To those who retired early, what made you take the plunge (and any regrets?)

Toucan13

michaels said:

This is me too.  I have reduced hours to 70% but still have no interest in the job.  cfirresim says I could go now at 50 and spend more per year then I currently do but I just don't believe that historic data tells us everything about the future and am also worried about keeping up with average earnings rather than just prices - 45 years slipping behind each year by the increase in real wages puts you into some very low income percentiles.

A crystal ball would be nice.  

bostonerimus

JustAnotherSaver said:

For those who have retired 'early', especially considerably early vs state pension age, I wonder how you were able to do so.

In other words, I wonder if the people in this thread who've done that are from a totally different position in terms of wage and how many of these people who managed to / decided to retire early were on a similar wage to myself.

To be black and white, I hit in the region of 26-28k currently. Wife is on less at around 16-18k so a combined household of 42k-46k. I'm going to have a stab at most people in the thread who managed to retire early possibly earn somewhere around that or more by themselves alone.

Yes, it's easier if you earn a lot to save a lot for retirement. The key is to control your spending so you have a lot left over to save and invest. My starting salary back in 1987 was around GBP 20k and my final salary in 2014 was GBP 100k. I was married for 7 years, but the divorce was a set back as everything was split down the middle and we sold the house in a not very good market. I never had children so that's one big expense that I didn't have.

JustAnotherSaver

JGB1955 said:

By the time I retired I was earning in the region of £7K.  However, we had been mortgage free for more than 20 years, so maybe that's the dilemma.

I don't doubt it.

I have worked with many people over the years who when they come working where I do, they're on part time and minimum wage for it. 

But that doesn't mean that they did or didn't have 6 figure paying jobs for the 40 years that came before it.

Our boss even sent one of his minions to question a worker as to how that worker made their money (let's just say it became clear they weren't short of a few quid). Very narrow minded - just because you pay peanuts and he now does a mind numbing job doesn't mean that's what he had throughout his life.

german_keeper said:

Firstly we live oop north.

I do agree with your point about those who frequent this board. I suspect the vast majority have an above average income. A couple of my favourites have been an income of something like 60 or 70 grand described as respectable and over 100 grand as above average. But I also believe that the vast majority of posters are thoroughly decent people who genuinely want to help others if they can.

Same (location), thankfully. You may or may not be more oop than me but i'm north enough where I can happily drink my tap water , though doesn't taste as good as Scottish.

I also don't have kids, which is a bonus where money is concerned ... even if it does mean I and my wife spent our 20s and most of our 30s being looked at like we had our heads missing. Some people need to get it in to theirs that not everyone craves kids & respect their decisions.

As for the board, I find it depends massively which forum on the board you frequent. Some forums such as the money saving ones (savings, banking, pensions) I would agree with you.

Retireinten said:

They often ask about pension planning (they know I have a keen interest in it) and what they need to do differently to fund retirement, but it's very difficult to say, stop with the expensive holidays abroad, stop upgrading your cars every 2/3 years on the never/never etc etc. We earn more than our friends but certainly don't have the lifestyle they do. 

This is something I try and put to my wife when she's asking - this person has 3 kids and is affording XYZ, why can't we. How does that person pay for ABC and they work part time, so on & so forth.

You don't know what goes on behind closed doors. They may be counting pennies to fund that. Who knows but more importantly, who even cares. What someone else buys is of no real concern to me. These people with 3, 4, 5+ kids and still going on holidays and getting beauty implants and injections etc, good for them. What's their situation going to be when the kids move out? Not that I even care about that either.

The only time I bother about someone elses situation is when they earn a similar amount and can do something that I can't - and that's only from the POV of - can i learn anything from this person to better my situation. In a way what my earlier post was all about.

Those saying they put 80% of their wage to retirement ... but earn 200k per year. It can be very easy doing that (depending!) vs someone on minimum wage getting say 17k per year. 80% of that persons wage can stop them from paying bills.

Anyway, thanks to the individuals who responded. Was good to have feedback

Toucan13

JustAnotherSaver said:

For those who have retired 'early', especially considerably early vs state pension age, I wonder how you were able to do so.

In other words, I wonder if the people in this thread who've done that are from a totally different position in terms of wage and how many of these people who managed to / decided to retire early were on a similar wage to myself.

To be black and white, I hit in the region of 26-28k currently. Wife is on less at around 16-18k so a combined household of 42k-46k. I'm going to have a stab at most people in the thread who managed to retire early possibly earn somewhere around that or more by themselves alone.

I started pension contributions pretty much when I started work .  Reasonable earner, then a divorce a decade ago forced me to really look hard at my spending and stay on top of all my costs to buy out my ex and fund childcare etc. That's the time I really started to put every penny spare into pensions and ISA's - more based on fear that I could be made redundant at any time and that it would be hard at that stage with dependent kids who live full time with me to find a similar job and salary without moving house / schools etc so I needed to squirrel away as much as I could while times were ok financially. My initial spreadsheet started then - I definitely think starting pension savings early and then really focussing on pensions in my early 40's has made a huge difference to where I am now.  And markets have been kind - and I don't underestimate the significance of that either.

That said I'm still working - that fear of being left with nothing / losing everything isn't easy to shake.

