When Will or Did you Retire?

[Mrs M]

You might want to check the cost of living in London however, £30k a year doesn't go very far in reality

Ah, knew there was a catch .
Never mind though, carry on

 

[vickster]

Ah, knew there was a catch .
Never mind though, carry on

Yes, LU is London Underground

 

[ufkacbln]

I am retiring in two years
Then moving to the Lakes where I am going to start a bike hire business hiring recumbents while the wife runs the attached ecologicall friendly B&B with adjacent campsite


.... Then I woke up!

Realistically despite the hassles I enjoy work far too much

In about 5 years I will probably think about stepping down and letting my Deputy take the reins and go back to a Band 7 post for the last couple of years

 

[jonny jeez]

I find it quite handy being able to squeeze it into my porridge and I also put a little squirt of honey in my daily coffee.

I suppose if I worked out the time/effort spent on the decanting vs time/effort spent on hunting about for a clean teaspoon to get honey from the jar then there would not be much in it!

I hear there is new "knowledge" to suggest that Honey is worse for you than a sugar.

 

[Smokin Joe]

Money is a funny thing - the more you have the more you spend that's how it was for us anyway.

My career peaked late 90's and Lovely Wife also had an ok income. Our income was very high and we had a ball.

We did lots of stuff (nice holidays etc) and bought stuff (fancy cars & watches & other expensive consumer items) but sadly we lost out on time together etc. I was earning very well, as I did almost from day one of my varied career, but by Christ I put the time in - which was fair enough really. But as 2000 approached it all wore a bit thin and we decided to call it a day and get a life.

We buried the mortgage and then, with considerable trepidation switched off the income flow - scary!

My calculations (I have a pretty complex spreadsheet that plots our various income/expenditure streams for several decades ahead) suggested we would be ok ad-infinitum.

Much to my surprise we live on considerably less than I had anticipated - the further we distanced ourselves from our high spending days the less we felt inclined to spend.

We now 'struggle' to spend £15k pa to run our lovely house, eat well, drink well and do the things we love, mainly walking in the beautiful part of the world we live in and chilling together - 15 years ago we brought home that amount in a very short space of time - not going to do the numbers here as it would come across as crass. Capital expenditure not included in that number but we don't have much of that either.

We have simply stripped back our life and started living a bit more - I accept that this is easy to do if you are ok financially but the point I am making is that you don't need a lot of income to live well if you have no mortgage/rent/debt.

We have run on a zero debt basis for well over a decade now and we occasionally reminisce about how we would not even have been able to countenance such a thing back in the 90's - as I said earlier, the more you earn the more you spend. Laughably there were times when we considered ourselves hard up - ridiculous!

On the education front (as you mentioned it) I never saw the lack of it as a limiting factor or the possession of it a major advantage. I'm moderately bright, not massively well educated, but when I toddled off to work I found it very easy to quickly move up the ranks, often by-passing much better educated people along the way. I just had a knack of getting things done and making money for my various employers. I ended up with various director roles and finally as MD - had my mum been alive she would've been proud that her boy from a shabby council estate & abusive (alcoholic father) teenage years did good! Maybe things have changed for youngsters these days but to me there's different types of smart - in business sometimes 'smart' is simply being able to see the bigger picture, join the dots quickly, innovate and inspire your team to come along with you. Worked for me and it can still work for others who don't come from the privileged side of the street.

Sorry for waffling!

Good post.

I was earning twice as much fifteen years ago as I am now and Mrs SJ was in partnership with me and bringing a decent amount in too. I now do two jobs, both still self employed but with much fewer hours than I used to work and a healthier lifestyle.

Long as you have enough to get by you can make yourself happy.

 

[Hill Wimp]

I'm sure it was 800 last time we discussed this. Is it going up?

You are right it's 775

 

[ColinJ]

Money is a funny thing - the more you have the more you spend that's how it was for us anyway.

My career peaked late 90's and Lovely Wife also had an ok income. Our income was very high and we had a ball.

