Early Retirement - (nearly) one year on

[Deleted User]

Like you OMG I have just completed the first year of early retirement, having left my job last January just before my 57th birthday. My husband had been made redundant a couple of years earlier and spent the time I was still working doing up our house (new boiler, new kitchen and bathroom, new flat roof etc), the plan being that all major work would be completed and we shouldn't have any unexpected house maintenance to pay for once we both retired.

It's been a great year. Having married young and had children in my 20s this is the first time I have really been able to do what I want to do when I want to do it and I'm loving it. I go to the gym twice a week to weight train and run 3 times a week so I'm fitter than I've been for ages. I also get to spend lots of time with my friends and family, including my 2 young grand-daughters (1 and 3) and I've started on all those projects and hobbies I'd been putting off for years!


We don't have any pensions yet but we do have rent from my husband's house and we've both done some exam invigilation this year at local schools and at the university. The rest of our income is from our savings which we planned to last for 4 years, at which time we intend to sell the rented house. I am 4 years short of my full state pension contributions but will be claiming the 'grandparent' credit now that my daughter has gone back to work part-time so I anticipate being able to make up the missing years before my SPA of 67.


Our basic household costs are in the region of £14kpa - this includes running our cars, hair cuts, household bills and regular costs like our phones, health costs, gym membership etc. We live in a 4 bed semi in the south and our Council tax is £2300 pa, water costs about £400 pa and gas/electric £1500 pa.


We set ourselves a budget of £30 000 to include holidays. We overspent by about £4k last year but that was due to lending £2 500 to my daughter to buy a car (which she's paying back in monthly instalments) and overspending a bit on a fab holiday travelling the north east coast of the USA. We also had a few days in Budapest, a week in Spain and 10 days in Kefalonia plus a few days in Scotland for New Year.

Our biggest expense is definitely our holidays as we don't really buy a lot of stuff. We cook healthy food from scratch and don't really eat out or have takeaways. I go out for lunch or coffee with friends but don't spend a lot. I have masses of clothes and shoes etc that I bought when I was working and am now happy to browse charity shops or ebay if I feel the need for something new.


We have our grandchildren one day a week and usually take them out somewhere so we do spend some money on that but we're lucky that we have a good social group and we both love to walk so we don't have expensive hobbies.

My mantra now is to ask myself if something is 'good value for money'. So, it's not that I don't spend any money but when I do I want to feel it's really worth what I spent. I appreciate the money I spend much more now than I did when we were both working.

For me, it's a no-brainer. I love being in control of how I spend my time. I especially love not having to get up at 6am during this horrible cold and dark time of the year. I feel we are lucky to have the lifestyle we want without working but if I had to make the choice I would change my lifestyle rather than return to full-time work

thriftytracey

For the past 18 months I have been living on my "retirement" income (much reduced) out of my salary.


Not only have I been saving a substantial amount of my salary but I have also learned to live on a modest income.


It has been an quite an enlightenment and I feel better for it.


I feel stronger now and realize that the 2/3 income retirement income is not necessary.

bostonerimus

I'm five years into ER. I retired at 52 which was 3 years before my DB pension started to pay out. I funded those years from savings and rent from a flat that I own....my spending was around $30k. I managed to do a few things on the bucket list like riding my bike across America and I've been fixing up my house and garden and generally just living a bohemian laid back life. The pension and the rent now cover my expenses and for the past two years I've also been working part time for an old colleague's small company, he asked me to help out on a project and that's now grown to about 20 hours a week. I'm not sure how long I'll keep doing it though as it's cutting into my bike riding time........

AnotherJoe

There seem to be quite a lot of IT folks on here that I suspect are spending time during boring conference calls on MSE rather than paying attention to the boring conference call..... I know I used to.....
Originally posted by OldMusicGu

MrsAJ took a picture of me during such a conf call at home. Head slumped on table fast asleep.

Bravepants

Conference calls are great for avoiding unnecessary travel, and especially if working from home...but being physically alone means you have to be more on the ball when it comes to hitting the "mute" button before rather vocally moaning out loud:


Me: "Oh !!!!!!!"


Conference Chainperson: "Sorry, did you say something? There's a terrible noise on the connection.


Me: "Me, oh no, nothing!"

Marine_life

I've always regarded work stress to a concept I call "in-balance" or "out of balance".

Although I've worked long hours its actually disruption which was probably the bigger issue i.e. having a plan and then needing to change at the last minute because of some client issue or another. In my time this has included cancelling holidays and telling my wife that I wasn't flying home at Christmas as planned. Despite that the money meant things were mostly in-balance i.e. it was a fair reward for the stress.

The biggest issue has not been getting old but rather the children leaving home which (as most will know) completely changes things (as indeed does having the children in the first place). Stress in the home is much worse than stress at work.

Having now reduced to three days a week, things are now temporarily back in balance. Not sure for how much longer...

JoeEngland

Marine_life wrote: »

I've always regarded work stress to a concept I call "in-balance" or "out of balance".

Although I've worked long hours its actually disruption which was probably the bigger issue i.e. having a plan and then needing to change at the last minute because of some client issue or another. In my time this has included cancelling holidays and telling my wife that I wasn't flying home at Christmas as planned. Despite that the money meant things were mostly in-balance i.e. it was a fair reward for the stress.

The biggest issue has not been getting old but rather the children leaving home which (as most will know) completely changes things (as indeed does having the children in the first place). Stress in the home is much worse than stress at work.

Having now reduced to three days a week, things are now temporarily back in balance. Not sure for how much longer...

Wow, you must have a good tolerance for stress if you accept cancelling holidays as a price to pay for extra income.

JoeEngland

Bravepants wrote: »

Conference calls are great for avoiding unnecessary travel, and especially if working from home...but being physically alone means you have to be more on the ball when it comes to hitting the "mute" button before rather vocally moaning out loud:


Me: "Oh !!!!!!!"


Conference Chainperson: "Sorry, did you say something? There's a terrible noise on the connection.


Me: "Me, oh no, nothing!"

I've done worse than that. When working PT for a very disorganised boss I sent a text to him by mistake, it was meant for my wife and said "I'm reaching the end of my tether with ..." where it was his name in the message! Luckily that was shortly before I resigned, but did lead to an awkward conversation with me trying to explain it as a mistake and really about someone else and sent to the wrong person.

thriftytracey

AnotherJoe wrote: »

MrsAJ took a picture of me during such a conf call at home. Head slumped on table fast asleep.

If only .... Camera on desktop means I cannot do this.

smutput

DairyQueen wrote: »

Another IT bod here. I saw the writing on the wall in my early 40s and went self-employed. I saw too many experienced and competent people 'rationalised' out of the door when they hit their 50s. I knew my days were numbered so engineered my redundancy (luckily I managed that specific project).

Yet another IT bod here. With, hopefully, only 21 months left at work.

I was hoping to be able to volunteer for redundancy in the next year but, unfortunately, the incompetents in charge brought in such a useless company to replace us that we've had to clean up their mess (at a fraction of the cost) and do it properly.

At least now I don't actually care enough to worry about the giant pigs ear they're making of everything because it's not my future. I just dedicate my time trying to annoy the right people enough so they actively want to get rid of me. Must try harder...