Early-retirement wannabe

racing_blue

I don't necessarily want to retire early.

All I want is the OPTION to stop doing a certain type of paid work while still maintaining a certain standard of living.

Unfortunately, this standard of living involves drinking assorted fermented beverages, descending snowy mountains on two planks of wood, and letting the wind blow me to the Azores every now and again.

If anyone can post the answer to this conundrum, I'll buy them a pint!

bilbo51

racing_blue wrote: »

I don't necessarily want to retire early.

All I want is the OPTION to stop doing a certain type of paid work while still maintaining a certain standard of living.

Unfortunately, this standard of living involves drinking assorted fermented beverages, descending snowy mountains on two planks of wood, and letting the wind blow me to the Azores every now and again.

If anyone can post the answer to this conundrum, I'll buy them a pint!

OK.

Anyone can sort that for you. But it does involve a seriously awful pact with the Devil. Let me know if you wish to continue.

Marine_life

Here I am again and now over two years since I started this thread. There are now 639 days to go until my potential retirement date. I am backing away slightly from a firm date to what I will now call a "freedom date".

Which give two questions:

1. Why am I walking away from a firm date; and
2. What do I mean by a freedom date?

Well, to take the second point first my freedom date is the date that my pension benefits (in my employers pension scheme) become fully vested. Once fully vested my pension will be worth about double (a difference of about 20,000 per annum) so there is no way I can retire before 50. But 50 is the date that my choices open up!

I am now thinking less about a firm date but more thinking about a date when the benefits (of being in a highly paid job) are outweighed by the benefit of having more free time and my life back. Nevertheless, I remain very conscious that once I walk away from the job there will be no going back.

Now we are in 2013 though, it feels a lot closer to potential retirement given that I could retire in October 2014 and my contract has a six month notice period from the end of the quarter in which I hand my notice in. Which means my potential resignation date is 1 April 2014 (......who's the fool now!)

hugheskevi

Wow, I would have sworn this thread was about 9 months old, can't believe it is over 2 years...

I've been working on what I've termed my window of opportunity. Decent progress has been made since 2010, although saving has been dented by marriage, honeymoon and replacing a garage and the main roof on my property.

My goal is to go travelling for a long period (up to 5 years) once I leave work. In an ideal world, that would be when I've saved enough not to have to work again except by choice.

But, I suspect I will have more fun travelling the younger I am. Add to that my employer is wont to give generous but unpredictable redundancy payments and I figure I want to put myself in a position to take advantage should opportunity present itself.

For me, the window of opportunity is roughly from April 2016 to April 2019. If I were to be offered redundancy in April 2016 that would be all of mortgage paid off and I'd have a decent but not spectacular pension. By April 2019 without redundancy I'd be mortgage free with much more healthy pension. Given no debt and healthy pension it then wouldn't take long to save enough for the remaining pre-pension period.

The earlier I leave the more likely it is to entail at least some sort of what I'd call lifestyle job in the future (or receipt of expected inheritance, but I don't want to rely on that for planning) - ie a job I would like to do but which is likely not to have the best pay in the world, something like falconry perhaps. The 2016 leave date would need quite a bit more than the 2019 date.

Although 2019 is still over 6 years away, it is starting to feel not all that far away

Gatser

hugheskevi wrote: »

Although 2019 is still over 6 years away, it is starting to feel not all that far away

...only 72 columns on the spreadsheet! :T

Gatser

Marine_life wrote: »

I am now thinking less about a firm date but more thinking about a date when the benefits (of being in a highly paid job) are outweighed by the benefit of having more free time and my life back. Nevertheless, I remain very conscious that once I walk away from the job there will be no going back.

Now we are in 2013 though, it feels a lot closer to potential retirement given that I could retire in October 2014 and my contract has a six month notice period from the end of the quarter in which I hand my notice in. Which means my potential resignation date is 1 April 2014 (......who's the fool now!)

Yes... I am going along the same path with similar thoughts.

