Bad news re what I spend

bluenose1

Until I decided I wanted to retire at 55 I spent my money on anything I wanted without really thinking about it, and as long as I was living within my means was quite happy. It was only less than 2 years ago I realised that if I wanted to retire early I had to reduce my spending considerably. It has surprised me how little this has affected me/ my lifestyle.
I worked out an annual Budget and have set up savings jars in my bank account for recurring expenses eg annual cost of birthdays, meals out, hair cuts, holidays, clothes etc and put aside a set amount.
I have enjoyed decluttering the house and sold several items on ebay.
I put all my spare money into my pension and get greater satisfaction looking at my spreadsheets ever month to see the increase in value rather than on purchases I didn't particularly need.

I now realise I was working to finance unnecessary spending. I am now working to fund my retirement. I will be FIRE in 2 years, 1 month and 1 week.

zagfles

happyandcontented wrote: »

The NHS is very good....but not all the time. I can tell you countless stories of those who have fallen through the net and paid the price. We pay for high-end medical insurance for this reason. For routine stuff, we use the NHS but if either of us were diagnosed with a life-threatening illness we have top flight cover in place. We really hope we never need to use it but we pay for the peace of mind.

The NHS is excellent for life threatening stuff, it's less good for non life threatening stuff where you might have to wait 6 months in pain for an op.

We have private medical insurance as part of our employment benefits, a colleague had breast cancer and she used the NHS rather than the private scheme, even though she would have been fully covered on the private scheme, and they were excellent. Diagnosis to all clear in just over 2 months.

She knows someone who used the private scheme and just about the only advantage was nicer waiting rooms. Disadvantages were having to sort out all the various appointments, scans etc yourself, plus having to constantly ring the helpline for authorisations. With the NHS the nurses did it all.

happyandcontented

zagfles wrote: »

The NHS is excellent for life threatening stuff, it's less good for non life threatening stuff where you might have to wait 6 months in pain for an op.

We have private medical insurance as part of our employment benefits, a colleague had breast cancer and she used the NHS rather than the private scheme, even though she would have been fully covered on the private scheme, and they were excellent. Diagnosis to all clear in just over 2 months.

She knows someone who used the private scheme and just about the only advantage was nicer waiting rooms. Disadvantages were having to sort out all the various appointments, scans etc yourself, plus having to constantly ring the helpline for authorisations. With the NHS the nurses did it all.

Perhaps in your experience, but not universally in mine I am afraid.

I won't bore you with the details but my parents and my best friend were badly let down with their cancer treatment on the NHS. All appointments kept, all going well, then suddenly, it is at stage 4 and we can do no more.

They weren't scanned often enough and the services were so stretched that the time between scan and Consultant appointments was too long, and the blood test results were not scrutinised carefully enough. Currently, the demand for NHS cancer treatment (certainly here in the North) is at an all-time high and the patients are suffering and dying.

justme111

zagfles wrote: »

The NHS is excellent for life threatening stuff, it's less good for non life threatening stuff where you might have to wait 6 months in pain for an op. .

For some of it some hospitals.
6 months? Could be lifelong - it is just not offered.

lisyloo

zagfles wrote: »

The NHS is excellent for life threatening stuff, it's less good for non life threatening stuff where you might have to wait 6 months in pain for an op.

We have private medical insurance as part of our employment benefits, a colleague had breast cancer and she used the NHS rather than the private scheme, even though she would have been fully covered on the private scheme, and they were excellent. Diagnosis to all clear in just over 2 months.

She knows someone who used the private scheme and just about the only advantage was nicer waiting rooms. Disadvantages were having to sort out all the various appointments, scans etc yourself, plus having to constantly ring the helpline for authorisations. With the NHS the nurses did it all.

It makes sense to take private medical when offered by employers, however as stated already it would become prohibitively expensive in say your 80s and 90s.
Importantly Some (reasonable size) employer scheme have medical history disregared which is fantastic.
Buying your own policy is personally underwritten and would excluded any preexisting conditions.

lisyloo

justme111 wrote: »

For some of it some hospitals.
6 months? Could be lifelong - it is just not offered.

It’s very common to have to wait for non life threatening but painful conditions e.g. wisdom teeth, hip replacement, knee replacement.
Even physio is usually at least 6 weeks. I did a rehabilitation course (on the NHS) and the physio said that’s too late for a lot of problems.

