Early-retirement wannabe

atush

uk1 wrote: »

It doesn't. You may have misunderstood or were misinformed by an agent who didn't understand the rules. You pay a "change fee" but not a telephone booking fee. Sometimes they don't bother with the change fee. A telephone booking fee isn't payable if the transaction isn't possible online. If it isn't worth the change fee to you - fair enough.

I have never paid a telephone booking fee and as I said - I do this two or three times a year.

Anyway, I was just trying to help you ....

Jeff

Thanks for trying, but Bronze member, use the site loads and yes have had the 15 fee waived on occasion, but they wont do cheaper flight one way than return in 90% of cases- so cancels the savings out. Change fee is usually more than the fee for booking on the phone.

havent tried since the new avios rules though (since they canned the shareholder discount etc this past year).

But may just use my avios in the mean time for a free car rentals instead.

uk1

One way is half the miles of return.

Jeff

atush

Was referring to using miles plus money if no free seats available.

uk1

atush wrote: »

I have over 300K avios and could travel first or Club world- if I could find a seat.

Which I cant, and i dont travel in school holidays. I last got a free flight 2 years ago, but not to FL. It was to an airport in Ohio and I was flexible on route and destination AP.

Havent got a free seat to FL in CW or higher since 2012

atush wrote: »

Was referring to using miles plus money if no free seats available.

Your original point was that you disagreed with my suggestion of considering factoring in miles schemes as a part of a delightful retirement planning strategy on the basis that you could not find seats when you wanted them and I explained a simply strategy that has worked for me for two or three trips ever year in BA First for around ten years using simple mechanisms that most seem unaware of.

In a way, being selfish I'm happy that many dissaude others to do this as it leaves more seats for me.

Jeff

atush

In way, you might be flying from different airports or at different times of the year. Or might not have to connect (which complicates for me).

I am glad I am not in the same schedule as you are for sure

Marine_life

Has it really been three months since the last update?

How time flies!

We're still on track for ER and now in the final quarter, in fact there are now only 59 work days to go excluding annual leave which probably takes me down to 50. I am giving up one of my major responsibilities in about two weeks time and that will reduce my workload significantly. We're still negotiating a one day a week consulting contract - if it works - great - if not then I am relaxed to go.

Having started started this thread almost 7 years ago with the expectation of retiring at 50, I will now be just under three years "late". Reflecting on our spreadsheets from back then - retiring at 50 would have left us a lot tighter on money and I'm glad we waited and can retire in the knowledge that we have very little chance of running out of money. Everyone has to get the balance right and hopefully we have.

Over the last couple of months we've spend a lot of time deploying funds into investments. Our objective is to keep at least 3-4 years of cash expenses easily accessible. At the moment that is closer to six but I am wary of deploying everything in a lump given where markets are. We will continue to deploy over the next 2-3 years by drip feeding into various investments.

We've also booked a few holidays (about 10 weeks worth) and I've been keen to get everything paid for while we still have money coming in.

Over the coming months there a few things to sort out including building a plan for the rest of our lives.......:-)

Expect regular updates between now and July.

hugheskevi

Another annual update...split into 2 posts this time - one on the softer side of my plans, and the other on the financials. Quick recap - myself and my wife are both aged 39, live in London, no kids nor plans to have any. Retirement plan started back in 2009.

The last year has been quite different to the last decade, as I decided that I'd head off on a pretty tough 3 month trip to Africa to climb Kilimanjaro and drive across the Congos, so a lot of the year has been preparing for that. The trip is coming up in May, and I decided to do it last July. I've spent a year traveling Africa previously, but that was back in 2003-04. For anyone interested in more detail, the trips I'm doing are at this link and this link.

An initial attraction of the trips was that doing them would be quite tax efficient due to reduced earnings. However, I ended up being greedy and conjuring up a way of doing them using paid leave from across 3 years. That was probably a mistake, as I've had hardly any time off in the last 14 months and I wouldn't do it this way again. Even so, the trip is somewhat expensive. My wife is climbing Kilimanjaro and coming on the first month of the trip, and I estimate the total cost for both of us is approaching £15,000. That is a decent aggregate amount, but the amount per person per day is pretty low at around £120. However, that is only a fairly short delay to early retirement and effectively just switching some travel I would have done post retirement to pre-retirement so not really a delay at all.

