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Post by bracknellboy on Mar 7, 2017 10:08:44 GMT
I was slightly surprised by mrclondon's figures too - but actually 20k+2x5k isn't far off your figures either...unless you were counting just for you... That was just for me.....I'm more greedy than I thought, obviously. In truth, I reckoned I was spending around £24k pa now (not including large capital items e.g. car), so allowing for irregular large capital / some house improvement stuff plus an uplift for increased leisure spending got me to the £30k ish mark.
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pom
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Post by pom on Mar 7, 2017 10:14:52 GMT
So...will I hand in my notice first thing tomorrow morning? Nope. But I will be looking up how much notice I have to give and starting to plan, and my target date suddenly got a LOT closer. Good for you - and good luck! (This afternoon should be an auspicious time to hand your notice in, btw) Haha....thing is my workload is so low generally it's really not like I need to rush, have plenty of time to think and plan (and get some more max pension contributions stashed, as that's where most of my salary is going right now anyway) without needing to quit first. Part of me is actually sorely tempted to pretty much work to rule and see how long till I get called out on it, except given no-one really seemed to have noticed that for 2 years I was mostly focused on sorting my grandfather (+aftermath) out I rather suspect that would take far too long. I'm about 90% certain I don't want to bother with another annual review anyway (the only reason I'm not more certain is cos that same part of me also fancies using the next one to say "BTW I quit" )
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pom
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Post by pom on Mar 7, 2017 10:32:04 GMT
I was slightly surprised by mrclondon's figures too - but actually 20k+2x5k isn't far off your figures either...unless you were counting just for you... That was just for me.....I'm more greedy than I thought, obviously. In truth, I reckoned I was spending around £24k pa now (not including large capital items e.g. car), so allowing for irregular large capital / some house improvement stuff plus an uplift for increased leisure spending got me to the £30k ish mark. I think the need for treats is the hardest to judge...particularly as stress probably increases our perception of our need for treats !!! Because my workload has dropped this last 3yrs I've already noticed I'm not so bothered - which is pretty bloody depressing now I can pretty much afford anything I might want but don't actually really want much!! (eg I own both the cars on our drive but guess who's mostly driving the 11yr old ex-company car, cos with less than 50k on the clock it's not worth replacing?!). The only big question mark in my mind is the travel budget - I have committed to spending what my previous self would consider to be a totally INSANE amount of money on travel this last couple of years (BECAUSE I CAN !!!! And it also helps that I know how thoroughly delighted Gramps would be) but after the next trip in the autumn that'll be all the big ticket life-long-dream places "done" so I suspect I'll return to far more "normal" levels
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pom
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Post by pom on Mar 7, 2017 10:47:50 GMT
Kind of similar - but also not - to my situation. We keep our finances loosely coupled, contribute nearly equally (but I contribute a bit more) to everyday and most bigger ticket stuff, with my also deciding to fund quite a few of the non-essential larger ticket items. Likewise position with offsetting other halfs mortgage. But the retirement piece could turn that situation on its head. My other half has the benefit of a very generous DB scheme which means they can retire in about 3 years after 30 yrs service at a touch under 50. Would be mad for them to lose a chunk of that by them leaving early. So if I took the plunge early (e.g. now'ish ) there would only be a 3 yr gap, but on the other hand financial positions are likely to be somewhat reversed, even after they take retirement: certainly in terms of surety/security of finances. That's very lucky. We do have a bit of an unspoken "told you so" I think, because early on I was forever hearing about how great his pension was gonna be - whilst privately thinking great DB scheme doesn't really make up for being paid less than market rates. But as he was doing what he'd always dreamed of and I was merely doing something I was very good at that paid well I was actually always happy to fit around it. And since that's also involved moving somewhere where I finally feel at home and salary continued to increase, apart from occasionally being a bit sad that I now spend more on wellies than beautiful impractical shoes I really can't complain
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Mar 8, 2017 0:57:38 GMT
I retired at 50. I have a good, final salary, preserved pension which I can claim in full when I am 60 or else take on a reduced basis very soon at age 55 -with nearly 30 years qualifying service and contributions safely in the pot.
I hadn't planned on early retirement but a lot of personal stuff happened in my life that meant I couldn't continue to work full time long hours as I had before. Because of those personal circumstances I was granted a 1 year career break and I had every intention of returning to full time work after that, but events worsened for me during my break and meant I wasn't able to. So I resigned and effectively retired at age of 50.
