More WIRE than FIRE, simplifying, saving and savvy spending

ShyAndRetiring

[Deleted User] said:

Thank you so much for your detailed and informative response. You are certainly organised and ready for whatever comes along. Best Wishes.

Thank you @[Deleted User] for the good wishes. There are some great threads on here which have taught me a lot about future planning, it’s always helpful to find out how others are managing things. I appreciate you sharing your own numbers which also seem very healthy and organized. I hope you are enjoying your retirement. 😊

Katiehound

Remember to build some cheap treats into your plan even if it something as simple as buy a cream cake! I guess you might be 'treating' yourself to a roll & soup at Asda if you can get out &  have an Asda cafe near you.

Good luck. I retired some years ago and for a few years lived on my occupational pension. Yes, I had savings but I did not want to tuck into them! I managed to become a student again! and went to art college. That was quite an eye opener as I was 'mature' and most of them were 16 yo.
And I've just remembered that for the first year or so I was a char lady for a work colleague one morning per week. My earnings paid  for my NI stamp: we were both happy with that.

For 5 years I was a volunteer for a national charity and was able to claim travel expenses as I did a fair amount of driving.

More recently I have done some free Duolingo online and have been tempted by Open Learn courses but too busy crafting etc.

Organgrinder

If anyone wonders how their incomes compare, the government publishes gross weekly income percentiles for both single people and couples.

Using some of the responses here and adjusted for inflation.

A single person on £35k pension is around the 94th or 95th percentile, ie, has a pension better than 94 - 95% of single people.

A couple on £28k net (approx £30k gross)  would be around 42nd percentile.

The median gross for each group, ie the 50th percentile is for a single person about £18-20k   and a couple around £33-35k.

ShyAndRetiring

Been absent for a few days, as we're now struggling with flu ... lovely to see visitors, thank you! 

@Katiehound yes, it's true, we're hopeful for occasional treats. We only have one supermarket in our village but have a big town approx 5 miles one way and a small town approx 1 mile away, with a small library. It's a picturesque town, popular with visitors so there are nice coffee and cake shops. Some on the expensive side but taking a refillable cup gets us a cheaper treat and it's nice to sit outside with the dog that way too (weather-permitting)!

My OH likes DuoLingo, I'm planning on looking at a few free course outlets. We both got into these hobbies during lockdown and although we lapsed a bit once work became a thing again, it'll be fun to look at these again. Lately I've been working in the charity sector and we both volunteered for a local charity for approx 6 years. I may come back to this once I've regained a bit of health and energy, but my OH feels that being a good neighbour is enough volunteering at the moment - we're the 'young ones' among our immediate neighbours!

Crafting is definitely a thing here - one of 2025's challenges will be to work from my stash only What crafts do you enjoy? Thanks so much for stopping by - it would be lovely to hear more about what you're up to!

@Organgrinder thank you for the info, that's very interesting. Having had a focus on ensuring our potential retirement income is relatively comfortable for us, it's interesting to see how it relates to what others are doing and managing on. There will always be an element of being careful for us, unless the PB smile on us, or we sell the house, but we're very lucky that there are always things we can do to help improve our situation, so we're grateful for that.

Thank you both for commenting 

Daffodil1234

Thanks @ShyAndRetiring for this - I really like your mention of "WIRE" - wish I'd thought of the name for Well-Being Impact, Retire Early.

Effectively I have done WIRE myself as I ended full time work this year (though I think it is possible I could pick up some part time work in future if I chose to).   One of the major motivations for me was health.  I've noticed since ending work that my health / energy has slowly been improving (with a couple of set backs too) - it wasn't a sudden increase in health by any means.

Interesting to hear your numbers too.  Numbers for me (as a couple, self plus spouse) are budgeted as £33k for 2025 - for 2024 it was £31k.

ShyAndRetiring

  We've been laying low for a couple of days, just surfacing to try to get the dog out between bouts of weather, or to cook soup!

Generally muddling along:

Spending

• Minimal spending, but all bills up to date. Xmas spending all within budget currently.
• One unexpected spend due to car breaking down. Car emergency fund covered it, but is now a little thin because we had some work done on it in October, it hadn't built back up yet.   We'll be having a longer conversation about car expense / use down the line: OH would go without it from tomorrow, but we live in quite a rural area and my family care role involves running a disabled OAP to appointments etc, plus a 20 mile round trip each time, so I definitely can't do without it yet.

Saving

• Building Prolific back up is going OK, am now at £26 so aiming for £30 through the week and then cash out. 
• Am looking at car break down and enforced time indoors as a way of saving petrol money this past 2 weeks, especially now OH is unwell and not out so much either. Of course, this positive spin studiously ignores the fact we've paid out for repairs  ...

