Poll

What's your UK FIRE amount?

<£500k
43 (21.8%)
£500k-£750k
43 (21.8%)
£750k-£1m
49 (24.9%)
£1m-1.25m
20 (10.2%)
£1.25m-£1.5m
8 (4.1%)
£1.5m-£1.75m
10 (5.1%)
£1.75m-£2m
3 (1.5%)
£2m-2.5m
11 (5.6%)
£2.5m-£3.0m
2 (1%)
£3.0m-£4.0m
5 (2.5%)
£4.0m-£5.0m
1 (0.5%)
£5m+
2 (1%)

Total Members Voted: 196

Author Topic: What's your UK fire amount?  (Read 59165 times)

Monkeytennis

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What's your UK fire amount?
« on: July 30, 2017, 02:28:38 AM »
Net worth number as FIRE number in today's value
Including house value (capital)
Including value of any final salary pension
Excluding state pension
If a couple assume for you jointly?
« Last Edit: July 30, 2017, 02:31:53 AM by Monkeytennis »

shelivesthedream

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2017, 04:24:08 AM »
Hard to work out, as house value will be so hugely variable based on where we are in the country. However, We had been reckoning on £12,000/yr plus house but recent spending tracking makes me think we'll need more. So it now seems like £500,000 - £600,000 plus house for the two of us. It's a long way away!

UKMustache

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2017, 04:37:16 AM »
I've put the figure we plan on having in our investment accounts (£500k ish).  This is to see us through from 50 to state retirement age.

In addition we will have about 20 years worth of a career average pension which will start paying out at 65, I've calculated this to be worth about £18k per year at that point.

Oh and 3 properties, all paid off and rented out.  Fourth (the home we live in) might be mortgaged, it might not.  It doesn't make too much difference.

Monkeytennis

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2017, 04:42:26 AM »
Hard to work out, as house value will be so hugely variable based on where we are in the country. However, We had been reckoning on £12,000/yr plus house but recent spending tracking makes me think we'll need more. So it now seems like £500,000 - £600,000 plus house for the two of us. It's a long way away!

I think what you're getting at isn't that its hard to work out, rather its perhaps an unfair comparison due to house price differentials in different regions. However many people consider their home in a HCOL area an investment and plan to sell it to move to a LCOL area at point of FIRE / retirement.

Monkeytennis

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2017, 04:50:56 AM »
I've put the figure we plan on having in our investment accounts (£500k ish).  This is to see us through from 50 to state retirement age.

In addition we will have about 20 years worth of a career average pension which will start paying out at 65, I've calculated this to be worth about £18k per year at that point.

Oh and 3 properties, all paid off and rented out.  Fourth (the home we live in) might be mortgaged, it might not.  It doesn't make too much difference.

Sounds like a great plan, out of interest have you worked out your net worth? Those career average pensions have to be worth £750k alone. If you have a 500k stash and 4 additional properties I think you must be looking at closer to £2m+ net worth (depending on where you live, the type of properties etc)

Playing with Fire UK

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2017, 08:30:27 AM »
Hard to work out, as house value will be so hugely variable based on where we are in the country. However, We had been reckoning on £12,000/yr plus house but recent spending tracking makes me think we'll need more. So it now seems like £500,000 - £600,000 plus house for the two of us. It's a long way away!

I think what you're getting at isn't that its hard to work out, rather its perhaps an unfair comparison due to house price differentials in different regions. However many people consider their home in a HCOL area an investment and plan to sell it to move to a LCOL area at point of FIRE / retirement.

I also think of my number in terms of £Xk per year plus a paid off house (or a mortgage and assets to keep the mortgage paid). I'm in a pretty LCOL area now, but made a move from a MCOL and I used to count the difference as an asset that would be available for FIRE.

I get a little concerned that I'd struggle to afford to move to many other areas of the country. I moved here (East Anglia) for my SO's work, we don't have many ties to the area and aren't particularly attached to the area so a move is feasible.

