Early-retirement wannabe

tootallulah

If I wanted to live in a beautiful place in the UK, like the Lakes or Snowdonia I would look at the Peak District. Not as expensive and bang in the middle of the country so easy to get anywhere. I am within two years of early retirement,from a senior civil service post. Looking forward to not commuting, not working ten hour days and spending time on working on projects that I am passionate about.

goRt

Marine_life wrote: »

Sounds like you are well sorted!

What are your plans now?

Keep playing sport in the UK during the summer, live in and tour around Asia in the winters, with maybe the occasional trip to Argentina for a fix

atush

I agree, mentioned it above in post 768

Not cheap in the park, but less exp than the Lake district.

Marine_life

AlwaysLearnin wrote: »

I would be interested if you didn't mind.

AlwaysLearnin wrote: »

It would be good to hear some of the realities. Thanks.

Sure.

I will tell you what we found were the negatives but maybe first of all I would say there are some positives and to some extent it depends on what you are going there for / wanting to get away from which may influence whether its the right move for you.

For us it was mainly the attraction of living somewhere English speaking as at that stage we had been in Germany for 10 years and although the kids were doing fine at German school, their English was not really as good as it should be so we wanted to get them back into the English speaking school system.

So what's not to like...

- Sydney is a nightmare from a livability perspective. The traffic in the morning and evenings is terrible. i was leaving home in the mornings at 6:30 just to avoid the snarl up. When the local authority also takes one lane off a two lane highway to replace it with a (vitually unused) bus lane you have to wonder what they had been smoking!

- South Eastern Australia is really cold in the winter, or rather it's quite cold and the houses are really badly heated and insulated. Very few houses have central heating so you can find yourself in winter huddled route an electric fan heater! Not the sunbaking vision that many have in mind for Australia.

- It rains a lot in Sydney. In fact it rains almost twice as much as it does in Frankfurt (really, it does) but it’s just that when it rains it does so in larger bursts.

- The traffic police are overzealous to a point where it’s not funny. You will be nicked for 3-4 kmh over the limit and double points on bank holidays. Consequently the standard of driving (once you do get clear of the traffic) is a nightmare i.e. people are so busy watching the speedo they do not concentrate on driving safely.

- Australia is not very pet friendly. Most of the beaches and parks are either no go zones for dogs or they have fenced in areas.

Political correctness is absolutely rife to the extent I had to take anti bullying training and awareness training for inappropriate sexual behavior. All well and good but it’s a complete sham, Australia is an unbelievably blokey culture.

If you think people are obsessed by house prices in the UK then you haven’t seen anything yet!

Does every sporting team have to have a nickname?

…..and finally

Bugs. Lots of them. You will need a large bucket when you want to get a huntsman out of your house.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why some people love Australia - the sunshine, the outdoorsey lifestyle but I would recommend to anyone, do your homework and try and visit before you commit.

Marine_life

ozzage wrote: »

Marine_Life I really appreciate that you post so much about your life in such detail in this thread. I hope its helpful for you - it's certainly interesting for me, and with my background (Australian, German partner, living in UK) I find your tales of all three countries especially relevant.

I understand your hesitation about retiring back in the UK. We are having vaguely similar issues now, deciding where to raise our children. To be honest Germany looks appealing to me in comparison, but although I'm quite familiar with the country through my family links, I've never lived there... I have however lived in NL, which in many ways is culturally not too dissimilar (not that the Dutch would admit it!), and I ended up disliking it, which worries me. I found them very regimented, and actually quite intolerant of difference, and I suspect Germany would be similar. The opposite of London!

I doubt there are any perfect answers. I would worry that the sort of things you appreciated in Germany are lacking in modern-day UK, and perhaps the advantages of living here aren't things that are important to you. I wouldn't move solely because of family, but maybe that's just me. In my view, being close to them won't compensate for being unhappy every day with the other aspects of the place, in which you've chosen to live.

I like writing things in this forum, largely becasue it gives me an outlet for all the ideas that are swirling around in my head! So yes it is helpful and if people also like reading it then that's a bonus .

You'll see from my previous post that there were a couple of things about Australia we did not like....however, its fair to say that we wanted to go to Melbourne not Sydney (there wer eno spaces at that time) and i am convinced if we had gone to Melbourne we would still be there now.

There are a lot of stereotypical things which people tend to quote about Gemany, some of which are true and some not. One thing I would have to say is that living here is not like it was when we first arrived - for example we have British TV and there are quite a few British foods you can buy. So you can still enjoy some of the comforts of home.

There are some things here which i personally like but which would be horrendous to a lot of Brits e.g. shops are (generally) closed on sundays. Also you cannot make any noise on sundays (no mowing the lawn, no drilling or outside work etc). Personally for me its great to have a day of complete peace.

Other things which are good:

1. The autobahn. If you are a petrolhead like me its still a thrill.

2. Healthcare is very very good. But expensive.

3. Tennagers still seem to have respect for the law and people are generally respectfull.

4. Its feels very safe.

5. Germans are proud of their country. And rightly so.

Things which are not so good.