I remain a proper professional person with qualifications and 30 years work experience, but now I'm in the much easier position of just being able to do a bit of paid, temp, agency/contractor work when I feel like it if something suitable comes my way, but I basically consider myself to be retired.
The thing is, since retirement I have had the spare time to get into investing and making my mney work for me, so my actual monthly income isn't a lot lower than it was when I worked full time but didn't have time to manage investments on P2P platforms etc.
And because I don't have much work earnings over any given year and I don't draw my pension, a lot of my interest I can keep tax free.
I also spend less than I did when I worked. When I worked I was out every day for longish hours and always spending money on incidentals and a lot on petrol and new clothes. I rarely buy things these days and today, for example, I spent the day cutting down my garden which cost me nothing at all. Had I been out all day in connection with work I would probably have spent £30 easily, maybe more.
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Post by scoobydoo on Mar 8, 2017 9:57:07 GMT
I was slightly surprised by mrclondon's figures too - but actually 20k+2x5k isn't far off your figures either...unless you were counting just for you... That was just for me.....I'm more greedy than I thought, obviously. In truth, I reckoned I was spending around £24k pa now (not including large capital items e.g. car), so allowing for irregular large capital / some house improvement stuff plus an uplift for increased leisure spending got me to the £30k ish mark. Those figures of £20k - £30k seem quite high to me but then again i'm not much of a spender! If you split things out as a single person for annual essentials: Utilities and council tax: £1700 Food and everyday items: £1500 Insurances and car upkeep: £1000 That totals £4300 per year (Have I left anything out?) That would leave you with £15k - £25k per year (depending on the figure estimated) for non-essential leisure spending. Seems quite a lot although I'm obviously not comparing it to multimillionaire's lavish spending.
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ramblin rose
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Post by ramblin rose on Mar 8, 2017 10:10:36 GMT
And because I don't have much work earnings over any given year and I don't draw my pension, a lot of my interest I can keep tax free. I also spend less than I did when I worked. When I worked I was out every day for longish hours and always spending money on incidentals and a lot on petrol and new clothes. I rarely buy things these days and today, for example, I spent the day cutting down my garden which cost me nothing at all. Had I been out all day in connection with work I would probably have spent £30 easily, maybe more. Yes, I find both these things to be true. I was about to post something along these lines - those of you who are calculating that you'll need more money once you aren't working may be quite surprised by how much expenditure you have simply because you're going out to work, and the fact that you can manipulate large amounts of your income to be tax free and/or lower tax by making full use of savings allowances, capital gains allowances and dividend payments makes quite a lot of difference. Of course there's a bit more leccy and gas if you are at home much of the time, but I find a few trips a week to the sauna at the cheap local health club where I do my gym bunny antics cuts out much of that
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pom
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Post by pom on Mar 8, 2017 11:10:16 GMT
I also spend less than I did when I worked. When I worked I was out every day for longish hours and always spending money on incidentals and a lot on petrol and new clothes. I rarely buy things these days and today, for example, I spent the day cutting down my garden which cost me nothing at all. Had I been out all day in connection with work I would probably have spent £30 easily, maybe more. Yeah that's something that's not going to work for me, and I realised last night I need to do some serious sums to reassure my inner "you don't spend savings" self what I might really need. The furthest I've travelled for work in the last 3 years is to take my laptop out onto the patio. And for the 5years before that I only had to go somewhere for mostly expensed business trips (I say mostly because especially when they took me overseas to somewhere I hadn't been before I wasn't going to worry about sticking to what I could claim back!). So I've already cut all that spending out. Instead my costs will actually rise - whilst I have a tablet I haven't owned a PC this century, or a mobile phone in over a decade, and both will be essential. And if I decide to maintain my professional membership I'll have to start paying for that too. Nothing major but I definitely can't assume my spending will go down (except perhaps my chocolate bill) And, yes I know this sounds really bad, I actually have no clue what I spend, because apart from a tough period when I bought my first house that needed a lot of work when I ran out of money and couldn't afford anything non-essential for about 8 months I haven't needed to and wasn't expecting to have to go through this thought process for another 10-15 yrs. I'm definitely not wasteful and have a very clear view of what's worth paying more for and what isn't, am rarely distracted much by "shineeeeeey/preciousssssss" but I do like not needing to think too much on the few occasions when I see something that will have a real positive impact on my life/happiness. Time to give myself a headache going through statements etc - which will be so much fun when probably over 90% of my bank transactions from the last 2 yrs will have been moving cash around for p2p etc ....and think a bit more about risks and stuff as I'm almost certain I could easily live off p2p income and not touch the S&S portfolio....but could I if the returns halved? I may be gone a little while
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pom
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Post by pom on Mar 8, 2017 11:11:28 GMT
Haha...cos of course gym membership is so much cheaper than heat & light (yes I know there's other benefits!)
