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What could you get by on?

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    What could you get by on?

    Often, when I'm wading through code that was written by a dyslexic Russian or by someone who thought it was a good idea to name table columns IND1, IND2 etc. I think about retiring, just giving it all up and buying a bit of land and a smaller house away from it all. Getting rid of both extremely expensive cars, no mortgage.

    Today is one of those days.

    How much cash do you think you would need to live a decent life, nothing extravagant just walking the dogs, visiting the pub, odd holiday business class to the Maldives?

    I think I would need around 3k per month to get by, am I being naive?
    Last edited by woohoo; 23 February 2022, 14:26.

    #2
    For 3k a month I'd have to move out of Kensington! Rent, utilities, food and gin cost me that.

    One could say I should move to a more affordable area but if I were to retire then I'd want to be close to the things I like doing. Whilst there are far cheaper parts of London to live in, I'd be cautious of the trade offs.

    Comment


      #3
      Depends on several things, but you will be surprised how much you don't spend when you don't have to work any more. Travel, lunch, work clothes, assorted insurances (and if you've cleared the mortgage there are more than you think), they all add up.

      The approach I took was to work out our likely necessary net income, listed all the assets that represented our pension pot and then engaged a Wealth Manager (not an IFA...) to sort out the best long term solution.

      Put it this way, we are not by any means cash rich but we can put money aside each month (well, we can until all these likely price rises hit!) with enough headroom to cater for inflation and unexpected bills. That has to be the target, luxuries are a bonus. But the quality of life is immeasurably better.
      Blog? What blog...?

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        #4
        Whilst there are far cheaper parts of London to live in, I'd be cautious of the trade offs.
        You seem to live a more interesting life, I'm lucky to just to want to walk the dogs in the country side away from it all. A meal in a local pub would be the height of excitement to me.

        Depends on several things, but you will be surprised how much you don't spend when you don't have to work any more. Travel, lunch, work clothes, assorted insurances (and if you've cleared the mortgage there are more than you think), they all add up.
        Well with Covid and working from home for the last several years my lunch, travel and clothes expenses are pretty minimal though our last monthly gas/electricity bill was just over £500. Our house is pretty big to so downsizing would hopefully reduce those costs and not running two offices from home would help.

        Sounds like you made the move to semi-retiring then?

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by woohoo View Post
          Often, when I'm wading through code that was written by a dyslexic Russian or by someone who thought it was a good idea to name table columns IND1, IND2 etc. I think about retiring, just giving it all up and buying a bit of land and a smaller house away from it all. Getting rid of both extremely expensive cars, no mortgage.

          Today is one of those days.

          How much cash do you think you would need to live a decent life, nothing extravagant just walking the dogs, visiting the pub, odd holiday business class to the Maldives?

          I think I would need around 3k per month to get buy, I'm I being naive?
          3K should be more than enough, it is what we have worked out with no debt. I would be careful with a house 'away from it all' as you get older. If suddenly you can't drive then life can be quite hard in the sticks as I found out when I was quite ill a few years back. Now moved into a village with amenities (pubs, shops, rail station etc). Had to pay a premium but well worth it, hardly use the car now.
          But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition. Pliny the younger

          Comment


            #6
            The difficulty with this type of question is that "decent" is a relative term, not an absolute one and you then go on to define relative in terms of business class trips to the Maldives, so you're in the headspace of a typical contractor who has been pulling in something like £100k-200k+ for the last many years and you're probably taking more than £50k pa personally. In that sense, £3k net would represent a (big?) drop in disposable income. Still, defined in terms of the expectations of the average person, the median person would obviously regard £3k pm net for someone without a mortgage to be unfathomable riches. But don't underestimate the relative part of this. Also, don't underestimate the boredom of retiring without a coherent plan; if you do that, you will pine for the cretins that you're currently dealing with.

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              #7
              My impending retirement is based on annual spend of around £30K.

              I have totally had enough of IT and "modern" software development circus known as Agile / Scrum. Zero interest now in this stuff, so cashed it all in, and retirement for me. I never imagined making a tonne of money on assets was going to be this easy, so don't need to work.
              First Law of Contracting: Only the strong survive

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by _V_ View Post
                My impending retirement is based on annual spend of around £30K.

                I have totally had enough of IT and "modern" software development circus known as Agile / Scrum. Zero interest now in this stuff, so cashed it all in, and retirement for me. I never imagined making a tonne of money on assets was going to be this easy, so don't need to work.
                That's all very well, but you don't have the self-discipline to not lose it all on cretin coins when you get bored in about 7.3 months time.

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                  #9
                  Last time I could be a*ed to check my total income was start of 2019 when it was about 26k. Probably around £30k now due to state and one other pension. Still get a few hundred more in than I spend each month but it's shrinking fast due to my fixed rate pensions and all the price rises. Still, got about £350k of investments so won't be any problems before I snuff it.

                  PS My recommendation, be a mean old bastard like me.
                  PPS Oh yeh, forgot relevant point, I'm on me own. Need at least double if you've still got a missus.
                  PPPS I meant quadruple.
                  Last edited by xoggoth; 23 February 2022, 11:36.
                  bloggoth

                  If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'
                  John Wayne (My guru, not to be confused with my beloved prophet Jeremy Clarkson)

                  Comment


                    #10
                    My mortgage is quite large (£1300pcm ish) but I was quite startled when I once did the sums to see that this doesn't make a huge difference overall. What with council tax, utilities and a monthly CC spend of about £2k (not really sure what on TBH) paying off the mortgage doesn't seem a huge deal. It just means we're sitting on a huge cash pile.

                    We're not in the 100-200k bracket like lots of you but are still very comfortable by any normal standard in terms of income and savings/investments, and even then when you multiply annual spend by a few decades one wonders quite how that's supposed to work.
                    Originally posted by MaryPoppins
                    I'd still not breastfeed a nazi
                    Originally posted by vetran
                    Urine is quite nourishing

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