Retirement for someone with no dependents

Albermarle

JayRitchie said:

I'm in a somewhat similar position - possibly with lower assets than others on the thread.

I've considered buying a suitable property to age into. Maybe a small flat where one wouldn't need car. I'd hope that would allow scope for travelling cheaply without a lot of capital tied up and less fear of not downsizing/ right sizing until its too late.

If anyone has thoughts, experience or research to share as to whether this is a good way to go I'd appreciate it.

It is not a bad idea, but a couple of things to be aware of.

Retirement/over 55's flats ( McCarthy and Stone type) are normally a poor investment, especially if bought new. They can be difficult to sell even when heavily discounted.
Ever increasing service charges, especially in larger blocks, are becoming a big problem.

I read somewhere that some older people are moving into town centre flats, where they have been converted from other uses, like empty shops. Everything on hand , buses, trains, shops, places to drink/eat etc. Probably not far from a GP surgery or hospital .
Presume it depends on the town and the build quality.  Some town centres are a bit desolate/rough, whilst others can be desirable/posh.
I suppose some mid range town in terms of desirability/price/size would be the compromise.  

Cairnpapple

Just today on reddit I was introduced to the acronym NORC for Naturally Occurring Retirement Community which is a place where lots of seniors live but is not designed specifically as such.  The reddit poster lived in one which was a NYC apartment building with a lift.

Moonwolf

If you have the money there are some very nice looking places.  We've had lunch at The Orangery at St Elphins which is an Audley just outside Matlock.  Richmal Crompton taught there when it was a girls school.

I saw this in Carcassone as well, just need to learn French. https://jardins-arcadie.fr/residence/residence-seniors-carcassonne

Bostonerimus1

The fees at Audely and the "suits" running it are somethings that put me right off. This advert for Audley is a bit "Hyacinth Bucket" and I just wouldn't want to end my days around the old people shown in the ad. Also they show lots of hotel like images and gloss over what care they provide and how much it costs if you fall and break a hip. So I'd be very careful. I'd prefer to be a long term resident in a genteel hotel in Harrogate or Scarborough where there's a turn over of interesting guests and a murder happens every other week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQQM8-UMRI4&ab_channel=AudleyVillages

MaxB93

For a different perspective, my thoughts on early retirement abroad.

I stopped working when I was 38. I had a small company in the UK and anticipated the coming demise of our business sector, so made the decision to close while we were still in funds rather than take the more usual route of trading until we faced liquidation and close with a lot of unpaid debts. The company owned a property.

That year I visited Southeast Asia for the first time, spending two months travelling from Bangkok down to Had Yai. I got the taste for it and spent the next few winters exploring other countries in the region. I was most comfortable in Indochina and decided on Cambodia as a base. I had no wife or children to consider but there were a number of personal and practical issues to be dealt with before I sold my last assets in the UK and moved to Phnom Penh in 2006.

Business failure like other significant life events (divorce, bereavement, acute health issues) often has the effect of making us take stock of our lives. I had thought myself happy to be working and spending and saving for the future, but gradually came to see that time rather than money was the resource I should be valuing. They say that youth is wasted on the young, but too often retirement is wasted on the old.

I've had twenty years so far of happy 'retirement' (Covid did temporarily stop travel) getting up in the morning and doing whatever I want to do before heading to bed at night. I suppose I have become more frugal, spending less on frivolities. I still can't walk past a guitar, book or wine shop. For those interested in films, music, literature and adult education the internet has been a Godsend and close to free resource for expatriates. On the rare occasions when I visit the UK I find it entirely alien. I could never re-acclimatise myself to either the weather or the prices. £14 for a bowl of pho that would cost £2 in Saigon.

I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to stop work at an earlier than usual age, but I increasingly see grey haired gentlemen and women from the UK, Europe, US, Australia etc. who are obviously not in Asia for a short holiday. Many have sold or are renting out their houses back home, some no doubt have juicy pensions. They may be singles or in couples, in their 50s, 60s and older. I suppose some are of the demographic who would have retired to Spain in the 1970s for the sun and the lower cost of living. Perhaps I was just an early adopter.