Anyone familiar with the Democratic Republic of Congo will know it is rather unstable and that carries inevitable risks. I find that I research things that affect me in much more detail than less immediate concerns, and it has been interesting to fully document all my death and survivor insurance just in case, which is something a lot of people pay far too little attention to. Although I had plenty in place, I'd never quite fully investigated and quantified all the cover in the detail I have now. In the unlikely event the worst happens, my wife would have enough to pay off all debts and live on an indexed income of £36,000 for life. Given she has her own well paid job and pension, that would be plenty.

Knowing the trips would be physically quite testing, I've also significantly improved fitness levels. Like many in their late 30s, I'd managed to steadily put a kilo or two each year. Since July, I've lost a bit over 2 stone in weight (14kg) and added running to the 80 miles of cycling I already did each week. I wasn't in bad physical shape, so that puts me at ideal weight, and my 5K running time is down to 22m 23s after not running at all for about 5 years, and I hope to get it below 22 minutes by the time the trip starts. When I get back I'm going to make sure I stay in good physical shape and don't let things drift again. For anyone wanting motivation, I'd recommend Parkrun as a good starting point.

hugheskevi

And on to the financials at the end of 2016/17...Due to the trip described above, expenditure this year has been above usual, but interestingly not very much higher than usual in cash terms, and lower as a proportion of total income than in a couple of recent years.



The big change in the last year was a switch away from pension saving. I think I have enough in a pension now, but still putting in nearly 20% and that does not include employer contribution to both mine and my wife's Defined Benefit pensions. I also didn't put much into ISAs, mostly as the much higher ISA limits have removed the 'use it or lose it' nature of contributions, and I will put more into ISAs in the future. Due to the reduced pension contributions, our income tax bill has increased.

The above is more clearly reflected in the expenditure breakdown for 2016/17 alone...



The lower pension and ISA contributions are also prompted by the level of world markets. I am happy to have a period of consolidation and reduce liabilities whilst markets are so buoyant.

I've changed some of the assumptions in my long term retirement planning. I aim to increase consumption in line with average earnings growth to age 70 (now assumed to be 4.3% in long run), and then by CPI thereafter. DC pension pots are assumed to grow by a quite conservative 4.3% too.



I plan to take a couple of Defined Benefit plans with protected minimum pension ages at age 50, that will mean the income is tax free and we will pay no income tax until age 58 (which I assume is the minimum pension age for our other pensions). At that point I'll start withdrawing personal pensions, avoiding higher rate tax. Then other DB pensions and state pensions will be taken at normal pension age and state pension age. Pension assets are fairly evenly divided between myself and my wife, so higher rate tax shouldn't be an issue (and it was, I could take the second DB pensions early to smooth things out).

Compared to a year ago, my plans are in a better place. I still plan to retire in mid 2023 but there are a number of events (redundancy offers or inheritance) which could bring that forward. Retiring in 2022 would be viable, but probably wouldn't leave enough spare to travel as much as I would like.

Assuming I do take the two DB pensions at age 50, we currently have £36,271 of DB income accrued (factoring in the actuarial reduction and including only accrued State Pension, ie, not the full single-tier amount). That is increasing by at least CPI each year, and we are accruing an additional £4,250 every year, so it is increasing quite rapidly. I'm quite attracted to my wife making personal pension contributions to benefit from higher rate relief, but (a) I don't think we really need more pension saving (b) I am still nervous about future pension policy change, and quite like having unused Annual Allowance as I value the DB pension more than DC and if policy changes to reduce Annual Allowance I want to maximise the DB benefits as much as possible.

jamesperrett

Marine_life wrote: »

... in fact there are now only 59 work days to go excluding annual leave which probably takes me down to 50.

Thanks for the update - it is good to see someone else counting the days. I'm down to 64 working days and have just today officially told my employer when I'm going (they've known the approximate date for a few months now).

Unlike others, I'm not going to totally stop working but I'm hopefully going to be turning a serious hobby into a part time job. I did this once before and still have the contacts who still ask me to work for them so it looks like it will work.

edinburgher

Congratulations ML - that is one tasty pot to retire on