Spending – Page 8 – Back on the road again

Let The Day Begin

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Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s fantastic version of the optimistic tune ‘Let The Day Begin‘ [originally by The Call] was a great way to bring in 2017. BRMC’s reverberating cover is more to my taste than the original and was included on the Spectre At The Feast album in memory of their singer/guitarists father and band mentor, Michael Been.

Here’s to the babies in a brand new world
Here’s to the beauty of the stars
Here’s to the travellers on the open road
Here’s to the dreamers in the bars

The song reflected my mood of waking up eager for each day to begin. Mr BOTRA has returned to work for another eleven weeks and so my days are free for me to structure in the way I want to and I am enjoying the liberation of not being tied to the work laptop and phone. If I waste a day doing nothing there will be no one to tick me off. Of course, I have articles to write, people to see, trips to plan and litter to pick up but I do these all out of choice and no one will be performance managing me, except myself.

It is January and so it is also time to sum up our finances for 2016. Mr BOTRA and I had a joint income for 2016 of £36, 747. We spent this in the following ways [2015 figures in brackets]:

Groceries 7% [8%]
Concerts, theatre and meals out 7% [6%]
Bills for the flat & running the campervan 12% [20%]
Holidays & campsites 14% [12%]
Everything else [gifts, clothes, stuff, public transport & healthcare] 19% [18%]
Savings 41% [36%]

We have made some good savings on our electricity and gas bills by moving provider to Ovo, on our broadband by changing to Hyperoptic [although we got a new customer deal and so this will no doubt be more expensive next year] and we saved on our house insurance through the Caravan Club. Fortunately, our two year old Renault campervan hasn’t needed any maintenance.

We are happy that we spent £23,603 on our living expenses during the year as this means our budget of £27,000 for our first year of retirement is looking realistic.

Looking forward to a new life

2016-oct-berlin-with-stephen-and-jenny-14 — The wonderful Bundestag in Berlin

It is that time of year when I instinctively look forward. Yesterday we celebrated the winter solstice in our usual way by watching the sun rise over the river Irwell on the shortest day of the year, happy to know that the days will now start to get just a little bit longer and spring and summer are on their way. After the sunrise we treat ourselves to a leisurely breakfast before going on to work. So it feels fitting in this forward-looking time that the day I have been dreaming about since I was 16-years old and started my first working day as an optician’s receptionist has arrived. That 16-year old wanted retirement immediately with all the impatience of youth and truly [and mistakenly] thought it was wasted on the elderly! Now, at the age of 57, I am equipped both financially and mentally, for taking life easier and I am looking forward to my new life as a retiree.

It has sometimes felt like a long slog through over 20 different jobs but it feels appropriate that on my last working day I will be busy producing another beautiful spreadsheet for the organisation; I will never stop getting a thrill and joy from what Excel can do and how clever it is. As I beaver away I will be mulling over my working life; how for over 40-years I have had to get up when work dictates, rather than when my body is ready; I have had to follow orders and regulations, no matter how stupid they might seem and I have sometimes felt that it is my employer that gets the best of me, rather than my family. I have experienced the drudgery of working for the ‘man’ and the independence and uncertainty of self-employment and in between I have been grateful to find sympathetic employers that gave me the right balance of freedom to be creative and a strong framework of support that allows me to give my best.

Of course, I am celebrating today as my ‘retirement’ marks the end of daily nine-to-five office work. But my future won’t be completely idle as I will continue to be a travel writer. This certainly isn’t as glamorous as it sounds but is a passion of mine that I can work on when I wish and is by no means a full-time job. There is also a liberation in knowing that if I write something fit for publication I receive payment, if I don’t, well it’s not the end of the world because we have those savings. I feel very lucky to be moving in to this new and exciting stage of my life.

Christmas glitter & a failed minimalist

Lightwaves Salford quays 2016 (34).JPG — More pictures from #lightwaves16 at Salford Quays

Despite claiming that I try to be something of a minimalist, I have a number of guilty secrets; 30 books I have read but keep because I might want to read them again; a wardrobe with more than 33 things in it and all sorts of other sentimental clutter. I have certainly failed to meet the minimalist standard. I don’t have a huge wardrobe and with clothes I do [mostly] only keep things I like and wear, even if an item doesn’t get an airing very often [the exception is the frock I wore at my graduation that sentiment still hasn’t allowed me to throw out]. I like well-made and comfortable clothes and have ditched anything that requires ironing as having an iron-free life is important to me. I have items of clothing that I hope will last me the next 25-years or so until I die [assuming I make it to my 80s].

