Sunday afternoon musings: Not telling anybody

[Snakey]

For those planning very early retirement i.e. not just a couple of years before the normal - what are you planning to tell family and friends? And what will you say to new people you meet? If you already have retired early, what did/do you do and how did it work out?

I have several friends and family members who've made different life choices from mine and (while they have lots of things I don't have - loving families, stress-free jobs etc) are going to be working full time until State pension age.

I have always kept my financial stuff to myself (which is why I can spill my guts across the internet - nobody who knows me in real life will know it's me) and don't live near any of the people I have in mind. So, while I know it's years away yet and there's many a slip etc etc, I was idly mulling over the practicalities of just not telling anybody - not lie as such, but let them carry on assuming I work full time. Just to avoid awkwardness, on my part as much as theirs.

Thoughts? Experiences?

[genou]

For those planning very early retirement i.e. not just a couple of years before the normal - what are you planning to tell family and friends? And what will you say to new people you meet? If you already have retired early, what did/do you do and how did it work out?

I have several friends and family members who've made different life choices from mine and (while they have lots of things I don't have - loving families, stress-free jobs etc) are going to be working full time until State pension age.

I have always kept my financial stuff to myself (which is why I can spill my guts across the internet - nobody who knows me in real life will know it's me) and don't live near any of the people I have in mind. So, while I know it's years away yet and there's many a slip etc etc, I was idly mulling over the practicalities of just not telling anybody - not lie as such, but let them carry on assuming I work full time. Just to avoid awkwardness, on my part as much as theirs.

Thoughts? Experiences?

I went at 54 ( not sure how early that counts as in this context ) 5 years ago, and just told people when it came up. No-one has ever reacted unfavourably to my face. The usual reaction is "lucky you", and the conversation moves on; I think if you conceal it and people then find out that will attract much more attention to the issue if this is something that bothers you.

[todthedog]

16 years back had a horrible year my Mum died old age, and my best friend ( same age as me) new variant CJD.
We had always intended to retire to France, events rather concentrated our minds into why wait tomorrow you could be dead. So we upped sticks and moved to Finistere, bought an old farmhouse with a couple of acres. From the sale of UK house. I would love to say there was a plan . First year was spent getting the house livable, then we drifted into sustainable living. We had pigs chicks and other animals gained 2 dogs and 5 cats. Grew most of our own stuff probably the hardest we had worked in our lives. Friends believed that we just pottered about, not an issue for me, believe what you will!
Next we got started on renewable energy, solar thermal, PV, and a wind turbine. We installed these ourselves at a fraction of the cost of having them installed. Always was tight!
We made a load of friends French, learned French (essential) avoided expats who moaned that France is not like the UK. Really!!
After 15 years it seemed time again to move on, before age or lack of energy made that decision impossible.
So we decided on Sweden for something completely different. The folk are nice but much more reserved than France.
The administration and integration are a nightmare but I guess that is everywhere now.

So this is written on a cold afternoon in front of the woodburner, snow on the ground.

I wish you well, I would say you will regret the things you didn't do, rather than the things you do even if they don't turnout the way you envisaged.
Lastly forget what folk think or say, it is your face you see in the shaving mirror, and if you can look yourself in the eyes I'd say go for it.
Best of luck

[SalvorHardin]

I have a lot of experience with pretending to still be working, having retired some 13 years ago just before turning 40 thanks to stock market profits (thank you Soco, amongst others). Retiring at 39 is way too early to explain without saying "I made a ton of money" so I established a cover.

My immediate family know what is going on. If you live with other people it is almost impossible to successfully pretend to be working unless you act like you are still working. You'd have to act like those people who continue to commute to and from "work" after losing their job because they can't bear to tell their spouse.

As far as my friends and other relatives know (since I retired) is that I became a self-employed consultant and writer on a variety of extremely boring financial matters (I think of this as my "fake job"). My "clients" demand confidentiality whilst my writing is done under a pseudonym or appears under someone else's much better known name.

It is hard (to put it mildly) to prove that I am not what I say I am, especially because I did similar work for most of my working life. It's easy to fake being a self-employed engineer if you were an engineer when you worked - it isn't so easy if you were a taxi driver. I do this because some people may react adversely if they knew that I am retired ("how can he afford it?", jealousy, etc.).

I strongly recommend making a fake job as uninteresting as possible because people rarely enquire further about boring matters. It is easy for me to make people glaze over when I start talking about technical accounting, legal and actuarial topics - on the rare occasions when I have been asked about work that person gets bored with my answer.

Occasionally I reinforce the pretence by cancelling something because of work (e.g. I can't go down the pub tonight due to a client deadline). Client confidentiality is another good defence whilst my occasional trips to London are great for reinforcing the pretence (they are for "work').

