FIRE friends & family

fred246

£100k is a very high salary but isn't as much take home as people who aren't used to paying 40% tax might think.

Pollycat

fred246 wrote: »

£100k is a very high salary but isn't as much take home as people who aren't used to paying 40% tax might think.

It's a damn sight more than someone earning £22k or less.

The thing is:
the person earning £22k has no choice but to be careful with money.
the person earning £100k can be as profligate as they wish.

Maybe when both come to retire, the person who has earned the smallest amount may be in a better position to cope with a reduced income.

JoeEngland

barnstar2077 wrote: »

After I have told people I want to retire early and have suggested that they might do the same I have had a couple of people say "Yeah, but what would I do all day?" :eek:

I have been off work for three months with an ankle injury and have fallen into a routine of seeing a friend or family member every other day for lunch or a cuppa. If I were retired (and uninjured) I would also add a day in the week for cleaning and gardening, then fill the remainder with long walks and day trips. And that is without giving it hardly any thought at all.

Yet there genuinely do seem to be people out there that don't retire early purely because of a lack of imagination as to what they would do with their free time!

I wonder what people like that are actually living for. If they don't have the gumption to find things to do then it seems as if they just consider themselves to be worker drones. How sad to be in this world and not to want anything other than to work and fit in a few things around that.

JoeCrystal

JoeEngland wrote: »

I wonder what people like that are actually living for. If they don't have the gumption to find things to do then it seems as if they just consider themselves to be worker drones. How sad to be in this world and not to want anything other than to work and fit in a few things around that.

It is not that sad, primarily if you rely on work for social interactions. But yes, I do get what you mean though. The main reason I work is to pays the bills and to have holidays aboard during the year.

cfw1994

Pollycat wrote: »

It's a damn sight more than someone earning £22k or less.

The thing is:
the person earning £22k has no choice but to be careful with money.
the person earning £100k can be as profligate as they wish.

Maybe when both come to retire, the person who has earned the smallest amount may be in a better position to cope with a reduced income.

I suspect you are right with that last point: being careful with money is pretty important during anyones retirement, early or otherwise!

Working in the IT industry, there are quite a few pretty well paid people around me....& I know for a fact that many of them are utterly hopeless with money!
The more people earn, the more they fritter away: full Sky packages, flash cars leased, expensive holidays, MANY 'things' with monthly payments (Spotify, Prime, Ring, etc etc).....not to mention potentially crippling independent school fees....the money can rapidly pour away :eek:

On the main point about telling friends/family.....for me, immediate family would certainly be made aware of my plans, but only my partner would be aware of the detail of numbers.

Friends/colleagues might get a cut-down version - again, the industry can involve a lot of travel/hours, so "taking a break/sabbatical" is perhaps how I would bill it, & perfectly reasonable.

I know one good friend who 'retired', enjoyed 6 months off, got bored, went back to work elsewhere, remembered why he hated the IT industry (!), lasted less than a year and has retired once again......

MallyGirl

JoeCrystal wrote: »

It is not that sad, primarily if you rely on work for social interactions. But yes, I do get what you mean though. The main reason I work is to pays the bills and to have holidays aboard during the year.

Me too - but then I work from home so there is less social interaction anyway. Still aiming for 58 here - 6 years time. DD has just applied to uni for a 5 or 6 year course so that means she will (hopefully) be finished, or in her final year, and coming to the point where she can support herself.
I put 50% of salary into pension (just about £40k with employer contribution) and OH puts the £40k he is allowed to. I wish we had become this retirement focused a bit earlier but here we are.
One couple who are close friends know about the 58 target but they work part time - high end consultancy/training round the world - so are happy to keep going. They always tag a holiday on the end of trips somewhere nice so that means the company funds some nice travel. Most of the rest think the concept of early retirement is completely alien.

Mick70

fred246 wrote: »

I followed the principles of FIRE for years and squirreled money away before taking early retirement. When I retired early I trashed a final salary pension so ended up with a lovely combination of index linked pension which pays all the bills plus a pot for leisure which is invested. My pot is secret so work colleagues etc probably think I am living a sad low income life. It got me thinking though about people without the pension. If you squirrel money away for years everyone will think you are poor. When you suddenly announce you have enough savings never to work again you will be seen as 'mr money bags' who pays for everything. 'Another round of drinks please mr rich friend'. How-about a payday loan mate? It must cause some people grief. One scenario I fear is if one of my children had a mortgage and lost their job. I am sure I would pay their mortgage rather than see them repossessed and evicted.

the alternative view could be that someone doesnt fully enjoy their 20s/30s/40s when far more active and life truly is for living, at the expense of having more money when in their 60s/70s ? who would be the fool then ?
Need to strike the right balance

Pollycat

Mick70 wrote: »

the alternative view could be that someone doesnt fully enjoy their 20s/30s/40s when far more active and life truly is for living, at the expense of having more money when in their 60s/70s ? who would be the fool then ?
Need to strike the right balance

Absolutely.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed:
"Life is a journey, not a destination".

Sea_Shell

Mick70 wrote: »

the alternative view could be that someone doesnt fully enjoy their 20s/30s/40s when far more active and life truly is for living, at the expense of having more money when in their 60s/70s ? who would be the fool then ?
Need to strike the right balance

If you don't have kids, you can do both!!!;)

Anonymous101

Mick70 wrote: »

the alternative view could be that someone doesnt fully enjoy their 20s/30s/40s when far more active and life truly is for living, at the expense of having more money when in their 60s/70s ? who would be the fool then ?
Need to strike the right balance

The balance point is key. Living life to the maximum through your 20s/30s/40s doesn't equal spending all of your income at all for me. It does include spending some of it though and not squirreling away every penny.