This weekend I surveyed my wardrobe wondering what to wear for our Christmas meal out with friends. I picked out my ‘Christmas’ top and wondered how long I had owned this particular item. I knew there was a photograph of me wearing it at a NHS Christmas meal; I am sitting between two lovely colleagues at one of Preston’s swishest nightspots and we are resting after dancing, in front of me is a large glass of wine. I searched through the computer and found the photograph dates back to 2003. I know that the top wasn’t new then, so I reckon it is at least 14 years old but despite its age I still think of it as my ‘best’ wear.

Owning good quality clothing makes me happy. This deep-lavender coloured top is from Laura Ashley, is well made and I think / hope it will last me to the end of my days. It was bought by my lovely partner as a gift when 3/4 length sleeves were the fashion – a real bonus for those of us who are on the short side as there is no need to fold over the sleeves. The fabric is velvety and has a self-coloured paisley pattern within it. When I pick it out of my wardrobe I immediately think of Christmas parties I have worn it at … yes I am far too sentimental to be a true minimalist but you can’t accuse me of wasting money.

The tale of the postman

20161214_124152 — Leather album with wrap around strap

I get such a thrill when a stranger does you a big favour so here is the story of our postman who made my day this week. With so much happening at work, so many long-standing colleagues being made redundant and so many leaving presents for everyone to buy I thought I could slip quietly away in to retirement without anyone noticing. But my lovely and generous colleagues had other ideas and sent me a retirement present I will always remember, a beautiful Italian leather album with beautiful cream textured pages interwoven with tissue. This is such a lovely thing to own and perfect for creating a memento of sketches, postcards, tickets and other memorabilia from our next big trip. But how this perfect retirement present reached me is a tale of a postman who went above and beyond the call of duty.

You may recall I have been working from home since the summer and I have clearly continued to provide such efficient administrative support from my home-base that some of my colleagues never even noticed the change. I work for a national organisation and my colleagues are dotted around the North-west and the Midlands so communicating by email and telephone has always been the norm. This week I received an email from a colleague in the West Midlands that mentioned I should expect a parcel that day; however when I checked where it had been posted to found it was on its way to the ‘old’ office that is now closed up and empty. After an initial panic, he emailed me the receipt and I could track the parcel and so could see it was on its way to this abandoned office. Armed with the receipt I walked to our local Royal Mail collection depot to see what would happen with the parcel. After a long back and forth negotiation with supervisors they were happy [or at least satisfied] that I could collect the parcel from them, even without the failed delivery card, if I provided ID and headed paper from the old office [thank goodness I have been using this as scrap paper].

Back at home there was a knock on the door at lunch time. The ‘old office’ is near to my home and we share a postman. I often pass the time of day with this postman both at home and at work and he had noticed that I was one and the same person [I have an unusual second name]. He had arrived at the shuttered and deserted office with my parcel, noticed who it was addressed to and put the parcel back in his bag to bring round to our flat later on his round. He presented the parcel hesitantly, clearly worried about whether he had done the right thing, but I was over the moon. I am so grateful for his thoughtfulness and quick thinking and amazed that even in a big city like Salford it is impossible to be completely anonymous.

Being in the rock music moment

Placebo playing at the Arena in Manchester

Browsing Twitter and Facebook you might think that in 2016 everyone is seizing the day, living in the moment and treating every day as if it is their last. Reading posts and tweets it is easy to see a community where everyone is practicing mindfulness, has grasped minimalism and is enjoying experiences not possessions. And then I go to a rock concert and see people around me who are not present and who think they can concentrate on more than one thing at once. It doesn’t seem to matter how much they have paid to see a favourite band, there are always plenty in the audience who will spend most of the gig going back and forth to the bar and then [as a consequence] to the toilets. I have seen people checking their emails on their phone during a set and others take the opportunity of a quiet and emotional moment in a song to have a loud conversation about which bus they will catch to get home! I don’t find it difficult to be in the moment at a rock concert; my ears are full of the music, I can feel the bass shaking my bones, I am moving to the beat and my brain is listening to the words or singing along. I really enjoy being immersed in good loud music with lots of other people and I always smile my way through a rock concert.