I have been greatly helped by my last five years of work being in London whilst the rest of my life is in rural West Country. The only connection between the two lives was me!

Recently I moved into semi-retirement by cutting back on my fake work. No-one has questioned this. Once my cover was established it has never been questioned, except once when I let something slip - that was followed by a four day trip to London for "work" to reinforce my cover.

[Dod1010]

As far as my friends and other relatives know (since I retired) is that I became a self-employed consultant and writer on a variety of extremely boring financial matters (I think of this as my "fake job"). My "clients" demand confidentiality whilst my writing is done under a pseudonym or appears under someone else's much better known name. .

What a strange way to live. I guess if you are an undercover spy that is as good a story as any but otherwise I simply could not be bothered with all the subterfuge. What in fact do you do with your time?

Dod

[TheRIT]

For those planning very early retirement i.e. not just a couple of years before the normal - what are you planning to tell family and friends? And what will you say to new people you meet? If you already have retired early, what did/do you do and how did it work out?
...

I'm not planning on making it complicated or on using the retirement word. I'll be FIRE'd at age 44 and will use something along the lines of - The quality of life we desire doesn't cost a lot plus we had a good run on the stock market which when combined we realised we were financially independent. Anybody interested in that type of life will ask more and anyone who isn't will fast move on I would guess/hope.

[SalvorHardin]

What a strange way to live. I guess if you are an undercover spy that is as good a story as any but otherwise I simply could not be bothered with all the subterfuge. What in fact do you do with your time? Dod

It involves very little work nowadays. If I get asked about work once a month that's a busy month. My usual comment to a work question is to grunt something like "a bit quiet" or "a bit busy", possibly with some reference to a financial story in the news affecting the demand for my services. I may mention something technical which the questioner won't understand - that usually deters further inquiries.

Having established my cover it requires very little work to maintain it, primarily because my "work" is doing what I used to do full-time but at home. And because my "work" bores most people no-one is interested in it. Seriously boring to the layman.

What do I do? Read (a lot). Invest my money. Travel. Walk. Take more degrees (I currently have five). Watch sports (live and on TV). Swan around. Rejoice every morning that I no longer have to commute. Learn more languages. Chase women. Read (I read a colossal amount that's why I mention it twice!).

Seriously, letting people know you've retired as early as I did is a recipe for disaster. I once knew someone who did at 38 and let everyone know - people treated him like a big lottery winner. He regretted it and had to go back to work whilst saying that his finances were not strong enough to have allowed him to retire.

[Raptor]

My first attempt to retire was when I was 49. Told everyone I had enough of the pressure of sales in the IT industry and always traveling abroad, the real problem came 2 months later when I un-retired as bored and started working at what people thought were menial jobs. In the end everyone accepted it. Now second attempt to retire, this time part-time and voluntary work keeps me ticking over and of course the holidays and moderating TLF, non-one bothered now as 62.

Raptor.

[Itsallaguess]

I'm not planning on making it complicated or on using the retirement word. I'll be FIRE'd at age 44 and will use something along the lines of - The quality of life we desire doesn't cost a lot plus we had a good run on the stock market which when combined we realised we were financially independent. Anybody interested in that type of life will ask more and anyone who isn't will fast move on I would guess/hope.

It's a shame, isn't it, that we (and I include myself in this, so no criticism from me at all here...) find it so difficult to be open and honest when it comes to matters of finance?

I can appreciate many of the reasons why this may be so, as I find it very difficult myself in most 'normal life' situations, and hardly discuss the sort of stuff we all blather on about quite freely here at all, in my day to day life.

But where I think it's a real shame is that on these types of boards, TMF and TLF in particular, you can see how people get so inspired to learn and progress when they see these types of things getting discussed and explained, and I often think of how many people must be missing out in real-life, simply because they never get to hear or be involved with any similar 'conversations' as we have here. I know the journey I've taken since my early days on TMF would simply never have happened without the discover of the boards there, absolutely no chance at all.

I wish the situation were different, but it is what it is, I suppose, and we should be thankful for discovering these boards ourselves, where people can talk more freely about these types of things, but I do wish there were a way to get these 'conversations' into the open more often, to allow others to understand the real possibilities available to people within their own lives. People can never be inspired by anyone who they don't know exists, after all.....

Anyhow, on the subject of early-retirement, if I ever get there, and how I might explain it to people, I reckon after the first couple of years of fooling my wife, it'll be easy to pass a story off to anyone else who's interested......

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[BarrenWuffett]

For those planning very early retirement i.e. not just a couple of years before the normal - what are you planning to tell family and friends? And what will you say to new people you meet? If you already have retired early, what did/do you do and how did it work out?
...

