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

Triumph13

As I've observed before, your numbers would easily support spending more than double what you do spend, but that really isn't the point. If you are happy at your current spending level then why spend more?
Reading between the lines, I get the feeling that you actually get a lot of pleasure and satisfaction from managing your finances in the way you do. Rather than feeling you are depriving yourselves, I'm guessing you get a real buzz from seeing those lovely low numbers in the expenditure column? If so then more power to you.

fred246

I have a family friend who's son had a succession of jobs and business failure including bankruptcy. He must have been well into his '40s with no pension provision. He then started a very successful business. He bought a massive property with horses and a Range Rover. When we meet she always tells me how rich he is but how stressed he is too. When she heard I had retired early she said she would tell him to do the same. His business is worth multi million pounds so he MAY be able to do it. I just find it funny how his mum obviously has no concept of retirement planning. He certainly would need multi million pounds pension pot to maintain his current spending. Not sure what he would think of Sea Shells budget. It does show that spending in retirement is the key to successful early retirement.

JoeEngland

fred246 wrote: »

I have a family friend who's son had a succession of jobs and business failure including bankruptcy. He must have been well into his '40s with no pension provision. He then started a very successful business. He bought a massive property with horses and a Range Rover. When we meet she always tells me how rich he is but how stressed he is too. When she heard I had retired early she said she would tell him to do the same. His business is worth multi million pounds so he MAY be able to do it. I just find it funny how his mum obviously has no concept of retirement planning. He certainly would need multi million pounds pension pot to maintain his current spending. Not sure what he would think of Sea Shells budget. It does show that spending in retirement is the key to successful early retirement.

It's that old trade off between money and time. There are people who plan to work later so they can have big retirement budgets or who can't envisage spending less. But for me even if I hadn't had to retire at 53 for health reasons I was only going to continue until 55 anyway. I value time and freedom over more money.

Sea_Shell

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Congratulations on getting your spends to such a relatively low level and considering you are still quite young it is probably one of the main reasons you were able to retire so early. That plus you did not have children I seem to recall? Our spends are higher than yours but we retired in our late 50s whereas I think you went in your early 50s? If we had not had to support our kids through university and helped them with buying houses/weddings etc we could probably have gone earlier but we were happy to work a bit longer in order to do that. Now we help them out with time instead in childcare but do still gift them money at birthdays and Christmas.

Our personal spends alone account for £4800 a year so no way could we get our spends as low as yours (£200 a month each which would cover health and beauty (me) and clothes and hobbies). Our gifts/donations are also considerably larger (around £2500 per year - we gift money to our daughters and grandchildren) and we have a £1000 gym/leisure club membership which is well used and two cars to maintain which cost roughly £2500 over the year including diesel. Our bills are around £6k per year. Food is roughly the same as yours though £2.5k - £3k per year) but we also have a fairly high eating out/ entertainment (£3k per year) and holiday budget (£6k per year)and we have put in a new kitchen with appliances, 2 new bathrooms and a new gas fire over the last couple of years which has set us back a lot but we used part of DHs and my lump sums to pay for that. The rest has been invested or kept aside for replacement cars, home improvements, long haul holidays. We have around £35k per annum in DB pensions though so that is all certainly affordable and we have not touched our investments bar paying for the home improvements and 2 e bikes. We could obviously economise but feel we do not yet want to drop to 1 car as I use mine a lot for walking groups and visiting my mum and family/friends etc and DH travels around to model railway exhibitions and preserved railways as that is his hobby.

If you don't feel deprived living on less than £12k per year then all credit to you. At least you know you have the option to spend more should you wish to as you have a substantial savings/investment buffer although yours has to last longer than ours as you are younger. Do you not spend on entertainment (cinema, theatre, concerts etc) or eat out or is that all included in the holidays category?

Yes, you’re right, we don’t have kids. We're 48 and 53. So we had the time and the money during our 20’s and 30’s to do lots of things, including numerous shows, gigs and festivals, and we still do these things if something we really want to see catches our eye. Yes, it would be included in the Holiday/Entertainment category.

We did go to the theatre this year, but it was bought and paid for last year. We use our Club Lloyds vouchers for the cinema, otherwise pay for Sky rental or just wait for them to come on TV. We don’t worry about the now factor, we’ll wait happily unless I REALLY want to see something. I will 100% be seeing Top Gun 2 at the Cinema, voucher or no voucher!!

I don’t use fancy face creams or toiletries or expensive perfumes etc. neither does DH!

We’re not into gadgets or the latest tech. If something breaks we’ll replace it, but not just because a newer version is out. Our TV is not smart, and is 10 years old, for example.

Our eating out, when we do, is more Country Pub with a pint, than Restaurant with wine, and very rarely more than one course, as we’re not big eaters. We don’t have puddings at home either.

