Enjoy life while you can.

Terron

michaels said:

I think it is very hard to judge what difference a nice care home as opposed to a shirty one would make to our older selves - especially as it will be for something between 0 days and 10+ years.....

I went round a bunch of care homes looking for one for my father. It could make a great deal of difference, unless you have dementia which my father did not. His was paid for out of his NHS pension, 21 years after he had retired.

Albermarle

Also do not forget that we are in a bit of a bubble on this forum , so we do not always take in the wider picture.
On all seven pages , not one poster has said. something like '  I am in my 60's , still having to work to pay the rent , scared of getting ill and end up being evicted . Had to get a new fridge but had to borrow the money to get it etc 'and I desperately wish I had not got divorced/lost a good job/spent everything I earned etc 
Such a person, and there are many , would be ecstatic to be in the OP's position. 

MallyGirl

123mat123 said:

..I think it's easier to save if you were born in the 60s/70s (or before). 
Expectations were lower, eating out/takeaways were a treat, stopping for coffee and cake whilst shopping was not a "thing", if something broke it was normally possible to repair, (or make do), DIY always considered before getting someone in, and things we did buy tended to last longer. (or maybe I just had a miserable upbringing, but I don't think so !)
This is not a moan about millenials, they can only make the best of what's offered today, there's no going back, but there's no denying a lot of money is wasted on junk food, disposable fashion, and "made in China" rubbish....

This certainly resonates with me. We continue to be surprised when things stop working and they are 'only' 10 years old. We do spend money on tech and have nice cars, although mine which was bought at 11 months old is now 8 years old so it has been a pretty good buy, but the TV is old and we don't buy new clothes apart from decent outdoor gear. 

Husband has spent the last few days tinkering with our old Windows laptops because he hates sending stuff to the tip if there is still 'life in it' - I have asked him to give up as one doesn't even run Windows 10 and the others which do are too low spec to be donated to the local schools appealing for kit to support home schooling! We got them for peanuts at 3 years old when his company upgraded - they are named Woody, Buzz and Jessie as Toy Story had just come out. He just seems offended by how disposable society has become.

Terron

Yellowvest23 said:

I expected the "i dont spend or treat myself but happy " replies, since after all this is a money saving forum and the demographic would be that type.Lets be honest we all know they are kidding themselves and trying to justify their addiction of saving.

Being honest, you are wrong. There is no need to justify saving if it is not taken to excess.

My addiction was not to saving but to reading - a very cheap addiction if you have a library card. I also enjoyed archeological digs - 2 weeks holiday in summer for £200 for most years in the noughties (though I would usually take a trip abroad to visit some interesting site too). I.e. I did what I enjoyed doing, but what I enjoyed happened to be cheap.

Well there were more expensive things I would have liked to do, but they cost time as well as money and I didn't have the time (after doing the things I most enjoyed). Now I have pretty much retired I have the time and I have enough money to spend on some of those things. I paid for my 60th birthday party at a Michelin starred restaurant - both the most expensive meal I have ever had and the best. Last January I went to watch England play a couple of tests in South Africa - the most expensive holiday I have ever had. Unfortunately Corvid has stopped that. Still, that means more time for reading.

barnstar2077

Terron said:

Yellowvest23 said:

I expected the "i dont spend or treat myself but happy " replies, since after all this is a money saving forum and the demographic would be that type.Lets be honest we all know they are kidding themselves and trying to justify their addiction of saving.

Being honest, you are wrong. There is no need to justify saving if it is not taken to excess.

My addiction was not to saving but to reading - a very cheap addiction if you have a library card. I also enjoyed archeological digs - 2 weeks holiday in summer for £200 for most years in the noughties (though I would usually take a trip abroad to visit some interesting site too). I.e. I did what I enjoyed doing, but what I enjoyed happened to be cheap.

Well there were more expensive things I would have liked to do, but they cost time as well as money and I didn't have the time (after doing the things I most enjoyed). Now I have pretty much retired I have the time and I have enough money to spend on some of those things. I paid for my 60th birthday party at a Michelin starred restaurant - both the most expensive meal I have ever had and the best. Last January I went to watch England play a couple of tests in South Africa - the most expensive holiday I have ever had. Unfortunately Corvid has stopped that. Still, that means more time for reading.

Even without a library card I have found books to be great value for money.  I have been reading the last few months.  I finished the internet in the first lockdown.

Langtang

gambleruk said:

Ok here is a thought, take early retirement at 50 with enough to get by on with a smallish pension pot in the future to bridge the gap to state pension. You enjoy the next 25 years staying fit and healthy and spending your money wisely, you then fall ill and are stuck in an average at best care home for the rest of your years for as long as that maybe as you have very little money left, do you think you would lie there and regret retiring early and enjoying your life at an early age and think damn I really should have worked another 15 years so I could pass away in a better care home ? Not trying to be morbid but just wondering where other peoples stance would be on this ? 