I certainly don’t let irritation with the fans whose minds seem to struggle to just let go and soak in the music and atmosphere spoil my own experience. I accept that people will take photographs [and I clearly take one or two myself] and, although I don’t understand it, I tolerate the many who will even film an entire track. But, I do find my brain occasionally wandering in to spheres of wonder; how can you dance with a drink in your hand; why, when you have paid for a ticket, you can bear to risk missing your favourite track because you are using the bathroom and what possesses anyone to think a rock concert is a suitable place for an intimate conversation.

Maybe I am too old school. I bought my first ticket for a concert in 1972 when I went to see Slade, backed by Thin Lizzy and Suzi Quatro … and I was hooked to the thrill of live music. Over the years I have seen many hundreds of bands from the mega-stars such as The Rolling Stones in 1976 to Karine Polwart, a beautiful Scottish folk singer. I have seen Black Sabbath five times, paying just £2 in 1977 and £55 in 2013 and Muse eight times, including a memorable gig in Grosse Freiheit, a lovely cosy venue in Hamburg [and where the Beatles played]. Back in the 70s the bar would close while the band was on and as a teenager I had usually queued for hours to get to the stage and so I guess just being there for the music became normal.

We saw Placebo this week and it was a great concert and the crowd was no worse than usual; the woman who insisted on shouting conversations with her partner didn’t spoil it for us. I will continue to support bands by seeing them live and I will continue to be truly present for the couple of hours they are entertaining me.

Do we have enough to afford retirement?

Which suggests around £25,000 – £30,000 a year is enough to retire on and be content and who are we to argue. Other unspecified experts suggest 2/3rd of your working income is required for a happy retirement. I have decided to share the details of our retirement income and savings on the blog to help others on a similar journey. I know our circumstances are peculiar to us and what works for us won’t necessarily apply to you, whatever these online calculators and column writers suggest we are all individuals and what we feel we can live on and have managed to save will be different from anything you can and want to do. But the information might inspire you or make you re-think your own ideas for financial independence and early retirement.

There are four reasons why early retirement for us has become possible.

Reason number one – downsizing
By 2008 our son was settled with his partner and we were able to sell our family home and down-size to a small flat that was cheap enough to buy mortgage-free [hurrah!] with enough left over to pay for the campervan [double-hurrah!]. The flat is also cheap to heat and run and so contributes to reason number two.

Reason number two – frugal living
Although I am grateful that a company is willing to pay me to give my time and do stuff I have the skills to do, my own income as a travel writer and administrator is below the average in the UK [currently £26,260/year gross]. Jointly we currently receive around £36,000 a year net from our different occupations. I [honestly] cannot say that we are ‘ultra-frugal’; we have lots of holidays, eat out occasionally, go to gigs and plays, don’t always shop at the cheapest supermarkets and generally enjoy ourselves. But the main thing is that we spend less than we earn. Over the past six years [since returning from our ‘gap’ year] our average annual spending has been £24,125 a year [about 2/3rd of our income] and we have saved the rest.

Before we can retire our savings need to be sufficient to cover a period of nine years [see below]. After many modifications and adjustments we have come up with what we hope is a generous budget for retirement of £27,000 a year. This is more than 2/3rds of our current working income but is near the half-way point of the Which figure above. Because we have lived fairly frugally over the past six years and we are naturally cautious we wanted to have a bit of expansion room in our early retirement ‘income’. We have estimated that this amount will be enough for monthly meals out, cultural stuff and [most importantly] travel in the campervan [we are not planning lots of long-haul flights]. It should also be enough to cope with most small household crises [for example buying a new washing machine] and for any larger problems we have a contingency fund of £15,000.

Reason number three – we have pensions
We have saved sufficient to cover our ‘income’ for the years from 2017 to early in 2026. In this momentous year all of our various pensions [none of them very large] will provide us with an income of a similar amount.

A quick bit about our pensions. We both have public sector pension that are final salary pensions and often described as ‘gold-plated’ in the media. I have worked in the NHS for around thirteen years of my working life and for this will receive just over £2,000 a year [not even copper-plated really]. Mr BOTRA will have 30-years service in higher education and so will receive a more useful pension of around £12,000 a year. In addition I have a couple of small private sector pensions from about eight years in the charity sector that might bring in a few hundred pounds a year but will be dependent on the annuity rates at the time. I am ashamed to say that for many years I didn’t even save towards a pension but you live and learn. According to the current forecasts our state pensions will make up the rest of our income.