My stash will currently cover £9k per year, which is my minimum spending (but with spending values pre-Brex-flation). I'm working on increasing that so that it will cover a more interesting lifestyle.

skip207

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2017, 09:00:11 AM »
NW 850 low end 1M top end.

Liquid portion (i.e outside pension / property) £200k ish.


shelivesthedream

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2017, 09:05:06 AM »
Hard to work out, as house value will be so hugely variable based on where we are in the country. However, We had been reckoning on £12,000/yr plus house but recent spending tracking makes me think we'll need more. So it now seems like £500,000 - £600,000 plus house for the two of us. It's a long way away!

I think what you're getting at isn't that its hard to work out, rather its perhaps an unfair comparison due to house price differentials in different regions. However many people consider their home in a HCOL area an investment and plan to sell it to move to a LCOL area at point of FIRE / retirement.

Oh yes, I don't mean that it's hard to work out in principle. Just for our particular stage: we're mid-late twenties, don't currently own any property, and haven't decided where in the country to settle long-term. We're in London for the next three years for my husband's first contract but then the country is our oyster! We don't have any particularly strong ties elsewhere but I think we are planning to get out of the Big Smoke, so until we decide where, how much our future retirement house will cost is a massive spectrum from basically £100k (the arse end of nowhere - not in a bad way!) to £1 million (the nice but not excessive London terraced house my parents live in now)!

poppydog

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #8 on: July 31, 2017, 07:29:55 AM »
We're retiring next summer, aged 63/60

Total net worth is about £1.64 million, made up of:

a. Defined Benefit pension, when valued at x20 the annual income (and allowing for early take on) worth £600,000
b. House, mortgage paid, worth about £370,000
c. Other DC pensions, SIPPs, ISAs worth around £670,000 - this will be invested in income producing trusts, funds etc., after keeping aside about £55,000 which I'll use to "pay" us the equivalent we'll get from our state pensions until they come on stream.

« Last Edit: July 31, 2017, 07:31:26 AM by poppydog »

TartanTallulah

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #9 on: July 31, 2017, 10:03:39 AM »
I've made a half-educated guess at £750,000 - 1M, but the answer is actually, "The amount that allows our various pots to pay out as much as we need for bare bones + contingencies + things we want to spend money on at all stages of retirement." And I'm still in the process of establishing how much that is in real life rather than on paper. If we can get by on an after-tax income of £2,000 a month (plus a paid-for house) my timescale will work.

StiffUpperLip

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2017, 03:15:40 PM »
Our number is around 900k including house, higher than I would need alone due to it being Mr's dream to build a house and that's more expensive to do than buy in a lot of cases...

So that would give us a 300k ish for the house and 600k (or approx 24k gross annually at 4%) which is plenty...

I'm also not sure as yet as to whether we'll fully RE or just scale back dramatically once we reach glide point...

climbgirl

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #11 on: August 01, 2017, 10:40:17 AM »
We haven't worked out an actual number yet as we haven't pinned down exactly what we want to or where we want to be based post-FIRE, so hard to nail down expenses.

We've crunched the numbers though and we think we can hit £900k+ with a paid off house in around 9 years from where we are now, so we should have options to at least change our lives if not fully FIRE.  We'll nail things down and adjust as we go, I guess!

londonstache

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #12 on: August 02, 2017, 07:15:46 AM »
I'm still early in the FI/RE journey but the 'number' in my head is c. £1m outside of property value, which considers inflating and the fact I'm probably at the moment ~20 years from FI/RE although working to reduce this.

Will be made up of DC pensions and ISAs, with the emphasis heavily on pensions currently as I'm in full staching mode.

skip207

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #13 on: August 02, 2017, 08:10:03 AM »
I've made a half-educated guess at £750,000 - 1M, but the answer is actually, "The amount that allows our various pots to pay out as much as we need for bare bones + contingencies + things we want to spend money on at all stages of retirement." And I'm still in the process of establishing how much that is in real life rather than on paper. If we can get by on an after-tax income of £2,000 a month (plus a paid-for house) my timescale will work.