I'm not planning on making it complicated or on using the retirement word. I'll be FIRE'd at age 44 and will use something along the lines of - The quality of life we desire doesn't cost a lot plus we had a good run on the stock market which when combined we realised we were financially independent. Anybody interested in that type of life will ask more and anyone who isn't will fast move on I would guess/hope.

I 'retired' if thats the right word at 55 in the sense I drifted from being in a self-employed partnership working a required number of hours, to the partnership winding down and me realising I had accumulated enough savings, investments and pension pot to not to need to seek out paid work.

I think the line between paid/unpaid work is starting to blur and with the introduction of more automation, we may well be looking at the possiblity of a basic income scheme for everyone.

I now spend time with the grandchildren which is a help to my daughter, I like walking, cooking and spend time on various diy projects around the house and I like to follow the personal finance news and my investment portfolio - for self and other family members. So although I am retired, I spend most days doing what was previously squeezed into the weekend and now feels much more relaxed.

I am fortunate to be the type of person who is naturally frugal and also good with figures/finance and this has helped me to save over the years rather than fritter away on stuff I always knew I never needed - a recipe for a reasonably comfortable life.

[TheRIT]

It's a shame, isn't it, that we (and I include myself in this, so no criticism from me at all here...) find it so difficult to be open and honest when it comes to matters of finance?
...

I agree with this. My journey was possibly a little 'right tail' as I went from 'keeping up with the Jones's' to two comma's worth of FI in only 8.7 years. I'll also FIRE this year at age 44. That said the principles I used to do that are scalable and are certainly not special or secretive. The journey has also been not only liberating financially but also physically/spiritually. A simple example is your life turns upside down for the better when you switch from a standard of living approach to one focused on quality of life.

With that success I'm incredibly passionate about saving and investing. Over the years I've offered help and tried to start discussions when the topic has (albeit briefly) come up in my offline life. Everything from a good friend who must have been on similar money to me asking me for a temporary loan to get him out trouble to the work colleague who was at least 10 years older than me and had never looked at his pension statement to general 'pub conversation' where the topic of State Pension Age/life's tough financially/etc or similar comes up. On every occasion the conversation has gone nowhere.

In the online world I've continued to try and spread the message. I'm still blogging regularly and that still gets about 3,000 readers a week. I've also now published my story including the tools and techniques I used to become FI quickly. That's spread the message to a further 200 hopefully future FIRE'ees.

[Snakey]

Seriously, letting people know you've retired as early as I did is a recipe for disaster. I once knew someone who did at 38 and let everyone know - people treated him like a big lottery winner. He regretted it and had to go back to work whilst saying that his finances were not strong enough to have allowed him to retire.

I recall youthful awkwardness when the different paths we'd all taken in life led to big (if short-term) differences in disposable income - wages vs student grants, living at home vs rent and bills. A few not-really-joking jokes (the restaurant bill arrives: "X should pay - they can afford it!" *laugh* *expectant pause*) left the X's feeling like every mention of somebody's finances was a hint or that they were only invited in the hope that they'd pay more than their share.

I don't expect the "you earn more than me, so..." mindset to exist in middle age (and I'd happily drop a friend who acted like that anyway), but some people have so little idea about finance that a simple explanation would make things worse - to them, having a £1m retirement fund is exactly like being a big lottery winner. While you're banging on about safe withdrawal rates they'll be dreaming about what they'd spend it on.

I was thinking maybe it'd be nice to not have that elephant in the room, even if it's only in my own mind ("are they only talking about their mortgage/new business/son's wedding in the hope I'll get my chequebook out?" is not a comfortable thought to have, whether it's true or not). And I don't want my social life restricted to fellow early-retirees - I suspect there aren't that many of us and I further suspect that I'm atypical, not being an ex-high-flyer, and so wouldn't fit in anyway.

The other thing is unreasonable demands on your time, which isn't an issue for me but might be for others. "Oh good, you'll have plenty of time to [thing you can do for me]".

[swill453]

I retired at 53, earlier than my then-colleagues, siblings and friends. I haven't hidden anything, though maybe played it down a little ("Hope the money lasts, else I might be stacking shelves at Tesco ha-ha").

The reaction has tended to be "well done, you lucky b***".

I did take on board some criticism that constantly posting holiday/travel photos on Facebook was a little crass, provoking some jealous comments, and have reduced that somewhat.

In "how did you do it?" conversations, the most striking thing is finding out that the questioner has no idea what their annual spend is, so can't even take the first step to see if they could do it themselves.

I'm convinced that at least one acquaintance could easily afford to stop working with a far greater level of safety than I have, but hasn't done the sums so thinks they're nowhere near.

Scott.

[77ss]

For those planning very early retirement i.e. not just a couple of years before the normal - what are you planning to tell family and friends? And what will you say to new people you meet? If you already have retired early, what did/do you do and how did it work out....

Thoughts? Experiences?

As the song has it - Ain't Nobody's Business...

