Money Makeover - How can I plan to retire in my 50s?

Dr Strangelove said:

In theory, yes.

I personally know exactly zero Irish people who have ever done this.

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Waves. My only problem now is that I want to put the money back into property in Ireland. That's been a massive fail so far. But just today my sibling told me of 3 properties in 2 locations we had been looking at that went sale agreed too high for us that have gone back on the market, to our surprise, one or two, but three. So maybe if we hold out a while longer ......... Maybe the property I really wanted that went +/- 30% over asking will also fail to go to sale completed.

One of my siblings sold their large PPR to downsize way before retirement and freed up the equity from the PPR meaning a low mortgage rather than a massive one, plus less headaches of running a large home. My mother sold her PPR to invest in other property and give her a retirement income as she had no other income.

Boyddbookman said:

56... and counting.

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Your post was very interesting. Thanks for sharing. The corporate world and your experiences of it we have lived thru with my husband.

This in particular resonated with me:

I observed and learned from this behavior for years, and saw some of these colleagues ruthlessly axed as they became too expensive or too much of a threat to their manager. This was a real motivator to ensure that I did not develop a financial dependency on any corporate organization.

Thank goodness I developed our own property portfolio for when the axe came. I was always terrified of being too reliant on the corporate salary. I wrote a post on here about it once but deleted it as it was too outing. And like you I started in property in my twenties. 10% deposit and most of that borrowed without telling the bank. I'm intending to encourage one of my children into the property business by giving them an opportunity to renovate a property for me and see if they like it. Might get the bug.

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Gordon Gekko said:

There is a whole cohort of people that seem to slip under the radsr in discussions about what constitutes ‘wealthy’ or an ability to become ‘wealthy’. For example, aircraft leasing is huge in Ireland, and there are loads of former solicitors who gave up €150-200k jobs to earn €350-400k just to chase down broken lease agreements.

There are lots of professionals paying their PAs €60k a year plus €20k bonus; those people have the ability to become wealthy if they’re smart.

I wouldn’t dream of telling my kids ‘PAYE bad’. There are a myriad of superb PAYE jobs out there…multinationals, the government, semi-states, medicine, financial services, etc.

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I've heard the rhetoric before that you'll not become wealthy being a PAYE worker in Ireland. I think in reality what they mean is they won't become rich quickly.

As you point out there are plenty of PAYE employees who are wealthy.

SPC100 said:

This is what helps make you wealthier imo

Increase income (change industry, skill up, change job, do extra work, optimise assets/investments)
Lower spending.
Keep your spending growth rate lower than income growth rate. (Ensures your excess cash, available to invest, is always growing)
Constantly Invest excess cash (or time) into assets or reducing debt.
Manage your assets. (Varying amount of work depending on assets, e.g. often best way to manage diversified equity, is just to give it more time).
Minimise tax drag.

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I know it's probably covered in one of your points but I would add, 'Stay single and don't have kids' .....