daveh wrote:
Looking at next months predicted expenditure, so all the direct debits/standing orders etc less the money automatically going in to savings that comes to ~£370 add onto that last months credit card bill (which looks to be a low to average month) of ~£570 that comes out at ~£940 or £11,280 per year.
That doesn't include anything for holidays etc but does include alcohol/drinks that could definitely be cut back a bit.
So £11k a year definitely looks doable.
I've got reliable household Microsoft Money data going back 16 years now, and whilst we could '
survive' on £1000 per month (so £12,000 per year), there wouldn't be much left for any major expenditure or repair requirements, for things like our car or major home repairs. A bit of bad luck with our washing machine and central-heating boiler would give us cause for concern if the only option for financing those repairs or replacements would be for such funds to come from that £12,000 per-year income...
I've often considered what our true 'minimum running costs' might be, including at least 'some' level of comfort in terms of one holiday a year and some semblance of regular 'non-essential treats', and I think about £18,000 per year would be somewhere near the level where we'd have to start 'playing off' some of the optional extras we might look to enjoy, beyond the basic running of the household, but where at least with £18k there'd be some level of non-essential funding which we *could* perhaps play off against each other, and I certainly don't think that option would be available to us with a yearly allowance of £12k...
As someone who, on a good day at least, might be able to squint a bit and see an outline of an end-game to my working life, I think the reality that I'd prefer is to perhaps land somewhere around that £18,000 per-year allowance
and also have a level of fairly reliable emergency-capital available, to cover-off those 'emergency repair or medium capital cost' risks, which would then put me in a much more confident position to be able to enjoy that level of per-year allowance of £18K, if I needed to, with the caveat in that position being that I don't have any mortgage costs to worry about, which of course removes what can be a large ongoing outlay that can heavily skew these types of discussions, depending on circumstances in that particular area.
All of the above should be clarified to be a 'self-funding' position in what's hoped to be some period of early-retirement, before the state-pension would become available for me, and such a situation heavily influences my thoughts on this, where that state-pension might eventually help to back-fill some of that previously mentioned 'emergency repair or medium capital cost' capital that I'd be willing to draw down on to perhaps help subsidise any early-retirement plans, which I think helps to show that many of these 'funding-level' situations that we might offer up for discussion do sometimes need fleshing out a little in terms of detail, rather than being able to hold up a single 'per year' figure that means the same thing to everyone, because quite often that's unlikely to be the case...
Getting back to the article itself, I maintain the view that this guy's going into a fairly tight three-year period with his eyes wide open, where he's hoping to enjoy a self-funded work-free period that's likely to mean tightening his belt for a while, but where he's firmly got his eyes on that state-pension that's three years away. He's then hopefully going to be able to enjoy a much better level of regular and guaranteed income once his state-retirement age has been achieved, and I think voluntarily stepping off the work-based treadmill with a plan like that is to be commended where there's a clarity that doesn't shy away from the fairly tight three-year period before he gets there...
Cheers,
Itsallaguess
