The Senior Wonder Years!

Clowance

I find MSC the cheapest, sometimes have solo offers. There is a meetup once a day if you want to meet others but personally happy not to bother!

maggiem

A couple of friends have travelled as singles with Saga, sailing from Portsmouth which is an advantage. Both reported good experiences with meeting people as much or as little as wished and lovely relaxing cruising. 

Andyjflet

[Deleted User] said:

One other question I had to consider when fully retiring in June was, ‘Could I manage all the household bills in the unlikely event that I was left alone in the coming twelve months before state pension begins?’

Fortunately, the answer is yes. At the moment, I contribute £550 a month and my relative £450 to a household joint account. That £1000 a month covers all our household bills, some charitable donations, and my fuel costs. It runs at a small surplus each month. We also have BG Homecare. We also enjoy our or food and often have other family members to dinner.

I calculated that with the 25% single person council tax discount and saving about £150 a month on groceries plus deceasing my monthly savings for a while I could easily manage. Hopefully, the situation will not arise.

Slightly confused, as your first post mentioned being a single male, are you house sharing? Children at home? 

kdalwayskint

[Deleted User] said:

Welcome @kdalwayskint.

If you are part of a couple 2 times the state pension will give you a base retirement income of £23000 a year. (Based on post April 2024 value). This is currently index linked.

You have 15 years until 2039 so time to build for your retirement. You have a pension with your employer which is also good news. What about your partner? Sadly, he has been in and out of employment the last couple of years, so I don't think he currently has a work pension - I know he has paid into one previously though. Also, for whatever reason, his state pension is not the full allowance

Having your pots for car expenses is a good thing. Do you have pots for the other annual bills and things such as Christmas and holidays? Yes, I run the 'Saving £1 a day for Christmas' thread, so save for Christmas every year.  Other annual bills are spread through the year. I do have a small amount saved which I used to call my 'white goods fund' but we are thinking of having our first overseas holiday this year so may steal the little bit from there. 

You also need to build up an emergency fund if you don’t already have one. Maybe aim for £1000 to start with and then increase it when you have more spare cash. I do keep thinking about an emergency fund but have yet to set this up.

When your debt is paid off you can divert more money into retirement savings. You do have the time to make a difference to your future. My debt is not massive, I have just done a transfer to new credit card (I like to pay more than the minimum amount when I can) - I tend to use this for booking things where I need to pay in one go, in the past air b n b, concert tickets and so forth.  I'm thinking if we book a holiday to pay the deposit via credit card and transfer the funds back to the credit card.

These are just my suggestions. Feel free to ignore or pull apart lol. Thank you for your suggestions, they are helpful

Best wishes.

Thanks @[Deleted User]

[Deleted User]

Andyjflet said:

[Deleted User] said:

One other question I had to consider when fully retiring in June was, ‘Could I manage all the household bills in the unlikely event that I was left alone in the coming twelve months before state pension begins?’

Fortunately, the answer is yes. At the moment, I contribute £550 a month and my relative £450 to a household joint account. That £1000 a month covers all our household bills, some charitable donations, and my fuel costs. It runs at a small surplus each month. We also have BG Homecare. We also enjoy our or food and often have other family members to dinner.

I calculated that with the 25% single person council tax discount and saving about £150 a month on groceries plus deceasing my monthly savings for a while I could easily manage. Hopefully, the situation will not arise.

Slightly confused, as your first post mentioned being a single male, are you house sharing? Children at home? 

I am a single male but my elderly relative lives with me. I was referring to a future time when elderly relative is no longer with me.

[Deleted User]

Well the main news this week is that I have booked two trips! In September I have booked a 4 night stay to Malta. Good price. Scheduled flights plus hotel and full daily breakfast for about £700.

I also decided to give cruising one more go after my disappointing first trip in October 2022.
I have booked a one week Northern Europe Cruise visiting Le Havre, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Hamburg, but not until November 2025 lol. I managed to get a balcony cabin for myself for just over £1000 which isn’t too bad for a single person.

So I think that’s it for trips this year ! I now have visits and events to look forward to in April, May, June and September this year. That includes two holidays, one U.K. trip and two reunions. July and August will be at home, as where I live it is lovely in the summer. I have the cruise in November 2025 and may also look at a short trip to Croatia in May 2025.

Planning for the bathroom and utility area upgrades are going ahead with planning meetings in next few days. Cleaning the driveway and exterior of the house is also going ahead.

Hopefully weather will stay drier for and warmer for longer in the next few weeks some can begin to sort the garden. It has taken a battering in recent weeks. I also need to paint that fence and give the decking its annual weather proofing.

I am travelling back home in an hour or so after spending a couple of days in the London area.

Personal spending was over budget this month but after swapping money around from various pots  I have still managed to have my £1200 in the main current account for the end of the month.

I have  also checked budgets to take into account planned spending on house and trips for the rest of the year and it is all doable.

Expenses coming up in March include car service , MOT, road tax and house insurance. Money is in place for all of those.

