First Steps to Solvency

enthusiasticsaver

Early retirement  is a choice but I actually prefer the word financial independence.  The option to choose and as you have said many times before you enjoy work and don't want to retire and maybe because you have your own business you have autonomy anyway (no need to answer to management) but you do have to consider your leveraging as you are enslaved to banks at the moment which in my book is even worse but you are working on that. You do also need to consider your health as that may have an impact on your life and ability to provide your lifestyle although the BTL is passive.  As someone else said retirement does not mean not making money. Our portfolio over the last year has produced more in growth than my salary produced in 5 years. 

I don't see anything wrong with wanting to earn more if those are your goals.  Your FIL calling it avarice is one thing but that is probably his socialist idealism.  Personally making money doesn't interest me as we have more than enough.  Our financial advisor keeps telling us to spend more but after a lifetime of saving I don't see why we should waste money when we are not interested in collecting things as such. Anything we wanted or needed we could buy but time, peace of mind,  health and experiences are what we enjoy rather than things although my husband loves his tools as he is a practical sort. Not a car guy though and only car I want is one which is reliable and comfortable.  If I was to acquire your wifes bag collection for example we would need a bigger house to put it all in and I love my house and spending hundreds on make up is of no interest to me whatsoever but then IG and social media presence is wasted on me.  Maybe because I am a different generation but at 30 I was more interested in my children, husband, house and work so no time for that.   Different strokes for different folks as they say.  Maybe we need to take a leaf out of your book as we have just started gifting significant sums to our children on the grounds we would like to see them more comfortable while we are still here to see it but they tell us to spend it.  As in everything balance is key so we do intend to spoil ourselves with a porch and redecorate our living room next year with a new entertainment set up.  We know how to live haha. 

It is your wife essentially though who is saying don't earn more money as she has not grasped that more BTL units means more income after the deleveraging. You need to go back to basics with her but get her involved so at least she is on board with the budgeting.  You need to get her to understand the invest to accumulate and produce income theory.  All she sees is you buying houses or units whereas she would rather buy makeup or tech which is dead money.  Explain the figures in black and white as you have on here.  So much of your income is used to run the house, so much for the school, so much for the cars and repaying debt and the rest is for living.  If she sees that out of your £8k income there is only £1.5k spare each month so when she blows £1k on overpriced tat for her and your son she has blown almost a whole months spending money then she might get it.  

rugbymadfamily

Understand that, I've spent many years working up in the City and a number of the Partners at our firm didn't want to stop working at any age! It's a cliche but it's true, life is for living, not just for working and at some point the body will give up, especially given the amount of stress you go through.

How we see retirement is different for all of us (I want to buy a massive campervan and spend my days travelling Europe, you might want to buy an awesome car and spend your days driving etc). I know there's so much thinking to do, and it gets a bit tiring constantly planning and thinking but just worth having a think about how you see life in 30years and what you want from it, as I say, that's different for all of us and no judgement here (I'm the nutter that wants to drive around in a campervan after all lol) just would hate for you to think your only option is to keep working until you drop dead, because that's really sad and after all your hard work, you deserve more.

getmore4less

Retirement does not mean making money stops, the asset base can still grow. 

it means not busting a gut to make more and having some life. 

It is going to take time for you to transition to spending smarter rather than spending just to spend.

There is still quite a lot of all or nothing and instant fix running through your thought processes. 

enthusiasticsaver

alt80 said:

 Can’t see why the !!!!!! wanting to make more money is even being questioned on a !!!!!! money forum. 😆I’d make £50k/m net if I could then I’d go for £100k, wouldn’t everyone if they were honest with themselves? Keep reinvesting the retained and it’s like a bonus. No !!!!!! secret I don’t see why people can’t see that. I don’t love where my income level is but not gonna sit about getting depressed about it any longer. Would rather do something about it.

FIL is no great investor lol just stuck with an average house and paid into a public sector pension wouldn’t know how to make a few quid from an obvious deal if it stared him in the face, wouldn’t even lend me £100k for property stuff lol. As he says my appetite ’nothing but avarice’ 😆 even asked if I’m speaking to the counsellor about it Christmas Day FML. 

The ethos on here is money saving rather than making money btw. I personally don't get the attraction of making more money just for the sake of it and I guess many people are the same including your FIL. Our income now though is passive so I guess I may well get concerned if our investments took a nose dive and did not recover for several years but we are invested cautiously and diversified globally and across several different asset types so extremely unlikely to happen(no surprise there) and our main pensions are not dependent on the stock market performing well.  I don't have a problem with others wanting to make money though so I don't think I am a socialist although I do think we live in a very unequal society but that is a debate for another forum. I  do not begrudge you or others like you any of your success as you are obviously ambitious and work hard so don't agree that ambition is  the same as avarice. I also think that if you want more income then you need to invest in your portfolio.  Speculate to accumulate. 

ryanm8655

A little out of context but was just reading this and thought of you @alt80 (also resonates with me too).