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Post by mrclondon on Mar 8, 2017 12:17:22 GMT
Instead my costs will actually rise - whilst I have a tablet I haven't owned a PC this century, or a mobile phone in over a decade, and both will be essential. And if I decide to maintain my professional membership I'll have to start paying for that too. Nothing major but I definitely can't assume my spending will go down (except perhaps my chocolate bill) Just like with cars, purchasing "nearly new" IT equipment is often the more cost effective solution as the depreciation curve is steepest in the first 2 years. Morgan Computers is probably the best known reseller of refurbished ex-corporate IT equipment. As far as phones go, personally I think it madness to buy anything other than an unlocked phone ( Morgan again, but also from Giff Gaff New or Refurbished ) so that if you are touring outside Europe you can buy a local PAYG SIM for making reservations etc. Many professional bodies offer reduced subscriptions (remission) for members who are retired / taking a career break. If its not obvious at the annual renewal its worth asking. I'm lucky that mine (Institution of Chemical Engineers) is one of the more generous - I'm paying c. 25% of the full rate (which retains my 'Chartered Engineer' status). If post "retirement" you continue to do some bits of paid work (and hence declare for tax) the cost of the subscription is probably tax deductable (see here and here). EDIT: And this post was typed on a MacBook purchased from Morgan at a year or so old for 25% of the price it was when new.
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treeman
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Post by treeman on Mar 8, 2017 13:10:51 GMT
Again by way of comparison and FWIW - The baseline cost of keeping me and the missus in the manner we've become accustomed to and run the 'estate' is some way below what others have mentioned upthread. 2016, for example, including a couple of 5-6 week travels, came in at sub £18k. (I do, however, work off a guess-timate £25k pa long-term average to allow for periodic other spending, backed up by a sizeable complete disaster fund in FSCS-covered deposits) No, we aren't sitting around in a freezing hovel in the dark eating value beans on bread !!!! I know a few hardcore skinflints who do ........... Yes, we are very self-reliant (self-sufficient is a myth) on many fronts. And have a network of similar minded (skill-sharing) others which means there's almost nothing we'd have to pay to get done. We continue to have what we want which is still far more than we actually need. We could definitely 'survive' on a lot less. Mrs Treeman now happily runs the budgeting/expenditure speadsheets, which don't take much time once set up, having previously refused point-blank to open Excel for anything.......
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pom
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Post by pom on Mar 8, 2017 14:08:49 GMT
Instead my costs will actually rise - whilst I have a tablet I haven't owned a PC this century, or a mobile phone in over a decade, and both will be essential. And if I decide to maintain my professional membership I'll have to start paying for that too. Nothing major but I definitely can't assume my spending will go down (except perhaps my chocolate bill) Just like with cars, purchasing "nearly new" IT equipment is often the more cost effective solution as the depreciation curve is steepest in the first 2 years. Morgan Computers is probably the best known reseller of refurbished ex-corporate IT equipment. As far as phones go, personally I think it madness to buy anything other than an unlocked phone ( Morgan again, but also from Giff Gaff New or Refurbished ) so that if you are touring outside Europe you can buy a local PAYG SIM for making reservations etc. Many professional bodies offer reduced subscriptions (remission) for members who are retired / taking a career break. If its not obvious at the annual renewal its worth asking. I'm lucky that mine (Institution of Chemical Engineers) is one of the more generous - I'm paying c. 25% of the full rate (which retains my 'Chartered Engineer' status). If post "retirement" you continue to do some bits of paid work (and hence declare for tax) the cost of the subscription is probably tax deductable (see here and here). EDIT: And this post was typed on a MacBook purchased from Morgan at a year or so old for 25% of the price it was when new. You were doing so well until you said MacBook... Admittedly at that price that probably rules out my biggest objection to apple products, but even so... Thanks for the institution tip off...would be a little sad to give up my Chartered status after all the stress of getting it....but am not totally convinced of the value of membership either - went to a local event full of enthusiasm when I first got them and it was so dire I never went to anything again (everyone there was 20+yrs older than me and male, and their speaker managed to be boring about the brewing industry?!)
