FIREside Chats

gallygirl

Am I allowed in here Ed?
Like others on here, I’ve already pulled the plug but I find it helpful to reflect back and I always found it useful to read other people’s stories. For context, I FIRE’d at 53, 6 years ago.

Why did I invest?

1.      Basically I’m bone idle and wanted to stop work asap.

2.      I was left virtually penniless when marriage broke up so was determined to be financially independent (despite being with Mr GG for years).

3.      I remember thinking, when the retirement age was increased to 65 for women, ‘no chuffing way am I working past 60’, without having a clue how I was going to achieve it.

4.      Mr GG and I bought a holiday home in Spain, completing in 2007. The very first night we sat on the terrace I announced I didn’t want it as holiday home, I wanted to retire there. That was the inspiration I needed, 100% commitment from then on in.

 How much did I think I’d need?

Hmmmm…… complicated because of no. 2 above. My bare bones figure, if we ended up apart, with me remaining in Spain, was 14k. Our joint figure was around 25k.

 How did I get there?

This is complicated as well……… Mr GG has a very generous pension which he could take at 55, but that’s always been seen by both of us (well, him more than me!) as his money. It was always there as a fall back though.

 I lived in the E Mids with very cheap house prices. I bought my first BTL, with Mr GG, in 1999. We bought and sold a few over the years, ending up with three, plus the house I lived in which was owned with Mr GG but he was only there weekends (told you it was complicated!). I always saw them as my pensions.

I wanted to pay off the mortgages (physically in the case of my home, 100% offset in the case of the BTL’s) and once that was done we were off to Spain, with tenants in our house also. That would generate income of around 32k, minus expenses. That position changed as mortgage interest relief was reduced on BTL’s and we basically just wanted it all ‘clean’.

I also had a little savings, two small govt pensions at 60 (this year!) a small company pension (to be added to SIPP when I finished work) and a SIPP. Basically, I had enough cash if things went pear shaped to cover me the first few years until I got to 55 and could access my SIPP. Drawing a bit from that every year would make up the shortfall if I ended up alone and with ½ the rent. I tried to juggle paying into the SIPP, making fairly large monthly payments, with paying off the mortgages early.

My spreadsheets worked out on what date the mortgages would be cleared – initially set to August 20 but every additional payment knocked off a day, a week, a month etc. I made one standard overpayment on the mortgages every month, factored into the spreadsheets. Always took breakfast and lunch to work. Every extra penny I got (mystery shopping, cash back, money off coupons etc) got paid off the mortgage and Mr GG matched it. What a thrill when the payoff date changed!

 A big promotion and 35% payrise knocked a couple of years off (from memory it knocked it down from 58 to 55) but most progress was slow and steady.

How long did it take?

Just looked it up – I said I wanted to retire in June 2007. My initial plan was to be finished as soon as possible but no later than my 60th in Aug 2020.

I finished work in March 2015, at 53½ with a few k less than planned in savings. Mr GG had finished the year before but did a few months consultancy overseas. I moved to Spain permanently in April 2015, Mr GG in June. So less than eight years hard graft, worth every second 😊.

We're actually spending around 31k a year, so slightly overspending on rental income and joint savings getting a little lower. We could easily cut back but enjoy our life and can both top up with own savings if/when necessary. On top of that we've averaged around 10k a year for holidays - Mr GG pays the majority. I took the maximum lump sum from my SIPP four years ago to finance home improvements but my SIPP and savings are actually a little higher than when I retired.

Hope this is of interest to someone!

edinburgher

@Suffolk_lass @ajmoney @Karmacat @gallygirl - welcome friends, Romans, forumites I can't believe we got a GG appearance - it's like Urbis et Orbis happened twice today! I also love your frank honesty about being bone idle, I feel you.

It's fascinating to see the differences (and similarities) between posters. "Winning" largely seems to consist of focusing on some way to find your edge (whether that's taking your pension or ISA seriously or a few BTLs), cutting out the crap spending that doesn't matter to you and sticking with it. A hefty salary seems to help as well

Happy Easter all.

Karmacat

edinburgher said:

@Suffolk_lass @ajmoney @Karmacat @gallygirl - welcome friends, Romans, forumites I can't believe we got a GG appearance - it's like Urbis et Orbis happened twice today! I also love your frank honesty about being bone idle, I feel you.
Hiya yep, a GG appearance is quite something   Very interesting about being bone idle: I certainly prefer not to do paid work and still have money 

  but I'm also quite weird in liking big projects - my genealogy book I'm writing in particular.  I can apply myself to big projects, full stop, but faffy little jobs annoy me, and too much detail on finance stuff makes me quiver with horror (it can't be a coincidence that I was practically sacked from my last finance job.  Ironic that when I got promoted within the charity field, I was the financial manager for their governmentally financed schemes to the tune of £6million a year at peak in the 1980s.  Life is weird).  But I do also like being able to read a book all day if I want, or being able to drop everything and go out for the day (pre-pandemic ).

