Shall we stay or shall we go now

Totton

I reckon you could do it on 15k a year but why not try living on that for 12 months and then you'll know? My wife and I have been trying it on £18k and that's worked out fine, we've also been able to increase our savings from that amount so £15k is doable imho, £18k even easier :-)

I'd also give SJP a miss, look for a recommended IFA or consider DIY which is easy enough. A friend of mine is with SJP and they've basically sold him a number of funds and added their fee.

atush

In MO, you dont have enough. 200K would only bring 5-8K per annum in sustainable income and to use capital would only pay around 14K per year.

You need to work and save a bit longer.

Spanish_Escape

It's been a few months since my last post and a lot has happened in this time that has really made us stop and think and agree life is for living, spending as much time together as possible and take a few risks along the way so we have decided to bring our plans forward and take a long career break from Dec 15. We plan to keep both of our UK properties and rent both houses out (one is already a BTL). We plan to save the income (minus tax , agency fees etc) from these properties which will be around £1000 a month to pay outstanding mortgages in the future and try not to dip in to supplement our monthly living costs. In our minds we have the comfort that if we run into any money problems and have not been able to save the £1000 we could sell either of the houses to pay off both-mortgages and still be left with £50k. The risky bit in our minds is our monthly income, we will be soley relying on living on the interest of our investments/savings which is £269k currently while travelling around the UK and Europe drawing down from the captial as a last resort. To stay in the rules we are looking to spend a total of 6months in each using our Italian home as the Europe base and a combination of staying with friends, family and Holiday lets (out of season) while in the UK. We are hoping we can live on £12k a year so we would need a return of 5% each year before we need to draw on the capital, unrealistic some people will say but we won't know until we try. We have spoken to our family about our plans and we have got the comfort blanket that if it doesn't work out they will help. I guess people will read this and say live on £12k a year....are they mad, it isn't possible, wake up and smell the coffee etc etc etc but we really want to give it a go.

Primrose

I hope it works out for you but I do think it a little unfair that you should be basing part of your financial assumptions on "staying with friends". who may soon become ex friends if they think you are relying on them for freebies to finance your lifestyle. Also your families may end up feeling "used" if they have to bail you out financially.


It's great to have these plans but I think you should be prepared to accept responsibility for your own financial failures if they don't work out and not expect friends and family to bail you out. In doing so you may well screw up their own financial planning which may be longer term, and that obviously isn't fair. Also, if you suddenly start descending on them for periods of time to save your own finances, it may well cause relationship problems longer term.

Spanish_Escape

Hi Primrose we are absolutely taking our own responsibility for our finances and do not expect any freebies. We have a few very close friends spread across the UK that we visit several times a year already so when I say stay with friends that is what I mean ok we may stay one or two days more than we would normally but that's because we don't have to get back Sunday night for work the next day we could come back on the Monday. we are not looking for anyone to bail us out we would change our life plans, find jobs etc before that. Equally we do and will continue to welcome our friends to our holiday home and host them as they do us. It's looking more like friends and family will be joining us in Europe for longer holidays then we would stay with them!

missile

"we are 15 years away from receiving our company pensions"


IMHO, 269K is nowhere near enough to fund 15 years. However, give it a go and if you run out of money / get bored living on an extremely modest 12K / year you could go back to work or sell another property?


If you have a car(?), it will need replaced possibly twice and that alone would blow a huge hole in your budget.


Is your pension fund enough to meet your needs thereafter?

Spanish_Escape

Hi Missile yes our pensions should meet our needs thereafter, with the state pensions, my final salary pension and my OH mixture of small pensions we will have more income to live on when we reach retirement age then we will for the next 15 years.
Regarding selling a house if funds run low this was our thinking too.

ozzage

Good on you I say.

Have a go you never know what'll happen and I'm sure you can find some !!!!!! part-time job somewhere to make 5K+ a year to top things up if it's not working out or you just need a bit more cash to play with.