Believe me, if there was something we really wanted to do or have, we would, without question, but we just don’t have a very long wish list, and never have done. I’ve ticked quite a few things off over the years.

Also, although I’m in no way an “environmentalist” I am more conscious these days of everything we buy has to be manufactured and distributed…and eventually disposed of, so I do think twice about just buying stuff, because it’s pretty or ornamental. Our house is quite minimalistic in that way, I don’t like clutter.

I could go on line right now and spend £500 without batting an eyelid….but there is nothing I need at the moment, so it would all be superfluous and not life enhancing.

We’re holding off on gifting substantially to the N&N’s at the moment, as they aren’t in control of their own finances yet, but as time passes, and we know we haven’t sodded up the figures, we will start to be a bit more generous towards them.

On the other hand, we know that we can’t rely on them to help us as we age, and so need to ensure that we can still afford cleaners, gardeners, decorators etc. when the time comes we can’t do these ourselves.

Anyway, I’ve waffled on enough for now…and my Sauvignon Blanc’s getting warm. Now where’s that last Mince Pie (Aldi, of course, Mini Specially Selected…delish)

Sea_Shell

Triumph13 wrote: »

As I've observed before, your numbers would easily support spending more than double what you do spend, but that really isn't the point. If you are happy at your current spending level then why spend more?
Reading between the lines, I get the feeling that you actually get a lot of pleasure and satisfaction from managing your finances in the way you do. Rather than feeling you are depriving yourselves, I'm guessing you get a real buzz from seeing those lovely low numbers in the expenditure column? If so then more power to you.

Managing the money is a hobby, I admit.
Why spend more than you need, unless the thing/experience you buy really makes you happy...in a meaningful way, not just a "sugar rush".

bluenose1

Sea_Shell wrote: »

Managing the money is a hobby, I admit.
Why spend more than you need, unless the thing/experience you buy really makes you happy...in a meaningful way, not just a "sugar rush".

I agree, though do spend more as support a son at University and my elderly father. We also like our holidays.
Though I despair at some people's spending. I know of two separate families who say they haven't much money but bought their young teenage children designer clothes for Christmas, costing several hundred pounds.
I don't think it does the kids any favours. Fortunately for me my 3 children know they have no chance of costly Christmas / Birthday presents. I aim for about £120 for each child, mostly money.
My sister bought her 10 year old daughter an iPhone 7 for Christmas. She now has a better phone than any of us.

No wonder I am the only one who can consider retiring.

jimi_man

DairyQueen wrote: »

Good Lord.... I don't know how you do this. Admittedly, we run two homes and that seriously increases our costs, but my expenses (inc expenses on one house) alone are almost double this. We have taken only one UK 10-day hol this year and the house maintenance costs on one house were £3k.

Looking back, I think my expenses in 2011 were about this and that was a very tight budget year.

Our budget is around £4k per month. I admit that OH isn't great at managing costs and he has a habit of spending excessively on food, but I can't imagine us ever being able to have a budget at that level. I commend you.

It does seem quite low admittedly, but when you actually look at the figures again, it makes sense. I recall from previous posts that they don't have children, rarely go out, don't really buy gifts for people, only run one car (The fuel costs work out to about 70 gallons a year - possibly 3-4000 miles a year - so very little car usage as well), and they have virtually no holidays. The council tax amount suggests that they don't have a particularly large house, so all the costs of running that are commensurately smaller.

Also it doesn't include depreciation and capital spends as they've stated.

I thought the groceries sounded quite low, but the bill works out to about £50 a week for two - ours is around £80-90 for three adults, shopping at Sainsburys - so that seems around reasonably normal.

They don't carry or spend much cash which I can identify with. Interestingly we've just been for a short break to the US and took no currency whatsoever and never got any out. Just used a card exclusively.

The big difference is the holidays. We've been away 10 times this year - Europe six times and long haul four times. (Yes I realise my carbon footprint is massive, though probably at least half of those were on an opportunistic standby basis, so I didn't really contribute much extra CO2, the plane was going anyway - if that's any justification).

Where I take my hat off is that they have detailed each and every spend over the year! I just could not be be bothered!

Sea_Shell

Blimey Jimiman, you make us sound like a right pair of miserable hermits!!!:rotfl:

jimi_man

Sea_Shell wrote: »

Blimey Jimiman, you make us sound like a right pair of miserable hermits!!!:rotfl:

Ha ha, not at all. You're living the lifestyle that works for you and that's what's important. I recall you saying that you don't really have holidays and your yearly round up said as much. We like travelling and have the opportunity to do short breaks - short haul or long haul - for very little money, so we try to do something once a month or so.

A lot of your other spends are on par with ours.

Sea_Shell

We do like our holidays, we've had loads over the years, however we are less keen on the hassle of flying these days.

We're focusing on UK based trips for the time being, as we have so much to see here... weather dependent!!