Early-retirement wannabe

gallygirl

tell_it_how_it_is wrote: »

So, the most cautious, dithering, excuse-laden early retirement 'wannabe' in history will finally be handing his notice in over the next couple of months to ensure he can enjoy non-working life from March 2016, nearly 500 days late?

Oh dear ML, the pressure will really be on when the sale goes through . Great news, enjoy your holiday :T.

jamesd

Marine_life wrote: »

this weekend we've had two second viewings and two offers! One of them is within 3% of the asking price so we've accepted.

Congratulations. One more step along the path of inevitability...

pjcox2005

Hi all,


Interesting thread even if it is some way off for me, but these articles along with things like Mr Moneymoustache challenge the view on how we save/spend which I don't think I've yet come to a conclusion on.


One question I'd be interested in - For those that retired early and clearly enjoying it, would you in hindsight have preferred to taken a year off work at an earlier part of your life (thereby delaying retirement slightly) or not? And if so, what point in your life do you think that extra year off would have been most beneficial?

Marine_life

Looks like our nervous wait may not be so long after all. We are exchanging contracts tomorrow (they don't want a survey and already have finance arranged). Things can (and do) move very quickly in Germany.

Karmacat

You're not kidding they move quickly! I didn't know *any* house purchase could move that quickly.

That does mean you're going to have the cash, and won't be over-exposed to property now, though - thats good!

wotsthat

Marine_life wrote: »

But what you say actually underpins my attitude to having a large buffer. I'm not prepared to spend my retirement years worrying about money and if that means I am a year or so behind where we could have been then that's the price I'm prepared to pay.......and that really is the true definition of risk i.e. the cost of losing months of freedom versus the cost of being more financially secure. Everyone's balance will be different.

You've been very generous in sharing details. Has the material risk of running out of money really been dramatically reduced by working an extra year or so? Yes, there's a bit more money and Mr. G. Reaper will make sure there's a years less retirement to fund but the risk has gone from very unlikely to ..err..very unlikely.

Aren't you just starting to accept that worry of running out of money is entirely natural plus events are creating their own momentum?

Marine_life

wotsthat wrote: »

You've been very generous in sharing details. Has the material risk of running out of money really been dramatically reduced by working an extra year or so? Yes, there's a bit more money and Mr. G. Reaper will make sure there's a years less retirement to fund but the risk has gone from very unlikely to ..err..very unlikely.

Aren't you just starting to accept that worry of running out of money is entirely natural plus events are creating their own momentum?

You make a good point - of course the risk is unlikely, but there are a couple of factors in play.

1. With two houses almost 400 miles apart, it would lead to undue stress to manage them both, so it seemed sensible to wait until one house was sold. Actually we thought we would sell a lot more quickly than we have done.

2. [This will sound ridiculous] I actually don't know how much money we spend :eek: Of course I have a vague idea but have we ever sat down and worked through the spending? No. We have quite sensible spending and don't squander a lot of money but I'm not sure I want to go into retirement having to think that hard about whether we can spend money or not.

Anyway......hopefully everything will now come together quite quickly.

kidmugsy

http://theretirementcafe.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/retiring-early-lost-savings.html

Goldiegirl

pjcox2005 wrote: »

Hi all,


Interesting thread even if it is some way off for me, but these articles along with things like Mr Moneymoustache challenge the view on how we save/spend which I don't think I've yet come to a conclusion on.


One question I'd be interested in - For those that retired early and clearly enjoying it, would you in hindsight have preferred to taken a year off work at an earlier part of your life (thereby delaying retirement slightly) or not? And if so, what point in your life do you think that extra year off would have been most beneficial?

I wouldn't have been able to afford to take a year off until my mid 30's, and if I had taken a year off at any time after that, there would have been the real possibility of me never going back, as I've always liked being at home. If I had never gone back there would have been only one income coming into the house, so we wouldn't have been in the financially secure position we now find ourselves in.


So I'm glad I kept slogging on, so I could stop work at 54, and not have to think about work ever again

Marine_life wrote: »

You make a good point - of course the risk is unlikely, but there are a couple of factors in play.

1. With two houses almost 400 miles apart, it would lead to undue stress to manage them both, so it seemed sensible to wait until one house was sold. Actually we thought we would sell a lot more quickly than we have done.

2. [This will sound ridiculous] I actually don't know how much money we spend :eek: Of course I have a vague idea but have we ever sat down and worked through the spending? No. We have quite sensible spending and don't squander a lot of money but I'm not sure I want to go into retirement having to think that hard about whether we can spend money or not.

Anyway......hopefully everything will now come together quite quickly.

1) You have the two houses anyway, and you've got to manage them - I'd have thought it was more stressful managing them and working at the same time.


2) That really surprises me. With your level of planning, I'd have thought the planning would have applied to the present day as well.


About 18 months before we were planning to retire, I sat down and worked out our projected income in 18 months time, and then looked at our outgoings, to make sure we could lead the life we wanted in retirement.


Fortunately, I found that we had sufficient income to do what we wanted, which gave me the confidence to retire about 10 months before we were originally planning.


Maybe it'd be worth doing a similar exercise to give you peace of mind?

As the house sale looks to be happening, if you ask your employers nicely, would they reduce the notice period slightly? March 2016 seems such a long time to wait!

hugheskevi

One question I'd be interested in - For those that retired early and clearly enjoying it, would you in hindsight have preferred to taken a year off work at an earlier part of your life (thereby delaying retirement slightly) or not? And if so, what point in your life do you think that extra year off would have been most beneficial?

I'm not retired early yet (age 37, intending to retire in mid 40s), but did take 3.5 years off in my 20s to go travelling.

In planning what I will do once retired, I'm very struck by the difference in what I now find interesting now compared to what I did on the travels back in my 20s. There are so many things you just grow out of (parties, drinking, enduring rough travelling conditions, etc). The travels in my 20s were amazing, but something I would only have enjoyed back then. The next set of travelling will also be amazing, but in different ways.

I am very glad to have taken those years off in my 20s - taking into account lost earnings and compounding effects, they were very expensive but nonetheless well worth it. The different attitude and interests mean a year off aged 44 is completely different to a year off aged 25.

As to the question about when an 'early' year off would be most beneficial, I'd argue that the year before embarking on a serious career is best - once on the career ladder things get increasingly difficult, and once there is a house, family, etc, involved it becomes very difficult (but not impossible).