How much to live on

savingpennies

louby40 said:

I love reading about how everyone stretches their money (in whatever way) and if it's not relevant to me I just scroll on by.

In other news..... I have 3 days left in my school. I've been there for 24 years and teaching for 29 years. Thursday is going to be very emotional but I'm so ready to move on now.

Secured my self a job too last week! Just a part time role that will top up my pension. Looking forward to new experiences and adventures and already have some planned trips that are NOT in school holidays! Now there is a saving 😊

I left teaching in 2016 after 32 years, all at the same college.  My husband had already stopped working a few months previously.  We'd talked about the things we wanted to do - the experiences and adventures - and did them.  We travelled, I completed an MA, husband researched his family tree, improvements to the house,etc.  We reckoned we would have 10 'good' years and then we would start falling apart.  In the end we had nine when he sadly died.  Good luck with your retirement; embrace and enjoy.  PS, I'm still planning those experience and adventures, we only have one life and it should be lived.

TallGirl

I do love reading this thread it really shows how you can enjoy life after work but also how short and precious each day should be. 

I have 3 1/2 week left before I emigrate back to my country of birth Denmark. I have bought a large modern bungalow with super energy efficient heating (air to ground source pump). Selling my house here I have been able to put almost £200K in the bank for cutting back on work now and retirement age. I am 55 in a couple of weeks and my other half is 60. We have now lost two friends aged 54 both to cancer so it really has made us realise how short life really is. 

My parent are getting older and it is not fair my sister has all the work. We are moving to be nearer my sister and family and hope my mum might move nearer us at some stage. I am hoping to be made redundant at work (I cannot work from abroad) and then I will work with DG on her business. This is self employed so we can chose when we work and have time for golf. We can also travel and keep it ticking over should we need to. I would like to escape the Danish winters for sure. 

I do know Danish tax is really high but there health care is better in that you do not wait years for treatment it is more like months. Our bills will be slightly higher and the cost of the car is high but if we are careful and do not go out for dinner all the time or take expensive holidays I recon it doable until we can get our pensions at 67. Those will be UK ones that will be index linked. 

So a very exciting time but also a bit scary but this is absolutely the right move. DG is getting burnt out with her current work so this new business is the way forward. We have a website so I need to learn more about marketing which is really exciting too. 

Keep posting it is so good to see how other people navigate this stage in life.  

MayDogsandCoffee

@louby40 - congrats on your retirement and good luck for your next chapter.  I hope you didn't have the get the bus home with all your presents.

helensbiggestfan

Good Morning All. 

Tall Girl. Wow. Retiring and relocating. How exciting. good luck with everything, hope the move goes smoothly. I went to Copenhagen a few years ago.  Absolutely loved it.  And I love Scandi style.😁

Well I have had a productive few days.  My handyman helped me reorganise the furniture in one of my bedrooms so I am now the proud owner of a proper study.  I do need to do some Swedish Death Cleaning with all the paperwork but I figure that's really a winter job. In the meantime I have this morning made a start on reorganising my finances.  

I decided to close down some old savings accounts which I thought were pretty much empty and was delighted to find extra money lurking in them which I had forgotten about.  Only around £180 spread across two of the accounts but better than a slap in the face with a wet haddock.  🤣.  

Every little helps.......

Organgrinder

Well I just went through my kitchen cupboards. Kitchen was installed 4 years ago. Some stuff pre-dated that!!!

But not too bad. Maybe £10 worth of stuff but much was half used.

Under 1p a day of waste. Happy with that.

LL_USS

@TallGirl you have so much exciting moves ahead of you - all the best of luck :-).

@helensbiggestfan well done for having reached a new milestone (and now having your own study :-), and having £180 forgotten money :-). I will need to do my own swedish death cleaning around the house soon. Only managed to do that with my clothes recently - and getting all the light ones out for our summer trip in the East.

It's the summer for me - less work, so let's see what I've done:

1. more exercises (and lots of dancing to keep the mind coordinate with the legs and arms - I have sworn to myself to still keep some dancing routines even when I am 50, 60 or 70....

2. I also learnt more about consolidating my finances, watching systematically how to look after my finance and S&S on a 8 week course free on Youtube. Chasing @Organgrinder (thanks so much again) both here and on private messages to understand thoroughly how to manage my stoozing cards.

3. a bit of gardening (during the dry weather and hose ban)

4. seeing more friends and spending more time with my kids and my kat 

5. preparing for the work during my Asia trip, new semester from September, then a colleague's wedding in India in November... then before we know it, it will be Christmas.

Life is so short - who knows what's coming around the bend, just enjoy living each day we have, enjoy whoever we have :-)

Organgrinder

LL_USS said:

2. I also learnt more about consolidating my finances, watching systematically how to look after my finance and S&S on a 8 week course free on Youtube. Chasing @Organgrinder (thanks so much again) both here and on private messages to understand thoroughly how to manage my stoozing cards.

