phrase "you can't take it with you when you go" but personally any plan which had me running my savings down to zero would make me uncomfortable.