Household finances voyeurism

[Debade]

I did not read all the posts and am not familiar with UK salary and benefits, so read this with that in mind.
First, retirement is not about not working. It is about choosing what you want to do. Many people choose not working.

The starting point is to select an age you want to accomplish this life choice (retirement). Then get a very good handle on your expected expenses, savings and investment strategy. Look online for a retirement calculator and answer all the questions the best you can. It will provide an analysis of success or failure likelihood. You maybe golden out of the blocks. Or, it may tell you your likelihood of meeting your goal will be poor. If so, keep manipulating the model.

Perhaps you need to save for more time? Become more aggressive with your investments? Reduce your spending?
No matter, you will have created hard targets which you can use.

Bott line is if you read this far and you will move forward, find a retirement calculator that will help guide you.

Good luck.

 

[cookiemonster]

I consider myself to be very very lucky. I left the UK in 2014 to go to HK. Immediatly, my salary doubled. It's now triple what I would earn in the UK for the same job and my tax rate is just 17%, which is the top tax rate in HK.

I have had the experience of care homes, orphanages, sofa hopping, dodgy landlords, earning minimum wage and struggling to pay bills/buy food so I'm not going to dismiss anyone's experience of that.

My electricity bill, for a year is the equivalent of about 1300 quid per year for a three bedroom apt. Gas is about 1200 quid annually. Food is cheaper and so is transport although I have to pay for health insurance and housing can be astronomical. I'm also able to save for retirement, something I would never have been able to do back in the UK.

No way I'm heading back to the UK. It makes no financial sense just now.

 

[midlife]

I did not read all the posts and am not familiar with UK salary and benefits, so read this with that in mind.
First, retirement is not about not working. It is about choosing what you want to do. Many people choose not working.

The starting point is to select an age you want to accomplish this life choice (retirement). Then get a very good handle on your expected expenses, savings and investment strategy. Look online for a retirement calculator and answer all the questions the best you can. It will provide an analysis of success or failure likelihood. You maybe golden out of the blocks. Or, it may tell you your likelihood of meeting your goal will be poor. If so, keep manipulating the model.

Perhaps you need to save for more time? Become more aggressive with your investments? Reduce your spending?
No matter, you will have created hard targets which you can use.

Bott line is if you read this far and you will move forward, find a retirement calculator that will help guide you.

Good luck.

Anything in your calculator about getting divorced and starting again from zero in later life lol