I also see a lot of youngsters in their 20s working part time in bars on the islands for room and board. They certainly aren't saving for retirement, or paying NICs to fund my coming State Pension. Increasingly they see it as a Ponzi Scheme. Who knows what things will be like in 40 years ? It's getting hard to look ahead 40 days.

Serious considerations include the availability of retirement visas, currency fluctuations, inflation, crime levels, political and economic stability and not least healthcare options. I do miss the NHS, but from what I hear, many do now. Health Insurance isn't economically viable past 70. Private healthcare in e.g. Bangkok is competent and affordable with no waiting lists. Pharmaceuticals, Dentists and Opticians are all available on demand at a fraction of the UK cost. I see retirement homes for foreigners are now opening in Thailand. For single men a housekeeper will often morph into a de facto wife and ultimately carer. I know some successes and many horror stories.

With the advances we have seen in medical science the loss of our mental faculties in old age is now as much of a concern as the loss of our physical fitness. In the last stage of our lives the most important question is how long do we want to live ?

It's later than we think.

For balance I recommend the Maugham short story The Lotus Eater.

https://facultyweb.wcjc.edu/users/jonl/documents/LotusEater.pdf

Keith_Clunk

MaxB93 said:

For a different perspective, my thoughts on early retirement abroad.

[...]

Brilliant, well done, MaxB.

My story is not dissimilar to yours, albeit a decade later. Being single with zero dependants in my mid-30's in 1998/1999 I took a one year sabbatical after selling my house and through Trailfinders booked a one year round-the-world ticket. This extended to 18 months after briefly returning to the UK to sort out (free-up) some more finance to return to SE Asia, where I visited every SE Asian country, with the exception of Brunei. I fell in love with that part of the world.

Fast-forward to 2012. Still single with zero dependants and my mortgage endowments finally paid to me (falling short) and at 49yo, I retired and moved between Cambodia and Thailand for the initial 18 months due to visa limitations. I rented my London property through an agent and with some help from my ISA to supplement income until the mortgage was paid off a few years later. Once over 50 a retirement visa for Thailand was obtained and I've been here ever since. I am now 62. Very content and the internet speeds here in Thailand are great at 1.2GB fibre optic.

My London house is now up for sale and the proceeds will fall into a GIA. Around half will go into UK low coupon gilts, forming a gilt ladder of around 5 or 6 years, premium bonds will be maxed out and a chunk into MMF's and the remainder into global investments and dividend paying IT's. I have been studying the taxation of unsheltered investments quite rigorously for several years now and taking the average gain of my house value I can achieve very similar in a GIA. I have no debt.

In around 2018 I consolidated all my separate pensions into a single SIPP invested globally, along with the remaining S&S ISA invested into dividend generating stocks and my UK state pension is (according to the gov.uk website) now at 35 years following a few top-ups before the deadline.

I held health insurance for the first 10 years but never used it. Since 60 years old I self-insure.

That initial sabbatical travelling the world in my mid-30's was the best thing I ever did. It opened my eyes to the rest of the world and I made my choice. I would retire to either New Zealand or Thailand. Thailand it was. No regrets whatsoever. Life is as simple or as complicated as you want it to be here.

Over the past 13 years many things have changed regarding finances and will likely continue to change over the coming years. I always made my plans based upon the way things were at the time allowing for some contingency. Second-guessing can cause poor decision making.

Cost of living increases and inflation occur here in Thailand too, but seemingly nowhere near the way I've read it has in the UK.

Simon11

Amazing to hear your stories- I love travelling too but I also wanted to have children otherwise I feel that you miss out on a huge part of life.

What do you generally do, day to day to keep yourself busy especially when there could be lots of time spent alone?