It's fascinating to see the differences (and similarities) between posters. "Winning" largely seems to consist of focusing on some way to find your edge (whether that's taking your pension or ISA seriously or a few BTLs), cutting out the crap spending that doesn't matter to you and sticking with it. A hefty salary seems to help as well
Definitely agree on the "winning" thing.  Cutting out the crap spending was easy for me, and the income per hour of the psychotherapy job was hefty, as you say.  The danger for me has always been about not doing enough research on a big new financial project, like my French apartment.  I can only think that it just didn't feel real to me.  And I didn't realise what a load of shysters there can be out there.

Happy Easter all.

And to you, Ed  

South_coast

Lovely to see GG popping in, one of my MFW heroes! In fact, I have this screenshot from her diary on my phone as inspiration (hope it's not copywrited 😳)

killerpeaty

Is it actually possible to have cyrptocurrency in a pension directly? I thought you couldn't have them directly in one.

Just FYI (because it was mentioned earlier) instead of buying previous years if you are proactive and voluntarily pay class 2 (self employed), it's a lot cheaper to get qualifying years. There was a spate of people suing their accountants for not telling them about this option because it is so much more expensive to buy years retrospectively. Info for your pleasure. 

edinburgher

killerpeaty said:

Is it actually possible to have cyrptocurrency in a pension directly? I thought you couldn't have them directly in one.

Just FYI (because it was mentioned earlier) instead of buying previous years if you are proactive and voluntarily pay class 2 (self employed), it's a lot cheaper to get qualifying years. There was a spate of people suing their accountants for not telling them about this option because it is so much more expensive to buy years retrospectively. Info for your pleasure. 

I was suggesting selling it

killerpeaty

edinburgher said:

killerpeaty said:

Is it actually possible to have cyrptocurrency in a pension directly? I thought you couldn't have them directly in one.

Just FYI (because it was mentioned earlier) instead of buying previous years if you are proactive and voluntarily pay class 2 (self employed), it's a lot cheaper to get qualifying years. There was a spate of people suing their accountants for not telling them about this option because it is so much more expensive to buy years retrospectively. Info for your pleasure. 

I was suggesting selling it

D'oh! Somebody needs to learn to read! (That someone would be me)

TimSynths

edinburgher said:

killerpeaty said:

Is it actually possible to have cyrptocurrency in a pension directly? I thought you couldn't have them directly in one.

Just FYI (because it was mentioned earlier) instead of buying previous years if you are proactive and voluntarily pay class 2 (self employed), it's a lot cheaper to get qualifying years. There was a spate of people suing their accountants for not telling them about this option because it is so much more expensive to buy years retrospectively. Info for your pleasure. 

I was suggesting selling it

Don't be selling it! Buy more of it! Although my next serious purchase wont be till the end of the year when I realise funds from the next sharesave scheme. I do have some "staked" where by I earn 14% interest on it.

edinburgher

TimSynths said:

edinburgher said:

killerpeaty said:

Is it actually possible to have cyrptocurrency in a pension directly? I thought you couldn't have them directly in one.

Just FYI (because it was mentioned earlier) instead of buying previous years if you are proactive and voluntarily pay class 2 (self employed), it's a lot cheaper to get qualifying years. There was a spate of people suing their accountants for not telling them about this option because it is so much more expensive to buy years retrospectively. Info for your pleasure. 

I was suggesting selling it

Don't be selling it! Buy more of it! Although my next serious purchase wont be till the end of the year when I realise funds from the next sharesave scheme. I do have some "staked" where by I earn 14% interest on it.

Each to their own. I think cryptocurrencies are a punt at best, a socially irresponsible shell game helping to destroy the planet at worst 😘

Cornish_mum

I am with you Ed on crypto (& related inflated tech shares) it’s a gold-rush/tulip mania situation... at the end of it all, the only people who will be making money are the ones selling shovels. MrCM looked into the shelling shovel business but one look at the computational costs (processing power/energy requirements) made it clear quite how insane crypto currency is. I get some people truly believe it’s the new gold but I am yet to be convinced.