We are now tracking all spending for this very reason.  The numbers are actually a little disappointing TBH.  I was hoping for <£2k a month but its closer to £2.5k.
I have no doubt we can trim quite a bit off that figure but travel and entertainment in retirement will eat it all again so its difficult to work it out exactly.  I think our minimum to pay the bills and sit in the house would be around £1.8k.  One thing that shocked me was food, we spent close to £700 last month on food.  Thats for 2 of us.  We did not eat out either, and had one pizza delivered the rest of the food was home cooked.  Closer analysis will be required!

cerat0n1a

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #14 on: August 02, 2017, 09:10:49 AM »
we spent close to £700 last month on food.  Thats for 2 of us.  We did not eat out either, and had one pizza delivered the rest of the food was home cooked.  Closer analysis will be required!

That's something like £23 per day? Maybe it would be cheaper to eat out for every meal :-) ?

londonstache

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #15 on: August 02, 2017, 09:20:46 AM »
we spent close to £700 last month on food.  Thats for 2 of us.  We did not eat out either, and had one pizza delivered the rest of the food was home cooked.  Closer analysis will be required!

That's something like £23 per day? Maybe it would be cheaper to eat out for every meal :-) ?

Wow, that seems high. We net out at around £120-150 per month and I think we have some room for improvement.

TartanTallulah

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #16 on: August 02, 2017, 09:39:55 AM »
I've made a half-educated guess at £750,000 - 1M, but the answer is actually, "The amount that allows our various pots to pay out as much as we need for bare bones + contingencies + things we want to spend money on at all stages of retirement." And I'm still in the process of establishing how much that is in real life rather than on paper. If we can get by on an after-tax income of £2,000 a month (plus a paid-for house) my timescale will work.

We are now tracking all spending for this very reason.  The numbers are actually a little disappointing TBH.  I was hoping for <£2k a month but its closer to £2.5k.
I have no doubt we can trim quite a bit off that figure but travel and entertainment in retirement will eat it all again so its difficult to work it out exactly.  I think our minimum to pay the bills and sit in the house would be around £1.8k.  One thing that shocked me was food, we spent close to £700 last month on food.  Thats for 2 of us.  We did not eat out either, and had one pizza delivered the rest of the food was home cooked.  Closer analysis will be required!

£700 a month for food for two people does sound quite an achievement!

I'm also confident that we won't want to spend any less in early retirement than we do now. There are expenses we have now that we won't have when we're retired, but we'll spend more on other things. At the moment my workload is so time-consuming and tiring that we can't contemplate even going to the local theatre or cinema in the evenings and can only fit in a handful of sporting events a year, and I'll be very disappointed if that situation doesn't improve.

daverobev

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #17 on: August 02, 2017, 04:22:52 PM »
I'm not surprised most are selecting the lowest option.

Healthcare, including dental and vision, is very cheap. Housing can be cheap (and, because of the size of the UK, even if you're 'away' from a city, you can probably still get to one in half an hour or an hour). Food is cheap. You can grow veg.

Public transport can be good (may dictate slightly higher housing cost to be near decent public transport; alternatively, cars themselves and maintenance is cheap, though petrol is not when compared to North America... see distances above, you can generally get from home to a good place to walk for only a few pounds in fuel).

I mean, assuming a frugal life, and you own a sub-100k house... 1k on maintenance, 1k on council tax (I may be out of date on this), much of the money you have inside an ISA and the rest causing you to pay no tax. I'd say 1k a month is plenty. So 300k invested, max.

If there are two of you, more (but not double). If you have children, more, and AFAIK child benefits aren't that much in the UK.

Lots of stuff is free (museums), lots of stuff is close (flights to Europe, ferries to Ireland), lots is cheap (Youth Hostels).

