Early Retirement - (nearly) one year on

uk1

Thrugelmir wrote: »

In the end perseverance, networking and delivering does open doors.

Some people wrongly call this luck. But you put yourself about, tried stuff, never gave up - and you made your own "luck".

Well done.

MallyGirl

I’m a Great Believer in Luck. The Harder I Work, the More Luck I Have

Thomas Jefferson?

North4

April 2017 - moved to North West England from Cambridgeshire. New build house, similar size to what we had before but less maintenance and more energy efficient. Close to Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, Morecambe Bay which suits our lifestyle. Went to working part time in IT, 3 days a week. Lower living costs. No horrendosu travel to and from work every day on the A14.

April 2018 - finished work completely (age 59). We (couple) do some casual / self employed work (not IT) that brings in about £4k a year. Also do some voluntary work.

We're working to a budget of £28k per year. Includes holiday fund of £3k per year. In the first year we will be underspent by about £1.5k on the main items and £1.5k on holidays (still exploring the area close to home!).

A budget figure really depends on your lifestyle. We could, just about, survive on £18k a year, but with no contingency, down to one car, run the car until it gives up etc. Equally well, I could see us doing other things and getting through a budget of £38k. But would I have wanted to work for another 3 or 4 years to make the latter financially viable - no way!

For us, the freedom from work, and having time is the most valuable thing (although where all the time goes is still a mystery!). When you do have the time, and no pressure of work, it's surprising how much money you can save if you are prepared to shop around for bargains, do some tasks yourself, choose times to do things when costs are lower etc.

So for us, it's worked out very well so far and I have no regrets about taking the plunge to freedom.

crv1963

Ganga wrote: »

One thing i have noticed reading all the replies in this post is that a lot of people think that because they have high paid high tech jobs that they are the only ones who found/find their jobs/lifestyle stressfull,i can assure it is something that isfelt in the full spectrum of employment.
Loosing your job when you are the main breadwinner wether you earn six figures or five figures a year is still a person loosing their job.
It could be argued that the people who earned massive salaries should be in a better position to withstand unemployment ( if even temp ).
Only my thoughts/ramblings but i am sure a lot of posters will not agree

I don't agree! I think regardless of your chosen field there are several things in common- (i) if you lose your job regardless of income it is hard, (ii) every person has a degree of stress, be that work, personal, or fears for something- some it is about others, the planet, brexit etc.

All jobs are stressful, what stresses one person doesn't another.

It just so happens that a lot of the posters here on this thread are from IT- I am not I have a whole different set of work stressors, I no more feel the IT worker stress than they feel my mental health worker stress. Different fields but the stress on the individual is what we all have in common.

My wife is of the view (which I can understand if not fully agree with) that the best jobs are those that pay the minimum wage- because if you don't like it you can change to another minimum wage job without affecting your lifestyle. I disagree with her in terms that being on the minimum wage and worrying about paying for things that you need are in themselves constant stressors!

shinytop

I am one of the IT industry workers and my job has been very well paid but has not been particularly stressful. Long hours sometimes and travelling but that's not stressful in itself. OH earns less than 1/2 of what I did and her job is stressful. The difference? I deal with numbers, words and egos; she deals with real people with real problems.

Anonymous101

shinytop wrote: »

I am one of the IT industry workers and my job has been very well paid but has not been particularly stressful. Long hours sometimes and travelling but that's not stressful in itself. OH earns less than 1/2 of what I did and her job is stressful. The difference? I deal with numbers, words and egos; she deals with real people with real problems.

Mrs Anon. and myself are in exactly the same situation. Although I don't work in IT.

Generally if you work with money you earn a reasonable amount of it. Unless its the actual cash type that you're handling!

bearshare

I worked in communications technology (development/design of networks and equipment, not IT as commonly used). Back in the early eighties I looked around and could see nobody much above 45 working in my industry, so I assumed I would be retired by 55 at the latest, like it or not..

I worked for mainly American start-ups for the majority of my career. Great fun, little meaningless politics or paper shuffling, but not great for stability or a quite life!

Did well. Paid of mortgage before 40, effectively retired from full time work at 52, but did some consultancy for few years, gradually increasing days off per week, and taking longer holidays. Fully retired at 60, moved close to sea on South Coast..

Never been fitter, and nice-busy.

pimento

Another one counting the days.

I had a light bulb moment on here a couple of months ago when it was suggested I think about giving my 2 hour each way commute the bum's rush and retiring early (58) at the end of the tax year and deferring my DB pension until I am 60. I will get a severance payment of 13 weeks salary when I leave and plan to live on that and savings until my pension starts.

My (57 year old) husband enjoys his job so will carry on working but we are planning to sell up our house in the SE and move to Exeter which is much more convenient for my husband's work. This will (hopefully) free about £150k of equity.

I will take the largest TFLS and my pension will be about £16k. I do have a progressive health problem which means I should have 15 years of being able to do the long haul holidays that we both love, after which our expenditure will fall.

I have a countdown app on my phone and as of today I have 57 days left but we have a two week holiday in Australia and Hong Kong booked before then.

I'm really glad now that I paid into my pension scheme because I resented paying the money for many years thinking I would rather had had it when times were tight.

OldMusicGuy

Ganga wrote: »

One thing i have noticed reading all the replies in this post is that a lot of people think that because they have high paid high tech jobs that they are the only ones who found/find their jobs/lifestyle stressfull,i can assure it is something that isfelt in the full spectrum of employment.
Loosing your job when you are the main breadwinner wether you earn six figures or five figures a year is still a person loosing their job.
It could be argued that the people who earned massive salaries should be in a better position to withstand unemployment ( if even temp ).
Only my thoughts/ramblings but i am sure a lot of posters will not agree

I think you've got a bit of the wrong end of the stick here. We're not talking about being unemployed, we're talking about the choice to take early retirement and, in my case, why I chose to do it.

If anyone loses their job unexpectedly it must be very stressful regardless of how much you earn or what you do. I knew a lot of people in the IT world who lost their jobs in the wave of outsourcing to lower cost economies a few years back.

I certainly never said anything about anyone else's work and I hope I never implied that I was the only one that found work stressful. I was only trying to explain that for me personally stress was a factor in taking early retirement, despite the fact I earned a good salary. I think it's just a coincidence that there are many people on this forum that are from a similar industry, although as it's an online forum maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that a lot of IT types are on here.

Finally, let's not be too hard on the world of IT. Over the last 40 years IT has transformed the way the world and businesses work. I was involved in a part of IT that contributed to improving the way businesses work and while I can't claim to have saved the world, I do feel that as a career it was more worthwhile than some of the things I considered doing.

michaels

Not sure if this is the thread for it but I was wondering how age of having children has impacted on putative early retirement dates. I didn't think I was a particularly old dad compared to most these days but when my youngest is 21 I will be 59. Do many manage to retire before their kids have been through uni?

I am still aiming for 55 but I suspect the kids may get extremely expensive come driving lesson/uni time. In the past there might have been financial benefits to not being earning and living off savings when the kids were at uni in terms of their funding but less so now?