I’m getting closer to considering retirement.
Although essentially I’ve considered myself to be semi retired for 25 years now, due to only working 6 months a year, a couple of enforced periods of extra time off have given me a taster for doing less.
Not been anywhere near as sensible with my earnings as I should have been, but we decided some time ago to do the whole inheritance thing in reverse.
Helped our lad get through 6 years of further education so he started his working life without a penny of debt.
He’s been told when we go, he gets a house and nothing much more.
I don’t see myself going from full time to zero, will probably taper down to 3 or 4 offshore trips a year.
I play golf minimum 4 times a week when home, and can only see than increasing when I retire, so boredom wont be an issue.
We’ll definitely look to cancel Amazon when retired though, far to easy to buy stuff that’s not “really” needed.
Agreed.
My 81 year old next door neighbour considers it annoyingly trendy to turn on her central heating in January when just a pair of pyjamas and a blanket could keep her sufficiently warm.
I somehow feel like I would like to stop working… I don’t dislike my job and some parts and people can be quite fun but ultimately, I’d like to to stop before I’m “old”.
I’ll be 50 this year, I have been in full employment since completing my first degree (age 22) and I really don’t want to be working keep the current pace (and definitely not in full time) 5-7 years down the road. I’ve seen too many people stop when they are too old and the path before them is one of being imprisoned by limitations of age… mental and/or physical.
I don’t want to see the world, it is the same everywhere, but I do want to be free of the “race” and have time for the sake of it.
Will I have enough money - well, can you ever have enough?
The plan is to basically sprint for the next 3-4 years, see what is left in the tank and then draw the finishing line…
You can’t retire until your mortgage is paid - that’s the most important thing. Once that’s out of the way, you’ll require money for bills.
After that, it depends upon the lifestyle you want to lead in retirement. You say that you’re not that fussed about travel, which is excellent, but you’re still going to need income to do other things.
Assuming you sell your property here, and aren’t looking at St Tropez or somewhere similarly exorbitant, you should be fine. The cheaper parts of Italy and Greece are easily manageable on that kind of pension; in fact, £20k is more than enough.
My main concern about moving there is climate change, which is why I am still in the UK.
Moved to the South of France last year (Toulouse) and the aim will be to stay - the pain of getting all the documents together and learning the language (still on going) is too painful to do again in another country!