Early-retirement wannabe

atush

But in our house, i'd be the one to bang in his salary lol.

He wanted to retire early, I pointed out with twins at uni he couldn't afford to. But he hated his job. New job now, so happy to stay on a little longer.

You can't really say he is passive, as he doesn't post. I am sure the above couples are in more agreement than you think.

GFP, you give me pause as we are downsizing from a 5 bed soon. But we have a vacation home so I can always !!!!!! off there if he gets on my nerves (and I know he will lol).


even now if he has the day off, and I have a tv programme on he has to come in and make snide comments.

gadgetmind

Goldiegirl wrote: »

I agree, from some of the comments on here it seems that the partners of the posters seem rather passive and have no involvement in the decision making.

Well, I certainly involve my wife, and big decisions are made jointly, but she has zero interest in investing, financial modelling, pensions legislation, taxation, etc., so I do most of that. At least once a year, I go through everything with her, which she says is plenty often enough.

But if my husband attempted to 'bang my income into a SIPP' there'd be hell to pay!

Money is fungible, particularly once it's in a joint account. Currently her SIPP is funded from this account to the tune of £240pcm even though she wasn't earning anything. Once she's earning enough in a tax year to increase this, then I'll increase it. Will it be her income funding this? Well, arguably, but does it matter?

Cottage_Economy

My husband's eyes glaze roughly 30 seconds after a conversation about money starts. Yet he has such amazing plans for his retirement.

Over the last few years he has repeatedly mentioned just enjoying his low cost retirement by 'pottering' with cars.

The 'pottering' has, at various times, involved lengthy european runs in classic cars, restoring more classic cars, trips to australia and having a racing team. He once mentioned trying the Mille Milglia.

I am going to have to start magicking wads of cash out of top hats soon.

The fantasy vs the reality is a conversation we have frequently.

ManofLeisure_2

Crikey, I really do not think ''anyone'' has to justify how they arrange their financial affairs. We are all ''unique'' and so are our partners .

ManofLeisure_2

[QUOTE=Cottage Economy;6652652


The fantasy vs the reality is a conversation we have frequently.[/QUOTE

gadgetmind

ManofLeisure wrote: »

We are all ''unique'

I'm not.

ManofLeisure_2

gadgetmind wrote: »

I'm not.

Don't be so modest .... lol

Marine_life

gfplux wrote: »

We were living in a 105 sq meter, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 balcony, 2 car garage apartment near to the centre of Luxembourg Town. This was planned, and agreed, to be our retirement home. However her reasons were quite simple and difficult to dispute, in her words "When you were working you were never here, now you are always here". We now live in a 250sq meter house!

That's an interesting perspective.

My view of downsizing was similar in that we currently live in a house with about 240 sqm but our retirement home is (larger than I posted a few posts ago) 300 sqm. Which seems ridiculous to me. However, as my wife pointed out we are downsizing in price rather than size which also works for me (we are releasing about €300k of equity).

Going back to the retirement expenses issue. We have historically not tracked our expenses but we will need to do so in retirement so I shared with her my (tentative) annual retirement budget (in EUR) which is as follows:

Food - €5,000
Health Insurance - €6,500
Transport (car) - €3,500
House (Heating, electricity, internet, phone etc) - €6,000
Hair (this was a necessary inclusion - the girls will understand why) - €750
Gifts - €1,500
Entertainment (flights, hotels, skiing etc.) - €8,000
Clothes - €3,000
Miscellaeous - €3,000

Total - €37,250

I think I may be a bit light on the car costs but I suspect if we can keep within 10-20% of this I will be happy.

Goldiegirl

ManofLeisure wrote: »

Crikey, I really do not think ''anyone'' has to justify how they arrange their financial affairs. We are all ''unique'' and so are our partners .

Who said anything about justifying themselves?


I said

Of course, what happens in a relationship is nobody's business except the two people in that relationship.

No justification expected or needed, but I think I am allowed to comment on what I read

Marine_life

Catie_the_Investor wrote: »

Gosh, your health insurance is steep :eek:

That's relatively common in Europe.

In this case because we are retiring early we have to take out voluntary self-insurance which costs around €5,500 per annum and I added in around €500 to cover the costs we need to pay ourselves.

This is the cost for Austria and other countries are equally / more expensive.

Once you reach official retirement age the costs fall away but any person thinking of retiring overseas should give serious consideration to the (not inconsiderable) cost of health insurance.