Insurance is also very useful for employers (of course) but can also be useful for individuals who can schedule an operation around say a holiday, wedding or major event, rather than having to miss a wedding/holiday.

I definitely believe it becomes increasingly difficult to afford total private care in elderly age with more exclusions.

We will probably selectively self-insure i.e. pay when there are significant benefits to doing so.

You have to cut your cloth to suit you budget/Income.
Almost everyone I know will go for earlier retirement in preference to luxury.

Have you made any progress your plans/calcs?

justme111

O yes insurance is not an answer either. Although it can cover preexisting conditions ( common 2 years symptom and treatment free requirement ) it does not offer emergency treatment , it does not cover chronic conditions , there are excesses - sometimes I wonder what does it cover.:(
Have not made any calculations since starting this thread,
Will take a few more months to get to the full year picture , will review/ update then.
Re wait on the NHS - apart from a lot of stuff not being offered full stop , wait or not at some point wait makes service having no sense. If you can not enrol your child in a nursery before they are born and waiting list for the nursery is 10 years lets say in practice that nursery provision is non existent because nobody ever will be able to use it although it exists on paper.

hugheskevi

My experience of GP services under the NHS has been very poor. As a 41 year old male in good health, I fortunately have very little contact with the NHS, but I would be extremely concerned if I was reliant upon them to treat or manage a condition. A+E has been pretty good, but GP services are a shambles.

I pretty much ignore GP service now, as I've found that online pharmacies are great - I can research and choose things such as malaria prevention and altitude sickness prevention rather than have long tedious discussions about why I want what I am asking for with a GP nurse who clearly knows very little about extended travel in tropical climates and vaccinations, which was my previous experience. Private travel clinics are great for getting travel vaccinations, with the same ease and avoidance of tedious discussions with GP nurses. Private physio is cheap and readily available for sporting injuries that crop up from time to time, meaning injuries can be promptly resolved.

Personally, I've used the state of GP services as motivation to ensure my health is in as good a condition as possible and think taking care of health should be as important (if not moreso) as financial planning in terms of preparing for retirement. It is astonishing how many people don't even manage the basics:

• BMI under 25 (with usual caveats about those with more muscle than average)
• 1.25 to 2.5 hours of cardio exercise per week
• 2 strength sessions of exercise
• Eating 5 a day of fruit and veg
• Avoiding large or regular consumption of unhealthy food and drink (particularly alcohol)
• Not smoking
• Not taking other harmful substances
• Reasonably balanced diet, avoiding large quantities of heavily processed food (esp meat).
• Regular dental and eye checks
• Getting adequate sleep

Most of the above can be significantly improved on, but at least someone doing all the above should be in reasonable condition, particularly when combined with routine monitoring of things such as blood pressure and occasional blood tests to identify any problems or emerging deficiencies early (donating blood can be a part of this, as well as being socially useful).

I very much plan to have a 'prevention is better than cure' approach to health as I age, trying to delay medical issues as long as possible. But when they do arise, I plan to have sufficient funds to be able to fund private treatment of anything except the most serious conditions (for which I would use the NHS).

Having said all the above, it probably isn't the worst state of affairs, having a poor but existing healthcare system for all, with private provision of many elements for those who can afford it and reasonable services to cover the most serious conditions.

zagfles

hugheskevi wrote: »

My experience of GP services under the NHS has been very poor. As a 41 year old male in good health, I fortunately have very little contact with the NHS, but I would be extremely concerned if I was reliant upon them to treat or manage a condition. A+E has been pretty good, but GP services are a shambles.

I pretty much ignore GP service now, as I've found that online pharmacies are great - I can research and choose things such as malaria prevention and altitude sickness prevention rather than have long tedious discussions about why I want what I am asking for with a GP nurse who clearly knows very little about extended travel in tropical climates and vaccinations, which was my previous experience. Private travel clinics are great for getting travel vaccinations, with the same ease and avoidance of tedious discussions with GP nurses. Private physio is cheap and readily available for sporting injuries that crop up from time to time, meaning injuries can be promptly resolved.