We did lots of stuff (nice holidays etc) and bought stuff (fancy cars & watches & other expensive consumer items) but sadly we lost out on time together etc. I was earning very well, as I did almost from day one of my varied career, but by Christ I put the time in - which was fair enough really. But as 2000 approached it all wore a bit thin and we decided to call it a day and get a life.

We buried the mortgage and then, with considerable trepidation switched off the income flow - scary!

My calculations (I have a pretty complex spreadsheet that plots our various income/expenditure streams for several decades ahead) suggested we would be ok ad-infinitum.

Much to my surprise we live on considerably less than I had anticipated - the further we distanced ourselves from our high spending days the less we felt inclined to spend.

We now 'struggle' to spend £15k pa to run our lovely house, eat well, drink well and do the things we love, mainly walking in the beautiful part of the world we live in and chilling together - 15 years ago we brought home that amount in a very short space of time - not going to do the numbers here as it would come across as crass. Capital expenditure not included in that number but we don't have much of that either.

We have simply stripped back our life and started living a bit more - I accept that this is easy to do if you are ok financially but the point I am making is that you don't need a lot of income to live well if you have no mortgage/rent/debt.

We have run on a zero debt basis for well over a decade now and we occasionally reminisce about how we would not even have been able to countenance such a thing back in the 90's - as I said earlier, the more you earn the more you spend. Laughably there were times when we considered ourselves hard up - ridiculous!

On the education front (as you mentioned it) I never saw the lack of it as a limiting factor or the possession of it a major advantage. I'm moderately bright, not massively well educated, but when I toddled off to work I found it very easy to quickly move up the ranks, often by-passing much better educated people along the way. I just had a knack of getting things done and making money for my various employers. I ended up with various director roles and finally as MD - had my mum been alive she would've been proud that her boy from a shabby council estate & abusive (alcoholic father) teenage years did good! Maybe things have changed for youngsters these days but to me there's different types of smart - in business sometimes 'smart' is simply being able to see the bigger picture, join the dots quickly, innovate and inspire your team to come along with you. Worked for me and it can still work for others who don't come from the privileged side of the street.

Sorry for waffling!

I find that interesting, and I am a bit jealous too!

I have met my fair share of thick graduates and also clever people who left school at 15 or 16 with barely any qualifications. I didn't graduate until I was 30 and I sometimes wonder why I bothered doing my degree. I suppose if I hadn't, then I would always have wondered what I was missing. I'd had enough by then though and turned down the chance to go on to do an M.Phil.

 

[Pale Rider]

That may not be a problem

A significant number of tube workers seem to live a long way out.

I saw a court report recently of a tube driver who lived in Wales.

It was a family party assault and the impression given was that he lived 'full time' in Wales.

 

[The Jogger]

A significant number of tube workers seem to live a long way out.

I saw a court report recently of a tube driver who lived in Wales.

It was a family party assault and the impression given was that he lived 'full time' in Wales.

There are a few long distant commuters , one guy from Wales worked permanent nights so he had no problem getting in for his shift, earlies and lates aren't always doable for long distant commuters.

 

[marzjennings]

I'm 47 now and will have to wait until my daughter finishes Uni, about 12 years from now, before even considering retirement. And even then I may wait another 10 years to maximize all the tax benefits of the social security system over here. I've had some sort of job since I was 12 and so the first year of my retirement will be a year of doing nothing, no plans, no agenda. I'm looking forward to waking up without ANY plans for the day at all.

 

[ColinJ]

I hear there is new "knowledge" to suggest that Honey is worse for you than a sugar.

There probably is, but you have to die of something sooner or later ... I didn't want to die of a blood clot aged 56 but if I can get to 80 and die of a honey, cheese, chocolate and cake overdose then I would probably be okay with that!

(If the new 'knowledge' proved that I would die from honey poisoning aged 60 then I might sit up and pay more attention ... )

 

[NorthernDave]

Interesting question...

