Retiring at 51

Gordon Gekko said:

I’m seeing more and more of this FIRE stuff being talked about. In my opinion, it’s a load of horse manure. Most people can retire early and live on Aldi baked beans. But why would you want to do that? Not that many people love their job, some like it, some tolerate it, some dislike it, and some detest it. But you just get on with it. When I read about this FIRE stuff, my read through is that a lot of the people have either failed in their careers, they just can’t handle work due to some underlying mental or physical issue, or they’re just lazy. But in the world we now live in where nearly everyone seems to think that they’re special and that they should have an Instagram life, punting this FIRE stuff is probably smart as any number of loonies will latch on to it. If “Financially Independent, Retire Early” means getting out to smell the roses at around age 60, I’m all for that, provided that the lifestyle I enjoy now can continue. But if it’s some waster who couldn’t hold down a decent job because of his nerves pointing at a flipchart and telling me how great Lidl baked beans and cheap holidays are, I’m out.

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I tend to agree with you. I have been reading articles on this and I also think the people pursuing it are a little crazy.
Some people have it financially made in middle age around 45 to 50, however, some of the articles I have been reading are talking about people in their late 20s and 30s doing the FIRE thing. It's a fad and they will eventually cop on.

Saavy99 said:

I tend to agree with you. I have been reading articles on this and I also think the people pursuing it are a little crazy.
Some people have it financially made in middle age around 45 to 50, however, some of the articles I have been reading are talking about people in their late 20s and 30s doing the FIRE thing. It's a fad and they will eventually cop on.

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I had never heard of FIRE before this thread.
Im just retiring because it is half forced on me and when it was I found that it works out very well for me to retire at this time.
It works out better than getting another job actually.

OMG I'm not refering to your situation. I'm referring to this growing cult of young people in their 20's and 30's living off meagre amounts of money in order to achieve financial independence and when achieved then continue to live out their days living in a pittance. There's web sites, blogs etc dedicated to the concept with huge followers.

However, this topic of FIRE has completely derailed from your thread and your sutuation. So apologies for that and happy early retirement to you.

Well to be fair one of the reasons that I decided retirement was a good thing was that I discovered that my income retired would actually be more than my income was at the start of the year.
Ive never had a frugal existence, so it is important that in retirement we have more disposable income than we had before it.
Big expenses ending and a redundancy cheque have helped us achieve that. Something we never would have imagined before being forced to examine it.
Of course I could get anothe job and keep working and bank the difference from those expenses that ended, but ............ 60 hours a week - not trading that time ever again for an employer no matter how much money they offered me.

Well another month of retirement gone by and more questions as I try to tidy up the finances
Does anyone know how you go about investing in a rental property via your pension fund.
My pension fund is with my former employer and I wasnt going to touch it for another 10 years or so.
Is it still available to me to invest in property via it? I could actually pay the deposit for the property in cash.

But besides questions here is an update from me. Really having fun now.
Ive found lots of expenses that can just be taken away. About €150 per month now that I was payng out and didnt need to be.
Decided though to keep the second car for a year or so as I used it a lot this month on my travels.
Been traveling the country, climbing mountains, seeing sights etc and a long time friend retired last year too and we do a lot of these trips together. Wives are glad to get us out of their hair. Saying we are like teenagers.
I have a 17ft motor cabin boat that id forgotten about since about 5 years ago down the bottom of a relatives garden. Plan nbow is that we are going to fix up the engine and paint it up and get it in the water That will probably keep us busy for the winter when the weather is too bad to enjoy the outdoors. Hopefully the boat will be like new and in the water buy next spring. Just never had time to do it before.
Also a couple of other friends are asking us how can they retire. Its hilarious. We'll be like Dads army, but in our 40s and 50s

I recall from a previous thread that you are a stay at home dad to a young child so not exactly early retirment. You can't really throw away the alarm clock, laze in bed until 11am or head south for the winter months for another ten years or so..

Saavy99 said:

I recall from a previous thread that you are a stay at home dad to a young child so not exactly early retirment. You can't really throw away the alarm clock, laze in bed until 11am or head south for the winter months for another ten years or so..

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Rumbled. Part of the reason for keeping the second car for now
Not that I laze in bed anyway, but now that they are back to school they can travel in and home together.
If I get rid of the second car then I have to drop them both in and collect them. Handy having the wife and child in the same school
Seriously though. I dont mind doing the school run with them. Ive just been told to go off and enjoy myself for a few months.
She feels sorry for me that ive had donkeys years of 1 week off a year while shes had teachers holidays, so she wants me to take it easy for a while, which im on board with

OMG_OMG said:

She feels sorry for me that ive had donkeys years of 1 week off a year while shes had teachers holidays, so she wants me to take it easy for a while, which im on board with

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yea but remember she has been off aswell due to the enforced closure of schools since March so she was basically in the same boat as you. But what about a year into this new life, she is working but you are off on a boat , will she not get very jealous?, the stress and shiftwork of your previous job will be long forgotten.

He won't be off on a boat when his other half is working as he has a young child to look after.

Would an au pair to help with childcare not just complete your retirement nirvana?

Early Riser said:

Would an au pair to help with childcare not just complete your retirement nirvana?

