Couple both Aged 46, want to retire at 51


I hear what you are saying but the risk of a bad tenant is too high. The amount of friends I have spoken to recently who have tenants that are taking the p and costing them a fortune now is unbelievable. It's like a new sport now to screw the landlord. And to make it worse, both tenants and government are in on it.[/QUOTE]
Really?
 
Yes really.
I want to retire.
So I want to eliminate risk and hassle.
Keeping the rental property is the complete opposite of that nowadays.
 
I understand your desire to retire but I think a good month of hols if you could get that size chunk where you spend as though you only had a much lower income would be interesting as an experiment. Of course the novelty of being off wouldn't have worn off in a month but still it might be useful.

Take today for example, it's a beautiful day, I could go easily go to the garden centre and buy some bedding/basket plants. But you'd drop €50 no problem on sufficient plants/compost to fill a few containers, add to that the cost of petrol to get there, a coffee and scone at my preferred one is €5.10 (I'd prefer cake but that would cost me €7.50) and I wouldn't have change out of €60. Now that is a nice chunk out of my weekly budget. Of course I could stay at home and just enjoy the garden I have or go somewhere free for a walk (I never go for walks but you might like that :) ). Nevertheless it's not fun when you are watching the pennies, it limits what you can and can't do and the ironic thing is there is all this free time but many things including hobbies cost money.

Don't underestimate the amount of money you will need, those are possibly some of the best years of your life health/energy wise etc so you want to be able to afford to do the things you want to do.
 
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That's the thing. We already do whatever we like on less than €35k a year and have plenty left over.
The reason we want to retire is i got forced to take my days carried over from toil instead of pay the company owed me and holidays not used etc so I had 8 weeks and my wife then took 7 weeks at the same time last year.
That is what have us the idea to retire. We found out quality of life and the stress of work, even though before we didn't think we were stressed at work.
It was bliss.
And that's why if we can get to 30k per year once mortgages are paid off and enough is out away for education we think we will be laughing.
The problem is making sure we will have that 30k from the pensions we have at the moment.
 
I was effectly semi retired well before age 50 on a V.S.. My ambition was to get out at 50 anyway and I was working towards that for maybe 10 years, it arrived sooner than expected but my plan could accomodate that.

I'm ' free ' a number of years now and loving it, yes income is reduced but so are all the commutes and business issues that eat into you, the thoughts of returning to that environment which has since actually become toxic would give me the shivers, plan as you are doing and execute that plan, it is so worthwhile, my GP reckons I've added 10 years to my life as a consequence of stepping off the work threadmill...I can't disagree.

Plan to fail, fail to plan...
 
My husband had retirement forced on him and looking back it was the best thing that happened for him as he was suffering burnout. A very stressful job that entailed a lot of travel. He also got a very large payout which was helped immensly due to laws here, by his age, and his length of service. In addition as you can see by my posts we have investment properties.

I think however you are too young to retire at 50. It is a very big decision. Maybe you've spent so many years paying down debt and working overtime that you've never made the time to enjoy life including your jobs. Maybe your wife working fewer hours, you taking more leave. What if the two of you hate spending every day together. It happens. I also would hate to be with a low income whereby I couldn't go to nice restaurants or go abroad on holidays (we intend to live in the sunshine once our children are done for or well on their way).

My husband in retirement can afford to do pretty much whatver he wants. He's started language classes in January, going well, and is also learning to swim properly for the first time ever. Neither of those cost a lot of money though. Just happen not to. But the important point is that whatever he wants to do he can basically do.

Think very carefully before you make such a drastic step.

(Depending on your income, the rental might make more for you if you reduce to the lower tax bracket. And personally I think you'd be mad not to convert your home to get in an extra 13K tax free. I didn't really understand how you think tenants are behaving badly, it's not my experience)
 
One person I know who retired early (and loves it) had the following advice. You know the amount of things you do at the weekend? Well, what if you had another five days a week to do them in? Would you be happy or bored?
Currently, at 51, I am actively putting a lot more arrows in my quiver, both hobbies and income generating ability, that if early retirement becomes an option, I will be in a place to choose it if I wish, and still have a lot of hobbies etc. to keep me occupied, as well as non-full time activities to generate supplementary income.
As Bronte said, it is a big step, and you could live for another 30 or 40 years. But luckily there are a large number of ways to approach it, between part time/voluntary work/holidays/paid part time work/hobbies etc.
Also having no children or debts (mortgage will be paid off) helps.
 