 “One important thing to realise is that there is a difference between pleasure and happiness. It's about instant versus long-term gratification - understanding that happiness is a perspective, an attitude and can be accomplished with a certain mindset. When you have that perspective, you can go after real wealth, and it's better than simply just being rich. Pleasure can be nights out, expensive things, designer clothes and holidays. By no means is this a bad thing - I mean if you ever buy something from Gucci, the effort that goes into the wrapping alone is sometimes worth the cost!

But you don't need pleasure. Sure, it helps, but you need to remain aware that it's a black hole that consumes all in its path. 

And as a black hole would increase in mass through absorbing whatever comes its way, it would, in theory, then develop a stronger gravitational pull over time. This is not intended to put you off the pursuit of pleasure, just give you an understanding of how I view it. 

You can elicit satiety in many areas of life, but pleasure is one to be aware and wary of. If you seek happiness from pleasure with gambling, drug use and partying, you may lose sight of what really makes you happy and end up depressed, hungover and broke because of it.”

enthusiasticsaver

Thats interesting Ryan.  Where does the quote come from?  I would say there is definitely something in that. It is an interesting concept.  What makes us happy?  For me it is feeling fit and healthy and knowing my family are the same and what gives me pleasure is climbing a coast path, listening to the waves and then sitting there and taking in the view at the top of a hill. Exhilerating and peaceful in equal measure. 

ryanm8655

enthusiasticsaver said:

Thats interesting Ryan.  Where does the quote come from?  I would say there is definitely something in that. It is an interesting concept.  What makes us happy?  For me it is feeling fit and healthy and knowing my family are the same and what gives me pleasure is climbing a coast path, listening to the waves and then sitting there and taking in the view at the top of a hill. Exhilerating and peaceful in equal measure. 

It’s from this:

https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Not-a-Life-Coach-Audiobook/0008404836?ipRedirectOverride=true&source_code=M2M30DFT1Bk13004272002HN&gclid=CjwKCAiAxKv_BRBdEiwAyd40NzHCd39ey7e2kx7WrHWSS54iIke-JYi6sS4L7bNYFwfC6UxkXTHycBoCwnAQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

He’s an online PT that has developed quite a following for his no nonsense and straightforward style, plus calling out celebrity endorsements of BS fat loss products ha. Funny guy but also talks a fair amount of sense.

Re: happiness, I’d say that I’ve been confusing pleasure with happiness ha. For me it’s about having direction and focus, a longterm goal that I’m working towards. That means I wake up every day with a sense of purpose rather than feeling crap/bored. Not sure I’ve nailed happiness just yet though, will see how the new me develops haha. 

warby68

Some brilliant posts this morning
Hopefully @alt80 it helps keep you on that even keel you've tried so hard to get and your wife, whether deliberate or not, has tried to rip away.
Businesses drive the economy, spending comes after income generation. Be it public spending, commercial reinvestment or consumer. Its when the spending comes before the generationthat everything gets riskier and self defeating as it costs to borrow and its anticipating future income so eventually there's nothing left to spend when that future comes.  Capitalism, conservatisim whatever - but its just how business works to me and how we get hopefully more to decide what to do with. The allocation of what's generated is a debate for elsewhere of course.
Keep playing the same record with your wife. We have overspent. We need to rebalance. Better times will come again. If she wants to get fully involved with the business fair enough but if she wants zero responsiblity then that top income line is yours to determine.  A simple page of household income less fixed costs should show her what the amount you really have to play with is. 
Whilst I think what she's done is very wrong, I am conscious what the starting point was. Both her and Alt are coming down from overspending by £3-4k a month for a long time. Alt is there, she clearly isn't and its Alt call how to play it. We can support him when he doubts himself though. 
Keep going @alt80 - you can buy whatever you want in the future as far as I'm concerned as long as you're paying your way.

enthusiasticsaver

ryanm8655 said:

Re: happiness, I’d say that I’ve been confusing pleasure with happiness ha. For me it’s about having direction and focus, a longterm goal that I’m working towards. That means I wake up every day with a sense of purpose rather than feeling crap/bored. Not sure I’ve nailed happiness just yet though, will see how the new me develops haha. 

That makes sense.  I know that I need to be working on a project or a challenge as I think it is very easy when retired to lose your sense of purpose.  Being bored also leads to self destructive behaviour like eating or drinking too much and stagnating.  I try and do  something for my body each day like a long walk or a gym workout or swim or coastal path climb and something for my brain like crossword puzzles, sudoku or read a challenging book or some sort of maths calculation (still a passion of mine) and some sort of project at home or in the garden I am always working towards either decluttering, reorganising or deep cleaning. 

TheAble

alt80 said:

FIL is no great investor lol just stuck with an average house and paid into a public sector pension wouldn’t know how to make a few quid from an obvious deal if it stared him in the face, wouldn’t even lend me £100k for property stuff lol. As he says my appetite ’nothing but avarice’ 😆 even asked if I’m speaking to the counsellor about it Christmas Day FML. 

100k's a lot! I can understand your FIL balking at that, especially if he's only modestly off and a conservative investor. I would imagine that he has a very different attitude to risk than you do.