Oneyear – I would love to say that we have not inflated our life but certainly have. Certainly share your concern of retiring into a bull market. Currently I think it makes sense to put into my own SIPP to get 40% tax back rather than 20% on the hers although she does have one. We have also been focused on paying down the mortgage to a low LTV on the rental properties, which may not be the most financially sensible thing, spreadsheet wise, makes me feel happy to run with very low LTVs as I am not trying to punt the property market, but earn a steady income so the lower the LTV the steadier an lower risk the income (no interest rate volatility).
Skip207 – not sure of your situation family wise. Our number is for a family of 4 with two young children. So we may or may not be comparable.
Neverrun / undercover – I am snap with Neverrun. No turning back. Even at 40 I am one of the greyer members of the team. 5 years out and even greyer and I am out. Although I am definitely in ‘coasting’ mode as you put it.
Frugaldoc – Agree. It is not bargain basement but we are living close to Plymouth now. A pretty cheap COL for the south anyway.
Glad to see that there seem to be quite a few others who feel somewhat similarly in terms of numbers. Just for the record we have already moved from London to Plymouth/Devon to unlock equity, and have invested that equity, but my job still has me commuting weekly up to London. So sort of HCOL day-to-day now for LCOL later. I also probably gave an incorrect impression that I really care what my ex colleagues and family would think about the scenario of realizing in 5 years that the numbers are wrong and we are short of wealth to last the duration. This was badly written as that isn’t the case. I used that language to try to illustrate the fact that I would massively beat myself up if that were to happen (so more that they would be right– rather than them thinking it). Poor writing by me.
What I have realized it that too much of this debate goes on inside my head so have had some long discussions with my wife since posting. Whilst there are always uncertainties, because we have already bought properties to let out as the expected main source of income (with a SIPP to come in 15 years or so) at the start, and have been managing them for 18 months, we have a pretty decent idea of what the income is from this. This forum discussion made me realize more clearly (as someone pointed out) that this is more about costs and feeling uncertain on this. As mentioned before, as I am away in the week we incur a lot of expense that will fall away when I pull the cord, but there are lots of grey area expenses which may not. Time to get serious about budgeting. We have decided to do two things;
1) Set up a post FIRE bank account where we put in cash and run all the post FIRE expenses separate to the others to get a better feel.
2) Both of us to write a list of those things we would not want to give up, those that are nice to have and those that we would be happy to cut/risk cutting. There is a trade-off which we have not really acknowledged enough, which is that for the certainty of the free time and enjoyment of RE, we have to understand what uncertainties are we willing to accept. I think we were a little too much ‘have your cake and eat it’ before now. Hopefully this will help set a framework.
Oh, and to the post that mentioned sailing around the world. That is like a knife in the soft belly of my moustachianism as I would absolutely love to do that. 12 years ago we crewed/backpacked for a year on a sailboat before getting serious about work so is a major dream… Oh dear, think I have just signed on for more work.
