It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

Albermarle

JamesRobinson48 said:

A longstanding occasional lurker on this thread, I hold in high regard OP’s candour, common sense and courage, and take this seasonable opportunity to express my grateful appreciation. Please excuse this lengthy one time post, and its unseasonably cheerless tone!

To clarify my own situation, by 45 my wife and I felt adequately secure to permit an early (if frugal) retirement. But we opted to work on another 10 years, to acquire a larger financial cushion, and following that we’re now about 10 years retired.  Despite some financial ups and downs to date we hope to live indefinitely on the dividends from our stock market investments, plus varied pension sources and modest property income, and without counting on any stock market index appreciation. We anticipate drawing substantially on invested capital only if some ‘unknown unknowns’ come along, which is always possible.

It would have been marvellous to experience an additional 10 years of leisure while younger and fitter, from 45-55. But on balance, perhaps we were wise to continue working. The ‘miracle of compound interest’ is all well and good but we’ve also found that, over decades of human life, expectations of drawing benefit from investment performance reverting to the mean can sometimes be sabotaged by events. A close relative became financially imprudent, and we could not practicably avoid bailing him out. Encountering certain age-related health problems ourselves, increasingly there are bills to pay as neither the NHS nor our private health insurance underwrites as much treatment, as promptly, as we require. The high and open-ended cost of old age care has manifested itself in the form of my father (90+), who currently pays £90k per annum for a lovely care home place where he might easily reside another ten years at ever-increasing cost. I feel personally exposed to the risk of secular high inflation rates because my private sector DB pension provides limited indexation. And with all that’s going on, I have reservations whether my equity investments are likely to thrive any time soon.

Also, especially for those who (if retiring by 50) might have a potential time horizon of another five decades, it might be a worry whether SP will indefinitely continue to be triple locked or, even if it is, will the goalposts be moved by increasing the NI costs, requiring more years contributions for a full SP, or pushing back retirement age yet further. Finally, I wonder what other measures future governments might take, affecting taxation or benefits, in possibly attempting to nudge some early retirees back into employment and thereby mitigate wage pressures or labour shortages.

 Although retiring at 55, or earlier, is a popular theme on this forum, my personal opinion is that it is too early for the vast majority of people. Of course there will be some for whom it is possible, with a big enough war chest to withstand almost anything retired life throws at them. However as your post shows, there are some risks involved. To quote Donald Runsfeld ( which could apply to retirement) 

“There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don't know.”

Sea_Shell

I'll let you know in about 30 years!!!


(Watching Back to the future 😉 for the millionth time)

Sea_Shell

JamesRobinson48 said:

A longstanding occasional lurker on this thread, I hold in high regard OP’s candour, common sense and courage, and take this seasonable opportunity to express my grateful appreciation. 

 

Thanks for those kind words.

Audaxer

Albermarle said:

but it will be interesting to see when I take and submit a reading next week, just how much of the credit balance will be needed.

Ignoring discounts our November energy bill was just over £300. I can monitor daily usage, and in the cold snap it has been almost £20 a day. Luckily it is going to warm up, but on the other hand there will be a couple of extra rooms to heat over Xmas, so probably December will be around £500. Maybe that gives you an idea of what to expect?

I submitted meter readings today, and if my calculations are correct our energy costs for the month should be around £227. As our heating has been on quite a lot in the last month, that doesn't seem too bad. 

plumb1_2

sheslookinhot said:

Pensions_matter_2 said:

Do be careful everyone about not putting heating on - we know two lots of people who have had burst pipes as result of thaw setting in in last couple of days. Cant be sure but might have been because they kept heating off or only partially on for these few very cold days and their pipes froze. 

I think the issue here is the quality of pipe insulation rather than not having heating on.

I got called out to a friend’s elderly father house @ 5 pm Saturday water leaking from a ceiling void in a cloakroom. 2 large 40 mm split’s on the flow and return heating pipes, both with 25mm wall lagging on them. Repaired the split’s refilled heating, only to find water pouring down over the boiler into electric panel. Removing some pipe boxing above found the soldered drain off had been pushed out buy the ice .
Boiler kernacked, isolated heating so at leased he’s got a water supply. Told him best to contact insurance.
So make sure you keep the heating on low overnight, or your boiler has a frost stat.

plumb1_2

Will I ever get a chance to retire 😊

westv

I'm not digging up my nuts just yet but, with just under 3 months to go, I did decide today to "retire online" with my FAS backed DB pension.

Robert_McGeddon

MallyGirl said:

Ours was £231 in November compared to £359 in Nov 21. Dec 21 & Jan 22 were each £434 so I expect something similar this year. We have guests coming for Christmas and New Year so we will be heating every room (which we certainly don't usually do). The dining room - unheated till 2 days before guests come - was 7 degrees last week 

7 degrees?  Luxury!  We had it tough - used to dream of 7 degrees....

dharm999

Finally decided to hand in my notice next April, have had enough of the hassle, been there over 15 years and I am very tired of dealing with all the day to day rubbish.  Will take 6 months off, and then decide what I want to do.

Bravepants

westv said:

I'm not digging up my nuts just yet but, with just under 3 months to go, I did decide today to "retire online" with my FAS backed DB pension.

Are you saying that you applied for your pension? I know some DBs need 3 months notice.