Personally, I've used the state of GP services as motivation to ensure my health is in as good a condition as possible and think taking care of health should be as important (if not moreso) as financial planning in terms of preparing for retirement. It is astonishing how many people don't even manage the basics:

• BMI under 25 (with usual caveats about those with more muscle than average)
• 1.25 to 2.5 hours of cardio exercise per week
• 2 strength sessions of exercise
• Eating 5 a day of fruit and veg
• Avoiding large or regular consumption of unhealthy food and drink (particularly alcohol)
• Not smoking
• Not taking other harmful substances
• Reasonably balanced diet, avoiding large quantities of heavily processed food (esp meat).
• Regular dental and eye checks
• Getting adequate sleep

Most of the above can be significantly improved on, but at least someone doing all the above should be in reasonable condition, particularly when combined with routine monitoring of things such as blood pressure and occasional blood tests to identify any problems or emerging deficiencies early (donating blood can be a part of this, as well as being socially useful).

I very much plan to have a 'prevention is better than cure' approach to health as I age, trying to delay medical issues as long as possible. But when they do arise, I plan to have sufficient funds to be able to fund private treatment of anything except the most serious conditions (for which I would use the NHS).

Having said all the above, it probably isn't the worst state of affairs, having a poor but existing healthcare system for all, with private provision of many elements for those who can afford it and reasonable services to cover the most serious conditions.

This must vary a lot depending on your GP service, but ours is excellent. We got the generally approved travel vaccinations recently for a recent trip completely free within a couple of weeks of asking. GP appointments can usually be had the same day, though you do need to phone/turn up early to get an appointment.

The NHS was recently assessed as the best state health service in the world, so they must be doing something right.

Obviously with such a massive service there will be variability, but in general I've been impressed and almost consider the private medical insurance I've got as superflous. I did have a condition I was seeing a specialist for which needed 6-monthly monitoring, after a couple of years the private insurer said I'm no longer covered for monitoring, so I switched to the NHS and the only real differences are that I don't always see the top consultant, but that's no biggie as the registrars (or whatever they're called) are very good and will call the consultant in if required, and there's generally a longer wait (appointments are usually 30-60 mins late, whereas with private they're nearly always on time). So the basics are just as good.

There's definitely a benefit for non life threating painful conditions, but no way I'd buy insurance in old age for that, I'd try the NHS and maybe self pay if necessary.

justme111

zagfles wrote: »

The NHS was recently assessed as the best state health service in the world, .

Assessed by whom? Compared to what ? What other developed country has state funded health system- or was it compared to countries like China or Ukraine? ( no offense to those , I am sure some aspects of their healthcare are better than ours). What were the criteria used ?
You keep saying it was good as private in you experience to which I have 2 observations :
1 - do you have in depth medical knowledge on the topics you were seen on ? Because if you not you would not have been able to judge whether they were good or not . For example I work as a dentist and I will tell you public has no clue in what is good dentistry and what is not. Similar to me having little idea about accountancy , car mechanics and builders. Obviously if you are observant and reasonably intelligent you will statistically choose better rather than worse but still there will be a good chance to choose worse and it will require time - if you figure something was not that good 2 years down the line you will not go back there but it would be too late for missed diagnosis .
2 You base your opinion of good on your experience.. If it is good even in 70 % of cases in which you were likely to fall it is still not good enough because for other 30% it would mean loss of life or quality of life unnecessarily which in my opinion is a very poor outcome. Do you really feel comfortable to gamble with falling into more lucky 70% every time you have an issue?
I kind of agree insurance may have little purpose and pay as you go is better option. I am just worried with my luck I will need some expensive cancer treatment or HIV one or whatever which will not be available on NHS but will be under insurance and I will beat myself up for cancelling it.
Hugheskevi , while I agree with a lot that you say there are sides to it - one is that we all die and we all fall I'll and being " good" will not mean we are immortal and people usually die from illnesses which often last for long time before eventually resulting in death. So being good while statistically will improve longevity and quality of life is far from guaranteeing it.
Another one is that I am afraid being able to pay although is better than not being able to pay is still not a solution without a very good in depth knowledge of medicine because if you are not given the options you will be non the wiser. If on finding high blood pressure the usual protocol is to put you on medication without digging deeper finding what is the reason for it in your particular case checking your blood pressure regularly os not going to give you the best outcome.