Saving to travel in retirement... and perhaps buy a house abroad!

lilian1977

Hi everyone
I am starting a diary to encourage me to continue on the path I am on. I spent many years in consumer debt but with the help of this forum and finally settling down, I find myself in a position where I can start to dream about what I would like to do in the future. 
I have no debt and just a few years left on my mortgage. I am 43 and have a workplace pension worth around £25k at the moment which I realise isn't huge, but I also have a LISA which I am paying £4k a year into, and a S&S ISA that I have just started. My husband and I are hoping to travel for a year once our son has flown the nest (so perhaps in 10 years time) and buy a retirement property in Menorca, ideally well before retirement so we can also holiday there. 
I am hoping that this diary will help me continue to save on a daily basis and get closer to my dream!
Is anyone else doing a similar thing? If so, please do join me on this diary. 
Thanks for reading!

Skint_yet_Again

Well done paying off your debt lilian & good luck with your savings for retirement & holiday home. I look forward to following your diary 🤗

lilian1977

Skint_yet_Again said:

Well done paying off your debt lilian & good luck with your savings for retirement & holiday home. I look forward to following your diary 🤗

Thanks so much
Been counting the penny jar today and almost £20 in there, will use it for food shopping during the last week before payday!
Had a super frugal lunch of roasted sweet potato soup and some cheese on French bread left over from a picnic at the weekend. Off out for a walk shortly and will take a coffee with me.

savingwannabe

Hi lilian how wonderful to buy a house abroad it is a fantastic things to save for. I am saving for life and retirement and a new kitchen! Welcome!!!! I love the idea of frugal food. Skinty is good for ideas on this. I hope you had a great walk. You sound very switched on and I am looking forward to the journey.

Irenadler

Hi Liilian

It's a great idea to set goals, something I haven't got my head round yet! Best of luck with it though, sounds like a lovely thing to look forward too...

jennystarpepper

Hi Lillian
I'm saving for the same sort of future as you.  I did not meet my partner until later in life, we bought our first property when I was 37.  I am 50 this year and I think paying just over 11k in debt in the last 12 months  gave me a lightbulb moment.  
I am overpaying my mortgage by £400 to £500 per month, hoping to be clear by the age of 55.  Putting as much into cash savings as I can and buying a few premium bonds along the way.  Pension has been increased by a few percent and also hoping to open a S&S ISA soon. 
I am lucky as I have travelled quite a lot, we have discussed renting out our house for a year when we first retire to travel.... Christmas in Australia would be lovely!  
I also would like to buy a property abroad, we are undecided if it will be a full time move to a villa or say a place in the Canaries for winter living (we both have medical needs and living in the sun would be very helpful).
I did smile when i read your comment about the 'penny jar', i've been doing this myself.  
We have no debt other than our mortgage, and everytime I think about spending money on things that I don't need I tell myself, that's another few hours we don't have to work and can retire, or it's a few more £££ towards living in the sun.  
Good luck with your plan.  

lilian1977

Thanks for all the comments - sorry i haven't been online much to respond. 

I've been reading about FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early), I was already aware of the concept through the Frugalwoods blog but have never considered it for myself. Basically you have enough savings/passive income to mean you don't need to work! Ideally you would have enough that you could withdraw between 4-5% annually from your pot and still have enough for the future. I'm nowhere near that yet and need to sit down and work out what my FIRE number would be, but ideally I would like to be FIRED by age 55 - 12 years time. 

I have my two workplace pensions, a S&S ISA and a LISA, so all my focus will be on filling that LISA for the next 7 years while I can, and while the government are still giving me a 25% bonus on it, then on increasing the S&S ISA fund as the growth from that could eventually fund my future lifestyle. 

So - savings this week - I didn't spend anything yesterday, received my SEISS grant which will mostly go to my tax account as I forgot to do so with the first grant, but the rest has gone to my ISA. Today I am taking advantage of the Birds Eye offers on Shopmium as I also have a £1.50 off at Tesco when you spend £6 on Birds Eye, so planning to get 38 chicken nuggets, 10 fish fingers and 10 potato waffles - should be £8.75, £7.50 after offers at Tesco, will be £4.50 once I use the coupons. A great way to fill the freezer before back to school! We've also been using up things in the freezer to make room, so burgers and sweet potato fries for tea tonight. 

I've been doing some work on Neevo, has anyone heard of it? You listen to recorded voices and approve or deny them based on the understandability and pronounciation. Only about 8p per task but it can add up. 

Hope everyone is well, I'll try and check in more often to keep on track with my FIRE plans!

lilian1977

Good morning everyone. Well, yesterday turned into less of a low spend day than I expected as I ended up buying a toy, two books and two DVDs for my son in T3sc0! However he did swap them for a couple of book tokens that he's had since January so I now have those to use to redeem against Xmas presents. I managed to use my coupon and Shopmium discount though so that was a bonus.

We've just cancelled our camping trip for this weekend as we all have colds and the weather is looking damp so we've clawed back some money there. I'm going to spend today working, cleaning and hopefully doing more jobs on Neevo. 

I've also been using up hotel toiletries, so used shampoo and shower gel from a B&B stay last week this morning, and body lotion was one I found in my stores from years ago, the lid had broken so I could never be bothered using it - I decanted it into an empty one so now I can use it. For breakfast I am having a 22p YS almond croissant and a vanilla latte that works out as 20p, with blackberries from the garden and a yoghurt that was free on Shopmium. Tea is freezer tapas!

Have great days all.

savingwannabe

Hello lillian you are doing really well. This is so inspirational. I love the FIRE people. Sorry about your colds i hope you all recover soon. I'm still going through old toiletries and have saved so much by not buying new one's before I needed to.  It's raining here so i don't think you are missing too much! 

Skint_yet_Again

I hope you are all feeling better Lilian. It’s a shame you had to cancel your camping trip but it sounds like you all need some rest and it would not have been worth risking our unpredictable weather.