Sounds like my income will be somewhat lower but its all relative and my NUMBER is comfortably covered so Happy Days! (mmmm... perhaps that thread needs updating too!)

2013 was always a BIG year for me too.
I am not fully retiring but planning to semi-retire and reduce workdays to around 120 pa.

One of the biggest challenges we face is converting from 80% Savers to 80% Spenders! It will be painful!

Here's to 2013!! :beer:

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Hi

Good luck with your journey. I have been watching this thread for a while. My plan once my debt is paid off is to invest in my pension plan. I propose to do this first by paying off my mortgage through overpayments. As alluded to recently, my strategy is about having the ability to maximise the options for choice. For me that will mean hitting the 50 year mark, then it's a question of every day I work longer will be a bonus in terms of adding choice for luxuries in life.

In the interim I will keep reading and learning.

HHx

peterg1965

I have been an avid follower of this thread, good to see it come back to life!

My 'life changing'/semi retirement date (or whetever i wish to call it) is targetted at late 2020 (my 55 birthday), so still some time away, but close enough to concentrate the mind if I want to achieve my goals - and this is becoming almost a daily obsession! I cannot see myself fully retiring, I feel sure I need to maintain a work related focus in my life, if nothing else to give me a daily routine and to provide additional 'pocket money' to fund my hobbies/lifetsyle above and beyond that which i currently aim for. I think someone said earlier, its all about options - I completely agree with that.

My 2020 objectives are clear:
- have mortgage paid off completely - either in my current house or a future home if we move (likely)
- have sufficient income to maintain our current lifetsyle - this will be roughly current income minus pension/mortgage payments.
- have sufficient saving/access to money to buy the pleasurable things in life (holidays - and for me a Ferrari in the garage (no joke))
- to be in a position to support and assist our children in their early adult lives.

Although my current finances are complicated and becoming frustrated by the continual changes to pension legislation, I think I have a clear vision/plan. My wife and I both have FS pensions, I have a SIPP and we both qualify for State pensions (at a rate less than the Flat Rate level). I have spreadsheets up the ying yang and a compound interest calculator in my internet favourites! I also have some very high risk investments which could put the spanner in the works! I also am DIY all the way, prefering to be in the financial driving seat, that must be why I am going grey!

One of the conundrums I continually juggle with is, how much do I give up and forfeit now(in order to save/invest) at the expense of a very good lifestyle today to ensure I meet my longer term goals. I dont think I have this right at the moment.

rosy

Gatser wrote: »

One of the biggest challenges we face is converting from 80% Savers to 80% Spenders! It will be painful!

This is actually what concerns me most - even though you know that this is exactly why you have been squirrelling away every spare penny all this time, I wonder if all those years of ingrained effort and the resulting satisfaction of seeing the savings mount up could make it psychologically difficult when you see the balance constantly decreasing.

There is a huge safety net/comfort blanket when you are still earning and able to save the vast majority of it. Once you stop work you can't guarantee that you would be able to get back into paid employment if you had to; even if all the calculations have been done to death hundreds of times and you have allowed some leeway for the unexpected in your figures, if some major and unforeseen financial event does happen down the line there isn't anything like the same scope to make up the difference later that you had before early retirement.

I'd be interested to hear how those who have been there & done it have felt about swapping from being a saver to a spender once they stop work.

dlorde

rosy wrote: »

I'd be interested to hear how those who have been there & done it have felt about swapping from being a saver to a spender once they stop work.

After 2.5 years of retirement, I find that it's not a problem. The relatively frugal habits I established that enabled me to save for early retirement, mean that I'm spending within my means in retirement.

I was expecting to be spending more than previously on hobbies and activities, but this hasn't panned out, mainly because the hobbies and activities I actually do are very low-cost, and now I find I'm not really that interested in the more costly activities I had visualised myself being involved with.

As a result, I live comfortably within my pension income, with enough left over to cover repair and replacement of goods & chattels