(NON FINANCIAL) Retirement plans/ dreams/ discussion.

atush

bluenose1 wrote: »

Ha, me to, just got in from work and put our heating on again, would you believe it's June.
Though no doubt I will be moaning about the heat when we go to Disney, Florida in August as I know from experience it is rather hot and humid. There again we only do the Parks in the morning and chill by the pool from early afternoon so I will be brave and soldier on!!! No matter the weather beats being in work.
Hoping it might be my last Summer in work.

I am ashamed of myself, but it is 52F today (11C?). I turned my heating on for an hour. First time EVER in June.

bluenose1

cfw1994 wrote: »

I can see that with bills & costs of running the house. & glad they are spending it: my own parents were painfully frugal to the end (25 years ago), trying to get OHs old folks spending has never been easy!

From what I have seen of various elderly members of my family spending has declined as they have got into their 70s. In fact my Auntie who is in her mid 80s has decided she doesn't want to go out at all and spends all day watching TV and evening drinking whiskey. Sounds a terribly unhealthy life I know but she is quite obstinate and no-one can make her do what she doesn't want to.
The irony is she is on a decent pension and higher rate AA but has very little expenditure. Always amazes me how inactive she now is as worked as a Home Help until her late 60s and loved her foreign holidays. She was always on the go.
Think I have a lazy gene so god help me if I get to that age.:o

bluenose1

atush wrote: »

Probably wise not to own a holiday home abroad. i own 2, and they can be expensive. But i am american and want a place to retire half the year to eventually, and i need a place to be registered to vote, pay tax etc (fl is cheaper for tax as you dont pay State income tax). As i sold our family home when my mom died in 2001.

Hurricane irma was supposed to go right over the top of my house. I went to bed at midnight convinced i would have no home when i woke up. But it took a dog leg turn and went inland south of me so no major damage just some rain blown under the front door. Some roof shingles off etc.

We have a little gite in Brittany we have had since 1990. It cost like 5000 gbp. Will sell it in a few years once the OH retires fully i suspect. Used it for weekends and the odd week when we lived in Jersey. Only use it for a few weeks now.

Think Hurricane Irma may have been the one that damaged his property, you were lucky. Think we would only buy property abroad if we intended to use it as our main residence. I am addicted to A Place in the Sun and do like the idea of living a lot of the year in a warm climate.

cfw1994

So, feels like this thread needs a minor resurrection!  bluenose1: less than a year left?
Have the extraordinary events of 2020 made anyone revise plans?
I was originally toying with “stepping down” this year, but C19 hit, so I’ve watched my funds drop almost 20%, then climb back (now 5% up on the trough of March).  I suspect the world turmoil will continue for longer (US election, Brexit, C19 continues!), but I have chosen a date reasonably early in 2021, & have spoken with my boss & his boss....so that is it, I have a countdown timer on the screen which in itself feels very liberating!
For us, travel plans will be limited to the U.K. for 2021: no desires to fulfil the World Tour we do want to have one day, but there is plenty for us to see in Britain first.    

No campervan progress, but we still both enjoy camping (with luxury beds!), so that plus b&b or cottages will do us for the time being.  Plus a friend has a campervan they might loan/rent out for us to try.
Our offspring now find themselves In Scotland, so we hope to spend some time there in particular.
Oh yes.....& the garden needs some work 

Westertonbilly

Thinking about retiring next year at 58.5 but getting tempted by the "one more year" thinking, to make things a bit more comfortable. Major decisions looming about whether to buy a motorhome and tour Scotland, the rest of the UK, and beyond, or become  a snowbird, and go somewhere like Tenerife for maybe 3 months through the winter. Dog to think of though, and already have static caravan. Then there is downsizing to think about, and where to move to? Car needs replaced also, but what size? Mmm. Lots to think about anyway.

Bravepants

Just spent a couple of days in the Peak District last week, walking near Castleton. This is something my partner and I would like more time to do in the future. Talk of campervans sprung up again as they do every time we go out into the countryside.  We traveled by car this time, but we missed a trick in that someone nearby was hiring out their motorhome for £100 per day, but we were too late to book it. Whether to purchase or hire a motorhome in the future depends on how much we intend to use it, what space we have to store one etc. We only had time to visit one famous site in the Peak District (Mam Tor) but the car park and approach roads were packed with vehicles, we learned that the best way to handle the congestion was to park a mile away and walk. I love the freedom that a campervan would give to just go out into nature and be self-sufficient for a while.

MallyGirl

We converted our van to a camper last year. It didn't get a lot of use last year as daughter was occupying a lot of our time. Then early this year we had lockdown and once that was relaxed we had a daughter at home full time who had no interest in sharing the van with us. Thankfully we had a great break away in Tenerife, before the A levels that never happened, so we did spend some quality time together. Daughter is off to uni (6 year course) in 2 weeks time so I expect to get to use the van more at short notice now. We had a week in it last week, with the bikes, as she was elsewhere - nice time in the East Sussex (Bexhill-On-Sea, Hastings, Bodiam for Dixter, Dungeness, Rye). We have taken the dogs in it once but they really are a bit big to be comfortable if the weather isn't great and I wouldn't want to leave them in there while we visited somewhere that didn't allow dogs in.
Now that uni is sorted we can start to find out just how much that is going to cost us! 

I suspect that we will work till she graduates but who knows. Travel restrictions mean that the thing we want to do most is not currently an option. 

A positive of the lockdown is that OH is now working from home all the time and can see no reason to change which means that he can be told to stop whenever and he is no longer commuting a couple of hours a day. He gets to walk one of the dogs before work now which is much better for them both (she is an old girl now and it was getting challenging for me to cope with the different needs of 2 dogs at different life stages). I am also not being pressured into travelling to HQ for an overnight every couple of months which is nice. As a result, some of the work dissatisfactions have gone away. My line manager has recently dropped to 4 days a week so that precedent has now been set too.

This doesn't seem like a time to make any major decisions so we will monitor and ponder for now.

RetSol

Loving the campervan talk on here.  I was fantasising about owning one of these the other week - https://www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk/en/new-vehicles/caddy-life.html.  Not the most practical or economical option, I know, but...... a girl can dream, can't she? 

michaels

Does a camper van make more sense than a nice car and airbnb/hotels?  I'm thinking with a large luxury campervan you potentially also need a tow car and even a small one might be hard to drive around many tourist towns.  I can't see that a campervan will work out much cheaper overall by the tiem you factor in deprciation?

Westertonbilly

michaels said:

Does a camper van make more sense than a nice car and airbnb/hotels?  I'm thinking with a large luxury campervan you potentially also need a tow car and even a small one might be hard to drive around many tourist towns.  I can't see that a campervan will work out much cheaper overall by the tiem you factor in deprciation?

Think it's just the freedom it would provide to go where you wanted, when you wanted, including remote areas without the usual tourist facilities.