Monkeytennis

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #18 on: August 03, 2017, 01:38:14 PM »
Sorry if I set the survey up without low enough limits, very interesting results

cerat0n1a

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #19 on: August 04, 2017, 01:33:05 AM »
I'm one of those who has set a fairly high target, but it seems to me that the maximum single person state pension of £122 per week is equivalent to a FIRE amount of about £160k. Someone on state pension would be getting free travel, reduced council tax and other perks, but it shows that there are many people surviving on low amounts.

SpreadsheetMan

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #20 on: August 04, 2017, 01:57:45 AM »
I'm one of those who has set a fairly high target, but it seems to me that the maximum single person state pension of £122 per week is equivalent to a FIRE amount of about £160k. Someone on state pension would be getting free travel, reduced council tax and other perks, but it shows that there are many people surviving on low amounts.

There are. My father lives in a LCOL area on the state pension plus a small occupational pension (approx £200pm). He doesn't spend it all either, so is still saving. He grew up in a time and place where most people were very poor, so he considers himself comfortably off, especially owing a house and driving a small car.

I also set a high target for myself (and DW), but that could be much, much lower and still be workable if I was prepared to make the sacrifices that would involve.

cerat0n1a

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #21 on: August 04, 2017, 02:49:01 AM »
There are. My father lives in a LCOL area on the state pension plus a small occupational pension (approx £200pm). He doesn't spend it all either, so is still saving. He grew up in a time and place where most people were very poor, so he considers himself comfortably off, especially owing a house and driving a small car.

My parents stopped paid work in their forties. I'm sure they wouldn't call it early retirement, more of a John Seymour style self-sufficiency, which involves spending the past 3 decades working in the garden, and supplementing their savings with plant sales. I suspect their average income and spending over that period has been considerably less than £100 per week. Not for most people though.

ExitViaTheCashRamp

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #22 on: August 04, 2017, 03:08:21 AM »
Maybe 500K. Plan is to retire at 50, live on savings to 58, take 25% of the pension and reinvest most of it (avoiding future tax when drawing), then eventuly get state pension at 70 (my guess for the age I can take it) and exhaust my pension/savings by 90 assuming 2.5% growth over inflation all this time. The OH and I are fairly obese so 90 seems ambitious !

 Ideally supplement savings after retirement with that cash generator known as matched betting :D

taylost3

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #23 on: August 04, 2017, 04:26:00 AM »
I'm not surprised most are selecting the lowest option.

Healthcare, including dental and vision, is very cheap. Housing can be cheap (and, because of the size of the UK, even if you're 'away' from a city, you can probably still get to one in half an hour or an hour). Food is cheap. You can grow veg.

Public transport can be good (may dictate slightly higher housing cost to be near decent public transport; alternatively, cars themselves and maintenance is cheap, though petrol is not when compared to North America... see distances above, you can generally get from home to a good place to walk for only a few pounds in fuel).

I mean, assuming a frugal life, and you own a sub-100k house... 1k on maintenance, 1k on council tax (I may be out of date on this), much of the money you have inside an ISA and the rest causing you to pay no tax. I'd say 1k a month is plenty. So 300k invested, max.

If there are two of you, more (but not double). If you have children, more, and AFAIK child benefits aren't that much in the UK.

Lots of stuff is free (museums), lots of stuff is close (flights to Europe, ferries to Ireland), lots is cheap (Youth Hostels).

This is exactly my plan I think 300k will be enough for us. We have a 50k cash buffer slightly more expensive house (200k) currently. Saving 24k per year hope to be FI in under 10 years. If I need more cash we can work part time or supplement with side hustles like matched betting. I'm so so pleased I found this site and have a plan to escape the rat race. I do think we are better off than the US!

I'm also considering renting out our home post FI (about £800-£900 pcm) in addition to the 1k per month and living abroad somewhere developing with a cheap cost of living and nicer weather. That kind of income should allow us to live like Royalty in a developing country.

