How much to live on

Pat38493

We are trying to downsize now but it's more in order to have some money to put aside to help the kids with house deposits later on, than to fund retirement aspirations (although it's useful to have emergency funds available).

The other issue though is that at least in our area, the market for properties of the value that we own is quite slow - we've actually already seen a few properties that we would consider moving to, but I think it will take a good while to sell our house.  We have had one offer but the buyers have not yet been able to sell their property.

Therefore it may not be a quick thing to do - luckily I am not depending on it for my retirement planning - most of my planed scenarios assume that we don't sell the house.

sgx2000

March just started actually living on what I think I will need....
Just to see if my calcs are right.

April told redundancies are going to happen
May told I was being made redundant at 64 in July    .woohoo!!!
But
I haven't actually lived on my calculated required net income.....
Last couple of months have been financially weird/unusual 

I guess I will see if my calcs are right in 2 months time....

But on a massive plus...
Just booked 3 holidays....

Wednesday2000

I haven't posted on here in a while, but have been reading along. My husband is retiring in a month and he has almost exactly £40,000  a year to live on in his pension. We have about £90,000 in savings, but we are probably moving house this summer so £20,000 is probably spoken for out of that. I'm extremely happy about this outcome as we have both had health problems for the past ten years.

Clowance

sgx2000 said:

May told I was being made redundant at 64 in July    .woohoo!!!

But on a massive plus...
Just booked 3 holidays....

It seems odd to congratulate you on redundancy but I hope you get a decent payout. And enjoy the upcoming free time as much as you can, probably an extra 3 years or so of it.
My sister in law died at 58 never getting to the point she could retire, so it really concentrates the mind on what is important. And the simple pleasures mentioned by others need not cost much. Good luck for the future. 

sgx2000

Thank you clowance....

Really looking forward to it...

GunJack

louby40 said:

Around here, bungalows seem to have very small bedrooms. We have a super king size bed so needed a good sized bedroom to accommodate that. 

Our criteria were an ensuite, downstairs toilet, south facing garden and a kitchen where we could put a table.

We'll go with 2 of those three...not overly fussed about which way the garden faces

We're finding similar with bungalow room sizes and the layouts are, well, less than ideal and not enough room to put an extra toilet in. It always bugs me that round here bungalows seem to be on big plots but the house itself seems tiny!!

We may have to settle for a 2-storey house, which is one less than we have now.

louby40

GunJack said:

louby40 said:

Around here, bungalows seem to have very small bedrooms. We have a super king size bed so needed a good sized bedroom to accommodate that. 

Our criteria were an ensuite, downstairs toilet, south facing garden and a kitchen where we could put a table.

We'll go with 2 of those three...not overly fussed about which way the garden faces

We're finding similar with bungalow room sizes and the layouts are, well, less than ideal and not enough room to put an extra toilet in. It always bugs me that round here bungalows seem to be on big plots but the house itself seems tiny!!

We may have to settle for a 2-storey house, which is one less than we have now.

We like to have friends and family round for BBQ's and get togethers. Much nicer in a sunny garden. 

jackieblack

louby40 said:

GunJack said:

louby40 said:

Around here, bungalows seem to have very small bedrooms. We have a super king size bed so needed a good sized bedroom to accommodate that. 

Our criteria were an ensuite, downstairs toilet, south facing garden and a kitchen where we could put a table.

We'll go with 2 of those three...not overly fussed about which way the garden faces

We're finding similar with bungalow room sizes and the layouts are, well, less than ideal and not enough room to put an extra toilet in. It always bugs me that round here bungalows seem to be on big plots but the house itself seems tiny!!

We may have to settle for a 2-storey house, which is one less than we have now.

We like to have friends and family round for BBQ's and get togethers. Much nicer in a sunny garden. 

It’s good that we all like different things otherwise the housing market would be even more difficult

My back garden is north facing, which means that the end nearest the house stays cool and shaded on a hot day and the rest of the garden is sunny - to me, that is the best of both worlds 

Wednesday2000

I was interested in bungalows, but the ones I have seen online in Kent (where we are moving to) all look quite old-fashioned and like they need a lot of updating. They also have big gardens a lot of the time and I hate gardening with a passion! We would just hire a gardener which would be an ongoing expense over the years.

We are now looking at flats as well as you can get some with sea views.

I said what we want is ideally two bathrooms/loos and a (preferably south facing) low maintenance garden. We did see a nice flat near Botany Bay online yesterday, but we think it is better to be nearer to the main town/train station. I will be going back to London at least once a month as my brother is still there and so are a few of my friends.

Albermarle

louby40 said:

GunJack said:

louby40 said:

Around here, bungalows seem to have very small bedrooms. We have a super king size bed so needed a good sized bedroom to accommodate that. 

Our criteria were an ensuite, downstairs toilet, south facing garden and a kitchen where we could put a table.

We'll go with 2 of those three...not overly fussed about which way the garden faces

We're finding similar with bungalow room sizes and the layouts are, well, less than ideal and not enough room to put an extra toilet in. It always bugs me that round here bungalows seem to be on big plots but the house itself seems tiny!!

We may have to settle for a 2-storey house, which is one less than we have now.

We like to have friends and family round for BBQ's and get togethers. Much nicer in a sunny garden. 

Possibly depends on where in UK you live. I live in one of the warmer parts and I would not want a South facing garden.
Ours faces NW, but even so it is 100% sunny( on the right day of course) from 13.00 to 19.00. During hotter days the back of the house gets uncomfortably warm. Presuming if it was South facing it would be worse.