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Thanks for all the advice guys.
It seems natural for people to try to convince others not to retire even when they know what they want and look forward to it.everyone i have ever spoken to who has retired tell me to expect people to think they need to save them from a terrible decision.
Also out on the many many people I know who have retired I have only ever spoken to one who regretted it.

I feel despite human nature, that we don't need to be "saved" from retirement.

We have our minds made up. Retirement will be very nice for us. We will have no problems with it provided we have enough money for it.

Really what I was looking for advice on was how to get to retire on about €30k a year with our current assets or to hear if it was impossible or whatever. If we cant make that then we have to put off retirement until we can, be it another 2, 5 or 10 years. I would think €80 - €100 per day should be enough to retire on with no debts or large expenses, so that would be our target.
 
If you simply want people to tell you what you want to hear, then perhaps an anonymous online advice forum isn't the best place to go?

I have dealt with hundreds of comfortable retirees over the course of my career, and based on what I've seen, my advice (which I will follow myself) is to avoid retiring early and to avoid retiring entirely.
 
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SqueezedMiddle said:
Really what I was looking for advice on was how to get to retire on about €30k a year with our current assets or to hear if it was impossible or whatever. If we cant make that then we have to put off retirement until we can, be it another 2, 5 or 10 years. I w.
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Monbretia put her finger on the key question that you need to address -
Monbretia said:
Can you draw down the pensions you have at 50? If so how much are they going to pay per month? I'd imagine that is the deciding factor.
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We can't really offer any meaningful advice without knowing the answer to that key question.

For reference, a pension pot of €300k would buy a 51-year old man an annuity of around €8k per annum so I think it is unlikely that you will have sufficient income producing assets to retire at 51. On the face of it, a 7-year timeline seems more realistic as you will hopefully be able to ramp up your savings after you pay off your mortgage and you can increase your pension contributions once you hit 50.

However, you really need to get a firm understanding of your projected assets and liabilities. Simply wanting to retire at 51 won't be enough.
 
Not really gg.
All i was looking for was an answer to my original question.
Sorry if I offended you but really all I was looking for was to see if what assets we have at the moment can get us to €30k in five years.
If it can't it can't. No harm in asking. And any advise on anything we are doing wrong that is preventing us from getting to 30k would be grelatefully taken on board.

Not to worry anyway. Spoke to a financial advisor yesterday morning and it would seem we are well able this.
So thanks everyone for you input, even if it was just to make us think hard
 
Right so your mind is made up, grand, I clearly don't suit early enforced retirement :) although if I had enough money I could live with it but I think I would need at least 25k to be able to do all I would like to do. You will have something perhaps the rest of us didn't have at that stage and that is a child only heading for teenage years, that to me means a lot of extra cost and not only a college fund. Activities/technology/clothes etc could be a fair old expense in those years, I'm sure there is other things I can't even think of. It's a long time since I had a teenager and that was in the days before they had everything so I can't even estimate what it costs to run one!

So basically if you are determined fair enough but budget enough.
 
We have budgeted. We have laid out our budget here for all to see and pick holes in because that is what we want people to do.
It turns out that we are actually better off than we thought so it will be easier than expected which is a nice surprise.
I think we can end this thread now because clearly I've annoyed some people I some way, so I apologise and bow out.
 
SqueezedMiddle
I think this thread is only starting Best of luck on your plans.I know lots of people who retired early and 20 years later if they had it all to do again they would do the same again.
 
Absolutely agree with Jim - I also know a number of people that retired in their 50s and they are all having a ball! I don't know anybody that retired early that has any regrets.

I'm delighted that SqueezedMiddle has advice to the effect that he is on target to retire in 5 years with sufficient assets to fund his desired lifestyle. Without knowing when he can access his pension pot, I don't think any of us can really comment on the wisdom of that advice.
 
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