Don't think I offered much that you don't already know! But always happy to help anyone who thinks I'm able to!

After last week's rejig of my finances I have decided to treat myself.

So a new (for me) semi acoustic guitar is in the cards. Nothing flash - an ES335 copy. I don't play much but if I can get into a 30 min a day habit I'm sure things will progress.

Our holiday is only a couple of weeks away too. So my usual Primark visit will need to be done. And when we get back new school clothes.

I'm also considering going to 6 by Nico. Seems good value. 

And then of course there are the holiday excursions.

An expensive month. But.... that's why we work!

Jimbobdibob

Organgrinder said:

LL_USS said:

2. I also learnt more about consolidating my finances, watching systematically how to look after my finance and S&S on a 8 week course free on Youtube. Chasing @Organgrinder (thanks so much again) both here and on private messages to understand thoroughly how to manage my stoozing cards.

Don't think I offered much that you don't already know! But always happy to help anyone who thinks I'm able to!

After last week's rejig of my finances I have decided to treat myself.

So a new (for me) semi acoustic guitar is in the cards. Nothing flash - an ES335 copy. I don't play much but if I can get into a 30 min a day habit I'm sure things will progress.

Our holiday is only a couple of weeks away too. So my usual Primark visit will need to be done. And when we get back new school clothes.

I'm also considering going to 6 by Nico. Seems good value. 

And then of course there are the holiday excursions.

An expensive month. But.... that's why we work!

6 by Nico, been a few times, excellent choice, my recommendation, book the accompanying wine flight.
Pre drinks at your peril as the wine just keeps coming

Organgrinder

Jimbobdibob said:

Organgrinder said:

LL_USS said:

2. I also learnt more about consolidating my finances, watching systematically how to look after my finance and S&S on a 8 week course free on Youtube. Chasing @Organgrinder (thanks so much again) both here and on private messages to understand thoroughly how to manage my stoozing cards.

Don't think I offered much that you don't already know! But always happy to help anyone who thinks I'm able to!

After last week's rejig of my finances I have decided to treat myself.

So a new (for me) semi acoustic guitar is in the cards. Nothing flash - an ES335 copy. I don't play much but if I can get into a 30 min a day habit I'm sure things will progress.

Our holiday is only a couple of weeks away too. So my usual Primark visit will need to be done. And when we get back new school clothes.

I'm also considering going to 6 by Nico. Seems good value. 

And then of course there are the holiday excursions.

An expensive month. But.... that's why we work!

6 by Nico, been a few times, excellent choice, my recommendation, book the accompanying wine flight.
Pre drinks at your peril as the wine just keeps coming

Sounds like a plan!

Murphybear

Organgrinder said:

Plasticman said:

oceandreamer said:

Thankyou for all your replies.  It does seem that it is sensible to 'get your house in order' before you retire.  I am going to think hard about what is achievable while I am still at work, both in terms of cost and more importantly, time.  I don't really want to retire to a massive to-do list but have to be realistic about what I can manage to do while still working quite long hours.  At least if I have a plan I can take baby steps towards getting it done.  
@Alnat1 you touch on something else which I feel is very important, and that is that money isn't the only (or even probably the most important) consideration. Looking after you future health is absolutely priority number one and has to be a part of any retirement plan.  I am hoping that there will be more time to exercise, cook from scratch, shop etc which will directly improve my health and fitness. 

I'm hoping to retire at 55 so I'm (hopefully) not going to get a new kitchen that'll last for the rest of my days. My current plan is to replace both the kitchen and main bathroom after retirement and then we'll probably have to fund another round at some point unless we decide to move.

Having had our bathrooms and kitchen done when I was about 55, I want to make sure I have sufficient funds available for another refurb. Hence my desire to have a pot of about £100k in addition to my pensions and short term savings.

It sounds a lot of money - but in reality it only takes something like a new roof, windows and so on and that pot isn't as big as it sounds.

We’ve been thinking about a new kitchen recently.  After trawling around the usual suspects plus some local firms we were horrified at how expensive even a basic kitchen is.  All the firms were quoting at least £5k to fit it, irrelevant of the size.  Not bad for a few days work.  We saw a beautiful kitchen in Wickes and asked how much it would be for the exact layout. It would have taken up about a third of our big kitchen.   £15k plus fitting 😹😹😹 which included their current 50% offer.  Wickes is one of the cheaper firms.  These figures may not sound a lot to some of you but as pensioners (73/77 in a few weeks) we don’t want to spend this sort of money that we probably won’t get the best out of. 

According to Which the fitting should cost about 20% of the total.  I don’t think most kitchen suppliers read Which.  

Fortunately there’s lots of lovely articles online about titivating your kitchen without spending a fortune