Reason number four – the inheritance
Inheritance doesn’t sit comfortably with us but there is no doubt that when a close relative died we inherited enough money to bring our retirement forward by about five years. Some of this inheritance came from selling a house but we also maximised the money by working hard to sell his 170+ paintings, 250+ ornaments and many other collectables. There was a four-month period in 2014 when we spent our evenings and weekends learning about fine china and collectables, placing detailed adverts on Ebay, packing delicate ornaments and posting them to far-flung destinations. We dealt with dealers and enthusiasts to make the most of what we had been given. We are truly grateful for the opportunity this money has given us and as the money came from a relative who enjoyed a long retirement from his mid-50s and spent his money on lots of holidays I like to think he would approve of our choice of how to spend the money.

The best of the Lancashire coast

A sunny autumn day on the wide expanse of the beach at Formby

We took a chance on a November trip in the campervan and were rewarded for our optimism with a sunny day. We have such a lot of stunning coastline on this island that the Lancashire coast perhaps isn’t what springs to mind when you think of beautiful parts of our coast. This part of the seaside certainly has more than its fair share of resorts and built up areas. But Formby Point [not strictly speaking in Lancashire but we still recognise the pre-1974 county boundaries at BOTRA towers] is a jewel in the crown that makes up for everything the planners have done on some stretches of the Lancashire shore and we are lucky that it is less than an hour from our home.

After spending Saturday afternoon walking in the gloom through wild hail and sleet in Southport, the sun on Sunday was very welcome. In Southport we walked along the wooden planks of the pier until it closed and joined the crowds watching the carnival that is the Christmas lights switch-on in the town.

The sand dunes, pine forests and wide sweep of a beach at Formby are owned and managed by the National Trust. This area is managed for the wildlife, not just the lovely red squirrels that entertain the visitors here, there are also newts, lizards and the rare Natterjack Toad. It wasn’t the time of year for reptiles but the red squirrels were plentiful in the pine woods. We walked around the asparagus fields and wound our way through the dunes. We returned along the expansive beach, with views north to Blackpool and south to the Welsh mountains. The beach is so immense that even on a sunny day there is space enough for everyone.

Looking towards the north Wales coast from Formby

The good & bad of leaving presents

2016-oct-berlin-with-stephen-and-jenny-39 — Do people still receive clocks as a leaving present?

How little your work colleagues really know you and the resulting unsuitable leaving present is a long-standing joke within a group of our friends. One friend once received the most inappropriate leaving gift that left her forever puzzling about how her colleagues had perceived her. She is a hard-working, intelligent and stylish woman and yet leaving a project her colleagues presented her with a large soft toy rabbit, holding a large stuffed carrot. I can’t be sure if I am, after so many years, embellishing this story more than it needs but the rabbit might have played a tune if you squeezed its tummy. Of course, her friends [who perhaps know her a little better] found this gift very amusing but she moved on wondering what she had done to even suggest that this rabbit might be something she would enjoy receiving.

With over 25 different jobs you can imagine I have received numerous leaving presents over the years and looking down the list these gifts come to mind and make me smile, although none have been as unsuitable as the rabbit.

High on my list of leaving presents that stand out are the surprise gifts from a role I put up with for just three months before moving on. I was very unhappy with the job and never felt I settled in but when I left they showered me with so many different gifts including a plant, writing paper, chocolates and wine, as I staggered home with all these generous presents I wondered if I was making a mistake by leaving.

At another job, despite my colleagues watching me hang up my cycling gear every morning, they decided to buy me a large and extravagant bouquet of flowers. I puzzled for a while about how to fit the flowers in my pannier but failing and unable to bear just sneaking them in the bin [or walking home] I displayed them on reception and left them behind.

Other teams have got it right. I still have beautiful jewellery and other tasteful and cherished items from teams and individuals I have worked with. I still treasure a soft and cosy throw I received from one workplace, an Italian shawl from another and a beautiful scarf from yet another. These gifts will always remind me of the wonderful people who clubbed together and went shopping to find something they thought I would like and thinking about these lovely people taking such trouble over a gift for me always brings me close to tears.

All these leaving gifts mark the moment of moving on. Particularly in community work my relationships with colleagues have often been intense, we will have worked closely as a team, I will have relied on these colleagues in tough situations, laughed with them and toiled with them. I am pleased that these moments get marked in even a small way.