RobFIRE

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #24 on: August 04, 2017, 08:52:10 AM »
What I have in mind is that if you own your home and have £600k invested to give £2k a month at 4% rule (or equivalent income from property rentals / DB pension etc.) then that should cover general cost of living for a family and reasonable things like two used economical cars and a couple of European holidays a year. I am assuming there would be little tax to pay on that income/fund sales by carefully using income tax and capital gains allowances.

For real luxuries on top of that I would assume some sort of side gig/part time work to cover them, if required.

So I'm fairly clear on those principles.

Then when I think about the cost of a home, that is where the total number can vary so much. The same family-sized house could be £200k in one area or £1m in the SE (and £2m near central London). No ideas about that one other than not really wanting to work x years longer to earn £100ks extra just due to house prices...

Wanttobehome

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #25 on: August 28, 2017, 09:19:31 AM »
Defined benefit pension £816,627
House £140,000
ISA £85,000
Shares ISA £11,525
Premium bonds £2,300

Grand total

£1,055,452

That's the first time I have added that all up, do not usually include DC pension in net worth

This gives me  £19,600 a year tax free ~ £1625 a month

I am hoping to save more in the shares ISA before I retire

May2030

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #26 on: August 28, 2017, 08:32:02 PM »
Defined benefit pension £816,627
House £140,000
ISA £85,000
Shares ISA £11,525
Premium bonds £2,300

Grand total

£1,055,452


That's the first time I have added that all up, do not usually include DC pension in net worth

This gives me  £19,600 a year tax free ~ £1625 a month

I am hoping to save more in the shares ISA before I retire

Maybe as silly question but is that all the income you expect to get from your stash or just the tax free part? ( ignoring the house value)

UKMustache

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #27 on: August 29, 2017, 02:05:33 AM »
I've put the figure we plan on having in our investment accounts (£500k ish).  This is to see us through from 50 to state retirement age.

In addition we will have about 20 years worth of a career average pension which will start paying out at 65, I've calculated this to be worth about £18k per year at that point.

Oh and 3 properties, all paid off and rented out.  Fourth (the home we live in) might be mortgaged, it might not.  It doesn't make too much difference.

Sounds like a great plan, out of interest have you worked out your net worth? Those career average pensions have to be worth £750k alone. If you have a 500k stash and 4 additional properties I think you must be looking at closer to £2m+ net worth (depending on where you live, the type of properties etc)

I have absolutely no idea how to value the pension, I literally wouldn't even know where to start!

I can see you've bulked the OP out since I replied and I didn't really answer your question first time around. 

Assuming the career average pension @ £750k (I'll take your word for it)
4 properties @ £1mil
ISA's @ £500k.

Total = £2.2mil

My wife is incredibly risk averse though, I have no doubt that we will end up with a lot more money than we need (particularly once the pension starts paying out).

FI4good

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #28 on: September 03, 2017, 07:22:11 AM »
I think about 500k would be more than i need.

« Last Edit: October 15, 2017, 01:39:13 AM by FI4good »

RetirementInvestingToday

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #29 on: September 24, 2017, 02:51:38 PM »
I called FI at a little over £1M.  Will RE in the summer of 2018 where if Mr Market performs to average I should RE with about £1.4M.  Don't need the money as my current £1.2M has me on a WR of a little less than 2.5% but want to see how Brexit negotiations are playing out before I pick my RE Med country.

shanghaiMMM

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #30 on: September 24, 2017, 10:44:09 PM »
I'm not 100% sure what my UK expenses will be as I currently live in Shanghai. I hope to return to the UK in the next few years and reassess the situation.

However, as one poster above mentioned, if you have a paid off house and 300k invested, that would give you 1,000 a month roughly. I think that would make you FI, and any luxuries on top of that would be paid for with casual or part-time work.