Mrs_Z

Took the plunge last September.  Officially, I'm on 1 year personal leave, but really I'm practising for an early retirement.  I had always planned to go at 55, but Brexit threw in a curve ball as the work place moved to an EU country in 2019, which has brought the retirement forward due to the choice of either relocating or commuting and I don't fancy either (having tried the commuting option for 1 year).  So far, no regrets whatsoever but of course I'm somewhat soothed with the knowledge that I could still return to the job if I wanted to.
The biggest adjustment is the mindset - going from a saver to spender.  I'm self funding 10 years between now and the pension and basically withdraw a certain amount every month (which makes it feel like a salary).  This is 'the number' that I've deemed that should be sufficient to manage with.  I'm very good at keeping to budgets and in fact, was already trying out 'the number' whilst earning, so it has not come as a big shock in anyway and of course with COVID, there has been some savings too as we haven't travelled much, no eating out, etc.
We're mortgage free, and no kids so that has been a massive help in that there have never been childcare or university fees to pay. OH is still working, so that's another safety net in theory. Like many others have said, the work just was not enjoyable, lots of pressure, lots of regulation to make your life difficult and re-organisation every 2 years, just when you thought you got a system going.  I put up with the last job for 15 years as it was very well paid and good perks - in the knowledge that every month that I hung in there, bought me another month of early retirement.  That was the thought that got me through it every Monday plus keeping spreadsheets where I could see getting closer to the target.

mat1964

I'm nearly 57.  Work is very stressful but well paid.  If my house sale/purchase goes through in the next few months then I will either request to go on reduced days for a while or more likely retire completely.  We will be mortgage free with a house valued at £850k, £100k in savings and around £320k DC pot plus a small DB (£8,500 a year).  I was late to pensions, so it's not quite what I wanted, but I think we will manage, and if not we can downsize.

comeandgo

I did earn slightly more than average but not into 40% tax.  What helped me retire early was my life choices, I had my children in my late teens so by the time I was 40 they had all left home with no financial requirements from us and I was able to work without children constraints and pay a lot into pensions.  I see many professionals leave having children so late, with university costs it must be difficult for the parents to save much.

enthusiasticsaver

Toucan13 said:

Just that really - I'm a wannabe early retirer who spends way too much time on this board these days (but have learned SO much - thank you). I'm on countdown (not quite there yet - some financial reasons and some family ones). 

I'm 53 and wondering what makes some people take that big step, what did you worry about when you did so, and have you had any regrets?

We retired at 58 and no regrets.  We planned for early retirement as my Dad died early (aged 63) with no retirement and my husband did a job involving lots of travel and long hours and neither of us wanted him to be doing that in his 60s. We had planned to go at 60 but work reorganisations, bad management and low morale in the workplace meant both of us chose to go earlier.  We have no money issues thanks to us planning from our mid 20s/early 30s as soon as we had children and just after my Dad died. 

Our worries beforehand were mainly whether our finances would stretch to the sort of retirement we wanted with spare money for hobbies, travel and leisure interests.  We wondered whether we would fill our time and not get bored.  Neither of these worries came to be an issue as our pensions and investments easily cover our outgoings and more and we have the benefit of our state pensions to come in three and four years time. Both of us have taken up new hobbies and can spend more time on existing ones and we have an active retirement with our daughters relatively close by and young grandchildren so we can help with childcare. 

hugheskevi

Looking back, a key part of my path to early retirement happened way back in 2003, when I was aged 25 and had done a bit over 2 years of work in my career job.

At that time, I was considering whether to take unpaid leave to spend a year traveling overland across Africa. There were lots of reasons why it would be a bad idea - the main ones being loss of earnings, loss of career progression, that I had already had a year out living and working in Australia, and the logistics of moving out of rental house I shared with friends from university. After considering it for about a month I decided the most important question was 'Is there any convincing reason why this cannot be done?' The answer to that was no, and once committing to it, everything was very straightforward.

I see early retirement in very much the same way - something that that should not be done hastily, but also something not to give in to the power of the status quo and the plethora of reasons why it might not be a good idea to retire, and instead just do one more year (or so).

That trip in 2003 (and another couple across Asia in 2007) also gave me much better understanding that money buys very little of what I value most, eg, some of the best memories of those trips, none of which cost very much, were:

• Waking up in a tent in the Sahara on a perfect morning in December next to a huge sand dune.
  
• Spending a day in an air-conditioned room watching Lord of the Rings at a home cinema in Accra (it is very hot and humid, and I hadn't watched TV in over 2 months). The place also had chilled drinks and you could order food deliveries
• Eating beef stew and ugali at a cafe in northern Kenya after 6 weeks traveling around Ethiopia and being completely sick of eating injera every day (if not twice a day).
  
• Walking out to the deserted Normandy beaches from Bayeaux in December, a cold and windy 14 mile round trip
  
• Reaching warm temperatures and wearing a T-shirt for the first time in months after a winter spent traveling across Siberia and south through China.
• Spending a lot of time in a cafe watching mist roll out of a valley in the morning and in during the evening in northern Vietnam
• Finding an old 1990s video game machine I used to play in Britain at an arcade in Malaysia. It cost about 5 pence a game, and after about 4 hours of playing, I finally won the World Cup that had eluded me many years earlier. A delightful waste of an afternoon!
  

After that, I had no interest in the various wastes of money that have almost endless possibilities as part of city-living in the West. For example, after happily buying draught beer at the price of 10 pence a pint in Ethiopia I rather resented paying many pounds to drink beer at a London pub or take-out coffee or lunch each day. That was a natural progression on the route to early retirement - having the earnings to achieve it, financial knowledge and restraint not to spend on things I consider unnecessary.

Hopefully I should retire at the end of this year aged 44, the decision for that is very simple and draws back to the same reasoning as when I decided to go across Africa in 2003 - there will always be many reasons why now is not the perfect time, but carefully consider all relevant factors, don't be hasty, but once there is no compelling reason not to do it, commit to it and everything will fall into place.

Albermarle

There are a lot of positive stories here about early retirement but the title of the thread is 

To those who retired early, what made you take the plunge (and any regrets?)

Surely at least some people must regret retiring early ? Maybe they are just shy to admit it , or not the types to inhabit this forum ?