FIREside Chats

hugheskevi

powerspowers said:

Thanks @hugheskevi! I love that you’ve shared all the financial details but not told us whether you are enjoying yourself, it’s the opposite of an insta post. I’m going to assume you are and wish you safe travels for the remainder of the trip 

This is now my fourth long trip - the other three were some time ago when I was in my 20s (now 45), so I've traveled a lot over the years, almost 4 years in total of travel outside Europe now.

I think travel is more enjoyable when you are young, and also the less travel you have already done the more enjoyable it is. That makes everything new and more exciting. Now older and married, there are a lot of aspects of travel I simply don't experience (ie meeting fewer people, far less drinking and partying, little or no traveling with other people you meet along the way, etc) which makes it a rather different experience. I certainly research, learn and remember a lot more about the places we go, but I'm not sure that makes it more enjoyable. 

Being very experienced also means that everything runs smoothly, and there is very little I come across that I haven't seen before in terms of logistics and obstacles. When I was planning the trip a lot of people were saying things like you need to be careful in Central America, etc, to which my standard response was simply that 'it isn't Africa' - and indeed, to date nothing untoward has happened, these are all quite tame countries to travel through. I think overcoming obstacles and learning new approaches can be a very fun part of a trip and a key benefit of travel, and that is mostly missing too due to experience.

I also think modern tech might serve to make travel less enjoyable overall. It is great having a mobile phone everywhere, able to book accommodation and travel remotely, research everywhere easily, use Google translate, be in contact with everyone on social media, etc, but the undoubted convenience whilst adding a huge amount, has also spoiled some of the enjoyment of travel. Long gone are the days when you spent days or weeks completely out of contact in remote areas - although that isn't entirely enjoyable as such, I think it overall makes travel more fulfilling. 

I think variety leads to the most enjoyment though, and obviously, a lifestyle of travel is very different to living in the UK. Even so, the novelty wears off over time - the most I ever traveled was 13 months non-stop, and after that I was extremely glad to return to the UK. You then appreciate simple things like sleeping in the same bed, knowing an area, having a car at beck and call, having a washing machine and so on. So I think the enjoyment of travel wains over the course of a trip, but we are quite some way from that point yet.

So yes, this trip is enjoyable, but definitely not as much as previous trips. I think we will probably spend about 18 months on the road and then return to the UK, and I will very much enjoy the return too (which is a good thing!). We could afford to travel in this manner for the rest of our lives without working again, but that would be an horrific thought for me.

powerspowers

Thanks for the thoughtful answer! I agree that coming home can be enjoyable too although I’ve never been away for more than 3 months 

listoflists

Thought I’d do an (almost) annual update.  My other half retired last April and I finished 3 months ago (am just 59 now).  I realise it’s early days but I am loving retirement, especially Sunday afternoons and evenings - my job shouldn’t have been stressful, but I don’t think I realised how affected I was by a constant low level anxiety I had about it until I stopped. From a finance standpoint we seem to be doing ok, which given all the stuff going on in the world feels positive.  Things I have learnt is that it’s handy (essential?) to have a pot of money available whilst pensions are sorted out and that once you get through to hmrc they are really patient. Unlimited minutes on a mobile contract are a must for the inevitable phone calls. I also like the comfort blanket of my budget spreadsheets to show past and present to enable me to feel more comfortable about the future. Finally, that ‘retirement’ isn’t necessarily a one way door, but that should it prove necessary or desirable there are options out there for us. 

Suffolk_lass

That's a great post @listoflists and I completely agree about the retirement bits. Enjoy your retirement! The additional bit I would add is that while it is essential to stay busy/involved in your community and your interests, try not to over-commit to voluntary things for a while until you decide what you want and need to do

CCW007

It's great to hear from someone who has recently retired and hear the practical side of things we may not have considered @listoflists .

I've revived my MFW diary in a bid to get motivated again and am working on setting a budget which will be achievable, not feel punitive but allow us to set some realistic goals for FIRE.    

CCW007

I have decided to leave my LGPS pots separate to give me maximum flexibility in terms of when I access them.  The main downside would be that if I were to be offered redundancy after 55 I would be able to access the full amount of my current LGPS pot but would not be able to access the deferred pot without incurring a reduction. 

As my hope is to retire between 55 and 57 this gives a pretty narrow window for this to happen and, if it did happen, accessing the bulk of my LGPS pot would be a huge bonus anyway so I wouldn't feel aggrieved to not be able to access all of it.  It also depends on me still being with the same employer at the time and 9 years is a long way away so overall the flexibility feels a better bet. 

hugheskevi

Update from me...it is now 9 months since my wife and I left work on unpaid leave to travel the length of the Americas overland. We have done around 20,000 miles in trains and motor vehicles (mostly coaches and hire cars), starting up in Alaska back in September 2022 and we are now in Quito, Ecuador.

