Early-retirement wannabe

ManofLeisure_2

All this talk of foreign lands is making me feel unsettled lol. I would love to set up home elsewhere, but my wife loves our home and the area in which we live. She's originally from Sweden and spent much of her childhood in Finland, Germany and Switzerland. Perhaps it isn't so surprising that she doesn't wish to move . We have one son living in Amsterdam and another in Orlando - so great for a holiday or two .

gadgetmind

gfplux wrote: »

We also pay the minimum social security in Luxembourg. Last year this was €4856.

Sounds like a bargain compared to my tax bill. I've worked out that I'll probably be paying more tax in retirement than I'll get in state pension, and even that's only going to trickle in over a decade after I retire.

Marine_life

gfplux wrote: »

We also pay the minimum social security in Luxembourg. Last year this was €4856. This gives us access to almost free GP consultations, specialist consultations, treatments, dental, optical care and prescriptions. It also includes a small pension contribution for my wife who is below retirement age.
The additional costs might be €4/500. This is made up of a % of all the bills that is not refunded. For example you will pay your GP €20 when you visit him and then the government refunds €19
Nothing is perfect but we are very, very happy.
I imagine marine life the system is very much the same in Austria and Germany.

That's right - its the same, except Germany is more expensive than Austria.

Marine_life

ManofLeisure wrote: »

All this talk of foreign lands is making me feel unsettled lol. I would love to set up home elsewhere, but my wife loves our home and the area in which we live. She's originally from Sweden and spent much of her childhood in Finland, Germany and Switzerland. Perhaps it isn't so surprising that she doesn't wish to move . We have one son living in Amsterdam and another in Orlando - so great for a holiday or two .

We are originally from the UK (but my wife is half German) and have really thought long and hard about whether we would/could go back to the UK and at the end of the day (for us) it comes down to a choice of whether we prioritze being somewhere where we really want to be or whether we go back to a life of being able to speak English all the time and having English friends (which we both would like).

At the end of the day for us it has to be location, location, location and we just have to hope our family and friends will fly in occasionally!

gadgetmind

We're just not really thinking that far ahead.

I'm planning things so we should be able to retire at 55, and can do so while remaining in our current house (which is massively too big for us!), but we'll also have the freedom to relocate elsewhere if we want to.

ManofLeisure_2

Marine_life wrote: »

At the end of the day for us it has to be location, location, location and we just have to hope our family and friends will fly in occasionally!

Well I have to agree, Location is everything . I'm pretty sure you won't have a shortage of guests either.

ManofLeisure_2

gadgetmind wrote: »

We're just not really thinking that far ahead.

I'm planning things so we should be able to retire at 55, and can do so while remaining in our current house (which is massively too big for us!), but we'll also have the freedom to relocate elsewhere if we want to.

I retired 3 years ago (at 55) and hoped my wife would wish to downsize and relocate.... No such luck lol. However, I live in hope

JasonPr

gadgetmind wrote: »

Sounds like a bargain compared to my tax bill. I've worked out that I'll probably be paying more tax in retirement than I'll get in state pension, and even that's only going to trickle in over a decade after I retire.

Don't forget that the tax bill in those countries (Germany, Austria, etc) would be even higher than in the UK. At least you have a generous personal allowance and ISAs in the UK.

I'm surprised you're expecting such a high tax bill in the UK given that you can take a lump sum from your pension, your ISA investments won't be taxed and there's no tax due on dividends (except the implicit 10%) if you're not a higher tax payer (which should be doable if you spread your investments across you and your wife).

I don't expect to pay a lot of tax in retirement (assuming they won't introduce ISA limits, that I will follow a careful investment plan in terms of using ISA allowances and other tax advantages), but maybe I'm missing something.

JasonPr

gadgetmind wrote: »

I'm planning things so we should be able to retire at 55, and can do so while remaining in our current house (which is massively too big for us!), but we'll also have the freedom to relocate elsewhere if we want to.

May I ask how old you are, gadgetmind? Based on your other posting ("significant 7 figure problem"), it sounds like you have enough saved for early retirement already.

How how are you planning to save before you retire or will you retire with 55 regardless of how much you've saved (given that you've probably enough already)?

gadgetmind

JasonPr wrote: »

given that you can take a lump sum from your pension, your ISA investments won't be taxed and there's no tax due on dividends (except the implicit 10%) if you're not a higher tax payer (which should be doable if you spread your investments across you and your wife).

All dividend income will be in my wife's name and maximum lump sums from everywhere are in my model. We'll be leaving ISAs untouched for as long as possible as we'd rather use unwrapped holdings and to also keep on moving them into the ISAs.

However, my income from my SIPP is likely to take me into HR tax, so it's fairly easy to exceed the £7k ish state pension. Of course, I could take less from my SIPP, but once SP dribbles along, things get even harder tax wise.