This hit home for me. My MIL went into care Dec 18, before passing away in Aug ‘20. It was a lovely care home, very attentive staff etc etc. This has been my first experience of the care system in my life. 

I’ll never forget the experience, ever. Her sitting there in her room 20-odd hours a day, waiting to die, basically. Spending the best part of £5k pm for the “pleasure” over a 20 month period. 

I really don’t want any part of the care system if I need it. I’d rather not be here. The sad thing is, I may not be capable of that by the time it comes around. 

Other opinions of care homes are available. 

smutput

enthusiasticsaver said:

It means getting good value for whatever is bought.  We are not bothered by cars which many buy as a status symbol but when we do holidays we do them in 5 star hotels and we eat in nice restaurants rather than cheap and cheerful.  

A little but judgemental methinks. If expensive hotels and dining out is your thing, then great. A passion for cars, however, is not necessarily a status thing and a car could actually be a good investment.  We'll always have something to sell after our years of enjoyment with it. 

Thrugelmir

Happiness doesn't revolve around money. Greater satisfaction comes from simply waking up every morning. Just making the most of the day that lies ahead. As who knows when it maybe the last. 

pensionpawn

I think that anyone who grew up prior to the end of rationing after WW2 would find it difficult to spend their money because of their upbringing in such austere times. I think it's a generational issue, due to conditioning, to keep something for a rainy day and repair as much as possible. I've been paying into a pension since 23, a year after graduating and starting my first full time job. The plan was always to 'have the option' to retire as close as possible to 55 which is now days away. I still have one daughter to fly the nest as she's in her first year of her university studies, so no retirement until she hopefully graduates in just over two years. That's fine because I actually enjoy (most of) my job and our retirement plans for a couple of holidays a year are obviously on hold. However, in parallel to making sure I was putting away enough to retire on and as early as possible, we lived in the moment. Regular holidays (including Florida roughly every 5 years), new cars only since 1998, Sky World, new tech gadgets (my main vice) and bringing up three kids. The flip side is we don't spend much on eating out, fashion, jewellery, expensive perfumes / aftershave etc. As others have commented, horses for courses. So through the accumulation years we've thoroughly enjoyed ourselves (in addition to coping with some hard times) because tomorrow is never promised. As per the main thrust of this thread, save what you need to for the future however live in the moment. I don't need to accumulate a huge pot as we've calculated what 'income' will give us a comfortable retirement and the pot size necessary to support that, and how much longer we need to keep working to achieve that, which just happens to be when my daughter finishes uni. The take away is enjoy life in the present though plan for the future. If I did receive some awful news tomorrow I'll be happy that I maximised the life I had based on the income I had. I'm conscious that my father told me when he retired at 65 that he came into the good money when he was just becoming too old to enjoy it. I don't want that to happen to me and my wife.

zagubov

pensionpawn said:

I think that anyone who grew up prior to the end of rationing after WW2 would find it difficult to spend their money because of their upbringing in such austere times. I think it's a generational issue, due to conditioning, to keep something for a rainy day and repair as much as possible.

I've been paying into a pension since 23, a year after graduating and starting my first full time job. The plan was always to 'have the option' to retire as close as possible to 55 which is now days away. I still have one daughter to fly the nest as she's in her first year of her university studies, so no retirement until she hopefully graduates in just over two years.

That's fine because I actually enjoy (most of) my job and our retirement plans for a couple of holidays a year are obviously on hold. However, in parallel to making sure I was putting away enough to retire on and as early as possible, we lived in the moment. Regular holidays (including Florida roughly every 5 years), new cars only since 1998, Sky World, new tech gadgets (my main vice) and bringing up three kids.

The flip side is we don't spend much on eating out, fashion, jewellery, expensive perfumes / aftershave etc. As others have commented, horses for courses. So through the accumulation years we've thoroughly enjoyed ourselves (in addition to coping with some hard times) because tomorrow is never promised. As per the main thrust of this thread, save what you need to for the future however live in the moment.

I don't need to accumulate a huge pot as we've calculated what 'income' will give us a comfortable retirement and the pot size necessary to support that, and how much longer we need to keep working to achieve that, which just happens to be when my daughter finishes uni.

The take away is enjoy life in the present though plan for the future. If I did receive some awful news tomorrow I'll be happy that I maximised the life I had based on the income I had.

I'm conscious that my father told me when he retired at 65 that he came into the good money when he was just becoming too old to enjoy it. I don't want that to happen to me and my wife.

Just paragraphing what you said so more people will read it and respond to it.