I had harboured probably unrealistic ambitions to retire when I get to 60, which would be 2030.
Then, thanks to Blair and Brown costing me what was a very good final salary pension, I realised it would more likely be state retirement age of 65 (2035).
Then the state retirement age was moved, currently to 67 for me (2037) and they are already talking about moving it back further still.

So the answer is probably never - I'll be dead before I get there. Still keep paying into the pension plan though...

 

[steve50]

Money is a funny thing - the more you have the more you spend that's how it was for us anyway.

My career peaked late 90's and Lovely Wife also had an ok income. Our income was very high and we had a ball.

We did lots of stuff (nice holidays etc) and bought stuff (fancy cars & watches & other expensive consumer items) but sadly we lost out on time together etc. I was earning very well, as I did almost from day one of my varied career, but by Christ I put the time in - which was fair enough really. But as 2000 approached it all wore a bit thin and we decided to call it a day and get a life.

We buried the mortgage and then, with considerable trepidation switched off the income flow - scary!

My calculations (I have a pretty complex spreadsheet that plots our various income/expenditure streams for several decades ahead) suggested we would be ok ad-infinitum.

Much to my surprise we live on considerably less than I had anticipated - the further we distanced ourselves from our high spending days the less we felt inclined to spend.

We now 'struggle' to spend £15k pa to run our lovely house, eat well, drink well and do the things we love, mainly walking in the beautiful part of the world we live in and chilling together - 15 years ago we brought home that amount in a very short space of time - not going to do the numbers here as it would come across as crass. Capital expenditure not included in that number but we don't have much of that either.

We have simply stripped back our life and started living a bit more - I accept that this is easy to do if you are ok financially but the point I am making is that you don't need a lot of income to live well if you have no mortgage/rent/debt.

We have run on a zero debt basis for well over a decade now and we occasionally reminisce about how we would not even have been able to countenance such a thing back in the 90's - as I said earlier, the more you earn the more you spend. Laughably there were times when we considered ourselves hard up - ridiculous!

On the education front (as you mentioned it) I never saw the lack of it as a limiting factor or the possession of it a major advantage. I'm moderately bright, not massively well educated, but when I toddled off to work I found it very easy to quickly move up the ranks, often by-passing much better educated people along the way. I just had a knack of getting things done and making money for my various employers. I ended up with various director roles and finally as MD - had my mum been alive she would've been proud that her boy from a shabby council estate & abusive (alcoholic father) teenage years had 'done good'! Maybe things have changed for youngsters these days but to me there's different types of smart - in business sometimes 'smart' is simply being able to see the bigger picture, join the dots quickly, innovate and inspire your team to come along with you. Worked for me and it can still work for others who don't come from the privileged side of the street.

Sorry for waffling!

Good post.

I was earning twice as much fifteen years ago as I am now and Mrs SJ was in partnership with me and bringing a decent amount in too. I now do two jobs, both still self employed but with much fewer hours than I used to work and a healthier lifestyle.

Long as you have enough to get by you can make yourself happy.

Got to agree with you guys, ten + years ago I was earning extremely good money but having to put the hours in I also had a high maintenance wife that could spend it as fast as I earned it.
Got rid of the wife, the mortgage and the debt, went solo for a while then met my good lady wife of the last eighteen years, we live debt free, no credit cards or loans. Life is good,we don't have a lot of money but we have no worries.

 

[Mrs M]

Yes, LU is London Underground

Silly me

 

[jonny jeez]

Really? I'd be interested in seeing that. Was it in the Daily Wail by any chance?

My wife told me, so I shall have to check her source but I suspect it was from her fitness trainer...either way, I am banned from eating both....openly

A quick google shows this from the telegraph online,

"Some people view honey as less refined and more “natural” than white sugar but it still contains sugar and calories. In fact, a teaspoon of honey contains 23 calories and 6g of sugar, compared with a level teaspoon of sugar, which contains 16 calories and 4g of sugar – although honey is sweeter so you need to add less to get a sweet taste."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyl...Life-coach-is-honey-healthier-than-sugar.html