1. Bureaucracy. There is still lots of it.

2. You can never find a tradesman who does all the jobs you want - everyone is an expert.

3. errrr......that's it

I think we did not appreciate how much we like it here until we left. One thing i would say in addition, it that while Germany is still pretty foreigner friendly - if you don't speak German it is difficult to make friends so anyone who comes here needs a commitment to learn.

AlwaysLearnin

Thanks for that.

Rife political correctness - I never would have guessed that! May explain why my brother moved to Perth ...:D

gfplux

I live in Luxembourg and for me it has almost everything I want and need in life.
It is a mixture greatly influenced by the Country's on its borders, France, Germany and Belgium. Also influenced by two very large waves of immigrants in the last 100 years. Firstly by Italians and then by Portuguese. Further influenced by being one of the three centres of the European Union and daily by the 120,000 foreigners that cross the borders to work here every day.
If I want I have English food, newspapers, television, Cinema. I also have international Theatre, Opera, Ballet, Television and Cinema.
In my opinion Luxembourg is clean, organised, safe and has a climate that is a little colder in the winter and a little warmer in the winter than the UK. The infrastructure is excellent with good schools and a great health service.
There are negatives but I think the benefits far outweigh them. Yes it is a problem having family spread around the world but that would be the same wherever I lived.
The cost of living is quite high but so is London. There is not the same obsession with cheapness like the UK but rather a desire for quality.
I have been happily retired here and have no intention of returning to the UK. Two or three weeks a year there is enough to both satisfy me and to confirm why I don't live there anymore.
We don't have beaches but we also don't have the bugs that plague my daughter in the summer who lives in a nice warm and sunny country.

ninky_2

Why choose one place? My ideal (and plan) is to split the year between UK and overseas property (in Montenegro). There are things I love about UK (and London) - free healthcare, friends and family, buzz of things going on in a capital city - but it does my head in at times, too.

Likewise, I absolutely love Montenegro but there can be a lack of things to do when the weather isn't so good. Everywhere has good and bad points, by mixing and matching you can keep the good points fresher. It's also worth remembering that your priorities may change if your health and fitness levels deteriorate.

If you have property in a place people like to go on holiday, you can rent it on short lets for the time you are not there (assuming you don't need to keep loads of personal niknaks in it).

Ideal would not be to give up work completely, but to do a bit of work, then have a bit of a chill / fun. In today's more flexible working environment, I don't see why it has to be all or nothing when it comes to work. That said, everyone's circumstances are different and we all want different things. Some people absolutely hate everything about their job and can't wait to see the back of it.

Marine_life

I has a quick look at some potential retirement dates today and on a pure day calculation that is 480 days. But when I plus in "business days" (which takes out weekends) then that number falls to around 340. If I factor in my remaining holidays for this year (47 - which includes a backlog from last year) and next years vacation of 30 days that brings me well under 300 which is no a lot of potential work days left. I digress.

I have been thinking about retirement living expenses but unlike many on here I have not been able to really document my expenses. I have been procrastinating mainly because I know the current figures are so horrendous (with mortgage overpayments and school fees) I know the number will depress me! Ostrich policy.

There I got to think about the "number" thread and it seems that most believe that next earnings of around 25-27k seem to be about right. Really? I suppose it depends on what people really want out of their retirement but it seems rather low to me if you want to "live life to the full". For me this mainly involves travel but then I wonder whether there are other luxuries that I will be unprepared to give up? So here i am beginning to think about the subject of numbers. Here are some initial thoughts on figures:

Health insurance (c. €9,000 per annum). I am afraid that's what it cost's here and I'm not prepared to give up private health insurance.

Home heating and utilities (c. €4,500 p.a.). Sounds like a lot but its a decent sized house and we have oil fired central heating which is not cheap. We may decide to downsize!

Home maintenance and repairs (c. €3,000 p.a) No idea what for but I expect a figure in that sort of magnitude.

Insurance (c. €1,500)

Car expenses (petrol and maintenance) (c. €7,500). We expect to do a decent amount of driving so the bulk of that would be fuel @ c. €100 per week. Maybe need to think about a more ecoonomical car.

Food (no idea but I would guess c. € 5,000)

Clothing (again, no real idea but lets say €4,000) I am not an extravagent dresser.

So that brings me to around €35k before we have thought about having any "fun". Is there anything missing from my list? Does anything seem over / undercooked?

I am guessing that on top of that I could imagine two "big" trips a year at around €6,000 per trip and a number of smaller trips at say €3-4,000. So lets call that €16,000 for holidays.

If I then allow €4,000 to deal with random expenditure including presents etc. Then the toal brings me to €60,000 which feels like a reasonably comfortable budget.

Would welcome observations and thoughts from people.

gadgetmind

Marine_life wrote: »

Then the toal brings me to €60,000 which feels like a reasonably comfortable budget.

That's very roughly the post-tax figure that I'm shooting for, however, as I don't have any kind of DB pension, it's a "big ask" to say the least!