That's my rough plan anyway, so depending on the cost of a house, the total number would be around 400-500k I guess.

skip207

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #31 on: September 25, 2017, 04:56:58 AM »
we spent close to £700 last month on food.  Thats for 2 of us.  We did not eat out either, and had one pizza delivered the rest of the food was home cooked.  Closer analysis will be required!

That's something like £23 per day? Maybe it would be cheaper to eat out for every meal :-) ?

Wow, that seems high. We net out at around £120-150 per month and I think we have some room for improvement.

So I did look over the numbers and we also ran a similar tracking sheet for August and September.  Food is more like £350 a month.  I was just taking into consideration all money that was in the "shopping" column..

This month will be closer to £400 but we have eaten out a couple of times.

FI4good

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #32 on: September 26, 2017, 09:55:15 AM »
I'm not 100% sure what my UK expenses will be as I currently live in Shanghai. I hope to return to the UK in the next few years and reassess the situation.

However, as one poster above mentioned, if you have a paid off house and 300k invested, that would give you 1,000 a month roughly. I think that would make you FI, and any luxuries on top of that would be paid for with casual or part-time work.

That's my rough plan anyway, so depending on the cost of a house, the total number would be around 400-500k I guess.

Those are my kind of figures Shanghai ,

 My household costs, power, water, council tax, internet and so on works out on average at about £350 a month depending on weather (excluding rent) not being completely miserly with heat but not going mad either .
The 650 a month left i'd find acceptable fired , i spend about £95 a week for food, entertainment, the odd computer game including about £1000 a year for car running costs .
« Last Edit: September 26, 2017, 10:19:01 AM by FI4good »

skip207

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #33 on: September 27, 2017, 03:41:29 AM »
I am closer to £500 a month base housing cost, includes utils, CT, phone / web, insurance etc.
The council tax is a killer over £200.  We also have a monthly charge for estate management of £30 ish.

From my trackers £2000 a month would be enough for basic living in our current property including 1 car and some light entertainments.
My goal is for as near to £3000 as possible, if we get close then we will FIRE.  Our current passive income is IRO £1k a month so some way to go.
If it looks like time is getting away from us then might consider semi FIRE.

RobFIRE

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #34 on: October 01, 2017, 09:08:30 AM »
I have in mind that a couple/family should be able to live comfortably on £2k a month with accommodation paid for (e.g. own your house). By comfortably I mean with used cars, some European holidays, entertainment and contingency etc. but not eating out all the time, regular big holidays/new cars. Probably £1k a month would be fine to cover basic living costs, but I think for me being fully FIRE does mean covering more than the basics and having a decent margin.

So £600k would provide £2k a month at 4% SWR. Housing could of course have an additional capital cost from £100k to £2m depending on where you are in the country and what you consider a reasonably sized place to be.

What it shows to me is that housing cost and hence location becomes the major factor in terms of £ needed.

skip207

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #35 on: October 01, 2017, 10:43:10 AM »
Which is why a lot of people move from London out to places like Wales, Scotland or Devon.

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #36 on: October 02, 2017, 02:41:59 AM »
Probably £1k a month would be fine to cover basic living costs, but I think for me being fully FIRE does mean covering more than the basics and having a decent margin.
...

What it shows to me is that housing cost and hence location becomes the major factor in terms of £ needed.

I've found it interesting as I moved away from the South East how much my cost of living has reduced. £1k/mo gives me a delightful life. I agree that having a margin or buffer is important.

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #37 on: October 02, 2017, 03:40:35 AM »
I have in mind that a couple/family should be able to live comfortably on £2k a month with accommodation paid for (e.g. own your house). By comfortably I mean with used cars, some European holidays, entertainment and contingency etc. but not eating out all the time, regular big holidays/new cars. Probably £1k a month would be fine to cover basic living costs, but I think for me being fully FIRE does mean covering more than the basics and having a decent margin.


