Stopping work early with big change to lifestyle?

cns06

bigfreddiel wrote: »

Let me tell you that if you 'retire' at 40 you will go out of your mind with boredom.

The first few months will be great, then you'll miss your £60k+ salary, then you'll go crazy trying to fill those long empty days.

Find a job you like, part time maybe, earn £25k and then your life will be great.

I did that, I work a three day week, get 20 days leave, that equates to six weeks of three days.

So JDI or more firmly, JFDI!

Good luck fj

I do understand that could be a problem. Being in business we don't get a salary. But no doubt the reduction in income will mean we have to adjust but we have never had a fixed monthly income. That said half the reason we are in this position is because we don't actually spend our money, we don't have time. We save a large % of our income.

That's why we have this pot now where in theory we could just not work any more. We will stop working at 55, that's certain. A couple of years ago we were talking about 50 ish. Now we are just saying sod it. The bottom line is every year we work we will top up the savings but also that extra year of stress and hassle. We already have a "reasonable" pension - not mega money but like I said in the first post it would continue us on. Again if we sold the business (not sure if even possible) we would get another good chunk. In fact the more I think about that the more it makes sense to try and do to get some value back out of it.

Has anyone else done anything similar? I am sure there must be plenty of people out there.

Silian

Lots of people do it. Go and read Mr Money Moustache.

I would personally do it in a heartbeat and it is currently my goal to do it at 45. I would love to do it earlier though.

Any chance of taking a few months break to see how it goes? We can take a sabatical, but I guess it is more difficult with your own business.

At the very least live on the projected new income for a few months to see if it is feasable.

Let us know how you get on.

uk1

If you have your own business, and are planning to stop it is well worthwhile ensuring you have a very good accountant. My one was an ex tax inspector. He guided me through a narrow seam of regulations that enabled me to leave a very useful amount of cash in the business which when it reached the "appropriate amount" we closed a limited company and carried on as a partnership but the cash was virtually tax free. It was worth his fees. Rules change and new opportunities means advice is essential.

Jeff

mystic_trev

I retired at 42 and never regretted it. I hated my job and couldn't have done it much longer anyway. This was 20 years ago and at the time the calculations involved were purely guess work, figs worked out 'on the back of a fag packet':rotfl: From my retirement in 1996 to 2010 I was spending through my savings at rather an alarming rate, a lot of it on Travel to over a 100 countries. I've now slowed down considerably and due to some wise Investing and a little luck, my net worth is now considerably more than when I retired, so it can be done.

With some of my surplus funds I've recently bought a nicer house, as I can't see the point in having a large amount of cash savings.

atush

First of all, how long will your money last at 20K per year? How long do you expect to live?

Second are you 100% certain you will never marry nor have any sprogs?

You could do it IF you work out your 'number' as in a previous post, and also said you practice living on 20K while you can.

Have you got any personal or work pensions?

Goldiegirl

At the age of 40, the working life sometimes seemed a slog, and it felt like a long time until retirement.

I felt like giving it all up many times.

But I'm so glad that I didn't.

By carrying on working, I was able to fund a lot of travel for my holidays from work, and have been able to fund retirement in my mid 50's, and still be able to afford the travel that we want to do.

You mention a figure of £15 to £20k for living expenses. That's fine for a reasonable day to day lifestyle, but won't cover much in the way of travel, unless you use more of your savings.

Also, have you considered inflation - in 20 years time, the £15 - £20k would only be enough for a very basic life - you'd need to draw more out to maintain your lifestyle.

At 40, you could potentially live another 60 years - I think it'd be quite difficult in this day and age to accumulate enough money to last 60 years without doing another day's work.

Plus, the age for access to pensions is getting later and later. You won't get your state pension until you are at least 68 - and you both would need to make voluntary NI contributions to make sure you got a full state pension.

As you have your own business, in your situation, I think I'd be considering scaling back the business so I worked shorter hours, but still had a regular, if smaller income. Or get a manager in to run the business - it would still ensure a regular income, so I wouldn't have to rely totally on savings.

uk1

cns06 wrote: »

Yes good idea but that's not something we are interested in as we have run our own business for a long time.

If you are happy to give a general or specific idea of your business type then more specific suggstions might be possible. I was in a similar position.

Jeff

LHW99

Or you could sell this business if its giving you grief and start again with another one.

kidmugsy

Is there a case for taking seasonal work? Leave Britain for the dreary months, come back for the summer and work in seasonal trades. It keeps your hand in should you ever need to return to full-time work, breaks up your year in an interesting way, and gives you some income.

Thrugelmir

cns06 wrote: »

Would you do it?

I have, though somewhat older in age. Don't regret it for a minute. Downgrading to a lower level job is fine if you use your experience and knowledge wisely.

Lifestyle sounds like consumerism. Plenty of things in life are free. Happiness is a state of mind.