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pom
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Post by pom on Mar 8, 2017 14:29:26 GMT
Again by way of comparison and FWIW - The baseline cost of keeping me and the missus in the manner we've become accustomed to and run the 'estate' is some way below what others have mentioned upthread. 2016, for example, including a couple of 5-6 week travels, came in at sub £18k. (I do, however, work off a guess-timate £25k pa long-term average to allow for periodic other spending, backed up by a sizeable complete disaster fund in FSCS-covered deposits) No, we aren't sitting around in a freezing hovel in the dark eating value beans on bread !!!! I know a few hardcore skinflints who do ........... Yes, we are very self-reliant (self-sufficient is a myth) on many fronts. And have a network of similar minded (skill-sharing) others which means there's almost nothing we'd have to pay to get done. We continue to have what we want which is still far more than we actually need. We could definitely 'survive' on a lot less. Mrs Treeman now happily runs the budgeting/expenditure speadsheets, which don't take much time once set up, having previously refused point-blank to open Excel for anything....... Impressive! I grew up listening to my dad trying to dissuade other people from the self-sufficiency myth whilst imposing a level of self-reliance that was way too hardcore for me* - no wonder I ran to the bigsmoke as soon as I could. Even tho I've gone soft, a lot of the mindset does stick (and it didn't take long to recognise my allergy to concrete either)... but I guess part of my caution is cos I definitely know my limits on skinflinting! *still bloody is too, I refuse to visit him in winter anymore cos after an initial relaxation when he first discovered the joys of central heating - after I'd left home - the place is now only remotely hospitable (for very generous definitions of the term) in summer - last time I had to go there in winter for his 80th I stayed in a hotel
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Post by mrclondon on Mar 8, 2017 14:39:38 GMT
You were doing so well until you said MacBook... Admittedly at that price that probably rules out my biggest objection to apple products, but even so... Thanks for the institution tip off...would be a little sad to give up my Chartered status after all the stress of getting it....but am not totally convinced of the value of membership either - went to a local event full of enthusiasm when I first got them and it was so dire I never went to anything again (everyone there was 20+yrs older than me and male, and their speaker managed to be boring about the brewing industry?!) Actually not a fan of Apple products either. However, in terms of my ongoing consultancy "work", I have a number of American clients who are much bigger users of Mac's in the mainstream business environment than us more sensible Brits. The purchase of a "cheapish" MacBook allows me to ensure that any Excel models / analytical tools I create work on the very stunted "Excel for Mac" as well as on Windows. Biggest annoyance is it has a UK keyboard, but no hash key. On the upside though, the trackpad is programmable to recognise various gestures which makes navigating around without using the keyboard much easier with practise. Also have slight doubts concerning retaining chartered status. Like you quickly got bored with the local events, however there have been times in my career it has been an essential pre-requiste (for example signing off on design or testing documentation in regulated industries such as nuclear or pharma). It feels extremely unlikely at this stage that I'll be working in such industries again at a sufficeintly senior level for that to be a requirement. However it does legitimise a declaration of 'Engineering Consultant' (or equivalent) on for example insurance application forms, if 'Retired' doesn't feel right (car insurance in particular needs care if the car could be used during any paid "work")
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treeman
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Post by treeman on Mar 8, 2017 15:09:03 GMT
Yep - Grew up without central heating too - I well remember ice on the inside of my bedroom window - no fan of the cold + damp either. I'm in the fortunate position of having a couple of decent woodburners (The only mains service we have is Leccy) and being able to supply all our firewood needs. The main 'problem' is controlling the ouput to stop it getting too damn hot in here. Tough life..... I planted over 500 trees 15 or so years ago (my back still aches when I think about it ... ..) deliberately too close together and have now started to reap the benefits of thinning them out, along with fast growing willow and hazel for coppicing. It's going so well I'm going to have to build another woodshed to keep it all dry come some more inviting weather ..... The further upside is that my 1000 litre heating oil tank only needs re-filling every 2-3 years If (when, more realistically) Ash Dieback makes its way round here I'll wear my chainsaw out - will be a real shame but Ash is lovely firewood.............
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