The things that really start the tears flowing when I leave are the cards with all the lovely comments from my co-workers; as I read them I will start to wonder if I am doing the right thing leaving these fantastic people and stepping into the unknown. One manager who knew me better than many wrote a leaving speech that was a real tear-jerker, describing me as, ‘a true mother-earth hippy with a hint of rock-chick’, giving me something to live up to!

As an administrator I now work in a support role within a team and as a home-worker the relationships have been less profound. Tomorrow is my last team meeting with my colleagues and so as I draft this post the comforting smell of homemade ginger cake is seeping around the flat. My gift to my colleagues is cake and I hope this will in a small way say thank you to them for their support and inspiration.

I am lucky to be able to choose when I finish work

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MRS ONL did a thought provoking post recently that highlighted how many people don’t get to retire when they would choose to. The post was very timely as the small charity I work in has been going through difficult financial times. I have told you about these problems before but things have become considerably worse since I gave notice of my impending retirement [these things are not related]! Every week communications are sent out about someone else who is being made redundant; people who are skilled and dedicated workers who have given so much to the charity and each one of them brings me pain; to say that I feel I am leaving a sinking ship is to understate how fragile this organisation feels at the moment.

Mr BOTRA commented that if I could have hung on a month or more I might have been made redundant too and he is right, I am sure they will move on to the lower grade post when they have finished getting rid of the management tier. And yet I feel pleased that I got in first, not only to save the charity I work for having to find the few weeks salary they would be obliged to pay me as redundancy pay but also for my own dignity; everyone knows that I am leaving to retire and it is my choice; I haven’t had the stress of ‘consultation’ interviews and competing for the one remaining post. Other colleagues have not been so fortunate, are not leaving out of their own volition and will be going straight in to job seeking, a particularly tough activity during the festive period.

I don’t want to criticise the work of the charity, the services it delivers are extremely high quality but unfortunately the higher management took the somewhat reckless decision to grow and spend beyond the secured income a few years ago and individuals are now paying the price for that over-stretching. The new management is taking control of the situation but many good people are being thrown out in the process.

This all really brings home how important having some back-up savings are for those times when employment let’s you down. I feel privileged to be choosing when I can retire and I am very sad that I have colleagues with an insecure future. I don’t intend to sound self-pitying, as I realise how fortunate I am, but leaving a despondent and bruised organisation means that certainly none of them will have any interest in joining my retirement party and there will be no one left to care enough about buying me a retirement present. I will be able to slip away quietly and I think that is most appropriate in the circumstances.

I can’t wait to start spending those savings

2016-oct-berlin-with-stephen-and-jenny-66

You might expect that as someone who has been saving for some years, firstly for a gap year and more recently for early retirement I am approaching the period when I have to start spending all that money with some trepidation and reluctance. Instead I find that I am eager to start spending those savings. I think this is for two reasons; firstly I think that money is only there to spend and I am somewhat uncomfortable earning more money than I need and so having spare money to save; I will be happy when we have just enough. Secondly, of course, the spending period of this early retirement project is the whole point; for me saving isn’t what defines me and money is only saved to be spent in the future.

Looking back I have only ever successfully saved for something when I have a clear goal in mind. Since the early years of our marriage when the washing machine broke and we didn’t have enough money to buy a new one, we have always aimed to have at least £300 [for that washing machine] in a savings account. We have prioritised saving for holidays [even when we had very little] for many years, we saved to buy our first campervan and we saved energetically to have our gap year in 2009. Since returning from this gap year we have worked hard to put money aside to retire. But apart from these periods of active saving I have generally been a spender and I am looking forward to returning to being that person.

This isn’t to say I want to throw money away or spend money on unnecessary stuff, I have never really been one of the world’s best consumers. Although I certainly can’t reach the minimalist goal of owning just 33 items of clothing I don’t like owning surplus stuff and I am happier finding second-hand bargains than buying new.

I don’t feel that saving [or spending] money should define me. I am keen for us to become a none-paid-work couple who have just enough money for our needs and no more [with a little in a contingency fund for that washing machine] and we can work our way through the savings, watching them dwindling as each year passes. To me, this situation has a harmony; we will be financially secure but not rolling in it and we will be time-rich. I think it is possible I might get a bit of a thrill if we are super-frugal and finish a year a few hundred pounds below our annual budget … but then if we do manage to do that I will want to celebrate by spending it on throwing a party!