Early-retirement wannabe

gadgetmind

JasonPr wrote: »

May I ask how old you are, gadgetmind?

51

Based on your other posting ("significant 7 figure problem"), it sounds like you have enough saved for early retirement already.

Yes, but 60% is in pensions that can't be touched until age 55.

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)?

Retiring now isn't an option due to pension rules but would also involve us drawing 6% of our pots until SP age and about 4.6% afterwards. This is far too high, so we either need more saved or to spend less in retirement. I'd prefer to keep working until 55 and see how things look then rather than accept compromise.

As for how much to save, about 25x what our annual income needs are. I'm currently at 20x so need to work harder!

ManofLeisure_2

Catie_the_Investor wrote: »

My mum is half Swedish . Perhaps you could persuade your wife to return to her homeland - a really beautiful country - but watch the tax lol

We visit Sweden once a year and that's enough for my wife . I agree, it is beautiful, but I wouldn't want to live there. As for the tax...... I pay too much as it is lol. I never imagined that I would be a higher rate tax payer in retirement. Still, it's better to have money, than to be in financial difficulty

gadgetmind

ManofLeisure wrote: »

I never imagined that I would be a higher rate tax payer in retirement.

I know a neighbour who's an additional rate tax payer in retirement (so 45% tax, no personal allowance, etc.) and he still claims to be skint half the time!

ManofLeisure_2

gadgetmind wrote: »

I know a neighbour who's an additional rate tax payer in retirement (so 45% tax, no personal allowance, etc.) and he still claims to be skint half the time!

He sounds like my neighbour, who owns a dozen or so buy-to-let (London and Surrey). After a while, it becomes a little tedious listening to him. So far I've resisited expressing my true thoughts

gadgetmind

Hey, let rip!

Which includes ripping into me, but my savings come from running high tech companies that employ a lot of engineers, export 95% of what we create, and pay our taxes, so it's hard to guilt me.

BucksLady

Marine_life wrote: »

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!

I lived in Germany for a while and loved it. At that time I was working as a professional musician and played with several orchestras, so saw plenty of the country. Really liked The Black Forest area - beautiful. Also loved the German people - so helpful and polite. I think you are wise to settle in Austria for your retirement

BucksLady

ManofLeisure wrote: »

We visit Sweden once a year and that's enough for my wife . I agree, it is beautiful, but I wouldn't want to live there. As for the tax...... I pay too much as it is lol. I never imagined that I would be a higher rate tax payer in retirement. Still, it's better to have money, than to be in financial difficulty

If you sold your buy-to-let, perhaps you could reduce your tax bill lol.
It was a mistake telling my OH about your massive gain, because he now talks buy-to-let at every opportunity lol. Seriously, you did so well there - well done again

Marine_life

Marine_life wrote: »

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.

Of course what I should have mentioned is that the state pension in Germany is considerably higher than in the UK (with an absolute maximum of around €35,000) which kind of offsets the pain).

atush

ManofLeisure wrote: »

We visit Sweden once a year and that's enough for my wife . I agree, it is beautiful, but I wouldn't want to live there. As for the tax...... I pay too much as it is lol. I never imagined that I would be a higher rate tax payer in retirement. Still, it's better to have money, than to be in financial difficulty

I used to pine for home (USA). but now that I can go back twice or more a year I am fine. Will be happy to spend 5-6 months there but have no need to go back for good.

When we moved to the UK, and I had 3 children under 4 and could not go for years at a time, it was hard for me. but those days are gone now thank goodness.

gadgetmind

Marine_life wrote: »

the state pension in Germany is considerably higher than in the UK (with an absolute maximum of around €35,000) which kind of offsets the pain).

Blimey, that could mean that we'd get value for money from our NI payments if we lived until 105!