That's what we're working on. The area is LCOL apart from the need to be able to drive if we want to go anywhere. £1,500 a month comfortably covers household bills and food for three adults (one currently financially dependent, although they'll contribute when they've got an income) and running two economical cars. An additional £500 a month will make life more pleasant. I have a separate fund to cover contingencies like the roof needing replaced. Since living expenses are fairly static, everything extra goes into the Having Fun Fund, which is an incentive to me to make the most of my income now.

dreams_and_discoveries

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #38 on: October 08, 2017, 08:00:55 AM »
See if we taking a paid off place to live as a given, I'm not sure London is more expensive than the regions.

There is much more free entertainment, free museums, and free events than on other places. You don't need a car, public transport is fairly priced.

Sure, if you were spendy that is loads more temptation, but if you have spending under control?


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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #39 on: October 09, 2017, 05:00:21 AM »
See if we taking a paid off place to live as a given, I'm not sure London is more expensive than the regions.

There is much more free entertainment, free museums, and free events than on other places. You don't need a car, public transport is fairly priced.

Sure, if you were spendy that is loads more temptation, but if you have spending under control?

Maybe what I found was that it was easier to make a load of changes at once. The spreadsheet doesn't lie but my interpretation may do.

I find that even doing free things out in London, I always seem to spend something: I end up in a bar or cafe (obviously this can be avoided, but I tend not to as the alternative is going to be an inconvenience for people that I want to spend time with), and while public transport is excellent and cheap, it isn't free. Since the move, I'll go to someone's house within cycling distance rather than out to meet people. I have many more days where I spend nothing at all in my smaller LCOL town than I had in a bigger, HCOL city.

My council tax also dropped significantly for me going from a HCOL to LCOL area, even though I moved to a much bigger home. This accounts for a big chunk of my spending, and is difficult to reduce. Even apart from the cost of the home, the council tax on a similarly sized property in my old HCOL area would have been prohibitive for me.

Happy to hear that other people's experiences are different to mine.

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #40 on: October 09, 2017, 06:09:30 AM »
See if we taking a paid off place to live as a given, I'm not sure London is more expensive than the regions.

There is much more free entertainment, free museums, and free events than on other places. You don't need a car, public transport is fairly priced.

Things which are heavily taxpayer funded (transport, museums) are clearly OK. Things where the bulk of the cost is incurred elsewhere or where there is national pricing are OK (e.g. anything you buy from Amazon.) The big difference in cost is on stuff which is priced locally. It has to be more expensive because the business overhead of property costs is much higher and wages are higher. Compare the cost of a plumber or electrician in London with elsewhere, as an example.  How much of a difference it works out to be overall will obviously vary person to person. The real difference is, of course, the cost of obtaining the "paid off place."

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #41 on: October 09, 2017, 06:49:04 AM »
Yeah house prices are around £150/sq ft here as a base price.
Move to somewhere regionally a bit nicer and that might click over £300.
Move to London and its £600+.

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #42 on: October 09, 2017, 01:34:21 PM »
Yeah, it's at least double the cost in London....I've been pondering my ideal FIRE location a lot lately, and I really can't decide...I'm going to try a bit of being nomadic, but then will I be drawn to return to the UK? And if so where?

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #43 on: October 10, 2017, 04:35:49 AM »
I think North Wales or the North East are good options price wise and to be a bit "off grid".

I would like to retire around the Oxford area but its not cheap compared to where I am now.

Maybe Devon.

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #44 on: October 10, 2017, 05:03:28 AM »
Yeah, it's at least double the cost in London....I've been pondering my ideal FIRE location a lot lately, and I really can't decide...I'm going to try a bit of being nomadic, but then will I be drawn to return to the UK? And if so where?

I suspect that after being nomadic, you'll have a clear idea about what you miss about the UK, so you can focus your FIRE location on areas that meet that need.

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #45 on: October 13, 2017, 06:48:30 AM »
Yeah, it's at least double the cost in London....I've been pondering my ideal FIRE location a lot lately, and I really can't decide...I'm going to try a bit of being nomadic, but then will I be drawn to return to the UK? And if so where?