Sorting

• Had our first black out of the season, thankfully not a nasty related to all these storms, just a temporary one for a repair job somewhere locally. Gave us the chance to sort our candle and torch situation. Positive result for candles but we need to sort torches. OH admits he's taken his eye off the ball with this since he's retired from 'doing things' so he's back on it! 
• Want to sort out a few goals for next week, particularly to start looking at the £££ goals and budgets more for next year. Hoping to sort a couple of cunning plans  to help things along a bit, especially now I know for sure that in just a few weeks, the day job and weekly routine as I know it, will cease.

Simple pleasures

• Christmas tree is now up, lights are calming and welcome in this grotty weather week!
• Soup - homemade, leftovers and lovely ingredients thrown in a pan, comforting, cost-effective and no bother on these low-energy days.

Take care in this weather, all.

S&R x

ShyAndRetiring

Daffodil1234 said:

Thanks @ShyAndRetiring for this - I really like your mention of "WIRE" - wish I'd thought of the name for Well-Being Impact, Retire Early.

Effectively I have done WIRE myself as I ended full time work this year (though I think it is possible I could pick up some part time work in future if I chose to).   One of the major motivations for me was health.  I've noticed since ending work that my health / energy has slowly been improving (with a couple of set backs too) - it wasn't a sudden increase in health by any means.

Interesting to hear your numbers too.  Numbers for me (as a couple, self plus spouse) are budgeted as £33k for 2025 - for 2024 it was £31k.

Hi @Daffodil1234 thanks for stopping by and for your lovely positive comments ~ really interesting to hear that you are WIRE too and I hope that, setbacks aside, the move has proved to be a positive one for you. Your numbers sound good, although I know that's relative to ongoing costs and even location in the UK, so much variation! It's good to keep part-time work options on the horizon if time, energy, finances and inclination mean it's possible (or necessary). 

Very interested in your observation about health not suddenly increasing, sometimes the downturn in health takes place over such a long period of time, recovery takes just as long, I hope you're taking care. Wishing you well and please stop by again - all comments are welcome and it's great to hear how others are doing.

S&R x

Katiehound

Hello @ShyAndRetiring Don't forget to drop past on the craft board- I'm thinking of the thread 'using up my stash to make beautiful things' in particular.

I can't  say that all the things I make are beautiful but they are useful! I recycle human duvets (landfill) to make doggy duvets. All the covers are donated / recycled too & then I sell those for the assistance charity Dogs for Good. One of the dog groomers in town sells them for me as well as the local dog club. This past week I have made 8 and then made 4 over the weekend. However the novelty is wearing off! as I have many duvets in the house and 9 to collect from garages and sheds. All the doggy ones are 1/4 of the human size.

If you look at my signature you will see what I make: mainly sewing, cards, knitting & crochet but I have dabbled in many other things over the years which is why my house is full of 'stuff that will come in useful!!' only today I was looking at items I made at art college and thinking that I couldn't part with those or all the samples & items for C&G Embroidery.  My house should have elastic walls- but there still wouldn't be room!

uralmaid

I made 15 table decorations for use at our Social Centre  Xmas lunch this week. It has inspired me to try doing other crafts in the coming new year. Currently I am busy sourcing and decorating my pirate hat ready for Whitby steampunk next year. I am craving a small , lightweight galleon to go on the hat, but so far haven't managed to find one which is the right size and light enough to sit on a hat, but I live in hope

ShyAndRetiring

Katiehound said:

Hello @ShyAndRetiring Don't forget to drop past on the craft board- I'm thinking of the thread 'using up my stash to make beautiful things' in particular.

I can't  say that all the things I make are beautiful but they are useful! I recycle human duvets (landfill) to make doggy duvets. All the covers are donated / recycled too & then I sell those for the assistance charity Dogs for Good. One of the dog groomers in town sells them for me as well as the local dog club. This past week I have made 8 and then made 4 over the weekend. However the novelty is wearing off! as I have many duvets in the house and 9 to collect from garages and sheds. All the doggy ones are 1/4 of the human size.

If you look at my signature you will see what I make: mainly sewing, cards, knitting & crochet but I have dabbled in many other things over the years which is why my house is full of 'stuff that will come in useful!!' only today I was looking at items I made at art college and thinking that I couldn't part with those or all the samples & items for C&G Embroidery.  My house should have elastic walls- but there still wouldn't be room!

Ahhh @Katiehound ... how did I miss your signature? That's amazing, making so much which has raised so much money, yet only £5 spent, that's brilliant work! sounds like the component parts take up a lot of room though! I guess it's hard if people are donating the duvets etc, you don't want to turn them down but you have to store them until you have time to repurpose them. Sounds like a brilliant way to help the charity.

I understand what you mean about elastic walls. My craft leaning is needlecrafts, particularly knitting and crochet and a bit of sewing. I've always got a yarn stash on the go and although I drastically reduced my purchases in 2024, I am going to be on a use-up campaign for 2025, to save some space as well as cash!

I'll have a look out for the craft board thread, thanks for the heads up!