Do you guys have any regrets or downsides to share- it can't all be a pretty picture over there?

blues

Simon11 said:

Amazing to hear your stories- I love travelling too but I also wanted to have children otherwise I feel that you miss out on a huge part of life.

What do you generally do, day to day to keep yourself busy especially when there could be lots of time spent alone?

Do you guys have any regrets or downsides to share- it can't all be a pretty picture over there?

I would argue that having children means you miss out on a huge part of life, but there you go. 

poseidon1

Keith_Clunk said:

MaxB93 said:

For a different perspective, my thoughts on early retirement abroad.

[...]

Brilliant, well done, MaxB.

My story is not dissimilar to yours, albeit a decade later. Being single with zero dependants in my mid-30's in 1998/1999 I took a one year sabbatical after selling my house and through Trailfinders booked a one year round-the-world ticket. This extended to 18 months after briefly returning to the UK to sort out (free-up) some more finance to return to SE Asia, where I visited every SE Asian country, with the exception of Brunei. I fell in love with that part of the world.

Fast-forward to 2012. Still single with zero dependants and my mortgage endowments finally paid to me (falling short) and at 49yo, I retired and moved between Cambodia and Thailand for the initial 18 months due to visa limitations. I rented my London property through an agent and with some help from my ISA to supplement income until the mortgage was paid off a few years later. Once over 50 a retirement visa for Thailand was obtained and I've been here ever since. I am now 62. Very content and the internet speeds here in Thailand are great at 1.2GB fibre optic.

My London house is now up for sale and the proceeds will fall into a GIA. Around half will go into UK low coupon gilts, forming a gilt ladder of around 5 or 6 years, premium bonds will be maxed out and a chunk into MMF's and the remainder into global investments and dividend paying IT's. I have been studying the taxation of unsheltered investments quite rigorously for several years now and taking the average gain of my house value I can achieve very similar in a GIA. I have no debt.

In around 2018 I consolidated all my separate pensions into a single SIPP invested globally, along with the remaining S&S ISA invested into dividend generating stocks and my UK state pension is (according to the gov.uk website) now at 35 years following a few top-ups before the deadline.

I held health insurance for the first 10 years but never used it. Since 60 years old I self-insure.

That initial sabbatical travelling the world in my mid-30's was the best thing I ever did. It opened my eyes to the rest of the world and I made my choice. I would retire to either New Zealand or Thailand. Thailand it was. No regrets whatsoever. Life is as simple or as complicated as you want it to be here.

Over the past 13 years many things have changed regarding finances and will likely continue to change over the coming years. I always made my plans based upon the way things were at the time allowing for some contingency. Second-guessing can cause poor decision making.

Cost of living increases and inflation occur here in Thailand too, but seemingly nowhere near the way I've read it has in the UK.

Interestingly although UK inheritance is probably of no real significance in your long term planning, getting rid of the London House and partially reinvesting in UK gilts will provide a very helpful IHT saving in this regard.

I assume you are a UK born and therefore UK dom. The London house kept you firmly rooted in the UK for IHT purposes, and likely would have made your world wide estate liable to UK IHT on your death.

Selling the house assists in severing that ' umbilical cord' whilst investing in UK gilts provides you with an asset the value of which is legally excluded from IHT for all persons resident outside the UK (the FORTRA securities rule) .

Out of curiosity what have you done ( or are doing ) by way of Wills and estate planning generally?

Cobbler_tone

Simon11 said:

Amazing to hear your stories- I love travelling too but I also wanted to have children otherwise I feel that you miss out on a huge part of life.

I'm not sure why?
Although it would take a brave person to admit it, there will absolutely loads of people who regret having children. Look behind those Facebook posts, that's for sure! Although nowadays the 'reality' of parenthood are shared a lot more openly. Love Motherland.

Deciding not to have children is often a choice, or that decision taken out of your hands.
I would argue that those people have the opportunity to live a richer and more contented life if they never had children. Clearly not if you were desperate to have them and couldn't. Nothing beats being the worlds best Auntie/Uncle!