I suspect that after being nomadic, you'll have a clear idea about what you miss about the UK, so you can focus your FIRE location on areas that meet that need.


Exactly - I'm not sure now, but when I get there I'm sure I'll have stronger opinions.

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #46 on: October 21, 2017, 06:09:42 PM »
Background: Couple (40yrs), 1 child.

Total FIRE: £1.34m @ 52 yrs
Workplace DC Pensions: £470k
SIPP: £300k
S&S ISA: £220k
Cash ISA: £90k
2nd Property BTL: £260k

FIRE location: Boat/campervan/current location (NW England)

Excluded 1st property, as no intention to sell.

I've assumed 6.5% avg growth on investments (exc property), 2.5% avg inflation.

Plan is to have approx £40k/yr (after tax) in today's money by drawing down 5% at 52, gradually increasing to 6.5% by state pension age, and then a 4% long term drawdown. I'm hoping this leaves an equivalent income for child once we're no longer around.

Current cost of living (excluding mortgages) for the family is around £34k (after tax) - which I think gives us a very nice lifestyle without going nuts.


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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #47 on: October 22, 2017, 12:48:03 AM »
Current cost of living (excluding mortgages) for the family is around £34k (after tax) - which I think gives us a very nice lifestyle without going nuts.

It is a truth near-universally acknowledged that no-one thinks their own spending is nuts.

Could you post a high level breakdown of your spending please? I have no idea how I'd go about spending that much without developing a severe cocaine habit. Are there childcare costs? I'm not wanting to tell you that you need to cut spending, but genuinely interested in what that looks like.

Anyone else spending more than £2k/mo after housing feel free to join in.

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #48 on: October 22, 2017, 03:44:41 AM »
Could you post a high level breakdown of your spending please?

Sure. Interesting discussion.

Fixed Costs Total   22253

Home         3200      - Home maintenance plus improvement
Utilities         2836      - Council Tax, TV Lic, Water, Gas/Electric
Insurance         3160      - Home, Pet
Subsistance      5400      - Monthly groceries
Work Expenses      1200      - Non-reimbursable work expenses
Motoring         2280      - 2x Cars, insurance, road tax, maintenance, breakdown, fuel (car1 = 7,000/yr, car2 = 2000/year)
Health         1740      - Contact lenses, private consultant for long term issue
Clothing/Grooming   1560      - Hair cuts/clothes (for 3)
Comms/Mobiles      876      - 1 x mob (mine through work), 1x mobile broadband, 1x home broadband.

Lifestyle Total   11841

Giving         2760      - Presents for child, parents, family, friends, charitable donations
Misc            1320      - Random stuff, vet bills
Leisure/Ent      2202      - Movies/Theatre/Gigs, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Books, National Trust, 2x gym membership, some tech services (OneDrive, Adobe)
Holidays         3000      - 2x holidays per year and a sometimes the odd city break/London visit
Expendable      2559      - General expendable cash, typically goes on technology refreshes/gadgets

Grand Total      34094

Granted, this does afford us, as I said, what I consider a very pleasant lifestyle, but not lavish (to some it might!). I avoid big houses, expensive cars and ridiculous holidays.

I've deducted the mortgage (£8k/yr) and childcare (£1.2k/yr) from my living costs, as those won't be around at FIRE. Although arguably I might be funding some of university at the time. Although I do have JISA for my daughter (£45/month, incrementing £5/month through 18) which should be around £20k at maturity. Plus she has a J-SIPP (£150/month) that I pay into until she's 18 too.

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Re: What's your UK fire amount?
« Reply #49 on: October 22, 2017, 05:43:35 AM »
Thanks, Itimjim.

That's really interesting, our utilities and car costs are similar, your grocery and insurance costs are a lot higher than mine (no children, no pets). My work expenses are higher and health is lower so that sort of balances out.