An interactive map of the trip is at this link, and a Google Map is at this link. Detailed day-by-day distance and expenditure log is at this link.



Long-term overland travel is a fraction of the cost of normal holidays. The cost of airfares is greatly reduced, and crucially you have rental income from your UK property rather than it being empty but still incurring bills as it would on a conventional holiday. You also travel more slowly, ie don't do so much each day as you would on a short break, as you have plenty of time. Our gross expenditure for the 265 days of the trip to date is £127 per day, and net of rent received is £66 per day. 

A good example is the Galapagos Islands from which we have just returned - these are very expensive to visit, with return flights from London on their own costing over £1,250 per person. Doing it as a tour carries a high mark-up, so to visit will cost most people several thousand pounds. Whereas as we were in Quito anyhow, the cost of our flights was only £250 per person and we arranged everything ourselves, so the total cost (including flights) was £925 per person for a 10-night visit. If you further subtract the rental income we received for that period it reduces the cost to £622 per person - probably about 20% of the cost of visiting the Galapagos from the UK on a normal holiday from work.

This all means that it has been cheaper to spend the last 9 months traveling, eating most meals out, and staying in hotels, than it would have been for us just to live in the UK, as we would have spent more than the £24,000 p/a we are spending traveling (net of rent receipt) living in the UK.

However, 9 months has been a long time on the road. We are still 5,150 miles from Ushuaia, and that is based on the most direct route, in practice, it will be much further and take many months. Our plans will be heavily influenced by what our UK tenants want to do when the 1-year contract is up - if they decide to move out, I think we will return home then (end August 2023). In any event, I think we will only travel until a maximum of March 2024 - that would be 18 months and by then we will be more than ready for home.

Once we return, we will go back to work for about a year, at most two, during which time we will sell our current property and move for retirement. By then we should both be aged 46 or 47. We will probably continue working until we have moved into our new place, then quit. That should enable us to get an offset mortgage in place which we will 100% offset immediately, so as to have a pool of readily available borrowing to hand should we need it before all our pensions become available in years to come.

remote_control

Lovely to have an update. I have checked on your map and spreadsheet a few times to see your progress. That daily figure is very inspiring, especially in USA. 

Cornish_mum

Brilliant and inspiring update. Thanks for sharing CM

hugheskevi

Another update from me, as today marks 1 year of traveling on the road through the Americas 

We landed in Anchorage, Alaska on 9th September 2022 and after 1 year of overland travel made it to Potosi, Bolivia. In this time we have driven or bussed 99.7% of the Earth's circumference - a 5 hour bus ride from Potosi to Tupiza tomorrow will take it above 100%.



In that year of travel, my wife and I have spent £43,500 which is an average daily spend of £119. During that time we have received £23,700 of rent income from our mortgage-free UK property, so a net cost of about £20,000. 

Despite staying in a combination of AirBnb apartments (preferred), hotels, AirBnb rooms and hostel private rooms, as well as mostly eating out and seeing all the sights along the way (including big ticket items such as an 8 day Alaska cruise, almost 2 months in the USA, 10 days in Galapagos, 10 day Amazon expedition and 5 day hike to Macchu Pichu), our net expenditure is much lower than we would spend living in the UK - this type of travel is definitely money-saving!

We have decided to return to the UK in mid January, almost certainly from Rio. We expect to reach Ushuaia and complete our trans-Americas overland trip in November - another 57 hours of bus rides if we went directly from our current location, so not all that far now.

When we return to the UK, we will spend a year back at work in London before embarking on a conventional early retirement, selling our property in London and moving to somewhere roughly between Chester and Shropshire. I plan to carry on working until we have moved into the new property and furnished it and made any decorative changes, etc. We will also buy a new car to future-proof expenditure, and once that is all done and retirement income plans are solid, it will be time to retire. Hopefully, full retirement should happen before we reach 48 years of age, but that isn't important if it takes longer. I personally consider us as partially retired now anyhow, even though we will return to full-time work for quite a while - it is well into the end-game.

As things stand today, if we did not return to work, our net income drawing down savings between age 45-55 would be £45,272 p/a, increasing to £66,000 p/a from age 55 as pensions become available. Hopefully, the extra 18 months of work will smooth all that out and we will have £60,000+ available to spend in all years of retirement, but as we only spend about £35,000 p/a living in the UK it doesn't much matter, we should have plenty to live on. Hence the additional work is not really about getting extra resources, just being in a nice position to manage the transition to full retirement and have money readily available for bigger expenses as they come in (there are always unforeseen expenses, and it is much easier to manage them when working than when retired).

Link to interactive trip map
Link to Google Map of trip
Link to spreadsheet with milage and detailed expenditure