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Are you mad
The biggest reason for this is to spend more time with the family.
The summer holidays were great. My brat and my friends brat had a great time running up and down hills and valleys with us.
They are seasoned campers already.
We'll miss that now that the summer holidays are over.
They have jobs to do on the boat after homework with us too. They insisted And they have already picked their bunks for when its finally ready.
This retirement time is family time more than anything.
The Mrs was delighted to get time to herself during the last month while we were off having a great time.
Herself and my friends wife came with us on a couple of trips but werent into the camping at all and went to a hotel one night when it was lashing rain . The kids loved it though.
We actually nearly bought an RV we were looking at in Cork (Wouldnt cost much between the two families and we would get great use out of it), but said we will do the boat first before we think about that. The boat will keep us busy during school hours on week days for a while.

On the retirement finances thing though. Im finding already that we have a lot more money left in the bank account at the end of the month nowadays than we did all the last few years even with still putting away decent savings. Finishing a mortgage off makes a massive dent in outgoings. But if the mortgages werent finished first we would have less money left every month but still a few hundred.
If anyone is on the fence about retiring I would say to them. Check your disposable income before you retire against what it would be after you retire and give yourself a buffer. The best time i can think of to do it is right when you finish your mortgage.

Ive been reading a lot of FIRE articles lately since i discovered there is such a thing and a lot of people seem to be happy to have barely enough to live during retirement. I wouldnt go for that. You want at least the same standard of living that you had before you retired and a cushion.
For example if you used to go on two or three foreign holidays a year while working, you want to be able to do the same while retired. You are retiring afterall, to enjoy it. The time is the biggest factor though. I get about 60hrs per week of my own life back from emplyment to spend on whatever I like. Its bliss.

If you buy the RV make a note of it, just to avoid leaving it and forgetting it in a relative's garden. Seriously....how can you forget owning a boat. Especially when you've spent some months or years daydreaming about having lots of spare time as part of early retirement....you never thought about the boat??!!

David_Dublin said:

If you buy the RV make a note of it, just to avoid leaving it and forgetting it in a relative's garden. Seriously....how can you forget owning a boat. Especially when you've spent some months or years daydreaming about having lots of spare time as part of early retirement....you never thought about the boat??!!

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It was given to my brother many years ago by a friend who left for Canada and wasnt coming back.
He left it in my cousins garden and when asked to get rid of it he gave it to me.
I said OK and never gave it a second thought. I got a phone call a few weeks ago off the cousin who asked me if I wanted to take it away or dump it as they were building a new hay shed and that was in the way now.
My friend (who has experience of boats) was with me when I got the phone call and he has a massive garden and said to me that we could bring it to his garden and sort it out together. So we got some photos of it from my cousin and he thinks its in great shape.
So we are going down to collect it this week. I had totally forgotten about it before that phone call. With the RV, my wifes parents had one years ago and the two of us had many holidays and weekends away in it at the time, so its something we always wanted. Just would have been a waste of time with me working every weekend. And now with a partner on the costs it will work out quite cheap and get lots of use.

I tell you when you all of a sudden have leisure time that you never had before, things just appear, that may have only crossed your mind years ago and got dismissed for lack of time. Its amazing really.

The way you luck is going OMG, I wouldn't be surprised if you found that boat had an old oil panting in it, hanging up, covered in dust that ends up being a Rembrant.

It's like you're one of the FIRE people trying to corrupt us all

Hope you continue to have great fun, adventures and health in your retirement, sounds like you have it sorted.

50andOut said:

The way you luck is going OMG, I wouldn't be surprised if you found that boat had an old oil panting in it, hanging up, covered in dust that ends up being a Rembrant.

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I wouldnt say its luck. Its having time.
This weekend is the first time ive spent more than a couple of hours in the house in ages.
Ive just found so much that I want to do. The only reason im in today is that im waiting for Eir to turn up. Going camping next weekend again though .

I find these type threads very interesting. I’ve seen a number of posts by people intending to retire in their 40ies and 50ies, however, I don’t think they’re actually “retiring”, just leaving paid employment. IMHO.

Some things worth noting, and AFAIK nobody else has brought them up.

Most likely, if you wanted to get a loan (i.e. bank, CU) at any point going forward, you probably will be turned down.

Your motor insurance (and possibly other cover) premium may be affected. That dropdown menu where you select your occupation does affect the premium.

This next one is a million to one shot, but it comes to mind as it did impact a friend of mine.

If you, heaven forbid, were ever in a serious accident, your compensation would be drastically reduced because most compensations take into account “loss of income”.

But your occupation would stay as it was.youve just left paid employment

jim said:

But your occupation would stay as it was.youve just left paid employment

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Your “profession” would stay as it was. However, your “occupation” is what you’re doing now.

Drakon said:

Your motor insurance (and possibly other cover) premium may be affected. That dropdown menu where you select your occupation does affect the premium.

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Well, insofar as is impacted on us it was in positive way. Annual mileage was a lot less which was good for the premium. Some may have an age loading but that is independent of retirement. As retired people spend more time at home, insurance against burglary is likely to be favourable. Our policy improved anyway. Of course, if you planning extensive time away it would probably be different.