I went in my early 50s. I didn't make a point of telling anybody, but if the topic came up, I just said so - much simpler than any other option.

Any further detail is nobody else's business. I can't, to be honest, recall much prying.

[Howard]

I retired around 15 years ago at the age of 55. I was very open about it and would recommend this approach. However, when meeting somebody new for the first time, I found the implied question “Who are you?” rather threatening as I’d been used to defining myself by my role for the previous thirty plus years. To start with I found it difficult to explain how I spent my time.

After a while one gets used to not being employed and finds oneself questioning why one’s acquaintances keep working, despite being wealthy.

The trick in my experience (assuming one has enough to live on) is to find some worthwhile pursuits which can be just as rewarding as working. I’ve been incredibly lucky and have met some inspiring people as a result of my retirement activities.

regards

[Dod1010]

Thanks SalvorHardin Vey interesting As I said I could not have been bothered but I did not retire until I was 53. Then no one asked me; they just thought I was loaded!

Dod

[vrdiver]

I retired at 50. Friends weren't "jealous", but quite a few were curious as to what I would do "with all that time"?

My response has usually been that unless you would turn up for work without being paid, then there are better things to do with your time. In my case that ranges from education, local travel (since retirement I have got to know where I live by bicycle, which is such a different place compared to travelling by car!) as well as longer distance travel. We holiday a lot more, we pursue our hobbies more (the clue's in the name) and we do volunteer work. I've just come back from a couple of days of teaching...

Since my previous job involved a lot of time away from home, lots of travel and doing stuff that didn't relate to more regular jobs, I did get accused of being a spy on more than one occasion! That's probably the best cover story if you need one, as it comes with irregular hours, irregular travel and sudden "off grid" occurrences, all without having to explain anything.

In reality though, I go for the true story of having a budget, taking control of finances, doing a little research and investing for the long term... I will also tell of my light bulb moment of having followed a tip sheet and bought shares, only for the tip sheet to close and me not knowing what to do with the shares - which got me to drop tip sheets and do my own homework and the adoption of HYP!

Even though quite a few friends say "lucky you", it's never been a fruitful conversation to explain how such luck came to be. Nobody thinks investing in the stock market is "sensible"; a relative who does is convinced that their break will come from a penny share tipsheet.

If there was one thing I'd change, it would be to go back in time to re-write the National Curriculum to include a "proper" financial education. So few people I know are comfortable to take control of their own money, or even to think about it.

VRD

[Raptor]

I retired at 53, earlier than my then-colleagues, siblings and friends. I haven't hidden anything, though maybe played it down a little ("Hope the money lasts, else I might be stacking shelves at Tesco ha-ha
Scott.

Nothing wrong with that. I did that first time to stop boredom and now 2nd time round am doing 16 hours as stock controller with them.

Raptor

[OLTB]

The above examples of taking control of finances are inspirational and I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to try and emulate them! I started down the HYP route last year determined to forge my own investment destiny rather than leave my mediocre pension funds wallowing in bland managed funds and that's fine. The OLTB household budget is limiting though and my plan is to stop work at 62 (15 years time). With this limited monthly budget we have, I have a small family that I would like to treat which we've chosen to mean a holiday abroad once a year and as our youngest is seven, wish to make the most of until he turns into a teenager and becomes burdened with the responsibility of knowing everything. I think the most likely use of (very) limited spare cash would be to chuck a few quid at getting the mortgage down as I'm sure that once that is repaid, and your home is your own, life becomes a whole lot easier! Not too sure what a few quid at the mortgage actually saves in real terms though...

As I say, not at all jealous of the stories so far, just gets the juices flowing as how I can perhaps make some more sensible choices.

Cheers, OLTB.

[Urbandreamer]

The above examples of taking control of finances are inspirational and I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to try and emulate them! I started down the HYP route last year determined to forge my own investment destiny rather than leave my mediocre pension funds wallowing in bland managed funds and that's fine.

With respect that's exactly how you emulate it, by doing it. I'm neither going to praise or lambast HYP, but simply getting up and taking responsibility is the important first step.

I "failed", in that I'm 53 and intended to retire at 50. I'm close to FI, but my wife insists that we wait until my son finishes school (6 years) before retiring. If I'm forced to work until 67 it's likely that my income will be far more than it was pre-retirement. My great victory was in deciding to do something about it, fortunatly fairly early.

Back then there was a culture that discouraged financial responsibility. "Pay an expert, because you don't know what you are doing". Most people get/got steared towards low risk/low reward, what you describe as mediocre funds.

There is a move for that to change. Financial litracy is taught/mistaught at school, banks advertise jounior ISA's, there are adverts about pensions on TV and even radio stations called shareradio!

I hope that this revolution in financial awareness takes root. Vive la revolution!