Early-retirement wannabe

tiger17bear

jamesd wrote: »

Have a look at The New Case for Reverse Mortgages from this post because one thing that the variable drawing and replacement option equity release does is let you pick a higher withdrawal rate under income drawdown.

So nice to have a reply that wasn't just- have you thought about downsizing? As we do not have children we don't actually have a house that is too big. A reverse mortgage looks like just the thing for us but as it is hopefully many years away the products might be better developed by then.

edinburgher

Can I ask a question about asset allocations?

I have a L&G pension with my employer (limited choices) and have tried to mirror Vanguard LifeStrategy 100 as best as I could with 3 index trackers. After the recent EU Referendum shenanigans, I'm wondering whether I'd be better moving towards something like a pension that more closes matches global market capitalisation (so US would be 20% higher or so, UK would reduce by the same amount).

What have others opted for where they don't have a huge range of funds (no 20 items lists from lucky people with SIPPs)

gadgetmind

My GPP is with Friends Life (now Aviva) and they have Balanced (Enhanced) Fund of Funds, which use action asset allocation on top of mostly passive trackers. The Enhanced flavour uses a little more active investment in some of the less efficient areas. I mainly use the latter in my GPP with a 10% additional allocation to EM.

I've been tracking performance of this against my "fancy pants" SIPP for several years (with neither having new contributions for technical reasons) and I've yet to see any meaningful difference in performance.

edinburgher

I suppose my equivalent would be something like LEGAL & GENERAL (PMC)
MULTI-ASSET FUND. Doesn't look particularly impressive in terms of returns since I started with my employer vs. my trackers (although I'm 100% equities, so a different beast). The asset allocations look wonky for this one as well, only 25% or so US across all asset classes.

ex-pat_scot

edinburgher wrote: »

Can I ask a question about asset allocations?

I have a L&G pension with my employer (limited choices) and have tried to mirror Vanguard LifeStrategy 100 as best as I could with 3 index trackers. After the recent EU Referendum shenanigans, I'm wondering whether I'd be better moving towards something like a pension that more closes matches global market capitalisation (so US would be 20% higher or so, UK would reduce by the same amount).

What have others opted for where they don't have a huge range of funds (no 20 items lists from lucky people with SIPPs)

I have the same challenge. My SIPP has lots of flexibility, whereas my Scottish Widows GPP is rather more restricted.
I don't have access to Vanguard world trackers, so I have selected 4 funds that broadly give me the same exposure and mix - US, emerging markets, Asia, Japan, Europe. The SIPP has the UK exposure and the gold fund.


I'd rather the ability to have everything in the SIPP, but I'm getting c£10,000 company contributions and salary sacrifice, so that's a big incentive to stay with the company GPP. I will investigate if SW will let me transfer money out into the SIPP, and still allow continuing access (but that's a separate strategy again).
As soon as I leave current employment, then I'll transfer the GPP into the SIPP. It will be much easier then to see and manage my asset allocation, performance, costs etc.

gadgetmind

ex-pat_scot wrote: »

I will investigate if SW will let me transfer money out into the SIPP, and still allow continuing access (but that's a separate strategy again).

FL told me "no" but I did get them (after months of debate) to start me a 2nd pot with a PIP aligned tax year, and this takes all new contributions, so a move of the old pot might fly under the radar.

As soon as I leave current employment, then I'll transfer the GPP into the SIPP. It will be much easier then to see and manage my asset allocation, performance, costs etc.

I'm also planning this but mainly because FL/Aviva haven't woken up to pension freedoms in any meaningful way. I'm also likely to need to do some LTA planning given how sterling is plummeting.

jamesd

edinburgher wrote: »

I have a L&G pension with my employer (limited choices) and have tried to mirror Vanguard LifeStrategy 100 as best as I could with 3 index trackers. After the recent EU Referendum shenanigans, I'm wondering whether I'd be better moving towards something like a pension that more closes matches global market capitalisation (so US would be 20% higher or so, UK would reduce by the same amount).

First something not specific to brexit, have a look at the descriptions of how Guyton improved results by adjusting the investment mix based on the cyclically adjusted price/earnings ratio.

Aside from that, high equity allocations have in research produced higher success rates due to the higher investment returns of equities on average. Adding small cap investments further improve results vs large cap.

However, with brexit now is not the time to be doing lots of small cap investing in the UK or rest of the EU because those funds tend to move more during down times than large caps and the prospects now are for a down move for a while.

Personally I'm now pretty highly weighted to cash (temporarily) and P2P and way lower in equities than I was, that used to be close to 100%. Not due to brexit but due to the cyclically adjusted P/E of many markets and the likely good returns available from the P2P I'm using, which seems likely to be above the average of the UK's main equity market for a while.

Marine_life

AlwaysLearnin wrote: »

With you there ML

I've recently made a similar change to what you're considering, reducing my working week 30% to 3.5 days. The .5 is working from home too, but I don't have the same concerns as you on that front, mainly because it was their suggestion (I originally requested 3 days).

It does take discipline, as it's oh so easy to carry on working and/or check the Emails on the phone in this 'always on' world, but I think to myself "I'm not getting paid anymore" and that helps focus the mind a bit.

I have to say though that so far I am loving it, and it has certainly helped me to reallign that balance in my life that you mention.

Good luck with it. I think it could me a really good transitional step for you.

Yes, it will be pretty interesting especially as I'm trying to combine it with working from home. so I see that it could end up with me spending 60-70% of my time at home. I definitely feel a little bit guilty but then I think I've done the time so not too guilty!

Generally though I think among colleagues anyone who is doing anything other than a full on week plus is seen as a slacker.

I will post updates as it takes shape.

AlwaysLearnin

I know what you mean. A few thoughts to perhaps help you get your head around the idea:

• Quality, not quantity. I know it's about how long you're in the office in some places, however there's plenty of evidence that productivity falls past a certain point. As long as the output is good, does it matter where you do it?
• I find that you can actually churn through a lot of work at home if you need to, as less interuption means more focus
• It's the way the world is going. Technology now allows us to be pretty much anywhere, anywhere. I know of a number of companies that are reducing space/desk availability so as to increase desk utilisation (therefore save cost) and in turn allowing more flexible working, so it will presumably become more the norm.
• They probably would have found a way to not let you do it if they thought it would significantly impact the work, or if they didn't value you (i.e. weren't bothered if you left)

More specifically to you, you're in a great position and you're not looking ahead at a 5-10 year career progression plan, so who are you needing to impress really...? If they REALLY do start seeing you as the slacker then you never know, you might get 'lucky' (in your position) and get put up for redundancy, and that big fat check that goes with it...

Embrace it, and enjoy it. There's no reason why it can't work if you want it to.

atush

EdSwippet wrote: »

According to at least one economist, total annual work hours may be a fair bit higher now than in the past:

M OH works at least an extra hour or 2 per day, and many saturdays, and has to check work emails daily on holiday just in case.

So yeah, he works a whole lot of hours more than the 38 he is supposed to do.