Early-retirement wannabe

DancingBadger

B&B = shudder. :eek:

I hope one of you is a "people person". We have a favourite B&B in the Lake District, visiting two or three times a year, and have got to know the proprietor, Jim, and his wife quite well. As well as owning the place, he's front of house, waiter, book-keeper, maintenance man and groundsman. She does all the cooking, supervises, and sometimes does, the cleaning. She's a total introvert and we didn't get to meet her until our third visit - she freely admits if she had to interact with all the guests the business would close.

...and the last time we were up there, Jim was recounting seeing the man from the B&B next door sitting in his car one evening - just sitting, staring into space. When asked what he was doing, the chap replied, "I can't stand it, those people, those bl**dy guests!. If I had my time again...can't wait to sell and get out." :mad: ".

Techno

My parents had a small hotel when I was young and I swore I would never do the same - your home is just not your own and guest expectations nowadays are far higher and of course the sword of Damocles known as trip advisor now hangs over everyone's head.
However, I am contemplating going off to do a ski season with my beloved and would be interested to hear whether any other mid 50 couples have done the same and how did you find it?

JP08

DancingBadger wrote: »

B&B = shudder. :eek:

Thanks for that !

Book-keeper, maintenance and grounds man, cleaner, plus kitchen porter and sub sous chef are all within my comfort zone, but my secret weapon is a missus that has a seriously strong (think banquets, VVIP catering, state functions, major events ... ) catering and front of house CV - from both a front line and management perspective.

westv

Techno wrote: »

...and of course the sword of Damocles known as trip advisor now hangs over everyone's head.

I find Tripadvisor a useful tool but it needs to be used correctly.
You need to get a feel for a place from people's comments rather than picking out any particular review. That's why the more reviews there are the better.
If there are 200 reviews and most say it's good then you can be pretty sure it is. Individual bad reviews that go against the majority are normally ignored.

edinburgher

westv wrote: »

I find Tripadvisor a useful tool but it needs to be used correctly.
You need to get a feel for a place from people's comments rather than picking out any particular review. That's why the more reviews there are the better.
If there are 200 reviews and most say it's good then you can be pretty sure it is. Individual bad reviews that go against the majority are normally ignored.

Agreed, although it can be quite frustrating on the rare occasion where you have an experience that matches the exceptions, not the norm. We had the misfortune to visit a very highly ranked Italian restaurant in Glasgow for our first meal out since our daughter was born a year previous. We waited 50 minutes for any food and ended up having to top up the meter 3 times! :eek:

My inlaws used to run a B&B and despite talking about it positively on fairly regular occasions, I notice that they are not following up on their stated aim of starting again now they approach early(ish) retirement. I suspect that it's fine when you're in your 20s/30s, not so good in your 60s? Then again, only FIL is active, doubt MIL would have the energy for it.

darkidoe

Do an AirBnB. I am sure it would be less hassle and more flexible. You can probably avoid coming into contact with people too.

robin61

JP08 wrote: »

Thanks for that !

Book-keeper, maintenance and grounds man, cleaner, plus kitchen porter and sub sous chef are all within my comfort zone, but my secret weapon is a missus that has a seriously strong (think banquets, VVIP catering, state functions, major events ... ) catering and front of house CV - from both a front line and management perspective.

I guess we all have a different idea of what retirement / semi retirement looks like. Personally I can't think of anything worse than having to share my house with demanding strangers 24/7
Maybe I could have seen myself running a couple of Gites or similar though. Still hard work I expect but at least you are not sharing your own home.

AlanP_2

An interesting take on Phased Retirement, particularly the bit about the "comfortable middle" being happy not to work as they get older compared to those who need the money at one end and those who want to "do something and make a contribution" at the other end.

American based but still relevant.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-case-for-phased-retirement/?utm_source=kw_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2016-11-01

RickyBoyRoy

Awesome thread! I've just been blogging about my retirement plans and happened to find this whilst Googling. I should have known there'd be something about this on MSE but didn't think to look.

I started reading from page 1, but when I got to the bottom I realised there were 153 pages! At my reading speed it would take me until retirement to read all those posts! I've read as much as I can and will go back to pages I've missed as I get a chance.

Anyway, I'm 34 (almost 35) and, until recently (approx 12 months ago), didn't have any kind of pension or retirement plan. I've always been pretty good with money - always managing to save a good chunk of my salary each month but then also spending a good chunk on nights out, festivals etc. for the majority of my 20s. I've always said that I didn't want to work until my late 60s though!

I bought my own house when I was approx 23, a 3 bed end terrace for the sum of £54k. A complete renovation project which I sold in 2008 for £100k leaving me with a pot of approx £40k after fees and expenses.

I put my self through uni using that money but I also worked part time so my £40k remained intact plus a bit more.

Anyway, many years later, I'm in my third house, with a wife and our first child due in February! Scary stuff!

Not having any pension, I opened a SIPP last year and I've ploughed most of my savings into it - currently stands at around £37k - not a lot, so I'm not retiring any time soon! We've gotta start somewhere though!

Our current 25 year mortgage is going to take us close to 60 (58 for me, 56 for my wife) so that wouldn't be a bad retirement age, although I don't know how much savings we'll have if we've only just paid the mortgage off. Maybe we'll be pushing on into our 60s after all but I guess it depends what happens in the next 25 years.

One of the comments I read said something about having 400k saved and they will hopefully add another 300k in the next 3-4 years. JEEZ!! I won't even earn 300k gross! I'm currently earning £40k per year with my wife on approx £28k.

Well, that's an intro to me and where I'm at. Not really got a plan, but I've started a pension and ploughing as much as I can into it before the baby comes a long. I know I need to spend a lot more time on planning things out so I hope you guys can offer some advice about how you started to plan and any mistakes you've made. Is there a good Excel template I can use?

There seem to be a good mix of people who are approximately the same age as me, and I'm looking forward to discussing retirement plans with you guys over the next 25ish years. Those that are nearing retirement now, I hope I can follow your lead and pick up some tips a long the way.

Thanks for reading,
RickyBoyRoy

bugslet

AlanP wrote: »

An interesting take on Phased Retirement, particularly the bit about the "comfortable middle" being happy not to work as they get older compared to those who need the money at one end and those who want to "do something and make a contribution" at the other end.

American based but still relevant.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-case-for-phased-retirement/?utm_source=kw_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2016-11-01

Interesting.

They found that 60% of workers leaving their main careers end up doing something else — a bridge job, a part-time job or a full-time job that might not fit the definition of a career job.

That's exactly how I plan for things. I've got a plan for leaving my main job in a few years. I work for myself and there may be an opportunity to continue to work for the same customer during the transition period, or there may not. And wether I would want to or not is down to the culture of whoever takes over from me.

Presuming I don't though, I plan for a few months off and am thinking of going into garden design. I may not need to work, but doing something I enjoy is not really work and the extra income is always nice, ideally enough to pay for food and utilities and a night out!

@RickyBoyRoy - some of those figures are scary when people have 400k and thinking of being able to add more. And good for them.

At your age, I probably had similar amount in my pension, it's currently about £225k and by the time I retire it should be around the 300k mark, maybe more if business goes well. The point is, life changes and maybe you will earn more, maybe start your own business and those pension numbers will go up. You certainly seem to have done well so far.