Best wishes to all until I check in again next Tuesday.

Humboldt

@[Deleted User] great that you were pleased with your holiday choices and costs. Always nice to have something on the calendar to look forward to.

Lily8

Nice to see you keeping busy and enjoying retirement Baron-Dale.  I have a soft spot for Amsterdam and enjoyed a trip to Hamburg a few years ago. Not long till you can claim the state pension. I'm on countdown for you

[Deleted User]

Good morning! Another week gone by.

Swimming is going well. I am having my fifth swim tonight. I managed to make my target of 40 lengths last Friday. The aim is now to do most of those non-stop! My strokes are usually front crawl and back stroke. I have never managed to become efficient at breast-stroke. (Now there is a story lol )

Financial planning is a little up and down at the moment as I have now several trips planned as well as some house improvements.

The money I have in Premium Bonds, my Cash ISA and S&S ISA are now what I call my core savings. The ISAs are added to monthly and are for the long term. At the moment I have no intention of touching them! The total involved is not a huge amount, but enough to make me feel secure.

I have an online bond maturing in July 2025. It will only be about £2600, but will pay for my cruise in November 2025 and a short planned visit to Croatia in September 2025. So no need to have another pot for those two trips.

I now have quite a bit of expenditure planned for the months ahead, which I need ensure is properly funded!
I have one savings account for this which is divided into various pots on my spreadsheet. It is going to be tight as the account will have a total input of £8795 by the end of the year but planned expenditure will be £8500!  . The main issue being the expenditure is not evenly spread out between now and December 2024. However, with the state pension starting in July, I will probably able to increase funding to this account if necessary.

Furthermore, this does include absolutely everything planned. This includes, car service, MOT, Road Tax, House Insurance, Cyprus spending money, trip to Malta, Christmas, clothes, two reunions, trip to Telford, new glasses, house and garden improvements, the final voluntary NI payment and my annual Microsoft Office subscription. Quite a list! Everything has been researched and costed. Hopefully no shocks with the car lol.

I have also changed the main use of my 2nd current account. This will now be solely for spending on dental care, chiropodist, hair care, birthdays and personal spends. I have increased funding to this account to £400 a month.

My main current account is now just for receiving income and paying out to bills, savings and investments. We shall see how it goes.

Not too much planned for today. The new bedroom and study blinds are being fitted today. These have already been paid for. I had a meeting yesterday with person carrying out the annual house exterior clean up and gutter cleaning, as well as a makeover for the paved driveway and paved patio areas. This will happen late April when the weather is drier hopefully. The cost of this is included in the house improvements mentioned above.

Hopefully, the meeting for the downstairs cloakroom and utility area improvement will take place very soon.

I managed a few hours in the garden the other day as it actually stopped raining! General tidying up and sorted some pots and containers. Hopefully, I will be able to give the lawns a trim in the weeks ahead, but they need to dry out a little first. The grass is already growing at a rate! It will take several graded cuts to get it to the level I want.

March is looking to be a fairly quiet month overall. A couple of meals out, some Easter family gatherings. Hopefully some gardening too! I also want to look again at my French and German language study. My French is fairly proficient but I may need to begin the German work again. Sometimes a fresh start can be a boost to confidence and motivation.

Well, that's all for the time being. I allow myself Tuesday visits to MSE during lent so may comment again on here or on other sections before the day's end lol! However, the digital semi-detox is certainly not going as planned. There again, I have been busy planning and researching all the things outlined above. Well, that's my excuse lol.

Best Wishes.

collins74

Hi all

I’ve spent a few days reading this entire thread and I’ve found it fascinating.  @Baron_Dale - can I just say your thread  has motivated me in terms of  organising my finances and my possible approach to retirement which is still 10 years away.  Thank you so much for sharing your story and being a welcoming host.

 I find myself somewhat at odds with the main pension planning board where some of the numbers are staggering.  I have wanted to post here but don’t want to disrupt the aim of this thread.  I have posted here for now but appreciate my post may be more appropriate on the planning board.

For what it’s worth I am 49 and hope to retire by 60 if possible.  There are changes coming to the earliest retirement date of 55 to 57 but I can’t afford to go at 57 anyway. Also the state pension age could rise and redundancy is always getting mentioned at my place of work.

My wife and I have not planned our finances particularly well, we’ve just been lucky in my view.  I’ve been in the LGPS for close on 25 years and have an AVC which I contribute as much as I can to.  

We have no inheritances due but we have our own house.  My wife is in the TPS.  We have a small amount of savings now after much needed home improvements.  We also have a personal loan, PCP and mortgage which we are thinking over pulling together under a mortgage over a shorter term later this year.  We don’t owe anything on credit cards thankfully.  

Two kids - one at uni and another set to follow in a few years so paying out for that for a while yet.

  I find myself a bit obsessed with retirement and the thought of freedom but I should also be looking after myself much better in terms of diet, exercise and mental health etc etc.  I am going to focus on these areas over the coming months.

Anyway enough from me - I will continue to read this thread with interest.

Thanks